Build it and they won't come

On 9/30/2017 8:35 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 30 Sep 2017 12:21:51 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 9:36:53 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020302/

Quote "During 1991–2008, obesity prevalence for US-born adults increased
from 13.9 to 28.7%, while prevalence for immigrants increased from 9.5
to 20.7%".

Joerg - obesity in and of itself is not an illness. If you go into emergency rooms all over California you find the majority of people to be immigrants either legal or otherwise. This is major reason that the US isn't near the top of the healthy list. And even in this the life expectancy in the US is only a couple of years off of Switzerland who are on the top.

:-) Switzerland has the second longest life expectancy in the world.

The U.S. is number 31 on the list, between Costa Rica (30) and Cuba
(32).
--
Cheers,

John B.


Complex comparisons as we drive a lot more, and faster, than
most populations, we're more violent generally and we use
drugs (often fatally) more than many nations. It's not all
death by untreated hangnail or some such health-facility
deficit.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/1/2017 10:45 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-30 19:46, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/30/2017 7:18 PM, Joerg wrote:


but 1.5% is a respectable number for the US.

IOW, you've lowered your standards to the point that you consider any
non-zero number to be respectable.


No, I just do not have a glass-half-empty mind like you seem to have.

Don't pretend it's a "half empty" vs. "half full" situation, Joerg.
You're bragging about 1.5%. Those who understand math know that 1.5% is
nowhere near half full. Numbers matter!


Broaden your horizon and visit an area where they do better. Like Davis,
CA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHdbIhL0eso

Interestingly, one of my friends just returned from a cycling-related
conference in Davis. She was one of the presenters. She liked most of
the segregated bike paths, but she mentioned that they existed because
the campus greatly restricts the use of cars, something you've denied.
She was also pleased that there is only one 200' stretch of "protected"
bike lane, installed to solve a particular intersection problem. (She
agrees with me that most "protected cycletracks" are nuts, and she's got
some data to back that up.)

1% is negligible in this field, just as it's negligible in almost
every
other field.

So you want to promote spending bundles on segregated
infrastructure to
get negligible results.


With that attitude we would never have had MRI machines, space
shuttles, jet aircraft, satellites, and so on. I have a different
philosophy.

If MRI machines detected only 1% of the problems doctors looked for; if
space shuttles failed to reach orbit 99% of the time; if jet aircraft
successfully took off only one time out of a hundred, etc. then we would
have rightly called them failures.

Somehow the same math doesn't matter to bike segregationists.


It does if designed right. Ok, the head back into the sand now :-)

Your thinking is weird!

You say that Stevenage facilities were not designed right, and that's
why the place has only about 2.7% bike mode share. But you point to
photos of Folsom's bike facilities that look exactly like Stevenage's.
And you brag that Folsom does it right. Yet Folsom's bike mode share is
less than half of Stevenage's!

I'm beginning to think you don't understand numbers at all!


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 10:23:19 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/1/2017 11:19 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 7:15:13 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

Bike lanes along all major roads. What more do you want? We don't have
that on most roads in my neighborhood. Hence hardly anyone rides.

I thought we were arguing about separated facilities? I have no problem with wide shoulders or striped bike lanes. There are plenty of places with no bike lanes around here, and people still ride -- because that is what people do around here, but it is nice having a bike lane. When I moved up here in '84. I rode to work on a 55mph arterial on a fog line. I do like the fact that there is now a bike lane. Once out of town, however, I ride on the same types of shoulderless roads as you do. Most people do in rural areas..

I did yesterday, 60 miles worth. A very pleasant ride with absolutely no
hassle from any motorist.

Actually, I started on our 30,000 to 40,000 vehicle per day arterial.
Much of it has shoulders, which I sometimes used.

Trouble is, the shoulders often have debris. Yesterday they weren't
terrible (as they are in early spring, before the sweeper trucks make
their semi-annual visit) but it's a bit worrying to be on the shoulder
as traffic passes, then see stuff ahead that could be gravel or could be
glass.

