Why can't american cities ban cars?
Greens
They werern't used by motorists until laws were passed requiring them and
the police enforced the law. In the same way people have known for years
that bicycles can solve or at least help with a lot of serious problems like
spreading obesity, pollution, hostility and isolation. While bicycles still
have the right to use roads, they've been all but forced off the roads by
poor design and indifferent law enforcement. Your average citizen, from what
I've seen, doesn't even know that bicycles are vehicles or that they have a
right to be in the road.
Since global warming and the above mentioned problems are becoming more
obvious, why can't cities work to make cycling a more desireable option?
They could make driving an undesireable option or ban them at least on
certain roads.
Hank Wirtz
Why can't they ban cars? Because it would be political suicide to try.
Probably literal suicide. They would get death threats. I don't wan t
my car banned in town. I want the option to drive or ride.
Qui si parla Campagnolo-www.vecchios.com
Freedom of choice is a good thing. The worse thing you could do to
solve any problem is get the government involved.
Scarce fuel and things 'may' change..but there will be a lot more
problems to deal with..like possible anarchy.
Cars are gonna be around in some form or another probably forever.
Will they be powered by different sources of energy? Of course but the
US, nor Europe nor Asia is going to become a predominantly bicycle
driven society anytime soon.
Greens
"Qui si parla Campagnolo-www.vecchios.com" <pe...@vecchios.com> wrote in
message news:1190585107.2...@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Did you guys read anything but the title?
In the last few lines I said, "They could make driving an undesireable
jim beam
Chalo
>
> Greens wrote:
> >
> > Since global warming and the above mentioned problems are becoming more
> > obvious, why can't cities work to make cycling a more desireable option?
> > They could make driving an undesireable option or ban them at least on
> > certain roads.
>
> Why can't they ban cars? Because it would be political suicide to try.
> Probably literal suicide. They would get death threats. I don't wan t
> my car banned in town. I want the option to drive or ride.
There are lots of car-free areas, including entire city centers. Most
such areas that previously had car access have benefited economically
from the removal of cars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carfree_places
Chalo
A Muzi
>>> Since global warming and the above mentioned problems are becoming more
>>> obvious, why can't cities work to make cycling a more desireable option?
>>> They could make driving an undesireable option or ban them at least on
>>> certain roads.
> Hank Wirtz wrote:
>> Why can't they ban cars? Because it would be political suicide to try.
>> Probably literal suicide. They would get death threats. I don't wan t
>> my car banned in town. I want the option to drive or ride.
Chalo wrote:
> There are lots of car-free areas, including entire city centers. Most
> such areas that previously had car access have benefited economically
> from the removal of cars.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carfree_places
That's true but some did not. State Street in Chicago, for example, was
a debacle.
Also the change in behavior patterns can be extreme, with radical shifts
in use, viable business types etc.
In our neighborhood we're among the last businesses doing any
sales/service of hard goods* as the national chains have blossomed to
sell beer, burgers & tchotchkes to tourists. Not that that isn't viable.
And the property tax take is up (chains can pay much more). But it sure
is different with no steel supplier, no more 4 auto parts stores, no big
industrial supply house, no full hardware store, 2 welding supply houses
gone, etc. All were within walking distance, now outside the city.
Playing 'monopoly' with a city is not for sissies! There are inherently
both winners and losers. You are not wrong but the stakes are huge and
mistakes cost.
(*without the net we would have to move)
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Chalo,
Most of the U.S. listings there seem to be either universities,
tourist islands and resorts with golf carts and high-paying guests, or
else unroofed makeshift strip malls, with the shops lining either side
of a street getting their goods through the back doors, which open
onto alleys or parallel streets on the back of the buildings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carfree_places#United_States
The Madison, Wisconsin, entry for State Street at the end of the U.S.
section sounds typical, except perhaps for being more candid about the
number of cars in the "car-free" 6-block stretch of State Street:
"6 block car free retail street connecting the university and the
capitol. Traditional street & sidewalk layout; the street is used by
buses, bicycles, police cars, taxicabs, and numerous delivery (motor)
vehicles; pedestrians and the occasional delivery vehicle (parked) on
the sidewalks."
I don't see anything on the Wiki page about economic benefits of
car-free zones. Is there one near you in Texas that illustrates what
you have in mind?
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
joseph.sa...@gmail.com
In general any plans to reduce car usage need to take into account the
incredible utility offered by a private car. Even with all the hassle
and expense they bring, they are still the most attractive option for
LOTS of people. It's not all about expense either. Would I rather sit
40 minutes alone in my car listening to CD's and farting as loud as I
please, or 35 minutes in a crowded bus smelling other's BO, after
sitting 15 minutes in the rain waiting for the bus? How much is that
worth?
Here in Norway gas costs about $7.50, cars have huge taxes such that a
2007 Toyota Corolla costs $41,000 while in the US one costs about
$16,000. There are also numerous permanent road blocks set up to
hinder driving for the express purpose of making it less attractive to
drive, but still only 8% of commuting happens by public transport
(according to an article in the paper yesterday). This is evidence of
the utility of cars. And that's only talking about commuting. Soon I
have to go buy new beds for my kids because they are growing. Doing
that without a car would be whole orders of magnitude more of a
hassle, no doubt much more expensive, and would take hugely more time.
So even though my costs per distance are probably at least 4x what
they would be in the US, it still is beyond a doubt the most
economical solution for me.
One problem with resorting to taxes that artificially raise the cost
of car usage is you widen the gap between the haves and the have nots.
I've heard (don't know if it is true or not) that in Mexico city they
sometimes limit the amount of car traffic by having cars only being
able to be used on alternating days. If your plate ends in an even
number you get to drive one day, while odd numbers drive the next day.
