OT: Cyclists, skinny tires, streetcar rails — not a good mix
vey
New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
trap for bicyclists.
The tires on a standard road bike are narrower than the 1 ¾-inch groove
that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
Seattle bike activists plan a wheeled protest next Wednesday, when the
South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Despite the goal of Mayor Greg Nickels to triple bicycle use, the new
streetcar line includes long stretches of track in the curb lanes of
Westlake Avenue, where bicyclists normally ride. Many riders have
adapted by riding on sidewalks, to the left of the tracks — or in the
left lane, which aggravates motorists.
"The streetcar isn't operating yet, and we're already seeing people
crashing," said Seattle Likes Bikes member Michael Snyder, who said he
has heard of eight or nine accidents.
Stacey Merrick said she was pedaling north on Westlake two weeks ago, in
the curb lane but just left of the rails. She felt pressure from passing
cars, drifted right, and became snared in the trackway.
"I had two options: fall into moving rush-hour traffic, or slam into the
back of a parked car. I opted for the parked car." She got up, bruised
and bleeding, then noticed her body broke the car's taillight. Merrick
said she no longer rides there.
"Any time there's a bicycle around, we're extra cautious," said Paul
Warner, a streetcar operator for King County Metro Transit. Warner said
he has seen a couple of cyclists fall during train testing and that he
allows extra stopping distance behind bicycles in case one gets pitched.
Sound Transit's Tacoma Link light rail runs mainly along a center
median, but Seattle's new streetcar is mostly in curb lanes, so
passengers can board from the sidewalk. It's a cheaper alignment, in a
neighborhood where Vulcan and other landowners are covering half of the
project's $51 million cost.
Ethan Melone, the city's streetcar project manager, said the main issue
wasn't price, but that a center layout would have required a wide
median, forcing out road lanes or parking spaces.
The new 1.3-mile route does add a paved east-west trail along South Lake
Union Park, said Melone.
The city intends to add bike lanes to nearby Ninth Avenue North, and
shift Westlake cyclists there. But that's not expected for at least
another year, said Snyder.
Protest organizers ask that the bike route on Ninth Avenue be built
immediately; that warning signs be installed on Westlake; and that the
city study putting rubber fill in the rail grooves.
The Cascade Bicycle Club will advocate that any future streetcar lines
take inside lanes or medians — a provision Portland added to its bike plan.
"We'd be happy to look at any ideas that cyclists may have," said
Melone. "At the same time, it's a multimodal system."
Alan Durning, founder of Sightline Institute, an environmental think
tank, calls the Westlake situation one example of "bicycle neglect" —
the American tendency to treat bikes as recreational vehicles, not
primary transportation. A street posing similar hazards to cars would
never be designed, he said.
landotter
> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004055887_biketracks...
>
> New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
> trap for bicyclists.
>
> that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
> easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
>
> Seattle bike activists plan a wheeled protest next Wednesday, when the
> South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the
> Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
>
What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty of
trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
you get stuck. Duh!
jobst....@stanfordalumni.org
unprintable characters that are not all replicated by newsreaders not
having that font. Therefore, responses have the propensity to appear
as a new thread... apparently with the same header.
Cut it out! Use simple ASCII.
Jobst Brandt
Steve Gravrock
> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004055887_biketracks06m.html
>
> New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
> trap for bicyclists.
>
> easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
[...]
> Stacey Merrick said she was pedaling north on Westlake two weeks ago, in
> the curb lane but just left of the rails. She felt pressure from passing
> cars, drifted right, and became snared in the trackway.
[...]
> "Any time there's a bicycle around, we're extra cautious," said Paul
> Warner, a streetcar operator for King County Metro Transit. Warner said
> he has seen a couple of cyclists fall during train testing and that he
> allows extra stopping distance behind bicycles in case one gets pitched.
I'm a little confused. Westlake is one way northbound for most of its
length, including the entire portion that's paralleled by 9th Ave. If
<http://www.seattlestreetcar.com/map/> is accurate, the tracks are on
the west side of the street and the streetcar runs southbound, facing
traffic. That fits with the photo in the Seattle Times article, but
doesn't square Merrick's description of her accident or Warner's comments
about following cyclists.
It also seems that 9th would not be a good alternative route for
northbound cyclists, since it's one way southbound. At least that's what
Google Maps seems to think. I've cycled in that area in the past but I
haven't been there since the tracks were put in. Hopefully somebody
who's seen the situation firsthand can clarify.
joseph.sa...@gmail.com
Don't forget wet cobblestones too.
Joseph
Orin
> I'm a little confused. Westlake is one way northbound for most of its
> length, including the entire portion that's paralleled by 9th Ave. If
> <http://www.seattlestreetcar.com/map/> is accurate, the tracks are on
> the west side of the street and the streetcar runs southbound, facing
> traffic. That fits with the photo in the Seattle Times article, but
> doesn't square Merrick's description of her accident or Warner's comments
> about following cyclists.
See: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/337156_getthere29.html
> It also seems that 9th would not be a good alternative route for
> northbound cyclists, since it's one way southbound. At least that's what
> Google Maps seems to think. I've cycled in that area in the past but I
> haven't been there since the tracks were put in. Hopefully somebody
> who's seen the situation firsthand can clarify.
Don't believe any of the mapping software/web sites as to Seattle's
one way streets. You just have to go and ride them to find out the
gotchas. (I don't know about 9th.)
Westlake was never a good route anyway IMO - too many traffic lights.
Maybe it flows better now, but probably still best avoided.
Orin.
Jay Beattie
Isn't Amsterdam supposed to have all sorts of separate bicycle
facilities -- raised lanes, special lights, etc.? Anyway, come to
Portland where the street car tracks have just consumed the portion of
the road previously occupied by bicycles -- and the tracks are in the
direction of travel and also surrounded by brickwork that is like
f****** banana peels when it is wet (I never understood why they have
these death bricks all over in a downtown that is frequently wet).
Add to this cars and busses. Frankly, it's a nightmare. I can
totally understand the gripe. I've changed my route home. -- Jay
Beattie.
landotter
tracks. Add that fierce coastal Scandahoovian wind in winter and ya
got an extreme sport.
landotter
> On Dec 6, 10:54 am, landotter <landot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 6, 12:28 pm, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote:
>
> > >http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004055887_biketracks...
>
> > > New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
> > > trap for bicyclists.
>
> > > The tires on a standard road bike are narrower than the 1 3/4-inch groove
> > > that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
> > > easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
>
> > > Seattle bike activists plan a wheeled protest next Wednesday, when the
> > > South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the
> > > Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
>
> > What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty of
> > trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
> > you get stuck. Duh!
>
> Isn't Amsterdam supposed to have all sorts of separate bicycle
> facilities -- raised lanes, special lights, etc.?
Yes, but sometimes you need to ride on the road. In Gothenburg we have
all sorts of fancy bike roads, but when you get into "Centrum", there
really isn't much room for bike roads and you end up on some
cobblestones and tram tracks. You get used to it.
Werehatrack
said:
>The tires on a standard road bike are narrower than the 1 ¾-inch groove
>that holds a streetcar wheel.
Mountain and comfort bike tires will also track into this groove;
roadies are not the only ones who have to exercise caution.
> If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
>easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
Yup. This is not a new hazard. I noticed a mention of it in a
newpaper article about the repaving of a street here in Houston around
1906.
--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.
Werehatrack
place in the 7-bit world that is Usenet.
On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:28:14 -0500, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> may have
said:
>The tires on a standard road bike are narrower than the 1 ž-inch groove
>that holds a streetcar wheel.
Mountain and comfort bike tires will also track into this groove;
roadies are not the only ones who have to exercise caution.
> If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
>easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
Yup. This is not a new hazard. I noticed a mention of it in a
newpaper article about the repaving of a street here in Houston around
1906.
>Seattle bike activists plan a wheeled protest next Wednesday, when the
>South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the
>Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Oh, the SLUT! (Yeah, the official name is SLU Streetcar, but the
*local* one is SLU Trolley.)
>"The streetcar isn't operating yet, and we're already seeing people
>crashing," said Seattle Likes Bikes member Michael Snyder, who said he
>has heard of eight or nine accidents.
>
>"Any time there's a bicycle around, we're extra cautious," said Paul
>Warner, a streetcar operator for King County Metro Transit. Warner said
>he has seen a couple of cyclists fall during train testing and that he
>allows extra stopping distance behind bicycles in case one gets pitched.
So the trolley drivers can cash a reality check where the planners
didn't. Small consolation.
>The new 1.3-mile route does add a paved east-west trail along South Lake
>Union Park, said Melone.
Yeah, build a feeder to something that the cyclists can't use now.
Logical.
>The city intends to add bike lanes to nearby Ninth Avenue North, and
>shift Westlake cyclists there. But that's not expected for at least
>another year, said Snyder.
By which time the cyclists will have moved elsewhere, which will be
duly noted by the folks allocating funds, at which point the project
will quietly go away.
>Protest organizers ask that the bike route on Ninth Avenue be built
>immediately; that warning signs be installed on Westlake; and that the
>city study putting rubber fill in the rail grooves.
The rubber fill hasn't been a good answer where I've heard of it being
tried.
>The Cascade Bicycle Club will advocate that any future streetcar lines
>take inside lanes or medians, a provision Portland added to its bike plan.