So my general policy is ride roughly in the center of the right lane if
traffic is sparse enough that they can easily change lanes to pass. I'll
ride the shoulder if it's clean and the traffic is dense (which, BTW,
varies minute by minute). And if traffic's dense and the shoulder has
significant debris, decide as I ride, sometimes taking the lane even
though it slows some cars.

BTW, with moderate to heavy traffic, I find 2+1 lanes to be pretty
pleasant. That's one lane each direction, plus a bi-directional turning
lane. Almost all motorists will pass quickly and smoothly using at least
part of that center lane.

Most of the country roads, of course, had none of the above, and were
very pleasant indeed.

There is a very heavily used road that is part of the commute to Silicon Valley. Occasionally I will take it to Livermore. You enter a freeway and almost instantly take an exit onto this road. There is about 100 feet of road that is only the two lane width. Timing this is absolutely necessary since the cars entering this road are often doing 90-100 mph. Then the two lanes are in the center and the shoulders are at least 10 feet wide. I'm not clear why they did this but it certainly is a better way to ride on what is essentially a freeway. Especially since for the first half of it the climb pulls your speed down to 9 mph or so.

Down in the Santa Clara Valley there are a couple of Interstates that cross.. There is a light at the crossing The times I've ridden on them I always knew that I could cross and turn 90 degrees but for some reason every time I've ridden up to the light there was a large opening so that I could pull over into the left turn lane as heavy trucks roar by. Interstate trucks generally respect speed limits so it isn't like being on a commuter freeway where the speed limit is "as fast as your car will go."

On 9/30/2017 9:24 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:15:06 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

There are also some that quantify the cost savings to health care
systems but the ones I read unfortunately behind a (steep) paywall
because published in high-class medical journals. You don't get to
publish in those unless your underlying data has been properly vetted.

Unfortunately not necessarily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias


Besides the outright fraud epidemic which has infested
peer-reviewed papers published in (formerly) respected
journals for 20 years. With a basic-research scientist in
the family, I hear about this a lot; it's out of control.

http://retractionwatch.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c3f375995d67

The kind explanation is utter ineptitude.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 10:33:50 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/1/2017 10:29 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-30 18:55, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/30/2017 6:57 PM, Joerg wrote:

A couple of weeks ago I took this from Rancho Cordova to Sloughhouse
(where the farmer's market is):

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/phot..._22551636.jpeg

Wide, no speed limit, no slowpoke cyclists.

That MUP would be fine with me. Last week we used a similar one with our
novice cyclist friend. It was perhaps not quite as nice, but still nice
enough. It was very pleasant.

Why was it pleasant? Mostly because there were almost no other users on
the MUP. I like them fine if they don't cross many roads, if they are
smooth and wide enough, and if there's almost nobody else using them.

However, that set of criteria isn't very useful for getting funds to
build one.


They did in Folsom, big time. Most look like this:

https://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bph...BeiCSIPQ/o.jpg

Major roads are crossed either via tunnels or via MUP bridges. At one
busy road you even have your pick, a tunnel or this bridge:

https://goo.gl/maps/w5QGBnkE9852

It's great. I can go through there in the thick of rush hour and roll
right through. No cars. They are all above doing a slow crawl while I
don't even have to tap my brakes are intersections. Ok, 15mph speed
limit but nobody minds if you are a few mph above and ride carefully.

This is how a successful bike path system is built.

Looks just like Stevenage. I forget: What's the bike mode share in
Folsom now?

Ah, I found some data. About 1.2% in 2010. But apparently it's less
now. This site
http://cal.streetsblog.org/2016/03/0...uting-by-bike/
alludes to California cities in the nation's top 20 for cycling commuter
mode share in 2016. But Long Beach makes #18 with just 1%, and Folsom
isn't listed.

