IDIOTS ON BIKES ARE NOT AS DANGEROUS

On Mar 22, 5:43*pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
* * * * Schiffner writes:

So from where I sit adn the places I've lived with and without PT. You
don't know your push bike from your ultra-highspeed rail.

Try sitting down and living without TP.

I have, you just work the editorial page touting PT until it's SOFTER
than the TP. But what could I know...I've only spent a few thousand
healthy using burn out latrines (google it, it's...educational) I
wouldn't wish it on anybody, but it works efficiently.

the real answer for moving individuals over 2 miles is a motorcycle.
For anything over three people a car is needed. Only an idiot thinks
that PT is the cure...

The 3rd person can get their own bicycle and a 4th person if
need be. *And their own TP.

Oh really? Okay smart guy...care to guess how far my nearest towns
are? Give up? Well there is one 35 miles west (with not much for
business) another 28 miles east but only slightly better. The NEXT one
is over 50 miles east and slightly better than here. NEXT really town
is 124 miles from my front door. Not bad for a 50-60 thousand...right
next to Malmstrom AFB.

So you see Public transport WONT work. No money anywhere for it. Not
here and in many other places I can name.

Vancouver's SkyTrain and bus system gets me across four
municipalities (Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam
to work, and it's lovely, although I wish I could ride my
bike there. Maybe someday I'll do the multi-modal thing.

ROTFLMAO

Thanks for PROVING me right. It can ONLY work in major cities and
major metro areas. Let's see you get public transport to damn yellow
knife and get there in a reasonable time...ain't going to happen.
--
Keith

On Mar 22, 7:13*pm, Miles Bader wrote:
Schiffner writes:
the real answer for moving individuals over 2 miles is a motorcycle.
For anything over three people a car is needed. Only an idiot thinks
that PT is the cure...

The problem is thinking that a single mode of transport suffices.
That's the real problem with the way american society (and others, but
the U.S. seems one of the worst) has handled cars -- certainly they have
a place, and probably always will, but like anything else, they have
their proper niche. *Walking, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, buses, trains
(of all sorts), and airplanes (etc) can all play a useful part.

Motorcycles are good for many uses; besides the obvious size and
resource advantages over cars, they also have less of an isolating
effect. *But obviously they're not a one-size-fits-all solution any more
than cars are.

Obviously you pick and choose...ignoring what else I said. That's
okay...I've yet to meet a PT fan that though it through.

It's all crap if you don't live in a major metro area OR a major
city.
--
Keith

In article ,
Schiffner writes:

For that matter banjo's are so gentle and soothing women will bring
you fine whiskey.

No they won't.

It takes some skillfully played Led Zepellin (and a couple of
Jethro Tull) tunes on the Hammered Dulcimer to achieve that.
A good rockin' version of Johnny Horton's "Honky Tonk Man"
nails it down fer sher.

In the wrong hands, banjoes, bagpipes, violins, clarinets
and pipe organs are WsMD.

Even ukeleles can be deadly.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Tom Keats wrote:
In article ,
"J. Clarke" writes:
Tom Keats wrote:
In article .uk,
(The Older Gentleman) writes:
Vito wrote:

But a good start would be moving freight off of our highways and
back onto our rail roads.

Oh, that old chestnut. Dream on. If it was that easy and
cost-effective it would have been done.

It actually was done, once upon a time.

if done again, car drivers would raise such a big
stink about abundant trains stopping them at
RR crossings, we'd be back to where we are now.

Boo-hoo, I can't drive my single-occupant car
anywhere 'cuz there's this big goddamned train
in my way, taking goods to a place where I won't
benefit. Life sux. All I can do is whine &
gripe and bellyache. So I will. /That/ should
evoke some political action in my favour.
Screw everybody else. Me, me, me!

Heh.
I just stole Jack May's thunder.
Well, he might have an insignificant
fart left in him. But we all know how
to deal with other people's farts.

As for Vito's statement that: "People seek
comfort and convenience," well, people are
willing to pay for convenience, up to a point.
Especially in North America, where convenience
is de rigeur. But there comes a point where
cost becomes a consideration.

Earth to Keats--42 percent of US intercity freight is moved by rail,
13 percent by water, 17 percent by pipeline, and the remaining 28
percent by truck. The percentage in the US is increasing.

In the poster child of the railfans, the EU, only _8_ (yes, a
single digit) percent of intercity freight is carried by rail and
that percentage is declining.

So your notion that the US "used" to move freight by rail and doesn't
anymore is just plain _wrong_.

I never made such an assertion;
upthread, Vito wrote:
"But a good start would be moving freight off of our highways and
back onto our rail roads."

And he's right: there is a lot of freight rolling on the
highways, and not just LTLs.

Well of course there is. What of it? Far more moves by train.

I live in a port city and
work in a logistics operations warehouse, receiving
marine containers offloaded from overseas ships and
transported to our warehouse by trucks. Those goods
are then loaded into rail containers and taken away
from our warehouse by trucks.

Your assertion that there are no freight-hauling
semi's on on the US's (or Canada's) roads is
just plain _wrong_.

How does 28 percent tgranslate to "no freight hauling semis"?