>
>"We'd be happy to look at any ideas that cyclists may have," said
>Melone. "At the same time, it's a multimodal system."
Multimodal = "does many things poorly"?
>Alan Durning, founder of Sightline Institute, an environmental think
>tank, calls the Westlake situation one example of "bicycle neglect";
>the American tendency to treat bikes as recreational vehicles, not
>primary transportation. A street posing similar hazards to cars would
>never be designed, he said.
vey
> Oy, vey! Turn off the damn extended ASCII character set; UTF-8 has no
> place in the 7-bit world that is Usenet.
I will try, but I'm not sure I know how. I'm using Thunderbird.
The character set is Western ISO-8859-1. Is that what I want to change?
I don't see any UTF in Thunderbird.
joseph.sa...@gmail.com
Enough Thunderbird would make me see double. 8, 16, what's the diff?
Joseph
vey
Wait, UTF-8 is in the list as is Western ISO-8859-15.
jobst....@stanfordalumni.org
That's the one. UTF-8 is in what most of this stuff is written. It's
not that the posting is unreadable, but rather that responses get
disjointed from their thread.
Jobst Brandt
vey
Which one is the one? 8859-15? or UTF-8?
jo...@phred.org
@w56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, land...@gmail.com says...
> What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty of
> trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
> you get stuck. Duh!
Two problems there:
1. European tramways often use narrower, shallower flangeways than
what's been used in Seattle. e.g. Ri 60N flangeway is 36mm wide, still
enough to trap skinny tires but better than what Seattle chose.
2. European motorists are more accustomed to cyclists and are less
likely to blindly run over cyclists avoiding tram rails. A number of
the riders who've been injured were apparently forced into the tracks by
motorists who didn't see any reason to allow bikes to ride to the left
of the rails in the right lane.
You can see a sample of the Seattle track layout at
http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
--
jo...@phred.org is Joshua Putnam
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/>
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html>
jo...@phred.org
jobst....@stanfordalumni.org says...
Unfortunately, some newsreaders will accept pasted 8-bit even if they
generate 7-bit when typing. When you type something, they work OK, but
when you copy-and-paste from the web, they allow in all sorts of junk
that doesn't belong on Usenet.
I believe this is most common with email programs that have a Usenet
kludge, rather than proper newsreading software.
jo...@phred.org
@earthWEEDSlink.net says...
> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:28:14 -0500, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> may have
> said:
> > If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
> >easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
> Yup. This is not a new hazard. I noticed a mention of it in a
> newpaper article about the repaving of a street here in Houston around
> 1906.
Seattle's previous generation of streetcars generally weren't put in the
right curb lane -- that's a not-new solution to a not-new problem that
Seattle's DOT seems to have forgotten about.
jo...@phred.org
@earthWEEDSlink.net says...
> Oh, the SLUT! (Yeah, the official name is SLU Streetcar, but the
> *local* one is SLU Trolley.)
Which has led to all sorts of puns, T-shirts, and bumper stickers, e.g.
http://tinyurl.com/2uspo8 or http://tinyurl.com/2nkvw9
Tim McNamara
<jo...@phred.org> wrote:
> In article <50d22f40-07f3-45eb-89ac-92bec32efdb3
> @w56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, land...@gmail.com says...
>
> > What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty
> > of trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way
> > that you get stuck. Duh!
>
> Two problems there:
>
> 1. European tramways often use narrower, shallower flangeways than
> what's been used in Seattle. e.g. Ri 60N flangeway is 36mm wide,
> still enough to trap skinny tires but better than what Seattle chose.
>
> 2. European motorists are more accustomed to cyclists and are less
> likely to blindly run over cyclists avoiding tram rails. A number of
> the riders who've been injured were apparently forced into the tracks
> by motorists who didn't see any reason to allow bikes to ride to the
> left of the rails in the right lane.
>
> You can see a sample of the Seattle track layout at
> http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
Hmmm. Yes, there's not much room for cyclists there. And I see the
prospect for inattentive drivers losing a door or two to a passing tram.
Eliminate the car parking lane, convert it to a bike lane and some of
the difficulty goes away- except for home owners and/or businesses that
need parking- but then you introduce the problem of cyclists crossing
the tramway at the corner. TANSTAAFL.
Tim McNamara
jobst....@stanfordalumni.org wrote:
And while UTF-8 has long had its proponents claiming that it is the
future of Internet text standards, the future never seems to arrive. It
malfunctions with a lot of newsreaders and e-mail clients.
Tim McNamara
Steve Gravrock <use...@sdg.users.panix.com> wrote:
> I'm a little confused. Westlake is one way northbound for most of its
> length,
That could lead to some Abbott-and-Costello routines when giving
directions to people. "North Westlake." "Northwest Lake?" Yep!"
jo...@phred.org
tim...@bitstream.net says...
We have some great addresses like that around here.
To get to one of my clients, you go north on West Lake Sammamish Parkway
Southeast.
Personally, I live on the corner of 3rd SW and SW 3rd.
vey
Well, I'm not using it. I'm using Western ISO-8859-1, so I guess I can
try the other Western one.
Tom Sherman
See <http://www.bumwine.com/>.
--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"Localized intense suction such as tornadoes is created when temperature
differences are high enough between meeting air masses, and can impart
excessive energy onto a cyclist." - Randy Schlitter
Tim McNamara
<jo...@phred.org> wrote:
> In article <timmcn-F2AEF7....@news.iphouse.com>,
> tim...@bitstream.net says...
> > In article <slrnflgk51...@panix1.panix.com>,
> > Steve Gravrock <use...@sdg.users.panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I'm a little confused. Westlake is one way northbound for most of
> > > its length,
> >
> > That could lead to some Abbott-and-Costello routines when giving
> > directions to people. "North Westlake." "Northwest Lake?" Yep!"
>
> We have some great addresses like that around here.
>
> To get to one of my clients, you go north on West Lake Sammamish
> Parkway Southeast.
>
> Personally, I live on the corner of 3rd SW and SW 3rd.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul street system is incomprehensible as well from
any modern perspective (much of it was named based on the orientation to
the Mississippi River). West St. Paul is south of St. Paul, North St.
Paul is east of St. Paul, South St. Paul is south of West St. Paul, etc.
Minneapolis's streets are assigned to N, S, SE, etc. with barely a
semblance of rhyme or reason. But your area may take the cake!
Michael Press
<50d22f40-07f3-45eb...@w56g2000hsf.googl
egroups.com>,
landotter <land...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 6, 12:28 pm, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote:
> > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004055887_biketracks...
> >
> > New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
> > trap for bicyclists.
> >
> > The tires on a standard road bike are narrower than the 1 3/4-inch groove
> > that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
> > easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
> >
> > Seattle bike activists plan a wheeled protest next Wednesday, when the
> > South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the
> > Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
> >
>
> What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty of
> trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
> you get stuck. Duh!
Agreed. Learn how to ride. Or not.
Get stuck and run down. Oh, the carnage!
--
Michael Press
Michael Press
vey <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote:
Stay with ISO-8859-1, please. Pretty please?
It allows readers to makes the fewest assumptions.
It appears that your originating article
has a hyphen in it, and that is not a 7 bit ascii character.
Observe that this subject header has a bog standard dash.
--
Michael Press
* * Chas
"vey" <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote in message
news:fj9euk$1s5$1...@news.datemas.de...
>
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004055887_biketracks06m.html
>
> New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
> trap for bicyclists.
>
> that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
> easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
>
> Seattle bike activists plan a wheeled protest next Wednesday, when the
> South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the
> Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
>
> streetcar line includes long stretches of track in the curb lanes of
> Westlake Avenue, where bicyclists normally ride. Many riders have
> adapted by riding on sidewalks, to the left of the tracks — or in the
> left lane, which aggravates motorists.
>
> crashing," said Seattle Likes Bikes member Michael Snyder, who said he
> has heard of eight or nine accidents.
>
> the curb lane but just left of the rails. She felt pressure from passing
> cars, drifted right, and became snared in the trackway.
>
> "I had two options: fall into moving rush-hour traffic, or slam into the
> back of a parked car. I opted for the parked car." She got up, bruised
> and bleeding, then noticed her body broke the car's taillight. Merrick
> said she no longer rides there.
>
> Warner, a streetcar operator for King County Metro Transit. Warner said
> he has seen a couple of cyclists fall during train testing and that he
> allows extra stopping distance behind bicycles in case one gets pitched.
>
> median, but Seattle's new streetcar is mostly in curb lanes, so
> passengers can board from the sidewalk. It's a cheaper alignment, in a
> neighborhood where Vulcan and other landowners are covering half of the
> project's $51 million cost.
>
> Ethan Melone, the city's streetcar project manager, said the main issue
> wasn't price, but that a center layout would have required a wide
> median, forcing out road lanes or parking spaces.
>
> Union Park, said Melone.
>
> shift Westlake cyclists there. But that's not expected for at least
> another year, said Snyder.
>
> immediately; that warning signs be installed on Westlake; and that the
> city study putting rubber fill in the rail grooves.
>
plan.
>
> "We'd be happy to look at any ideas that cyclists may have," said
> Melone. "At the same time, it's a multimodal system."
>
> tank, calls the Westlake situation one example of "bicycle neglect" —
> the American tendency to treat bikes as recreational vehicles, not
> primary transportation. A street posing similar hazards to cars would
> never be designed, he said.
