mr_bill

Electricity (Rural Electrification Act of 1936)
Telephone (Communications Act of 1934/Telecomunications Act of 1996)
Highways (Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956)
Internet Broadband (USDA, ongoing, only 4.8 million of 24 million rural households to date)

-mr. bill

mr_bill

Just wondering, more like this (too many horses?):







-mr. bill

Caliper

All things that virtually everyone wanted to use and are in steady use once implemented. Telephone and electricity also are pretty much self sustaining once the initial infrastructure investment is laid in. But let's be honest, the majority of adults in the US do not bicycle even given the opportunity and I see precious little bike traffic on trails outside of a recreational park. Are you really advocating for Amsterdam-type bike paths on the scale of the Interstate highway system? Others have mentioned that even in the Netherlands, bikes ride on the roads once you travel outside of Amsterdam and the like. Go for paved shoulders first and maybe there will eventually be a widespread enough demand for more. The biggest hurdle is that widespread adoption of bicycles for transportation would require a major change in American lifestyle or an even bigger change in fitness level (you should see peoples expressions when I talk about biking 38 miles to work)

Closer. Which house is that? Both my wife and I remember those roads from our visits.

mr_bill

walk to work even given the opportunity and I see precious little foot traffic on sidewalks.

OK, first, I've biked on roads INSIDE Amsterdam and Copenhagen too. I did not die. This idea that you need door-to-door bike infrastructure is ludicrous.

But second, you are flat out wrong about the long distance travel on bikes in either Netherlands or Denmark. Just look into riding between Amsterdam Centraal and Rotterdam Centraal. Not sure why I'd ride a bike the 75K between the two, I'd rather bring my bike on the train, but....

How about a more rational excursion Amsterdam to Utrecht, only 50K.

Up for a double metric century? Amsterdam to Groningen?

How about a really pleasant short ride, from Copenhagen to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Enjoy the outdoors, enjoy the art in the indoors, enjoy the art in the outdoors.

While planing your routes, figure out how many km's you spend on the roads. More importantly, ask what kinds of roads you are riding on.

That's just somebody's house. They just happen to live in one of the many new farmless houses around. (I live in a new farmless house too.)

-mr. bill

Caliper

I was talking about cycling at all, not to work. But, either way, you seem to understand why we don't have bike paths then.

I'm really not sure what your point is here and I've lost my atlas of Dutch bike trails. Taking the train would kinda defeat the purpose of going for a bike ride though, wouldn't it? The routes that Google maps (cycling directions) give me don't seem very appealing however. Can we go for a ride some place nicer? South Holland or outside of Zutphen look nice after a bit of scrolling about.

My impressions of bike travel outside of Amsterdam is from what others who have visited there have said. Just looking at the bicycling aspect of Google maps however, it shows that the green marked areas are more in city centers and less further out. Being that most all of the Netherlands is densely populated, naturally the areas with more green are a greater percentage of the map than in the US. But of course, infrastructure tends to follow with tax base so no surprises there.

mr_bill

I give up.

-mr. bill

base2 

Seattle & Portland...In fact, the whole West coast, for example. Nobody here is from here. Lots of new license plates from a lot of far off places with poor job markets arriving daily. 300,000 to the Puget Sound area last year alone.

Stadjer

No, not really.


This is dedicated/independent bike paths only, bicycle lanes are not included.

I don't think it would make much sense for the USA because of the low number of cyclists and the huge distances. Allthough it's useful for transportation, a lot of the network is from the early 20th century financed by the cycling association that believed it was important for the people to get out of their villages and see something of the 'world', which probably was the case.

I'm not entirely sure about that. I've no complaints about the home cooking but that never translated to eating out, that food has traditionally been import. French for the fancier restaurants but almost any village over 3000 people has had at least one Chinese restaurant and take away since the 60's, followed by the pizzeria's, because there was a gap to fill. Taste buds have evolved and after decades of halfhearted trend following there finally seems to be some sort of direction to the bulk of non-exotic restaurants.

