#1
|
|||
|
|||
Adding bike lanes
Got a letter from city hall, about adding a bike lane to a street here,
now I figure that the street is about 11m wide, for most of it, there is currently 2 travel lanes, so lots of room, for a couple of 1.5m bike lanes, no parking. One 2 block section however will have parking on one side, which is the tricky part, because it's going to be tricky there, to have enough width. I emailed the proper city official with this concern. I may suggest that they end the bike lane on one side for this stretch, if they can't provide enough width.... I actually like the idea of bike lanes, when gasoline hits $20 a gallon, you may find many streets with a motor vehicle lane, and a bunch of bike lanes. W |
Ads |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Chris Zacho The Wheelman wrote:
From: (The Wogster) I actually like the idea of bike lanes, when gasoline hits $20 a gallon, you may find many streets with a motor vehicle lane, and a bunch of bike lanes. W Nice thought. Unfortunatly we'll probably see a bunch of alternative fuel vehicles with drivers yelling at us instead. The real issue is that major cities are being paved over at an astonishing rate, 27.4% of the area of my city has been paved over into roads. This includes, city streets, major streets, parkways, expressways, major highways. It doesn't include parking spaces, private and unassumed roads. If you exclude parkland, most of which is simply land that was too expensive to prepare to build on, so it became park land and include private and unassumed roads, and parking lots, it's probably close to 60% of the usable land. This makes the remaining land, that much more expensive. At some point, the automobile will have consumed so much land, that cities will be abandoned as too expensive to live in. With a tiny post war house, on a tiny lot going for $250,000 and a condo small enough that the cat needs to go outside to change his mind, going for over $100,000, and a "cheap" one bedroom apartment at over $1,000 a month, we are getting there, and very quickly. The real issue is that the automobile doesn't pay it's own way, sure governments take in millions in gasoline taxes, but that doesn't go anywhere near the cost of building and maintaining roads. It's also well hidden, with one level of government getting the tax, and another doing the road maintenance, and all the fuzzy bookkeeping being done to hide the fact that road maintenance is the number 2 expense for most governments. If a city could see that they do $1 Billion in road maintenance, and 200 million litres of gasoline are sold, then it would be easy, but would people really want to pay $5.40 a litre for gasoline. No it's much easier for governments to bury the cost in their budgets, so nobody knows the real cost, and the car gets a mostly free ride. Okay, now some math, a typical 2 lane street is at least 10m wide, and that gives you two lanes, 5m wide. Now a bike lane need only be 2m wide, meaning the same 10m space allows 2 lanes each way, and a centre turn lane. Narrow the lanes a little, and you can add both a left and right turn lane, plus 2 straight through lanes, to every street. Wider streets could easily add sidewalks and boulevards with trees. Considering that most cars contain at most 1 person, your actually gaining road capacity at no cost. However you still have trucks and buses to deal with, so wider streets, say 15m, could contain, 1 motor vehicle lane at 3.5m, and 2 bike lanes going each direction. Of course the biggest issue is that North America has a car culture, and was mostly built with the car in mind, so how do you change peoples minds about how to function? Europe on the other hand, was mostly built pre-car, so much less traffic looks like much more..... W W |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
I wish our local government would do this, but alas they are putting
in a sidewalk and extra turn lane. I brought this very issue up in a meeting, but I got shot down so fast, I couldn't respond. I see *maybe* 20-50 people walking in front of my house, on the other hand I see more cyclists than walkers. I just don't get it? ROB |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Autofaq now on faster server | Simon Brooke | UK | 216 | April 1st 05 10:09 AM |
Windosr Tourist Bike Revisiited | Earl Bollinger | General | 16 | February 13th 05 08:04 PM |
Some questions etc.. | Douglas Harrington | General | 10 | August 17th 04 02:42 AM |
aus.bicycle FAQ (Monthly(ish) Posting) | kingsley | Australia | 3 | February 24th 04 08:44 PM |
FAQ | Just zis Guy, you know? | UK | 27 | September 5th 03 10:58 PM |