I grew up and learned to ride bikes in Pittsburgh, PA where we not only
had streetcars running throughout the city, but many of the streets were
paved with cobblestones especially the spaces between the tracks. When it
rained we had the double whammy of tracks plus wet cobblestones.
Learn to avoid the tracks like riders all over the world do.... A few less
lattés maybe???
Chas.
* * Chas
<jo...@phred.org> wrote in message
news:MPG.21c22353e...@newsgroups.comcast.net...
> In article <50d22f40-07f3-45eb-89ac-92bec32efdb3
> @w56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, land...@gmail.com says...
>
> > What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty of
> > trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
> > you get stuck. Duh!
>
> Two problems there:
>
> 1. European tramways often use narrower, shallower flangeways than
> what's been used in Seattle. e.g. Ri 60N flangeway is 36mm wide, still
> enough to trap skinny tires but better than what Seattle chose.
>
> 2. European motorists are more accustomed to cyclists and are less
> likely to blindly run over cyclists avoiding tram rails. A number of
> the riders who've been injured were apparently forced into the tracks by
> motorists who didn't see any reason to allow bikes to ride to the left
> of the rails in the right lane.
>
> You can see a sample of the Seattle track layout at
> http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
>
>
> --
> jo...@phred.org is Joshua Putnam
Here's a picture of streetcar tracks and cobblestones in present day
Pittsburgh, PA that have been paved over with asphalt which has worn away.
Your streets look great! You just have to be careful to avoid crossing the
tracks at an obtuse angle.
http://www.phlf.org/spotlightonmainstreet/buildings/images/large/3017.jpg
Chas.
* * Chas
"Steve Gravrock" <use...@sdg.users.panix.com> wrote in message
news:slrnflgk51...@panix1.panix.com...
> On 2007-12-06, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote:
> >
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004055887_biketracks06m.html
> >
> > New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
> > trap for bicyclists.
> >
groove
> > that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
> > easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
>
>
> > Stacey Merrick said she was pedaling north on Westlake two weeks ago,
in
> > the curb lane but just left of the rails. She felt pressure from
passing
> > cars, drifted right, and became snared in the trackway.
>
>
> > "Any time there's a bicycle around, we're extra cautious," said Paul
> > Warner, a streetcar operator for King County Metro Transit. Warner
said
> > he has seen a couple of cyclists fall during train testing and that he
> > allows extra stopping distance behind bicycles in case one gets
pitched.
>
> <http://www.seattlestreetcar.com/map/> is accurate, the tracks are on
> the west side of the street and the streetcar runs southbound, facing
> traffic. That fits with the photo in the Seattle Times article, but
> doesn't square Merrick's description of her accident or Warner's
comments
> about following cyclists.
>
> It also seems that 9th would not be a good alternative route for
> northbound cyclists, since it's one way southbound. At least that's what
> Google Maps seems to think. I've cycled in that area in the past but I
> haven't been there since the tracks were put in. Hopefully somebody
> who's seen the situation firsthand can clarify.
There are a number of streets in Sacramento, CA that have light rail
(street car) traffic running the wrong way or on the wrong side of the
street.
Chas.
* * Chas
"Tom Sherman" <sunset...@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:fjaf5p$fgb$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
> joseph.sa...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Dec 6, 10:41 pm, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote:
> >> Werehatrack wrote:
> >>> Oy, vey! Turn off the damn extended ASCII character set; UTF-8 has
no
> >>> place in the 7-bit world that is Usenet.
> >> I will try, but I'm not sure I know how. I'm using Thunderbird.
> >> The character set is Western ISO-8859-1. Is that what I want to
change?
> >> I don't see any UTF in Thunderbird.
> >
> > Enough Thunderbird would make me see double. 8, 16, what's the diff?
>
> See <http://www.bumwine.com/>.
>
> --
> Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
Great web site but they have a few things wrong:
Night Train is renamed Ripple "Night Train gets you there on time".
(Ripple + ginger ale = Champipple).
MD 20/20 - better known as "Mad Dog" or Mad Dog 20/20". MD stands for the
maker Mogen David. 20/20 used to be around a 20% alcohol fortified "wine".
The advantage of these 2 wines is they taste good both ways. ;-)
Then in the late 60s and early 70s there was Cribari "The gentle journey".
Chas.
damyth
> In article <47587957$0$36395$742ec...@news.sonic.net>,
News for you buddy. For those of use who are capable of reading, say
Japanese, UTF-8, as well as English, UTF-8 has been a standard for
years. As a practical example of its usefulness, web pages can be
comprensible to both English and Japanese readers.
It only seems "futuristic" to you because you are western-centric.
Which part of "legacy apps" don't you comprehend?
damyth
> In article <47587957$0$36395$742ec...@news.sonic.net>,
>
News for you, buddy. For those of us who are capable of reading, say
Japanese, as well as English, UTF-8 has been a standard for
years. Check out these pages as pratical examples of UTF-8
usefulness:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1R
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php
It only seems "futuristic" to you because you are western-centric.
Which part of "legacy apps" don't you understand?
Tim McNamara
<d244ac1d-c465-40a5...@a39g2000pre.googlegroups.com>,
damyth <mdk.10...@spamgourmet.com> wrote:
Hmmm. I'm underwhelmed by the ""usefulness" of these sites, given that
I read neither Chinese or Japanese. I'm sure they're useful for many
people, but I can't really tell how. Heck, there are at least four
Japanese and eight Chinese text encodings to choose from. Which one is
the "best?"
> It only seems "futuristic" to you because you are western-centric.
Nah. It seems "futuristic" because Usenet is a 7-bit ASCII technology
and UTF-8 has not actually ascended to the standard encoding dominance
that its proponents have been saying is coming. It must be a
conspiracy. UTF-8 has been mooted since 1993 and has been the standard
that will be adopted "any minute now" as long as I've been using the
Internet.
> Which part of "legacy apps" don't you understand?
Which part of "malformed argument" don't you understand? Good grief,
try some linear thought.
(PeteCresswell)
>
>Then in the late 60s and early 70s there was Cribari "The gentle journey".
I notice that Bali Hai didn't make it to their list.
Maybe it's not even up to being called a wine?
--
PeteCresswell
jo...@phred.org
verkt...@aol.spamski.com says...
> Here's a picture of streetcar tracks and cobblestones in present day
> Pittsburgh, PA that have been paved over with asphalt which has worn away.
> Your streets look great! You just have to be careful to avoid crossing the
> tracks at an obtuse angle.
Seattle still has many legacy streets with cobblestone or, even worse,
fired brick pavement -- talk about slippery when wet!
This one street looks great because it's brand new pavement around the
brand-new streetcar lines.
But the question is, why install a brand-new streetcar line in the right
lane of a popular bicycle route when the city had figured out eighty
years ago that right-lane streetcars were more dangerous to bicycles,
pedestrians, and parked vehicles than center-lane streetcars?
Does Pittsburgh use thin asphalt over cobbles on newly-constructed
streets, or does it simply tolerate deficiencies of century-old streets
while requiring safer designs on new streets?
--
jo...@phred.org is Joshua Putnam
* * Chas
"(PeteCresswell)" <x...@y.Invalid> wrote in message
news:oooil31jt32krn7m3...@4ax.com...
YUCK! It was more like an emetic! How to induce the Technicolor yawn....
:-0
The Eskimos and other Arctic dwellers may have unlimited words for snow
but the folks down in OZ have some of the best descriptions for "having a
chunder". ;-)
Chas.
Werehatrack
>In article <72ogl3hin7r26mo8h...@4ax.com>, rault00
>@earthWEEDSlink.net says...
>> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:28:14 -0500, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> may have
>> said:
>
>> > If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
>> >easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
>
>> Yup. This is not a new hazard. I noticed a mention of it in a
>> newpaper article about the repaving of a street here in Houston around
>> 1906.
>
>Seattle's previous generation of streetcars generally weren't put in the
>right curb lane -- that's a not-new solution to a not-new problem that
>Seattle's DOT seems to have forgotten about.
FWIW, late-19th- and early-20th-century streetcars tended to run down
the middle of the streets without causing problems precisely because
the automobile traffic was nonexistent to sparse and/or slow; people
could grab a ride on a streetcar in the middle of the road without
much worry about getting run over as they crossed. There was a lot of
debate over where to put the Houston streetcar line when they decided
to build it, and the final design has it along the right lane of a
stretch that has good alternate riding routes, along the center for
most of its route (with a maddening short stretch that goes through a
plaza where bikes are nominally banned, but I ride through anyway if
there's not much peddy traffic) and down the left of a one-way where
cars still tend to get hit by the trains. (People still haven't
learned not to turn left without looking behind them. Cell phones are
often involved. The stretch is full of florists who capitalize on the
area's proximity to the Medical Center.)
--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.
Wayne
>
> FWIW, late-19th- and early-20th-century streetcars tended to run down
> the middle of the streets without causing problems precisely because
> the automobile traffic was nonexistent to sparse and/or slow; people
> could grab a ride on a streetcar in the middle of the road without
> much worry about getting run over as they crossed. There was a lot of
> debate over where to put the Houston streetcar line when they decided
> to build it, and the final design has it along the right lane of a
> stretch that has good alternate riding routes, along the center for
> most of its route (with a maddening short stretch that goes through a
> plaza where bikes are nominally banned, but I ride through anyway if
> there's not much peddy traffic) and down the left of a one-way where
> cars still tend to get hit by the trains. (People still haven't
> learned not to turn left without looking behind them. Cell phones are
> often involved. The stretch is full of florists who capitalize on the
> area's proximity to the Medical Center.)
