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Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

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Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#71

Post by dmitriid »

philwelch wrote: post #68
dmitriid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bicycles aren’t very useful vehicles compared to cars, which is why a very small share of the US population uses them on the roads in the first place. It's because the infrastructure for biking is almost non-existent. Thanks to people who keep saying "just ban bycicles because cars!". Read and watch this: How the Dutch got their cycling infrastructure https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-...

The infrastructure is almost non-existent because the vast majority of Americans don’t use bicycles to travel, not the other way around. There is not any sort of untapped well of demand in the American population to use bicycles to get around, outside of a very small and vocal activist minority who mostly already ride their bicycles in motor traffic already. The Netherlands is an extremely dense, flat, temperate coun…

> The infrastructure is almost non-existent because the vast majority of Americans don’t use bicycles to travel, not the other way around.

No. Please read about Netherlands again.

> The Netherlands is an extremely dense, flat, temperate country, which is ideal for bicycles. The United States is none of those things.

Ah yes. All of United States is mountainous land where each person leaves 100 miles from another person.

However, even in places where United States is more like the Netherlands there's almost non-existent bicycle infrastructure (or even pedestrian infrastructure for that matter).

> Bicycles predate automobiles by decades, but in the US

Ah yes. The uniqueness of the United States where bicycles were introduced decades before the car. Unlike any other country where... bicycles were introduced decades before the car.

If you actually made the effort to read the link (and watch the video), you'll see that it's not a unique thing only seen in the US. Let me quote:

"But the way Dutch streets and roads are built today is largely the result of deliberate political decisions in the 1970s to turn away from the car centric policies of the prosperous post war era." The Dutch had the same thing: everything was being converted to roads used exclusievly by motorists, and "the Dutch don't use bicycles for travel". And yet, here we are in 2022.

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#72

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

ortusdux wrote: post #11

I've been wondering if the new Korean style rolling barriers would gain acceptance in the US and other countries. https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/this-new-korea...

you mean for this sort of stunt?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3yNc5EasW8

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#73

Post by Silhouette »

philwelch wrote: post #66
enriquto wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bicycles aren’t very useful vehicles compared to cars I find this point of view amusing because it is so contradictory to my personal experience. In my case, I started commuting by bike after years of being tired to spend an unpredictable amount of time stuck on traffic, looking through the window at cyclists merrily passing by. Since becoming one of these cyclists, I feel a bit of pity every time that I see people…

> Because there is no safe infrastructure for cycling, and that is the main problem. Which, as I pointed out, could be addressed with more effective barriers between motor vehicle and bicycle lanes. But I think you’re very much overestimating the willingness of Americans to ride bicycles to get around in a Florida or Texas summer, or a Minnesota winter, or up the hills of Seattle or San Francisco, as well as the degr…

Which, as I pointed out, could be addressed with more effective barriers between motor vehicle and bicycle lanes.

Unfortunately it isn't as simple as that. Statistically most serious accidents involving cyclists happen at junctions or other localised hazards. For obvious reasons complete physical separation of car and cycle lanes usually isn't possible in those places.

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#74

Post by Silhouette »

philwelch wrote: post #70
yarky wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would be a massive improvement at the expense of inconveniencing a small minority of people (while improving the convenience for everyone else). Wasn't this the same kind of argument we used in the past to justify slavery?

Slaveholders were a minority of the population who managed to structure all of society to suit their wishes to the detriment of everyone else. As you might have gathered, I’m opposed to this sort of thing.

As you might have gathered, I’m opposed to this sort of thing.

In that case perhaps we could compare the number of drivers in the United States with the global population and then talk about the environment? The US is a major contributor to global climate change and the US is exceptionally bad compared to other developed nations in GHG contributions arising directly from motor vehicle use. I'm not interested in contrived arguments about slavery but if you want to take a principled stand against a small minority forcing their preferences and the adverse consequences of those preferences on a much larger majority then unfortunately you are on the wrong side of this issue.

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#75

Post by Silhouette »

philwelch wrote: post #67
throwaway22032 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure, yesterday I made a trip that was less than 10km. It took around fifteen minutes. I'm a pretty quick cyclist and it would have taken over half an hour. It was also 6 degrees C outside and raining. I don't consider cycling particularly unsafe even on the road. But, aside from it being pretty good exercise, it's objectively inferior for me to do it, unless the car infrastructure is unavailable or deliberat…

Which is why these people want to cripple the car infrastructure.

It's not about crippling car infrastructure. There will always be good reasons to use large/flexible/powerful vehicles for a lot of journeys.

It is about not promoting car infrastructure to the detriment and ultimately exclusion of alternatives that have the potential to be widely beneficial to society (including, ironically, to those who still drive motor vehicles in our hypothetical alternative reality).

You can provide well for different modes of transportation at the same time. Several European cities have had great success in doing so and they are much nicer places for it.

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#76

Post by shepherdjerred »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #64
shepherdjerred wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#United_States

Could link to a lot of american perversions if you wanted to but that's a very narrow "we."

There are plenty of other countries on that page with similar laws.

> In Zimbabwe, jaywalking is illegal, as per the traffic laws gazetted in 2013 by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development.

> In recent years, jaywalking has become more strictly controlled in China as car traffic increased. Police have tested facial recognition to identify jaywalkers.

