A March on Washington... on Bicycle?

On Nov 16, 7:34*pm, wrote:
On Nov 16, 1:08 pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:

You can't dumb down a neighbourhood -- too much
soap opera drama goin' on.

I like that interpretation.

With that in mind I'm a huge fan of these stylish big double chevron
sharrows that are being installed in several cities. Encourage these
neighbors to really get to know each other.

This neighborhood-community interpretation, relies on bikes, not on
cars and, much less, on SUVs with tinted windows. These represent the
American sprawl (sprinkled with McDonalds and lack of sidewalks).

On Nov 16, 11:34*pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
* * * * writes:

On Nov 16, 1:08 pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:

You can't dumb down a neighbourhood -- too much
soap opera drama goin' on.

I like that interpretation.

With that in mind I'm a huge fan of these stylish big double chevron
sharrows that are being installed in several cities. Encourage these
neighbors to really get to know each other.

Yeah, that sort of works. *Except here in Vancouver
there are very many traffic-engineering attempts to
accomodate non-motorized traffic, and sometimes they
conflict with each other. For example, we recently had
sharrows installed along our Main Street. *But at the
same time, we have these pedestrian's sidewalk bulges
at intersections. *So from a rider's POV you're just
riding along in a straight line in the safe zone, and
suddenly the curb juts out at you, and you're squeezed
between the motorized traffic and the curb.

That's why I cry out for intelligent & thought-out
implementation instead of traffic engineers just
slap-dashing stuff down on the streets, dusting their
hands off, and saying: "There, that oughta keep 'em
happy."

Anyway, Commander CarmenMiranda'sHat says traffic is a
jungle. *I say it's a neighbourhood. *I shall leave it
to the readership to decide upon their own approaches.

cheers,

I don't know if Canada is a jungle, but here it is. And probably true
for most of the South.

Well, Los Angeles is kind of civilized, but then again it is a Blue
state, which happens to have a Republican governor who stands for the
Red issues.

On Nov 16, 11:51 pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:

I have to agree with Ed on this. Working towards safer and better
bike paths is the way to go. All to often we hear about the "I
didn't see them" excuse.

Bike paths generally don't get you to the butcher shop,
bakery, cheese shop, supermarket, hardware store,
department store, library, community centre or job site.

At best they lead to pretty places where you can pick
berries when in season, and snap some soon-to-be-forgotten
pix with a disposable camera.

Bike paths divert customers away from commerce.

cheers,
Tom

Why you generalize? Bike paths take ME to a shopping area. The one and
only. Then I've got some back roads that take me to the supermarket.
The rest is nobody's land.

On Nov 17, 10:39 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 17, 3:48 am, Peter Clinch wrote:





Tom Keats wrote:
Bike paths generally don't get you to the butcher shop,
bakery, cheese shop, supermarket, hardware store,
department store, library, community centre or job site.

At best they lead to pretty places where you can pick
berries when in season, and snap some soon-to-be-forgotten
pix with a disposable camera.

Bike paths divert customers away from commerce.

That's implementation dependent. There's no particular problem doing
one's shopping via bike path in NL, for example.

So this highlights not a basic problem with bike paths, but with bike
paths that aren't implemented by people who understand their use. No
shortage of those around here either, but it isn't a fundamental failing
that is 100% bound to afflict all examples.

In America, I'd guess that basic problem afflicts well over 90% of
bike paths. Almost all are linear parks with negligible
transportation benefit, and nothing will change that.

Within thirty miles of my house, I know of only one multi-use (or
"bike") path that is mostly used as a transportation link. It's only
a quarter mile long, and gets cyclists and peds through a dead end for
cars, and into the village center. Contrast that with the much-
trumpeted rail-trail, just completed, that runs through over 100 miles
of corn fields, paralleling beautiful, peaceful country roads!

Except for rare exceptions, you can't fit many utilitarian bike paths
into our urban or suburban landscape. The land is already taken up.
And the odds will always be minuscule that any given cyclist will find
a bike path from his home to any particular destination.

Yes, I know a dozen bike path fans will mentally object, saying "Well,
I ride my bike path to XYZ!" But unless you're a statistical miracle,
almost all the practical places to which you want to ride are off the
bike path, and so is your home. And it's always going to be that way.

