cgeroux.bsky.social
Use bikes to do what needs to be done as much as possible (groceries, kid to school, library, get Christmas trees etc.). PhD in Astronomy some years ago. Enjoy computer programming as a hobby and for work. Help researchers use computer clusters and cloud.
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Thinking about some breakdowns of costs I have seen for building construction, labour is often at least half, and 60-70% isn't crazy to see either.
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But why do materials and labour cost more? I know everything goes up over time seems how we defined our system. But is this faster than other things have gone up or is it right in line with inflation?
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I suppose I was thinking mostly about infrastructure like roads.
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And what if most people didn't need to own an EV but many people could share and share the cost. What if large EV cars were only for longer distances not well served by public transit/trains. EV cars are part of the solution but not the whole solution.
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Wondering why the cost of everything is going up so much. COVID, people are sick/tired can't work as effectively, climate crisis destroying stuff, is it just that surviving now costs a lot more than it used to? Or are there other things going on? Politics, the craziness down south? All of the above?
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Yeah I think you are right.
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Yeah I was thinking that too, but I just got out my tape measure and 1.8 m seems pretty wide. Like our car is less than 1.8m wide.
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Looks like from a cyclist perspective it will be kind of awkward to go straight given the angles of those channels.
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Zooming in on that figure it looks like the bike channels are 1.8 something, I assume meters since feet would be silly.
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I haven't had much luck with cleaning most times unfortunately. I have cleaned my rotors with rubbing alcohol, even gone so far as to wire brush off parts of the rotor and sand of a bit of the pads, but probably the only solution is to replace the pads and clean the rotor.
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A reminder of this great David Pope cartoon
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yeah that might do it.
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would it be possible to put them on cell interfaces? might be a pain and maybe not that important, but would make it clearer.
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Was just looking closely at the color plot and noticed that the hr markers are in the center of the bin. Does that mean, for example, the 7am bin contains counts from 6:30-7:30? Or something else like 6am-7am, or 7am-8am?
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ooo... this looks cool.. definitely going to take a look.
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That is a nice display of the data. Is it being updated regularly, or just a one time thing?
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I have been using this for smoke, but it also gives a rough sense of where the fires are and how big: firesmoke.ca/forecasts/cu...
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Then add to that the increasingly likely hood of disasters (floods, forest fires, extreme weather events, etc.), looks a little worse still.
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I would be curious to get their thoughts on such a thing.
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That is especially true of the fly over, but it is true in many other cases too to a lesser extent.
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I think it might be handy to note, that the price tag is that big because it does all it can to minimize impacts on existing car infrastructure. So in a way we aren't spending that money on bike infrastructure, we are spending it on car infrastructure. All that expenses is for cars, not bikes.
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I wonder if education of staff/councilors can be done through the use of staff reports? I mean, that is kind of their point and they are part of the existing process that we might be able to lean on more.
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I like the idea of proposing a staff report on escalating costs of car infrastructure and possibilities for cost savings there. Have you reached out to any councilors who might support such a thing, e.g. Shawn, Sam, or Laura and get their thoughts on it?
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One point I think that might be important, is that we left all the hard (possibly expensive?) stuff in the bike network (I hate to call it AAA cause it isn't) to the end. So that's what's left while I believe the 60% is likely about km completed, certainly not a 1:1 with cost.
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On Vernon st. The police officer was on a motor bike, he had just passed through the intersection going perpendicular direction, then did a u-turn and pulled up behind the guy.
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On the other hand, I see violations of those signs almost every time I bike by them, which is usually at least once a day often several times a day.
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Same here, my wife and I each do about 3000km a year nearly all short trips. 97% of my trips were by bike last year. That's why there is a coordinated attack against bike lanes, ebikes especially get people out of cars and then they can't take your money anymore.
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Do staff/councilors look at other research, or do they always do all their own? that would seem like an impossible task and a recipe for doing it all very poorly.
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It would be great if we got there... I just don't really have any faith in our governments and institutions anymore.
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I also think with all the crisis and massive wealth inequality, we need to be seriously considering universal basic income. But rich people with power doing care about that :( .
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It frustrates me..... people should not have to depend on random acts of kindness to survive. My $50 shouldn't matter that much. Our systems are so broken.
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I stop pull my bike over and offer her the fifty, she starts to cry. Then suddenly she hugs me. Then after a few seconds lets go and continues to cry and wipe her eyes with a tissue. Then she hugs me a again
What are we doing, why aren't we supporting people better, if $50 can have that much impact
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My home isn't too far and on the way I make the decision to grab my wallet, head back and offer her a twenty. On the way I think, how much is a twenty going to do for her, by the time I find her I have decided to go with a slightly better fifty instead.
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On my way home I am feeling bad that I couldn't offer something useful to someone who really needed some help. I feel like my offer of a freezie is silly and naive compared to her real life situation and how different it is form mine.
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She points to her cheek and makes a frown face. I make the assumption that they hurt her teeth. Then she says dollar, dollar, dollar. She is Asian and seems like she doesn't speak a lot of English. I don't have my wallet or any money on me. I try to let her know and bike home.
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Still had a few left when I noticed an old lady pushing a shopping cart loaded with cans, with a sun umbrella attached. I thought, I bet she could really use a freezie. I stop and offer her one.
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but the bike lanes help reduce traffic... lets pause part of the solution, until we reduce traffic with what methods? Does he know what the solutions are to traffic? It isn't to stop investing in more space efficient transportation options.
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I was trying to advocate for climate action and I saw advocating for AT as a way to side step the polarization created around climate action. Increasingly I am seeing that polarization happening around AT now too. It is a tactic. We can keep avoid polarized topics, eventually we will have to face it
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I don't think that is a simple fix. The organizations who are funding/pushing against AT are doing so because they are rightfully so worried about selling less oil and cars. They will push regardless.. There are many angles to argue for AT and I think multiple angles are good.
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I have heard arguments that self driving cars will improve traffic by being able to precisely coordinate with eachother and reduce delays. But I am certainly skeptical. I don't buy self driving cars are good enough even from a safety perspective I have an even harder time believing this coordination
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I am not an nuclear engineer either. I have heard from one that they are generally speaking quite safe to operate. But I couldn't elaborate on the details, mostly my issue is that at best they take around 5 yrs and often closer to 10yrs or more while wind is more like 1-2 yrs for example.
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The main thing I dislike about nuclear is how long it takes to get built.
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Thanks to you Martin and @sflkirk.bsky.social, great job busting some disinformation.
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Is that a real quote? Looks like it was from 4 years ago. At least where I am the bit "does not pay for the necessary maintenance and repairs" is actually false.
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I did a rough estimate the other day about what it costs us to use our ebike to do 3000km/year, about $20. While a car to drive that would be something like $250.