Italy:

> Pedestrians are allowed to cross a street without any recognised crossing point only if there are no zebra crossings within a range of 100 m

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#77

Post by philwelch »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #69
philwelch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA is published by the US Department of Transportation.

My point was more that "things that americans do", "things that everyone does", and "things we should be doing" is a venn diagram with a very small center when it comes to car use.

When I used the word “we”, I was talking about the US. I don’t believe in a global “we”. You live in a country where pedestrians are allowed to walk out onto the same street where cars go, and I live in a country where they aren’t. And apparently, we are both happy with how our respective countries do things. And that’s fine; I’m happy that you’re happy with your country’s laws and customs and I wouldn’t want to impose my country’s laws and customs on anyone else.

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#78

Post by philwelch »

dmitriid wrote: post #71
philwelch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The infrastructure is almost non-existent because the vast majority of Americans don’t use bicycles to travel, not the other way around. There is not any sort of untapped well of demand in the American population to use bicycles to get around, outside of a very small and vocal activist minority who mostly already ride their bicycles in motor traffic already. The Netherlands is an extremely dense, flat, temperate coun…

> The infrastructure is almost non-existent because the vast majority of Americans don’t use bicycles to travel, not the other way around. No. Please read about Netherlands again. > The Netherlands is an extremely dense, flat, temperate country, which is ideal for bicycles. The United States is none of those things. Ah yes. All of United States is mountainous land where each person leaves 100 miles from another perso…

> > Bicycles predate automobiles by decades, but in the US

> Ah yes. The uniqueness of the United States where bicycles were introduced decades before the car. Unlike any other country where... bicycles were introduced decades before the car.

You’re quoting me out of context and mocking me for your own misunderstanding of what I said. What I said was, “Bicycles predate automobiles by decades, but in the US they never even displaced horses or horse-drawn vehicles”.

In the English language, we use words known as “conjunctions” to combine two related thoughts into the same sentence. The first thought was, “bicycles predate automobiles by decades”, which is a general statement that was not specific to the US. The second thought was, “bicycles never even displaced horses in the US”. These two statements are joined by the conjunction “but”. Adding the qualifier phrase “in the US” after the conjunction “but” is done to indicate that the qualifier phrase does not apply to the first thought.

> The Dutch had the same thing: everything was being converted to roads used exclusievly by motorists

They didn’t quite have the same thing, which is the point I made earlier. From Wikipedia:

> Cycling became popular in the Netherlands a little later than it did in the United States and Britain, which experienced their bike booms in the 1880s, but by the 1890s the Dutch were already building dedicated paths for cyclists.[8] By 1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any other country in Europe.

> The ownership and use of bicycles continued to increase and in 1940 there were around four million bicycles in a population of eight million. Half of these bicycles disappeared during the German occupation, but after the war the use of bicycles quickly returned to normal and continued at a high level until 1960 (annual distance covered by bicycle for each inhabitant: 1500 km). Then, much like it had in other developed nations, the privately owned motor car became more affordable and therefore more commonly in use and bicycles as a result less popular. That is: ownership still remained high, but use fell to around 800 km annually.[9] Even so, the number of Dutch people cycling was very high compared to other European nations.

This did not happen in the US, where private car ownership caught on much earlier, but also where bicycles were never as popular to begin with as they had been in the Netherlands.

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#79

Post by dmitriid »

philwelch wrote: post #78
dmitriid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The infrastructure is almost non-existent because the vast majority of Americans don’t use bicycles to travel, not the other way around. No. Please read about Netherlands again. > The Netherlands is an extremely dense, flat, temperate country, which is ideal for bicycles. The United States is none of those things. Ah yes. All of United States is mountainous land where each person leaves 100 miles from another perso…

> > Bicycles predate automobiles by decades, but in the US > Ah yes. The uniqueness of the United States where bicycles were introduced decades before the car. Unlike any other country where... bicycles were introduced decades before the car. You’re quoting me out of context and mocking me for your own misunderstanding of what I said. What I said was, “Bicycles predate automobiles by decades, but in the US they never…

So, cycling became popular in the Netherlands later. And the Netherlands also was busy building roads for cars only, especially post WWII.

And yet, "US is unique, everything about the US is unique, we are unique, and the wind blows because the trees move".

> Dutch people cycling was very high compared to other European nations.

And yet even other European nations have decent-to-great cycling infrastructure.

Re: Basics of Concrete Barriers (2000)

#80

Post by philwelch »

dmitriid wrote: post #79
philwelch wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Bicycles predate automobiles by decades, but in the US > Ah yes. The uniqueness of the United States where bicycles were introduced decades before the car. Unlike any other country where... bicycles were introduced decades before the car. You’re quoting me out of context and mocking me for your own misunderstanding of what I said. What I said was, “Bicycles predate automobiles by decades, but in the US they never…

So, cycling became popular in the Netherlands later . And the Netherlands also was busy building roads for cars only, especially post WWII. And yet, "US is unique, everything about the US is unique, we are unique, and the wind blows because the trees move". > Dutch people cycling was very high compared to other European nations. And yet even other European nations have decent-to-great cycling infrastructure.

You really need to work on your reading comprehension, or at least put in more of an effort. My central point here isn’t that the US is unique. If anything, it’s the Netherlands that’s unique. But at the very least, they are two very different countries.

One thing the US and Netherlands have in common is that they are both democracies. The Dutch pivoted back to bicycle infrastructure because there was public demand for it. This is not true in the US.

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