- Frank Krygowski- Hide quoted text -

We do have some bike paths that go largely under-utilized because of
the intersections. They are a problem. Well they also run under the
train, which makes it more simply to just ride the train.

On Nov 17, 5:46 pm, Dane Buson wrote:


I just dodged a punch in the face!

( Hi, Dane :-) :-) )

Hello again, I took a wee hiatus when I couldn't be arsed to reconfigure
my leafnode server after a HD change and OS upgrade. I've been more
than slightly busy with life, but decided to come back and poke around
the newsgroups some.

--
Dane Buson -
C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique.
-- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341]- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Good, welcome back, so long as you don't come on the side of
Evil...

(Evil is defined here as those who are happy with the status quo, and
don't want any changes)

Anyway this is a very important question to fight evil and lies out
there...

Would you favor a bike bailout?

Yeah you know, there is a good-old-fashioned American company
(remember the slogan "Made with Pride in the USA"?) that made
recumbents, and still makes bike trailers. Its name is Burley, which
not only doesn't use cheap labor, but also has a cooperative of free
workers without a CEO making big bucks. Well, you get the point which
is neither Chinese labor nor unionized American workers making SUVs...

http://www.bicycleman.com/recumbents/burley/burley.htm

Their recumbents were discontinued in 2006, and are supposed to come
back. But hey, it ain't easy having competition from cheap labor.
"Sun" of Taiwan does produce nice recumbents, but Taiwanese workers
enjoy benefits unheard of in America, like universal healthcare, so I
guess they are fair competion.

Anyway, President Obama, and honorable members of Congress who hold
the interests of lobbyists in such a high esteem, as well as the
American people who helped Obama become #1, as well as the patriots
who voted for McCain out of hate for Obama, why don't you bail out
Burley of America, or whatever its name is?

poll...

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=487295

KingOfTheApes wrote:

Anyway, this assessment about Holland seems to support my idea TRAFFIC
TAMING, BIKE ROUTES AND BIKE LANES. Thank you!

Or rather, the above assessment shows you didn't read what I wrote very
carefully, so take back your tanks and read it again.

I said that what makes the real difference isn't the bike paths but the
typical cycle-awareness of the drivers. Think how cycle-aware the
average driver where you are is, and now think how he might improve if
rather than confronting him with more bikes, you confront him with
/less/, by moving the traffic off the road for most of the time (but
crucially *not* the time at junctions where there is most danger).

As I pointed out, there's plenty of shared road space in NL, and it is
shared relatively civilly because, AFAICT, of the awareness of the
typical motorist for cyclists. That awareness does not come about by
removing cyclists from the roads.

The key to be safe isn't putting up physical barriers between cars and
bikes, it's making sure motorists are properly aware of cyclists and
share the road with them as equals. In much the same way that users of
Smart cars share as equals with 18 wheeler trucks that /could/ squash
them like bugs.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

"KingOfTheApes" wrote in message
...
[...]
Well, I knew the UK was a smarter place, not only because they have
tamed traffic to a higher degree, but also because they don't have a
Republican party.

The UK is one of the most ****ed up places on earth. Only France is more
****ed up. The last good prime minister they had was Margaret Thatcher who
at least had sense enough to know how to kick Argentine butt. I think the
Brits are still dumb enough to revere the late Winston Churchill when all he
ever did was preside over the demise of the British Empire. Great Britain is
no longer Great. It has now become a tiny kingdom by the sea.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

"Peter Clinch" wrote in message
...
KingOfTheApes wrote:

Anyway, this assessment about Holland seems to support my idea TRAFFIC
TAMING, BIKE ROUTES AND BIKE LANES. Thank you!

Or rather, the above assessment shows you didn't read what I wrote very
carefully, so take back your tanks and read it again.

I said that what makes the real difference isn't the bike paths but the
typical cycle-awareness of the drivers. Think how cycle-aware the
average driver where you are is, and now think how he might improve if
rather than confronting him with more bikes, you confront him with
/less/, by moving the traffic off the road for most of the time (but
crucially *not* the time at junctions where there is most danger).

As I pointed out, there's plenty of shared road space in NL, and it is
shared relatively civilly because, AFAICT, of the awareness of the
typical motorist for cyclists. That awareness does not come about by
removing cyclists from the roads.

