I don’t do the Feed on Sundays because I need a death-free day on the Internets, but that doesn’t mean I stop thinking or reading. What spikes my interests today is an article I read that the state of VA is giving away land and money to corporations that move there, with no guarantee that they will create a single new job or even stay past the period when they will be given the money. Basically what is happening is a transfer of money from taxpayers to rich people who then look for more taxpayers to fleece.
On Bicycle Infrastructure, how to pay for it. We have perfectly adequate infrastructure now, street, roads, and highways. What we also have is a near total ignorance of how to use that infrastructure for more than one mode of transport at a time. So, we need to build bicycle-specific infrastructure to keep the idiots in cars away from the idiots riding bicycles so the idiots driving cars don’t kill people riding bicycles. It’s not that people riding bicycles are causing problems and killing people. In fact in the 2 years this blog has been here at wordpress.com I have seen exactly one (1) report of a cyclist killing a driver, when the cyclist’s body came through the windshield of a speeding truck after getting hit by the truck. It wasn’t anything the cyclist did other than being there to get hit by a truck doing nearly 100 MPH. On the other hand, I think I had at least one report on every one of the 600-some-odd cyclists killed in 2009 in the US, plus the ones killed in the UK, NZ, and Australia, killed by drivers of motor vehicles. So, since the problem is motor vehicle drivers not playing nice with any other mode of transport on “their” roads, motor vehicle drivers can either learn to “play nice” or “pay nice”. What I propose is that for every cyclist killed on the roads by a motor vehicle, a fund for 100 miles of grade separated bi-directional bike roads is set up, paid for by an annual fee added to drivers’ licenses. This gives drivers a choice: drive like you have some sense around bicycles, or pay to not have to drive around bicycles. While we’re at it make training to ride a bike in traffic mandatory by 6th grade, make it part of the TAKS (or whatever acronym they use for the test that determines passing or being held back) test. Even if you can’t ride a bike, at least know how to do so legally, so when you drive you aren’t getting mad at cyclists for doing exactly what the law requires them to do.
Well, I have to get ready for morning services now, so I’ll post this and go to church.
PSA, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 