Build it and ... why aren't they coming?

On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 13:19:02 +1100, James
wrote:

On 3/1/19 10:24 pm, Roger Merriman wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ms/2319972002/

- Frank Krygowski


How well connected are they? My commute to work has some fairly old and
narrow cycle paths built alongside the by pass, most of the time I don’t
see another cyclist as for most part. It makes sense for me but very few
others.

Yet closer to home routes that are much better connected are unsurprisingly
much busier.


This is one of the variables and there are so many of them.

Interestingly, weather doesn't seem to dissuade people in Denmark. They
wear appropriate clothing and I think the distances they travel by
bicycle is not typically very far.

They have slowly choked out the amenity of driving and replaced it with
cycling.

I don't think it is possible to make driving and cycling simultaneously
amenable, and have people choose to cycle in great numbers.

I suspect that most USian cities still cater heavily for driving, while
some have a bit of cycling specific infrastructure tacked on. That
situation will hardly make a measurable difference.

I think it is "progress", for want of a better term, and I've seen it
in every developing country I've lived in. First the people walk, then
when they accrue a bit of cash they buy a bicycle and then a few years
later a small motorcycle and finally an automobile.

Another point is that bicyclists make up a very small portion of the
population and seem to be largely recreational cyclists. Yes, we still
have people riding their bicycle to the open market here but very
noticeably it is the older generation. The youngsters are all on
motorcycles.

cheers,

John B.

On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 9:57:29 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
Snipped
I think it is "progress", for want of a better term, and I've seen it
in every developing country I've lived in. First the people walk, then
when they accrue a bit of cash they buy a bicycle and then a few years
later a small motorcycle and finally an automobile.

Another point is that bicyclists make up a very small portion of the
population and seem to be largely recreational cyclists. Yes, we still
have people riding their bicycle to the open market here but very
noticeably it is the older generation. The youngsters are all on
motorcycles.

cheers,

John B.

What I get a kick out of is when a city council says that they want to encourage bicycling and then they put in concrete dividers between roundabouts so that a bicyclist or automobile fort hat matter has to go a kilometer or more out of their way to the next roundabout, go around that roundabout and then ride/drive almost all the way back to the first roundabout in order to turn into a driveway or plaza. Talk about wasted energy! Then when they do put in a so called bicycle lane they put that bicycle lane right snack dab in the door zone. Neither the concrete barriers or the door zone bicycle lanes are very encouraging for bicycling.

Cheers

On Thu, 3 Jan 2019 19:12:21 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 9:57:29 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
Snipped
I think it is "progress", for want of a better term, and I've seen it
in every developing country I've lived in. First the people walk, then
when they accrue a bit of cash they buy a bicycle and then a few years
later a small motorcycle and finally an automobile.

Another point is that bicyclists make up a very small portion of the
population and seem to be largely recreational cyclists. Yes, we still
have people riding their bicycle to the open market here but very
noticeably it is the older generation. The youngsters are all on
motorcycles.

cheers,

John B.

What I get a kick out of is when a city council says that they want to encourage bicycling and then they put in concrete dividers between roundabouts so that a bicyclist or automobile fort hat matter has to go a kilometer or more out of their way to the next roundabout, go around that roundabout and then ride/drive almost all the way back to the first roundabout in order to turn into a driveway or plaza. Talk about wasted energy! Then when they do put in a so called bicycle lane they put that bicycle lane right snack dab in the door zone. Neither the concrete barriers or the door zone bicycle lanes are very encouraging for bicycling.

Cheers

That is quite common here. They put a solid divider down the center of
a 4 lane highway with a "U turn" opening every kilometer or so. One
might have to drive a kilometer that way to make a U turn to come back
a kilometer this way to reach a lane that is literally "just across
the road".

I don't know what the solution is as you can't have people trying to
drive across what may be bumper to bumper traffic whenever they want
to but it does result in a lot of small motorcycle and bicycle traffic
going the wrong way on the sides of the road.

cheers,

John B.

On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 5:52:54 PM UTC-6, Radey Shouman wrote:
" writes:

On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 2:21:29 PM UTC-6, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/3/2019 2:09 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 9:10:57 AM UTC-6, jbeattie wrote:

I couldn't imagine living in the Mid West or some place where
there was snow on the ground for long periods of time and below
zero F on a regular basis. I'd move to Phoenix.