Caliper

Agreed, there are many bike paths, but that's never been in dispute. But you say you do have bike lanes, and I saw in the Google street view streets that don't even have a bike lane. Do Dutch cyclists simply avoid these streets that don't have bike lanes?

Stadjer

No, peace broke out a couple of decades ago. Cars might want to avoid them if they're in a hurry, if there's room to pass they will pass, if it's too tight they will stay behind the cyclists. It's a 30 km street or a 'woonerf' which is a residential area with a walking pace speed limit, it's where kids play on the street so then 30km is way too fast.

Caliper

Interesting. I wasn't aware that the population density of the Netherlands was in question.

mr_bill

mr_bill

Caliper

You keep trying to put words in my mouth. I never said scary. Crowded. It actually looks quite cheery in street view, but very developed and heavily populated. I'd have no issue riding there obviously, just not the place I'd preferr to be in.
Do I ever ride on 65mph roads? Well, technically no since we don't have any roads with a 65mph limit here. Bicycles aren't allowed on the 70-75mph Interstate highway system but they have a wide paved shoulder so I'd be fine riding there if permitted. The closest I've got in Michigan are 50-55mph roads and yes, if I'm riding on pavement it's almost certainly a 55mph road. I do prefer to go on the dirt backroads which actually have a 50 or 55mph speed limit but fewer people and more hills. Not much in between in my area.

Hmmm, ctrl+F, nope I never said boondocks anywhere above so I'll leave you to your strawman. I said that reports are (and street view agrees) that there are not always bike paths outside the city.
Anyways, there's a difference between riding past what is essentially a commercial farm and riding through a forest that hasn't been touched in a lifetime. I've looked back and forth along the route between Amsterdam and Groningen using street view and while it is quite scenic, I can't find a single spot where I don't see another car, buildings, etc. It looks nice to visit, but not a spot I'd want to live, which was my initial point on entering this thread.
Like I said, our perceptions differ. The only time I have felt truly alone on a road was once while traveling across Wyoming when I realized that I hadn't seen a car and barely a sign of human habitation for an hour or two. Nice place.

Stadjer

No, of course not. There's a minimum speed of 50 km/h and it's for motor vehicles only. I don't care that much about legality, but there is a good reason for it too.

Streetview is made by cars with camera's driving around, and they are not allowed on bike paths. It's gonna take a while before google has the entire cycling network covered with bike camera's.

You'd have to go by bike for those spots. But it's all managed, primary forests have been gone in Western-Europe for ages anyway, but forests in the Netherlands have their designated sq.meters, to the meter precise and are protected and kept, same with heath or dunes. And of course there's little nature for many people so the chance of seeing another human beeing is real. There's always light pollution in the sense that the sky doesn't get really dark and the stars don't get bright. For the absence of man made sounds you have to bike quite far. And even there you'll find paths and sometimes a sign, or a pole camp site, which is just a pole with a tap, but it is connected to drinkwater net.

Here in the North, which isn't densily populated, there's a tidal area with a few small islands and I go sailing there quite regularly. It's a national park and a Unesco natural heritage site but even there when the low tide grounds the boat at night there's always some other boat in the distance also spending the night on the bottom, there are always lights in the distance, there are even 'traffic lights' in the water. I'm not a nature/great wide open kind of guy but it got to me too once. So on a calm summer day I sailed out of the tidal area into the North Sea, only to keep oil rigs in sight. Then the weather changed and it is only a 7 yard boat with less than 10 inches draught so it got pretty scary and I chickened out before ever beeing alone.

So you got a point there. The density is also affecting the non populated area's. The flipside is that nature is very close, that tidal area is within an hour's drive, if I ride 10 km I probably can pat a cow next to the bike path (farmers are part of nature preservation too), sometimes there's a flock of sheep going through the city centre, there's just no great wide open. It's not great, not very wide and some of it isn't even open to the public to not disturb the wildlife.