On Sun, 8 Sep 2019 19:40:17 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/8/2019 6:47 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 8 Sep 2019 15:52:50 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/8/2019 2:09 PM, AK wrote:
On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:27:49 PM UTC-5, Tom Kunich wrote:

I ride with my outside handlebar overlapping the outer bike lane line. In some cases I take the car lane if there are problems with the bike lane such as roots of trees causing bumps of the lane being filled with leaves so that you can't see dangers such as pot holes or boards of the like.

I have to dodge a lot of glass both in the bike lane and sidewalk.

We have street cleaners, but are lucky if they come once every couple of months.

In other words, both Tom and AK are pointing out that bike lanes aren't
the wonderful paradise that so many people claim. Maintenance is often
crappy, debris is common, and around here (as where AK lives) sweeping
of debris is rare.

So riders often ride as close to the stripe as possible. This results in
closer passes than there would be if they removed the damned stripe and
kept the same pavement width. Then the occasional car tires passing over
that rightward section of pavement would sweep debris into the gutter.

"Protected" bike lanes have all that and worse. A city near me installed
a few blocks of that nonsense, then hosted a visit from officials from a
different city. The foreign officials asked "So how do you keep the
pavement clean? Did you buy a special small-scale street sweeper?" The
host city official said something like "Um... we don't know yet."


Over here the town/city hires poor people to sweep the streets -
minimum wage level folks, who might otherwise be unemployable. They,
apparently, are happy to have a job and the folks that use the road
are happy to have clean streets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv-BGGlMkN0

I've wondered about that idea regarding many jobs.

I was working at a local manufacturing plant, the plant with the most
sophisticated technology of any in the area. I was programming robotic
workcells, working on automatic part feeding, automated packaging etc.

Some small parts are very hard to handle automatically in mass
production. Typically, parts must be uniformly oriented for automated
processing. Vibratory bowl feeders are effective at orienting many
parts, but some just can't be done that way.

At one point, I wondered about employing people from one of the local
agencies that support mentally retarded people (and I hope that term
hasn't yet been deemed offensive) to either orient or package parts. I
know that some of those people can get great satisfaction from work that
would bore others; and I figured they could probably work for a
relatively low wage, since they tend to get subsidies for housing, food,
etc.

Unfortunately, I was told the union contracts would never allow such a
thing.

I think that unions have done a lot of good over the last 100 years. But
I also think they've made lots of bad decision, or caused lots of bad
policies. I think this was one.

There are two sides to that story. Firstly, people in developing
countries tend to be cheaper than robots, and secondly, there are a
lot of people who will literally kill for a minimum salary job.
(A long story but when one of the athletic shoe companies was opening
a new factory in Jakarta, one guy stabbed another for cutting into the
line waiting at the employment office.)

Thailand has, quite literally, more that 100% employment
(citizen+guest workers) and much of it is at minimum wages.
As you might guess, cost of doing business, taxes, et al, are cheaper
also :-)
--
cheers,

John B.