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#21
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 27/06/2018 10:23 AM, jbeattie wrote:
Portland claims 7% of trips in the city are by bike, at least that's how I understand the stat -- it is mode share. That number is zero in places and over 20% in places, and those high percentage places are exactly what you would expect -- flat, high density, close-in and very Bohemian with (believe it or not) modest bike facilities, mostly bike lanes and some traffic calmed streets. I don't know the exact stats off hand but in Montreal the highest cycling content is around the Plateau/Mount Royal area. It's anything but flat there. With the amount of auto traffic, I think the bike lanes and paths help increase usage. But this is also near most of the universities. Parking is extremely expensive. A lot of the young hipsters live around here. All of these things contribute. |
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#22
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 3:09 AM, Sepp Ruf wrote:
Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-26 08:57, Frank Krygowski wrote: Interesting article, with data, about how much the Dutch actually ride their bikes. Who wants to take longer utility rides on bicycles that are designed not to be worth the effort to get stolen? Yes, that's why secure parking is necessary. It's not that hard to do. A car parking space in a multi-level above-ground parking garage costs $40,000-50,000. Underground it's even more. Look at the bike in the picture https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/t/5a870bf58165f5f7f8ffc727/1518799866465/Maria+Contreras+Tebutt_web+%281%29.jpg?format=500w in this article: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/9/12-reasons-bicycling-will-continue-to-soar-in-popularity Where did that come from. I can't find such a bike anywhere. I bought a drop bar Motobecane Mixte for the spousal unit and spent another $150 converting it to upright bars. |
#23
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 7:23 AM, jbeattie wrote:
snip Portland claims 7% of trips in the city are by bike, at least that's how I understand the stat -- it is mode share. That number is zero in places and over 20% in places, and those high percentage places are exactly what you would expect -- flat, high density, close-in and very Bohemian with (believe it or not) modest bike facilities, mostly bike lanes and some traffic calmed streets. Flatness is not an issue. Bike mode percentage continues to increase in San Francisco despite the hills. https://humanstreets.org/power-in-numbers-bicycling-in-san-francisco-just-keeps-growing-50141502e36f While it's important not to confuse correlation with causation, the increase do correlate with increases in bicycle infrastructure. I was talking to a LAB instructor a couple of days ago, who was interested in applying for a job as a bicycle coordinator for a city. We were discussing what's needed to get more students to bike to school instead of being driven. These are relatively short distances, not more than three miles. It's several things that if accomplished would result in at least a modest increase in bicycling, but they need to be done all at once. You can't overcome just one obstacle, see the mode-share not increase, proclaim failure, and insist that spending more money is pointless. |
#24
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 10:30 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-06-27 03:09, Sepp Ruf wrote: Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-26 08:57, Frank Krygowski wrote: Interesting article, with data, about how much the Dutch actually ride their bikes. Who wants to take longer utility rides on bicycles that are designed not to be worth the effort to get stolen? I did the bulk of utility rides during my life on cheap department store road bikes. And yes, even one of those was stolen from me. Then there is the matter of vandalism. There are low-lifes who seem to get a kick out of making someone unable to travel the 15mi home by slashing the tires. As for the scooter and modeps I fully agree that they should be banned from bike paths. So should fast or souped up E-bikes. The current issue of _Popular Mechanics_ magazine has an article about an electric assist mountain bike. It mentions that it's computer limited to 20 mph... "At least, until you hack it. If you're headed off-road, you can reprogram the Revolution's software to unlock the hub motor's full potential, which cranks out as much as 6,000 watts. Then, you're on your way to a top speed of 50 mph..." What could go wrong? -- - Frank Krygowski |
#25
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 10:31 AM, sms wrote:
