tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2321115914531379322024-02-18T20:45:47.743-05:00Motorized Vehicle HegemonyThe Petroleum-Automobile Paradigm as witnessed by an irreverent, daily, non-motorized commuter from Cleveland: The "Cradle of Automobile Culture."Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-45591045666948164142015-06-09T13:28:00.001-04:002015-06-09T13:34:34.753-04:00Old People Like Me<p dir="ltr"><u>Subtitle</u>: The futility of anything changing while people my age are still alive.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I've been hanging out at this 'entertainment' complex recently serving my performing habit, (which is why I still have a car.)</p>
<p dir="ltr">Masonic Auditorium</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://goo.gl/maps/8EBA5">http://goo.gl/maps/8EBA5</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">Turn on the satellite view and notice the shitload of parking lots in the area.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This neighborhood is sparsely populated due to years of car-centric abandonment, but does have several condos and remaining mansions to the south and Cleveland's tiny 'Asiatown' to the north, which is seeing some recent promotion and bustle.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This neighborhood, known as "Mid Town" is about halfway between downtown and the University Circle area, (which is booming,) and also right on an excellent Public Transit route on Euclid Ave.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It is also close to Cleveland State University with, *sigh, 'easy freeway access.'</p>
<p dir="ltr">Really an excellent position geographically.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I suggested to the 50-something desk clerk that the old restaurant across the street be reopened, to provide a walkable destination for attendees at the increasing number of shows at the Masonic complex, as well as for residents of the previously mentioned proximate neighborhoods.</p>
<p dir="ltr">After agreeing with me a bit, he suddenly stated that he wishes the owner would tear it down for a parking lot.</p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-92043179962628512072014-12-21T13:31:00.000-05:002014-12-21T13:31:52.599-05:00Freeways are Killers, StupidSure, 'stupid.'<br />
<br />
It's stupid to stop your car on a freeway.<br />
<br />
It's even more stupid to even enter a freeway, but how can you not enter the freeways given our level of sprawl and the knowledge and induced expectation that we can traverse an entire city in 15 minutes?<br />
<br />
This woman stopped her car on a freeway, (in the left lane!) to prevent killing stupid ducks and to help them across the road. The world is outraged at the deaths of two speeding motorcyclists who crashed into her car:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/17/canada-ducklings-highway-fatal-court/20513845/">Motocyclists killed</a><br />
<br />
I've stopped to avoid killing geese though not on a 'freeway.' I've also slaughtered a few cats and other critters on freeways and off.<br />
<br />
Around 200 people are killed themselves by bigger critters every year on the killing fields known as our automobile roadways every year:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer%E2%80%93vehicle_collisions">Stupid Deer</a><br />
<br />
The motorcyclists were traveling 75 in a 55 MPH zone. Little mention has been made of this.<br />
<br />
No word has been made of how close they were following. I was just tailgated last night the entire time I was on the freeway. I was doing 55 MPH in the right lane. My friend told me to 'tap the brakes,' a common 'remedy' for stupid behavior.<br />
<br />
Our freeways have become the haven of such incredible projected 'road rage' anger, impatience, and frustration, coupled with an amazingly powerful means of crushing and ripping apart human and other living bodies.<br />
<br />
Vehicular death is still the leading (non-chronic disease) killer in the US, and we love to single out stupid 'girls' for doing something not uncommon in the world of stupid things in our stupid auto culture.<br />
<br />
Much of this destructive power is being transmitted to our local 'arterials' as they serve as 'pre-freeways:' ramps to the freeways. We are in the service of sprawlers in a sprawling culture of un-limited space who need to get home to their hobbies and responsibilities many of which require getting back in the car.<br />
<br />
When the Freeway System was conceived and plotted in the 1940s, the number of vehicles was around 27 million.<br />
<br />
As we began construction in the 1950s we had increased to 40 million.<br />
<br />
As construction continues and re-construction with maintenance has begun faltering we now have exploded to around 240 Million vehicles on our roads including small cars, humvees, SUVs, pick-up trucks like tanks, motorcycles, semi-tractor trailers, etc.<br />
<br />
The image you see sometimes in old AAA travel brochures of a happy family traveling down a freeway, apparently all to themselves is no more.<br />
<br />
Now, any given trip to Columbus from Cleveland, at any time down I-71 you are never out of sight of another vehicle and commonly, as on all freeways, there are several automobiles around you, all hurtling forward at <b>max speed.</b><br />
<br />
It's always Rush Hour in America, and around the world. Total madness.<br />
<br />
You assume a considerable risk to yourself and your family on the freeway, not only from stupid people stopping cars for ducks, deer, moose, humans, stalled cars, accidents, even humans and human parts from accidents, but also from stupid cars with their wheels badly balanced and falling off, worn out brakes and other mechanical issues.<br />
<br />
You must be crazy.<br />
<br />
High Speed transportation should be left to Professionals and infrastructure designed for professionals.<br />
<br />
The slaughter will continue.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-87952657212719040672014-09-19T11:00:00.000-04:002014-09-20T11:17:51.908-04:00The Poor Need Healthy Local Economies<div dir="ltr">
This article from Washington Post and Emily Badger, (formerly of Atlantic Cities) back in April touched on a seeming weak spot in the war against vehicular violence:</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/04/01/why-the-poor-need-better-access-to-cars/">The Poor Need More Cars</a></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The feeling that reducing the number of automobiles on our streets hurts the poor the most isn't a baseless claim, but the need for automobiles among all socio-economic classes is indicative of a larger intractable problem.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
While the Wonkblog piece admits the overlying reasons for this need, to suggest in the short term that there be subsidized automobiles over subsidizing urban environmental health is rash and wrong-headed.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Car dependence is not only a hugely disproportional problem for the poor, it is also a tool used, (if only passively,) by our suburbs to <b>keep them poor</b> and keep them OUT of those suburbs, save for a small number of interchangeable service jobs.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
This entry in the article's responses from "ChuckusDaRuckus" is on the mark:</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Everyone knows that to get around in suburban U.S., you have to own a car. That does not mean car ownership is the answer to ending poverty. It means we have a sprawl problem, and the poor are forced to own a car to get to their jobs or the grocery store. There are very few places one can live in the US today and get by without a car. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box !important; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Unlike older countries, this one was built around the automobile. After WWII, with vets coming home, wanting to start families, middle-class white America started to move out to the suburbs. When they moved, they took their money with them. With money, comes more spending, which attracts more jobs. Also, municipalities can tax that money to improve social services, like schools. In sum, white America took their money and prospertity to the suburbs. And there they remain to this day. </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box !important; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box !important; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Cars are expensive to buy and maintain. They are an unnecessry expense. They do not house, clothe or feed you. They just get you from point A to B. Let your feet do that. Cars cause smog and global warming. Cars are deadly. Car accidents are the number one killer of teens in the US. Cars make us lazy, and subsequently fat. Now we have an obesity epidemic. Cars suck. </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box !important; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box !important; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Instead of giving the poor vouchers for cars, here are some radical public policy ideas. We invest in schools in poor urban areas. We promote mixed-use communities that offer walkability and local jobs. We make transit more accessible for these communities so that poor residents do not have to own a car. It costs between $7,000 and $11,000 a year, on average, to own a car. Some families make less than that a year. </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box !important; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box !important; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica-light, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">There are many causes of poverty. One way to address this issue is by lowering the cost of living for the poor. One does not have to make more money to have a better quality of life. We could continue to force everyone to own a car by continuing to sprawl out. We could also build cities in space and require everyone to own a spaceship to get to work. But neither makes since."