The key to be safe isn't putting up physical barriers between cars and
bikes, it's making sure motorists are properly aware of cyclists and
share the road with them as equals. In much the same way that users of
Smart cars share as equals with 18 wheeler trucks that /could/ squash
them like bugs.

Pete.

Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peter Clinch of Dundee, Scotland is as always out to lunch when it come to
bicycle safety. It is a wonder he has not been run over and killed by now.
He is an idiot and you listen to anything he has to say at your peril. For
God's sakes, just look at his signature above and you will know everything
you will ever have to know about him. He has absolutely got the worst
signature of anyone on Usenet. Why can't he get a modest and humble
signature like mine!

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

"KingOfTheApes" wrote in message
...
[...]
I don't know if Canada is a jungle, but here it is. And probably true
for most of the South.

Well, Los Angeles is kind of civilized, but then again it is a Blue
state, which happens to have a Republican governor who stands for the
Red issues.

You are a slubbering, barefoot, bearded lewdster. You quackling,
ill-shapen, nonviable eel-eater. You are a nitrifying, middling,
cringing hagfish. You fuddling, ill-bred, elf-skinned bottom feeder. You
dizzying, sneaking, raffish pavement princess. You are an obfuscating,
tempest-swept, suborbital hog. You are a perambulating, harassed,
hillbilly arsewipe. You sprouting, ****-smelling, crack-headed
fat-mouth. You are a scabbing, salt-cured, teapot-shaped gnat. You are
less than a hopping, snuffly, postmenopausal xylophage. You twittering,
cacodaemonic, stock-still fibber. You spitting, shivering, trembling
ribagitationist. You are an ulcerating, emancipated, stereophonic
goldfish. You leg-lifting, tedious, fool-born harridan. You rotating,
lacteal, psychotic heroin addict. You sniveling, knotted, crusty
harridan. You are an infecting, sick-minded, phlegmy hippopotamus. You
are less than a perambulating, tuberculoid, misanthropical xylophone
player. You are less than a staring, self-contradictory, one-eyed
heckler. You are a flouncing, snoring, smoldering greaseball. You are an
idolatrising, worrying, small-time kleptomaniac. You are a bewildering,
two-way, la-di-da lackey. You drolling, fist-****ed, squeaky kidney. You
are a belaboring, baying, dried-out chippy chaser. You spangling,
self-winding, run-down ****blister.

****ing Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

PS. You are an infecting, sick-minded, phlegmy hippopotamus.

On Nov 18, 3:33*am, Peter Clinch wrote:
KingOfTheApes wrote:
Anyway, this assessment about Holland seems to support my idea TRAFFIC
TAMING, BIKE ROUTES AND BIKE LANES. Thank you!

Or rather, the above assessment shows you didn't read what I wrote very
carefully, so take back your tanks and read it again.

I said that what makes the real difference isn't the bike paths but the
typical cycle-awareness of the drivers. *Think how cycle-aware the
average driver where you are is, and now think how he might improve if
rather than confronting him with more bikes, you confront him with
/less/, by moving the traffic off the road for most of the time (but
crucially *not* the time at junctions where there is most danger).

As I pointed out, there's plenty of shared road space in NL, and it is
shared relatively civilly because, AFAICT, of the awareness of the
typical motorist for cyclists. *That awareness does not come about by
removing cyclists from the roads.

The key to be safe isn't putting up physical barriers between cars and
bikes, it's making sure motorists are properly aware of cyclists and
share the road with them as equals. *In much the same way that users of
Smart cars share as equals with 18 wheeler trucks that /could/ squash
them like bugs.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch * * * * * * * * * *Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 * Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 * * * * * * *Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net * *http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

I may be excused from not interpreting your long answer but are not
from not interpreting my short worded solutions...

BIKE FACILITIES (bike lanes and bike facilities) AND/OR TRAFFIC
TAMING.

This side of the Atlantic we are sort of in the Wild West when it
comes to traffic safety: NO LANE DISCIPLINE, NO CONTROL OVER CELL
PHONES, UNREGULATED VEHICLES (SUV'S with deadly bumpers)... and LOTS
OF SPEEDING TICKETS.

You think Obama will change that?