Sounds like a good plan, except rich people just get 2 cars. Or here
in Norway where cars are so expensive, many families can't afford new
safe cars with airbags, abs, etc. So lots of people drive around old
beaters that not only are not as safe as new cars, they are much less
fuel efficient, and bigger polluters.
That said, many more areas in urban centers could be made car-free,
but it would only work if people regarded it as something that was not
just an inconvenience imposed upon them, but a positive change that
had immediate local effect.
Joseph
Chalo
>
> I don't see anything on the Wiki page about economic benefits of
> car-free zones. Is there one near you in Texas that illustrates what
> you have in mind?
The only significant car-free zone I know of anywhere in Texas is the
Paseo del Rio in San Antonio. It has been an unqualified boon to that
city for generations, even though it's basically a shopping and
entertainment district. While it's true that the businesses,
residences, and lodging that line the Paseo del Rio are serviced on
their opposite sides by ordinary streets, the area owes its vitality
and its economic activity to the car-free nature of the place.
However, despite its virtues, the Paseo del Rio itself is just a nice
feature of an urban milieu and not a viable town in itself. The fact
that it thrives in a city as wholeheartedly suburbanized and car-
dependent as San Antonio is encouraging, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_River_Walk
The car-free center of Groningen in the Netherlands is probably the
best example of the benefits of restricting car traffic. By all
accounts, Groningen is a more prosperous and far more humane place
than it would have been with the usual free rein granted to motor
vehicles.
http://www.ecotippingpoints.org/stories/capsule04.html
http://www.wolvesonwheels.co.uk/Groningen.htm
http://www.living-room.org/groningen.htm
Groningen's success in this regard seems to be due largely to the
comprehensive nature of their project, and not just because they
barricaded and regulated cars out of the city center. Car-free areas
that are small, sparse, poor in attractions, or insufficiently
integrated into existing community and transportation infrastructure
are likely to fail.
Although it surely must help for a car-free zone to have the physical
scale of a medieval city, just about any downtown laid out before the
advent of automobiles has by its nature a suitable physical
arrangement (though not necessarily a suitable range of businesses) to
serve in that role.
It's time for car driving to disappear as an urban practice, much as
heating with coal and pitching excrement out on the street have
disappeared. It just ain't civilized. Although the reasons for doing
it are clear, just as the reasons for heaving shit out of windows were
clear to the folks who did that, there are better ways of going to
work and getting around to do our commerce and entertainment. We
could have those better forms of transport, and the better way of
living that goes with them, if we only devoted a fraction of the
resources to them that we already do to our cars, streets, and
highways.
Chalo
Qui si parla Campagnolo-www.vecchios.com
> "Qui si parla Campagnolo-www.vecchios.com" <pe...@vecchios.com> wrote in
Yep, I guess arresting people in cars would work. Reality check
please, a look at the big picture. I am no fan of the auto industry
but Europe, US and Asia are big, not centralized and everybody
toodling around on bicycles instead of cars is the stuff of movies,
not life.
"They" could make..."ban"..government at it's finest. The MARKET will
drive what people do, follow the $. Make another form of
transportation as easy and cheap as a car and it'll work. Expecting
people to 'do the right thing' does not work, never has.
Sorry-
Ryan Cousineau
Chalo <chalo....@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm going to take a naive guess and say that there are no designated
urban car-free zones on the planet that are much bigger than about a
15-minute bike ride across.
There are an awful lot of urban areas that are bigger than that, and
there's the rub. This is a valid argument that lots of urban cores might
benefit from being car-free, but it's a bad argument that lots of people
are likely to give up cars in general. I think the optimistic case is
that lots of urbanites switch to an alternate commuting method, and join
car-sharing programs.
And as Andrew Muzi pointed out, there is the small matter of
transporting goods.
> It's time for car driving to disappear as an urban practice, much as
> heating with coal and pitching excrement out on the street have
> disappeared.
Nobody had to ban coal heating, horses as transportation, or open
sewers. In each case, as soon as a superior alternative arrived (for
horses, it was arguably bicycles, with a lot of help from trains),
people abandoned the old ways as soon as they could afford to*.
I went to Greece, and visited several "car-free" neighbourhoods that
were thus by virtue of having been laid out long before the invention of
the car. In several cases they were also effectively bike-free, owing
to, well, the stairs. In some of these places, super-dense but with
almost no access, donkeys are still the only viable way to get heavy
loads into and out of these zones.
Ano Syros, on the island of Syros, and the village of Lefkes, Paros.
*Okay, indoor plumbing depended on the massive public works project
known as the sewer system, and I don't want to get into the logistics of
how that came about, except to say that cholera sure made it seem like a
compelling idea.
--
Ryan Cousineau rcou...@sfu.ca http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
Scott G.
>
> "They" could make..."ban"..government at it's finest. The MARKET will
> drive what people do, follow the $. Make another form of
> transportation as easy and cheap as a car and it'll work. Expecting
> people to 'do the right thing' does not work, never has.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Move the tax base from income to energy usage ?
Why should gummint take away peoples money before they
have a chance to spend it ?
Me, I'm for taxing TV watching, a lot.
Scott G.
joseph.sa...@gmail.com
> > "They" could make..."ban"..government at it's finest. The MARKET will
> > drive what people do, follow the $. Make another form of
> > transportation as easy and cheap as a car and it'll work. Expecting
> > people to 'do the right thing' does not work, never has.
>
> > Sorry-- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> Move the tax base from income to energy usage ?
Because only rich people should be allowed to pollute?
