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Get a bike to save the planet

That probably can't happen soon enough. Dogs are patiently waiting in the wings for us to be gone so they can inherit the planet.
Dogs? They wouldn't know what to do without us

yes, but then who is going to throw the ball and tell them "good dog" ?
Exactly.

It's cats (due to their superior intellect) that are the ones patiently waiting while secretly plotting to take over the planet ... while we're still here!

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I was in Amsterdam recently and was impressed as the traffic (cars) was so light. It's very well set up with trams and trains as well as for bicycles. It really seems to be done right. Being flat doesn't hurt, of course.

Good for them! It's also handy to be able to concentrate transportation options in a small area.

Some numbers to reflect on.....

Total land mass of Amsterdam: 996 square miles. (Not bad for biking!)
Total land mass of metro Denver: 4,532 square miles.
Total land mass of metro Los Angeles: 4,850 square miles.

I think this helps to illustrate that getting effective bike transportation in US metro regions is rather a heavy lift. It's also hard to fund. Every mile traveled by bike is a mile less that consumes gas, which is good, except that it also means less fuel is consumed, meaning that less fuel tax is paid, meaning that the budget for road maintenance and upgrades is reduced as bike traffic increases.
 
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The planet is going to out live us no matter what. Everyone thinks they know what will happen if we do XY&Z. For all we know we will be wiped out, and the Earth will eventually heal itself. We don't know and we will never know.
Yep
I'm not a Fatalist but I tend to agree

As far as using a bike. I love biking but due to distance and my career using a bike to get anywhere not only is dangerous but too far and not conducive to where I live and where I go for work. I can say if I worked and lived in NYC it might be the way to go.
Here too
For the last 5 years , I'm working in a downtown theater , it's in fact faster and easier by bike (traffic , parking) , but the 25 years before that , being professional bass player , I was carpooling , Taxi , tour bus , etc....
You know the famous bass player who doesn't have a car ? Well that's me !
I went to gigs by bike only 5-10 times.
But always for rehearsals.
 
Yep
I'm not a Fatalist but I tend to agree


Here too
For the last 5 years , I'm working in a downtown theater , it's in fact faster and easier by bike (traffic , parking) , but the 25 years before that , being professional bass player , I was carpooling , Taxi , tour bus , etc....
You know the famous bass player who doesn't have a car ? Well that's me !
I went to gigs by bike only 5-10 times.
But always for rehearsals.
Did Lemmy own a car? I wouldn't be surprise if no for it's my understanding he lived in that apartment, walked to his favorite bar, and toured.
 
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Good for them! It's also handy to be able to concentrate transportation options in a small area.

Some numbers to reflect on.....

Total land mass of Amsterdam: 996 square miles. (Not bad for biking!)
Total land mass of metro Denver: 4,532 square miles.
Total land mass of metro Los Angeles: 4,850 square miles.

I think this helps to illustrate that getting effective bike transportation in US metro regions is rather a heavy lift. It's also hard to fund. Every mile traveled by bike is a mile less that consumes gas, which is good, except that it also means less fuel is consumed, meaning that less fuel tax is paid, meaning that the budget for road maintenance and upgrades is reduced as bike traffic increases.

I was comparing to the UK cities of circa 750,000 people, not USA, primarily, hence comparing with Sheffield and Leeds.

But, having said that, surely the issue isn't really the size of an area, but rather rather how far people tend to travel, and the patterns of travel. To what extent is Los Angeles (which has a much greater population) a single travel zone, or a series of interlocking but more local ones for which local bicycle routes to serve some people would make sense? For me a comparison might be Leeds-Bradford as they are continuous, so would count as a single metropolitan area in the USA, but operate as separate systems, albeit with a lot of interchange. Birmingham-Bromich-Wolverhampton-Black country might be another such systems of systems. Reiterating - is LA a single transport market or more a system of systems?
 
I was comparing to the UK cities of circa 750,000 people, not USA, primarily, hence comparing with Sheffield and Leeds.

But, having said that, surely the issue isn't really the size of an area, but rather rather how far people tend to travel, and the patterns of travel. To what extent is Los Angeles (which has a much greater population) a single travel zone, or a series of interlocking but more local ones for which local bicycle routes to serve some people would make sense? For me a comparison might be Leeds-Bradford as they are continuous, so would count as a single metropolitan area in the USA, but operate as separate systems, albeit with a lot of interchange. Birmingham-Bromich-Wolverhampton-Black country might be another such systems of systems. Reiterating - is LA a single transport market or more a system of systems?

I don't know the cities outside the US. I was more making the point that the entire US grew by car, is built to serve cars, and sprawls so far that cars are needed to get around.

It's true that LA, like any major city (although I don't live there) is a series of neighborhoods. Many people do business (groceries, restaurants) in their neighborhood but work miles away. It's not unusual for someone's commute to take an hour each way by car.

Get outside a major metro area and the series of neighborhoods thing falls apart because there isn't the population density to support multiple business neighborhoods. I have lived in towns of 150,000 for years and the entire town is one business district. It's a neighborhood 10 miles long and 5 miles wide.

That's a difficult environment for biking, especially on roads built for cars 30 years ago with no room for bike lanes. There are roads here with 40 MPH speed limits and 18-inch bike lanes. I wouldn't ride a bike on one for any price.

OTOH, Denver just took one of their major thoroughfares (Broadway Ave.) and blocked off one entire traffic lane to make a big bike lane. They even have flexible posts to separate it from vehicular traffic. THAT'S a bike lane! But man, is this causing grief by taking away 50% of the traffic lanes! There are many places you can't do that - especially Colorado Springs, which is to the right of Genghis Khan and believes that every home needs two full size pickups.

bike-lane.jpg
 
except that it also means less fuel is consumed, meaning that less fuel tax is paid, meaning that the budget for road maintenance and upgrades is reduced as bike traffic increases.

yes but bikes don't put anywhere near the wear & tear on the roads as a car. While I'm at it, semi trucks don't pay nearly enough to pay for the damage they do to the roads.
 
Did Lemmy own a car?

No, even when he was forming the band he chose Philthy partly because he had a car :woot:

Much like me in Thailand, he chose his residence with relation to his fave watering hole.

Once I lived about the same distance as he from the Rainbow from a grouping of bars called Washington Square in Bangkok.
On the Eastern Seaboard I lived right on the same street as "The Strip", a street with 24 bars...
 
...It's true that LA, like any major city (although I don't live there) is a series of neighborhoods. Many people do business (groceries, restaurants) in their neighborhood but work miles away. It's not unusual for someone's commute to take an hour each way by car.
Is that all? When I live in L.A. in the '80s people were buying homes in places like Lancaster and Palmdale that were more affordable; their commutes could be double, or more than, an hour.
 
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