</span><div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />When I was riding the bus from the inner city to the suburbs everyday a few winters ago, most of my neighbors were traveling to minimum wage service jobs in the fast food and chain restaurant industries.</div>
<div>
What proportion of that mediocre income would be necessary to maintain a, (most likely,) poor quality automobile instead of a bus pass I can only wonder.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My urban neighborhood is now annoyingly, (for me) gentrified. Among the several benefits I do acknowledge is witnessing a couple of those same neighbors working in the restaurants or other shops that have popped up.</div>
<div>
Still not a great job, but perhaps now that it's within walking distance they will have added time to care for their children or perhaps obtain some education, or even 'make connections' that may not be possible in nameless suburban fast food Hell. they will save some money on daily transportation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Working closer to home can close identity gaps between socio-economic groups both socially and economically, instilling a sense of shared place for all.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Yes Chuckus, the poor need healthy local economies: as do we all.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-78447055106759855142014-09-13T15:01:00.003-04:002015-01-19T13:09:02.368-05:00Mea Culpas and the Incorrigibles<p dir="ltr">I was being 'trolled' at work by a co-worker the other day about my trifling concerns over automobile culture. Others 'troll' me too.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I proudly tell people I drive at or under the speed limit. They get angry at me. They remind me there are laws against it for the passing lane.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I express my muted support for the current emphasis on bike lanes and Cleveland's new bike share program, mentioning how I see more people riding on sidewalks and other crazy shit (because our streets are dangerous for seasoned cyclists let alone amateurs.)</p>
<p dir="ltr">This is taken as an opening by my conversation partner about "how those fucking cyclists almost made them kill someone."</p>
<p dir="ltr">That's ok, I do some goading myself. This is a constant hazard of having concerns and opinions.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As it sometimes proceeds to a more heated, (but still well controlled) exchange of views, the fact that I still own a car and other personal hypocrisies such as accepting the occasional ride, or taking a driving trip for vacation are used against me.<br>
These contradictions merely confirm that we all are overly dependent on automobile culture, including me. I'm fortunate though. Many simply cannot live without an automobile.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This dependency is by design. What once was a privilege for rich people quickly became a dependency for all as the rich knew that promoting automobile ownership as personalized freedom via mechanical speed and power would mitigate the charges of privilege leveled against them.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Slow, <i>underpowered</i> electric vehicles should serve anyone's needs. Think of all the airbag technology and anti-pollution controls we could stop wasting money on if we had small slow electric vehicles carrying things for us. We already do.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I bought my last, fuel efficient car new in 2006. It now has 45K miles nine years later. I believe I have put on less than 10K since I re-arranged my personal geography, (80% of my life is within 5 miles,) and found the pedestrian and cyclist religion full-time. Now the car suffers from problems of dis-use. I had cobwebs in my brake drums which were causing issues.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Still, it isn't easy, and I'm a median-income suburban-raised white guy. I'm up against a formidable, entrenched culture; one filled with corporate-lobbied defensiveness , aggression, and protectionism. Yes, I do wish I could get rid of it. I probably could if I gave up my hobbies. My hobbies are social and involve other people, all with their own schedules, geographies and car dependency.<br>
Mass transit gets worse and worse, suffering under funding for personal vehicle infrastructure and outright corporate aggression. I'm 50 years old. I walk to work everyday in winter, half the time I ride by bicycle the rest of the year. My left knee is fucked up. My overcompensating right foot has plantar fasciitis. It always hurts.</p>
<p dir="ltr">People born between 1930 and 1980 are the "Incorrigibles." They will never give up their living room on wheels. I am solidly in this demographic, hence the slings and arrows.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It's expensive. AAA themselves estimate a car owner spends an average of $9-10,000 per year to own an automobile.<br>
I have NEVER seen sticker prices or any other costs decrease. They never will, regardless of the fuel system of your personal, mechanical vehicle. Bicycle costs don't decrease either, but they're vastly less.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We serve the culture. My charges of automobile slavery are not hyperbole.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Consider this report by Morgan Stanley:</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://qz.com/264781/the-latest-attack-on-americas-car-culture-comes-from-wall-street/">The Incredible Wastefulness of Car Ownership</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">Mobility as a service is coming slowly: Mass Transit, Car and Bicycle Sharing, Renting, Chauffeur Service, Etc:</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://youtu.be/6TMLXw3dAHU">Transportation as Service</a><br></p>
<p dir="ltr">The era of internal combustion assholery is coming to an end by hook or by crook. A combination of personal cost, liability, and failing infrastructure will do it. Electric powered, Tesla-car assholery will take its place for a while: a partial victory for the environment, until we run out of space for battery disposal.</p>
<p dir="ltr">My peers say I 'hate cars.' No. The culture of environmental and social destruction, violence as entertainment, and legalized 'manslaughter-as-accidents' is what I hate.</p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-44208434345658931582014-09-13T13:37:00.000-04:002015-01-19T11:42:01.922-05:00Why Progressives are Doomed: The AutomobileThe New York Time's "Upshot" wrote an excellent piece of hopelessness for Progressives in the USA on September 6th:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/upshot/why-democrats-cant-win.html?ref=politics&abt=0002&abg=0&_r=0">Why Democrats Will Be (at best) Obstructed for the Foreseeable Future</a><br />
<br />
The use of geography is a sorely lacking and needed analytical tool. Gerrymandering has a Republican Party bias.<br />
<br />
The future of the US, if there is a future, will be defined as a struggle between a progressive and dynamic metro-urban culture; and a frightened, selfish, anti-social, regressive, materialistic periphery, both 'rural' and 'exurban.'<br />
<br />
What is missing from Mr. Cohn's excellent piece is the role of automobile culture in this battle.<br />
It simply wouldn't happen without it.<br />
<br />
Massively funded freeways, cheap gas, ever increasing (ignored) speed 'limits,' node-less, sprawling development including 'white' collar office space with sterile 'lifestyle' centers preserve a culture of TV watching after driving a car all day. Opinions, experience and knowledge are gained behind a full frontal garage door or in a zoned (shopping center) by pop media and pop news media, sports bars, and factory food based on interstate corn products. Walking is for losers, (often killed for it) and cycling is done on the weekends, only for sport on park trails. Suburbs and exurbs battle each other for tax money and dump lawn fertilizer waste and auto/petrol runoff 'downstream.'<br />