> Why should gummint take away peoples money before they
> have a chance to spend it ?
Good question! I suppose because lots of folks piss away all their
money, then come with hat in hand when they are in a jam. That's all
well and good, but the fuzzy part is were to draw the line.
> Me, I'm for taxing TV watching, a lot.
Yeah, let's get everyone to go to drive-ins instead ;-)
Joseph
(PeteCresswell)
>The car-free center of Groningen in the Netherlands is probably the
>best example of the benefits of restricting car traffic. By all
>accounts, Groningen is a more prosperous and far more humane place
>than it would have been with the usual free rein granted to motor
>vehicles.
Last time I was in Limburg, Germany the city *seemed* tb about
75% car-free. Basically large pedestrian-only zones punctuated
by automobile traffic streets.
"Seemed" bc I don't have a clue as to what the actual percentage
is... just that as somebody visiting (coming by bike from about
10 miles away) my impression was that it was mostly car-free in
the shopping areas.
--
PeteCresswell
(PeteCresswell)
>In general any plans to reduce car usage need to take into account the
>incredible utility offered by a private car. Even with all the hassle
>and expense they bring, they are still the most attractive option for
>LOTS of people.
A close family member was sitting in on a urban planning meeting
in Shanghai. The topic at hand was roadway development.
Some guys from Australia were there pitching the idea of bicycles
only.
During the pitch, one of the senior civil engineers from Shanghai
was heard muttering to his colleagues and then speaking directly
to one of the Australian guys in Mandarin.
Australian guy didn't understand Mandarin, so he asked somebody
for a translation.
The translation was (loosely, but pretty close): "You guys are
sooooo full of shit! Have you *ever* had to go everywhere on a
bicycle?"
--
PeteCresswell
Gary Young
Whereas a system of highways suitable for automobiles didn't?
vey
> The translation was (loosely, but pretty close): "You guys are
> sooooo full of shit! Have you *ever* had to go everywhere on a
> bicycle?"
Back in the late '70's when Chinese students in the US were a novelty, I
knew two of them. They had no interest in bicycles. They wanted a car!
It didn't matter that they didn't have a driver's license, that was
merely a bureaucratic problem that could easily be solved by a little cash.
They took me along to look at a car to buy. It was for sale by a
Taiwanese student that I think had been here a little too long, if you
catch my drift. He was real sharp. I pointed out that is was burning oil
badly, the suspension was shot, and the body was rusted through in a
dozen places. I told them I thought it was a dog and that they could do
better. Watching them talk to that Taiwanese kid reminded me of country
bumpkins talking to city slickers.
Do you think they listened to me? Not for a second. Who will you gonna
trust? I'm the wrong color. So they bought the car and I drove it home
for them. We filled it up with oil which about poured out the bottom and
on the way, it threw a rod.
When they found out what it cost to fix the car, they began asking me
about bicycles.
Cars are very seductive.
Ryan Cousineau
Andrew Price <ajp...@free.fr> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:40:11 GMT, Ryan Cousineau <rcou...@sfu.ca>
> wrote:
>
> [---]
>
> >I went to Greece, and visited several "car-free" neighbourhoods that
> >were thus by virtue of having been laid out long before the invention of
> >the car.
>
> Weren't you planning on taking a bike with you, or importing one once
> you got there - how did that work out?
Well, I'm a scrounger. For various reasons, not the least of which was
my horror at the thought of lugging a boxed bicycle through multiple
layovers, onto public transit, in the back of whatever car my Greek
relatives had in Athens (turned out to be a RAV4, would have been
tricky!), aboard a ferry, and other fun, I decided not to bring a bike.
Within a few days of getting to Syros, a friend of my father-in-law gave
me a Rotary bicycle (Executive model?) which was made by Peugeot.
An odd duck: flat bar, 5-speed, steel rims, cottered cranks,
fillet-brazed frame, and oddest of all in the middle of Greece, 27"
wheels. But it worked, and in a virtually rain-free land, I couldn't
fret about the rims much.
When I got that bike, I was on the verge of buying a Puch 5-speed
someone had posted an ad for in the town square. They wanted 100 Euros
for that 1970s-vintage clunker.
I got out for two good rides (60-90 minutes) during about 16 days in
Syros, which was kinda sucky (reasons ranged from illness to scheduling
to laziness to hangover). I was literally suited up for the third ride
when I saw that the rear tire was dead flat, and unbelievably, I didn't
have a pump at the house. So instead I changed into swim trunks and
hiked to the beach.
The dimmest thing I did was plan to bring a set of pedals with me, and
then I forgot them. So I bought a set of Shimano 535s or something
(mid-grade SPDs) in Athens and put them on the Rotary. That's how
addicted to clipless pedals I am. When I left, I took the SPDs with me
and returned the original pedals to their previous place. The bike
probably won't see any use until I return in a few years, but I won't
bother bringing another bike with me unless I end up moving to Greece.
I was in the hilliest part of the island, and bicycles were virtually
nonexistent aside from mine. Why? Well, the ride out my front door could
take two paths: a screamingly steep descent, which led to the end of the
road, less than 1 km away, at which point you had your choice of several
narrow paths, none of which was traversable on the Rotary (I tried; it
would have been doable by a skilled MTBer, or maybe by me on a full-sus
trailbike); or I could do the 800m fully-anaerobic 10-20% climb up to
the top of the hill, which led to about 15 minutes of pleasant
up-and-down riding, at which point it was all downhill, so going further
meant committing to 30 minutes or so of climbing to get back up once I
went down.