On 6/27/2018 3:09 AM, Sepp Ruf wrote: Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-26 08:57, Frank Krygowski wrote: Interesting article, with data, about how much the Dutch actually ride their bikes. Who wants to take longer utility rides on bicycles that are designed not to be worth the effort to get stolen? Yes, that's why secure parking is necessary. It's not that hard to do. A car parking space in a multi-level above-ground parking garage costs $40,000-50,000. Underground it's even more. Look at the bike in the picture https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/t/5a870bf58165f5f7f8ffc727/1518799866465/Maria+Contreras+Tebutt_web+%281%29.jpg?format=500w in this article: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/9/12-reasons-bicycling-will-continue-to-soar-in-popularity Where did that come from. I can't find such a bike anywhere. I bought a drop bar Motobecane Mixte for the spousal unit and spent another $150 converting it to upright bars. Where did that come from. I can't find such a bike anywhere. http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...purple_500.jpg -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#26
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 9:08 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/27/2018 10:31 AM, sms wrote: On 6/27/2018 3:09 AM, Sepp Ruf wrote: Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-26 08:57, Frank Krygowski wrote: Interesting article, with data, about how much the Dutch actually ride their bikes. Who wants to take longer utility rides on bicycles that are designed not to be worth the effort to get stolen? Yes, that's why secure parking is necessary. It's not that hard to do. A car parking space in a multi-level above-ground parking garage costs $40,000-50,000. Underground it's even more. Look at the bike in the picture https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/t/5a870bf58165f5f7f8ffc727/1518799866465/Maria+Contreras+Tebutt_web+%281%29.jpg?format=500w in this article: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/9/12-reasons-bicycling-will-continue-to-soar-in-popularity Where did that come from. I can't find such a bike anywhere. I bought a drop bar Motobecane Mixte for the spousal unit and spent another $150 converting it to upright bars. Where did that come from. I can't find such a bike anywhere. http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...purple_500.jpg Thanks. No longer available of course. There's also https://www.bikemania.biz/soma-fabrications-buena-vista-mixte-road-bike.html but I don't think that it's actually available anymore either. The bike I got for my wife is strictly a road bike, I tried putting on slightly wider tires (700x28) but no dice, insufficient vertical clearance. |
#27
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 2018-06-27 09:05, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/27/2018 10:30 AM, Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-27 03:09, Sepp Ruf wrote: Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-26 08:57, Frank Krygowski wrote: Interesting article, with data, about how much the Dutch actually ride their bikes. Who wants to take longer utility rides on bicycles that are designed not to be worth the effort to get stolen? I did the bulk of utility rides during my life on cheap department store road bikes. And yes, even one of those was stolen from me. Then there is the matter of vandalism. There are low-lifes who seem to get a kick out of making someone unable to travel the 15mi home by slashing the tires. As for the scooter and modeps I fully agree that they should be banned from bike paths. So should fast or souped up E-bikes. The current issue of _Popular Mechanics_ magazine has an article about an electric assist mountain bike. It mentions that it's computer limited to 20 mph... "At least, until you hack it. If you're headed off-road, you can reprogram the Revolution's software to unlock the hub motor's full potential, which cranks out as much as 6,000 watts. Then, you're on your way to a top speed of 50 mph..." A cycling friend is electrifying two of his (many) MTB. He selected the smallest motor which still has a whopping 750W. IIRC the largest offered was 4kW. Crazy. They are BB-mounted and I always wondered how fast a chain would wear out. What could go wrong? Last words of a redneck: "Hold my beer and watch me now". -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#28
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 10:24 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-06-26 17:50, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 6/26/2018 6:40 PM, Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-26 13:34, sms wrote: On 6/26/2018 11:25 AM, Joerg wrote: No, that comes from not having the stupid zoning laws we have. If I needed groceries or nearly anything else I could walk. As in "just across the street" which is, for example, where the grocery store was. The bank was immediately next door, literally. The post office was diagonally across the street. The next church was less than 500ft away. And so on. This feeds on itself. We have approved numerous "Mixed-Use" developments. The businesses struggle and don't last long. The amount of housing isn't enough to support the businesses and the people that don't live there expect plentiful parking