tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6446330500314261009.post4399073521018014736..comments2023-10-30T07:28:38.074-05:00Comments on Newton Streets and Sidewalks: High-speed rail and walking to a villageSean Rochehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07571094913250906385noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6446330500314261009.post-69436346553734937582011-04-01T11:21:57.889-05:002011-04-01T11:21:57.889-05:00It's a questionable and debatable assertion th...It's a questionable and debatable assertion that airlines pushed off BOS-LGA , -EWR , and -JFK routes by high speed rail will simply take those planes and crews and reallocate them to more distant destinations. In fact, airlines like Delta, USAir, and JetBlue often rely on the fat profit margins of Boston-New York service, heavily catering to top-dollar last-minute business travelers, to effectively cross-subsidize more marginally profitable routes. Crank up more and more rail competition for those flights, and airlines are more likely to simply downgrade service from 737s, 319s, 321s and MD-88's to regional jets. <br />All that said, we're completely in synch with the author's ultimate goal here of better city-to-city higher-speed rail, just offering this as food-for-thought reaction.<br />Thanks, WarrenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6446330500314261009.post-7565105897937855722011-03-19T07:41:47.883-05:002011-03-19T07:41:47.883-05:00People who think they can't pick up kids on a ...People who think they can't pick up kids on a bike (well, two kids, maybe three) lack imagination. The problem is, people persist in believing that bikes are toys, and thus only buy toy bikes.<br /><br />(See <a href="http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/us-anti-cycling-excuses-i-cant-do-x/" rel="nofollow">this rant</a> for pictures of multiple kids carried on a bike.)<br /><br />And too fat? Don't forget <a href="http://istanbultea.typepad.com/largefellaonabike/2009/03/doover.html" rel="nofollow">this guy</a>.<br /><br />And to complete my disagreement, I think that you may eventually need to impede cars, more or less as an issue of allocating space. That is, there's carrots and sticks (and I recall that we had our roles reversed, discussing T parking lots) and there is a limit to how attractive you can make cycling, and beyond that, to make it relatively more attractive than driving a car on the less-crowded roads to the less-crowded parking lots, you need to remove a little auto capacity to maintain a certain amount of "friction".<br /><br />There's a diversity of preferences, both in how people regard riding a bike, and in how they feel about being stuck in traffic or circling for parking. There will always be some people who really want to drive, and a subset of them, given wide open roads (i.e., today's roads, minus the traffic) will drive fast and dangerous. If cyclists ever have to interact with that sort of traffic, they'll be discouraged. Total separation would solve the ever-interact problem, but that takes space, and the obvious place to get space, is from the existing road right of way -- which will also impede autos, somewhat. That said, the impediment is often less than imagined, and in the case of (to take a recently publicized example) <a href="http://www.xoxosoma.com/ppw/" rel="nofollow">Prospect Park West in NYC</a>, only of speeding traffic (traffic at the speed limit was slowed down by less than 1%). However, there will surely be political opposition from people who believe (with some reason, lacking any statistics to the contrary, which is the usual case) that less-space-is-worse.<br /><br />One thing that does favor biking, if we can get some local infrastructure in place, is that once you start and discover that it's nice to not be stuck in traffic, and it's nice to not circle for parking, and it's nice to be in good shape, that you are then somewhat less inclined to be as happy driving what you might come to perceive as a rolling metal fat suit. Those people will tend to "stick" as cyclists.dr2chasehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16320828055999939449noreply@blogger.com