The rest of the island is much more bike-friendly, and Greece has, at
best, North American levels of cycling participation, but there were
definitely bikes out there. The only bicycle shop I could find in town
was one of those depressing places where all the bikes on offer were
low-mid MTBs ranging from acceptable to utter crap, and the spare parts
on offer were sparse. I don't think he had any SPD pedals in stock.
The drivers are very used to dealing with the vast amount of motorized
two-wheeled traffic (everything from cub-like step-throughs to scooters
of all sizes to big motorcycles, including a surprising number with
engines bigger than that in the Kia Picanto I rented), and pretty much
seemed to be able to deal with me as if I was a slightly sluggish member
of their ranks. Heck, downtown I was probably faster than the scooters.
Were I to return to Syros with just one bike, I would probably take an
old rigid MTB optimized for road use (maybe even with drop bars), and
think about maybe getting a spare set of knobby tires. That would ensure
I could get spares fairly easily.
If I could take two bikes, I'd probably opt for my CX bike with slicks
(it's light enough to be a credible road race bike in a pinch) and a set
of knobbies tucked away, and I'd build up the most serious 4-6 inch FS
lightweight trailbike I could lay my hands on, with an eye to tackling
the vast numbers of goat trails. If I could lay out some good trail
routes, I think there's a small living to be made as an MTB expedition
organizer on Syros.
vey
Kiel claims to be the first place in Europe to have a "footzplatz." It's
not very big and the "first" claim may not be true.
The stores are serviced at night or by back alley. When Kiel started it,
the point was to ban horses. You know that horses can kill pedestrians,
too? And after enough pedestrians got killed, the city took action.
bfd
<joseph.santanie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 23, 11:42 pm, "Greens" <p...@adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> Soon I have to go buy new beds for my kids because they are growing. Doing
> that without a car would be whole orders of magnitude more of a
> hassle, no doubt much more expensive, and would take hugely more time.
Would it be possible to have the store deliver your new beds to you?
Some stores offer *free* shipping or there might be a small deliver
charge. It would probably be cheaper than owning a car.
Alternatively, could you rent a truck or van for the day to handle
this delivery? Its not like you're buying beds every day.
But, if you have kids, or elderly parents, that need to be taken to
different places, then cars are a necessity.
Personally, I love to drive (I own a BMW). But, I either commute by
bike or use public transit at least 2-4 times a week. I've been doing
this for many years. Nevertheless, I still average over 6,000 miles
per year driving my kids and mom around. Sigh, that's life!
!Jones
<pr...@adelphia.net> wrote:
>Seat belts were around for a long time before people started to wear them.
>They werern't used by motorists until laws were passed requiring them and
>the police enforced the law.
Bicycle helmets are a good idea; they have been proven to save lives.
Some cities (Austin, TX, about '97 or so, comes to mind) have, in the
past, enacted and enforced laws requiring helmets for cyclists. These
were less than popular.
How do you feel about this type of law?
I heard a story (also heard it wasn't so) that Alaska does not have a
motorcycle helmet law, but, if a motorcyclist is in an accident and
not wearing a helmet, then the other party is not liable for any head
trauma suffered by the cyclist. I don't know if it's a fact; however,
it sounds reasonable.
Comments?
Jones
!Jones
<a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>That's true but some did not. State Street in Chicago, for example, was
>a debacle.
>
>Also the change in behavior patterns can be extreme, with radical shifts
>in use, viable business types etc.
>
>In our neighborhood we're among the last businesses doing any
>sales/service of hard goods* as the national chains have blossomed to
>sell beer, burgers & tchotchkes to tourists. Not that that isn't viable.
>And the property tax take is up (chains can pay much more). But it sure
>is different with no steel supplier, no more 4 auto parts stores, no big
>industrial supply house, no full hardware store, 2 welding supply houses
>gone, etc. All were within walking distance, now outside the city.
>
>Playing 'monopoly' with a city is not for sissies! There are inherently
>both winners and losers. You are not wrong but the stakes are huge and
>mistakes cost.
>(*without the net we would have to move)
Good points. All of that cuts both ways.
Jones
A Muzi
>> Seat belts were around for a long time before people started to wear them.
>> They werern't used by motorists until laws were passed requiring them and
>> the police enforced the law.
!Jones wrote:
> Bicycle helmets
-snip further provocation-
Topic's been beaten to death here. More than a few times.
!Jones
<chalo....@gmail.com> wrote:
>The car-free center of Groningen in the Netherlands is probably the
>best example of the benefits of restricting car traffic.
So, do you know that town? I took an opportunity to teach at
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (University of Groningen) for a semester
in '99 and we had the time of our lives... I took the wife, of course.
She asked if I was planning on taking her as I was doing the paperwork
and I said: "Would you take a cow to a dairy?" or something to that
effect... not great judgement on my part!!! (I had to put the toilet
seat down for a whole *month* in penance.) Financially, it wasn't
real plush; however, we had a dorm room... beautiful town, that. We'd
rent a tandem on the weekends and my back *still* hurts from the damn
low frames (I'm 6' 5").
Back then, you were allowed to drive; however, parking cost about
$1.50 a minute at the meters and the tow trucks were there within 90
seconds if it expired. A car was considered a luxury beyond the means
of most citizens... seems like on-campus parking was $700 a month or
so. Whatever it was, we didn't consider it.
Jones
!Jones
<a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>Topic's been beaten to death here. More than a few times.
Hey, Andrew... I'm a Usenet troll. What more can I say?
Jones
Luke
> Although it surely must help for a car-free zone to have the physical
> scale of a medieval city, just about any downtown laid out before the
> advent of automobiles has by its nature a suitable physical
> arrangement (though not necessarily a suitable range of businesses) to
> serve in that role.