>
> --
> My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
> Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
> Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.
Placing a train going the wrong way on a one way street is a bad
idea. A lifetime of driving teaches people that a one way street is
just that - one way. Even if the locals eventually learn to watch for
the trains, visitors will fall victim and lawsuits will follow. The
city will lose a lot of money when it fails to justify it to a jury.
Wayne
(PeteCresswell)
>YUCK! It was more like an emetic! How to induce the Technicolor yawn....
>:-0
I can tell you with 100% certainty that when one consumes a
half-gallon of the stuff, the chunks coming through the nose
*really* hurt.
--
PeteCresswell
A Muzi
>> the middle of the streets without causing problems precisely because
>> the automobile traffic was nonexistent to sparse and/or slow; people
>> could grab a ride on a streetcar in the middle of the road without
>> much worry about getting run over as they crossed. There was a lot of
>> debate over where to put the Houston streetcar line when they decided
>> to build it, and the final design has it along the right lane of a
>> stretch that has good alternate riding routes, along the center for
>> most of its route (with a maddening short stretch that goes through a
>> plaza where bikes are nominally banned, but I ride through anyway if
>> there's not much peddy traffic) and down the left of a one-way where
>> cars still tend to get hit by the trains. (People still haven't
>> learned not to turn left without looking behind them. Cell phones are
>> often involved. The stretch is full of florists who capitalize on the
>> area's proximity to the Medical Center.)
Wayne wrote:
> Placing a train going the wrong way on a one way street is a bad
> idea. A lifetime of driving teaches people that a one way street is
> just that - one way. Even if the locals eventually learn to watch for
> the trains, visitors will fall victim and lawsuits will follow. The
> city will lose a lot of money when it fails to justify it to a jury.
Madison WI has an eastbound (reverse-direction) bicycle lane next to
four lanes of westbound traffic (University Avenue) and, yes, left turns
can result in mayhem. Even a same-direction left-side bike lane on a 2
lane one-way (Johnson Street) has left turn issues [1] besides wrong-way
bicyclists crowding the lane. 'alanstew' made a good point, 'safety' is
elusive!
[1] I was literally run over by a left turning rental truck to my bike's
detriment. Narrowly missed my leg when crushing the bike.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
* * Chas
"(PeteCresswell)" <x...@y.Invalid> wrote in message
For medicinal use only.... Call the poison control center! ;-)
Chas.
* * Chas
"(PeteCresswell)" <x...@y.Invalid> wrote in message
Our favorite fortified wines in those days were Gold Seal Catawba Pink and
Virginia Dare - Good Ole VD!
20% and $.99 a quart.
They were so sweet that they truly tasted good "both ways". ;-)
Chas.
Tom Sherman
I am surprised that more people do not get killed on that bicycle
"farcility", particularly from motor vehicle traffic going from
westbound University Avenue to southbound Park Street. And of course the
lower primates, err, undergraduate students, are always heedlessly
wandering out into the bicycle lane (and the street).
> Even a same-direction left-side bike lane on a 2
> lane one-way (Johnson Street) has left turn issues [1] besides wrong-way
> bicyclists crowding the lane. 'alanstew' made a good point, 'safety' is
> elusive!
> [1] I was literally run over by a left turning rental truck to my bike's
> detriment. Narrowly missed my leg when crushing the bike.
I would avoid both University and Johnson and go south to Dayton when
riding a bicycle in the area (west of Lake) or possibly ride by the
monkey houses on Langdon (east of Lake).
--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
Luke
<jo...@phred.org> wrote:
> In article <50d22f40-07f3-45eb-89ac-92bec32efdb3
> @w56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, land...@gmail.com says...
>
> > What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty of
> > trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
> > you get stuck. Duh!
>
> Two problems there:
>
> 1. European tramways often use narrower, shallower flangeways than
> what's been used in Seattle. e.g. Ri 60N flangeway is 36mm wide, still
> enough to trap skinny tires but better than what Seattle chose.
>
> 2. European motorists are more accustomed to cyclists and are less
> likely to blindly run over cyclists avoiding tram rails. A number of
> the riders who've been injured were apparently forced into the tracks by
> motorists who didn't see any reason to allow bikes to ride to the left
> of the rails in the right lane.
>
> You can see a sample of the Seattle track layout at
> http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
FYI, the situation in Toronto:
The majority of streetcar routes in Toronto's core share the center of
thoroughfares with all other traffic. On the majority of routes such as
these, (lacking in pedestrian islands), all dis/embarking passengers
stop traffic flow across 1/2 of the thoroughfare.
http://transit.toronto.on.ca/images/streetcar-4010-10.jpg
IMO negotiating the rails is not problematic, however doing so amid the
hurly burly of rush hour traffic can lead to uncomfortable, not to
mention painful, episodes. Because many of the (4 lane, 2 each way)
streets hosting trolley routes also allow curb lane parking, unless a
cyclist monopolizes the center lane, he greatly increases his chances
of a winning a door prize or colliding with the legions of jay walkers.
Many timid cyclists are been reluctant to do.
There have been a few incidents of cyclists, while riding at the inner
extremity of the curb lane - it being lined with autos parked curb side
- flung into the path of trolleys or other vehicles after being doored.
Predictably, some of the results have been tragic.
On some winter days, the commute involves guessing just where the
trolley rails are.
http://transit.toronto.on.ca/images/streetcar-4000-61.jpg
Few dedicated trolley ways exist here.
http://readingcities.com/images/uploads/RT-dtah.jpg
They are contentious projects; many local merchants oppose exclusive
on-street streetcar tracks because they limit the space available for
patrons to park alongside their shops. And, of course, all other
vehicular traffic is relegated one less lane.
A strange observation gleaned while riding streetcars over the years:
doesn't matter how late I'm running, I never feel in a rush while
onboard. Perhaps it's the sensation of steel on steel or the leisurely
pace of the trolley; can't really say.
frkr...@gmail.com
>
> A strange observation gleaned while riding streetcars over the years:
> doesn't matter how late I'm running, I never feel in a rush while
> onboard. Perhaps it's the sensation of steel on steel or the leisurely
> pace of the trolley; can't really say.
And speaking of steel:
I'm surprised that it's sensible to use steel rails and wheels on
trolleys.
I understand that the rolling resistance is less than for ordinary
tires. But I'd expect the energy savings from rolling resistance
would not significantly offset the cost of laying rails in the first
place. Then there's the problem of fixed routes, as opposed to more
agile route modification. And, of course, all the other problems
we've been discussing.
When I was a kid (and dinosaurs ruled the earth) our city had electric
trolleys running on rubber tires. IOW, they looked exactly like
ordinary buses, but with overhead booms to reach their overhead
electric power lines. If a route needed changed, there would have
been no street excavation involved; they'd just hang more wires. Why
is that not standard?
Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say, a
bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
- Frank Krygowski
Mark Shroyer
> Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say,
> a bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
Tourist dollars?
--
Mark Shroyer
http://markshroyer.com/contact/
vey
>
> When I was a kid (and dinosaurs ruled the earth) our city had electric
> trolleys running on rubber tires. IOW, they looked exactly like
> ordinary buses, but with overhead booms to reach their overhead
> electric power lines. If a route needed changed, there would have
> been no street excavation involved; they'd just hang more wires. Why
> is that not standard?
They may still be using those in San Francisco. I was riding one there
about 15 years ago when the driver turned wrong and lost the connection.
Not a big problem. She pulled out a long fiberglass rod and rehooked
the trolley to the wires.
But what is San Francisco famous for?
SMS 斯蒂文• 夏
> On 2007-12-08, frkr...@gmail.com <frkr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say,
>> a bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
>
> Tourist dollars?
In San Francisco there are electric buses with rubber wheels and
electric street cars (aka trolly cars). The street cars used to run on
the street throughout the city, but a lot of the track is now
underground or in its own right of way and only in less congested areas
do they share the road with cars. So they are much faster than the
electric buses, especially in the downtown area.
One positive about trolley cars is that the route _can't change_. So
while bus routes come and go (and in my city we are in the process of
losing some key bus routes), at least you can plan your housing and job
choices with relative certainty that the trolley route will remain the same.
Another advantage of the trolley cars is that they can be connected
together to create longer trains, transporting more people with a single
operator. They also use less electricity than electric buses and are
more reliable. The poles that connect the bus to the overhead wires are
constantly coming off, stalling the bus and requiring the operator to
get out and use a stick to reconnect the wires. This invariably happens
at intersections where the bus is turning and changing from one set of
wires to another.
Now San Jose managed to create what is probably the world's slowest
trolly car system, where in the downtown area the street car shares the
street and crawls along, but in the suburbs it has its own right of way.
dusto...@mac.com
> On Dec 6, 10:54 am, landotter <landot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 6, 12:28 pm, vey <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote:
>
> > >http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004055887_biketracks...
>
> > > New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a
> > > trap for bicyclists.
>
> > > that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can
> > > easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.
>
> > > South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the
> > > Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
>
> > trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
> > you get stuck. Duh!
>
> facilities -- raised lanes, special lights, etc.?