<br />
This system of material achievement and valuation, celebrated in movies and gaming, cannot exist without the automobile.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/08/30/cataclysm_in_suburbia_the_dark_twisted_history_of_americas_oil_addicted_middle_class/">It Won't End Pretty</a><br />
<br />
"But the schools..." Oh yeah. I forgot about the schools!<br />
<br />
Outside of perpetuating the values I listed above, I learned nothing in these schools.<br />
<br />
<br />
If there's any hope to be had, we must work to at least make our cities, or small towns, (if you prefer it) livable again, promoting walkable, socially healthy, commercially viable mixed use neighborhoods.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-63661256177880016152014-09-13T12:41:00.001-04:002014-09-13T17:06:58.564-04:00Bike Lanes' Stellar WeekBike Lanes got a big thumbs up from City Lab this week:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-lanes-actually-reduces-traffic-delays/379623/">City Lab</a><br />
<br />
And Then Vox glommed on with this:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121129/bike-lanes-traffic-new-york">Vox Loves Bike Lanes Too</a><br />
<br />
The upshot of these articles is recent data suggesting that automobile traffic has actually 'sped up' in NYC after bike lanes are installed.<br />
<br />
It's important to point out that these studies indicate <i>elapsed</i> time from point A to point B for automobiles has decreased, a cumulative measure. The idea of automobiles actually traveling at a higher speed is not indicated and if evident, would serve to be an argument against bike lane theory that I maintain.<br />
<br />
It's stated in the articles as difficult to pin point the exact reasons for the findings, but bike lane enthusiasts welcome the data as an argument against Motordom's claim that bike lanes increase congestion.<br />
<br />
Motordom's claim can be laid to rest.<br />
<br />
But how <i>are</i> bike lanes affecting this situation? Are they alone the cause of better traffic flow, or have they merely increased the awareness of efficient driving techniques by reducing the space allowable for automobiles?<br />
<br />
I have carefully supported bikes lanes as one of the methods available to calm motorists. If designed to take a portion of the space stolen from people and given to the automobile industry over the last 100 years, they can help remind drivers that they must settle down and cooperate to get anywhere efficiently.<br />
It appears to me that the increased presence of cyclists, emboldened by special infrastructure has indeed contributed to the true factor:<br />
<br />
<b>Motorists are calming down. </b>At least in NYC.<br />
<b><br /></b>
Other studies done before the bike craze have shown the importance of patience in driving, such as "Traffic Waves" and how they affect flow:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://flowingdata.com/2013/11/14/why-traffic-waves-and-congestion-happen/">Flowing Data</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave">Wiki</a><br />
<br />
Driver aggression, selfishness, and impatience remain the chief factors in poor traffic flow and more importantly, are the primary safety threat to other street users.<br />
<br />
Let's not forget the great majority of streets will never have delineated, segregated space for bikes.<br />
<br />
Nor should we forget that as certain streets are redesigned for segregated use, those vast majority of streets without it will be made more of a challenge for cyclists and pedestrians, and skateboards, roller skates, horse carriages, etc., as your average motorist will not accept them on plain old streets.<br />
<br />
Directly confronting driver misbehavior through law enforcement is proving too difficult. "Separate but equal" seems to be the prevailing strategy.<br />
<br />
We'll be watching.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-28515625329877885202014-08-09T07:45:00.001-04:002014-08-13T18:05:31.760-04:00Cleveland's New Bicycle Showpiece<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cleveland has unveiled a new center median bike path plan:</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3cd6fcf5-ba59-0aeb-9376-9428d2644531" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/08/cleveland_bicycle_expressway_c.html">Cleveland's Bike Expressway</a></span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No doubt this is a major step for the 'cradle of car culture' and is being championed as a progressive magnet attraction.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I walk or ride to work everyday. Often, I'm a very lonely soul in the depths of winter, though that is slowly changing. Doing both, I have come to primarily support walking access and/or </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">public and private </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">mass and shared transit, over any further vehicle infrastructure accommodation. I also support and use non-motorized vehicles, (bikes, trikes, skates, skateboards, scooters, etc) as a partial solution to the environmental, social, and funding model destruction that is automobile culture. I also retain a proudly underused automobile.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cycling culture has presented the first serious and worthy challenge to motorized vehicle hegemony. All reasonable means should be employed to encourage its continued growth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, as an active walker <i>and</i> cyclist, I directly witness some of the same attitudes of automobile culture creeping into my fellow cycle drivers: namely desire for speed, and an assumption of segregated use rights, <span style="font-style: normal;">both major psychological components of automobile arrogance.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Every segregated lane built reinforces this belief among both user groups.</u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Bicycle Expressway." Think about that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, let's consider that there are innovations such as the "Copenhagen Wheel" that add motorized power to a bicycle, improvements over the old "Whizzers" you still see occasionally. Where do these fit in this new infrastructure? How will it serve wider and slower three and four wheeled, pedaled vehicles such as the "ELF," (also motor assisted) or trikes and electric scooters for the elderly? Will younger faster cyclists be 'rear-ending' slower pedaled vehicles from behind as they pass? It's almost happened to me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How might expanded bicycle "Expressway" infrastructure interfere with mass transit? Some of my fellow bike lane enthusiasts also complain about the reductions in bus stops.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I support bike lanes as a temporary measure to reduce and slow automobiles as long as pedestrians are not any more burdened than they already are. Cleveland's proposal makes some bold claims about pedestrian accommodation. I find them lacking. One of the accepted facts cited by opponents of cars <i>and</i> bike lanes is the increased complication of crossing zones and signaling.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/research.html">Bike Lanes Not Safer</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">And aren't we tired of this attitude?:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://qz.com/161643/in-los-angeles-walking-illegally-is-more-than-twice-as-expensive-as-parking-illegally/">Jaywalking is a crime, parking is just rude</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When bike lanes are designed properly, they should reduce the amount of available space in a public right of way that was systematically and deliberately stolen from humans and given to automobiles by their manufacturers, sellers, and driving clubs over the last 100 years. That space should be granted back to pedestrians and various static street use, (such as dining and innovative retail,) first, other vehicles second.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, while nothing compares to the conditioned arrogance of your average automobile driver, a narrow, (pun intended) POV is now becoming evident in the cycling community.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aside from further marginalizing walkers and slower cyclists, when such expensive transformations of a street are pursued, what is often left out is the ongoing dedication to, and costs of maintenance. Concerns regarding winter conditions are valid. Already, the existing dedicated cycling infrastructure, (shared with pedestrians,) on bridges over the Cuyahoga river are infrequently cleared of snow and ice, usually only after appeals are made to the city. The remainder of bridge sidewalks in the city, which the city has a duty to clear, are either untouched or worse, serve as receptacles for snow from the automobile lane. I also expect this path to collect much of the same detritus as the outside edge.