Is that your goal, that there be no trucks on the road at all? Well if so,
you're going to have to vastly expland the rail network.

On Mar 22, 9:16*pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
* * * * Schiffner writes:

For that matter banjo's are so gentle and soothing women will bring
you fine whiskey.

No they won't.

Theny you don't play well. I couldn't play two sticks, thus I get my
own whiskey. ;^)

It takes some skillfully played Led Zepellin (and a couple of
Jethro Tull) tunes on the Hammered Dulcimer to achieve that.
A good rockin' version of Johnny Horton's "Honky Tonk Man"
nails it down fer sher.

heh...I've actually heard an honest to god jug band play that last
one. They were damn good.

In the wrong hands, banjoes, bagpipes, violins, clarinets
and pipe organs.

Are tools of mass exstacy. Mind you it sounds better if you ditch teh
clarinets and replace the violins with a fiddler. That's acutally a
line up I always thought would make a damn cool punk band. Naturally
there needs be an accordian. 8^)

Even ukeleles can be deadly.

Naw mildly annoying in small doses and cause for murder if over done.

--
Keith

On Mar 22, 7:21*pm, Turby wrote:
When Dad goes downtown to work from 8-4:30, Mom goes
5 miles one way to her salon and 10 miles the other way for groceries,
and the kids go 5 miles another way to school, there is no network of
rail, bus or any other mass transit system that will accomodate
getting all the people from where they are to where they need to go in
Los Angeles. It's strictly a matter of urban planning and how we live
our lives, NOT whatever transportation system we have.

(Several American example and counterexample cities mentioned.)

That's very close to our house's itinery, except I actually bike my
leg (and the salon bit, and the distances are shorter, mostly. The
neighborhood is more self-suficient than that.) If I'm feeling poorly
or the bike is in bits, I have three major options to get to work by
transit (bus/subway/subway, bus/streetcar, streetcar/subway.)

That's Toronto, though, not a US city. C'mon up and have a look around.

"Tom Keats" wrote
Vancouver's SkyTrain and bus system gets me across four
municipalities (Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam
to work, and it's lovely, although I wish I could ride my
bike there. Maybe someday I'll do the multi-modal thing.

If it works for you, great. We have a public transportation system here in
Brevard County, Florida, too. I *could* use it to cover the 5 miles to/from
the bike shop when I need to leave or pick up my bike. The bus stops are
only 1/4 mile from home and a mile from the shop, and teh ride only takes a
tad over an hour. That doesn't work for me. I guess I could get a bicycle.
The busses even have racks for them. But what if somebody saw me riding
it!?!

"Miles Bader" wrote
"Vito" writes:
The U.S. is a pretty messed-up place...

Because Americans like to go where and when they want instead of when and
where der fuhrer decides they should??

Silly statements like that don't exactly help your argument...

Nothing silly about it. Would anyone ride PT if they could ride their own
motorcycle? Only if you were conditioned from childhood to accept being
part of a herd.

"Turby" wrote .

More than 30 years ago, CalTrans (the California Department of
Transportation) did a study on mass transit in Los Angeles. They spent
a lot of money and time trying to figure out how to solve the problem,
considering L.A. was increasing in population at a ridiculous rate,
with more vehicles every day. The result was there is no solution.
Since the days of Levittown, Americans have been moving into isolated
bedroom communities and working in some other place and shopping in
some other place. When Dad goes downtown to work from 8-4:30, Mom goes
5 miles one way to her salon and 10 miles the other way for groceries,
and the kids go 5 miles another way to school, there is no network of
rail, bus or any other mass transit system that will accomodate
getting all the people from where they are to where they need to go in
Los Angeles. It's strictly a matter of urban planning and how we live
our lives, NOT whatever transportation system we have.

The same is true for San Diego and numerous other metropolitan areas
in the US. It is _not_ true for New York City and a handful of other
US cities. (FWIW, San Diego is 23% larger than NYC's 5 boroughs.)

--
This tells us that PT works well for people who like living in tenements
smelling and hearing ones neighbors and adapting to outside schedules, but
not for folks who prefer a tad of privacy and freedom.

Vito wrote:
"Miles Bader" wrote
"Vito" writes:
The U.S. is a pretty messed-up place...

Because Americans like to go where and when they want instead of
when and where der fuhrer decides they should??

Silly statements like that don't exactly help your argument...

Nothing silly about it. Would anyone ride PT if they could ride
their own motorcycle?

So you'd rather be on a bike slip-sliding around in snow and the occasional
icepatch while struggling to keep your visor clear enough to have some clue
where you are headed and praying that the SUVs in front of and behind you
don't make a biker sandwich than sit in a nice warm bus sipping your coffee
and reading your newspaper. Yeah, once it's a nice adventure. Even twice.
But if it's your daily grind then it gets old real fast.

In some parts of the country, motorcycles work fine as year round commuters.
In others they don't.

Of course that assumes also that one can actually park the bike fairly close
to where one is going. If one works at, say, the Musee du Beaux-Artes
Quebec that can be quite a hike.

Only if you were conditioned from childhood to
accept being part of a herd.