Pas de bicyclettes!

Nice try, but Genevieve's home town is a few hundred miles from Quebec
City.

Gérald Tremblay is currently her mayor, up for reelection early
November.

Quoted message said:

Nice try, but Genevieve's home town is a few hundred miles from Quebec
City.

Gérald Tremblay is currently her mayor, up for reelection early
November.

I must be going blind or something. I thought I saw "Montreal" in the
story ...

Still a dumb candidate.

Still, you post a lot smarter than Lafferty......

MMan said:

Quoted message said:

Nice try, but Genevieve's home town is a few hundred miles from Quebec
City.

Gérald Tremblay is currently her mayor, up for reelection early
November.

I must be going blind or something. I thought I saw "Montreal" in the
story ...

Still a dumb candidate.

There seems to be a lot of that going around here are some extracts
from a newsletter I get:

Then, far-left groups like MoveOn.org sent an e-mail to their members,
and over 160,000 of these leftists wrote or called Congress to demand
they NOT trim back our ridiculously bloated budget..

It's time we DEMAND that Congress set spending priorities, repeal the
"pork" projects in the highway bill, and re-route that money to relief
efforts for those hit hardest by the recent hurricanes.

$4 million for bike paths and park space in Calexico, California
$4 million for sidewalk improvements in Clarkson, Georgia
* $3 million for a river path in Springfield, Oregon
* $2.8 million for a bike/pedestrian path in Madison, Wisconsin
* $2.48 million for bike/pedestrian paths in Chicago, Illinois
* $640,000 to extend a bicycle trail in Aberdeen, South Dakota
* $320,000 for a new bicycle/pedestrian trail in Shelbyville, Tennessee

I can't stand MoveOn.org, but at least they are letting people know
that while Bush is talking energy alternatives, and claiming to be a
cyclist and outdoor person, here's what his buddies want to cut.
Looks like the far right considers alternate and mass transport to be
pure pork unlike corporate welfare to the oil companies and raping
handing them the ANWR to exploit.
Just proof that morons in politics know no borders.
Bill C

Bill C said:

Then, far-left groups like MoveOn.org sent an e-mail to their members,
and over 160,000 of these leftists wrote or called Congress to demand
they NOT trim back our ridiculously bloated budget..

I think we should tax everyone at ridiculously high rates and give all
the proceeds to me.

Hey, that's what everyone else wants, at least I'm honest about it ...

MMan said:

Bill C said:

Then, far-left groups like MoveOn.org sent an e-mail to their members,
and over 160,000 of these leftists wrote or called Congress to demand
they NOT trim back our ridiculously bloated budget..

I think we should tax everyone at ridiculously high rates and give all
the proceeds to me.

Hey, that's what everyone else wants, at least I'm honest about it ...

That's why you're not a successful politician ;-)
Bill C

Bill C said:

There seems to be a lot of that going around here are some extracts
from a newsletter I get:

Dude,

I know MoveOn is one of your hot buttons. Lord only knows why,
since they're really not that effective of a group. But just
looking at those numbers, if the people writing that newsletter
are not giving sources I think they're making [censored] up.

I don't believe the budget numbers and I don't believe MoveOn
could mobilize 160,000 people to contact their congressional
representatives.

MoveOn could learn a lot from an outfit that makes every penny
count like The Club for Growth. That's the gold standard for
money influencing government.

Think about it. Individual bike paths with costs in the millions.
I don't believe it.

Bob Schwartz

Bob Schwartz said:

Bill C said:

There seems to be a lot of that going around here are some extracts
from a newsletter I get:

Dude,

I know MoveOn is one of your hot buttons. Lord only knows why,
since they're really not that effective of a group. But just
looking at those numbers, if the people writing that newsletter
are not giving sources I think they're making [censored] up.

I don't believe the budget numbers and I don't believe MoveOn
could mobilize 160,000 people to contact their congressional
representatives.

MoveOn could learn a lot from an outfit that makes every penny
count like The Club for Growth. That's the gold standard for
money influencing government.

Think about it. Individual bike paths with costs in the millions.
I don't believe it.

Bob Schwartz

Bob unfortunately I do believe those figures. Our local bike path is
missing about has been missing about a three mile stretch in the middle
for years now because of crossing one roadway. They've already spent
about $200,000 on traffic studies of that one crossing. They are
finally going ahead with a level crossing and lights I believe, but
earlier options were a tunnel under the road, as we have in several
places, or a rideable bridge over the road. The costs just for either
of those options were approaching $1 milllion. That would've built the
first 500 feet of the connector. Our paths will be within about 1/4
mile of each other when done, but you can't really connect them except
on a mtn bike even then. We're still going to have an active set of RR
tracks, a field, and then a major road crossing missing to make them
connect. The last road crossing is going to be a huge problem. There
used to be a RR bridge across it with the road depressed under it. That
would flood 4' deep in any good thunderstorm even with a couple of
storm drains and trucks still got stuck so they took it out and
levelled the road. There's no way they are going to get a level
crossing passed on this road, just isn't safe. To cross it they'd have
to build a fairly high bridge and on one side there's plenty of roo to
land it, but on the other the businesses have expanded into the old RR
space and there really isn't a good place to land it. I don't even
think they've begun studying the options here due to the cost and the
political backlash about better places to spend the money. I'd guess
that just getting over the active RR and main road safely would be
close to $2million whan you add it all up.
A million doesn't go as far as it used to.
Bill C

