I envy the relative ease I see in Europe as they integrate multiple forms of wheeled transportation with pedestrians on the street. Arlington, Virginia, where I live is described as very bike friendly but that I think mainly refers to the off road network of trails for bikes and walkers. But we also have a good system of buses so personally I choose to walk and use buses and subway. There are senior bikers here but I sense that many are lifelong bikers as in Europe.
OK, once more with VIGOR, Lloyd! As I have remarked on a number of occasions, all this may well be fine and dandy in a city (I can see some of what you say applied to my "Boston era" 50 years ago but much less so in my suburban "teenager growing up years".
Now do rural areas. You have a cottage by a lake (as you have told us in the past). How would all of these tactics/techniques translate? Now add in smaller rural roads, some hills and don't forget mountains and blizzards. Recursively show your "work of solutions".
Better yet, how would your students "solve for X"?
75% of North Americans live in cities or suburbs, and 60% of trips are less than 3 miles. We have more than one tool in our toolbox. It obviously doesn't work for everyone but it can work for many!
I'm not going to quibble about the 75% figure - it is a majority order magnitude when it is all said and done. One only has to look at national voting maps to see how badly cities skew their states - the 'burbs and rural areas take it in the shorts every time.
However, the problem is that planners and architects rarely acknowledge that the plans they put into law are often one size fits all and what you all do for New Urbanism (or the term du jour) acts spare straitjacket to be utilized everywhere and on anyone else NOT(Cities).
Thus, my question. Are we in the rural areas to be subjugated to the citified mandated defaults (certainly feels like it - just look at what the "not from here" MA and NY transplants are doing to the formerly quaint village of Peterborough NH)?
Your silence on this, as the Left oft burbles up, is complicity.
So what would you and your students posit for folks like we "country folks"? The BEST vision I can imagine is to simply leave us alone. That said, it seems a to be a built-in feature that when people get used to bossing others around as to how to live their lives, they refuse to stop at the city limits.
There, ball has been whacked back to your side of the net.
I don't know what's happening in Peterborough NH, but I do know that 55% of Americans live in smaller towns and suburbs and only 31% live in cities, and the city folk have transit and much more stuff in walking distance and crowded roads. I don't know why you don't accept that e-bikes can eat up these larger distances in the suburbs that regular bikes cannot. Or would you rather I shut up because we should just leave you alone? https://www.treehugger.com/politicians-planners-missing-e-bike-revolution-5211965
Shut up? Gadzooks - nay! I WANT you to keep talking! And talking and talking and talking! The answer is NEVER less speech but MORE speech.
However, you missed my point (or sidestepped it; am unsure which). I listen to the professional planners here in NH, a very rural place in the aggregate, and they all want to implement New Urbanism everywhere. Same strictures I saw at TH and here in an almost oblivious disregard that the living environments aren't A=B=C. What is good for A (cities) MUST be good for B (burbs) and C (rural) as well. And yes, the BIGGEST city is an entire 100K people - most other places range from a couple of hundreds (majority) to 7K folks
Well, Peterborough is a C - a rural village whose main environs are about blocks square. Yet, they are insisting on "governing" (I'd say Ruling as these Flatlanders are outvoting long term families and residents and destroying the New England village charm (e.g., "look and feel") with the same MA/NYC policies that, in part, chased them out of their previous h**lh**e.
Same thing in Moultonborough - rich people choose a small village for its charm and started kvetching that it no longer met this couple's needs and the village should spend more to make their "quality of life" enhanced.
I "enhanced" their lives - just not the way they wanted. Longish but proves my point (and yes, a bit of snark with full satire):
Yes, I went there, meant every word because I was already tired of "our self-named bettors" believing they had the Divine Right of Kings to change everyone else's lives to suit them - and use those folks' money to make it happen. Those were written back in 2008; I understand a couple of years later they went back because the traditional folks kept voting down "their needs".
However, it's always an Evergreen story almost in every location and time. Right now, Vermont is a GREAT example of this writ larger.
I was just talking about this with my wife yesterday. The explosion of micro mobility in the last few years seems to have tipped the balance between transit/cars/ other wheeled vehicles. I'm a big supporter of public transit but I'm now starting to think that building infrastructure for exploding micro mobility will be more effective way to both reduce emissions and make life better for many many people. I would love to see you some major thoroughfares in Toronto given over to all types of micro mobility only. Also, I see an opportunity for buses, street cars and micro mobility to share a dedicated lane.
This is another sub stack that I've been really enjoying:
I envy the relative ease I see in Europe as they integrate multiple forms of wheeled transportation with pedestrians on the street. Arlington, Virginia, where I live is described as very bike friendly but that I think mainly refers to the off road network of trails for bikes and walkers. But we also have a good system of buses so personally I choose to walk and use buses and subway. There are senior bikers here but I sense that many are lifelong bikers as in Europe.
