Progress on Germany's 200 mile long bicyclebahn

On Sun, 24 Jul 2016 00:37:16 -0500, "W. Wesley Groleau"
wrote:

On 07-23-2016 23:44, John B. wrote:
One would have to ask, why can the illegal people get work when a
citizen cannot?

Some of those jobs, many Americans think they are too good for.

And then there are the citizens (I have met some) who complain that they
can't get a job BUT THEY AREN'T TRYING.

When I was a young fellow growing up in a small New England town there
wasn't really any relief, food stamps or other free stuff. There was
some source of money which was controlled by the village whereby you
probably wouldn't starve but essentially if you wanted to eat you had
to work. I remember there was a family that lived "down the road a
piece" from my grandparents who my mother ordered me "Do Not Play With
Those Kids! They are "on the town". In other words to be accepting any
form of charity was such a blemish on their character that you
wouldn't allow your kids play with theirs.

Unfortunately the impressions you gain while young tend to stay with
you for the rest of your life and even today someone who won't work
is, to me, at least a second class citizen.

What I would really think would be beneficial would be some sort of
government service. If you wanted to eat, why you just showed up for
roll call in the morning and that evening you'd get a day's salary.

There is a U.S. precedent for this as the WPA and CCC put many people
to work earning a salary during the Great Depression.

The left wingers all talk about "the dignity of Labor", well my idea
would be to Give them Dignity!
--
cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 24 Jul 2016 00:34:50 -0500, "W. Wesley Groleau"
wrote:

On 07-23-2016 22:31, John B. wrote:
Perhaps a privately funded system financed by a, say 10 year bond
issue, for by collecting tolls for usage might be the answer. Toll

Anecdotal: New York State Thruway was promised at the beginning to be
paid for by tolls within ____ years, and then become free. The promised
date is LONG past. How many think the politicians will ever willingly
surrender that source of money?

I don't know there, but here there are quite a number of what appeared
to be designed as toll roads as the toll booths are there, that have
never had tolls collected.

But you are right about perpetual tolls. The usual story is that the
use wasn't as heavy as expected so they have to collect tolls for a
longer period, or maintenance costs have gone up (which may well be
true).

The Maine State Toll Road is an interesting story. It was built
totally without state or federal funds using privately issued bonds
and is still going merrily along after something like 65 years without
government support.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Sunday, July 24, 2016 at 9:58:37 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-07-23 17:03, W. Wesley Groleau wrote:
On 07-23-2016 15:29, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-07-23 12:07, W. Wesley Groleau wrote:
On 07-23-2016 10:25, Joerg wrote:
don't understand why "modern" road bikes have no rack lugs anymore

Note the three baggage carriers on one wanderer's bicycle:

http://Wesley.Groleau.Site/2015/12/2...and-his-money/

Ok, I meant "real" bicycles :-)

OK, I confess: the longest trip I ever made on that thing
was 62 kilometers.


Out here 62km is a casual ride :-)

Do you mean 62km is a casual ride for you? I don't think distance is any different in Cameron Park -- except that you have to go so far to get anywhere, which is why the town is a poster-child for poor urban planning and emblematic of the 1950s-60s planned communities in the middle of nowhere. Larry Cameron mowed-down a cow pasture to make a bedroom community around an airstrip and golf course. He was a f****** Pontiac dealer before he was a developer (IIRC), and he discovered the property on his long drives up into the foothills. Bikes were not on his agenda. The Sierra foothills were full of those places in the early '60s, "Welcome to Lake [fill in the blank] or Rancho [fill in the blank], golf course living in a simulated environment. Sun, fun, stay, play." Etc., etc. Why on earth would the State of California expend significant resources trying to turn a small, made-up community into Amsterdam. The residents incorporated the place, let them pay. Go pass the hat, get the money and build bike lanes up the wazoo. You can be the next Folsom -- without the prison and with a golf course and airstrip.

-- Jay Beattie.

well as an MTB ride I dunno abt 'CASUAL' J's English isnot so good....

here's one https://goo.gl/ESxkCB

look up the highway past Collier Seminole SP

from C-S to the intown Walmart n Courthouse.....there was not but swamp in 1990.