Bill C said:

Bob Schwartz said:

Bill C said:

There seems to be a lot of that going around here are some extracts
from a newsletter I get:

Dude,

I know MoveOn is one of your hot buttons. Lord only knows why,
since they're really not that effective of a group. But just
looking at those numbers, if the people writing that newsletter
are not giving sources I think they're making [censored] up.

I don't believe the budget numbers and I don't believe MoveOn
could mobilize 160,000 people to contact their congressional
representatives.

MoveOn could learn a lot from an outfit that makes every penny
count like The Club for Growth. That's the gold standard for
money influencing government.

Think about it. Individual bike paths with costs in the millions.
I don't believe it.

Bob Schwartz

Bob unfortunately I do believe those figures. Our local bike path is
missing about has been missing about a three mile stretch in the middle
for years now because of crossing one roadway. They've already spent
about $200,000 on traffic studies of that one crossing. They are
finally going ahead with a level crossing and lights I believe, but
earlier options were a tunnel under the road, as we have in several
places, or a rideable bridge over the road. The costs just for either
of those options were approaching $1 milllion. That would've built the
first 500 feet of the connector. Our paths will be within about 1/4
mile of each other when done, but you can't really connect them except
on a mtn bike even then. We're still going to have an active set of RR
tracks, a field, and then a major road crossing missing to make them
connect. The last road crossing is going to be a huge problem. There
used to be a RR bridge across it with the road depressed under it. That
would flood 4' deep in any good thunderstorm even with a couple of
storm drains and trucks still got stuck so they took it out and
levelled the road. There's no way they are going to get a level
crossing passed on this road, just isn't safe. To cross it they'd have
to build a fairly high bridge and on one side there's plenty of roo to
land it, but on the other the businesses have expanded into the old RR
space and there really isn't a good place to land it. I don't even
think they've begun studying the options here due to the cost and the
political backlash about better places to spend the money. I'd guess
that just getting over the active RR and main road safely would be
close to $2million whan you add it all up.
A million doesn't go as far as it used to.
Bill C

Should've included this. If you want to know what the Far Right is
taking action about this'll give you a really good idea:
http://www.conservativepetitions.com/petitions.php
Bill C

Bill C said:

Bob Schwartz said:

Think about it. Individual bike paths with costs in the millions.
I don't believe it.

Bob Schwartz

Bob unfortunately I do believe those figures.

I don't.

I have a study for a rail-to-trail conversion from about 10
years ago. Now granted, a rail-to-trail is a way different
animal than an urban trail. But they did 20 miles of pavement
using recycled pavement, parking areas, trestle redecking,
a couple of convert replacements, signage. Much of it was done
with low cost youth slave labor. The whole schmeer was under
$200,000. That didn't include the cost of any associated
studies.

Urban trails deal with difficult crossings by routing the
trail to a safer crossing. I can only think of about a billion
examples of this. This is often accomplished by using a roadway
section and integrating the trail with a signalled crossing.

It is just not that easy to spend several millions of dollars
on a single bike path.

Bob Schwartz

Bill C said:

Should've included this. If you want to know what the Far Right is
taking action about this'll give you a really good idea:
http://www.conservativepetitions.com/petitions.php

And they use open source PHP; I would have thought they would have
labelled PHP as part of a communist conspiracy and used something a bit
more conservatively kosher like asp.

Bob Schwartz said:

Bill C said:

Bob Schwartz said:

Think about it. Individual bike paths with costs in the millions.
I don't believe it.

Bob Schwartz

Bob unfortunately I do believe those figures.

I don't.

I have a study for a rail-to-trail conversion from about 10
years ago. Now granted, a rail-to-trail is a way different
animal than an urban trail. But they did 20 miles of pavement
using recycled pavement, parking areas, trestle redecking,
a couple of convert replacements, signage. Much of it was done
with low cost youth slave labor. The whole schmeer was under
$200,000. That didn't include the cost of any associated
studies.

Urban trails deal with difficult crossings by routing the
trail to a safer crossing. I can only think of about a billion
examples of this. This is often accomplished by using a roadway
section and integrating the trail with a signalled crossing.

It is just not that easy to spend several millions of dollars
on a single bike path.

