If only there was a highly efficient mode of transporting people that didn’t use tires. Ah well, nothing can be done I guess.
I imagine it’s still orders of magnitudes better than everyone driving their own car in.
Same with busses. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good
Technically, a subway would be easier to build a microplastic containment solution than applying the same to endless miles of roadway. Using metal wheels is probably still the better option though
Brisbane? Their metro is literally a bus 😂 the council are so proud of it too.
Our public transport in Vic leaves much to be desired but at least we have a well developed tram system that reduces the number of tyres in the collective fleet.
We did just outlaw e-scooters which was necessary because the infrastructure and community education wasn’t there and it was dangerous. But long term e-scooters do serve a place in a less car reliant community. Bike infrastructure investment is decades behind what it needs to be.
Much like everywhere, the oversized nature of “yank tanks” seems to be a large factor in every single thing wrong with cars and car infrastructure these days.
Smaller, lighter cars don’t wear through their tyres as fast 🤷
To be fair, the most efficient mode of transportation is cycling by far. I wonder if bike tires also contribute to this.
The wear rate should be proportional to the weight of the system (car plus cargo and passsengers, bike plus cargo and riders), maybe with some correction factors for things that affect wear rate like knobbiness.
Since bikes weigh a couple orders of magnitude less on average, the amount of tire wear material should also be a couple orders of magnitude less.
Edit: other lemmyer said wear is proportional to weight to the 4th power and that may be correct. I vaguely recall that from school now that they mentioned it.
Bikes cause thousands of times less damage to streets so I wouldn’t be surprised if they also wear less.
