|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#21
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
sms wrote:
On 4/21/2018 5:01 AM, Duane wrote: Andre Jute wrote: On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 1:21:56 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote: What we've heard: "Build it and they will come." That is, separate the bikes from the cars with paint; or better, with flexible poles; or even better with parked cars, and bicycle riding will surge. People will leave their cars at home, and America will become Amsterdam. Or at least, Amsterdamish. What else we've heard: "It's working! After adding just one bike lane, my little town had a 100% increase in bike mode share! It went from 0.2% to 0.4% and 0.4% is really good for America!!" What the data show: https://cyclingindustry.news/wp-cont...2018/04/t2.jpg That's from https://cyclingindustry.news/townley...bike-business/ They're building it, and the design consultants are getting wealthy. But "they" don't seem to be coming. -- - Frank Krygowski Okay, so Americans won't ride on the road with the cars, and they won't ride in cycle lanes "protected" from cars. So, perhaps, Americans just don't want to cycle, or their infrastructure is already so far developed in favoring the automobile that they're right not to cycle, because it's impossible. The question is, Franki-boy: Why should your underlying assumption that cycling is superior to driving have any greater validity than their underlying assumption that an automobile is a necessity of life? Do you have an answer that doesn't rely on some faith-substitute, like Gaia-worship? Andre Jute Carfree for a generation now. I practice what I preach. I think taking cycling percentages for the US on a whole is misleading. It’s a pretty varied country. Ask Jay for example about his conga line commute in a place that isn’t exactly flat. Last time I was in New Orleans there were bikes and bike lanes everywhere. Even had a redneck neighbor bitching about them to me before my sister told him to watch it. Maybe if you take just commuters it’s different. People tend to not live near their jobs. At least until urban regentrification starts. At any rate, just arguing against infrastructure doesn’t make much sense in my opinion. Better to argue against bad infrastructure. There’s enough of that to go around. In my house, the new infrastructure has resulted in an 100% increase of household members cycling to work. The cities are the entities trying to use cycling to fix the clogged roads. I’m less concerned with the number of cycling commuters than the number of wingnuts confronting cyclists in general. -- duane |
Ads |
#22
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 8:03:15 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:
On 4/21/2018 4:06 PM, jbeattie wrote: On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 11:50:15 AM UTC-7, Duane wrote: jbeattie wrote: On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 5:01:37 AM UTC-7, Duane wrote: Andre Jute wrote: On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 1:21:56 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote: What we've heard: "Build it and they will come." That is, separate the bikes from the cars with paint; or better, with flexible poles; or even better with parked cars, and bicycle riding will surge. People will leave their cars at home, and America will become Amsterdam. Or at least, Amsterdamish. What else we've heard: "It's working! After adding just one bike lane, my little town had a 100% increase in bike mode share! It went from 0.2% to 0.4% and 0.4% is really good for America!!" What the data show: https://cyclingindustry.news/wp-cont...2018/04/t2.jpg That's from https://cyclingindustry.news/townley...bike-business/ They're building it, and the design consultants are getting wealthy. But "they" don't seem to be coming. -- - Frank Krygowski Okay, so Americans won't ride on the road with the cars, and they won't ride in cycle lanes "protected" from cars. So, perhaps, Americans just don't want to cycle, or their infrastructure is already so far developed in favoring the automobile that they're right not to cycle, because it's impossible. The question is, Franki-boy: Why should your underlying assumption that cycling is superior to driving have any greater validity than their underlying assumption that an automobile is a necessity of life? Do you have an answer that doesn't rely on some faith-substitute, like Gaia-worship? Andre Jute Carfree for a generation now. I practice what I preach. I think taking cycling percentages for the US on a whole is misleading. It’s a pretty varied country. Ask Jay for example about his conga line commute in a place that isn’t exactly flat. Last time I was in New Orleans there were bikes and bike lanes everywhere. Even had a redneck neighbor bitching about them to me before my sister told him to watch it. In a typical US city, you need to build for cars and you need to build for bikes, and I think doing both at the same time is the best idea. If you strongly favor bikes over cars in a city that is not dead flat and that has a dispersed population, you end up with Portland -- monumentally bad motor vehicle traffic and a lot of dopey, sub-optimal facilities for bikes. We succeed in bringing cyclists in from the established, close-in east and west side neighborhoods, but we keep adding population in suburbs where commuting to work by bike is not possible -- except by eBike, which I think is going to be the next big thing. SPEAKING OF -- I was riding home last night, and since it was NOT raining and miserable, I decided to go home up through the cemetery -- which involves a long MUP from downtown, over the tail end of a recently reconstructed bridge (with redundant bicycle facilities) and up a hill with no traffic because it is a cemetery, although you have to hoof around a fence. https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/...7/07/0-16.jpeg Joerg heaven -- no cars, although the facility can be filled with dopes on bikes. So, I was climbing up the bridge approach and some guy passed on a bike with a gas motor on it -- not