How to suck all the joy from cycling

On 2/9/2020 2:51 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

In a slightly humorous effort to determine how badly separate bicycle
paths are required by the cycling public an announcement might be
placed in local news agencies that "New and safer bicycle paths will
be built on Main Street. The cost of which will be recovered by a tax
made on each and every bicycle owner that uses the facility."

I suggest that under those conditions there will be very little "need"
for these facilities :-)

You don't understand how cities collect and spend tax money. You don't
poll citizens on every different expense and see if they'd be willing to
pay for it. Local road construction and maintenance is funded by
property taxes, and, indirectly by fuel taxes.

Depends on where you live, but it my city there is tremendous support
for bicycle infrastructure, much more so that other ways we could spend
tax money. Not everyone is on board of course, just like not everyone
wants to fund schools, libraries, parks, storm drain maintenance, tree
trimming, street lights, etc.

Frank is wrong of course about the reasons many cities want separated
bicycle lanes, and as usual he has no data. It's not just about hit from
behind crashes, it's more about keeping vehicles from parking, stopping,
and loading and unloading in bicycle lanes. There's no point in a
painted bicycle lane if it's constantly being blocked by vehicles, and
cyclists have to veer into traffic to pass the illegally parked
vehicles; it's impossible to have enough police to patrol all the
bicycle lanes.

The problem with separated bicycle lanes is how you treat intersections
to prevent right-hooks. Right hooks happen even without these lanes of
course, but it's more of a problem with the separated bicycle lanes.

The Netherlands seems to have figured out bicycle infrastructure, and as
a result has very high bicycling use. In The U.S., every time we add
cycling infrastructure ridership goes up. Yes, it's a small amount, but
it's better than mass transit whose use is continuing to decline.

On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 03:39:19 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 07:23:46 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 23:48:30 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 05:51:40 +0700, John B. wrote:


In a slightly humorous effort

Not humourous and typical "blame the victim" mentality.

to determine how badly separate bicycle paths are required by the
cycling public an announcement might be placed in local news agencies
that "New and safer bicycle paths will be built on Main Street. The
cost of which will be recovered by a tax made on each and every
bicycle owner that uses the facility."

No, the demand is from car owners who want to take the roadway for
themselves.


I suggest that under those conditions there will be very little "need"
for these facilities :-)

Especially if the real benefactorsa, the car owners are the ones who
pay.
That mob are worse than any drug addict.

I'm not sure where you are but I would guess that, probably, you live in
a democracy, in which case you must know that the majority get to
dictate to the minority, as has been the case since Athens, in the
second half of the 7th century BC.

Err, nope. a very select minority, of ll the population, actually voted
on what will happen.

True, essentially those that counted. For instance those who had
completed military training and maintained arms and armor and were
prepared to protect their city were qualified to vote while those who
hadn't paid their taxes were excluded. Slaves and foreigners quite
obviously were not allowed to vote and women, of course, weren't
included as after all, historically speaking, women have not been
considered qualified to vote anywhere until very recent times.

Estimates of the total qualified voters in ancient Athens is in the
30% of the population range. In comparison the U.S. census estimates
that 15% of the U.S. population may ride a bicycle twice a week, or
more.


So, democratically, cars, or perhaps more properly internal-combustion
powered vehicles, must have first priority to the roads.

Nope, one doesn't give jukies their craving else we'll all sink to the
lowest common denominator. The ony good thing about ICE is the greater
the number, the greter the ill health of the population. die off.


You equate voters with drug addicts? Or perhaps a country where the
masses are controlled by a relatively small minority is preferable?
Like China where members of the Party amount to ~6.13% of the
population?
--
cheers,

John B.

On 2/9/2020 3:48 PM, news18 wrote:

snip

Especially if the real benefactorsa, the car owners are the ones who pay.
That mob are worse than any drug addict.

Speaking as someone that actually has first-hand knowledge about this
subject, I think you'd be surprised about this.

Vehicle owners like having the cyclists out of their way with a clear
delineation of who should be where. What they get upset about is the
cyclists that decline to use the new bicycle infrastructure.
Experienced, high-speed cyclists often don't want to use new bicycle
infrastructure and intentionally avoid roads that have it installed.
Less experienced cyclists would not ride at all without some of the
infrastructure.

Vehicle owners also often have children that they'd like to be able to
bicycle to school. Not every car owner is as self-centered as you may
think─a small percentage of problem car owners give all car owners a bad
reputation.

