Re: Antipersonnel infrastructure

On 6/9/2024 2:09 PM, Roger Merriman wrote:

AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 6/9/2024 8:55 AM, Roger Merriman wrote:

Catrike Ryder <Soloman@old.bikers.org> wrote:

On Sat, 8 Jun 2024 14:26:58 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>

Latest boondoggle on North Clark Street Chicago:
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https://chi.streetsblog.org/2024/06/06/raised-expectations-some-curb-protected-bike-lanes-often-flood-could-switching-to-raised-lanes-solve-the-problem
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My daughter sent snapshots much like the above (and a long
harangue) taken on the way to work this morning.
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City of Chicago has a compulsion to waste money making
cyclists miserable and raising risk for cyclists.

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They're not just wasting money on bike lanes. GOvernments waste money,
after all, it's not the bureaucrats money and they know they can
always get more from the dumb shits who keep re-electing them.
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https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/waste-watch-nearly-100m-of-waste-in-illinois-state-and-local-government/
>

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Locally they are “upgrading” the A3 major a motorway in all but name road
at its junction with the M25 london’s orbital motorway.
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Project page
https://nationalhighways.co.uk/our-roads/m25-junction-10-project-profile/
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https://www.roads.org.uk/blog/we-need-talk-about-wisley
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And good appraisal of it, ie waste of 400 million on what is god awful mess
and a largely for short stretch of an extra lane! At best case the junction
will be overcapacity in under 10 years! A good use of money this is not!
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That would pay for a lot of bike lanes! And frankly hospitals! Both of
which would be much better investment of public money!
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Roger Merriman
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I don't doubt it.
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But your scale there is small.  One freeway interchange in
Chicago, sadly named for Jane Byrne*, took 9 years and $793
million.  Careers were made on the excess. By a great many
people...
>
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*I say sadly because Saint Jane was probably among the least
corrupt to ever climb the greasy pole in Illinois politics.

 Don’t think it’s corruption as such but essentially car brain ie Department
for Transport can’t see past cars, and building roads is what they do, so
in spite of evidence and experience that bigger roads doesn’t work bar in
the very short term they are what they are.
 They spent millions upgrading the Heads of the valley’s road which connects
the Welsh Valleys (coal and iron towns) including making pedestrian and
equestrian access more awkward or not possible at all.
 And claim that it will benefit the communities! But that has been the case
for decades, as it’s a very deprived area the coal and iron is long gone so
the towns reason to be has gone.
 And so government be that local or national has gone for easy but wrong
answers ie improve X road will fix it or more factory units! Which will
like the others sit barren for decades unused!
 Roger Merriman
 

I've written this here before but our village is on a State highway which was removed and repaved over two long years at a cost of $2 million for a distance of eight blocks.
The county road which crosses it at the west edge of the village has a gravel and asphalt company a mile away whose heavy trucks are in and out all day long. The owners asked the county if they could repave the county road and were given permission. Small repairs and surveying took a week without blocking travel then it was closed two days for six miles of new pavement, total cost $80,000. The new pavement ends at the county line (before the next highway) as the adjacent county would not give permission for private paving.
As with so much else, the astronomical amounts for public projects leave plenty of room for payoffs, kickbacks etc which can dwarf the actual cost of building something.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971