"FREE Government Money for EVERYBODY!"
Posted on 08/11/2005 10:20:18 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
MINNEAPOLIS - When Erika Sass moved here from Washington state, she had a choice of how to get to work: hop in the car and drive 15 minutes or get on her bike and pedal an hour.
She chose the bike.
"I've never seen trails like this," Sass said of the bike paths crisscrossing the Twin Cities, one of the nation's top bicycling areas.
The transportation bill signed Wednesday by President Bush spends most of its $286.4 billion on road-building, but it also includes a chunk of change — $3 billion by one group's estimate — to expand cycling and walking trails.
The Twin Cities are getting $25 million from a pilot project designed to measure how such trails can help reduce road congestion.
"We want to figure out how to make these trails useful, not just for fitness but for actual transportation," said Lea Schuster of Transit for Livable Communities in St. Paul.
According to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a bicycle advocacy group, Minneapolis already has more people biking to work than any other city — 2.63 percent of commuters.
State transportation officials said the money probably would be earmarked for construction. A mile of bike path in the suburbs can cost from $100,000 to $500,000, but can grow to as much as $1 million in the city because of the high cost of land acquisition.
A mile of new freeway, by comparison, can cost anywhere from $40 million to $75 million, according to the Metropolitan Council.
Even if $25 million does buy a lot of trail, bicycle advocates themselves downplayed the likely effect on congestion.
"It's not going to fix the Twin Cities congestion problem," said David Dixen, a board member at the Parks and Trails Council of Minnesota.
According to America Bikes, a coalition of eight national bike organizations, the transportation bill includes potentially $3 billion in bike and pedestrian money, depending on how states decide to spend the money. That figure covers projects such as bicycling and walking trails, sidewalks and bike lanes on roads, said Barbara McCann, a spokeswoman for the coalition, which lobbied for biking and walking provisions in the bill.
In Columbia, Mo., which is also in the pilot program, planners envision an extensive trails network that could be key to growth.
"Twenty-five million dollars in a town the size of Columbia and at this point in our growth could be very dramatic," said Chip Cooper, chairman of The PedNet Coalition, a group of locals that promotes non-motorized transportation. "This could really put us on the map as one of America's healthiest communities."
Like Sass, the newcomer from Washington state, Jonathan Scott pedals to his job — as a patent attorney. He does it to avoid the crowded roads.
"With the millions and billions they spend on freeways," Scott said, "it's time they spend more money on trails."
___
Associated Press writers Frederic J. Frommer in Washington and Alan Scher Zagier in Columbia, Mo., contributed to this report.
Exactly!
We had a big fight over public easements on private property, since you will be named in a lawsuit if someone stubs their toe on your patch of land. We asked the county and state, how will you protect us from these types of lawsuits ? Their answer was, we can't. So we said then you'll have to buy the property too, whereupon they started to cry poor.
I had a neighbor farmer who was sued , along with the phone company, the electric company, and the state, when a yahoo went off the road and hit a utility pole on this farmer's land. The farmer was finally excused from the lawsuit, but not until after he paid his lawyer in excess of $10,000 for his defense.
Who needs the aggravation and expense ?
There is the principle, too. With a public access easement any yahoo can drive their bulldozer down there and if you don't like the noise and dust and complain they will whip out a hunting license or just start talking about their rights. This could all be clarified by either dedicating the easements or abandoning them. That would my first act as Pres if I ever accidently get that office. Rightwhale Executive Order #1. I have a plan for that afternoon, too. Doesn't hurt to be prepared.
33rd (of 232 nations) on the global list for 2004.
Amen to every word you posted. I know exactly what you mean. Whenever someone passes me because I'm to far over to the right I'm always mad at myself for not taking the whole lane and making them treat me like a car.
Thanks. In your case I understand. I believe in private property rights above all else.
Ditto on all of that except that with 7 or our 8 kids still living at home we still have to use the car more than we'd like. But it's great that the kids learn at a young age that bikes are not toys but are tools for transportation. They love the independence they get without having to buy a car. We warn them a lot of the evils of owning a car and being a slave to payments, insurance, maintenance, gas prices and laziness.
We teach the kids to use the sidewalk, but pedestrians have their rights of way. Adults bicycle on the streets, and the only risk is idiots who swing open their car doors without looking. As a driver, I consider anyone who swings open a car door into traffic without looking to be an idiot.
Yes but as a biker, getting "doored" hurts, from what I hear. I have read that streets are safer than sidewalks but I know that to be dependent on the particular street vs the particular sidewalk.
yes
the internet was created by an experiment. we love it, but might not have been so thrilled when reading about it 15 years ago.
"Now I get a little bit out into the lane, forcing them to treat me like a car."
As one cyclist to another:
You are playing Russian Roullette, with total strangers. You have no idea, if one of them is nuts, and decides to run you down. Or simply doesn't see you.
I went through the stage where I was going to show those darn car drivers a thing or two. Show them we both were equally entitled to use the roads.
Then at some moment, rational thought kicked in. I asked myself what price I was willing to pay, to prove this point?
My bike and I reach nearly 200 lbs. Most vehicles these days exceed 3,000 lbs. Factoring in rate of travel, I am disadvantaged.
I use bike trails whenever possible. On streets I never press for my "equal entitlement."
Didn't work that way in Minnesota. This excerpt is from
http://www.mnbiketrails.com/main.asp?SectionID=22&SubSectionID=45&ArticleID=176&TM=34786.09
""Paul Bunyan Trail dispute settled
Court case overturned
Rail-to-Trails joined the fight
The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in a landmark decision that significantly advances the cause of converting abandoned railroad lines into recreation trails.
The Supreme Court held in State of Minnesota vs. Hess et al that certain key properties included in the Paul Bunyan State Trail did not revert to the abutting property owners once the railroad line on which the trail was constructed ceased to be used for railroad purposes.""
No it seems the conditions were different. My deed, and those of the others affected in my situation, were specifically an easement. In PA, however, we had to prove that the railroad had formally completed the abandonment process before we could reclaim the right-of-way.
It seems like these people should challenged the 1947 law to be a taking, or should file suit against their title companies, to get redress. Not being a lawyer, I don't know if any of that is feasible, however.
Why are you on a conservative web site ?
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