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#102
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Build it and they won't come
On 2017-09-29 17:47, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 9:15:00 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-29 08:49, wrote: On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 8:28:37 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote: On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 7:30:45 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-28 18:17, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/28/2017 6:29 PM, Joerg wrote: Why do people ride bikes there? Mainly because of the cycling facilities. Another reason is health, Europeans are on average less obese that Americans and there are reasons for that, one of them being cycling. Build it and they will come, it has been proven time and again. In the U.S., it's been proven time and time again that "build it, and maybe 1.5% will come, if you're lucky and cycling is fashionable in your area." In some areas a lot more came but 1.5% is a respectable number for the US. To repeat your own words: Calculate the longterm health benefits from that 1.5% increase in Dollar numbers. We can't calculate the health benefit. How would you even do that? You assume that there is this magical group of couch potatoes just waiting for a bike path -- and when it appears, they materialize in droves -- clearing out their arteries and living for decades longer in perfect health. We could put ear tags on them and follow their every move to determine their outcomes -- maybe get a control group of couch potatoes. Alternate and more likely reality is that some people decide to ride around on the new bike path, and if it goes in the general direction of their work, they may even ride a few days a week instead of going to the gym. They may run into each other and get hurt, strain a knee -- who knows. Medical usage may rise or fall. There have been many systematic studies confirming the health benefit of cycling. http://www.peoplepoweredmovement.org...eview_2011.pdf 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. Nobody is denying the health benefit of cycling -- or at least some health benefit from cycling. That's different from tying a health benefit to a particular piece of infrastructure. For example, my health has not improved any since the Broadway and S.W. Moody cycle tracks went in. I don't ride a single mile more or less. I ride slower on the cycle tracks, so they produce less of a cardiovascular work-out for me. They make me fat and slow and hasten my death. You have to think in more consectutive steps: A cycling infrastructure gets built, for example the American River Bike Path. It is then, in consequence, used by myriad people who would otherwise hardly or not at all ride. Lots of them will ride only on weekends but this gets them off their keister and most of all off the couch. Ergo, a consequential health improvement. Without that cycling infrastructure it would simply not happen. Same in the Netherlands and Denmark except there it happens across the whole countries. Also, I crashed two years ago on an snowy, icy street car track in a bicycle facility, so that facility worsened my health. I defended a case where a guy broke his neck when a dog leash got stuck in his front wheel while riding on a MUP and another one where a guy did a face plant going over a transition on to an elevated bike lane. Bike lanes are murder! Ya well, not ours. They are mostly built properly. On MUP one must ride with the same attention as a car driver on a city road. There can always be other slower traffic participants such as pedestrians or Dachshunds. But anyway, proving that some two mile bike path or some other piece of infrastructure is producing health benefits sufficient to justify the expense is basically impossible. You have to take it on faith. They are usually longer. Yet even a two mile stretch can result in a health benefit if it provide a missing link that prevented lots of riders from riding. A prime example two towns over from me: https://goo.gl/maps/zUFBxP2UUtK2 Diehards like me always hacked it through a creek there but most people wouldn't even consider. Now there is a fence and lots of huge bulldozers behind it. Next year there will be a nice connector road into Folsom with bike infrastructure. Because that's how Folsom does things. European cities are different. People live close to work.... I lived in Europe. My distance to school was only 5mi but in my university days the distances to the various places I had to go often exceeded 10mi, sometimes 20mi. Most of the people I knew didn't think twice before hopping on the bicycle, even if they had cars. An evening in town in Maastricht was 40mi round trip and we did that at the spur of the moment. The trip to my sports club in Belgium was more than 60mi round trip and I can't remember anyone saying that was excessive (I had to schlepp a heavy parachute, spare, boots, helmet and whatnot for that). It's msotly the mindset that