Yes, the red bricks belong to the cyclists, who are at the top of the
transportation pecking order.
I didn't ride a bike while there but it all looked plenty smooth to
me. Including the tram crossings for bikes and peds alike.
The MV operators seemed mostly suitably tamed. I understand that is
due to some intelligently designed liability legislation (IOW, if you
run down a cyclist or ped you're in trouble, contrary to the way
things are done in the good ol' USA). --D-y
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Frank,
As a Denver & Rio Grande locomotive engineer once told me, the lack of
a steering wheel reduces accidents and liability.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Ted Bennett
> As a Denver & Rio Grande locomotive engineer once told me, the lack of
> a steering wheel reduces accidents and liability.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Fogel
That's exactly the approach I use with my DeSoto.
--
Ted Bennett
Andrew Price
[---]
>Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say, a
>bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
They have a higher capacity than trolleybuses - trams running on a
fixed guideway can, and often are coupled together in multiple units
and can carry many more passengers than a trolleybus.
Tim McNamara
David L. Johnson
>
> Great web site but they have a few things wrong:
>
> Night Train is renamed Ripple "Night Train gets you there on time".
> (Ripple + ginger ale = Champipple).
>
Yeah, where was Ripple on that list?
Nice to see Gallo getting the credit for its creations on that site. I
used to drive by the Gallo winery from time to time. It looked like an
oil refinery, and smelled almost as bad.
--
David L. Johnson
Enron's slogan: Respect, Communication, Integrity, and Excellence.
* * Chas
"Tim McNamara" <tim...@bitstream.net> wrote in message
news:timmcn-2D019A....@news.iphouse.com...
Also cable cars and abandoned hearts..... :-)
Chas.
* * Chas
"David L. Johnson" <david....@lehigh.edu> wrote in message
news:T9udnZqOr82cncba...@ptd.net...
Yes but Gallo is almost as profitable as Exxon!
Chas.
Tom Sherman
> * * Chas wrote:
>
>>
>> Great web site but they have a few things wrong:
>>
>> Night Train is renamed Ripple "Night Train gets you there on time".
>> (Ripple + ginger ale = Champipple).
>>
> Yeah, where was Ripple on that list?
At <http://www.bumwine.com/others.html>.
> Nice to see Gallo getting the credit for its creations on that site. I
> used to drive by the Gallo winery from time to time. It looked like an
> oil refinery, and smelled almost as bad.
>
The products from the oil refinery probably tasted better than 'Bird and
'Train!
Luke
<99de8e36-2691-44e5...@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
<frkr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 8, 10:49 am, Luke <lucasirag...@rogers.com> wrote:
> >
> > A strange observation gleaned while riding streetcars over the years:
> > doesn't matter how late I'm running, I never feel in a rush while
> > onboard. Perhaps it's the sensation of steel on steel or the leisurely
> > pace of the trolley; can't really say.
>
> And speaking of steel:
>
> I'm surprised that it's sensible to use steel rails and wheels on
> trolleys.
>
> I understand that the rolling resistance is less than for ordinary
> tires. But I'd expect the energy savings from rolling resistance
> would not significantly offset the cost of laying rails in the first
> place. Then there's the problem of fixed routes, as opposed to more
> agile route modification. And, of course, all the other problems
> we've been discussing.
>
Torontonians can attest: aside from what must be the horrendous
expense, the periodic excavation of major downtown thoroughfares to lay
concrete beds and rails imposes mayhem on traffic.
Add the frequent complaints from motorists: the trolleys are slow and,
unlike buses, its essential that traffic halt across all intervening
lanes to permit passengers passage - not a requirement calculated to
maximize traffic flow.
But despite all there is a fondness, maybe it's nostalgia, for the
streetcars just the same. Perhaps a fancy on my part, but I sense a
genuine reluctance to dispense with a unique -- at least in
contemporary cityscapes -- and esthetically pleasing form of transit in
order to literally pave the way for yet another sewer of automobiles.
> When I was a kid (and dinosaurs ruled the earth) our city had electric
> trolleys running on rubber tires. IOW, they looked exactly like
> ordinary buses, but with overhead booms to reach their overhead
> electric power lines. If a route needed changed, there would have
> been no street excavation involved; they'd just hang more wires. Why
> is that not standard?
>
> Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say, a
> bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
>
> - Frank Krygowski
>
Up until 1992 Toronto boasted an impressive fleet of almost 2000
electric buses and an extensive network of overhead wires (a la the
trolleys) powering them. At that time, in order to cut expenses, the
whole convoy was retired and its electrical grid dismantled in what
must now seem a tremendously short sighted decision, given the
spiralling cost of petrol and stifling summer smog,
According to the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission):
"Electric vehicles have longer lifespans than their diesel counterparts
(at least 30 years versus 12-18 for the average bus), but even these
vehicles have to be rebuilt or replaced sometime...
...To retain trolley coach service, the TTC was looking at either
rebuilding or replacing its fleet, and spending millions to upgrade
aging infrastructure. The price of oil was also very low at this time,
and the electric trolley buses had become the most expensive surface
vehicles of the fleet to operate. Add to this a budget crunch and
shrinking ridership from the recession, and the TTC decided that the
trolley buses weren't worth it, anymore.
The final straw was the natural gas buses. At the time, this new
technology promised quiet, smooth operation and reduced pollution, and
the builders marketed these buses as ideal replacements for trolley bus
service. The TTC did not stop to think that these improvements only
appeared when natural gas buses replaced diesels; instead, it pushed
for a change of technology from electric trolleys to natural gas. The
natural gas design has shown its flaws, since then, and the TTC are no
longer as interested in the technology.
In general, trolley buses were the poor siblings of transit agencies'
streetcar and bus fleets. While theoretically combining the advantages
of streetcars and diesel buses (lower emissions, greater flexibility,
less likely to be blocked by traffic), practically they also combined
the disadvantages of both technologies (less capacity, more
infrastructure required)..."
Ryan Cousineau
Vertigo! When the missus and I took a trip there a few years ago, we
spent a considerable amount of our free time seeking out shooting
locations from the movie, which was an excellent way to structure a
wide-ranging tour of the city, as well.
The cable car museum is not to be missed by any engineering buff,
--
Ryan Cousineau rcou...@sfu.ca http://www.wiredcola.com/
"My scenarios may give the impression I could be an excellent crook.
Not true - I am a talented lawyer." - Sandy in rec.bicycles.racing
Jasper Janssen
>In article <50d22f40-07f3-45eb-89ac-92bec32efdb3
>@w56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, land...@gmail.com says...
>
>> What a bunch of pussies. Ever visit Gothenburg or Amsterdam? Plenty of
>> trams and "dangerous" rails. You just don't ride in such a way that
>> you get stuck. Duh!
>
>Two problems there:
>
>1. European tramways often use narrower, shallower flangeways than
>what's been used in Seattle. e.g. Ri 60N flangeway is 36mm wide, still
>enough to trap skinny tires but better than what Seattle chose.
>
>2. European motorists are more accustomed to cyclists and are less
>likely to blindly run over cyclists avoiding tram rails. A number of
>the riders who've been injured were apparently forced into the tracks by
>motorists who didn't see any reason to allow bikes to ride to the left
>of the rails in the right lane.
>
>You can see a sample of the Seattle track layout at
>http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
Assuming that no-cars-in-the-tram-lane is standard, I honestly don't see
any possible way to get damaged from that. There's plenty of room between
even the track and the line of cars, there's plenty of room between the
two rails to ride (especially as long there aren't trams already going),
and leaving that track is fairly trivial as logn as you do it at slightly
below cruise speed so that you can make very sure that your front wheel,
at least, doesn't jam in it, by making a closer-to-right-angle crossing.
Stop whining, basically, is the summary of my response. And fired-brick
slippery when wet? No it isn't. It's slippery when it's *iced over*, or
when there's significant amount of wet leaves. Until then, don't whine
about it. The road into town center from where I live has a couple of old
fired-brick sections, so I do know whereof I speak -- and just wet is not
actually all that slippery.
I've ridden on ice, where I had to be ready every 10 meters or so to stick
out both my feet in order to become a four-legged more or less stable
structure instead of an entirely unstable one, and still fell over once or
twice in 10 minutes. Shit happens.
Jasper
Jasper Janssen
>A strange observation gleaned while riding streetcars over the years:
>doesn't matter how late I'm running, I never feel in a rush while
>onboard. Perhaps it's the sensation of steel on steel or the leisurely
>pace of the trolley; can't really say.
It's not like looking at your watch every ten seconds will speed the
driver up.
Jasper
r15...@aol.com
The hybrid bus/trolleys you mention were standard fare in many cities
in the US as the conglomerate of GM/Mack/Firestone bought up the
streetcar systems and tore out the old track networks in the 20s and
30s.
There is an advantage to fixed rails that you fail to mention...The
train on rails is not beholden to the slow plodding movement of
surface traffic when it emerges from the city center and hauls ass
unimpeded at about 70 mph in its own right-of-way, kind of like
cyclists on well designed fully separated bike paths. No red lights,
no unnecessary stops.
Robert
Werehatrack
said:
>On Dec 8, 10:49 am, Luke <lucasirag...@rogers.com> wrote:
>>
>> A strange observation gleaned while riding streetcars over the years:
>> doesn't matter how late I'm running, I never feel in a rush while
>> onboard. Perhaps it's the sensation of steel on steel or the leisurely
>> pace of the trolley; can't really say.
