A question only a newbie would ask

We have bike racks on all of our buses here in the Tampa Bay Area.
I use them frequently, and despite the Mercedes Diesel parked in my
carport, I consider my bicycle my main means of transportation
within Tarpon Springs and Pinellas County.

That's wonderful, Bob. I'm glad they're being used *somewhere*...

Hell, I hope that when I'm 68 I can still walk upstairs, let alone ride a
bike 68 miles!

Our bus drivers never touch the bikes, one
must view a 10-15 minute training video, pay for a photo ID card, and
display it to the bus driver each time that the bike rack is used.

Wow. I can just imagine the bureaucracy that's been set up to administer
THAT little program. Who's paying those folks' salaries?

I doubt it's the bicyclists. (Or do you pay an extra fare for your bike?)

What comments do you have about the mandatory wheelchair lifts that we
also have on all of our busses?

We have them, too, and I find them to be completely absurd. They cost
taxpayers enough so that we quite literally could have purchased a special
handicapped-accessible van, and staffed it with a full-time driver -- and
STILL been money ahead.

Best of all, were a special van purchased we wouldn't be inconveniencing and
delaying those few who DO use mass-transit. How many quit riding the bus
because of these kinds of delays? More than will admit it, I suspect.

I have found that as I age, I become
much more considerate and understanding of the needs of others.

I have found that as I age I become less and less tolerant of people
demanding "rights" that simply don't exist.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message thlink.net...
"lowflyer" wrote in message
om...


Do you think you'll ever appreciate the point I made?

Seemed pretty clear, but you seem to think I missed something. What was it?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:JtVTc.161536$eM2.64302@attbi_s51...

I have found that as I age I become less and less tolerant of people
demanding "rights" that simply don't exist.

Oh, I'm sure if you really thought about it you could list a whole bunch of
"rights" that you have, and take advantage of, that others might well
consider as nonexistant.

Let's start with aviation and everything that goes with it (e.g. weather
briefings).

Absolutes are difficult and the rest is just a matter of degree.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:j4JTc.314255$XM6.88329@attbi_s53...
Iowa City spent a hundred thousand dollars (or more) installing "bicycle
lifts" on the front of all city buses. These contraptions allow the bus
driver to stop, get out, and "easily" load a bicycle onto a rack mounted
on
the front of the bus.

Those racks, along with bicycle lanes on bridges and bike trails and the
like, are heavily used in this area. I think it depends a lot on population
density, though I would have expected bicycling to be more popular than it
is in your area -- after all, you don't have the hills we do. It has been
kind of miserable riding across the Hood Canal Bridge lately since the bike
lane has been all but closed for bridge maintenance, but I expect once that
is completed that people will be riding across the bridge again.

Of course, I am one of those infernal bike nuts, which I suppose would make
me a Green when I am not a rabid right-wing conservative. :-)

It is funny how some pilots who are sensitive to airlines complaining that
we don't pay our fair share of taxes will turn around and level the same
charge at bicyclists, yet the situations are very similar. Sure, bicyclists
don't pay gas taxes when they are not driving cars, but then in most places
gas taxes aren't being used to pay for roads anyway. There is very little
difference between bicyclists and motorists on the total amount of taxes
paid.

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 12:56:47 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

In my own experience with American Greens, they oppose anything that
THEY don't do, while demanding outrageous privileges from government.
Example: $4 million to have a bicycle lane across the Dumbarton Bridge
in San Francisco Bay. Maybe three people a week use it.

Iowa City spent a hundred thousand dollars (or more) installing "bicycle
lifts" on the front of all city buses. These contraptions allow the bus
driver to stop, get out, and "easily" load a bicycle onto a rack mounted on
the front of the bus.

Mistake number one. Almost any serious bicyclist is not going to let
some buss driver with or without training load their bicycle. You
don't play around with bikes of this class just like you don't walk up
and pick up some musicians axe. (Guitar)

Today's bicyclists do not ride the old bikes we were so fond of while
growing up. Today's bicyclist rides a bike that cost as much as a
nice, but small used car.