is different in Europe. You were a statistical outlier: http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/wp-con...ng-in-DK-1.pdf Denmark does not knock my socks off: http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/wp-con...om-Denmark.pdf NL: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2...ger-distances/ Newsflash: A large chunk of population does not live or even want to live in cities. I am part of that chunk. Those folks ride much longer distances but are never counted in statistics. If you don't believe me ask Lou, he knows the area where I lived in NL, he should know others who live and ride in Zuid Limburg and Northern Belgium. Not dissing NL and Denmark, but both are dead flat and people live near work. We have people around here who live near work, and they ride too -- generally not in separate facilities. You have probably never pedaled into a Dutch or Danish head wind coming off of some bad weather system on the sea, pumping 200 watts into the pedals and barely moving. It can be frustrating yet people pedal on. As for the 'burbs, nobody is going to lug some 30lb 'fiet over the West Hills and travel ten plus miles from Beaverton. It's never going to happen. Copenhagenization stops at the hills, which are a stone's throw from my office. Why does it work here? My MTB weighs over 40lbs empty, the road bike is an old steel model and not much lighter. Most Intel bike commuters use older model MTB and it's quite hilly where many of them live. ... This is literally the view out of my office window, although I'm 10 stories higher: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7286/1...d422079d_b.jpg Nike, Intel, etc., etc. is over those hills. That ain't what we'd call a "hill". More like a bump. ... They are steep. Now we get lots of people on the flat east side. https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7613/2...6661f837_b.jpg Mostly on-street bike lanes and bike boulevards. No fancy tracks required. They may be steep but not for long. I always have to get back up from 100ft or so to 1450ft where I live, with lots of ups and downs in between. That is because nearly all errand runs require a ride to Folsom or Rancho Cordova. A run to Placerville requires about 30-40mi round trip, mostly on rough and hilly singletrack. One of the hardcore riders out here does that pretty much daily (but farther, about 60mi). -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#103
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Build it and they won't come
On 9/30/2017 10:59 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-29 17:47, jbeattie wrote: Nobody is denying the health benefit of cycling -- or at least some health benefit from cycling.Â* That's different from tying a health benefit to a particular piece of infrastructure. For example, my health has not improved any since the Broadway and S.W. Moody cycle tracks went in.Â* I don't ride a single mile more or less. I ride slower on the cycle tracks, so they produce less of a cardiovascular work-out for me.Â* They make me fat and slow and hasten my death. You have to think in more consectutive steps: A cycling infrastructure gets built, for example the American River Bike Path. It is then, in consequence, used by myriad people who would otherwise hardly or not at all ride. Lots of them will ride only on weekends but this gets them off their keister and most of all off the couch. Ergo, a consequential health improvement. Without that cycling infrastructure it would simply not happen. First, you can't say "without that cycling infrastructure it would simply not happen." It DID happen in San Francisco, when bike mode share jumped as much as many other cities despite a lawsuit preventing the construction of ANY bike facilities. Second, I'm very suspicious about the "myriad" people using the American River Bike Path. I don't deny that it is used; but you previously considered 1% bike mode share to be very good. I suspect you have similar low standards for the term "myriad." But anyway, proving that some two mile bike path or some other piece of infrastructure is producing health benefits sufficient to justify the expense is basically impossible. You have to take it on faith. They are usually longer. Yet even a two mile stretch can result in a health benefit if it provide a missing link that prevented lots of riders from riding. Here's something I can agree on. There are situations where the roads contain a single obstacle or short stretch of unpleasantness that sort of "corks" potential cyclist and pedestrian use. One common example is a bridge built exactly as wide as the normal travel lanes, carrying lots of traffic. I'm in favor of well-designed remedies for those situations. However, that's not what segregation advocates seem to be about. They seem to lobby for segregated facilities everywhere, and they don't seem to worry about how crazy the segregation designs are. Newsflash: A large chunk of population does not live or even want to live in cities. I am part of that chunk. Those folks ride much longer distances but are never counted in statistics. If you don't believe me ask Lou, he knows the area where I lived in NL, he should know others who live and ride in Zuid Limburg and Northern Belgium. I'll do a long ride today. It will pass by the homes of many, many people who do not want to live in cities. Some will be in distant housing developments where cornfields recently stood. Some will be even more isolated, lone single family houses on country roads. Those homes will _never_ have segregated bike facilities near them. The low density makes that fiscally impossible. How can society spend a fortune to run a bike trail near the home of a person who will probably never use it? It can't be justified by one outlier bike fanatic out of 1000 people. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#104
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Build it and they won't come
On Saturday, September 30, 2017 at 7:59:49 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-29 17:47, jbeattie wrote: On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 9:15:00 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-29 08:49, wrote: On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 8:28:37 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote: On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 7:30:45 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-28 18:17, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/28/2017 6:29 PM, Joerg wrote: Why do people ride bikes there? Mainly because of the cycling facilities. Another reason is health, Europeans are on average less obese that Americans and there are reasons for that, one of them being cycling. Build it and they will come, it has been proven time and again. In the U.S., it's been proven time and time again that "build it, and maybe 1.5% will come, if you're lucky and cycling is fashionable in your area." In some areas a lot more came but 1.5% is a respectable number for the US. To repeat your own words: Calculate the longterm health benefits from that 1.5% increase in Dollar numbers. We can't calculate the health benefit. How would you even do that? You assume that there is this magical group of couch potatoes just waiting for a bike path -- and when it appears, they materialize in droves -- clearing out their arteries and living for decades longer in perfect health. We could put ear tags on them and follow their every move to determine their outcomes -- maybe get a control group of couch potatoes. Alternate and more likely reality is that some people decide to ride around on the new bike path, and if it goes in the general direction of their work, they may even ride a few days a week instead of going to the gym. They may run into each other and get hurt, strain a knee -- who knows. Medical usage may rise or fall. There have been many systematic studies confirming the health benefit of cycling. http://www.peoplepoweredmovement.org...eview_2011.pdf 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. Nobody is denying the health benefit of cycling -- or at least some health benefit from cycling. That's different from tying a health benefit to a particular piece of infrastructure. For example, my health has not improved any since the Broadway and S.W. Moody cycle tracks went in. I don't ride a single mile more or less. I ride slower on the cycle tracks, so they produce less of a cardiovascular work-out for me. They make me fat and slow and hasten my death. You have to think in more consectutive steps: A cycling infrastructure gets built, for example the American River Bike Path. It is then, in consequence, used by myriad people who would otherwise hardly or not at all ride. Lots of them will ride only on weekends but this gets them off their keister and most of all off the couch. Ergo, a consequential health improvement. Without that cycling infrastructure it would simply not happen. Same in the Netherlands and Denmark except there it happens across the whole countries. Also, I crashed two years ago on an snowy, icy street car track in a bicycle facility, so that facility worsened my health. I defended a case where a guy broke his neck when a dog leash got stuck in his front wheel while riding on a MUP and another one where a guy did a face plant going over a transition on to an elevated bike lane. Bike lanes are murder! Ya well, not ours. They are mostly built properly. On MUP one must ride with the same attention as a car driver on a city road. There can always be other slower traffic participants such as pedestrians or Dachshunds. But anyway, proving that some two mile bike path or some other piece of infrastructure is producing health benefits sufficient to justify the expense is basically impossible. You have to take it on faith. They are usually longer. Yet even a two mile stretch can result in a health benefit if it provide a missing link that prevented lots of riders from riding. A prime example two towns over from me: https://goo.gl/maps/zUFBxP2UUtK2 Diehards like me always hacked it through a creek there but most people