>
>And speaking of steel:
>
>I'm surprised that it's sensible to use steel rails and wheels on
>trolleys.
Why? The reason that cars run on inflated (synthetic) rubber is that
the infrastructure to make them useful is far cheaper than the
infrastructure required for steel wheels. (I don't even want to think
about what the switches for a steel-wheel version of I-94 in chicago
would look like. They wouldn't have room for the city.)
>I understand that the rolling resistance is less than for ordinary
>tires. But I'd expect the energy savings from rolling resistance
>would not significantly offset the cost of laying rails in the first
>place.
It's not just energy. Steel wheels will go a lot more miles without a
failure than pneumatic tires, and the drivetrains for them are usually
far simpler because they can be built without concern for unsprung
weight.
>Then there's the problem of fixed routes, as opposed to more
>agile route modification. And, of course, all the other problems
>we've been discussing.
Although that's a problem in an urban environement that is subject to
fast population and employment density change (as in, over periods of
less than 30 years), rail looks better as cities become mature and
stable. The presence of rail transit routes will induce longer-term
thinking on the part of developers and other planners, which isn't a
bad thing.
>When I was a kid (and dinosaurs ruled the earth) our city had electric
>trolleys running on rubber tires. IOW, they looked exactly like
>ordinary buses, but with overhead booms to reach their overhead
>electric power lines. If a route needed changed, there would have
>been no street excavation involved; they'd just hang more wires. Why
>is that not standard?
Those had their problems as well; a few places still have them, but
they've fallen out of favor for a variety of reasons. If they really
worked as well as would seem likely, they'd be getting more adoption;
the reality is that they constantly had problems with the overhead
pickups coming unhooked, and the process of getting them back in
service when that took place was often hazardous...and it always
snarled traffic. Where downtown traffic is light, and the need for
emergency avoidance maneuvers is small, they're fine...but those are
precisely the conditions that predict no need for mass transit on that
scale. Rail-based transit, on the other hand, by definition is immune
to coming unclipped...but, of course, idiots behind the wheel can
still delay them by causing trolley/auto(|SUV|pickup|delivery van)
collisions via inattention when the trolley shares the driving
surface.
>Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say, a
>bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
Electric power shifts the CO2 to a less populated area at the very
least, and may eliminate it if the source is non-fossil-based. Truly
"clean" IC engines are a rarity, with the vast majority still being
fossil-fueled in fact.
The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
people.
--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.
Werehatrack
A couple of years ago, not far from here, a fool in a late-model Caddy
ran a stop sign directly into the path of a lumbering '49 Lincoln
Zephyr. The Caddy ended up crushed to half its original width while
the Zephyr had a broken turn signal lens and a couple of bent bumper
pieces as the sum total of its non-paint damage. There would probably
have been a fatality if there had been a passenger in the Caddy, as
the caddy was struck from the right. I came across the aftermath as
the wreckers were pulling the Caddy up onto a flatbed. The Zephyr was
driven away.
Andrew Price
<jas...@jjanssen.org> wrote:
[---]
>I've ridden on ice, where I had to be ready every 10 meters or so to stick
>out both my feet in order to become a four-legged more or less stable
>structure instead of an entirely unstable one
Not using system pedals, I suppose.
Tom Sherman
> ...
> The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
> people.
DOWN WITH PEOPLE!
If there were fewer than 2 billion hominids around, many of the world's
problems would be solved. Damned breeders!
A R:nen
> The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
> people.
People indeed. In traffic engineering, there is a well-established
concept called "rail factor", the ridership of a rail transit system
divided by that of a non-rail transit system with an identical level
of service, and the ratio is always substantially greater than one.
People simply seem to prefer rail transit (whether tram, metro, light
rail, heavy commuter rail...), for whatever reason.
Ryan Cousineau
Tom Sherman <sunset...@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote:
> Werehatrack wrote:
> > ...
> > The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
> > people.
>
> DOWN WITH PEOPLE!
>
> If there were fewer than 2 billion hominids around, many of the world's
> problems would be solved. Damned breeders!
I hear this sentiment surprisingly often. More surprisingly, it never
seems to come from people who think they might be part of the problem.
By your estimate, there's a 2/3 chance,
Ryan Cousineau
Jasper Janssen <jas...@jjanssen.org> wrote:
Really? Because I was watching the Steamworks Tour de Gastown this year,
which took place in very rainy conditions. The fired brick corner at one
end of the course was good for, at my estimate, a lowside crash per lap
for the first 20 laps of the race. This was in July, and there were no
leaves on the road.
Porous concrete-style pavers seem to be a different matter, but that
brick was very slick.
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=27807662&size=l
Alas, I thought I had some good phone-cam video of this event, but I
can't find it now.
jo...@phred.org
jas...@jjanssen.org says...
> On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 15:19:18 -0800, <jo...@phred.org> wrote:
> >You can see a sample of the Seattle track layout at
> >http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
>
> Assuming that no-cars-in-the-tram-lane is standard,
It is not. The trolley runs in a standard vehicle lane, mixing it up
with cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, etc.
--
jo...@phred.org is Joshua Putnam
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/>
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html>
Tom Sherman
> In article <fjhgrm$b2m$1...@registered.motzarella.org>,
> Tom Sherman <sunset...@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Werehatrack wrote:
>>> ...
>>> The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
>>> people.
>> DOWN WITH PEOPLE!
>>
>> If there were fewer than 2 billion hominids around, many of the world's
>> problems would be solved. Damned breeders!
>
> I hear this sentiment surprisingly often. More surprisingly, it never
> seems to come from people who think they might be part of the problem.
>
> By your estimate, there's a 2/3 chance,
>
be twice the age of the first time father (the larger the generation gap
in years, the fewer overall number of people for a given number of births).
B. I do not believe that people have the right to have as many children
as they want, at the overall detriment to society. One family with eight
children outdoes the good work of seven families that limit themselves
to one child.
Brian Huntley
> As a cyclist you only encounter those tracks
> at crossings, more or less perpendicular to your direction, and you can
> just ride over them.
Not quite. At a 'grand union' intersection, you pass over 4 rails at
90 degrees and up to 8 (though you'd have to really try to hit them
all) at a sub-optimal angle.
On my commute, there's one intersection I have to be especially
careful to avoid both right turning cars and merging steel rails - if
I go left to get around the cars trying to turn but stopped by
pedestrians crossing, I run the risk of hitting the rails at a really
horrid angle, almost tangential to their curve. Add snow and ice and
it's quite a challenge.
A Muzi
> [---]
>> I've ridden on ice, where I had to be ready every 10 meters or so to stick
>> out both my feet in order to become a four-legged more or less stable
>> structure instead of an entirely unstable one
Andrew Price wrote:
> Not using system pedals, I suppose.
System pedals?
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
Luke
In article <fjhsn7$3hd$1...@registered.motzarella.org>, Tom Sherman
<sunset...@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote:
> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > In article <fjhgrm$b2m$1...@registered.motzarella.org>,
> > Tom Sherman <sunset...@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Werehatrack wrote:
> >>> ...
> >>> The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
> >>> people.
> >> DOWN WITH PEOPLE!
> >>
> >> If there were fewer than 2 billion hominids around, many of the world's
> >> problems would be solved. Damned breeders!
> >
> > I hear this sentiment surprisingly often. More surprisingly, it never
> > seems to come from people who think they might be part of the problem.
> >
> > By your estimate, there's a 2/3 chance,
Generalizations are always fraught with contradictions. Every time I'm
confronted with the notion that overpopulation is the problem I find
myself asking in relation to what?
How about global warming and environmental degradation? Up until this
point in history the vast amount of carbon emissions have emanated from
a few industrialized societies containing a fraction of Earth's
citizens. Given that fact, the argument could be made that the West,
and the environmental cost attendant to its culture, should be
considered overpopulated in relation to more populous but benign
societies.
Wholesale deforestation and the transformation of indigenous ecologies
has proceeded apace with the progress of the agricultural age and the
outward expansion of civilization from its original birthplaces (China,
Tigris/Euphrates). It's been suggested that Aboriginal hunting played a
part in the extinction of Australia's only megafauna over 20,000 years
ago; Lebanon lost her cedars over a millennium past and England her
forests a few centuries ago; it's been but 100+ years since America has
plowed under her prairie grasslands and decimated the bison. Is it only
to be assigned to overpopulation when the Amazon is losing the
rainforest?
What about how it relates to the carrying capacity of the habitat? Here
we're living on borrowed time: the Green Revolution would not be
possible without the existence of the oil age; neither would our
settlement patterns and culture.
Las Vegas is among fastest growing cities in the U.S. -- it's located
in the middle of the desert! Very little or no agricultural hinterland;
no proximity to valuable natural resources (no industrial raison
d'etre); save for the over-taxed Colorado river, no water; perfect
place to house a million+ people. Go figure.
The prewashed salad presently sitting in my fridge is shipped from
California. For every calorie it delivers it requires over 10 to
produce. No hydrocarbons, no salad. If every citizen of the earth
participated in a such an unsustainable food production system we'd
exhaust our habitat's ability to provide and be overpopulated at a
fraction of our current scale.
>
> A. I have no children, am not planning on doing so, and if I did I would
> be twice the age of the first time father (the larger the generation gap
> in years, the fewer overall number of people for a given number of births).