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While street redesign is necessary, rather than introduce more design and maintenance costs, it is "revenue positive" to simply reduce 6 lanes to 5, 4 lanes to 3, widen pedestrian access and other static use, reduce speed limits to 25 MPH in urban settings, consider whether curbside parking is really necessary, (Cleveland insists on preserving it everywhere, along the entire extent of a street,) and aggressively pursue traffic law violators. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This can be done mostly with paint and pen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For stepped up enforcement, we can expand and continue to use camera technology, and/or better yet, a proposed "traffic enforcer corp" in the police department as a way to train new officers in their people management skills. In Cleveland there exists a "Traffic Controller" department to ticket parking meters. This should be expanded to mobile traffic violations as well. They carry cameras already.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Along with design and law enforcement, existing traffic laws that make all forms of transportation secondary to the "maximum speed and flow" of automobile drivers, such as ORC 4511.55....</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4511.55"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Notorious 4511.55</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...should be repealed and rewritten to provide equitable rights to those without the $10,000 a year for your average private automobile.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also a system of "Strict Liability" for motorized vehicle drivers should be introduced into the civil code as it has been in the Netherlands.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Read this excellent piece in the Guardian regarding Britain's approach to bike infrastructure, taking Holland and Germany's years of experience and differing approaches into account:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/oct/27/bike-blog-going-dutch-lanes"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's more than bike lanes</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The concluding point of the article is the absolute necessity of additional legal and behavioral principles beyond bike lanes in both Holland and Germany to create a truly effective system:</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Speed and Behavioral control and enforcement</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>A system of assumed liability for the more powerful road users</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without dedication to these more fundamental components, any urban special infrastructure will fail in its core mission. While NYC is a special case, and bike tracks are doing well, complete transformation of attitude</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the ongoing, hard, lasting work that needs to be done for the 95% of urban roads which will not be redesigned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can these same principles be achieved in the US without segregated infrastructure? Can special infrastructure help?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>This</b> is a proper bike<i> intra-urban </i>expressway:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/world/europe/in-denmark-pedaling-to-work-on-a-superhighway.html">Danish Bike Super Highway</a></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-40420922038128338642014-01-19T14:29:00.002-05:002014-01-19T14:29:47.455-05:00Mass Transit is the Answer<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
The future of our cities and earth depend on a lasting reduction of the personal automobile.</div>
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How is this best achieved?</div>
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Nope bike won't do it on their own, though they are certainly a huge part of the solution for younger and healthier people.</div>
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<b>Effective, comfortable and safe Mass Transit.</b></div>
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The goal within a <u>ten mile radius</u> of any viable population center is this:</div>
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One should be able to walk no more than five minutes to and from a transit node.</div>
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The commuter should arrive at any destination within 15-30 minutes</div>
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The commuter should be able to carry and secure 10-20 pounds of belongings. (Tough one I know.)</div>
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The financing of this, simply put would be transferred from the billions currently wasted on propping up needless freeway systems.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-20438653053341370892014-01-10T10:25:00.000-05:002014-01-10T10:25:00.647-05:00Opportunity Corridor AlternativeCleveland has been trying to get I-490 through the Heights somehow for 60 years. Right now it ends in an ugly and abused stub at E 55th Street.<br />
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Now the idea is to get it to University Circle with its powerful medical residents, (like that?) the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital.<br />
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The State of Ohio and City favor a destructive and expensive plan to displace (mostly poor) residents from an area, (that actually could be a Mass Transit Paradise,) with a freeway termed the "Opportunity Corridor."<br />
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This is not an opportunity for the residents of the neighborhood. The primary reason is to get suburbanites quickly through a part of the city they abhor.<br />
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Opposition to the project is found here:<br />
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<a href="http://opportunitycorridor.com/">http://opportunitycorridor.com/</a><br />
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Following the idea of the Woodland Ave Alternative I made a map of my specific ideas by which existing roads and freeways could be re-built intelligently and cost effectively, affording a true opportunity for all people involved.<br />
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<a href="https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z62DmYMYH_So.k_s7ZUCwqWRo">MVH Opportunity Corridor Alternative Map</a><br />
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Oh yeah.<br />
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This is the ODOT page:<br />
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<a href="http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/ClevelandUrbanCoreProjects/OpportunityCorridor/Pages/default.aspx">ODOT Opportunity Corridor</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-51892008121519729102014-01-07T11:55:00.000-05:002014-01-09T15:49:39.658-05:00Bike Lanes Are CapitulationI often post this on bike lane discussions.<br />
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Bike lanes are the dominant subject among bicyclists at the moment, though many of the more experienced tacitly acknowledge their imperfect, incomplete and possibly misleading implication of safety.<br />
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Regardless, the strategy is to get more bikes on the road by whatever means necessary. Many new cyclists, trained in automobile lane culture, need to feel that there is a space reserved for them.<br />
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Not only do I believe the implied safety of a bike lane is greatly, and perhaps dangerously overstated, I don't believe the nascent strategy is taking much hold. I've witnessed that "women with kids" and "older people" simply will not ride bicycles unless they "feel as if they are riding on the sidewalk," which of course many of them do anyhow. Most new cyclists are younger and less in need of such misleading assurances. Bike lanes at intersections are especially dangerous.<br />
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There are the gold, (green) standard bike lanes; painted bright green and 4 feet in width along slow speed ROW's. There are also completely parallel segregated facilities in nations such as The Netherlands, all requiring additional and/or specific maintenance and funding, and of course, dedicated bicycle trails. These require even more maintenance and funding, and are often shared with hikers or families and strollers through parkland.<br />