wouldn't even consider. Now there is a fence and lots of huge bulldozers behind it. Next year there will be a nice connector road into Folsom with bike infrastructure. Because that's how Folsom does things. European cities are different. People live close to work.... I lived in Europe. My distance to school was only 5mi but in my university days the distances to the various places I had to go often exceeded 10mi, sometimes 20mi. Most of the people I knew didn't think twice before hopping on the bicycle, even if they had cars. An evening in town in Maastricht was 40mi round trip and we did that at the spur of the moment. The trip to my sports club in Belgium was more than 60mi round trip and I can't remember anyone saying that was excessive (I had to schlepp a heavy parachute, spare, boots, helmet and whatnot for that). It's msotly the mindset that is different in Europe. You were a statistical outlier: http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/wp-con...ng-in-DK-1.pdf Denmark does not knock my socks off: http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/wp-con...om-Denmark.pdf NL: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2...ger-distances/ Newsflash: A large chunk of population does not live or even want to live in cities. I am part of that chunk. Those folks ride much longer distances but are never counted in statistics. If you don't believe me ask Lou, he knows the area where I lived in NL, he should know others who live and ride in Zuid Limburg and Northern Belgium. Not dissing NL and Denmark, but both are dead flat and people live near work. We have people around here who live near work, and they ride too -- generally not in separate facilities. You have probably never pedaled into a Dutch or Danish head wind coming off of some bad weather system on the sea, pumping 200 watts into the pedals and barely moving. It can be frustrating yet people pedal on. As for the 'burbs, nobody is going to lug some 30lb 'fiet over the West Hills and travel ten plus miles from Beaverton. It's never going to happen. Copenhagenization stops at the hills, which are a stone's throw from my office. Why does it work here? My MTB weighs over 40lbs empty, the road bike is an old steel model and not much lighter. Most Intel bike commuters use older model MTB and it's quite hilly where many of them live. ... This is literally the view out of my office window, although I'm 10 stories higher: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7286/1...d422079d_b.jpg Nike, Intel, etc., etc. is over those hills. That ain't what we'd call a "hill". More like a bump. Sure, it isn't Mt. Hood, but it's an 1,100 foot elevation gain from my basement parking lot in a couple of miles, which is more than most people are willing to do except maybe on an eBike. What you will do is one thing. What the couch potato who is going to be saved by bicycle infrastructure will do is another. ... They are steep. Now we get lots of people on the flat east side. https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7613/2...6661f837_b.jpg Mostly on-street bike lanes and bike boulevards. No fancy tracks required. They may be steep but not for long. I always have to get back up from 100ft or so to 1450ft where I live, with lots of ups and downs in between. That is because nearly all errand runs require a ride to Folsom or Rancho Cordova. A run to Placerville requires about 30-40mi round trip, mostly on rough and hilly singletrack. One of the hardcore riders out here does that pretty much daily (but farther, about 60mi). Yes, and how many of the fat women at the local Safeway are going to do that -- or even their brutish husbands? We're talking about building infrastructure and getting non-gnarlymen riding bikes. We can trade stories all day about the difficult things we've done or do. People who really want to ride don't need any infrastructure. I managed for decades riding in SMS-ville Santa Clara Valley with no infrastructure. Closer to your home, I've ridden all of HWY 49 with no infrastructure, in fact all around the Sierra, Tahoe, Yosemite, etc., etc. No problems. OTOH, I've ridden in Sacramento and Roseville in places that really did suck (more than the rest of the area which sucks generally). I'm not against bike lanes, but I see little practical value in many separated facilities in light of the expense, difficulty cleaning and inevitable infestation by walkers, dogs and others. -- Jay Beattie. |
#105
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Build it and they won't come
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. |
#106
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Build it and they won't come
