Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Rolf Mantel <news@hartig-mantel.de>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: New York's Crackdown on Ebikes
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2025 13:24:49 +0200
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Am 01.06.2025 um 12:04 schrieb Roger Merriman:
> NFN Smith <worldoff9908@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Roger Merriman wrote:

>>>> We also have several canals (including one right next to my house) that
>>>> have dedicated multi-use paths on one side of the canal.  These are more
>>>> or less municipal paths, and very much a magnet for recreational use,
>>>> ranging from simple pedestrians to serious cyclists. On the other side
>>>> of the canal (at least in the space near my house) what's there is
>>>> essentially a service road that is owned by the water utility that
>>>> operates the canal. In some places, the service road is paved (and also
>>>> suitable for cycling, as it's even wider than the multi-use path), but
>>>> only a mile in either direction, the surface is gravel.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Those are lovely places but not particularly useful for utility purposes as
>>> they are narrow and is limited as to how many can useful use such places.
>>
>> Besides passing visual similarities, the two are entirely different
>> situations.
>>
>> In Europe, I think that most canals tend to be done to facilitate
>> drainage, especially working around population density. Where I am, the
>> space is flat and very spread out.  Our canal system was actually built
>> several hundred years before the first European or Euro-American
>> settlers.  The Europeans modified somewhat with more modern engineering,
>> but for both, the intent of the canals is to move water from the river
>> system into places that it can be used for agricultural irrigation.
>>
> No European Canals where for transportation of industrial materials had
> fairly brief moment in history before the railways arrived, hence the tow
> paths for horses.
> 
> Are places where you get irrigation and drainage such as the fens where
> they have drained the swamp as you where, but they aren’t the normal use
> for canals which are transporting materials and goods. Are still some in
> use like the ship canal between Liverpool and Manchester.

"Europe" is a big region.  We have drainage canals in swamplands and 
flat coastal areas (e.g. Germany, Netherlands, Fenlands in the UK).
The larger ones
<https://maps.app.goo.gl/9yHW47yd9YhgM3cq5>
usually have "dam's crown" lanes on both sides but sometimes interrupted 
by newer roads, thus rarely/barely useful for recreational purposes.

There are irrigation canals in the drier regions in shouthern Europe; 
the old ones usually have a footpath for maintenance alongside.

Then there are the transportational canals in the two varieties 
"pre-railway" (mostly in UK, France, Belgium, and mostly derelict ones 
in other countries) with tow paths and modern ones the size of major rivers
<https://maps.app.goo.gl/5W3LZVq1YDnQvS5G7>
which usually have paths that can be used for recreational purposes if 
they are not interrupted by ports (or a port bypass is built).

Rolf