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From: Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Let's hide the bicyclists behind parked cars. What could
 go wrong?
Date: 14 Jan 2025 19:50:34 GMT
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John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14 Jan 2025 11:35:36 GMT, Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com> wrote:
> 
>> John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 18:27:09 +0100, Wolfgang Strobl
>>> <news51@mystrobl.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Am Mon, 13 Jan 2025 11:24:29 -0500 schrieb Frank Krygowski
>>>> <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:
>>>> 
>>>>> "Traffic traveling as much as 90 kph" is usually much less problem for 
>>>>> me than John pretends, in part because most of the roads I ride have 
>>>>> slower speeds, chosen because of aesthetics. Less traffic and less road 
>>>>> noise is more pleasant.
>>>> 
>>>> Exactly.  An quite a lot of roads with no limit (meaning limited to 100
>>>> km/h outside of highways) are wide enough or have little traffic, so
>>>> that overtaking slower vehicles is not much of a problem.  I a driver is
>>>> able to overtake another that only drives at 80 km/h, he or she is
>>>> certailny able to overtake a cyclist doing 30 km/h only. Most probably,
>>>> the latter is much easier to do, for obvious reasons.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> And even those with 55 mph cars seldom have continuous platoons. One or 
>>>>> two motorists at a time are easy to deal with. In either case, when 
>>>>> motorists see me at lane center, they seem to realize right away that 
>>>>> they will have to adjust their speed, their lane choice or whatever. 
>>>>> It's rare to even get a horn honk.
>>>> 
>>>> Time to show this short video again
>>>> <https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/20210710/L113.mp4> 
>>>> We have used that road quite often, because it is the best connection to
>>>> get out of the larger Rhine valley and into the low mountain range
>>>> called "Eifel".  Narrower roads, especially those with a sidepath are
>>>> both more unpleasant and more risky. Motorists can sniff "bicycle
>>>> infrastructure" even when there isn't any. Any rotten footpath is good
>>>> enough. :-(
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Now try some of the roads here :-)
>>> https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1762349/understanding-bangkoks-traffic-woes
>> 
>> Considering Bangkok’s size ie it’s comparable to London/New York in size
>> building more lanes isn’t going to work just drive more demand which seems
>> to be truism world wide.
>> 
> 
> Bangkok and London are very nearly the same "size" both in area and
> population.
> 
>> Car and car infrastructure is expensive and hugely wasteful in terms of
>> space, doesn’t seem to have viable alternatives to cars and or motorcycles
>> and the generally lax enforcement and expectations as you note in your
>> other post.
> 
> Bangkok has, since I first came there, built a rather extensive system
> of above the ground trains (the Sky Train) and underground subways
> (The Deerhound) system and in addition has a vast number of taxies. Un
> fortunately they also have a vast number of people :-) so traveling
> during "going to work" and "Going home" periods  is very crowded,
> (very, very crowded :-).

It’s described as exciting for transport folks, due to the building of new
lines and services, it’s equivalent to London in population and area, but
has a much lower transit capacity hence being viewed as exciting! For
reference last new transit line built the Elizabeth line which is
essentially a line crossing west to east london hence its original name of
cross rail, carries 700,000 folks per day.

Being blunt Bangkok has some serious catching up to do! But does have the
advantage of seeing what worked or not with transit.
> 
> The roads are a problem as nearly all are bounded by stores ranging
> from multi story to "shop houses". A shop house is a 2 or 3 story
> building with a shop in the ground floor 1 or 2 upper stories for the
> owner and his family to live in and to widen the road all those
> buildings would have to be torn down. They did this on a street - a
> connecting street between two large roads, that we lived near... less
> then 1 mile long and it took 5 years to do.
> 
> P.S. Much of the terrifyiing road death statistics in Thailand are due
> to small motorcycles -  100cc, etc. that are responsible for about 80%
> of the deaths..
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> And this absolutely has a effect on Thailand’s place high up with traffic
>> deaths/injurys
>> 
>> Either way knocking over buildings/districts as the American cities did
>> with the freeways is unlikely to work, note number of US cities are
>> removing them or rather some parts of them.
>> 
>> Roger Merriman

Roger Merriman