-- Jay Beattie.

Due to Global Warming, the Midwest has not had a real winter in
more than a decade. In Des Moines today, right in the middle of
the Midwest, its 36 degrees and Zero snow. Going to be in the 40s
or 50s highs for the next week. In early January??? It does snow
two or three times each winter. An inch or two that sticks around
for less than a week. But the roads are cleared in a few hours
and easily rideable with studded tires. You only need studs for a
few days of the year. Rest of the time rubber works perfectly.
If it wasn't dark for 16 hours a day, you would never even know it
was winter in the Midwest.

It varies. It's been warm in Ohio this winter, but examining weather
records, of the top 10 snowiest Januaries, six of them occurred since
2000. Likewise, seven of the 10 snowiest Februaries.

Records at that location have been kept since at least 1931 (maybe
longer) so that's nine decades. Those results are statistically odd.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Snow does not mean cold. Its snowed where I live when its 33-34-35
degrees. But 33-34-35 degrees is WARM for January and February. So
its very easy to have global warming and lots of snow. I suspect all
the extra warmth in the air causes the water in oceans and lakes to
heat up and evaporate into the air. And then once the water is in the
air, it has to fall out of the air by either rain or snow. And it
seems we have two or three hurricanes every year too. More evidence
of global warming.

On the other hand, 2018 saw the fewest (total) deaths from tornadoes in
the US since 1875.

https://weather.com/storms/tornado/n...est-since-1875

Italy seems to have had an unusual number, however.

Must be global warming.

--

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...us-since-1995/

Not sure the number of deaths from tornadoes means much. The above website shows the number of tornadoes from 1995 to 2017. Total tornadoes each year jump around a bit but seem to stay in a similar range over the two decades. Deaths from tornadoes really depends on where they happen to hit. If there are lots of tornadoes in Kansas and Oklahoma, probably very few people will be killed because both states don't have a lot of people. And all the people in those states live in a few big cities. Otherwise its all empty farmland. You could have thousands of tornadoes hitting empty farmland and kill no one. Or one tornado hitting a big city and kill 1000 people.

Number of tornadoes and people killed by tornadoes is very different than flooding and people killed by floods. With flooding you pretty much know where its going to flood. If there is a flood, people will likely die. You know where the people live and you know if they live in a flood plain. But with tornadoes, you don't know where they will hit and whether they hit where people live.

On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 12:14:16 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ms/2319972002/

- Frank Krygowski

What is your point Frank? You want a pat on your shoulder? The main purpose of our bikepaths is to make cycling safer not increasing it.

Lou

On 04/01/2019 8:01 a.m., wrote:
On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 12:14:16 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ms/2319972002/

- Frank Krygowski

What is your point Frank? You want a pat on your shoulder? The main purpose of our bikepaths is to make cycling safer not increasing it.

Lou


Is that a rhetorical question?

AMuzi writes:

On 1/3/2019 7:08 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On 1/3/2019 6:52 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
" writes:

On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 2:21:29 PM UTC-6, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/3/2019 2:09 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 9:10:57 AM UTC-6, jbeattie wrote:

I couldn't imagine living in the Mid West or some place where
there was snow on the ground for long periods of time and below
zero F on a regular basis. I'd move to Phoenix.

-- Jay Beattie.

Due to Global Warming, the Midwest has not had a real winter in
more than a decade. In Des Moines today, right in the middle of
the Midwest, its 36 degrees and Zero snow. Going to be in the 40s
or 50s highs for the next week. In early January??? It does snow
two or three times each winter. An inch or two that sticks around
for less than a week. But the roads are cleared in a few hours
and easily rideable with studded tires. You only need studs for a
few days of the year. Rest of the time rubber works perfectly.
If it wasn't dark for 16 hours a day, you would never even know it
was winter in the Midwest.

It varies. It's been warm in Ohio this winter, but examining weather
records, of the top 10 snowiest Januaries, six of them occurred since
2000. Likewise, seven of the 10 snowiest Februaries.