>
> It's time for car driving to disappear as an urban practice, much as
> heating with coal and pitching excrement out on the street have
> disappeared. It just ain't civilized. Although the reasons for doing
> it are clear, just as the reasons for heaving shit out of windows were
> clear to the folks who did that, there are better ways of going to
> work and getting around to do our commerce and entertainment. We
> could have those better forms of transport, and the better way of
> living that goes with them, if we only devoted a fraction of the
> resources to them that we already do to our cars, streets, and
> highways.
>
Excellent points.
A predictable outcome of banning cars from communities designed with
autos in mind is to demonstrate how unviable they are without them.
Indeed, the real question should be not 'Why don't we ban cars?', but
'Why do we perpetuate a culture that elevates 'em to such prominence as
to be virtually indispensable?'.
I agree: directing resources away from auto-centric infrastructure in
hand with a more enlightened urban planning creed would do much to
render the OP's question moot.
Greens
"Luke" <lucasi...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:240920072056589320%lucasi...@rogers.com...
A century of car culture has brought us to the point where drug stores are
the size of large grocery stores of the early sixties. Mostly what they have
inside is department store junk. Lots of poor quality chinese crap. During
the day there's five customers in the whole store with seven aisles. The
parking lot is enormous, capable of holding sixty cars. Across the street is
a competing drug store full of the same shit and equally enormous. In some
places there are three of these on a four corner road. A quarter mile down
the road are the big box stores like Walmart, Petsmart, Best Buy. A Walmart
super center is about the size of an airport. The access road to it
virtually spits in the face of anyone on foot or bicycle. Everything about
it says, "Are you out of your mind? Where's your fucking car?"
Convenience stores are also the size of the old grocery stores, but
everything is hugely marked up. They're much prettier and expensive looking
than the convenience stores of only a few years ago, a testament to the huge
number of dollars they bring in. Oddly, it's not terribly convenient to buy
anything. They're often slow ringing things out.
So, yea, giant stores and giant parking lots have really spread things out.
Probably all the things you need could fit into half an acre, but the way
this center is set up, I'd guess about 400 acres are involved.
Greens
>
> Scott G.
that's an interesting thought. how about internet?
Greens
"vey" <jun...@ericvey.com> wrote in message
news:fd9e58$kul$1...@news.datemas.de...
Tell me about it. I love my car. I've loved them all. Maybe my favorite was
a japanese sports car with little room and lots of horsepower. It got bad
mileage, but it sounded great and was a blast around corners.
I think cars and the open road are the epitome of what we call "freedom" in
the USA. Being able to vote is no big thrill. Literally being able to
overthrow the government at election time does not impress the average
yankee. The individual's vote is lost in the masses. Being able to pilot a
muscle car at any speed* we want down any of the 6 gazillion miles of
blacktop in the USA - that is FREEDOM.
*of course there are speed limits, but you can still exceed them and drive
like Steve McQueen in Bullit until they catch you. If you can get to the
rocket pack you've stashed in the woods, you can easily dump that stolen
cobra and fly away to fight another day.
Dan O
Ryan Cousineau
Gary Young <garyy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:40:11 +0000, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
>
> > In article <1190627678.7...@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
> > Chalo <chalo....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Carl Fogel wrote:
> >> >
> >> > I don't see anything on the Wiki page about economic benefits of
> >> > car-free zones. Is there one near you in Texas that illustrates what
> >> > you have in mind?
[more on car-free zones]
> >> It's time for car driving to disappear as an urban practice, much as
> >> heating with coal and pitching excrement out on the street have
> >> disappeared.
> >
> > Nobody had to ban coal heating, horses as transportation, or open
> > sewers. In each case, as soon as a superior alternative arrived (for
> > horses, it was arguably bicycles, with a lot of help from trains),
> > people abandoned the old ways as soon as they could afford to*.
> > *Okay, indoor plumbing depended on the massive public works project
> > known as the sewer system
>
> Whereas a system of highways suitable for automobiles didn't?
Automobiles didn't depend on that system, any more than the bicycles
depended on the "good roads campaign:"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9403E2D91730E033A25752C2A9
6F9C94659ED7CF
It's pretty cool that the NYT finally opened up their archives, eh?
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
>In article <E8ednV3MPNPtqmXb...@giganews.com>,
Dear Ryan,
Ooh! Ooh!
Advanced search . . . bicycle, up to 1899 . . .
Gee, only 9,599 results, that won't take long . . .
Let's look at the first one . . . June 11, 1880 . . .
"A bicycle is dangerous, not when it is in motion, but when it is at
rest. It is then that it throws its rider and tramples on him with a
viciousness that the depraved horse would be ashamed to exhibit. When
the novice tries to get on his bicycle, he invariably falls over and
under it two or three times. If he can once get it started at a fair
pace, it will ... [ END OF FIRST PARAGRAPH ]
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9507E0DB1630EE3ABC4952DFB066838B699FDE
(It gets even better after that--click on the pdf link for the whole
sordid story!)
Ooh! Ooh!
Gratefully,
Carl Fogel
Chalo
>
> I took an opportunity to teach at
> Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (University of Groningen) for a semester
> in '99 and we had the time of our lives... I took the wife, of course.
> ... beautiful town, that. We'd
> rent a tandem on the weekends and my back *still* hurts from the damn
> low frames (I'm 6' 5").
Funny that there weren't taller bike options available, since 6'5"
isn't unusually tall in Friesland (or, I'd expect, in neighboring
Groningen.) According to the data at the following link, 3.6% of
Dutch men are 6'5" or taller, compared to 0.2% of US men:
http://www.tallpages.com/uk/index.php?pag=ukstatist.php
I know that Dutch bikes can be bought in the 70cm frame size with
relative ease, when that would be strictly a custom-built frame in the
USA.