I suspect that your declining to propagate has reassured many a RBT
patron as to the future integrity of the human genome;-)
>
> B. I do not believe that people have the right to have as many children
> as they want, at the overall detriment to society. One family with eight
> children outdoes the good work of seven families that limit themselves
> to one child.
Two children nurtured to adulthood in the traditional American model,
with the traditional American expectations of a middle class lifestyle,
may be more detrimental to the future of the Inuit than a farming
family with 4 kids living a less materialistic lifestyle, practicing a
sustainable form of agriculture.
Quality of life is just as much a factor as quantity; IMO the
relationship between the two need not amount to a zero sum game.
Brian Huntley
> I have a bit of trouble visualising this in my mind. Perhaps it's my poor
> understanding of your language, English. Are you talking about the left-
> turning tracks when you are also turning left? Should it not be possible
> to stay clear from the tracks by making a wider turn? What is it about
> the cars you mention? Are the tracks like in the picture, or are they in
> the middle of the road/intersection where they belong?
I'm talking about an intersection where I'm going straight (in the
right lane), cars are turning right (in the same lane), pedestrians
are going straight (just to the right of the lane), and the streetcar
tracks are in the center (left) lane, but cross another set of tracks
and also have every possible combination of curved tracks for turning
left or right. I'm generally going east, and the North-South tracks
are on their own right-of-way (it's a very wide intersection.)
I believe I erred in my original message, however, as I now think the
total number of curved rails I have to cross over (to go straight) is
4, as the left-turning tracks don't enter my lane.
By the way, the turning tracks are very rarely used. I'm not sure if
they even have an automated set of points here. Most likely, the
driver gets out and moves the points with a lever when he has to turn
north or south.
If you're ever in Toronto, it's Dundas and Spadina.
frkr...@gmail.com
>
>
> >
> >http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
>
> Assuming that no-cars-in-the-tram-lane is standard, I honestly don't see
> any possible way to get damaged from that. There's plenty of room between
> even the track and the line of cars, there's plenty of room between the
> two rails to ride (especially as long there aren't trams already going),
> and leaving that track is fairly trivial as logn as you do it at slightly
> below cruise speed so that you can make very sure that your front wheel,
> at least, doesn't jam in it, by making a closer-to-right-angle crossing.
>
> Stop whining, basically, is the summary of my response.
I can certainly see a "possible way" of getting damaged from that!
And of course, http://transit.toronto.on.ca/images/streetcar-4010-10.jpg
is much worse.
Admittedly, I've never fallen while bicycling over such a track. But
one of my two* motorcycle falls happened while crossing a wet railroad
track during a very, very low speed turn. When my front wheel went
out, the fall was almost instantaneous. It reminded me of a judo
throw.
I can handle shallow angles with tracks very nicely, by lifting the
front wheel over
the track. But I'm aware that not everybody can do this. And it's
very difficult with a heavily laden bike. And there will come a day
when I can no longer do it even with a light bike.
Also, while I'm never very shy about taking the lane when necessary to
avoid such hazards, there may be times it's difficult to do that in
time. In particular, heavy traffic and unfamiliar streets can easily
allow these things to trap cyclists who aren't familiar with the
situation.
In summary, I don't think this hazard should be downplayed. Talking
about it doesn't qualify as "whining" in my book.
.
.
* The other motorcycle fall happened when I started off from my
parking space with the steering still locked. I think even the
celebrated trials expert Carl Fogel would have dabbed in that
circumstance! Being of lesser skill, I somersaulted instead.
- Frank Krygowski
Werehatrack
<rau...@earthWEEDSlink.net> may have said:
>... Rail-based transit, on the other hand, by definition is immune
>to coming unclipped...but, of course, idiots behind the wheel can
>still delay them by causing trolley/auto(|SUV|pickup|delivery van)
>collisions via inattention when the trolley shares the driving
>surface.
>
>>Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say, a
>>bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
>
>Electric power shifts the CO2 to a less populated area at the very
>least, and may eliminate it if the source is non-fossil-based. Truly
>"clean" IC engines are a rarity, with the vast majority still being
>fossil-fueled in fact.
>
>The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
>people.
Apropos my comments, here's a video of collected rail cam footage
showing cars and trucks turning or running in front of Houston
MetroRail trains...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPsulqzAtQ&NR=1
They have since had to intentionally make the trains *noisier*; part
of the problem turned out to be that the system had been engineered to
be too quiet.
Werehatrack
have said:
>Two children nurtured to adulthood in the traditional American model,
>with the traditional American expectations of a middle class lifestyle,
>may be more detrimental to the future of the Inuit than a farming
>family with 4 kids living a less materialistic lifestyle, practicing a
>sustainable form of agriculture.
If the farmer's family in question were engaged in sustainable
agriculture, and if the offspring were going to follow the same path,
that might be true...but the average "farmer" in the US has no
resemblance to that model, and the average rural dweller isn't a
farmer anymore. Additionally, the trend of abandonment of the rural
life by the youthful generation has reasserted itself after a period
of anomalous rural average age reduction, so the farmer's offspring
are just as likely as the urban dweller's to become part of the bigger
problem. Ergo, this argument holds as much water in the real world as
a collander.
>Quality of life is just as much a factor as quantity; IMO the
>relationship between the two need not amount to a zero sum game.
There is a minimum population level required to support a given level
of technology, even if the technology set is mature and the population
has been thoroughly trained in the necessity for long-term planning
and efficient consumption habits...neither of which factors are
present today. A sharp blanket drop in worldwide population without a
major restructuring of a lot of things would simply bring a lot of
things to a dead stop, and many (but far from all) of those would be
in industrialized nations.
This is a complex interelationship issue with no simple solutions.
jobst....@stanfordalumni.org
>> Two problems there:
http://seattlelikesbikes.pbwiki.com/f/parade-of-cars-in-left-lane.jpg
http://www.trentobike.org/Countries/Switzerland/Tour_Reports/Ice_Princess_1963/
Jobst Brandt
Luke
<rau...@earthWEEDSlink.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:55:06 -0500, Luke <lucasi...@rogers.com> may
> have said:
>
> >Two children nurtured to adulthood in the traditional American model,
> >with the traditional American expectations of a middle class lifestyle,
> >may be more detrimental to the future of the Inuit than a farming
> >family with 4 kids living a less materialistic lifestyle, practicing a
> >sustainable form of agriculture.
>
> If the farmer's family in question were engaged in sustainable
> agriculture, and if the offspring were going to follow the same path,
> that might be true...
That is what I meant.
> but the average "farmer" in the US has no
> resemblance to that model, and the average rural dweller isn't a
> farmer anymore. Additionally, the trend of abandonment of the rural
> life by the youthful generation has reasserted itself after a period
> of anomalous rural average age reduction, so the farmer's offspring
> are just as likely as the urban dweller's to become part of the bigger
> problem. Ergo, this argument holds as much water in the real world as
> a collander.
You make my point. My observation wasn't limited to the state of U.S.
or its rural population, which in its present state, farmers or not, is
for the most part completely reliant on external energy inputs for its
viability. Neither was it meant to exclude an urban/rural demarcation.
It was to emphasize that 'overpopulation' is a notion encompassing much
more than just numbers.
>
> >Quality of life is just as much a factor as quantity; IMO the
> >relationship between the two need not amount to a zero sum game.
>
> There is a minimum population level required to support a given level
> of technology, even if the technology set is mature and the population
> has been thoroughly trained in the necessity for long-term planning
> and efficient consumption habits...neither of which factors are
> present today. A sharp blanket drop in worldwide population without a
> major restructuring of a lot of things would simply bring a lot of
> things to a dead stop, and many (but far from all) of those would be
> in industrialized nations.
>
> This is a complex interelationship issue with no simple solutions.
True.
SMS 斯蒂文• 夏
> Those had their problems as well; a few places still have them, but
> they've fallen out of favor for a variety of reasons. If they really
> worked as well as would seem likely, they'd be getting more adoption;
> the reality is that they constantly had problems with the overhead
> pickups coming unhooked, and the process of getting them back in
> service when that took place was often hazardous...and it always
> snarled traffic.
I see that happen often in San Francisco.
> Electric power shifts the CO2 to a less populated area at the very
> least, and may eliminate it if the source is non-fossil-based. Truly
> "clean" IC engines are a rarity, with the vast majority still being
> fossil-fueled in fact.
This is true. A lot of electricity in my area is from hydro. Eventually
there the U.S. will have to catch up with the rest of the world and
start building nuclear plants again, to provide enough electricity to
charge all those electric cars.
Ryan Cousineau
Werehatrack <rau...@earthWEEDSlink.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:01:18 -0600, Werehatrack
> <rau...@earthWEEDSlink.net> may have said:
>
> >... Rail-based transit, on the other hand, by definition is immune
> >to coming unclipped...but, of course, idiots behind the wheel can
> >still delay them by causing trolley/auto(|SUV|pickup|delivery van)
> >collisions via inattention when the trolley shares the driving
> >surface.
> >
> >>Or even more basic: What's the advantage of a trolley over, say, a
> >>bus with a different, but still clean, power source?
> >
> >Electric power shifts the CO2 to a less populated area at the very
> >least, and may eliminate it if the source is non-fossil-based. Truly
> >"clean" IC engines are a rarity, with the vast majority still being
> >fossil-fueled in fact.