On 2017-09-30 08:46, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/30/2017 10:59 AM, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-29 17:47, jbeattie wrote: Nobody is denying the health benefit of cycling -- or at least some health benefit from cycling. That's different from tying a health benefit to a particular piece of infrastructure. For example, my health has not improved any since the Broadway and S.W. Moody cycle tracks went in. I don't ride a single mile more or less. I ride slower on the cycle tracks, so they produce less of a cardiovascular work-out for me. They make me fat and slow and hasten my death. You have to think in more consectutive steps: A cycling infrastructure gets built, for example the American River Bike Path. It is then, in consequence, used by myriad people who would otherwise hardly or not at all ride. Lots of them will ride only on weekends but this gets them off their keister and most of all off the couch. Ergo, a consequential health improvement. Without that cycling infrastructure it would simply not happen. First, you can't say "without that cycling infrastructure it would simply not happen." It DID happen in San Francisco, when bike mode share jumped as much as many other cities despite a lawsuit preventing the construction of ANY bike facilities. In Folsom it clearly didn't happen. Until they built a bike infrastructure. Second, I'm very suspicious about the "myriad" people using the American River Bike Path. I don't deny that it is used; but you previously considered 1% bike mode share to be very good. I suspect you have similar low standards for the term "myriad." It often so congested that I make sure my errand runs carry me through there outside of rush hour. And again, for America low single-digit percentages _are_ a lot. But anyway, proving that some two mile bike path or some other piece of infrastructure is producing health benefits sufficient to justify the expense is basically impossible. You have to take it on faith. They are usually longer. Yet even a two mile stretch can result in a health benefit if it provide a missing link that prevented lots of riders from riding. Here's something I can agree on. There are situations where the roads contain a single obstacle or short stretch of unpleasantness that sort of "corks" potential cyclist and pedestrian use. One common example is a bridge built exactly as wide as the normal travel lanes, carrying lots of traffic. I'm in favor of well-designed remedies for those situations. However, that's not what segregation advocates seem to be about. They seem to lobby for segregated facilities everywhere, and they don't seem to worry about how crazy the segregation designs are. They usually don't. I certainly don't and I am a hardcore advocate of cycling infrastructure. For example, if body politicus proposed a bond measure to build bike paths in our neighborhood I'd vote that down. When they proposed to grade and pave tens of miles of singletrack I vehemently opposed. They dropped that stupid idea, for now. Instead, such funds should be invested at the "corking" areas. In our case there are two and very little money could "uncork" those. Newsflash: A large chunk of population does not live or even want to live in cities. I am part of that chunk. Those folks ride much longer distances but are never counted in statistics. If you don't believe me ask Lou, he knows the area where I lived in NL, he should know others who live and ride in Zuid Limburg and Northern Belgium. I'll do a long ride today. It will pass by the homes of many, many people who do not want to live in cities. Some will be in distant housing developments where cornfields recently stood. Some will be even more isolated, lone single family houses on country roads. Those homes will _never_ have segregated bike facilities near them. The low density makes that fiscally impossible. How can society spend a fortune to run a bike trail near the home of a person who will probably never use it? It can't be justified by one outlier bike fanatic out of 1000 people. They don't need it. What they do need is a county road that simply has a bike lane. If we as a society want to finally move from hypocrisy and lip service to true environmental consciousness we would make sure that there is a chance to become less of an automotive society. Heck, even in socialist and thus city-centric California we finally got bike lanes next to our county road. Needless to say that has increased cycling. We also have this along Interstate 80 and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg: http://www.davisenterprise.com/files...W-1024x682.jpg -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#107
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Build it and they won't come