Chalo
Ryan Cousineau
carl...@comcast.net wrote:
What a strange shaggy-dog story! Was this meant as a sort of anonymous
humor article?
> Ooh! Ooh!
>
> Gratefully,
>
> Carl Fogel
Well, that's it, we've lost Carl for about 9,599 articles.
But I'm looking forward to seeing what he digs up out of the archive!
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Ryan,
No, it's sober 1880's reporting.
Crazy--
Er, improbable inventions were common, and newspaper editors could
scarcely be expected to stoop to understanding mechanical details (not
that they do much better nowadays).
So the absurd wind-up spring was plausible to the editor.
But the dangers that he mentions were quite true.
It was 1880, so he was writing about early highwheelers, towering
penny-farthing fixies that tended to throw the rider forward in a
face-plant, legs tangled in the handlebars, whenever the rider hit a
bump, rider tried to brake by fighting the pedals, or got into loose
stuff with a 50-inch wheel mounted on the bottom bracket. They also
just plain fell apart, giant wheels collapsing.
There are numerous patents for breakaway handlebars and other strange
mechanisms intended to avoid the ugly part where you lurch forward,
your thighs hit the handlebars, and you did a swan dive into the
ground. One truly bizarre handlebar curved _behind_ the rider's legs
(imagine the stoker's handlebars curving forward around the captain's
legs, somewhat like greatly extended wheelchair arms). They never
caught on, since they made it almost impossible to mount and dismount.
A more "practical" anti-header handlebar used inverted ape-hanger
handlebars that dropped down below the pedals and rose up again:
None of the weird inventions worked. Highwheeler riders toppled
forward with painful and even fatal regularity.
Downhills were terrifying. Think fixie with no brake on a steep dirt
road. Think fixie with a seat about 50 inches in the air. Think fixie
that will tip forward and pitch you face-first into the road if you
fight the pedals to brake.
Now think of horses coming around the curve at you in the middle of
all this and rearing up in terror to block the road. Not that you can
corner worth a damn, even without the horses.
Bad as we think no-brake fixies are, highwheelers were much worse.
Imagine a no-brake fixie that throws you over the handlebars if you
try to slow down through the pedals.
Safety bicycles were well-named and wiped out the ordinaries, as
highwheelers were called, in about a decade. The replacement in a few
years of the penny-farthings by the safeties gives perspective to the
perennial hopes of recumbent riders for driving safety bicycles into
the sea.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
IMO, on a street like State St. in Madison, it's
likely that the businesses would have converted to
chains, apparel stores, and high volume stores
such as food and drink anyway. I haven't been
there since about 1996, but most places that are
similarly situated now have that mix of businesses.
Especially near the gate of a major university with
its population of kids with disposable cash.
Some examples I've been to: Soho in New York (used
to have lots of hard goods stores, sewing machine
shops, etc), Old Town Pasadena, outside the entrances
of the universities at Maryland and Arizona. None
of these are car free. Hell, Rt 1 in College Park
MD is about the most car-ful, bike and ped
unfriendly place I know.
You're there and know the business climate. But IMHO,
this trend is driven by real estate prices, disposable
income, the rise of high volume chain retail, Home Depot
in the burbs, Internet shopping ... more so than
carfreeness. I do agree that this kind of zoning
or development has to be done carefully or one winds
up with deserted plazas populated by empty storefronts
and windblown plastic bags.
Ben
Ryan Cousineau
carl...@comcast.net wrote:
But that still leaves us with the small matter of the story of the Rev.
Mr. Macpherson's wife, which could never have happened. Perhaps this was
a secret Romish plot to infiltrate the NYT with articles that would
demonstrate the desirability of a celibate priesthood!
(now that I've typed it here, I shudder at how long it will be before
someone takes it seriously).
Well! So much for the romance of the Ordinary. I knew a bit about the
hazards, but I don't think I've realized how dangerous they really were.
> Safety bicycles were well-named and wiped out the ordinaries, as
> highwheelers were called, in about a decade. The replacement in a few
> years of the penny-farthings by the safeties gives perspective to the
> perennial hopes of recumbent riders for driving safety bicycles into
> the sea.
I hadn't contemplated the swiftness of the demise of the Ordinary
before. In contemporary terms, it's like how indexed shifting has
essentially eliminated friction shifting on modern bikes, and that
probably took about a decade, too.
Except the safety bike eliminated the whole bicycle in one fell swoop.
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
[snip]
>But that still leaves us with the small matter of the story of the Rev.
>Mr. Macpherson's wife, which could never have happened. Perhaps this was
>a secret Romish plot to infiltrate the NYT with articles that would
>demonstrate the desirability of a celibate priesthood!
>
>(now that I've typed it here, I shudder at how long it will be before
>someone takes it seriously).
[snip]
Dear Ryan,
Good heavens!
You doubt the New York Times when it states in cold print that a
clergyman's wife sprang up onto her velocipede and was immediately and
helplessly propelled by the patented coil-spring incorporated in the
seat for ten miles without any pedaling?
Next you'll be asking whether there really is an Ishkatawhunky near
Milwaukee.
:-)
Those unwilling to register with the NYT can read the article here:
For comparison, here's a similar piece of petrified truth from 1882:
http://www.answers.com/topic/the-mcwilliamses-and-the-burglar-alarm
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
(PeteCresswell)
>According to the data at the following link, 3.6% of
>Dutch men are 6'5" or taller, compared to 0.2% of US men:
Only chair that I've ever really fit in and been comfortable in
was at my brother-in-laws in Germany - and he had bought the
kitchen set it was part of from Holland. The thing must've been
five inches higher and two inches wider than anything similar
I've ever sat in.
