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Alfred can you envision that ever happening in Atlanta?

They're already working on it. The Beltline is basically a bicycle highway that will completely encircle the city on old rail beds. A few miles of it are done and it's amazing how fast you can get from one part of the city to another on flat ground with no traffic lights.

In the last 5 years I bet the bike traffic around the city has quadrupled or more. I used to never see anyone else riding and now I see tons of people out every day.

I know is sounds socialist, but at some point the decision has to be made to actively make car travel a less desirable option for getting around the cities. Much higher parking or entry fees or some other deterrent. Devoting so much money and space to cars absolutely destroys the quality of life in cities.

Alfred_E._Neuman wrote:They're already working on it. The Beltline is basically a bicycle highway that will completely encircle the city on old rail beds. A few miles of it are done and it's amazing how fast you can get from one part of the city to another on flat ground with no traffic lights.

In the last 5 years I bet the bike traffic around the city has quadrupled or more. I used to never see anyone else riding and now I see tons of people out every day.

I know is sounds socialist, but at some point the decision has to be made to actively make car travel a less desirable option for getting around the cities. Much higher parking or entry fees or some other deterrent. Devoting so much money and space to cars absolutely destroys the quality of life in cities.

Can only work in areas with strong public safety established. This is a problem in a lot of cities. I'll drive through the ghetto but wouldn't ride thru it. EDIT: I sometimes work with a badass chick of nearly 60 who rides all the time, but seldom in her neighborhood in DC (it's not a bad neighborhood but is close to some). Cities have become places that married middle class people move out of once they have kids, for a lot of reasons.

A lot of changes could be done relatively inexpensively in a lot of areas including:
--expanding sidewalks at the expense of grassy areas for dedicated cycling paths
--pedestrian/cyclist bridges over highways/clogged but busy streets
--inexpensive bike storage at park and ride facilities
--dedicated cyclist cars on metrorail transportation
--front cycle racks on more public buses
--rear cycle racks on public buses
--a cycling tax credit for riders (the current one is a nice start, but still insignificant)

IMO it's unlikely that parking and entry fees would be a realistically feasible way to encourage bike riding-- public transportation has a much bigger constituency (union workers); cyclists don't pay taxes (as cyclists anyway); feed at a significant trough (as does public transportation); and as a political constituency, cyclists are practically nonexistent. Draconian and often nonsensical ADA rules would also seem to be an impediment to expanding cycling paths in many urban and suburban areas.

Separated bike lanes are nice to ride on, even for those of us who've been riding in traffic forever. We have more being installed here. The main thing that will keep people from riding year-round here is the weather. Most--myself included--don't want to risk their lives in inclement weather.
It'll take a long time for Americans to embrace the commuting ethos. Maybe we should all spend some time in northern European countries to see how it works. I frquently find myself on the "Milwaukee Avenue peloton", where everyone is jockeying for position and cutting each other off. Silliness.
I can't get the first vid to load. Is it an Ipad thing?

Thanks for the vids Al!

Turning old rail lines into bike paths is a great idea. I haven't done it yet, but a lot of the riders around here like to hit the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes bike path across the panhandle in Idaho. It's 72 miles one way and it's all paved with no other traffic.

Fuck bikers. They'd be way, WAY, better off putting those old rail lines into use for mass transit.

I really can't stand when these dickheads think it's OK to 1) ride their bike on the sidewalk 2) run red lights 3) hover around the front of an intersection so they don't have to unclip or whatever 4) don't signal 5) piss and leave empties around where they hang when they're not delivering papers for people who actually work.

Plus, people with real jobs can't commute on bikes so if you start substituting bike lanes for actual car/bus/mass transit it has a negative impact on the real world.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:Fuck bikers. They'd be way, WAY, better off putting those old rail lines into use for mass transit.

I really can't stand when these dickheads think it's OK to 1) ride their bike on the sidewalk 2) run red lights 3) hover around the front of an intersection so they don't have to unclip or whatever 4) don't signal 5) piss and leave empties around where they hang when they're not delivering papers for people who actually work.

Plus, people with real jobs can't commute on bikes so if you start substituting bike lanes for actual car/bus/mass transit it has a negative impact on the real world.

Mass transit tends to be a massive money pit once you factor out NYC. AFAIK all the bike commuters here have real jobs.

Current laws will still leave plenty of room for your hoveround*.

*I can explain that to you, step by step, if you don't get it.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:Plus, people with real jobs can't commute on bikes

More and more, they do.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:Plus, people with real jobs can't commute on bikes

lulz. stupidest statement of day? indeed.

Plus, people with real jobs can't commute on bikes

I have 2 real jobs. And ride regularly.

you guys probably don't have real jobs.
I wasn't being entirely serious there but I see that i knotted some panties. Don't really mind bike commuters, I really do get annoyed at the fucking bike messengers. Not so much in LA as back east.