On 2017-09-30 11:43, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, September 30, 2017 at 7:59:49 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-29 17:47, jbeattie wrote: [...] ... This is literally the view out of my office window, although I'm 10 stories higher: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7286/1...d422079d_b.jpg Nike, Intel, etc., etc. is over those hills. That ain't what we'd call a "hill". More like a bump. Sure, it isn't Mt. Hood, but it's an 1,100 foot elevation gain from my basement parking lot in a couple of miles, which is more than most people are willing to do except maybe on an eBike. What you will do is one thing. What the couch potato who is going to be saved by bicycle infrastructure will do is another. The then bike route needs to be longer and go around it. ... They are steep. Now we get lots of people on the flat east side. https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7613/2...6661f837_b.jpg Mostly on-street bike lanes and bike boulevards. No fancy tracks required. They may be steep but not for long. I always have to get back up from 100ft or so to 1450ft where I live, with lots of ups and downs in between. That is because nearly all errand runs require a ride to Folsom or Rancho Cordova. A run to Placerville requires about 30-40mi round trip, mostly on rough and hilly singletrack. One of the hardcore riders out here does that pretty much daily (but farther, about 60mi). Yes, and how many of the fat women at the local Safeway are going to do that -- or even their brutish husbands? They will never ride no matter what you give them. I am thinking about those who are still athletic enough but 20 years from now will have become blimps. LOTS of people I meet whoe are willing to ride. When I say to them that I take a county road and then the bike path they immediately decline. However, they say yes when I grudingly agree that we truck the bikes to the trail head. Those ain't slowpokes, they are serious riders. ... We're talking about building infrastructure and getting non-gnarlymen riding bikes. We can trade stories all day about the difficult things we've done or do. People who really want to ride don't need any infrastructure. I managed for decades riding in SMS-ville Santa Clara Valley with no infrastructure. Closer to your home, I've ridden all of HWY 49 with no infrastructure, in fact all around the Sierra, Tahoe, Yosemite, etc., etc. No problems. I had a very close encounter with a utility truck whose driver obviously had forgotten about the ladder rack on the right side when he passed me. I will not ride there anymore and now use the car on Hwy 49. OTOH, I've ridden in Sacramento and Roseville in places that really did suck (more than the rest of the area which sucks generally). I'm not against bike lanes, but I see little practical value in many separated facilities in light of the expense, difficulty cleaning and inevitable infestation by walkers, dogs and others. 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. Once while on it during an errand ride to Rancho I pushed it to 25mph which I can only hold for a few minutes until my tongue hangs on the handlebar. Felt like Eddie Merckx. But only for a couple of minutes when ... whoosh ... another guy on a road bike blew by and disappeared in the distance. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#108
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Build it and they won't come
On 2017-09-29 22:25, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 23:15:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/29/2017 10:30 AM, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-28 18:17, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/28/2017 6:29 PM, Joerg wrote: Why do people ride bikes there? Mainly because of the cycling facilities. Another reason is health, Europeans are on average less obese that Americans and there are reasons for that, one of them being cycling. Build it and they will come, it has been proven time and again. In the U.S., it's been proven time and time again that "build it, and maybe 1.5% will come, if you're lucky and cycling is fashionable in your area." In some areas a lot more came... If you count 3% as being "a lot more" than 1.5%. Seems to me it's a difference between negligible and negligible. 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. You have repeatedly brought up the health benefits. Did you suddenly change your mind? To repeat your own words: Calculate the longterm health benefits from that 1.5% increase in Dollar numbers. First, a smart person would not assume that putting in some bike facilities and getting 1.5% bike mode share are causally connected. Why? Because as mentioned many times, San Francisco got more bike mode share growth when it was illegal to build bike facilities. And Stevenage, Milton Keynes etc. got negligible bike mode share from world class facilities designed into the town from scratch as the towns were built. In Folsom it clearly worked. As it has in many other places. Second, you have no way of knowing how long that 1.5% mode share will last. About a decade so far. Very much worth it. The Folsom City Council see it the same way. They are smart. Cycling, like most things, is subject to the whims of fashion. It may be "cool" for a while; then who knows? Muscle cars may come back in style, and the teens whose moms and dads ride bikes may decide that anything Mom or Dad do is stupid and geeky and must be avoided. Doubtful. Pointing to some examples where they screwed up as Frank likes to do isn't going to change that fact. But the examples I've given _did_ build it, and they _didn't_ come. Don't pretend that's false. You can always find an example where they screwed