--
PeteCresswell
!Jones
<chalo....@gmail.com> wrote:
>I know that Dutch bikes can be bought in the 70cm frame size with
>relative ease, when that would be strictly a custom-built frame in the
>USA.
I didn't look real hard. Since I was renting for the afternoon, I
just took what they had on hand... one size fits all, you know how it
goes.
I have developed a liking for the Euro chain guards on commuter
setups.
Jones
Peter Cole
I'm 6'10" and of Dutch ancestry. I built a sectional sofa last year that
fits me -- everyone else's feet dangle.
I liked the stats Chalo posted, but like everything else, they didn't go
far enough for me.
Peter Cole
>
> I think cars and the open road are the epitome of what we call "freedom" in
> the USA. Being able to vote is no big thrill.
> Being able to pilot a
> muscle car at any speed* we want down any of the 6 gazillion miles of
> blacktop in the USA - that is FREEDOM.
Key to that is "open road", which is getting rare (except car commercials).
"FREEDOM" in an urban area is a bike.
I've toured the countryside by bike and car -- the bike felt "freer".
The only place cars are better is the highway, but highway driving is
incredibly boring if not outright soul-sucking.
I don't think anybody over 18 even enjoys driving a car any more.
(PeteCresswell)
>I'm 6'10" and of Dutch ancestry. I built a sectional sofa last year that
>fits me -- everyone else's feet dangle.
>
>I liked the stats Chalo posted, but like everything else, they didn't go
>far enough for me.
Have you ever thought about raising all the cabinetry in your
house - or at least the sinks and kitchen workspaces?
I've been mulling it over for awhile.
--
PeteCresswell
Andrew Price
wrote:
[Greece]
>If I could take two bikes, I'd probably opt for my CX bike with slicks
>(it's light enough to be a credible road race bike in a pinch) and a set
>of knobbies tucked away, and I'd build up the most serious 4-6 inch FS
>lightweight trailbike I could lay my hands on, with an eye to tackling
>the vast numbers of goat trails. If I could lay out some good trail
>routes, I think there's a small living to be made as an MTB expedition
>organizer on Syros.
Many thanks for that extremely interesting post. And best of luck if
you do decide to move to Greece permanently.
joseph.sa...@gmail.com
I did that and I'm only 6'3".
My wife is normal sized and couldn't reach the top cabinets without a
step stool anyway, and higher counters are just fine for her too so me
not bumping my head nor stooping has not been a sacrifice for anyone.
I wouldn't bother with a retofit, this was part of a renovation. If I
were taller I might consider a retrofit however.
Joseph
r15...@aol.com
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:41:01 GMT, Ryan Cousineau wrote in part:
>4-6 inch FS
>lightweight trailbike
Does not compute.
Peter Cole
I've thought about it, but I doubt I'll do it, I cook a lot, but I'm the
only abnormally sized individual in the house. The thing I'd really like
is taller doorways, but I'm so used to ducking now that I'd probably
continue anyway. It's kind of like long cranks, I may really like them,
but it's a costly experiment.
Chalo
The page does point out that 3 out of every 10,000 Dutch men are 6'10"
or taller.
Chalo
Lou Holtman
We, the Dutch, are one of the tallest people in the world and we are
still growing, but the (bicycle) industry didn't keep up with that
growth. Tall people have hard time getting suitable products over here.
Recently they raised the norm for the height of the ceilings for new
houses...
Lou
--
Posted by news://news.nb.nu (http://www.nb.nu)
vey
>
> I don't think anybody over 18 even enjoys driving a car any more.
There are people that say they do. I've never understood that. I've
driven all sorts of things, big and small and it's always been the
utility and convenience not enjoyment, that attracted me.
On my bike, I can zip up to city hall, pay my utility bill, and be back
before most people can find a parking space there. I can drive part of
the way to a bigger city's downtown, park for free and pedal the last
mile to the offices and stores and avoid getting a parking ticket
because I didn't get back to the meter in time to feed it. They are
charging $35 for an overtime parking meter now?! That's robbery!
These are my practical ways of dealing with too many cars.
vey
> I have developed a liking for the Euro chain guards on commuter
> setups.
'Cause they work. I guess if we want something like that, we have to
fiddle around hack fabricating it ourselves. There is no US manufacturer
making anything much like it.
Clever cycles (formerly clever chimp) has started carrying Dutch bicycles.
Ryan Cousineau
r15...@aol.com wrote:
A "Full Suspension" (suspension at front and rear) mountain bike with
somewhere between 4 and 6 inches of travel at each end, which is more
than pure cross-country racing mountain bikes have, but less than
dedicated "freeride" bikes for tackling big jumps and drops: those bikes
start with 6-8 inches of travel, and the upper limits of travel and
burliness are pretty insane. They're like unmotorized motocross
motorcycles.
The lightweight part suggests a bike aimed at about 30 pounds (If I had
a bunch of money). Air fork, lighter frame (rather than starting with a
"big hit" type frame), and cross-country style parts rather than
freeride parts. XT group instead of Saint, to make the obvious
distinction. "Trailbike" more or less means a bicycle that isn't
dedicated to racing (not light enough) or jumps and drops (not strong
enough), but compromises to maximize fun.
Such a mountain bike would be capable of rolling over almost anything,
and would do it cheerfully. It wouldn't be as fast as a pure race MTB,
but it would be easier to ride on very technical terrain. I couldn't
safely drop big stunts or catch much air, but it would be nicer to
pedal, especially uphill.