We do sometimes have a few residents that oppose new bicycle
infrastructure. We had a city council meeting that went until 4:30 a.m.
where a short new trail along a creek was proposed and ultimately
approved. The big issue was that the residents whose homes backed up to
the county-owned service road along the creek didn't want pedestrians
and bicyclists behind their houses because of privacy concerns.

My colleague on the council somehow was able to come up with a proposal
that got a 5-0 vote, much to my amazement.
https://www.regnartcreek.com/ I had to get approval from the State of
California to be able to vote on the trail because my house is very
close to it. I have some neighbors of mine very mad at me!

On 2/9/2020 6:06 PM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

I have the opposite problem: traffic is stopped, and I take the door zone just to get down the road. Yes, you have to be super observant, and with all the blacked-out windows these days, it IS hard seeing what's happening in those parked cars. There is always risk riding in the door zone -- like flying an F-14. Riding to the dooor zone [cue music].

Ditto. It's quite common around here for the bicycle lane traffic to
move much faster than the vehicle traffic.

On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 21:21:12 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 2/9/2020 2:51 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

In a slightly humorous effort to determine how badly separate bicycle
paths are required by the cycling public an announcement might be
placed in local news agencies that "New and safer bicycle paths will
be built on Main Street. The cost of which will be recovered by a tax
made on each and every bicycle owner that uses the facility."

I suggest that under those conditions there will be very little "need"
for these facilities :-)

You don't understand how cities collect and spend tax money. You don't
poll citizens on every different expense and see if they'd be willing to
pay for it. Local road construction and maintenance is funded by
property taxes, and, indirectly by fuel taxes.

Depends on where you live, but it my city there is tremendous support
for bicycle infrastructure, much more so that other ways we could spend
tax money. Not everyone is on board of course, just like not everyone
wants to fund schools, libraries, parks, storm drain maintenance, tree
trimming, street lights, etc.

Frank is wrong of course about the reasons many cities want separated
bicycle lanes, and as usual he has no data. It's not just about hit from
behind crashes, it's more about keeping vehicles from parking, stopping,
and loading and unloading in bicycle lanes. There's no point in a
painted bicycle lane if it's constantly being blocked by vehicles, and
cyclists have to veer into traffic to pass the illegally parked
vehicles; it's impossible to have enough police to patrol all the
bicycle lanes.

The problem with separated bicycle lanes is how you treat intersections
to prevent right-hooks. Right hooks happen even without these lanes of
course, but it's more of a problem with the separated bicycle lanes.

The Netherlands seems to have figured out bicycle infrastructure, and as
a result has very high bicycling use. In The U.S., every time we add
cycling infrastructure ridership goes up. Yes, it's a small amount, but
it's better than mass transit whose use is continuing to decline.

I suggest that you read a bit of history as you have the cart in front
of the horse. The Netherlands historically had a very high level of
bicycle usage and in 1890's were already building bike paths. By
1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any other country
in Europe.
Post WW II motor vehicle use increased but bicycle use was still very
high and Amsterdam's traffic circulation plan of 1978 gave priority to
bicycle facilities.

As an aside, a year or so ago I did a study of Dutch versus U.S.
cycling facilities and based on existing motorways the U.S. would have
to built about a million miles of bicycle paths to begin to compare
with the then existing facilities in Holland.
--
cheers,

John B.

On 2/9/2020 10:04 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

I suggest that you read a bit of history as you have the cart in front
of the horse. The Netherlands historically had a very high level of
bicycle usage and in 1890's were already building bike paths. By
1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any other country
in Europe.

This video may help you learn the facts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o.

On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 23:16:38 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 2/9/2020 10:04 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

I suggest that you read a bit of history as you have the cart in front
of the horse. The Netherlands historically had a very high level of
bicycle usage and in 1890's were already building bike paths. By
1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any other country
in Europe.

This video may help you learn the facts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o.

What are you arguing about? That the Netherlands did not build the
first bike lane in the 1890's? Or that bicycle transportation was not
a part of the Amsterdam City planning as far back as the 1970's?