I also hated the stupid fucking Hubway... they are rental bikes parked all over the city that you can just pick up and drop off at another lot. the problem is that people who don't know how to ride a bike in traffic now have very easy access to do so. They ride on sidewalks, etc. I can only imagine this getting worse.

Mass transit is too cheap.

If I could make 6 digits being a messenger I'd go back in a second.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:If I could make 6 digits being a messenger I'd go back in a second.

What do you make as a messenger?

By the looks of these scumbags I can't see them pulling in more than 30k

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:If I could make 6 digits being a messenger I'd go back in a second.

What do you make as a messenger?

By the looks of these scumbags I can't see them pulling in more than 30k

If they make close to $30k I feel sad since that isn't much less than I make as a firemedic.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:If I could make 6 digits being a messenger I'd go back in a second.

What do you make as a messenger?

By the looks of these scumbags I can't see them pulling in more than 30k

I worked in the early to mid 90's before Adobe and before faxed signatures were de riguer. Made maaaayyyybe 18-20k busting ass on commission. I quit to drive a truck making 10 bucks and hour. I bet none of them are doing over min wage in their area.

There is not a single one of those guys who work at all anymore. No money, no need to get anything there on time.

*even then and probably now, sale and distribution of narcotics = the key to making money.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:If I could make 6 digits being a messenger I'd go back in a second.

What do you make as a messenger?

By the looks of these scumbags I can't see them pulling in more than 30k

I worked in the early to mid 90's before Adobe and before faxed signatures were de riguer. Made maaaayyyybe 18-20k busting ass on commission. I quit to drive a truck making 10 bucks and hour. I bet none of them are doing over min wage in their area.

There is not a single one of those guys who work at all anymore. No money, no need to get anything there on time.

*even then and probably now, sale and distribution of narcotics = the key to making money.

Did you ride like a dickhead? Serious question. Is it like a pride thing to ride like a complete asshole if you're a bike messenger?

Situation dependent. But like any other job where you see that following the rules will get you killed, you adapt. I will say this, no one in this country can drive for fucking shit. Spend a week exposed in traffic and you will realize that cages drivers are a bunch of toddlers suffering from the fallacy of central position.

Wanna see people who can drive? Egypt, nearly all of S.America, and Mexico City. Those fuckers understand Flow.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:Mass transit is too cheap.

Mass transit (once you factor out NYC) is heavily subsidized, not cheap, and not particularly green. Metrorail is a moneypit.

Bike paths are relatively costless once built, and they're cheap to build.

Turdacious wrote:

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:Mass transit is too cheap.

Mass transit (once you factor out NYC) is heavily subsidized, not cheap, and not particularly green. Metrorail is a moneypit.

Bike paths are relatively costless once built, and they're cheap to build.

Too cheap for the riders. I care about the congestion and the pain in the ass of driving not the "green" part. Bikes are not the future, you can't ride a fucking bike to a business meeting, you can't haul your tools on a bike, you can't ride a bike home when you're hammered, you can't fuck in the backseat of a bike, etc.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:Mass transit is too cheap.

Mass transit (once you factor out NYC) is heavily subsidized, not cheap, and not particularly green. Metrorail is a moneypit.

Bike paths are relatively costless once built, and they're cheap to build.

Too cheap for the riders. I care about the congestion and the pain in the ass of driving not the "green" part. Bikes are not the future, you can't ride a fucking bike to a business meeting, you can't haul your tools on a bike, you can't ride a bike home when you're hammered, you can't fuck in the backseat of a bike, etc.

Your expectations will change.

I've done all of the above on a bike with the exception of fucking, and outdoor sex is the best anyway.

As long as they don't ride on the sidewalk or use their bell to punctuate their TED talk, I have no problem with cyclists.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:Mass transit is too cheap.

Mass transit (once you factor out NYC) is heavily subsidized, not cheap, and not particularly green. Metrorail is a moneypit.

Bike paths are relatively costless once built, and they're cheap to build.

Too cheap for the riders. I care about the congestion and the pain in the ass of driving not the "green" part. Bikes are not the future, you can't ride a fucking bike to a business meeting, you can't haul your tools on a bike, you can't ride a bike home when you're hammered, you can't fuck in the backseat of a bike, etc.

You should care about the green part-- 'green' initiatives drive up the cost of public transportation significantly. Now that the federal trough for metrorail is drying up, states can't shoulder the cost on their own. Without raising taxes, cutting other public programs, or limiting routes and route times-- public transportation costs to the rider will go up-- especially as public transportation has generally oversold it's benefits to the public. Regarding expanding roads and public transportation routes, the land use requirements are significant and expensive (there are guys here with a far better background on that than I have).

Properly designed bike paths, like the ones AEN points out, do not necessarily take away from roads much. Nothing I suggested takes away from drivers.

Besides, it's the net benefit that matters-- good bike routes allow you to ride to work when you can (there are times where you really can't), and get other drivers off the roads. The latter lessens congestion. Another benefit-- when I ride, I have complete control over the time of my commute. Not so much in a vehicle.