It's happening! Um... sort of.

On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

On 5/26/2014 12:32 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."


And without the bike lane the motorist is going to worry about my
knuckles? Sorry but not the case in my experience.

Duane writes:

On 5/26/2014 12:32 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."


And without the bike lane the motorist is going to worry about my
knuckles? Sorry but not the case in my experience.

Remove the line and an uncertainty arises, which, in my experience,
gives larger passing distances.

--
Joe Riel

On 5/26/2014 1:35 PM, Joe Riel wrote:
Duane writes:

On 5/26/2014 12:32 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."


And without the bike lane the motorist is going to worry about my
knuckles? Sorry but not the case in my experience.

Remove the line and an uncertainty arises, which, in my experience,
gives larger passing distances.


+1

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

On 5/26/2014 2:35 PM, Joe Riel wrote:
Duane writes:

On 5/26/2014 12:32 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."


And without the bike lane the motorist is going to worry about my
knuckles? Sorry but not the case in my experience.

Remove the line and an uncertainty arises, which, in my experience,
gives larger passing distances.


Sometime. Depends on the lane and the location and a lot of other
details. For example if the lane is wide enough assuming there is no
door zone of something, I don't need to be on the left of it.

Look, I'm not saying all bike lanes are great. Only idiots think in
terms of black and white. I just got this from a friend:

http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/life...ane-video.html

The second video shows maybe some benefits while the first shows mostly
abuse. (Sorry SRA but Ontario seems to be in my inbox a lot today for
some reason)

On 5/26/2014 2:59 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 5/26/2014 1:35 PM, Joe Riel wrote:
Duane writes:

On 5/26/2014 12:32 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."


And without the bike lane the motorist is going to worry about my
knuckles? Sorry but not the case in my experience.

Remove the line and an uncertainty arises, which, in my experience,
gives larger passing distances.


+1

Except for when they don't.

On Monday, May 26, 2014 9:32:10 AM UTC-7, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."

Inane.

On Monday, May 26, 2014 11:35:51 AM UTC-7, JoeRiel wrote:
Duane writes:
On 5/26/2014 12:32 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2014 17:39:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Motorists seem to think "He's over the line, so there's no way he'll
ever cross it."

With bike lanes, you have the additional thought: "He's in the magic
safe zone. As long as my tires have part of their tread on my side of
the line, and his tires are on his side of the line, everything is
fine. I don't have to worry about my door handle or his knuckles."

And without the bike lane the motorist is going to worry about my
knuckles? Sorry but not the case in my experience.

Remove the line and an uncertainty arises, which, in my experience,
gives larger passing distances.

That is consistent with my experience, too.

However, the uncertainty is not all upside. Anxiety is not
the ideal basis for social interaction.

Forester says bike lanes are meaningless because they are where
you should ride anyway when being passed, and that exceptions to
the requirement to use them make the situation too difficult for
people to understand.

What's to understand? Ride in a way that makes sense (move left
to set up for a left turn, go around right turning traffic on the
left, keep right to allow faster traffic by on your left, avoid
hazards, negotiate for shared space). Cars stay out of the bike
lane.

Not enough space for your comfort? Ride somewhere else. Duh.

On 26/05/14 21:21, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 26 May 2014 11:41:27 +1000, James
wrote:

On 26/05/14 11:27, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2014 17:15:26 +1000, James
wrote:

On 24/05/14 12:14, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 24 May 2014 09:10:39 +1000, James
wrote:

On 24/05/14 08:37, Frank Krygowski wrote:


Anybody here existing without fossil fuels?



No, but we do have 3kW of solar electricity generation, and solar hot water.

How does that work in Tasmania or S. Island, N.Z., in say June and
July?

I don't live in Tassie. I'm in Victoria, but the house I have them
installed on is in Northern New South Wales. I have an early retirement
plan ;-)

I have a mate with solar hot water who lives near by in Victoria, and he
rarely needs to boost the temperature with electricity.

We use an evacuated tube solar collector, that effectively insulates the
hot pipes from the cool air, so it only needs sunlight to warm up, and
we often get enough of that even when the air is cool.

Obviously the output of both is reduced in winter.

And, my guess is that you installed the system to reduce electric
bills not to be a greenie. After all a true greenie would bath in
unheated water and bale it out of the bore with a string and a bucket
:-)

Most certainly. I looked at going off grid, but the house is already
grid connected, so there's only the service fee to pay quarterly, and
the cost and upkeep of batteries would amount to about the same or more,
last I checked.

From time to time I have a look at the chaps that live "off grid" and
I've noticed that they all seem to have a generator set in the back
yard. Thus "off grid" becomes "well, off grid, some of the time".

But my experience, living on a boat for some time, that battery costs
are fairly high. I was replacing the main battery bank about every
three years. That was using Trojan deep cycle 6 volt batteries in
series-parallel. I don't think my experience was unusual as there was
an ongoing discussion amongst live-a-boards on whether it was better
to use expensive deep cycle batteries and change every three years or
to use truck batteries that are much cheaper but require changing more
frequently.

For automotive batteries, the key is to not discharge them much or for
long. Keep them topped up. The deep cycle batteries just handle
greater depth of discharge better, but also typically don't accept
charge as readily either.

LiFePO4 batteries seem to be the bees knees, and now about on par on
price per usable energy storage. I.e. a 100Ah deep cycle lead acid
battery might handle being discharged 20-30%, so you actually have a
20-30Ah battery. A 40Ah LiFePO4 battery can be discharged 80-90%, and
give you similar effective energy storage - and can be recharged many
more times.


My intention is to be as self sufficient as possible on a limit income.
I have 25 acres of ex-dairy farm, with ample rain and sun for growing
crops and so on.

Ample Rain? I didn't know that they had that in Australia :-)

The East coast is well watered.

--
JS

On 5/26/2014 12:04 PM, Duane wrote:

snip

The second video shows maybe some benefits while the first shows mostly
abuse. (Sorry SRA but Ontario seems to be in my inbox a lot today for
some reason)

Yesterday it was really hot so we (and apparently everyone in Silicon
Valley) went over to the coast. We ended up riding in Pebble Beach,
along the 17 mile drive after starting off about 15 miles to the north.
Well there's a bicycle lane but in many areas it was treated as a
parking area.

There's no law enforcement in Pebble Beach, just a security company with
no police powers so they don't ticket any illegally parked vehicles. I
guess if there's a real crime the sheriff comes. At one location an
older SUV with no license plates had parked illegally, blocking three
handicapped spaces. It appeared to be stolen and abandoned. Someone who
was a resident called security and they called a tow truck, but minutes
before the tow truck arrived the dip-s$%t owner arrived and moved it.
Alas, no $300+ ticket because there was no law-enforcement to write one.

Now if OFT wants an example of a horrible multi-use path he should look
at the path through the heart of Monterey's Fisherman's wharf. Shared by
bicycles, pedestrians, surreys, wagons, strollers, many of which are
operated by clueless individuals who stop at inopportune times and make
sudden unpredictable moves. I rode in the street as long as possible but
there's one section where there's a tunnel for cars that doesn't allow
bicycles and the alternate route was not obvious though I later found it
on a map.