Interesting comments on infra and VC

On 26/07/2016 12:24 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, July 25, 2016 at 10:51:33 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

Admittedly, another part of VC is rejecting bad bike facilities. There
are anti-VC folks who actively promote door zone bike lanes. How is
that not crazy? And the current darling of the "Copenhagen everywhere"
crowd is the "protected cycletrack," almost always a two-way bike trail
siamesed onto a street. Yet Mikael Colville-Andersen, one of the
world's most prominent "Copenhagenizing" advocates, says those things
are nuts.
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06...cle-track.html

But, the article says, there's Montreal! Wow, a tremendous success story!!

... or is it? It's bike mode share is 2.4%, from what I've been able to
see. That must mean there are hardly any people driving cars any
more... if you're sufficiently innumerate, I guess.

If you build it, they will come -- but how many will come and at what cost? IMO, it's all a matter of distance and terrain. If you have a population that lives a long distance from where it works or difficult terrain (not flat), all the segregated bike facilities in the world are not going to increase the number of riders to any significant degree. There will be some increase, but at a great per-rider cost. You are then building facilities for primarily recreational purposes -- which is fine, but probably out of a different budget. That's why Amsterdam, Copenhagen and even close-in eastside Portland work so well -- lots of people living close to where they work and mostly flat roads, and in Portland, we rely mostly on bike lanes and traffic calmed streets with one MUP up the east bank of the Willamette.http://bikeportland.org/2016/05/04/o...o-essay-182506



One would think that terrain is critical but in the case of Montreal,
the areas with the most cycling are around Mount Royal and that's not
flat at all. In fact the pro tour has an event going up and down the
mountain every year. I routinely get ****ed at the hipsters on their
city bikes passing by me on the way up the hills.

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:42:05 AM UTC-7, Duane wrote:
On 26/07/2016 12:24 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, July 25, 2016 at 10:51:33 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

Admittedly, another part of VC is rejecting bad bike facilities. There
are anti-VC folks who actively promote door zone bike lanes. How is
that not crazy? And the current darling of the "Copenhagen everywhere"
crowd is the "protected cycletrack," almost always a two-way bike trail
siamesed onto a street. Yet Mikael Colville-Andersen, one of the
world's most prominent "Copenhagenizing" advocates, says those things
are nuts.
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06...cle-track.html

But, the article says, there's Montreal! Wow, a tremendous success story!!

... or is it? It's bike mode share is 2.4%, from what I've been able to
see. That must mean there are hardly any people driving cars any
more... if you're sufficiently innumerate, I guess.

If you build it, they will come -- but how many will come and at what cost? IMO, it's all a matter of distance and terrain. If you have a population that lives a long distance from where it works or difficult terrain (not flat), all the segregated bike facilities in the world are not going to increase the number of riders to any significant degree. There will be some increase, but at a great per-rider cost. You are then building facilities for primarily recreational purposes -- which is fine, but probably out of a different budget. That's why Amsterdam, Copenhagen and even close-in eastside Portland work so well -- lots of people living close to where they work and mostly flat roads, and in Portland, we rely mostly on bike lanes and traffic calmed streets with one MUP up the east bank of the Willamette.http://bikeportland.org/2016/05/04/o...o-essay-182506



One would think that terrain is critical but in the case of Montreal,
the areas with the most cycling are around Mount Royal and that's not
flat at all. In fact the pro tour has an event going up and down the
mountain every year. I routinely get ****ed at the hipsters on their
city bikes passing by me on the way up the hills.

Terrain IS critical, but it can be overcome by other factors -- like short distances and social factors, like hipsterism (young, hip population). We should develop an equation for city planners: D (distance) times T (terrain) divided by H (hipsterism) plus DUII minus Mormon missionaries divided by the number of rain days, times etc., etc. equals success of facility.

-- Jay Beattie.

Andre Jute wrote in
:

One more point. In respect to automobile attitudes, Australia and
Canada are probably closer to those in the US than any other country,
though I've always found anglophone Canadians to be much more
conformist and law abiding than the Australians.

"It's a fair cop, but society is to blame."

I'll leave Duane speak about the francophone Canadiens.

Now /there's/ a way to madness.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

On 26/07/2016 1:18 PM, Andrew Chaplin wrote:
Andre Jute wrote in
:

One more point. In respect to automobile attitudes, Australia and
Canada are probably closer to those in the US than any other country,
though I've always found anglophone Canadians to be much more
conformist and law abiding than the Australians.

"It's a fair cop, but society is to blame."

I'll leave Duane speak about the francophone Canadiens.

Now /there's/ a way to madness.


lol.

On 7/26/2016 9:24 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, July 25, 2016 at 10:51:33 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

Admittedly, another part of VC is rejecting bad bike facilities. There
are anti-VC folks who actively promote door zone bike lanes. How is
that not crazy? And the current darling of the "Copenhagen everywhere"
crowd is the "protected cycletrack," almost always a two-way bike trail
siamesed onto a street. Yet Mikael Colville-Andersen, one of the
world's most prominent "Copenhagenizing" advocates, says those things
are nuts.
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06...cle-track.html

But, the article says, there's Montreal! Wow, a tremendous success story!!

... or is it? It's bike mode share is 2.4%, from what I've been able to
see. That must mean there are hardly any people driving cars any
more... if you're sufficiently innumerate, I guess.

If you build it, they will come -- but how many will come and at what cost? IMO, it's all a matter of distance and terrain. If you have a population that lives a long distance from where it works or difficult terrain (not flat), all the segregated bike facilities in the world are not going to increase the number of riders to any significant degree.

It also depends on what they would spend that money on instead? Heavily
subsidized, poorly designed, mass transit that even fewer people would
use to commute (like in the Santa Clara Valley)? More lanes on freeways?

As expensive as some bicycle infrastructure appears to construct, it's
peanuts compared to widening roads or adding lightly used bus lines.

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 6:18:41 PM UTC+1, Andrew Chaplin wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:

One more point. In respect to automobile attitudes, Australia and
Canada are probably closer to those in the US than any other country,
though I've always found anglophone Canadians to be much more
conformist and law abiding than the Australians.

"It's a fair cop, but society is to blame."

I'll leave Duane speak about the francophone Canadiens.

Now /there's/ a way to madness.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

Thanks for the chuckle, Andrew. -- AJ