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In the U.S., we have the advantage of typically and sufficiently wide public right-of-ways already available. Of course our history in the last 100 years has been to give every inch of that space to automobile culture.<br />
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That space isn't being taken away from automobile culture in the application of bike lane philosophy as it should be, the more usual application is to either lessen the width of, (but retain in number) existing automobile lanes AND retain on-street automobile curb parking.<br />
Even more 'safe' in this way of thinking is to add surface to the right of existing automobile space, with or without an added median, necessarily encroaching on what little space there may have been for pedestrian access originally.<br />
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Capitulation.<br />
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The true solution is a two-part strategy:<br />
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Reduce four, (or six) bi-directional lanes for automobiles to two, (or five) including a center left-turn lane. There's your cycling space.<br />
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More importantly, slow that automobile traffic <i>the fuck down</i>. 20-25 MPH is the target.<br />
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These should be the goals of the cycling movement.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-60592199471614054812013-09-21T09:33:00.000-04:002013-09-21T09:33:43.616-04:00Percentages and Taking The Road Back"Road Sharing" is not doing very well.<br />
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As thoroughly detailed in Peter D. Norton's book "Fighting Traffic," our public right-of-ways were systematically taken from all users and given to personal motorized automobiles over the last 100 years.<br />
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Taking it back by gently introducing bicycle traffic is only killing those without 2000 pounds of steel to protect them. Treating bicycles in law as 'equal vehicles' simply isn't so in reality. Try it! The experienced knowledge of vulnerability by cyclists and pedestrians accounts partially for what many motorists consider irresponsible behavior.<br />
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The Bicycle Lobby is a valuable resource in correcting the situation but I feel many of the participants are not fully educated about the history of road use. Like me they have grown up in a world of automobile primacy regarding physical design of the road and transportation psychology.<br />
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Bike lanes are still secondary to a maximum of car lanes and may even be limiting pedestrian lanes, (sidewalks) in some cases. Car access is simply not being challenged.<br />
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Meanwhile, we have a high percentage of tax payer-funded "limited access" highways; limited to motorized vehicle traffic.<br />
I've made the previous point that, at least in my city 100% of our right-of-ways are accessible to motorized vehicles.<br />
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<b>It seems a reasonable proposal to remove or reduce a percentage of automobile access from "shared roads" at least equal to the percentage of existing "limited access" roads.</b><br />
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Some may point out a very small number of bike paths (that double as walking lanes) in our parks, but as these routes serve only a recreational purpose they can't be considered as fair treatment.<br />
(It's also very notable that on these bike paths, walkers are properly given the right-of-way over pedaled vehicles.)<br />
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What does this mean and how may it be accomplished?<br />
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Should we take the number of limited access highways as our measure, or their total length? What about their total used space, both length and width?<br />
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Difficult to precisely assess, but not so difficult to estimate.<br />
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Removal strategies could work well in areas of high population density.<br />
<br />
Reduction strategies could work (and have worked) anywhere.<br />
<br />
Reduce 3 car lanes in each direction to 2, (no shared surface should have more than 2 car lanes)<br />
Reduce 2 car lanes in each direction to 1 with a center left turn lane<br />
<br />
Percentages apply regarding the total width of the ROW: motorized vehicles should be given no greater share of the Right Of Way than any other form of transportation:<br />
<br />
2 Car Lanes = 2 Bike Lanes = 2 Pedestrian Lanes, <b>all of equal width.</b><br />
<b> </b><br />
I may need to walk a wide cart or pull it behind my bike, after all.<br />
Shouldn't I have the space to do so?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-27138228228176157092013-06-13T17:09:00.001-04:002014-01-10T09:25:13.854-05:00New Road Funding Models - New Road Design CategoriesHow does the pedestrian and cycling community assert their space on our public rights of way?<br />
<br />
Capacity engineering has held sway for at least the last 50 years. That capacity was strictly for automobiles, though somehow most roads still have a sidewalk. Many sidewalks seem to have taken on the appearance of emergency sidewalks, like you find along the freeway bridge; only to be used in case your car breaks down.<br />
<br />
Simply waiting for increased cycling to inspire politicians has little effect outside of cities like mine who are desperate to attract the younger crowd. That itself is not currently working all that well, though it's still in its early stages.<br />
<br />
I suggest some basic frameworks:<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Funding and Design</u></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Much has been written about the shrinking pie of maintenance funding for all of our public infrastructure.<br />
Roads and bridges are crumbling, stormwater flooding from sprawl is increasing un-abated, electrical blackouts and brownouts are evidence of development beyond its capability to sustain.<br />
<br />
In the case of roadways, I propose three major funding and design classes:<br />
<br />
<b>Limited Access Highways</b><br />
<b>All Access Roads</b><br />
<b>Restricted Access Roads</b><br />
<br />
<b>Limited Access Highways:</b> The high speed <b>highway</b> system is to be funded <u>predominantly</u> with a MUCH higher federal gas tax. Increasing the fuel taxes will help encourage alternative fuel technology.<br />
<br />
As, (hopefully,) alternative fuel vehicles take a larger proportion, a use fee, such as a endorsement on your registration could provide an increasing amount of funding as gas tax revenues dwindle. Of course, at some point if everything goes well, it will become apparent that not all of our freeways can be maintained.<br />
<br />
Excellent. Enabling sprawl, many of them are senseless 'pork' projects anyhow.<br />
<br />
If high speed track systems, (trains) were ever made part of this geography, the requisite federal construction funding could be added for their construction and maintenance.<br />
<br />
<b>All-Access Roads:</b> There should be a mixture of an equal share of that gas tax and additional, more traditional funding sources to be handled by the US State following the current status quo.<br />
<br />
All motorized and non-motorized vehicles are required to be given EQUAL access, meaning <i>equal space allocation</i>, along with (those deemed necessary) segregation structures, such as car lanes, bike lanes and sufficient sidewalks. Mass Transit included.<br />
<br />
Motorized vehicles speed limited to 20-30 MPH.<br />
<br />
<b>Restricted access roads:</b> To be funded at the US State and local level with a proportion of private support. These road designs would restrict motorized vehicles to emergency or law enforcement only, along with limited, permitted small delivery vehicles. All non-motorized vehicles allowed at slow speeds with pedestrians given priority.<br />
<br />
Commercial and Recreational development within the ROW encouraged, (alfresco dining, etc.,) within design capacity. Developers share in the maintenance cost of this development by permit.<br />
<br />