up. Sorry, Joerg, you're claiming Stevenage bike facility designers screwed up based _only_ on the fact that almost nobody in Stevenage rides. You're using 20-20 hindsight. https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.c...s-not-britain/ Quote "... with cycle users still expected to mix on through distributor roads that are much busier and faster than they would be expected to use in the Netherlands" Quote " 14% mode share for cycling that Stevenage achieved in the 1970s — before the infrastructure had fallen so far behind the town’s expansion" And so on. Get the picture now? If you hadn't heard about the low ridership, and instead had seen the designs for a town with short travel distances; and a completely segregated set of quiet bike paths that avoided even road crossings (by using underpasses or overpasses); and that reached every reasonable destination in town, you'd have said "THAT'S how it should be done!" Take a map and a closer look. Then take a look at how Folsom has done it and they did not have the advantage of Dutch towns which were built with cyclists in mind to begin with. But it _was_ done that way. And only about 2% of travel occurs by bike. In the U.S., the same system would produce even less bike mode share. Now that they are (finally!) building out the bicycle infrastructure in this area I notice a significant uptick in rider numbers but only in areas where cycle paths are built, not in the others. Significant? What are the numbers? Over 1% which is a lot for the US... 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. In my experience a motorized vehicle is the first thing that anyone buys just as soon as he/she can find the money to do it. That is changing in the US. For many kids it is no longer a worthy goal to have a driver license at 16. Or in any of the years following that. They are completely content not being able to drive, they have no desire to. This trend greatly worries the auto industry. ... Even to the extent of going into debt at larcenous interest rates. And it is common in every country where I've lived. First they walk, then a bicycle, next a motorbike and so on. In fact those who talk the loudest about bike paths also keep an automobile. Joerg has two. It might also be noted that automobile ownership is increasing in countries like Denmark and Holland that are often mentioned as biking paradises. Unfortunately yes. Not so much ownership, back when I lived there everyone had a car. However, they are using them more now. Given the choice of getting in the car and turning on the air conditioning or sweating up the hill on a bicycle the bulk of the human population will take the car. It's a matter of one's mindset. Even hardcore cyclists out here don't ride when it's 105F, close to freezing, raining, or whatever. Wimps. I ride. In fact, didn't someone, just recently, mention saying to a car full of relatives, "Here, we'll just walk over to that store", and someone replied, "drive over". If wasn't relatives but coleagues. Though yes, I also have relatives who will not walk if there is any chance to find another parking spot a little closer. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#109
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Build it and they won't come
On Saturday, September 30, 2017 at 3:57:35 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-30 11:43, jbeattie wrote: On Saturday, September 30, 2017 at 7:59:49 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-29 17:47, jbeattie wrote: [...] ... This is literally the view out of my office window, although I'm 10 stories higher: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7286/1...d422079d_b.jpg Nike, Intel, etc., etc. is over those hills. That ain't what we'd call a "hill". More like a bump. Sure, it isn't Mt. Hood, but it's an 1,100 foot elevation gain from my basement parking lot in a couple of miles, which is more than most people are willing to do except maybe on an eBike. What you will do is one thing. What the couch potato who is going to be saved by bicycle infrastructure will do is another. The then bike route needs to be longer and go around it. ... They are steep. Now we get lots of people on the flat east side. https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7613/2...6661f837_b.jpg Mostly on-street bike lanes and bike boulevards. No fancy tracks required. They may be steep but not for long. I always have to get back up from 100ft or so to 1450ft where I live, with lots of ups and downs in between. That is because nearly all errand runs require a ride to Folsom or Rancho Cordova. A run to Placerville requires about 30-40mi round trip, mostly on rough and hilly singletrack. One of the hardcore riders out here does that pretty much daily (but farther, about 60mi). Yes, and how many of the fat women at the local Safeway are going to do that -- or even their brutish husbands? They will never ride no matter what you give them. I am thinking about those who are still athletic enough but 20 years from now will have become blimps. LOTS of people