[*BCM*] (no subject)

[Jim Leonard]

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006, Greg Howard wrote:

> > I expect that cars put way more wear and tear on roads than cyclists do.
>
> I think you can do more than "expect"!  The general rule in
> transportation planning is that road damage is roughly proportional to
> the fourth power of axle weight.  This actually lets most drivers off
> the hook, since a compact car is pretty miniscule compared to a large
> SUV or delivery truck.

While this is true for road damage there's still the cost of road
_construction_.  Also note that other forces will destroy a road over
time.  Look at the state of the many bike/pedestrian paths or just the
sidewalks around town.  However you can build roads that will support
bicyclists much cheaper than you can build a road that also must support
trucks.  By the same token, many of the bike paths are under engineered
such that they wash out or nearby trees destroy them.

--jim


>
> A few figures, for reference: a 200 lb bike (with rider) does roughly
> 1/33000th as much road wear as a 2700 lb Honda Civic Hybrid.  But the
> Civic, in turn, does about 1/30th as much damage as a 6,400 lb H2.
> (Even the H2 pales by comparison to very large trucks.)
>
> Figures like these were the basis for an
> infamous-among-San-Francisco-bikers letter to the editor by John
> Holtzclaw of the Sierra Club in response to a proposal to charge bikes
> a toll across the Golden Gate Bridge.  I'm including the letter, which
> was never published, below.  If a similar situation comes up here, I
> recommend borrowing John's sarcasm; I'm sure he won't mind.
>
>
> greg
>
>
>
> 21 February 1998
>
> San Francisco Chronicle
> Fax 777-1896
>
> Stan Smith's proposal to charge bikers for using the Golden Gate
> Bridge deserves careful consideration.
>
> Any such charge should be based upon the damage caused by the
> bikes relative to the $3 round-trip auto charge. According to
> the Highway Design Manual road damage is proportional to the
> fourth power of the axle weight. Compared to a 4000 lb auto
> (too light for a Suburban Assault Vehicle, of course), a 200 lb
> biker should be charged $0.00002 per round trip, 0.002 cents per
> round trip.
>
> Of course, this calculation ignores such collateral auto damage
> as air pollution and its health costs, congestion (twice daily
> critical auto masses), local road construction and maintenance
> costs, the costs of bombing Iraq's palaces and children to keep
> the oil flowing, etc.
>
> The Bridge District could collect by selling 1 cent toll cards
> good for 500 round trips. The toll collectors would punch the
> cards. Or, better yet, the Bridge District could install
> BART-type fare card dispensers and toll gates. Or even higher
> tech transponders could be automatically read as the biker
> passes by.
>
> Stan Smith has a real cash-cow by the tail here.
>
> John Holtzclaw
>
>
>
>
>
> On 8/29/06, Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <red at mit.edu> wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 10:06:20AM -0400, Lee Peters wrote:
> > > Did anyone hear the interview with the Mass Bike commander in chief on WBUR?
> >
> > No, do you have a link or a summary?
> >
> > > Or read this?
> > > http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2006/08/26/bicyclists_scourge_of_the_roads/
> >
> > The tone he chooses isn't going to convince any cyclists, even those who
> > might be sympathetic to his ideas. I think that drivers get upset that
> > they have to pay a whole lot of money just in order to use the roads and
> > own their cars, let alone actually paying for gas. And there are a lot of
> > additional taxes levied on drivers in order to pay for the upkeep of roads.
> > I expect that cars put way more wear and tear on roads than cyclists do.
> > The idea of putting some money into the infrastructure that you use makes
> > sense, but I always figured that the existing state and local taxes that
> > one pays cover that small amount of wear and tear on the roads. I mean,
> > pedestrians don't have to pay a sidewalk tax...
> >
> > > If they begin charging excise tax to bikers for the roads, we can really get militant.
> >
> > I would certainly be terribly upset about this unless we got something
> > very, very nice in return.
> >
> > > On last week's ride, we made an illegal left turn at Beacon and Harvard.  A pedestrian admonished us for ruining it for all bikers.  Is that statement a gross acknowledgement of stereotyping?
> >
> > People stereotype --- we make judgements about others based on our
> > existing knowledge. This isn't pretty, but I don't have enough room in
> > my head for six billion other people as detailed individuals --- I don't
> > even have room for the few thousand I might pass by in a given day. On
> > the road, you also have to make snap judgements about safety, and I do
> > this based on stereotyping --- I'm more nervous around different types
> > of cars, I behave more cautiously around some pedestrians than others, &c.
> >
> > I'm sure drivers do the same thing --- and, on the rare occasions that
> > I have to drive in the city, I do too. I expect bikers who look one way
> > to run red lights, I expect bikers who look another way to veer wildly
> > into the road, whatever. I can imagine that, if you hadn't been on the
> > other side of the equation, you might see biker after biker doing things
> > you thought where dangerous, asinine, or just irritating, and end up
> > feeling like they all did that, even though they don't. You notice the
> > things that bother you more.
> >
> > Interestingly, when I'm driving, I don't really care about bikers running
> > red lights --- more power to them. When I'm walking, though, I get upset
> > when people blow through red lights in front of me, or won't stop at
> > crosswalks. I actually yelled at one guy recently for blasting through
> > a red light and almost hitting me --- at night, no lights, &c. Someone
> > very dear to me actually got _hit_ in a crosswalk a couple of months
> > ago, and while I may not be proud of this attitude, I am damn certain
> > that the words "embarassment to all cyclists" would have come out of my
> > mouth had I been there. (...Among others.)
> >
> > I don't think there's an easy answer to this conflict, but I do think that
> > one biker or especially Critical Mass which, while we all know it doesn't
> > represent any one person's attitude and is a thing all its own, blah
> > blah blah, is in the minds of a lot of people a or even the biker voice.
> > And so while this person's comment doesn't seem very productive, I can see
> > where it might come from.
> >
> > OK, I'll stop now. :)
> >
> > -r.
> >
> >
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> >
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