Bob Schwartz

Here are some figures from projects:
http://tinyurl.com/dgmwe
http://tinyurl.com/8e8nc

Quoted message said:

From this one:

To build a new bike path, the City must go through a planning and
environmental review process, and acquire the necessary permits from
State, local, and Federal agencies. It can cost up to $1 million per
mile to build a new bike path.

http://www.s-t.com/daily/04-02/04-29-02/a09lo060.htm
Here's a story on paving costs:
http://tinyurl.com/btnx2
I'd agree with you for a RR conversion in a rural area with no wetland
and traffic concerns, but even in the suburbs when you take trail head
stuff into consideration the costs skyrocket, and at least here since
these are public projects all the people involved have to be paid
prevailing union wage which adds a lot of expense.
Here's costs from Mass:
http://tinyurl.com/7fj2m
The Norwottuck trail is ours, and as I said it left out what will be
the most expensive aprox. 3 miles.
This State list is incomplete because they just finished a more rural
one near here but I can't find a cost on it that might be closer to
what you are thinking of for cost.
Bill C

Bill C said:

Here are some figures from projects:
http://tinyurl.com/dgmwe
http://tinyurl.com/8e8nc

Quoted message said:

From this one:

To build a new bike path, the City must go through a planning and
environmental review process, and acquire the necessary permits from
State, local, and Federal agencies. It can cost up to $1 million per
mile to build a new bike path.

http://www.s-t.com/daily/04-02/04-29-02/a09lo060.htm
Here's a story on paving costs:
http://tinyurl.com/btnx2
I'd agree with you for a RR conversion in a rural area with no wetland
and traffic concerns, but even in the suburbs when you take trail head
stuff into consideration the costs skyrocket, and at least here since
these are public projects all the people involved have to be paid
prevailing union wage which adds a lot of expense.
Here's costs from Mass:
http://tinyurl.com/7fj2m
The Norwottuck trail is ours, and as I said it left out what will be
the most expensive aprox. 3 miles.
This State list is incomplete because they just finished a more rural
one near here but I can't find a cost on it that might be closer to
what you are thinking of for cost.
Bill C

The $1 million/mile figure is a worst case scenario. The Mass.
projects confirm that. None of those reach the $4 million mark
like you saw in that newsletter you quoted. Only one of them
comes close to $1 million/mile. Do you think costs in a densely
populated state with expensive labor like Mass. are higher or
lower than in other parts of the country?

We are putting in a bike path here next to a high traffic six
lane urban highway. The road crossings for the path are integrated
into the signalled intersections. If that isn't possible for the
3 mile connector you cite then that is very unusual.

Bob Schwartz

Bob Schwartz said:

Bill C said:

Here are some figures from projects:
http://tinyurl.com/dgmwe
http://tinyurl.com/8e8nc

Quoted message said:

From this one:

To build a new bike path, the City must go through a planning and
environmental review process, and acquire the necessary permits from
State, local, and Federal agencies. It can cost up to $1 million per
mile to build a new bike path.

http://www.s-t.com/daily/04-02/04-29-02/a09lo060.htm
Here's a story on paving costs:
http://tinyurl.com/btnx2
I'd agree with you for a RR conversion in a rural area with no wetland
and traffic concerns, but even in the suburbs when you take trail head
stuff into consideration the costs skyrocket, and at least here since
these are public projects all the people involved have to be paid
prevailing union wage which adds a lot of expense.
Here's costs from Mass:
http://tinyurl.com/7fj2m
The Norwottuck trail is ours, and as I said it left out what will be
the most expensive aprox. 3 miles.
This State list is incomplete because they just finished a more rural
one near here but I can't find a cost on it that might be closer to
what you are thinking of for cost.
Bill C

The $1 million/mile figure is a worst case scenario. The Mass.
projects confirm that. None of those reach the $4 million mark
like you saw in that newsletter you quoted. Only one of them
comes close to $1 million/mile. Do you think costs in a densely
populated state with expensive labor like Mass. are higher or
lower than in other parts of the country?

We are putting in a bike path here next to a high traffic six
lane urban highway. The road crossings for the path are integrated
into the signalled intersections. If that isn't possible for the
3 mile connector you cite then that is very unusual.

