I'm hopeful. This measure forces visibility of progress and allows any regular citizen to sue the city if they try to weasel out. I can't imagine a city politician taking a position of "we're going to fight this ridiculous lawsuit about not installing a wider sidewalk for as long as it takes." That's a real bad look, especially given this measure passed 65% for, 35% against. It would be political suicide.

Go for ankle straps over vests. It's far more important for the reflective materials to be moving than the amount of body coverage you have.

GCN recently covered this topic with interviews of optometry and psychology professors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33GpfTWdk8U

You're probably at the edge of the bus line. There's a usually very empty bus every 30 minutes just a block away from me. I took that bus a few times and realized that my neighborhood is the turn around for it. Most of the folk on it have gotten off by the time it loops through.

This situation of empty busses at houses makes sense too. Why would a bus be full at the edge of town? It needs passengers first and they won't accumulate until the bus is near populated spots like downtown. And why would a city pay for empty busses when they could route them in better areas?

There's evidence they are being used as an alternative to more polluting modes: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-bikes-and-mopeds-are-cutting-demand-for-oil-far-more-than-electric-cars-213870

I too live in a state that's eliminating stagnating regulation, which in turn is causing my town and neighboring towns to catch up with extreme housing demands. I imagine we both will experience an awkward phase as some lots get updated buildings next to lots that haven't seen construction in 60+ years.

I view my recent experience as long needed development. There's no way a developer would plunge that much money into a building if they didn't believe they could sell the apartments/condos. I'd watch to see how fast they sell out, if they haven't already. Consider investing in nearby development if the complex sells quick. Maybe also consider moving further down the train line if you're looking for a less dense neighborhood.

That's a fair position to take, and thank you for debating. Have an upvote!

I don't think park-and-ride should be made artificially cheap or free because that causes demand to drive to the town edges. Regional transit is needed and is already competing with subsidized highways. We don't need more subsidies that induce even more regional car demand!

Besides, even with charging for the lost costs, park-and-ride is going to be cheaper over inner-city parking. Let me clarify my point of the cost of a garage: the cost of building a garage includes materials, maintenance, enforcement, and land value. City edge land is cheap to the point that park-and-ride probably won't be built as a garage but as a lot. Engineered buildings are expensive and usually only make sense when the land value is very high. I suspect it's only a million or two to build a paved, ~200 spot park-and-ride, which would place daily spot pricing on the order of $1.50 to $2.50 a day. That's pretty cheap compared to privately owned garaged parking in major cities (> $25 a day).

My pricing beef orbits around how often city garages are heavily subsidized. I'll make a real-life example from a nearby city of 64,000 people. They built a garage adjacent to their downtown for $12 million. Amortizing that over 15 years and the number of spaces puts the minimum revenue per spot at $8.98 per day. What is the city's going rate for parking? $40 per month for a permit and $1.25 an hour with 9 hours of enforcement. Only the hourly rate at 100% occupancy, which this lot is not generating, meets just the construction costs, let alone figuring out discount rate and property taxes.

And speaking of taxes, I expect publicly built parking lots and garages to also pay for their taxable rate, even if it's just an accounting trick by the city to price their lots. Running local property taxes as a land value tax would go a long way towards properly pricing the value of public garages. LVT would also discourage parking in the city center, where land is expensive, in favor of parking on the city edge, where land is cheap. Just another trick which drives down park-and-ride pricing and discourages city-center parking.

There are good parking garages and bad parking garages. What makes a good parking garage? I'd say good garages must be:

• Located away from attractions and venues. The garage should not operate as a way to funnel cars into a popular area but rather as a way to store cars for those unfortunate enough to be unable to arrive by alternative means.
• Located close to public transit. The garage should operate as a gateway into a local community, hence should have access to bike paths, trains and trams, buses, etc to carry their passengers into a community.
• Be priced to cover the garage cost. Garages are expensive and the hourly/daily fees with average occupancy should pay for the garage in 10 to 15 years.
• A tool to remove on-street parking and minimum parking requirements.

Bad garages are ones that break the good rules. They are:

• Are free or too cheap to pay off their construction cost and land value in a reasonable time period.
• Located inside downtown areas.
• A method to increase the capacity of car storage in downtowns.

It's also possible for a good garage to become a bad one. Say a small town installs a parking lot on the edge of town, but then the town grows. That lot should be removed due to the increased land value it occupies. The new medium sized town can consider adding a parking lot or garage again, but certainly not in their popular, profitable, and active downtown.

Start smaller and cheaper! A rack and inexpensive/DIY paniers will absolutely hold two bags of groceries. Try riding an occasional forgot-the-milk / fresh veggies / beer run. It's liberating.

I bought an inexpensive cargo bike, and enjoy it greatly, but I've gotten a fair amount of mileage out of my older bike after putting on a simple rack.

Another deeply disturbing tale. RIP Ben.

I've had many coworkers roll into the office with their carbon bikes because it makes quick work of a long commute and it's so easy to carry a lightweight machine up the office stairs. They'd wear a backpack if they needed to carry a laptop. No cars involved; not even a bus.

There's no need to gatekeep which kind of bike someone chooses to use when the objective is to not drive a car. They can ride a carbon bike if they want too.

Those are value judgements. How does a carbon bike get stolen if it's never locked in a public place? Why would a carbon bike be loaded with anything more than a bottle of water and a small saddle bag?

These considerations are important for commuting, touring, and other fun activities, but are perhaps less important for the bike racer.

The advice is good (steel and aluminum are much underappreciated) yet this op-ed is weird and mean spirited. Yeah, carbon fiber bikes are expensive and quirky. They're a specialty bike for racers squeaking out tens of seconds to a minute or two of time. No one is seriously advising new riders to get a 10 grand bike. Why the gatekeeping? Let racers spend their money on their favorite, healthy, and engaging hobby.