These roadways should be the least expensive to maintain with public funds.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-70366933625126284572013-06-01T08:58:00.001-04:002013-06-01T09:19:21.196-04:00Pocket NeighborhoodsThere must be several dozen places in Cleveland where this type of car-lite development can be done.<div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.pocket-neighborhoods.net/">http://www.pocket-neighborhoods.net/</a></div><div><br></div><div>Indeed, within a couple miles of the destroyed urban core there once existed many of these patterns, the remains of which are still discernible and ignored or worse, refitted for automobiles.</div><div><br></div><div>Redevelopment in the city so far has been geared towards restaurants, bars, and other playgrounds which obviously succeed best when attracting suburbanites.</div><div><br></div><div>Some of my friends have resigned themselves to this pattern hoping that the neighborhood they saved as pioneering artists will return to livability once 'the next neighborhood' gets hot.</div><div><br></div><div>Our political leaders have finally noticed the bar-resto pattern for the misleading and fickle 'vibrancy' it provides. The business owners receive preferential treatment in zoning variances on a regular basis.</div><div><br></div><div>Pocket Neighborhoods, especially around a shared green-space and agricultural zone could provide the model for true urban rebirth.</div><div><br></div><div>In the city, a development like this would require some premeditation and multi-cultural cooperation: a particularly tricky business never successfully achieved to my knowledge.</div><div><br></div><div>How about a real future for CLE?</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-65073314152290788452013-05-24T17:58:00.000-04:002013-05-24T20:05:40.808-04:00Cleveland: Hollywood Whore<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">Well I knew things would be tense on my way out the door during Hollywood's holiday weekend-long takeover of a major public thoroughfare in my desperate, starstruck little town.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/movies/index.ssf/2013/05/captain_america_the_winter_sol_1.html">Whoring</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br style="background-color: white;" /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I had parked my bike on Euclid Ave and had to cross into the film set which extends from E 18th to E 6th.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">As I unlocked my bike at E 14th and (reluctantly, shamefully) headed east along Euclid so I could cross the street and GO HOME I witnessed a Gestapo-like, 100-200 strong army of dickheads with walkie talkies herd several homeless types who had wandered down Euclid into doorways so they could film another 2 second shot of their mostly digitized 'blockbuster' crap-ass action movie.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;">They achieved this with derision and snide little comments of disbelief as if "doesn't everybody in this little decimated city know we are from Hollywood and have come here to save you?"</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">When they started at me they got a surprise.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">First I heard them chuckle, "No he isn't in the movie, ha ha," before they demanded I get off the street; yes I mean <i>demanded</i> I get off the street, as if they were all the personal bodyguards of Samuel L. Jackson.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I told the little assholes to fuck themselves and they had no right to shut off a major public street for an entire weekend.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Keep in mind that at lunch I had already watched as the second little army of publicly funded Cleveland cops, who should be out oh, I don't know...policing the city(?) barked loudly and authoritatively at any pedestrian who even looked like they were going to </span>cross the street.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/captain_america_film_car_reported.html">See What Can Happen When The Cops Are Starring in Movies?</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I did get the attention of a cop but he decided it was more important to keep yelling at the automobiles trying to use the street as well. Good thing or I'm sure I would have had a nightstick up my ass by the time it was over.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I was pretty damn angry.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The irony of it all is that they were filming a crazy crashy automobile scene, you know, the stock content of every superhero blockbuster since superhero blockbusters first transformed films into movies.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Yes, a celebration of automobile violence.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Last time Hollywood was here I was in a bar in my trendy neighborhood when we happened upon a couple hollywood guys on a slow Monday night.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">They only seemed interested in us as characters, wanting us to perform as some sort of down</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> and out blue collar slobs for them.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;">One of my friends and I are professional and amateur actors, (respectively) so they seemed surprised and disappointed after they had bought us a beer. They then wanted to know where they could go to experience the 'real Cleveland,' perhaps a bar with all Harvey Pekars all the time!</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">So, you may like superhero blockbusters and special effects but it's not about that. It's not about the ephemeral rise in hotel and restaurant revenue, blah blah blah.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It's about the arrogance of a billion dollar film company taking advantage of a rust-belt city to avoid paying California taxes and treating the city like shit, including its musicians:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/05/musicians_union_says_outsourci.html">Let us tell you how real hollywood music is done</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">The movie is set in Washington DC and other more important places.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Cleveland will not be mentioned, just like it wasn't in The Avengers, or Spiderman 3.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Maybe my bicycle will be famous. It was in the shot all day.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-32072477036666990922013-05-19T20:36:00.000-04:002013-05-19T20:36:29.893-04:00Walkable? Cleveland?There are many great beginning points about walkable neighborhoods in this article by Freshwater Cleveland:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/features/walkthisway051613.aspx">Walkthisway</a><br />
<br />
Some of the scores granted to Cleveland neighborhoods by <a href="http://www.walkscore.com/">Walkscore</a> are ridiculously high.<br />
<br />
Walkscore seems to equate a relatively high number of pedestrians with 'walkablity.'<br />
That's classic "correlation-not-causation" analysis.<br />
<br />
The Playhouse Square neighborhood where I work receives a 98 out of 100!<br />
<br />
This despite the fact that E 14 is a MAJOR cut-through for automobiles avoiding E 9th.<br />
<br />
I've suggested to Cleveland that indeed Playhouse Square could be a fantastic walking district but will not be until E 14th auto traffic is re-routed to E 18th where it belongs. This is a no-brainer.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://goo.gl/maps/UymP7">Quick Map of E 14th to E 18th Reroute</a><br />
<br />
<br />
No one yet is going 'full bore' about walking neighborhoods in Cleveland.<br />
<br />
That means <i>NO CARS. </i>Cleveland's leaders remain firmly convinced that more cars = greater viability.<br />
<i><br /></i>
I've been trying to get some support started to make certain old neighborhoods, (built before cars,) retro-fitted to eliminate them altogether.<br />
<br />
Cleveland is always trying to attract people to the city, mostly building adult playgrounds for suburban tourists.<br />
<br />
How many people around the US would come to Cleveland if it built and supported several car-free neighborhoods?<br />
<br />
As far as I know, not other US city has attempted this.<br />
<br />
How about it CLE?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-62296168090244394612013-05-03T12:19:00.001-04:002013-05-03T12:19:14.373-04:00"Thanks For Not Killing Me" CrosswalksIt's telling to watch people cross a busy street within culturally established paint lines; those with no signal.<br />
<br />
A full third of them will wait for cars to pass, then wave "Thanks!" if one should happen to approach.<br />
<br />
We're supposed to thank them!<br />
<br />
Note: this guy was NOT 'thankful!' <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6dVdjDO7vnY/UYPjgZKm59I/AAAAAAAADM0/aCeSysKhWjM/s640/blogger-image--668216250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6dVdjDO7vnY/UYPjgZKm59I/AAAAAAAADM0/aCeSysKhWjM/s640/blogger-image--668216250.jpg" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-53521722119835189072013-04-30T19:43:00.002-04:002013-04-30T19:50:24.714-04:00Strict Liability LawThis is a hot topic in Scotland and the rest of the UK within the cycling community.<br />
<br />
It is inconceivable in the US at this moment.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22155209">BBC Strict Liability Law</a><br />