Or that strict liability has been law in the Netherlands since the
early 1990s for bicycle-motor vehicle accidents. In a collision
between a car and a cyclist, the driver's insurer is deemed to be
liable to pay damages ( motor vehicle insurance is mandatory in the
Netherlands, while cyclist insurance is not) to the cyclist's property
and their medical bills as long as 1) the cyclist did not
intentionally crash into the motor vehicle, and 2) the cyclist was not
in error in some way.
Or perhaps that there are 1.91 bicycle per household in Amsterdam? Or
that, again in Amsterdam, Roughly, two-thirds of urban transportation
takes place on bicycles and only 19 percent of the citizens use cars
daily?

But city planning based on Youtube? Pitiful!
Oh that's right, you didn't like "pitiful" did you? How about .
"City planning based on Youtube? Pathetic!"
--
cheers,

John B.

Am 08.02.2020 um 05:49 schrieb John B.:
If one builds bicycle lanes in a similar manner as foot paths are
being built in Bangkok with no surface road crossings but bridges over
the roadway (seehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz0ghLc6lrY ) than
I'm sure that they would work fine.... except of course for the
complaints about the "hills", but having the beautiful bike path
terminate on a busy road crossing seems to me to be simply inviting
calamity.

They tried doing that in Stevenage and in Milton Keynes. Both cities
are now known to have fewer bicylcles and more bike accidents than
normal cities.

On 2/10/2020 5:04 AM, Rolf Mantel wrote:
Am 08.02.2020 um 05:49 schrieb John B.:
If one builds bicycle lanes in a similar manner as foot paths are
being built in Bangkok with no surface road crossings but bridges over
the roadway (seehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz0ghLc6lrYÂ* ) than
I'm sure that they would work fine.... except of course for the
complaints about the "hills", but having the beautiful bike path
terminate on a busy road crossing seems to me to be simply inviting
calamity.

They tried doing that in Stevenage and in Milton Keynes.Â* Both cities
are now known to have fewer bicylcles and more bike accidents than
normal cities.

Ah, the old "Milton Keynes Argument."

"One, initial, way of demonstrating the flawed reasoning behind the
Milton Keynes Argument would be to consider whether there would be more,
or less cycling in Milton Keynes if there weren’t any cycle paths at
all. Are those who claim that cycle paths do not make cycling more
likely really suggesting that if we were to strip out the cycle paths in
Milton Keynes the amount of cycling there would stay the same, or even
increase?

That seems fantastically unlikely to me, given that the cycle paths, in
the main, run alongside dual carriageways, often those with 70 mph speed
limits. To pretend that people are just as likely to cycle on these
kinds of roads as they would be on the cycle paths that run alongside
them – cycle paths that, let’s remember, are claimed to be as good as
anything in the Netherlands – stretches credibility to breaking point."

From
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/they-built-it-and-they-didnt-come-the-lesson-of-milton-keynes/.

On Monday, February 10, 2020 at 2:42:39 PM UTC, sms wrote:
On 2/10/2020 5:04 AM, Rolf Mantel wrote:
Am 08.02.2020 um 05:49 schrieb John B.:
If one builds bicycle lanes in a similar manner as foot paths are
being built in Bangkok with no surface road crossings but bridges over
the roadway (seehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz0ghLc6lrYÂ* ) than
I'm sure that they would work fine.... except of course for the
complaints about the "hills", but having the beautiful bike path
terminate on a busy road crossing seems to me to be simply inviting
calamity.

They tried doing that in Stevenage and in Milton Keynes.Â* Both cities
are now known to have fewer bicylcles and more bike accidents than
normal cities.

Ah, the old "Milton Keynes Argument."

"One, initial, way of demonstrating the flawed reasoning behind the
Milton Keynes Argument would be to consider whether there would be more,
or less cycling in Milton Keynes if there weren’t any cycle paths at
all. Are those who claim that cycle paths do not make cycling more
likely really suggesting that if we were to strip out the cycle paths in
Milton Keynes the amount of cycling there would stay the same, or even
increase?

That seems fantastically unlikely to me, given that the cycle paths, in
the main, run alongside dual carriageways, often those with 70 mph speed
limits. To pretend that people are just as likely to cycle on these
kinds of roads as they would be on the cycle paths that run alongside
them – cycle paths that, let’s remember, are claimed to be as good as
anything in the Netherlands – stretches credibility to breaking point."

From
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/they-built-it-and-they-didnt-come-the-lesson-of-milton-keynes/.

Bicycles aren't allowed on the 70mph dual carriageways of precisely the reason you imply, that it would be a massacre of cyclists.

Andre Jute
Bring on the Imperium!