to be easily available, and close, which it isn't. I talked to a commercial real estate broker about this. They need to go to Europe and learn. Why has none of the mixed use I was exposed to over there for decades failed? The only businesses that went bust were factories but that had nothing to do with mixed use. Those went because Eastern Europe and Asia had much cheaper labor and no unions. See http://cumbelich.com/blog/the-inconvenient-truth-about-mixed-use. "As far as trends in retail real estate development go, none during my 30-years in the industry has been more counter-productive or government-driven than residential over retail mixed-use development (RRMU). Pick just about any Bay Area city and you will easily identify any number of RRMU projects that have been proposed, entitled and/or developed over the past ten years.Â* And with rare exception, these projects suffer the same ills…relatively high vacancy rates, substantially below market rents, poor credit tenancies and a high turnover rate of the brokerage firms that try, with little success, to lease what is un-leasable. Don’t get me wrong – as a design concept RRMU... Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* Â*Â* ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Therein lies the mistake. Stop master-planning everything, get government out of that process and let the free market take care of it. That is how it was in all towns I lived while in Europe. A neighborhood pub would only open if there was enough potential. Same for dentists, grocers and so on. An example: There was a residential neighborhood 5mins walking from me in the Netherlands. Single family homes, like in America. One guy decided to open a french fries and sausage kitchen in his garage. Actually in part of the living room backing up to the garage and the garage became the "waiting room" with chairs and all. So he and his family could play games, watch TV, someone would come in, order something, he cooked it and took the cash. You could eat it right there or take it home which most customers did. Hardly anyone came by car and he served a small community. This provided a nice supplemental income for the guy in the evenings and a source for quick food for the locals (his fries were really good). Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* ... works beautifully…in Paris.Â* And in Manhattan.Â*Â* And therein lies a big part of the problem. City planners and city councils across Northern California have revealed an inferiority complex to major urban markets around the world and tried to force feed this utterly urban product type into sprawling suburbs from Concord to Novato to San Jose.Â* Only guess what, the most important ingredient is missing – concentrated, massive, pedestrian populations." So why did we have that in Vaals, Netherlands, pop 5000? I've seen in in much smaller villages during recent Germany trips. Pop 1000 and less, everybody knows everybody else. One new development decided not to leave space for parking along the road, building all the way out to the street, then asked the city to put in limited time street parking. We declined because of the cost of enforcement. You chose to live in an area where it's far to everything. From my house, in 15 minutes I can walk to three grocery stores, two drug stores, and about 30 restaurants. By bicycle it's less than five minutes. A house close-in was much more expensive per square foot than a house in the distant suburbs of San Jose. We could have had a larger, newer house for the same money. But it sure is nice to not have to drive everywhere. I could walk to one supermarket in 20mins, another two in 30mins. Problem: No sidewalks! It's tough enough to cycle on a partially shoulderless 45mph road where people routinely do 55mph. Did that yesterday evening but I am not going to walk on the fog line. You also have the issue that, despite the astr-turf YIMBY groups, that families with children generally want to live in single family homes. So do we. We also did in Europe and could walk to the dance club, to numerous pubs, grocery stores, railroad station, almost everywhere. How old were those European towns? When were they founded? Doesn't matter. I think it does matter. The example I brought above was a new part of town, built around the 70's. 1970, that is. It works. This is the area, residential right with industrial and there is also a large supermarket right in this development where I shopped a lot: https://goo.gl/maps/Urm6iarPi9B2 I think there are different cultural or social expectations in Europe, most of which are influenced by history. Europe seems to generally have much more restrictive land use policies, and those policies seem to promote "infill" development. Example: In Britain, in Austria, etc. when we bicycle toured, I was struck by the practicality of city limits. There seemed to be a boundary around most towns, with apartments, houses, shops etc. on one side and little but fields and forests on the other side. We saw almost no rural convenience stores or gas