!Jones
<jun...@ericvey.com> wrote:
>> I have developed a liking for the Euro chain guards on commuter
>> setups.
>
>'Cause they work. I guess if we want something like that, we have to
>fiddle around hack fabricating it ourselves. There is no US manufacturer
>making anything much like it.
Yeah, they work in that area for which they were designed. It isn't
that we can't *make* something like that, it's that one wouldn't be
able to sell the product into the US market... and that's a shame,
IMHO. US bicycles are seen as "sporting goods", not as a viable means
of transportation. This is why we have a Secretary of Transportation
making absurd statements on PBS,
Now, *that* ought to be worth a few flame wars. Have fun. I'm going
to bed. Nighty-night!!!
Jones
Michael Press
<n6jif314echq3mvab...@4ax.com>,
"(PeteCresswell)" <x...@y.Invalid> wrote:
Crap! I am 5' 8" (1.73 m) and every damn thing in the
house is too low for me. I feel for you.
Kitchen utensils grips are way too short,
unless you buy from professional outfitters.
--
Michael Press
(PeteCresswell)
>Crap! I am 5' 8" (1.73 m) and every damn thing in the
>house is too low for me. I feel for you.
>
>Kitchen utensils grips are way too short,
>unless you buy from professional outfitters.
Way back in the fifties - before it was cool for women to be tall
- the newspapers carried a story about a young woman from
somewhere in the USA who was 6'3" tall and went to Sweden to have
her limbs shortened.
I always wondered how her life came out.
--
PeteCresswell
Harry Perton
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:54:38 -0000, in rec.bicycles.tech Chalo
>
> <chalo.col...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >The car-free center ofGroningenin the Netherlands is probably the
> >best example of the benefits of restricting car traffic.
>
> So, do you know that town? I took an opportunity to teach at
> RijksuniversiteitGroningen(University ofGroningen) for a semester
> in '99 and we had the time of our lives... I took the wife, of course.
> and I said: "Would you take a cow to a dairy?" or something to that
> effect... not great judgement on my part!!! (I had to put the toilet
> seat down for a whole *month* in penance.) Financially, it wasn't
> real plush; however, we had a dorm room... beautiful town, that. We'd
> rent a tandem on the weekends and my back *still* hurts from the damn
> low frames (I'm 6' 5").
>
> $1.50 a minute at the meters and the tow trucks were there within 90
> seconds if it expired. A car was considered a luxury beyond the means
> of most citizens... seems like on-campus parking was $700 a month or
> so. Whatever it was, we didn't consider it.
Slightly exaggerated:
http://www.groningen.nl/assets/pdf/parkeer%20tarieven2007.pdf
>>>
Someone who is settled in Groningen pays 1,70 euro per hour for
parking his or her car on the street in the innercity.
--------------------------------------
http://gelkinghe.web-log.nl
Harry Perton
> !Jones wrote:
>
> > I took an opportunity to teach at
> > in '99 and we had the time of our lives... I took the wife, of course.
> <snip>
> > ... beautiful town, that. We'd
> > rent a tandem on the weekends and my back *still* hurts from the damn
> > low frames (I'm 6' 5").
>
> Funny that there weren't taller bike options available, since 6'5"
> Dutch men are 6'5" or taller, compared to 0.2% of US men:
>
> http://www.tallpages.com/uk/index.php?pag=ukstatist.php
>
> I know that Dutch bikes can be bought in the 70cm frame size with
> relative ease, when that would be strictly a custom-built frame in the
> USA.
The man was talking about a tandem, not an ordinary bicycle
Ryan Cousineau
Harry Perton <harry...@gmail.com> wrote:
Slightly exaggerated? E1.70/hour is less than half the going rate for
street parking in the most expensive parts of Vancouver. I'm sure we're
not the most pricey, either.
Ron Ruff
<pe...@vecchios.com> wrote:
> "They" could make..."ban"..government at it's finest. The MARKET will
> drive what people do, follow the $. Make another form of
> transportation as easy and cheap as a car and it'll work. Expecting
> people to 'do the right thing' does not work, never has.
I came late to this thread, but it is an interesting one and I'd like
to stear it on track a little...
Unfortunately even our market is far from "free" and there are huge
impediments to changing things... even if it is something that
virtually everyone would prefer. The oil and auto businesses in this
country are massive, and they do not stand by and idly wait for mere
citizens to decide that they are irrelevant. Any ideas that would
reduce oil and auto consumption (or any other large, well established,
and powerful industry), are met with a very well organized and funded
(and often subtle) counter-campaign.
I don't think a ban on cars is feasible. For one thing many cities in
the US (and elsewhere) have abysmal weather, and few people will be
eager to give up their cars for bikes in those conditions. But I can
easily see commuters *choosing* to use much smaller, lighter, and
slower vehicles... so long as extensive routes are provided where
larger vehicles are not allowed. In other words design things so that
small vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians can travel in relative
safety without having to worry about being run over by ubiquitous
6,000 lb "cars", and even larger trucks. Something like an electric
powered enclosed vehicle that weighs <400 lbs and has a top speed of
~30 mph, with enough range to get across town and back. Congestion,
pollution, parking problems, and injuries all greatly reduced.
Unfortunately, the "powers that be" see this as a completely
unacceptible alternative. If we reduce consumption of goods that they
produce, then their profits will go down. So instead our society
becomes addicted to a never ending spiral of increasing consumption,
pollution, and waste.
Larry
--
When trying to contact me, be polite. Rudeness will not get you anywhere.
Larry