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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The protected bike lane along Irving is very nice.

I take my two kids on e-bike to school which we lotteried into.

Pros:
- Much faster and more reliable than any other mode of transit
- Easy to park anywhere
- Easy to carry large amounts of kid stuff
- I am less tired from having to make the trip 4 times a day!

Cons:
- Traffic, cars, bikes, pedestrians it really feels like no one follows the rules 
- Construction - there is nearly always some form of construction blocking part of the way that lasts years
- Safety, I do feel like it comes with a much higher likelihood of an accident
- Repairs, these are inevitable and a pain with an ebike.

We ride pretty much in all weather. I invested in good rain and snow clothes. Occasionally we take the bus when the bike is broken or it is too icy.

I use side streets, protected bike lanes when possible and I tend to ride a low speeds without much assist even though I could go much faster.[/quote]

Another con is cost. We don't have an e-bikes because they are expensive and seem to crap out faster than you'd expect given the cost. We have friends who are on their 3rd e-bike in 10 years. That's like 15k in e-bikes (they aren't buying the cheapest models). And doesn't even include upkeep costs.

People are always trying to convince us to get an e-bike but the economics don't make sense for us even though I see the benefit of having a way to travel with kids that is faster than walking but more eco-friendly and convenient than a car. If e-bikes were more similar in cost to a regular bike, that would be different. 
[/quote]

My sister just bought a low-miles Subaru Forester (2015? 2016?) [u]for $15k.[/u]  She lives in DC and the mandatory liability insurance on this car is about $85/month. Registration is $175 year.  At the rate she drives this car, <1500 miles/year, it will certainly last another 10 years.

No way would i spend the same money on what are essentially disposable e-bikes over the same 10 yr period.  And no, the petroleum she is consuming in real-world practice is not actually contributing to climate change in a meaningful way.[/quote]

because parking. Parking eats up a lot more time than actual driving when you live in dense DC neighborhoods such as Columbia Heights, AdMo, Dupont. [/quote]

Parking in DC is a huge hassle and one of the things I hate most about driving places.

But parking near my house is really easy, and if I'm taking my kid to school, I'm not parking, just driving through the drop-off lane and then returning home to where I know there will be parking. So it's not really an argument for an e-bike in my specific case. I don't live in one of the neighborhoods you list, though. OP does, maybe that's why she's looking into an e-bike (unclear if OP already has a car or not -- if they have a car, likely they've already worked out the parking issue).[/quote]

I don’t know about ITDS school, but in most schools you have to park your car and walk your younger kid to classroom. And to pick up it’s the same- you have to park and walk into the school and then wait. [/quote]

Most schools in DC have temporary curb parking areas for these activities. My kids have attended two different elementary schools, and both had areas where you could park and run your kid in for PK drop off, and also park to go pick up. The are not spaces people can park in normally, so they are always available at those times. I think people can park in them on the weekends.

I've never really struggled with parking for drop-off or pick up in DC. We live in a dense part of the city but the schools are surrounded by residential streets, not on big commercial avenues. So it just seems like there is always parking within a block or so. We only drive daily in the dead of winter and occasionally on weekdays where I have to drive to work and do drop off/pick up on the way. But parking has not really been a limiting factor for us.[/quote]

Our school is on 18th st in Adams Morgan and I’ve nearly cried trying to pick up my kid in a car once. [/quote]

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