[ExI] abandon all buses

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 08:57:41AM -0700, Spike wrote:

> What I meant was building special bicycle and pedestrian roads, ones that
> are separated by a hard barrier from all motorized traffic.  We have exactly

Most bike roads here are that, being separated from the main road
by granite curbs, and having specific markings and signs to draw
a separatrix between pedestrians and cyclists. This is expensive
to retrofit (pedestrians are restricted to few major cities in the US), 
and you're still roadkill candidate whenever you cross ways with
motorists, if the motorists are not properly trained to expect bikers
coming from any direction. My commute is ~80% through a forest on a dirt road,
I do wear a brain bucket, but the likeliest way to take a spill is
to have your right of way taken by an unaware motorist.

I wouldn't try this stunt in too many places in the world, daily. 
Assuming we want to see the future we talk about, not taking certain 
risks is the entry ticket.

> one of those going in now, along the 237 corridor that leads from San Jose
> to the Yahoo headquarters next to Lockheed Sunnyvale.  I recognize it is
> costly to route those things, but people will use them for low-profile

Very costly indeed. You'd have to elbow all the other infrastructure out
of the way.

> bikes, which really can only be used if there are specialized bike roads.
> The recumbents will encourage those who cannot or will not ride standard
> configured bicycles because the standard seat is too hard on the ass.

Recumbents are great, but you could as well be riding a stealth ekranoplan.
They sure won't see you coming, without giant flash xenon lights on top,
and a good siren. (And a couple of ground-ground missiles to clear the
way, just in case).

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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