I meet whoe are willing to ride. When I say to them that I take a county road and then the bike path they immediately decline. However, they say yes when I grudingly agree that we truck the bikes to the trail head. Those ain't slowpokes, they are serious riders. ... We're talking about building infrastructure and getting non-gnarlymen riding bikes. We can trade stories all day about the difficult things we've done or do. People who really want to ride don't need any infrastructure. I managed for decades riding in SMS-ville Santa Clara Valley with no infrastructure. Closer to your home, I've ridden all of HWY 49 with no infrastructure, in fact all around the Sierra, Tahoe, Yosemite, etc., etc. No problems. I had a very close encounter with a utility truck whose driver obviously had forgotten about the ladder rack on the right side when he passed me. I will not ride there anymore and now use the car on Hwy 49. OTOH, I've ridden in Sacramento and Roseville in places that really did suck (more than the rest of the area which sucks generally). I'm not against bike lanes, but I see little practical value in many separated facilities in light of the expense, difficulty cleaning and inevitable infestation by walkers, dogs and others. 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. Once while on it during an errand ride to Rancho I pushed it to 25mph which I can only hold for a few minutes until my tongue hangs on the handlebar. Felt like Eddie Merckx. But only for a couple of minutes when ... whoosh ... another guy on a road bike blew by and disappeared in the distance. This was part of today's errand ride to Western Bikeworks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOerVf2fuGM (stop at 5:00 -- guy goes the wrong way, not to the bike shop). Except I was going up. Once to Pittock Mansion (didn't go to the park area), I keep going up maybe another 300 feet in elevation and then along the hills to the downhill into my part of town. https://tinyurl.com/y7omhpxg No facilities. Lots of broken pavement, and it clouded up and rained. Waaaah! But my hydraulic discs were awesome! On the way there, however, I did use a bicycle facility. This one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFDuOLfPd0 (in reverse) and then on some bike lanes downtown. No physically separated facilities. -- Jay Beattie. |
#110
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Build it and they won't come
On Sat, 30 Sep 2017 11:27:09 -0000 (UTC), Duane
wrote: John B. wrote: On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 08:52:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote: On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 11:03:30 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: On Thu, 28 Sep 2017 23:24:54 -0500, Tim McNamara wrote: On Thu, 28 Sep 2017 09:46:04 +0700, John B wrote: I've a good friend who is from Perth, Western Australia, who tells me that nearly all the vegetables sold in Perth are actually Chinese grown and shipped to Australia via refrigerated containers, as they are cheaper then veggies grown in Australia. Slave labor saves money, keeps costs down *and* boosts profits: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...josh-gelernter http://content.time.com/time/world/a...635144,00.html If we get rid of enough government regulation, maybe we can do that in the US too! Hey, wait, we've got a start on that already: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...invisible-army http://tinyurl.com/ya4w4ojz Well, given that the U.S. has a prison population of 693/100,000 population while China has 116/100,000 it appears that just maybe the Chinese are doing something right. Torturing prisoners so that they don't want to go to jail again is what you're looking for? Underfed to the level of starvation? No health care whatsoever? Work the same as a healthy, well fed person expected of them? I do believe that the punishment should fit the crime and that if it did we'd have a great deal less crime. The point remains that the U.S. - the land of the free and the home of the brave - has the highest percentage of their population incarcerated (except for the Seychelles) in the entire world, some 693 (not including juvenile) per 100,000, and the highest number of prisoners - 2,145,100. China with a population 4 times larger then the U.S. has a per capita incarcerated rate of 118/100,000, and total prisoners of 1,649,804. Given that legal systems are simply tools to protect society which system is preferable? One that produces a 0.1% criminal rate or one that produces a rate six times higher? -- Cheers, John B. The one that doesn’t summarily execute it’s citizens for crimes against the state. But China does not "summarily" execute its citizens for crimes against the state. They are subjected to a trial. By the way: U.S. constitution: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. and United States Code at 18 U.S.C. § 2381 states: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or.... -- Cheers, John B. |
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