Build it an over 99% won't come after all. Worse than Stevenage!

I would guess that the percentage of bike traffic in San Francisco is at least 2%. I know that most BART cars have four or more bikes per car during commute hours and the cars carry maybe 200 passengers in a crush load. Also ALL of these people have cars parked at a BART lot. So just the commuters are 2%. There is a much higher use in the city itself. Though that number is still low enough that you seldom see others unless you're at sight-seeing areas. At the Golden Gate Bridge and the hill on the Marin side seeing a hundred bikes isn't unusual on a weekend day. The ride down into Sausalito and out to Tiburon probably sees thousands in a day. A lot are rentals with a substantial percentage being electric assist.

On 10/1/2017 11:53 AM, wrote:
On Saturday, September 30, 2017 at 7:16:29 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

I also think you need to see your physician. Try Aricept and Cymbalta. I
don't need them, but I hear good things about them.

You don't need them but are really familiar with them. Interesting.

I also don't have diabetes, but I'm familiar with insulin, because I
have friends who are diabetic. I'm also familiar with anti-rejection
meds, because two of my good friends had kidney transplants many years
ago. I don't have thyroid problems, but I'm familiar with Levothyroxin.

But I'm not trying to prescribe medications for you. I'm just suggesting
you ask your doctor about them.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 10:37:41 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/30/2017 8:35 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 30 Sep 2017 12:21:51 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 9:36:53 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020302/

Quote "During 1991–2008, obesity prevalence for US-born adults increased
from 13.9 to 28.7%, while prevalence for immigrants increased from 9.5
to 20.7%".

Joerg - obesity in and of itself is not an illness. If you go into emergency rooms all over California you find the majority of people to be immigrants either legal or otherwise. This is major reason that the US isn't near the top of the healthy list. And even in this the life expectancy in the US is only a couple of years off of Switzerland who are on the top.

:-) Switzerland has the second longest life expectancy in the world.

The U.S. is number 31 on the list, between Costa Rica (30) and Cuba
(32).
--
Cheers,

John B.


Complex comparisons as we drive a lot more, and faster, than
most populations, we're more violent generally and we use
drugs (often fatally) more than many nations. It's not all
death by untreated hangnail or some such health-facility
deficit.

This violence is something you have to be ready for at all times. That's why I often get angry with people on this group. But in fact I'm very easy going. I never start fights. I only end them. And that's pretty easy since most people don't know how to fight and are more likely to hurt themselves than someone else. Punching someone with your fist and wrist out of alignment can break your wrist. Definitely not fun for anyone but the person you tried to start a fight with.

My wife doesn't understand why I have these quirks such as not having shade open at night with lights on so people can see the layout of your home. I can get to a pistol very rapidly in case of a home invasion but even after telling the cops that time where it was it took them 15 minutes to find it.

On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 10:48:51 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/30/2017 9:24 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:15:06 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

There are also some that quantify the cost savings to health care
systems but the ones I read unfortunately behind a (steep) paywall
because published in high-class medical journals. You don't get to
publish in those unless your underlying data has been properly vetted.

Unfortunately not necessarily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias


Besides the outright fraud epidemic which has infested
peer-reviewed papers published in (formerly) respected
journals for 20 years. With a basic-research scientist in
the family, I hear about this a lot; it's out of control.

http://retractionwatch.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c3f375995d67

The kind explanation is utter ineptitude.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

None of this is more violently fraudulent than the papers on Anthropogenic Global Warming. One thing that you can be sure I know is chromatography since I designed and programmed both liquid and gas chronographs.

It requires VERY little research to see that added CO2 cannot have any negative impacts to the troposphere. And yet virtually every newspaper or news program will blame everything from Hurricane Irma to a case of the hives on Anthropogenic Global Warming.

With Trump in there now more and more scientists are willing to step forward and voice their concerns about either being misrepresented or having to remain silent for fear of losing their research grants if they dared to criticize anyone making these false claims of man-made global warming.