Joyce and I are both over 60, yet at least once a week she rides 20
miles one way to another town for lunch with friends. She just
returned from a trip that went from South of Muskegon MI to Mackinaw
City. In past years she'd ride from the "Straights" across the upper
peninsula all the way past Green Bay to Manitowoc (sp?) WI in the same
week I was at Oshkosh.

It sounds as if the system you are talking about was designed by non
bicyclists, or at least people who know little of alternate
transportation.. IOW they had the wrong people doing the work. As
was mentioned in another answer the bicyclist is the one who loads the
bike. You don't let some one else play with your toys when they cost
that much.

Moving to alternate forms of transportation is a complex issue.

First, we don't have the alternate forms because we don't have
provisions for them such as racks on the buss, bike lanes, rail
trails...etc... but when you put in provisions for those alternate
forms of transportation they are not used because the alternate forms
have not developed due to the lack of provisions to support them.
(bike lanes, rail trails, traffic education among others)


The Greens insisted that this would encourage the use of public
transportation (which has been a financial catastrophe here -- we could
literally buy each rider a car for less tax money), and rammed the issue
through our sheepish city council.

Think positive. These are the attitudes that have prevented the
alternate forms in the first place and continue to discourage them It
all takes time. If you develop a rail trail (replace abandoned rail
roads with bike, or non motorized trails) and they may not see much
use at first, but once available the use will develop.

We built a paved rail trail from Midland to Clare Michigan. It's a
bit over 30 miles long. http://www.lmb.org/pmrt/ (go to the map)
Photos along the trail are also on the site.

At first people fought the tail and the "bikers". They feared it would
raise crime in the areas where it was going to go through. Now that
the tail is in, there are restaurants along the trail that cater to
the riders as well as the general public. Several bike shops have been
built. Instead of trouble it is building business. We have people
riding 15 to 30 miles for Saturday or Sunday lunch and then back. In
town (Midland) hundreds use the trail every day for hiking, biking,
and roller blading. The first 4 or 5 miles are one busy stretch. I
believe that part is 12 feet wide. We are getting ready to add
another 7 miles of trail out to the Chippewa Nature Center.


As most of us knew all along, they (like the buses) are rarely used --
thankfully. Each time they ARE used, the bus -- which, of course, must stop
at curbside, blocking the traffic lane -- sits for up to 5 minutes while the
poor driver wrestles the bike onto the rack.

Again, poor design. It should only take seconds to load the bike. We
can load both our bikes onto the car carrier in less than a minute and
they weren't designed for speed loading.

First you have to build the infrastructure as the bicyclists aren't
going to be there until it is in place. You'd be surprised just how
fast a properly designed system will develop use.

If the rest of the alternative system is designed as the buss system,
it will not develop.

Ten years ago Joyce and I flew to Florida. We took our road bikes. One
look at the roads and we decided we were not going to ride in that
state. There were no shoulders and no provisions for riding bikes and
with the elderly drivers and narrow roads you needed a death wish to
take a short ride.
..
They tell me Texas was even worse. Today both Texas and Florida are
rated among the top states for alternative transportation.

If you really want to see a city designed to handle cars, pedestrians,
and bicycles, go to Boulder Colorado. Every major street has wide
bike lanes and they are well used. They have a tremendous system.
I've heard there are now cities that are much better.


I often wonder how much gas those 25 cars idling behind the bus are "saving"
thanks to the Greens.

Again as in Florida the faulty design of the system is causing the
delay.


But, of course, we're the idiots for letting them control the agenda...

The problem is the idiots controlling the agenda didn't understand
what was needed and built an expensive answer that wasn't an answer,
but rather more of another problem.

It's not the Greens, but those who seek alternate forms of
transportation. Getting the extremists in the planning is as bad or
worse than getting those who know noting about alternate forms of
transportation.

