Emergency Transportation (Urban)

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I've said this elsewhere in the Emergency Management section. I watch a lot of videos on Youtube about what people have in their get-home bags. And since I'm basically in an urban setting, I focus on those.

One of the things that i think about (always) is managing the weight of the gear I carry, and try to balance that against its likely usefulness.

I see a lot of people packing stuff like cooking gear, when I think it'd be a better use of weight to just pack food you could eat cold. I see people preparing for what seems like long-term wilderness survival, when I wonder why they don't just pack a secondary means of transportation.

For instance, folding bikes and kick scooters. Their weight is also basically irrelevant, since they carry you, you don't carry them. Although their bulk IS relevant, for instance in the trunk of a car.

The benefit of folding bike or kick scooter is that it basically triples your rate of travel, and really no extra energy output. Tripling your rate of travel means you're exposing yourself to potential hostility for only 1/3 the duration you might otherwise. I find this particularly important since I might have to travel through some very unfun places (specifically, East St. Louis). The less time you are there, the less problems you're likely to encounter. The less you're likely to encounter, the less firepower you need. I see a lot of people loaded for what to me looks like a brief war. I can only assume they are preparing for multiple armed encounters.

Traveling at three times walking speed also means anyone who can't keep up with you can't really give you crap. Thugs don't run well. Seriously. Sagging pants and foot chases don't go well together. I've cycled through some nasty neighborhoods, and the most I'd get were weird looks.

Faster travel means fewer needs for overnight halts, fewer meals, less time running a flashlight or radio, less duration of exposure to the elements. In short, you have to carry less of everything.

The cost of a folding bike, specifically the Tokyo Citizen, is less than a bottom end CC pistol. It would cost about the same for a heavy-duty kick scooter. I prefer the notion of the folding bike, since I imagine all those thigh lunges required by the kick scooter would start to utterly suck in short order.

I understand terrain and/or the desire to stay off of roads might factor in for some, but that's pretty well unavoidable in the urban setting. If you gotta go on pavement, you might as well go as fast as possible.

I've mentioned before that I think cell phones and cash can get you most everything, but during some major event, I could imagine all available public or for-hire transportation being unavailable, and could also imagine major roads being snarled with traffic. In these cases, a bike could still slip between the mess, and outperform walking admirably.

Am I on target with this, or am I missing something? I know it's a weird thing to say on a gun forum, but it seems like a lot of urban get home bags have WAY more guns/ammo than they should, and WAY less in the way of the 'Get' part of 'Get Home'.

Sorry for the long post. :D

Re: Emergency Transportation (Urban)

4
LynnLeFey wrote:I've said this elsewhere in the Emergency Management section. I watch a lot of videos on Youtube about what people have in their get-home bags. And since I'm basically in an urban setting, I focus on those.

One of the things that i think about (always) is managing the weight of the gear I carry, and try to balance that against its likely usefulness.

I see a lot of people packing stuff like cooking gear, when I think it'd be a better use of weight to just pack food you could eat cold. I see people preparing for what seems like long-term wilderness survival, when I wonder why they don't just pack a secondary means of transportation.

For instance, folding bikes and kick scooters. Their weight is also basically irrelevant, since they carry you, you don't carry them. Although their bulk IS relevant, for instance in the trunk of a car.

The benefit of folding bike or kick scooter is that it basically triples your rate of travel, and really no extra energy output. Tripling your rate of travel means you're exposing yourself to potential hostility for only 1/3 the duration you might otherwise. I find this particularly important since I might have to travel through some very unfun places (specifically, East St. Louis). The less time you are there, the less problems you're likely to encounter. The less you're likely to encounter, the less firepower you need. I see a lot of people loaded for what to me looks like a brief war. I can only assume they are preparing for multiple armed encounters.

Traveling at three times walking speed also means anyone who can't keep up with you can't really give you crap. Thugs don't run well. Seriously. Sagging pants and foot chases don't go well together. I've cycled through some nasty neighborhoods, and the most I'd get were weird looks.

Faster travel means fewer needs for overnight halts, fewer meals, less time running a flashlight or radio, less duration of exposure to the elements. In short, you have to carry less of everything.

The cost of a folding bike, specifically the Tokyo Citizen, is less than a bottom end CC pistol. It would cost about the same for a heavy-duty kick scooter. I prefer the notion of the folding bike, since I imagine all those thigh lunges required by the kick scooter would start to utterly suck in short order.

I understand terrain and/or the desire to stay off of roads might factor in for some, but that's pretty well unavoidable in the urban setting. If you gotta go on pavement, you might as well go as fast as possible.

I've mentioned before that I think cell phones and cash can get you most everything, but during some major event, I could imagine all available public or for-hire transportation being unavailable, and could also imagine major roads being snarled with traffic. In these cases, a bike could still slip between the mess, and outperform walking admirably.

Am I on target with this, or am I missing something? I know it's a weird thing to say on a gun forum, but it seems like a lot of urban get home bags have WAY more guns/ammo than they should, and WAY less in the way of the 'Get' part of 'Get Home'.

Sorry for the long post. :D
Depends on what you are planning for. Teotwaweki and cell phones are gone. Normal shit? Cash and phones are gtg. My bag has mostly stuff to repair my apc (car), food, water, and a med kit. Cause frankly society probably won't fall apart between work and home.

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Re: Emergency Transportation (Urban)

5
(In response to fukshot)

Anything that could snarl the highway system. St. Louis has a few very key locations, mostly bridges, and if something happened, for instance an earthquake (yes, they can happen here), then multiple bridges could be closed to traffic. There are smaller ones that might still allow foot (and bicycle) traffic. Worse would be to be on the bridge, or on an entrance ramp to one, when something happened, and your car, while maybe being functional, couldn't move.

I sat on 64/40 for 4 hours once, and was surprised the car didn't overheat.

Alternately, just a vehicle breakdown, or worse a vehicle breakdown when cell communication is jammed (like during some kind of disaster). I'm not looking at the most likely scenarios, but then in the most LIKELY scenarios, it doesn't take more than looking up the nearest tow truck place on a smartphone, and having a wrecker show up 5 minutes later (which was the exact outcome of our last 'emergency').

Re: Emergency Transportation (Urban)

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shinzen... :thumbup:

I'm right there with you on cash and cellphones. My EDC/GHB is HEAVY on cell phone stuff (chargers, external power thingy, etc.) and as I mentioned elsewhere, I think of cash as the ultimate urban multitool.

fukshot... yeah, I imagine faceplanting off of a scooter from a pothole would be pretty far into the 'crappy day' spectrum. For long distance, I vastly prefer bicycle to walking. Long distance being anything over a few miles.

Re: Emergency Transportation (Urban)

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People here have been caught in traffic for close to 24 hours more than once. It usually happens in the winter. We have an excellent road system and DOT usually keeps the ice off the roads. But we have freak storms and usually large trucks get into wrecks when it is really slick. We have also had road closings due to non highway accidents.

Re: Emergency Transportation (Urban)

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This is all dependent upon one's infrastructure. A region that requires bridges to facilitate mobility is likely to suffer tremendously in a seismic event. A bicycle is probably going to be useless, unless it floats.

A heavily forested region's roadways can become impassable following extreme winds or ice storms.

Shoes. Seasonally appropriate clothing, walking shoes or boots and supplies to support the ability to travel on foot for several days might be a better application of priorities.

And cash...to pay the folks with the boat to ferry one across water...or to purchase a bicycle if the opportunity arises and conditions permit.
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