even an eBike. That's what I predict for the futu bad MV traffic will produce butt-cracks on gas/electric motor bikes speeding down the bicycle facilities with no possible police intervention. I get into scrapes with the eBike low-life on a regular basis -- people who are clearly not cyclists or even pretending to be cyclists. They are just ratting-out down the facilities on juiced-up bikes. -- Jay Beattie. Just got back from a ride. The weather is finally improving. Was a balmy 5c. Some fat idiot in an oversized SUV felt he had to tell us to take the bike path. I pointed out that the highway was one block over. Asshole. He wasn’t even going in our direction. Just felt he had to exercise his ownership of the road. Not even sure which bike path he’s talking about. I agree with you about building for cars and bikes. This area was built for cars. But a bike lane on this road wouldn’t hurt. Of course a law against stupid would work too. Here's my tale of woe: I just got back from a ride in the country with my son. Out in the butt-crack region of Clackamas county, this guy in a flashy jacked-up pick-up with giant tires roars by with no room to spare, obviously f****** with us and zooms off. I flip him off. The guy jams on his brakes in the middle of the road, throws it into reverse, lays a patch and starts back toward me. I keep riding full blast forward, hand over my brow looking at the license plate. Did you ID the plates? No. I wish I had -- the guy was probably still 20 yards away when he took off, and in a spasm of hipness, I was wearing contacts and Oakley glasses lent to me by my son. I usually don't wear sports glasses, and my contacts are relatively weak. This was out off Bakers Ferry Rd. -- we were riding a loop down the Clackamas River through Barton Park out to Boring and back on the Springwater, about 50 miles, which is the longest my son has ridden on his post-surgery ankles. He is used to riding the canyons in SLC with wide shoulders -- or no shoulders and no traffic (often on roads with gates). He practically went on strike when we hit Amissigger: https://tinyurl.com/ycvl3jpk 55mph and one lane each way no shoulder. You hit some hills after the tree line, and he shot up those, leaving me in the dust. He's stayed pretty fit with the trainer riding, but he does need to adjust to being on the road again, particularly around here. The traffic actually wasn't that bad -- just worse than he's accustomed to. -- Jay Beattie. |
#23
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On 4/22/2018 11:40 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 8:03:15 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote: Did you ID the plates? No. I wish I had -- the guy was probably still 20 yards away when he took off, and in a spasm of hipness, I was wearing contacts and Oakley glasses lent to me by my son. I usually don't wear sports glasses, and my contacts are relatively weak. There have been a few times when I've wanted to get jerk's license plate number, but I've almost never succeeded. Even if I see it and say it out loud, it's difficult to remember in the midst of emotions triggered by the offense, whatever that might have been. I suppose pencil and paper would help. During a ride the other day, I wanted to write downs something else (not a license plate) to remember it when I got home. I had a pen in my handlebar bag but it's been there long enough that it refused to write. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#24
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 16:31:51 -0500, AMuzi wrote:
On 4/21/2018 4:14 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/21/2018 4:03 PM, sms wrote: In my house, the new infrastructure has resulted in an 100% increase of household members cycling to work. OK. In our house and in our previous house, I cycled to work using no special segregated infrastructure at all. Nobody else cycled to work. But given that my wife had home health medical clients all across the county, that's not surprising. Near the houses of each of our adult kids, there are bike lanes and/or separate MUPs. Nobody in those families cycles to work. One still rides occasionally, including some trips to the store, but puts in far more miles running. The other doesn't ride at all, despite bike lanes right outside the front door. More interesting to me is visiting the town where one kid lives. Yes, there are bike lanes. Yes, they have gravel in them. They just don't have bikes in them - IOW, I see about two bikes per year using the lanes. One of those lanes is on my normal route to their local hardware store. It runs along the curb past a playground all the way up to a T intersection, where almost all traffic turns right. It's an invitation to a right hook crash. Frank, you don't see the big picture. If a couple million dollars of pavement and striping in Santa Clara increased a household's commuters from one to two, then it's clear that if the nation would merely replace all structures with underground bunkers and pave everything dead smooth, without curbs or automobile lanes, we could have 330 million commuters! Extrapolate, man! Here now, lets have no derogatory discussion of MUPS! My brother-in-law is a pavement contractor and he is wildly in favor of construction of special pathways. Says it is the best thing that has happened to his business since bitumen was discovered :-) |
#25
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 2:27:47 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 4/22/2018 11:40 AM, jbeattie wrote: On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 8:03:15 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote: Did you ID the plates? No. I wish I had -- the guy was probably still 20 yards away when he took off, and in a spasm of hipness, I was wearing contacts and Oakley glasses lent to me by my son. I usually don't wear sports glasses, and my contacts are relatively weak. There have been a few times when I've wanted to get jerk's license plate number, but I've almost never succeeded. Even if I see it and say it out loud, it's difficult to remember in the midst of emotions triggered by the offense, whatever that might have been. I suppose pencil and paper would help. During a ride the other day, I wanted to write downs something else (not a license plate) to remember it when I got home. I had a pen in my handlebar bag but it's been there long enough that it refused to write. iPhone photo -- or I could be one of those guys with a GoPro recording every insult, but I would prefer not to be that guy. Frank, you need to get into the modern ear. Pens are passe. -- Jay Beattie. |
