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Latest news from Ben Wear: http://www.statesman.com/news/local/rai … 82390.html
(Basically, Capital Metro is using the money to survey their own right-of-way to tell you there's no room for a trail on the part of the route that most of Austin would have found a trail most useful; and then taking credit for existing trails in east Austin).
Here's what I wrote back in '06 on the topic: http://bit.ly/cqT803
Still think you did the right thing by voting for this Austin-screwing disaster project that will prevent real urban rail for Austin from happening for another generation or so?
- MD
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Is there something somewhere that shows how much width is needed for double track and trail? And why do we need a fence separating the two?
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Are you telling me you actually use Ben Wear as a credible new source? No wonder you are always so mad at everything.
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Ben Wear's been right a lot more often than the guys you apparently listen to. While his opinions are certainly slanted against cyclists and transit, his reporting has been based in fact - and proven right over the long-run when questioned (as most recently with the Capital Metro finances issue regarding the 1/4 cent money owed the city where if your preferred sources were people like JMVC at Cap Metro, for instance, you might feel less mad, but you'd have been dead wrong).
The echo chamber might make you feel better, but it's not particularly informative.
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For instance, from my referenced post from 2006:
"emember that one of the many levers used to try to pry the center-city away from my position of "rail which doesn't run anywhere near central Austin isn't worth voting for" was the promise of "rails with trails", pushed most heartily by folks like Jeb Boyt, David Foster, and Dave Dobbs. I never fell for it, of course; it was obvious that double-tracking needed to happen in enough spots to make trails of any serious length impractical bordering on impossible, and the political (performance-oriented) hurdles seemed insurmountable. I said so, frequently (see bottom; unfortunately, I didn't write any blog posts about this angle; I know, what are the odds).
But, as usual, I was alone."
and from 2004:
"Nor will RwT improve
access for central Austinites since the part of the line they call
"central Austin" (really north Austin - Crestview/Wooten) is the least
likely to have space for the trail due to narrower RoW."
But, sure, let's stay happy and wrong and get nothing remotely useful in the process. Kum-ba-ya!
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Imagine how many bike commuters you'd have if there was a dedicated, continuous, direct bike path with only a few stops going N-S and E-W through every city. It'd be a meca and probably looking like Amsterdam.
Some of the biggest reasons why people don't commute by bike:
- Unsafe (sharing the roads with 2,000-80,000 missles)
- Unhealthy (exhaust)
- Too slow (too many stops, turns, indirect)
- Too hilly (railways are very low gradient)
It's too bad bike paths weren't important back when cities were laid out.
Looking at it from a related perspective: the main reason I drive my car when I do is because I have the option to take a direct highway where I'm going. I can get downtown in 10 minutes in my car with no traffic. I could do the same on my bike in 23-25 minutes if I had a 'bike highway'.
Last edited by rich00 (2010-05-25 18:59:26)
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