TIL that Cambridge DPW has summer interns doing new street-tree watering with this cargobike. The intern I spoke to said that theyโre upgrading to e-cargobikes soon.
I need to get an 18in cut-and-hold pruner to carry on the #cargoBike for the blackberry vines around SW #Portland@ShawneMartinez do I need to cut down a 3ft one? ๐ฉธ #Tigard
@ShawneMartinez I've done some riding with a hedger, but it really needs to be on some kind of mount, maybe with a counterbalance, so you can just move it around but it stays where you let go (hedger dropper post), release + cutting action button on handlebar! It seemed like mostly riding 15ft at a time and cut a few vines, some above, some on the side. Trike or maybe sidecar with a helper and you never quite stop might be the best.
does it suck to ride a bike in the surburbs with shitty suburban traffic? Yes!
does it suck to drive in the suburbs and get stuck in endless traffic? Also yes!
Are there giant empty bike-lane-sized swaths of street everywhere? Hell yes!
Engineers and planners would like you to just ride in that hellscape and not question their authority, or something. Even more than half of the space with cars in it wouldn't be needed if people weren't driving a half mile and similar nonsense.
#PBOT Bicycle advisory committee presentation about "#ClimateEmergency declaration" work "depending on funding" is so totally absurd. #pdxBikes save you money, cars cost obscene amounts of money to serve... Totally bullshit strategy that you'll somehow get people out of their cars without cutting back on how much debt you rack up encouraging them to drive ๐คก ๐ธ ๐ธ ๐ธ #InducedDemand
We've added population but not traffic lanes, so total traffic (#InducedDemand, a function of total lanes) stays flat. Wishing traffic would go down does nothing, but cutting car lanes in half will cut VMT in half. I don't make the rules.
@ascentale Also they constantly talk about how it was so visionary to stop building more freeway (though they really did as much as terrain would allow anyway) but can't add up how removing car space might reduce car use ๐
Second attempt to install a dropper seatpost on my gravel bike: success! I didnโt have bike cable cutters, but a dremel with a cutoff wheel worked just fine. Measured the cable housing a dozen times to make sure I did the cut correctly ๐
@lkanies@whack or was it not use it to cut compressionless housing? I guess the CN-10 is "Cable and Housing Cutter" ๐คท But I don't have one. The key is to straighten the inside of the cut and the liner around it, and a cutoff wheel leaves all of that pretty clean.
@pleaseclap I'm optimistic that we can actually shift transportation to e-bikes long before things are that uncomfortable (but then we could also have done it 10yrs ago). Probably not if everyone figures "why bother", though, which seems to be the current push of those "100 companies".
@pleaseclap sooner action will prevent the next level of disaster from coming on top of that, and reversing carbon isn't going to be a magic rewind, but it will help.
Of all the levers you have available to pull on for #ClimateAction, the big long one labeled "ride your #bike instead of driving" requires a moderate effort and you might need to wear a hat when it rains, but the rest of the levers are too short for you to move them.
@pleaseclap@UncensoredNews that is much more difficult than riding a bike, like maxxis tires are sometimes the best option, I'm sure plenty of money from the components ends up in the hands of those companies no matter where you source them (lots of used stuff, but still you need fresh rubber etc) and you have to give them all like 10x that much, at least, when you buy an electric car, etc. so anyway it's way less complicated to just pull on the bike lever early and often.
@pleaseclap@robgalanakis@UncensoredNews They aren't at "suddenly building out a comprehensive bike network", but I think the majority of electeds want to? Traffic "Engineers" (or engineerers ๐ค ) have told them it takes money, I'm sure, so it looks like they're still blowing a wad of concrete on rebuilding car infrastructure with bike dressing. I don't think there will be traffic or the much-feared "voting-out" associated with kids being able to bike to school though ๐ง ๐คท Those voters r dead.
@pleaseclap@robgalanakis@UncensoredNews don't get me wrong, no city has a decent voting method except St Louis, and to some extent Fargo, so Beaverton could still shoot themselves in the foot with any election, but the majority is not wanting to sit in traffic.
@pleaseclap@robgalanakis@UncensoredNews If you pull on the lever and it doesn't move, or doesn't have that much impact, go read what I originally wrote because that's what I meant. It doesn't matter a lot if you personally drive sometimes, but it makes a big difference with a large multiplier when you ride your bike to places where you can. Not only will you cease to be politically clueless about transportation (as most drivers are, do I need to link to some "I got an e-bike and holy shit...
@pleaseclap@robgalanakis@UncensoredNews "... our transportation system is completely stupid" article?) but you'll also be reducing your own reliance on cars, saving money, withholding money from those 100 companies, and possibly inspiring your friends and neighbors to take the orange pill. Like if you were going to buy an e-car but bought 10 e-bikes and gave them to your friends, you see the VMT reduction there right? Also #eBikes displace ~3x car miles so it's not like eating vegan at all.
@indw@kurtn that's a fallacy, besides the idea that you somehow would instantly have zero freeways if the DOT spent exclusively on bike+bus / transit mobility for a few years to scrap together an entire actual network of viable options to driving (just reallocate some of the many spare car lanes, to make bike and/or bus trips viable, and car traffic will shift to those modes, this is known as #InducedDemand, #TrafficEvaporation, "you get the traffic you build for", etc)
@schizanon@indw they stuffed their planning credentials in their ears and blocked me so can't hear me riding a bike in the suburbs, probably can't see the outcome of their plans through the dirty windshield either.
