351–360 of 527 posts
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.... Perhaps you can enlighten us as to how getting hit by a bicycle is comparable to getting hit by a Land Rover?
Land Rovers do not drive on sidewalks, for a start.
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It seems to me that it's all the same problem. If you have strong public spending you have more educated and less desperate people and better public transport.
To get the same transit in the US, we'd need to spend 5-10x what Europeans/Asians/anyone else in the world spends. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp... In the US, public spending is generally a way to funnel money to cronies of the inner party (e.g. transit worker unions, construction unions, politically connected consultants). Various other interest groups - mainly NIMBY homeowners - will…
I could say, equally (if not more) fairly, that all spending (public and private) is generally a way to funnel money to cronies of the capitalist system (e.g. CEOs, shareholders).
Maybe a more useful thing to discuss is what the money does in the process. Transit workers do provide labor that makes today's transit systems possible, after all.
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The crime rates are much higher in the United States than in Europe. This website claims rape occurs at a 3 times higher rate and murder at a 6 times higher rate. I couldn't find any good statistics for robbery but I imagine it's in that range. Yes, crime has been decreasing in the United States for around a quarter of a century, but it still occurs at a much higher rate than Europe and almost an order of magnitude h…
Rape and murder are both crimes where the odds are good you know your assailant. I don't believe the overall rate has much to do with transit. Of course, you admit it may not be rational- but in theory education can ease irrational thoughts, and this is likely simpler than solving the problem of crime. http://nypost.com/2014/01/05/odds-that-youll-be-killed-by-a-... http://www.911rape.org/facts-quotes/statistics
...Or are engaged in a criminal enterprise (for murder, not rape).
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Is it a particularly ethical standpoint to say "I don't pay my driver's a fair wage, but if I did then I wouldn't make money!"? I would rather have companies be forced to pay a reasonable minimum wage and compete by improving the service or efficiency, not just pushing the employees to work for less and less.
Contractors, not employees. I assume these drivers are all cutting checks to the IRS?
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Which ones would that be? 6 miles is 10 km, that's a nice ride but I've never heard of traffic planners that expect 10km rides.
Maybe I'm totally wrong on this, I guess it just didn't seem like an odd choice in the UK and other countries have much stronger focus on cycling. "People I know" will be a hugely unrepresentative sample though. For another unrepresentative sample, cycling commuters on strava average a bit over 10 miles: http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/10-stats-pai... I can't find the stat I want for Copenhagen, they…
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81 EUR in Berlin for the "normal" ticket (zones A+B), 100 EUR for the whole network. Discounted tickets for late sleepers. :-)
Pricy. It is 85CHF for Zuerich for zone 110 which covers majority of the city.
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Maybe I'm totally wrong on this, I guess it just didn't seem like an odd choice in the UK and other countries have much stronger focus on cycling. "People I know" will be a hugely unrepresentative sample though. For another unrepresentative sample, cycling commuters on strava average a bit over 10 miles: http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/10-stats-pai... I can't find the stat I want for Copenhagen, they…
It may be over half commuting by bike now. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/30/cycling-revol... I can't seem to find mode share as a function of commute distance. Pure anecdata, but when I worked in El Segundo and lived in Santa Monica, I usually cycled the 12 miles to work. It took about 5 minutes longer than the drive.
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"Yes, but poor people use public transportation to come from bad neighborhoods to good neighborhoods to rob us! We must ban all expansion of public transportation!" This exact sentiment is echoed by many in the US as a reason to not expand public transit. When asked about criminals driving cars to commit crimes, they were not open to bulldozing the roads over. It's gross.
>"Yes, but poor people use public transportation to come from bad neighborhoods to good neighborhoods to rob us! We must ban all expansion of public transportation!" This is why the (Boston) red line doesn't extend to Arlington.
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To get the same transit in the US, we'd need to spend 5-10x what Europeans/Asians/anyone else in the world spends. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp... In the US, public spending is generally a way to funnel money to cronies of the inner party (e.g. transit worker unions, construction unions, politically connected consultants). Various other interest groups - mainly NIMBY homeowners - will…
Wealth is getting increasingly concentrated in this country, and not into the hands of union workers. I think your description of the role of public spending is misleading at best. I could say, equally (if not more) fairly, that all spending (public and private) is generally a way to funnel money to cronies of the capitalist system (e.g. CEOs, shareholders). Maybe a more useful thing to discuss is what the money does…
If you want to claim that the US government spending $2-4B somehow funnels money to the capitalists, it's tangential to my point. Wherever the money gets lost, the point is that the US is simply not capable of building transit the way the rest of the world does.
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They take up less space and result in less pollution and a healthier population. In what way do you think they're about the same?
I was mostly referring to congestion. (They certainly have advantages like exercise, noise, and storage space.) Bicycles are physically smaller, but they still need a substantial safety zone, just like cars. It's easier and faster to stop a 25mph car than a 25mph bike.
> It's easier and faster to stop a 25mph car than a 25mph bike
Really? Is it that much different? Nothing I found was particularly conclusive but didn't suggest much of a difference.