Records at that location have been kept since at least 1931 (maybe
longer) so that's nine decades. Those results are statistically odd.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Snow does not mean cold. Its snowed where I live when its 33-34-35
degrees. But 33-34-35 degrees is WARM for January and February. So
its very easy to have global warming and lots of snow. I suspect all
the extra warmth in the air causes the water in oceans and lakes to
heat up and evaporate into the air. And then once the water is in the
air, it has to fall out of the air by either rain or snow. And it
seems we have two or three hurricanes every year too. More evidence
of global warming.

On the other hand, 2018 saw the fewest (total) deaths from tornadoes in
the US since 1875.

https://weather.com/storms/tornado/n...est-since-1875

Italy seems to have had an unusual number, however.

Must be global warming.

Inherently rare events like hurricanes and, I suppose, tornado deaths
will always show a lot of random fluctuations. (The same is true of
bicycling fatalities.) I don't think those fluctuations can
necessarily be used to prove any particular cause.

I was reacting to the hurricanes bit.

But long term changes in common and ordinary data are more likely to
mean something is happening.

It's hard to generalize to the globe from one's personal experience,
"global temperature" is really a surprisingly abstract thing.

Long before most of the discussion on climate change, I came across an
article discussing data a historian noted in diaries of British
farmers. Farmers were diligent about recording the dates of the last
frost, and those dates had been consistently creeping earlier for many
decades. To me, that indicates a real trend with a real cause.

Indeed, central England temperatures have been generally rising since at
the very latest 1900, as we continue to exit the "Little Ice Age".
Before that we had a Medieval Climate Optimum (warm period), a Roman
Climate Optimum, A Minoan Climate Optimum, all alternating with cooler
periods. The oldest optimum, oddly, seems to have been the warmest.

There are faster oscillations superimposed on that. The Atlantic and
Pacific Decadal Oscillations, which have a period of roughly 60 years
-- the 30s were quite warm, followed by cooling until the 80s or so,
followed by warming ...

Then there are slower oscillations, producing the interglacials that
periodically interrupt the Ice Age we've been having for almost 3
million years.

It's oscillations, usually irregular, all the way down into really
deep time. So yes, there are real trends, there have *always* been real
trends, and to a great extent we still do not understand the real causes
well enough to predict, let alone alter, their course.

I don't doubt that atmospheric CO2, some of which is anthropogenic,
plays some role in the climate. I do doubt that anyone alive can
predict the effect of everyone going out and buying a Tesla or riding a
bicycle instead of piloting a massive SUV might have on global
temperature to any useful standard at all. Much less whether it might
be good or bad for humanity.



So it's freeze or burn, just like life itself?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf

Starving has been a popular option too, historically.

--

On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 05:01:42 -0800 (PST), wrote:

The main purpose of our bikepaths is to make cycling safer not increasing it.

The main purpose of our "bikepath" is to encourage the tourist trade.
Seems to be working.


--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

On Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 5:14:16 PM UTC-6, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ms/2319972002/

- Frank Krygowski

Reality is only a theory.

On 1/4/2019 8:01 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 12:14:16 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ms/2319972002/

- Frank Krygowski

What is your point Frank? You want a pat on your shoulder? The main purpose of our bikepaths is to make cycling safer not increasing it.

Lou, for the last 15 years (at least) in America the bike facility
propaganda has been that building bike infra will increase cycling. "If
you build it, they will come!" was taken from the movie "Field of
Dreams" but in this context it means "If we just spend lots of money
building bike lanes... no, make that parking protected bike lanes... or
maybe bicycle freeways... then LOTS of people will stop driving cars and
ride bikes everywhere."

And in the last 10 years, when bicycling became trendy, every time a
city's bike mode share rose from 0.5% to 0.6%, those pushing facilities
have trumpeted this headline: "BIKE MODE SHARE INCREASES BY 20% IN ONE
YEAR!!" followed by "We MUST build more bike lanes everywhere!"

They've resolutely ignored those cases where (as in San Francisco) bike
mode share rose without any new bike facilities - that is, rose only due
to fashion. They've also resolutely ignored all those places where new
bike facilities caused no improvement, as well as those places where
bike mode share dropped.

My point? Let's look honestly at the whole picture, and at all the data.

And BTW, the U.S. is and will always be much, much different from the
Netherlands.

--
- Frank Krygowski