<br />
Basically, it explicitly affirms the simple, (maybe obvious?) but fading idea that the most powerful road users have the greatest responsibility to use the road safely.<br />
<br />
This was once understood in the US at the outset of motorized automobile technology in public space as documented in the publication "Fighting Traffic: The Dawn Of The Motor Age In The American City" by Peter D. Norton.<br />
<br />
It seems a no-brainer but opponents are obviously grumbling irrational fears aloud as they often and always do.<br />
<br />
A codified standard of liability is a necessary and critical goal of road sharing. It won't happen without it.<br />
<br />
Also, please check out this excellent lecture given by Peter Norton at Florida Atlantic University:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/IdYcx3n4Xq8">Peter D. Norton Lecture</a><br />
<br />
Incredibly, predictably, motorists accuse cyclists of 'arrogance.'Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-68449006785730373912013-04-20T17:14:00.000-04:002013-05-07T09:37:24.848-04:00Automobile Priority<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNJseuzfQDuJcxh4nPFWGDXIkOc-XQiKUcigvNq6XfVmPYtHtgUozpb5HM6KPzQ1ab9Byd6rjNohlCh-GwF47vyKKnyv6Kp8w3tgcirBLUpBpdmv_vU9WFa-GewDwFcCACjrbYFizdzgw/s1600/IMG_1206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNJseuzfQDuJcxh4nPFWGDXIkOc-XQiKUcigvNq6XfVmPYtHtgUozpb5HM6KPzQ1ab9Byd6rjNohlCh-GwF47vyKKnyv6Kp8w3tgcirBLUpBpdmv_vU9WFa-GewDwFcCACjrbYFizdzgw/s1600/IMG_1206.jpg" height="320" width="239"></a></div>
<br>
<br>
Whereas the idea of a public right-of-way through private property has been around for hundreds of years, the idea that all of them should be given over to accommodate 200 sq ft of metal powered by an engine with the power of 3-400 horses is rather recent.<br>
<br>
Even for the first several decades of common automobile ownership the saturation rate, particularly in urban areas was far below what it is today.<br>
<br>
My city is 100% available to automobiles.<br>
<br>
<b>100%</b><br>
<br>
Our addiction to convenience requires that we have as close to drive-up access for every conceivable service.<br>
For the first time in human history we can spend an entire day, every day travelling hundreds of miles using our legs a total of 100 yards or less.<br>
<br>
Most of my cycling friends are counting on increased participation to introduce the need for equal road access, safety and legal standing.<br>
<br>
I have my doubts.<br>
<br>
I know somewhere around 12 people who use a bicycle for primary daily transport:<br>
Maybe 4-6 in the depth of a Lake Erie winter, 12-24 in nice weather.<br>
<br>
Of those, and the additional occasional riders, I still see many of them riding 10-15 MPH on sidewalks, in the wrong direction, blowing through major traffic signals, terrified to death of sharing the proper roadway with their motorized travelers: (and for good reason.)<br>
<br>
I am convinced that an increase in equality of access for pedestrians and cyclists will only come at the expense of that for automobiles.<br>
<br>
This is more serious than many alternative transportation advocates realize. Automobile culture defines American culture more than anything else. If you think taking guns away is something, wait until you start removing automobiles from a small percentage of roadways, or even reducing speed allowances.<br>
<br>
I predict even more cyclists and pedestrians will be killed, only this time 'accidentally on purpose.'<br>
<br>
Buy and wear a camera.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-28294269019019039872013-04-10T21:12:00.000-04:002013-04-10T22:01:59.404-04:00Cleveland Complete and Green Streets Off and RunningDespite a pretty good thunderstorm I attended the public uncovering of Cleveland's Complete and Green Streets program tonight.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bikecleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Cleveland_Complete_and_Green_Streets_Ordinance_Small.pdf">The Ordinance, (Through Bike Cleveland)</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Disappointed.<br />
<br />
Most of the strategies, while <i>steps in the right direction</i>, (god I hate saying that all the time,) are really nothing new.<br />
<br />
Mostly it involves paint: paint to segregate bikes and cars.<br />
<br />
Also, on average, the plans call for reducing 4 lanes to 2, 6 to 4, etc., with a left turning lane AND on-street parking. <b>Gotta have on-street parking!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Bike lanes are sacrificed to on-street parking in almost all cases.<br />
<br />
One of the bold claims presented that I found interesting, (so interesting I didn't believe it,) was a statistic from left field somewhere that 57% of people would (was it try?) use alternative transportation if they could.<br />
<br />
BS.<br />
<br />
It takes a long process to separate yourself from the power that an automobile provides.<br />
<br />
The power to:<br />
<br />
carry things<br />
travel quickly anytime anywhere in comfort<br />
scream at people safely, knowing that no one can hear you or do anything to you if they did<br />
live where nobody should just so you don't have to put up with people you don't like<br />
<br />
Extremely powerful.<br />
<br />
I'd put the number of people who would actually give up such power for any considerable length of time at more like 10%.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
Shockingly, and I'm not exactly sure, but I believe the consultant actually said that streets are <i>primarily for moving cars after all. </i>It was hard to hear.<br />
<i><br /></i>
This was after I spoke up and asked why 100% of Cleveland's streets are accessible to automobiles and were there any plans to change that.<br />
<br />
He seemed a bit surprised and annoyed.<br />
<br />
I pointed out the suburban examples of self contained, walking shopping 'villages' such as <a href="http://www.crockerpark.com/about/">Crocker Park</a> and <a href="http://www.legacy-village.com/about">Legacy Village</a>.<br />
<br />
Just doesn't matter it seems.<br />
<br />
Rather than actually take a chance on restricting automobile access, this plan seems content to preserve the ability of all vehicles, (now bikes too,) to move through, get in and more importantly get OUT of Cleveland on a daily basis.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-13119082461992442542013-03-30T00:10:00.000-04:002013-03-30T00:10:10.301-04:00Guns And Cars Part 2A local Teabagger Congressman who was invited to speak about his typical teabag fiscal position last week was instead berated by gun control activists.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/10gqE6b">The Brilliance of Renacci</a><br />
<br />
Jimbo gave a little lip service to their concerns, blaming the mental status of the perpetrators (using the word 'issue' three times, twice in one sentence.) It has become the stock explanation of the NRA.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">“I still believe that when it comes to guns, the biggest issue is the mental health issue,” Renacci said. “We have to take a look at that. A majority of these issues (such as the killings at Newtown, Conn., Chardon, Ohio, and Aurora, Colo.) have mental health issues behind them. I also think we have to strengthen our background checks. The House will consider what the Senate passes and take a look at it.”</span></blockquote>
<br />
While unlike automobiles, guns are used to kill people purposefully for the most part, and a pedestrian or cyclist can share some culpability in an accident with a car, I can't help but see the parallels between the standard excuses given for gun killings as the ones offered for automobile deaths.<br />
<br />
(Deaths are deaths after all, and a good lawyer can show the right jury that a death by either device was 'accidental.')<br />
<br />
<b>Neither gun nor automobile advocates want to admit there just <i>may</i> be a problem.</b><br />
<br />
With guns: The shooter was crazy, or the shooter was angry, or the shooter was drunk, or the shooter wasn't licensed, or the shooter had bad parents, etc.<br />
<br />
With automobiles: the driver was drunk, or the driver was texting, or the driver wasn't licensed, or the driver wasn't paying attention, or the driver wasn't following the speed limit, etc.<br />
<br />
Guns don't kill people, people kill people...with GUNS<br />
<br />
Cars don't kill people, people kill people...with CARS<br />
<br />
<br />
Jim also rushed to invoke the Second Amendment, reinforcing the view among freedom loving Americans that sensible limitations equate with a ban on all guns.<br />
<br />
No one until very recently has ever dared to approach sensible limitations on automobile access to public places, space shared by all those same freedom loving Americans, (most of whom are enslaved to the petroleum industry.)<br />
<br />