stations, for example. People have been living close for hundreds of years, and they're used to such a system. Here, we have a pioneer mentality. The reflex is to colonize new land, to take possession of our own acreage, and to fight any attempt to limit what we can do with it. So if a realty company wants to build 30 houses, of _course_ they will buy a corn field a few miles out of town along some farm road. The land is cheaper out there, and there are fewer zoning rules. They'll put in twisty residential streets with only one outlet onto that farm road. They won't bother with sidewalks, because nobody will use them. The residents will feel like pioneers, so proud of having a new, all-white neighborhood out in "the country." But someone will eventually say "Hey, I can put a gas station and convenience store at their corner and make a killing." So the parking lot lights begin to wash away the night sky, and the traffic increases. Soon another realty company builds another mushroom development nearby, which triggers a little shopping plaza, and on it goes. It all happens at low density, because everyone wants an acre of lawn to mow. Connectivity is actively discouraged, because residents don't want strangers in their neighborhood at all. A motor vehicle - preferably an SUV - is the only socially acceptable way to enter or leave the neighborhood. And people wanting to escape from the traffic to and from those developments soon buy into another development further yet from town. The march continues. And if it's 30 miles to work or ten miles to get most groceries, who cares? We had friends from Dublin, Ireland stay with us some years ago. One of their most-repeated comments was "You have so much _room_ in America!" But they have a countryside free of endless strip malls. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#29
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 11:39 AM, sms wrote:
On 6/27/2018 7:23 AM, jbeattie wrote: snip Portland claims 7% of trips in the city are by bike, at least that's how I understand the stat -- it is mode share.Â* That number is zero in places and over 20% in places, and those high percentage places are exactly what you would expect -- flat, high density, close-in and very Bohemian with (believe it or not) modest bike facilities, mostly bike lanes and some traffic calmed streets. Flatness is not an issue. Bike mode percentage continues to increase in San Francisco despite the hills. https://humanstreets.org/power-in-numbers-bicycling-in-san-francisco-just-keeps-growing-50141502e36f While it's important not to confuse correlation with causation, the increase do correlate with increases in bicycle infrastructure. San Francisco bicycling increased by 40% during a time when a lawsuit prevented the building of any bicycle infrastructure. From https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfra...nt?oid=2172717 "During the past four years, the number of cyclists on San Francisco streets has increased by more than 40 percent, yet the city has been prevented from installing amenities for cyclists thanks to the legal efforts of a local gadfly." In other words, fashion is far more influential than bicycle infrastructure. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#30
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Making America into Amsterdam
On 6/27/2018 11:25 AM, sms wrote:
On 6/27/2018 9:08 AM, AMuzi wrote: On 6/27/2018 10:31 AM, sms wrote: On 6/27/2018 3:09 AM, Sepp Ruf wrote: Joerg wrote: On 2018-06-26 08:57, Frank Krygowski wrote: Interesting article, with data, about how much the Dutch actually ride their bikes. Who wants to take longer utility rides on bicycles that are designed not to be worth the effort to get stolen? Yes, that's why secure parking is necessary. It's not that hard to do. A car parking space in a multi-level above-ground parking garage costs $40,000-50,000. Underground it's even more. Look at the bike in the picture https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/t/5a870bf58165f5f7f8ffc727/1518799866465/Maria+Contreras+Tebutt_web+%281%29.jpg?format=500w in this article: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/9/12-reasons-bicycling-will-continue-to-soar-in-popularity Where did that come from. I can't find such a bike anywhere. I bought a drop bar Motobecane Mixte for the spousal unit and spent another $150 converting it to upright bars. Where did that come from. I can't find such a bike anywhere. http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...purple_500.jpg Thanks. No longer available of course. There's also https://www.bikemania.biz/soma-fabrications-buena-vista-mixte-road-bike.html but I don't think that it's actually available anymore either. The bike I got for my wife is strictly a road bike, I tried putting on slightly wider tires (700x28) but no dice, insufficient vertical clearance. http://www.somafab.com/archives/prod...disc-frame-set revised model for 2018 -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
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