On 2018-09-07 16:44, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 08 Sep 2018 06:27:27 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

On Fri, 07 Sep 2018 10:38:05 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2018-09-07 10:20, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/7/2018 12:03 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-09-07 08:04, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, September 7, 2018 at 7:52:38 AM UTC-7, Joerg
wrote:
On 2018-09-04 17:15, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/4/2018 6:10 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-09-03 16:10, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 03 Sep 2018 13:45:01 -0700, Joerg

wrote:

On 2018-09-02 16:36, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sun, 02 Sep 2018 08:02:04 -0700, Joerg

wrote:

On 2018-09-01 21:30, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 12:08:31 -0700 (PDT), Sir
Ridesalot
wrote:

On Friday, August 31, 2018 at 3:03:16 PM UTC-4,
Joerg
wrote:
On 2018-08-31 11:06, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Friday, August 31, 2018 at 1:36:09 PM UTC-4,
Joerg wrote:
On 2018-08-31 08:51, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, August 31, 2018 at 7:13:51 AM UTC-7,
Joerg wrote:
snip


[...]


[...]


(BTW, in front of my office building. I have
to dodge those
things). We also have private buses up to the
mountains for
skiing and airport shuttle buses, etc.


Those are what could be construed as
cherry-picking. What I
meant was a full blown system that includes not
so lucrative
routes all the way to Outer Podunk. A sysme
that
enables most
residents not to even have a car.

Not going to happen in a market economy. The
fares would be too
high for either local users who have to
subsidize
rural users or
for rural users who have to pay actual cost plus
ROI. There might
be a way to do this by selling losses to
investors -- running the
system as a tax shelter, but I'll let the tax
accountants figure
that one out. The bottom line is that barriers
to entry are not
that high and certainly lower than in Germany,
and if mass
transit could be done profitably in a large US
urban area by
private business, it would be. People are always
looking for a
way to make a buck. It might work elsewhere
in a
dense European
city, but it has been tried and failed here
in PDX.


The German example I brought was from an area
much
less densely
populated than Portland. AFAIK they even operate
ferries in the
system.


Germany is a comparatively small country with a
large population.
Distances are not so great there compared to many
areas of the USA.


As I wrote, I picked an example (on purpose)
from an
area that is less
densely populated than where I live now.


Again, if Germany is so gosh darn great, then why
have so many
Germans emigrated?


Because it wasn't always great and still isn't in
many aspects. One
cannot generalize. For example, public
transportation is clearly better
there but bike paths and even more so MTB trails
are
definitely not.
Before moving to the US I would have never dreamed
that bicycle
infrastructure could become better here than in
Germany but it has.
Agencies in the various contries could learn from
each other but there
is often a lack of willingness.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I wonder what would happen if to create a new
bicycling infrastructure or bus/rail link that would
benefit mainly bicyclists, if bicyclists were told
they alone would have to pay for it?

Cheers

Many years ago Riverside, California attempted to
"register" bicycles.
The idea was to have a record of who owned what
bicycle which they
hoped might reduce bicycle theft.

If I remember correctly it cost the owner 50 cents
and
he got a nice
little "number plate" to attach to his bicycle.

You never heard as much moaning and groaning, "You
mean I gotta pay 50
cents to ride a bicycle." The city gave up on the
scheme. Apparently
cyclists are cheap.


I doubt that, and they should not make it mandatory
anyhow. If they made
it mandatory then Californians can already smell it
that pretty soon the
authorities would start to tax bicycles per year and
they don't want
that. If there is any way to extract yet another tax
from the people CA
will eventually do that.

But if you don't pay your taxes who is going to support
the homeless,
and the illegal immigrants, and the bike paths and,
and,
and.

If you are going to have socialism someone's got to pay
for it.


We already pay among the highest taxes in the country.
That's enough taxes.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


I see, you want bike paths, racks on buses, and all the
other free
goodies provided by the state, but you don't want to pay
for them.


See above. We already paid for them.

[...]


You California taxpayers paid for extravagant pensions,
the $80billion
choo choo which doesn't run, homeless, welfare and
illegal services,
fire fighting of forests which should have been logged
and so on.


That's the price for a leftist government. Like it always
end up.

And yet you expect the government to provide you with
special bike racks on buses.


No, bike racks that actually work with contemporary bikes
that are commonly used in this area. Just like we now have
roads that accommodate vehicles wider than a Ford Model T.
It's that simple.

[...]


Every other government program is profligate and counterproductive so
why should bike racks on buses be any different?


Maybe so but that does require us to speak up. As taxpayers we have a
stake in this, our money is in this and, therefore, we have a say in
this. I can't understand people who think otherwise.


If the"US" you mention is bicycle riders then it is approximately 1%
of the population. Why do you feel that this minority should dictate
anything?


Think: For whom are bike racks on buses meant? For the other 99% that
don't use bikes?


But if you do it might be noted that homeless amount to
about 1.2 percent of the California. Do they get to dictate to the
state also?


Right now it sure feels like it. Probably not much different where Jay
lives.


https://cal.streetsblog.org/2016/03/...uting-by-bike/


Correction. Homeless in California are about 0.5% of the population.


And they are trashing the place.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/