Bob Schwartz

This is a nanny state here Bob, the argument over whether they could
use light and level crossing at the first road held the project up for
about 5 years while they did study after study on a bridge, tunnel, and
light, and how that would impact the highway exit and 2 major roads
that meet near this intersection. You must have better politicians than
we do. That figure for the Norwottuck trail is also about 10 years old,
so you'd almost have to double it today. I'd be willing to bet that at
least 20% of any project total done here is spent on impact studies.
The figures make it clear that the costs are massively different
depending on what type of area the former RR ran through and how the
politicians view traffic hassles. We still have no connector to and
through the downtown area and I'm not hopeful. The problem is that the
dead line converges and runs alongside a line that's in use and there's
no other good corridor and no way to run it along the paralell road as
that is already way over it's designed traffic rating with businesses
right up tight to it for most of it.
This is all under a ton of discussion again right now since we've had
a fatality to a college student and several others that could easily
have been fatal, but they are trying to pass a tax hike to preserve
open space, if that goes through I think it will kill any support for
spending money on more bike stuff, let's face it we're still a minority
and low on the priority list.
I'm not sure where you are, but doing anything construction related is
a lot more expensive here than just about anyplace else I've been.
Almost all the old RRs here run past old factory sites. They are now
having to do soil and water sampling and testing at these sites before
they'll let a trail run by them. That makes some sense to me, but it
also stops things dead while they come up with cleanup or containment
plans for these sites and that's another cost. You know as well as I do
that the longer things stay on the drawing board the more they cost.
I agree that a million a mile is the high end but except for the
Worcester trail they are all averaging over $200,000/mile with some
significantly higher and like I said they have skipped some of the most
costly sections and tried to build usage and a case for support before
running out big new expenses.
I guess we are going to disgree on this.
Bill C

Bob Schwartz said:

It is just not that easy to spend several millions of dollars
on a single bike path.

Having seen the numbers on more than a few from several different
sources, spending a million in a city is easy. Grading over or under a
street is often the only way to do it - you don't route around six or
seven blocks for one crossing - and you can't meet ASSHTO specs by
starting 50 feet from the intersection. Those crossings, when
necessary, are definitely expensive.

Building is funded in large part by the Feds, but requires that the
funding authority be shown a party that will provide maintenance long
term. For a typical state or municipality that means it is better to
spend as much money as necessary to properly prepare the subsurface
and surface for the long term to cut down on the maintenance dollars
coming from the locals or some specifically organized nonprofit.

Crushed stone and repave may be fine for a recreational trail with
primarily traffic on mountain bikes, but it doesn't generally cut it
in downtown DC where the traffic is primarily on street bikes.

One example - and it is easy to find many - is the Capital Crescent
Trail in DC. The core cost of this trail - built largely on an
abandoned rail ROW - was about $ 25,000,000.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Bill C said:

* $2.8 million for a bike/pedestrian path in Madison, Wisconsin

I went looking for this one. I'm not sure if I found it, but
there are details that people may find interesting.

http://dnr.wi.gov/master_planning/badgertrail/Badger_Trail_master_plan_draft_Oct_05.pdf

This is a mostly rural 40 mile rail-to-trail conversion. The
costs are broken out on page 25. The total is $4.4 million.
Almost 30% of that is the cost of a bridge over a four lane
divided highway. If this is it then the $2.8 million must be
the portion of that cost from the feds. Bridges ain't cheap.

It would be inaccurate to hang all the cost on bikes. There is
discussion of horse, ATV, and snowmobile use.

On page 23 there is an estimate of a $2.1 million/year economic
impact.

Bob Schwartz

Bob Schwartz said:

Bill C said:

* $2.8 million for a bike/pedestrian path in Madison, Wisconsin

I went looking for this one. I'm not sure if I found it, but
there are details that people may find interesting.

http://dnr.wi.gov/master_planning/badgertrail/Badger_Trail_master_plan_draft_Oct_05.pdf

This is a mostly rural 40 mile rail-to-trail conversion. The
costs are broken out on page 25. The total is $4.4 million.
Almost 30% of that is the cost of a bridge over a four lane
divided highway. If this is it then the $2.8 million must be
the portion of that cost from the feds. Bridges ain't cheap.

It would be inaccurate to hang all the cost on bikes. There is
discussion of horse, ATV, and snowmobile use.

On page 23 there is an estimate of a $2.1 million/year economic
impact.

Bob Schwartz

Bob that's the point I've been making all along. Bridges and tunnels
cost big bucks, and drivers don't want to deal with lights restricting
the traffic flow. That's exactly what's driving up our costs and why
our trails don't connect. That's also why they do so many traffic
studies. The first thing in getting public funding here is convincing
the cage types that this isn't going to disrupt their drive, and will
get people off the roads and make their driving easier. Our problem has
been a 100% increase of auto traffic over the last decade with only 5%
population growth.
With this area having established housing and businesses on much
narrower roads designed for much less traffic there's not a whole lot
of room for bike lanes and stuff when they have widened the roads to
allow for more auto traffic. That's the [censored] about the town being here
since 1654.
Bill C

So, guess who won the election last night?

Hopefully the rest of city council will reign her in, or life will be
tough for cyclists up in Quebec City.

Quoted message said:

So, guess who won the election last night?

Vinick. I think the show wants a fresh angle to keep viewers interested
and appeal to new audiences.

--
E. Dronkert