Re: New York's Crackdown on Ebikes

Am 01.06.2025 um 12:04 schrieb Roger Merriman:

NFN Smith <worldoff9908@gmail.com> wrote:

Roger Merriman wrote:

We also have several canals (including one right next to my house) that
have dedicated multi-use paths on one side of the canal.  These are more
or less municipal paths, and very much a magnet for recreational use,
ranging from simple pedestrians to serious cyclists. On the other side
of the canal (at least in the space near my house) what's there is
essentially a service road that is owned by the water utility that
operates the canal. In some places, the service road is paved (and also
suitable for cycling, as it's even wider than the multi-use path), but
only a mile in either direction, the surface is gravel.
>

>
Those are lovely places but not particularly useful for utility purposes as
they are narrow and is limited as to how many can useful use such places.

>
Besides passing visual similarities, the two are entirely different
situations.
>
In Europe, I think that most canals tend to be done to facilitate
drainage, especially working around population density. Where I am, the
space is flat and very spread out.  Our canal system was actually built
several hundred years before the first European or Euro-American
settlers.  The Europeans modified somewhat with more modern engineering,
but for both, the intent of the canals is to move water from the river
system into places that it can be used for agricultural irrigation.
>

No European Canals where for transportation of industrial materials had
fairly brief moment in history before the railways arrived, hence the tow
paths for horses.
 Are places where you get irrigation and drainage such as the fens where
they have drained the swamp as you where, but they aren’t the normal use
for canals which are transporting materials and goods. Are still some in
use like the ship canal between Liverpool and Manchester.

"Europe" is a big region.  We have drainage canals in swamplands and flat coastal areas (e.g. Germany, Netherlands, Fenlands in the UK).
The larger ones
<https://maps.app.goo.gl/9yHW47yd9YhgM3cq5>
usually have "dam's crown" lanes on both sides but sometimes interrupted by newer roads, thus rarely/barely useful for recreational purposes.
There are irrigation canals in the drier regions in shouthern Europe; the old ones usually have a footpath for maintenance alongside.
Then there are the transportational canals in the two varieties "pre-railway" (mostly in UK, France, Belgium, and mostly derelict ones in other countries) with tow paths and modern ones the size of major rivers
<https://maps.app.goo.gl/5W3LZVq1YDnQvS5G7>
which usually have paths that can be used for recreational purposes if they are not interrupted by ports (or a port bypass is built).
Rolf