I expect to hear more of the same, shrill alarms from car drivers that you now hear from gun nuts as alternative transportation advocates seek <i>their</i> American freedoms.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-20055866209017830192013-03-24T09:48:00.000-04:002013-03-24T09:54:09.190-04:00Profit Motive And Traffic Control<div dir="ltr">
Cincinnati seeks to abandon parking enforcement and go the kickback model.</div>
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<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/03/cincinnati_plan_to_privatize_p.html">Somebody manage our problems!</a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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This differs in implementation from that of speed camera use, (the city is charged a high fee for their provision,) but the result is the same.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The concept here is that our cities are shifting traffic enforcement to the private sector, content to take or keep a percentage of the earnings technology can provide, as long as they don't have to manage it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I'm waiting for traffic drones next.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>A better solution is to restrict automobile access on our public streets and walkable retail commercial zones.</b><br />
<b>This will increase safety, encourage storefront development, and allow for more efficient, human traffic law enforcement by reducing vehicular traffic's expanse geographically: its <u>hegemony</u>.</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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I wonder if the obvious motorist backlash against these trends will provide popular support for a return to urban functioning on a human scale?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-3006131134665198912013-03-05T18:23:00.000-05:002013-04-10T21:17:18.222-04:00Who Wants To Own...Anything?Decreasing our auto dependence will require densification of living patterns.<br />
<br />
Much has been written about this in Academia, (and more academic blogs,) not that anyone gives a shit about intelligent analysis and recommendations.<br />
<br />
Obviously, right? Sprawl is alive and growing.<br />
<br />
Few will buy a house in the city and invest themselves in any community of human beings, (especially <i>different</i> human beings,)<br />
<br />
No one invests in anything really. That's just not the American way anymore.<br />
<br />
Back when home 'flipping' was going crazy I worked for a public agency that had their hands full just keeping track of who to send tax bills. Ownership of the home changed before the tax billing cycle came around: almost every tax cycle.<br />
<br />
Talk to old people. There's no such thing as a 'starter home' anymore.<br />
The new way is to buy as big as you can can approved for and move on. Thousands of inner ring suburban bungalows sit vacant. They happen to be of very good build quality too.<br />
<br />
Just look at your typical bullshit, low quality, over-sized suburban house: What do you see first?<br />
<br />
That's right, the anti-social garage door.<br />
<br />
"Welcome to my Garage! I'm watching TV! Go Away!"<br />
<br />
Americans have been conditioned to lease their car, rent their appliances, and over-mortgage their home, all with the security that the house must go up in value, (until it didn't.)<br />
<br />
All the sudden "Going Mobile" by The Who is going through my head.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-42671670084849523342013-03-05T18:10:00.000-05:002013-03-05T18:10:20.401-05:00Mega Commute!What is <b>Mega Commuting</b>?<br />
<br />
According to the US Census Bureau it is driving more than 90 minutes and 50 miles one-way to work, (or whatever you do everyday.)<br />
<br />
Well, now we have <b>586,805</b> of them.<br />
<br />
Not to be confused with <b>Extreme Commuting</b> which is 90 minutes: <b>2,241,915</b> of these.<br />
<br />
or<br />
<br />
<b>Long Distance Commuting</b> which is 50 miles: <b>1,713,931</b> of these.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/pdf/poster_megacommuting_in_the_u.s.pdf">US Census Report</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Quick estimate on fuel costs for a Long Distance chump:<br />
<br />
$3.50 a gallon x (100 miles a day/25 MPG) = $14 Per Day<br />
<br />
Approximately 250 working days a year X $14 per day = <b>$3500</b> a year<br />
<br />
For Mega Commuters, add 3 hours on to an 8 hour day. <b>11 hour day!</b><br />
<br />
<br />
Damn!<br />
<br />
The American Dream!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-88208037501486943312013-03-01T18:23:00.001-05:002013-03-01T18:23:54.661-05:00Traffic Deaths, Crash Testing, and Ted NugentYou all know the "Nuge." He's the washed up rock and roller turned right-winger celeb of the era.<br />
<br />
You may know in defense of gun ownership he recently compared gun deaths to traffic deaths and has been one of several gun defenders spouting off the seeming apples-to-oranges logic.<br />
<br />
Here's a crappy USA Today link that attempts to bring it all together:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-deaths-rates/1784595/">USA Today on Nuge's Gun Claims</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The article opens with an 'interpretable' claim itself:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">"Deaths from traffic accidents have dropped dramatically over the last 10 years"</span></blockquote>
Here's the ever-handy wiki of traffic deaths as a percentage of the population and the raw total to the left:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year">Wikipedia Traffic Deaths</a><br />
<br />
A more or less constant yearly total in the 30-50 K range since the 1930s is not my idea of safe.<br />
<br />
Also, there was a 5% increase in 2012, read here:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nsc.org/Pages/National-Safety-Council-Estimates-First-National-Increase-in-Traffic-Deaths-Since-2005-.aspx">National Safety Council</a><br />
<br />
We're not really getting anywhere.<br />
Show me a reduction to less than 10K and I'll see real progress.<br />
<br />
<u>So Ted, the correct answer is that any gun and any car can be a weapon in the wrong hands.</u><br />
<br />
And guns designed to kill people efficiently are more dangerous than say, a .22 caliber rifle.<br />
High caliber weaponry is much harder to handle and control in most cases. I know. I've shot them.<br />
<br />
Here's the funny thing though:<br />
<br />
With the automobile-as-weapon, any idiot knows that in regards to crash testing, all the 'crumple zones,' and air bags in the industry don't mean shit when a large automobile hits a smaller one.<br />
<br />
I know many fathers who buy their texting teenagers huge SUVs, (as big as a bathroom,) for safety.<br />
<br />
As I've stated before, for the driver, current automobile safety technology has made them exponentially more controllable on the road than the deathtraps made in earlier eras, but the sheer size and power of these vehicles makes them devastating to what or who they may hit.<br />
<br />
A safer car for its occupants is less safe for its target. It's an inverse relationship.<br />
<b><br /></b>
We value safe vehicles. Too bad we don't value safety for those that share the street with them.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> </span></blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-232111591453137932.post-53895748873478716282013-03-01T11:13:00.001-05:002013-04-04T17:44:58.965-04:00Attack The ToolIn a measure sure to be drooled over by our gas guzzling, increasingly aggravated and violent driver class, the State of Ohio prepares to attack speed and red light cameras:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://m.wkyc.com/topstories/article?a=286326&f=2000">WKYC Populist Journalism</a><br />
<br />
The Congressman intends to force the city to 'prove' safety has increased because of Traffic Cameras.<br />
<br />
What a joke.<br />
<br />
No police force can prove any safety measures in any other way than a comparison to the absence of it over time.<br />
<br />
Shall we stop arresting people for assault to see if assault decreases, increases, or remains the same in 10 years?<br />
<br />
The problem is speeding.<br />
<br />
Unless the opponents can prove that an inordinate number are being falsely ticketed there is no reason to pull speed cameras other than the outrageous fees Xerox is charging.<br />
<br />
A real improvement would be to use traffic monitors in concert with real live cops.<br />
<br />
<br />
UPDATE:<br />
<br />
Battle in my regressive state of Ohio heating up:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cleveland.com/roadrant/index.ssf/2013/03/traffic_camera_ban_sought.html">It's Official</a><br />
<br />
UPDATE 2:<br />
<br />
Please sign this petition at the Ohio Traffic Safety Coalition:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.trafficsafetycoalition.com/ohio">Petition for Safety</a><br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361110090253903008noreply@blogger.com0