OK, once more with VIGOR, Lloyd! As I have remarked on a number of occasions, all this may well be fine and dandy in a city (I can see some of what you say applied to my "Boston era" 50 years ago but much less so in my suburban "teenager growing up years".
Now do rural areas. You have a cottage by a lake (as you have told us in the past). How would all of these tactics/techniques translate? Now add in smaller rural roads, some hills and don't forget mountains and blizzards. Recursively show your "work of solutions".
Better yet, how would your students "solve for X"?
75% of North Americans live in cities or suburbs, and 60% of trips are less than 3 miles. We have more than one tool in our toolbox. It obviously doesn't work for everyone but it can work for many!
I'm not going to quibble about the 75% figure - it is a majority order magnitude when it is all said and done. One only has to look at national voting maps to see how badly cities skew their states - the 'burbs and rural areas take it in the shorts every time.
However, the problem is that planners and architects rarely acknowledge that the plans they put into law are often one size fits all and what you all do for New Urbanism (or the term du jour) acts spare straitjacket to be utilized everywhere and on anyone else NOT(Cities).
Thus, my question. Are we in the rural areas to be subjugated to the citified mandated defaults (certainly feels like it - just look at what the "not from here" MA and NY transplants are doing to the formerly quaint village of Peterborough NH)?
Your silence on this, as the Left oft burbles up, is complicity.
So what would you and your students posit for folks like we "country folks"? The BEST vision I can imagine is to simply leave us alone. That said, it seems a to be a built-in feature that when people get used to bossing others around as to how to live their lives, they refuse to stop at the city limits.
There, ball has been whacked back to your side of the net.
I don't know what's happening in Peterborough NH, but I do know that 55% of Americans live in smaller towns and suburbs and only 31% live in cities, and the city folk have transit and much more stuff in walking distance and crowded roads. I don't know why you don't accept that e-bikes can eat up these larger distances in the suburbs that regular bikes cannot. Or would you rather I shut up because we should just leave you alone? https://www.treehugger.com/politicians-planners-missing-e-bike-revolution-5211965
Shut up? Gadzooks - nay! I WANT you to keep talking! And talking and talking and talking! The answer is NEVER less speech but MORE speech.
However, you missed my point (or sidestepped it; am unsure which). I listen to the professional planners here in NH, a very rural place in the aggregate, and they all want to implement New Urbanism everywhere. Same strictures I saw at TH and here in an almost oblivious disregard that the living environments aren't A=B=C. What is good for A (cities) MUST be good for B (burbs) and C (rural) as well. And yes, the BIGGEST city is an entire 100K people - most other places range from a couple of hundreds (majority) to 7K folks
Well, Peterborough is a C - a rural village whose main environs are about blocks square. Yet, they are insisting on "governing" (I'd say Ruling as these Flatlanders are outvoting long term families and residents and destroying the New England village charm (e.g., "look and feel") with the same MA/NYC policies that, in part, chased them out of their previous h**lh**e.
Same thing in Moultonborough - rich people choose a small village for its charm and started kvetching that it no longer met this couple's needs and the village should spend more to make their "quality of life" enhanced.
I "enhanced" their lives - just not the way they wanted. Longish but proves my point (and yes, a bit of snark with full satire):
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2008/03/what_happens_in_a_town_when_the_privilge
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2008/04/the_message_from_opponents_is_how_dare_y
Yes, I went there, meant every word because I was already tired of "our self-named bettors" believing they had the Divine Right of Kings to change everyone else's lives to suit them - and use those folks' money to make it happen. Those were written back in 2008; I understand a couple of years later they went back because the traditional folks kept voting down "their needs".
However, it's always an Evergreen story almost in every location and time. Right now, Vermont is a GREAT example of this writ larger.
Sorry - that should have read that Peterborough is 4 blocks square - hardly even a pimple of a neighborhood in a city's prodigious posterior.
I was just talking about this with my wife yesterday. The explosion of micro mobility in the last few years seems to have tipped the balance between transit/cars/ other wheeled vehicles. I'm a big supporter of public transit but I'm now starting to think that building infrastructure for exploding micro mobility will be more effective way to both reduce emissions and make life better for many many people. I would love to see you some major thoroughfares in Toronto given over to all types of micro mobility only. Also, I see an opportunity for buses, street cars and micro mobility to share a dedicated lane.
This is another sub stack that I've been really enjoying:
https://open.substack.com/pub/micromobility?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7ov7m
I enjoy that site too. I once wrote a post calling for bike lanes to be renamed micromobility lanes but I cannot find it!