Any city, or county that decides to go ahead with alternate forms of
transportation will gain in the long run if the program is properly
implemented. They will just create a lot of animosity if the system
is not properly designed and run. Even the implementation of a
properly designed system will be a painful growing experience.
It takes time to design, it takes time to implement, and it takes time
for the user base to develop.

If we had the bridge across the river, just down the road, I'd be
riding my bike to the airport. It'd be just over 5 miles. As it is
now, it's nearly 11 miles and 5 of those are on a very bad stretch of
highway. So to get around that you have to ride another 5 miles making
the trip 15 instead of the possible 5.

Hell, for a slightly exorbitant price I know of a couple people who
might be willing to serve as consultants. For that matter I could
probably find a lot more who have substantial experience in the field.

Just go to the site listed above and follow the links. Another good
one is the Michigan State university site
http://www.prr.msu.edu/trails/

Another is a pdf put out by the state of Michigan for land use
development http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Strader2_85237_7.pdf
You might find others by going to www.mi.gov

This is a complicated issue due to the need to interface different
forms of transportation with different needs, drastically differing
speeds, and differing mind sets that are some times a bit on the
incompatible side.

Good luck,

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

"Jay Honeck" wrote

"Bob Moore" wrote
Our bus drivers never touch the bikes, one
must view a 10-15 minute training video,
pay for a photo ID card, and display it to
the bus driver each time that the bike rack
is used.

Wow. I can just imagine the bureaucracy that's been set up to
administer THAT little program. Who's paying those folks' salaries?
I doubt it's the bicyclists. (Or do you pay an extra fare for your
bike?)

No extra fare...bicycles are a popular means of transportation
and exercise here in the Tampa Bay area....no snow. :-)
The number of bike shops here in Pinellas County alone must number
close to one hundred. They administer the bike rack program as a
part of their business....attracts new customers.
The citizens of Pinellas County voted an extra penny sales tax to
fund the public parks system which includes the 34 mile bike-jog
path. A lifestyle without snow can be GREAT!

What comments do you have about the mandatory wheelchair lifts that
we also have on all of our busses?

We have them, too, and I find them to be completely absurd. They
cost taxpayers enough so that we quite literally could have purchased
a special handicapped-accessible van, and staffed it with a full-time
driver -- and STILL been money ahead.

Not here in Pinellas County where we have a larger percentage of senior
citizens with health related issues than most anywhere else in the
country.

I have found that as I age I become less and less tolerant of people
demanding "rights" that simply don't exist.

I think that the Disabled American Veterans using their wheelchairs on
our public transportation systems to get to the VA hospital have earned
that "right".

Bob Moore

Roger Halstead wrote
Ten years ago Joyce and I flew to Florida. We took our road bikes. One
look at the roads and we decided we were not going to ride in that
state. There were no shoulders and no provisions for riding bikes and
with the elderly drivers and narrow roads you needed a death wish to
take a short ride.

No longer true, state law now requires bike shoulders on all new
road construction and sidewalks anywhere near populated areas.

Bob Moore

"lowflyer" wrote in message
om...

Seemed pretty clear, but you seem to think I missed something.


I'll take that as a "No."

Not here in Pinellas County where we have a larger percentage of senior
citizens with health related issues than most anywhere else in the
country.

Ah, good point. Here in Iowa City the average age is something crazy, like
27, thanks to the University.

I think that the Disabled American Veterans using their wheelchairs on
our public transportation systems to get to the VA hospital have earned
that "right".

Agreed. We have a huge VA hospital here in Iowa City (one of THREE medical
centers, believe it or not) -- and they have their own transportation for
vets.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Mistake number one. Almost any serious bicyclist is not going to let
some buss driver with or without training load their bicycle. You
don't play around with bikes of this class just like you don't walk up
and pick up some musicians axe. (Guitar)

I don't think they want individual riders standing in the street, in front
of an idling bus, fiddling with a bike rack that may already contain one (or
more) other bikes.

In this regard, I agree with them. The liability insurance issue here
would be even worse than it already is.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"