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Old September 21st 17, 08:35 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Jeff Liebermann
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Posts: 4,018
Default Build it and they won't come

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 13:59:29 +0700, John B.
wrote:

Singapore tried the "tax it out of existence" scheme years ago and it
did work for a while but as the economy grew so did auto sales. Today
a new Toyota Corolla Altis 1.6 Standard will cost you, including the
first 6 months road tax, US$78,509, and traffic is a major problem.


Comparing cost-o-living prices between Singapore and Smog Angeles:
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2 =Singapore&city1=Los+Angeles%2C+CA&city2=Singapore &tracking=getDispatchComparison
A Toyota Corolla costs 294% more in Singapore than in L.A.
Gasoline is 92% more expensive.

Comparing Copenhagen and Smog Angeles:
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2 =Denmark&city1=Los+Angeles%2C+CA&city2=Copenhagen& tracking=getDispatchComparison
A Toyota Corolla costs 96% more in Denmark than in L.A.
Gasoline is on 110% more expensive.

Comparing traffic between Singapore and Smog Angeles:
https://www.numbeo.com/traffic/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2 =Singapore&city1=Los+Angeles%2C+CA&city2=Singapore
Bicycle as the main means of transportation:
L.A. = 2.90%, Singapore = 2.35%

From the section "Average when primary using Bike" it would seem that
L.A. bicycle riders use cars, trains, and buses on part of their
rides, while Singapore riders use none of these facilities.

To be uncharacteristically fair, this web site partly uses crowd
source input for data, which makes me suspect that the numbers have
been tweaked. Even if wrong, they're still interesting.

I don't know what went wrong in Stevenage. In any other town, such
dedicated bicycle paths would be infested with joggers, baby
carriages, radio controlled racers, skateboarders, push carts,
electric powered assault transports etc, which suggests that nobody is
using the paths using any means of transport. That's too strange to
not have an obvious cause. The paths might be going from nowhere to
nowhere, the weather is chronically uncooperative, there are
undesirables lurking along the paths, or something else that might
discourage its use.

Also, don't judge the quality of an idea by its first attempt. I did
that once when I passed judgment on personal music players. At the
time, the only example was the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP 300 digital
media player. I bought one and it stunk in every possible way. So, I
declared the idea to be worthless, only to have the iPod appear 2-3
years later, which demonstrated conclusively that it was a good idea
and that my evaluation stunk as badly as the Diamond Rio.
https://maas.museum/event/interface/object/rio-pmp-300-digital-media-player/index.html
The moral is that innovators have to get everything right or the idea
won't work. Like the media player, the bike paths are part of a
system. Something is fundamentally wrong with some part of the system
at Stevenage. However, from here, I can't tell what it might be.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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