On Sun, 24 Jul 2016 11:04:52 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 7/24/2016 12:44 AM, John B. wrote:

As for "poor people, et al" I read a Pew (http://www.pewresearch.org)
report that shows that illegal immigrants make up about 3.5% of the
U.S. population and that they make up something like 5.1% of the
nation's job holders, primarily in Nevada, Texas, California and New
Jersey.

One would have to ask, why can the illegal people get work when a
citizen cannot?

When faced with desperate poverty, some people will leave everything and
go to a different country. Some will not.

There are probably many psychological (and other) differences between
the two groups. But those who emigrate would certainly seem to have
above-average drive, motivation, ambition, and/or willingness to take
risks and work hard.

In the case of the Mexicans I suspect that it is much more complicated
than just "desperate poverty" that motivates a great many of the
Mexicans. Mexican "illegal" workers in the U.S. date, probably, to the
first regulation that made them illegal and in fact seasonal labor
from Mexico is, one might say, traditional in many of the western
states.

I remember "way back when" reading about some sort of "drive" where
the seasonal influx of Mexicans wasn't going to be permitted and would
be replaced by the poor and downtrodden Americans from the cities.
Yup, the "po folks" were going to be given work.

It didn't work and it almost caused a rebellion. There were all those
California farmers and no help available to harvest the crops.

From memory of what I read in the newspapers at the time the first day
of the new regime the "po folks" flocked out to get these new jobs. On
the second day the volumes had decreased and by the third day hardly
anyone came. You see, "stoop labor", picking crops in the field, is
hard work out in the hot sun and the American "po folks" weren't
prepare to work that hard.

I seem to remember that about day four there was some sort of frantic
activity to some way, any way, getting the Mexicans out of Mexico and
back into the California fields.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 24 Jul 2016 14:19:25 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 7/24/2016 1:00 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-07-23 20:08, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 08:27:34 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

As I've said many times, you need to _visit_ the place or ideally live
there. I did. Most of the population is concentrated in the Rotterdam
and Amsteram region which they call "Randstad". That is a small part of
the Netherlands, the west. No 10 horses would drag me there to live. All
other regions are not very densely populated and that's where I lived.

"Not very densely populated"? Fryslan, the least densely populated of
The Netherlands provinces has a population density of 193/km. sq.
which is more densely populated than all of the U.S. states except
five. California, your home state, has a density of 97/km.sq. less
than half the density of Fryslan.


Again, most of those people are concentrated in cities and villages.
Inbetween those you have vast open spaces.

Yes, and the vast majority of Netherlands' high bike mode share is
within those compact and dense cities and villages - the very cities and
villages that are so very different from typical American cities and
villages.

There are reported to be 35,000 Km of bike paths in The Netherlands.
There are 800,000 bicycles in Amsterdam (the population of Amsterdam
is 1.1 million I believe) and according to the Amsterdam City Council
statistics some 490,000 fietsers (cyclists) take to the road to cycle
2 million kilometers every day.

Joerg and other innumerates see bike lanes, cycle tracks and lots of
bikes in the Netherlands and say "That's it!!! If we build bike
facilities, Americans will give up their cars!!!"

Maybe, if they actually followed the Dutch practices. I read that the
taxes on purchase of an automobile may be as high as 45% of the
purchase cost. There is also an annual "road tax" paid each year to
keep the registration certificate valid.

There are some 139,000 km of public roads/highways in Holland. There
are 35,000 km of bicycle paths.

There are 2,670,000 miles (4,309,823 km) of public roads/highways
(paved) in the U.S.

When can we expect the 1,084,782.4 km of bike paths to be completed?

But Joerg and those other innumerates ignore data proving great
differences between the countries.

Comparison of Apples and Oranges is usually considered as a lesson in
futility :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

Am 25.07.2016 um 00:49 schrieb jbeattie:
On Sunday, July 24, 2016 at 9:53:03 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-07-22 20:04, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jul 2016 08:47:08 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie

monumental snip

That's the multiplier effect. If you cycle a lot you can avoid having to
go to the doctor for diabetes or hypertension. Your chances of being
brought in via ambulance because of a heart attack due to a clogged
coronary vessel are also lower. Maybe because of cycling you'll never
need a stent like the fat guy down the road who already got four.
Therefore, your risk of a medical misdiagnosis or mishap is much lower
than it is for the average couch potato.

