Tuesday Afternoon Commute - Top 50

Good afternoon

• Your typical "Can you believe we're spending money on transit, walking and biking when people are stuck in gridlock?" opinion piece. They claim that even though 82% of trips will be by car in 2040, we still spend "inordinate amounts of available transportation money on things like streetcars and bike lanes which will not reduce automobile traffic, but will reduce existing capacity on the roads, thus guaranteeing future gridlock." There are several things wrong with this, starting with the fact that claiming that spending is out of proportion is more convincing if you provide the actual proportion. For example, as the Examiner points out 11% of trips are by foot and bicycle, but only 2% of spending in the TIP is for biking and walking.  So does the Examiner think we should be spending more on these modes? Another issue is that looking at spending % and mode share may not be the relevant way to look at our investments. Building in urban areas will always be more expensive than in rural areas, which will push the cost of transit up.
• CaBi makes the Sierra Club's list of 50 best transportation projects in the US. 
• BicycleSpace is not going anywhere despite development of the buildings around them.
• Chicago will try to make their bikeshare program available to people without credit cards, but it's unclear what they will do to acheive that. 

Comments

[MM]

"Yet COG members are spending inordinate amounts of available transportation money on things like streetcars and bike lanes which will not reduce automobile traffic, but will reduce existing capacity on the roads, thus guaranteeing future gridlock."

Christ. Who, exactly, do they think will be using said streetcars and bike lanes? Danes on holiday? We aren't building this shit as some sort of outdoor decorative display, people...

[freewheel]

Thank you for reading the Examiner so I don't have to.

[Steven Harrell]

"The Examiner"... where have I heard that name before?.. Oh yeah, on a paper on the floor of my Metro train this morning.

Exactly how many of the Examiner's readers are driving their cars and reading the paper during their morning commute? And unless cars are driving themselves in 2040, they won't be reading them then, either.

[Michael H.]

11% of transportation spending on bike/pedestrian infrastructure? Yes, please!

You could widen the entire Mt. Vernon Trail, build the Long Bridge bike path and quadruple CaBi with that kind of money.

[Crikey7]

The Examiner: wiping off wet CaBi seats since 2010.

[SJE]

The Examiner: you don't have to use AM radion to get your frothing at the mouth conspiracy theories

[Dave]

The Examiner: AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGHHH LIBERALS

[Jonathan Krall]

When I read that all road space (or all transportation dollars) needs to be allocated to cars in order to avoid gridlock, I have to tell myself that these people are uninformed (or trying to pump up website hits by stirring s--t) rather than mentally ill.

The other day the West End Alexandria Patch reported on parking-space allocation for Zipcar. People complained about loss of precious parking, even though one Zipcar enables several people to go car free. People also complained that the $2000+ per year that Zipcar pays the city for the space isn't enough, even though they get to use spaces for free.

Hmmm... Car pollution has been shown to chop an average of 3 IQ points off of children in heavily polluted cities. Maybe it actually _does_ cause mental illness in adults.

[JJJJJ]

I am always amused by how the examiner, which is a metro paper generally, hates the metro, and thus their readership.

[SJE]

Jonathan, didnt you know it was part of the war on cars? Dave Alpert, Washcycle and others, acting according to THE PLAN, want to make cars illegal and force everyone to ride bicycles.