> >
> >The real problem isn't any of this, however. The real problem is
> >people.
>
> Apropos my comments, here's a video of collected rail cam footage
> showing cars and trucks turning or running in front of Houston
> MetroRail trains...
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPsulqzAtQ&NR=1
>
> They have since had to intentionally make the trains *noisier*; part
> of the problem turned out to be that the system had been engineered to
> be too quiet.
Well, there's a lot of problems that are demonstrated there, and some of
them are not unique to at-grade rail, but I can say that in Vancouver we
have the popular and growing Skytrain system, which is elevated light
rail. It works, it has good capacity, and it is way faster than any
on-road rail system is going to be. Also, Skytrain has an excellent
safety record, and has never hit a car. Heck, it hasn't even hit many
pedestrians*.
The downside of any separated-grade system is the capital costs, but the
operating costs of Skytrain are, remarkably enough, roughly paid for by
fare revenue.
Aside from the previously-mentioned rail premium, I don't really get
at-grade rail systems except where extreme capacity is needed. Many
jurisdictions have gotten very good performance out of articulated
buses, and any bus carries around a lot less mass than a train.
That said, if you miss a heavy-rail train in your blind spot, well,
yeah, you're gonna get into some bad accidents, train or no train.
*there have been a few deaths by foolish trespass, possibly one or two
pure accidents, and an unsurprising collection of suicides.
Andrew Price
wrote:
>> Not using system pedals, I suppose.
>
>System pedals?
Sorry, I must have been dozing. I guess the proper term is "clipless"
in English (Look, Time, Shimano etc.).
Werehatrack
<scharf...@geemail.com> may have said:
>Werehatrack wrote:
>
>> Electric power shifts the CO2 to a less populated area at the very
>> least, and may eliminate it if the source is non-fossil-based. Truly
>> "clean" IC engines are a rarity, with the vast majority still being
>> fossil-fueled in fact.
>
>This is true. A lot of electricity in my area is from hydro. Eventually
>there the U.S. will have to catch up with the rest of the world and
>start building nuclear plants again, to provide enough electricity to
>charge all those electric cars.
Fission still has a lot of drawbacks, and fusion research keeps
running into levels of interference that are hard to comprehend
without getting paranoid. That may be part of the reason why the
fastest-growing clean energy segment is wind power. I see at least a
half dozen sets of blades heading up into the center of the state
every time I drive from here to Dallas; there's reportedly more wind
generation capacity in West and Central Texas now than in California,
and new units are literally going in daily. One interesting part of
the change is that some marginal farming areas are switching from
agriculture to power generation, with the result that the drain on a
couple of aquifers is being reduced. It's a change that I view as
being better all around.
Andrew Price
<brian_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I'm talking about an intersection where I'm going straight (in the
>right lane), cars are turning right (in the same lane), pedestrians
>are going straight (just to the right of the lane), and the streetcar
>tracks are in the center (left) lane, but cross another set of tracks
>and also have every possible combination of curved tracks for turning
>left or right.
Like this ?
Werehatrack
<wheeledB...@yahoo.com> may have said:
>On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:40:07 -0800, SMS ???• ?
><scharf...@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>>This is true. A lot of electricity in my area is from hydro. Eventually
>>there the U.S. will have to catch up with the rest of the world and
>>start building nuclear plants again, to provide enough electricity to
>>charge all those electric cars.
>
>Maybe they should figure out how to get rid of that spent fuel and
>those electric cars batteries before all that happens.
Latest tech that shows promise for car batteries involves a
significant improvement in the recharge and capacity characteristics
of large-scale lithium units. Lead-acid units pose few recycling
challenges if done properly (which often is not the case) but they're
still bulky, heavy and not sufficiently long-lived. Recycling of
lithium units *could* be cleaner, but like anything that can be done
right, it can also be done wrong. Overall, it still looks like
accepting the power loss from cracking water for hydrogen as a fuel
cell feed stock may be the most environmentally sound choice if a
clean enough generation method is available. Several petro companies
have seen the hadnwriting on the wall and are now starting to actively
support research in these areas...but not enough, yet. The industry
(and the US government) is still overrun with figurative ostriches.
A Muzi
> A Muzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>> System pedals?
Andrew Price wrote:
> Sorry, I must have been dozing. I guess the proper term is "clipless"
> in English (Look, Time, Shimano etc.).
Then why not? Riders variously prefer Look, two-bolt clipless, toeclips
with straps or sometimes just a flat pedal (rubber or metal). There's no
inherent trouble with any, whatever you feel is best. One man's
'freedom' is another's 'insecure'; one rider's 'positive engagement' is
another rider's 'constrained motion'.
Werehatrack
<wheeledB...@yahoo.com> may have said:
>On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:16:14 -0600, Werehatrack
><rau...@earthWEEDSlink.net> wrote:
>
>>Overall, it still looks like
>>accepting the power loss from cracking water for hydrogen as a fuel
>>cell feed stock may be the most environmentally sound choice if a
>>clean enough generation method is available.
>
>I haven't checked lately, but isn't it still a draw on overall
>pollution and cost?
As noted, if the generation source is clean enough, the pollution hit
is not a problem. Fuel cells have no pollutant generation issues in
operation, for one thing. The current fuel cells are not overly dirty
to make, and they have a long service life with little recycling
hassle. At current energy and cell production costs, they're like
driving a Peterbilt, but as economies of scale in production and the
relative costs of energy change, that will reverse.
>>Several petro companies
>>have seen the hadnwriting on the wall and are now starting to actively
>>support research in these areas...but not enough, yet.
>
>Umm... I have some first hand information on the internal "research
>attitude" at a major oil company. Let's just say it's not exactly a
>funding priority.
If that's Exxon, "not a priority" is an understatement. They're at
the bottom of the heap and sinking fast when it comes to this topic.
Several of the others are investing small to moderate amounts, by
comparison to their corporate revenue stream. By comparison to ten
years ago, it's a bloody fortune. By comparison to what's probably
needed, it's like the density of hydrogen in interstellar space.
>> The industry
>>(and the US government) is still overrun with figurative ostriches.
>
>Head in the sand would imply hiding due to fear - I think it's more
>conscious, managed policy.
Head in the sand because they're afraid of what they might see if they
paid attention. This is conscious avoidance IMO. They want to NOT
see what's coming, because they've convinced themselves that it's not
there. (If the problem is real, you see, they're going to be in very
deep manure entirely too soon, and That Doesn't Happen To Them.)
frkr...@gmail.com
> On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:21:55 GMT, still just me
> <wheeledBobNOS...@yahoo.com> may have said:
>
> >Umm... I have some first hand information on the internal "research
> >attitude" at a major oil company. Let's just say it's not exactly a
> >funding priority.
>
> If that's Exxon, "not a priority" is an understatement. They're at
> the bottom of the heap and sinking fast when it comes to this topic.
> Several of the others are investing small to moderate amounts, by
> comparison to their corporate revenue stream. By comparison to ten
> years ago, it's a bloody fortune. By comparison to what's probably
> needed, it's like the density of hydrogen in interstellar space.
I've long thought that if the Federal Government adopted Non-Polluting
Energy Independence as a priority project - much like it adopted the
Space Race in the 1960s, or the Conquest of Iraq in the 1990s - a
tremendous benefit would result.
I think that, as with the Space Race, we'd see not only a solution of
the stated problem, but spinoffs in new technologies, and invigoration
of our country's engineering and science communities.
And incidentally, I think a lot of good could be done without
resorting to bleeding edge technology like fuel cells and fusion (or
even fission). As an example, it's been decades since Amory Lovins
pointed out the possibilities of natural gas powered heat pumps.
As it is, my house pipes in natural gas and burns it. About 90% of
the resultant heat warms my house. But if the gas were burned in an
IC engine running a heat pump, over 500% of the resultant heat would
heat my house. My "high efficiency" gas furnace would look as
effective as a campfire, by comparison.
- Frank Krygowski
(PeteCresswell)
>And incidentally, I think a lot of good could be done without
>resorting to bleeding edge technology like fuel cells and fusion (or
>even fission). As an example, it's been decades since Amory Lovins
>pointed out the possibilities of natural gas powered heat pumps.
When I lived near Honolulu a looooong time ago, the Honolulu Star
Bulletin had a story on a local lady who was paraplegic, but also
a saleswoman.
Basically, she made her living by going from place-to-place in
Honolulu/Waikiki and other towns on the island.
The zinger was that she drove an electric golf cart.
Said it was good for about 35 mph, and took her everywhere she
needed to go - and, of course, she used it all day every day and
if it didn't work, she was out of business.
She said the only downside was impatient drivers trying to bully
her with their cars.
Bottom line to me is that it traffic speeds could be reduced - at
least in some areas, a *lot* could be done in terms of cheaper,
more energy-efficient transport.
--
PeteCresswell
Tom Sherman
>
> I've long thought that if the Federal Government adopted Non-Polluting
> Energy Independence as a priority project - much like it adopted the
> Space Race in the 1960s, or the Conquest of Iraq in the 1990s - a
> tremendous benefit would result.
>
> I think that, as with the Space Race, we'd see not only a solution of
> the stated problem, but spinoffs in new technologies, and invigoration
butbutbut, the people do not like science and engineering since it is
too hard for them to understand! They would rather have a pastor tell
them what to think, while they watch "reality" television.