Hmmmmm. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...st-causes.html

I'm screwed . . . again!

Oh yes, the Mail is one of the best newspaper liars.

In this case it's clear: Exercise and traffic might be a good triggers
for a heart attack but at the same time cycling is one of the best
factors of recusing the chances to have a heart attack.

So what do we learn:
It you're completely unfit don't start heavy exercises without medical
superivsion (yank your heart rate up while a doc with a defibrillator is
next to you). Don't combine beta blockers with heavy sports.

Am 24.07.2016 um 05:36 schrieb John B.:

When we bought our first house the first priority was close enough to
schools that the kids could walk. And they did :-)

.... And then one kid doesn't get on well with his teacher at the state
primary school, you have to take him to a private school 2 miles away
and buy a car after living car-free for 20 years.

Good Plans are always necessary but not always successful....

Bike paths follow drainage canal construction

Wide berms on oil country are oil truck shoulders

Modern US CODE highway shoulders are emergency vehicle routings...

To and from/lowlands evac hospital...fire...

On 2016-07-23 19:54, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:22:59 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-07-23 09:21, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/23/2016 11:25 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-07-22 16:26, Frank Krygowski wrote:
But you have to realize that the "average
cyclist" isn't interested in riding even five miles to work and back.

Those are wusses :-)

Maybe so. But you have to face facts. Those people are not going to
change because Joerg calls them names.

It's unfortunate, but the car is so much easier for so many people.

I doubt that.

sigh Of course you do! You can't imagine that sitting in a
climate-controlled vehicle with a wide comfortable seat, exerting almost
no physical effort, and arriving quickly at almost any destination
without breaking a sweat is considered easier than pedaling a bike.

One case in point are two friends whom I introduced to MTB
riding last year. The usual, they had MTBs colecting dust in their
garages and it was "C'mon, lets at least do a small trip". So we did. At
first they were totally bushed after 5 miles.

... so that made him realize that driving a car was NOT easier than
riding a bike???


One has to see "easy" over a much longer time frame. Sitting in a car
seat, on an office chair and on the couch all the time will eventually
cause major health problems. That is when the ease of life is over, and
usually for good. While the wiry MTB rider next door still enjoys the
great outdoors at 80.

Smart people eventually realize that. Not so smart ones don't.

But you have bragged a number of times about your SUV. Which makes yo
what? A part time wus? (wuss?)


For exactly 1200 miles a year. That's how much I ride with it and most
of that is for business. And only where really needed. The bikes see
more than 3x that mileage per year.

It is a wee problem to carry 1/2 ton of fuel pellets on a bicycle.


But actually, if one wants to be healthy then running is a far better
exercise than cycling for two reasons. It exercises nearly all the
body's structural muscles.


And ruins knees and hips. I met lots of people who have done that. The
docs mostly recommended to start ... bicycling. or swimming.


... Cyclists have big powerful legs and scrawny
upper body. runners don't develop the same bulky leg muscles as
cyclists but do develop muscles throughout the entire body.


How does a runner develop arm muscles? MTB riders actually do because
they are wrestling with the machine all the time.


... Secondly
running is a far more strenuous workout than cycling. A cyclist burns
about twice the energy running on a flat track than a cyclist on the
same track.


My usual rides are around 40-50 miles. I'd need all day to run that but
I only have a few hours. A runner has a commensurately lower average speed.


Finally running is a weight bearing exercise for the entire body and
will promote bone density through out the body, Cycling promotes bone
density primarily in the legs.


True. Potential osteoporosis is a big downside of cycling. But runners
only train their leg bones against that. What supposely helps is tennis.
Hard trail riding might also help because you are constantly getting jolts.


And think of the money. My God, a SUV costs a fortune, an bicycle
costs part of a fortune and running requires a pair of shoes, although
a really dedicated runner might even run barefooted.

After all Zola Budd who was an Olympic runner and broke the world
(woman's) 5,000 M record at 17 years of age, did most of her practice
and many of her races barefoot.


I ride with sandals all summer so that cost is close to zero. And the
road bike is also cheap to run, aroudn 10c/mi. The MTB costs 25c/mi and
more than my SUV if you don't count insurance. If I'd ride the SUV more
you could even count insurance, they don't offer a per-mile contract.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/