#26
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 17:27:45 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: I suppose pencil and paper would help. During a ride the other day, I wanted to write downs something else (not a license plate) to remember it when I got home. I had a pen in my handlebar bag but it's been there long enough that it refused to write. A #2 pencil always works. And if it breaks and for some reason you don't have a knife, you could rub it on the pavement. I always have a notepad handy, because I'm trying to increase my average speed, so I note the time of each start, stop, and waypoint. I hit 8 mph on one leg of my latest ride, which is an improvement of 60%. Of course, I have to start all over from scratch when the biopsy heals. After re-starting at least twice during the winter. I'm starting to feel superstitious. -- Joy Beeson joy beeson at comcast dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/ |
#27
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On 4/22/2018 8:39 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 2:27:47 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: There have been a few times when I've wanted to get jerk's license plate number, but I've almost never succeeded. Even if I see it and say it out loud, it's difficult to remember in the midst of emotions triggered by the offense, whatever that might have been. I suppose pencil and paper would help. During a ride the other day, I wanted to write downs something else (not a license plate) to remember it when I got home. I had a pen in my handlebar bag but it's been there long enough that it refused to write. iPhone photo -- or I could be one of those guys with a GoPro recording every insult, but I would prefer not to be that guy. Frank, you need to get into the modern ear. Pens are passe. Well, I am a dedicated retrogrouch. I carry a smart phone, but it would take 30 seconds to dig it out of my bag and get it in camera mode. The only time I used it against a motorist was while walking on our own street, which has no sidewalks. A punk in a "tuner" Japanese compact came whipping around a corner and hit the brakes hard to avoid me. He then yelled "Get off the road!" I grabbed my phone and held it up as if I were taking a photo or video, but since I had to power it up and select camera mode, I got no photo. But when he motored off, he did so very sedately, and I haven't seen that car again. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#28
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On 4/22/2018 5:39 PM, jbeattie wrote:
snip iPhone photo -- or I could be one of those guys with a GoPro recording every insult, but I would prefer not to be that guy. You need a GoPro. Remember Mike Jacubowsky's video up on Skyline Boulevard in San Mateo County https://youtu.be/mrzbgEXGgWg. |
#29
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On 4/22/2018 5:39 PM, jbeattie wrote:
snip iPhone photo -- or I could be one of those guys with a GoPro recording every insult, but I would prefer not to be that guy. Be that guy, https://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/04/27/berkeley-bicyclist-hit-run-video/. |
#30
|
|||
|
|||
Build it and they will come - but where are they?
On 4/22/2018 4:27 AM, Duane wrote:
The cities are the entities trying to use cycling to fix the clogged roads. I’m less concerned with the number of cycling commuters than the number of wingnuts confronting cyclists in general. Delays due to traffic congestion increase exponentially with more vehicles, not linearly. A 10% reduction in the number of vehicles, by whatever means, would greatly reduce congestion in my area. It's not going to be bicycles that are the top contributor to vehicle reductions, but if they can contribute just 1-2% it would be significant. The corporate shuttles from Facebook, Apple, Google, Yahoo, Genentech, etc., contribute a couple of percent. The big problem is the awful state of public transit in Santa Clara County. This has been driven by the City of San Jose which wields tremendous influence when in comes to transit spending. If you want to go to downtown San Jose from outlying suburban towns then it's very easy. If you want to go from outlying suburban towns, like Cupertino, Saratoga, etc. (or San Jose suburbs like Almaden or Willow Glen), to the job-rich areas of eastern Mountain View (Google), north San Jose (Cisco), or north Santa Clara (Intel), north Sunnyvale (Linked In, Yahoo, Lockheed) then it's very difficult and slow on public transit. For my wife to take public transit to her job it would be at least a 90 minute ride, with a change of buses, plus about 15 minutes of walking. On a bicycle it takes her about an hour, but she rides very slowly and refuses to use a lightweight road bike, preferring her cruiser http://oi37.tinypic.com/24awjn6.jpg. Every time I suggest a lighter bike she insists that she likes the extra exercise. Some people in r.b.t. have a distorted view of the value of bicycle infrastructure since they are perfectly happy to ride without any. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Can Women Build Big Muscles? Why Women Cant Build Big Muscles Easily | [email protected] | UK | 0 | February 16th 08 09:41 PM |
Anyone looking to build a bc? Free hazard hub with a Stockton build! | Evan Byrne | Unicycling | 5 | September 14th 06 09:59 AM |
Anyone looking to build a bc? Free hazard hub with a Stockton build! | Evan Byrne | Unicycling | 0 | August 25th 06 11:05 PM |
Disc Wheel Build Build Suggestions | osobailo | Techniques | 2 | October 5th 04 01:55 PM |
? - To build or not to build -- a bike - ? | Andrew Short | Techniques | 16 | August 4th 03 04:12 AM |