On 10/1/2017 1:48 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/30/2017 9:24 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:15:06 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

There are also some that quantify the cost savings to health care
systems but the ones I read unfortunately behind a (steep) paywall
because published in high-class medical journals. You don't get to
publish in those unless your underlying data has been properly vetted.

Unfortunately not necessarily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias


Besides the outright fraud epidemic which has infested peer-reviewed
papers published in (formerly) respected journals for 20 years. With a
basic-research scientist in the family, I hear about this a lot; it's
out of control.

http://retractionwatch.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c3f375995d67

The kind explanation is utter ineptitude.

I think Joerg does not understand what publication bias really is.
Simply speaking, it's the tendency to report "This worked" more often
than to report "This didn't work." It has relatively little to do with
shortcomings in the peer review process.

Which is not to say that peer review is perfect. One of my favorite
failures is the 1989 Thompson & Rivara claim that bike helmets are 85%
effective in preventing head injuries. After literally decades of
non-corroboration, the NHTSA finally admitted that claim cannot be
proven and thus doesn't meet government standards for accuracy. It's no
longer supposed to appear in government (including NHTSA) publications.
It is, however, still referred to unquestioningly by many helmet
promoters and other helmet effectiveness researchers.

About the Washington Post article: It's a hack piece. Of course there
are scientific mistakes even in "hard science" and some do make it into
publication. But as someone said in the comments, there was no data or
estimate given on the frequency of occurrence of this problem, and it's
essentially certain that such mistakes get caught and corrected. Science
makes heavy use of replication and corroboration.

One might say (to paraphrase the article's headline) "No, science
reporter's mistakes are not limited to the headlines."

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 10/1/2017 1:42 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/1/2017 1:48 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/30/2017 9:24 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:15:06 -0700, Joerg

wrote:

There are also some that quantify the cost savings to
health care
systems but the ones I read unfortunately behind a
(steep) paywall
because published in high-class medical journals. You
don't get to
publish in those unless your underlying data has been
properly vetted.

Unfortunately not necessarily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias


Besides the outright fraud epidemic which has infested
peer-reviewed papers published in (formerly) respected
journals for 20 years. With a basic-research scientist in
the family, I hear about this a lot; it's out of control.

http://retractionwatch.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c3f375995d67

The kind explanation is utter ineptitude.

I think Joerg does not understand what publication bias
really is. Simply speaking, it's the tendency to report
"This worked" more often than to report "This didn't work."
It has relatively little to do with shortcomings in the peer
review process.

Which is not to say that peer review is perfect. One of my
favorite failures is the 1989 Thompson & Rivara claim that
bike helmets are 85% effective in preventing head injuries.
After literally decades of non-corroboration, the NHTSA
finally admitted that claim cannot be proven and thus
doesn't meet government standards for accuracy. It's no
longer supposed to appear in government (including NHTSA)
publications. It is, however, still referred to
unquestioningly by many helmet promoters and other helmet
effectiveness researchers.

About the Washington Post article: It's a hack piece. Of
course there are scientific mistakes even in "hard science"
and some do make it into publication. But as someone said in
the comments, there was no data or estimate given on the
frequency of occurrence of this problem, and it's
essentially certain that such mistakes get caught and
corrected. Science makes heavy use of replication and
corroboration.

One might say (to paraphrase the article's headline) "No,
science reporter's mistakes are not limited to the headlines."


Not defending reporters, nor reportage, but the issue is
mentioned with increasing regularity in Science News and in
conversations with researchers of my acquaintance.

http://sciencenordic.com/basic-resea...-be-replicated

http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-sci...bility-1.19970

"...asked researchers “is there a reproducibility crisis in
research?”

Over half of 1,576 respondents, 52 per cent, said yes.

More than 70 per cent had tried to reproduce a colleagues
experiment without success, and over half had tried, and
failed, to reproduce their own experiments."

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971