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Munich Planning Highway System For Cyclists
An anonymous reader writes: The German city of Munich has been looking for solutions to its traffic problem. Rush hour traffic is a parking lot, and public transit is near capacity. They think their best bet is to encourage (and enable) more people to hop on their bikes. Munich is now planning a Radschnellverbindungen — a highway system just for cyclists. Long bike routes will connect the city with universities, employment centers, and other cities. The paths themselves would be as free from disruption as possible — avoiding intersections and traffic lights are key to a swift commute. They'll doubtless take lessons from Copenhagen's bike skyway: "Cykelslangen (pronounced soo-cool-klag-en) adds just 721 feet of length to the city's 220 miles of bicycle paths, but it relieves congestion by taking riders over instead of through a waterfront shopping area."
Why would the need to be licensed? It costs far more than it brings in benefits. Or is this a way to expand the government overreach?
I bet you'd be fucking pissed if taxes went up to cover it, right?
Oh, and they pay (twice) for the roads anyway. 80% of cyclists have cars which are road taxed (but don't use when cycling), PLUS local roads are paid out of local taxes.
Munich is growing faster than any time in recent history. Yet, for the first time in 50 years, no subway is being built. Leaving aside the reasons for this (mainly the German obsession with public debt), this is simply wrong, the two parts don't fit. Bulding more subways would help traffic more than bike highways (as much as I like them) -- and it would do so even in bad weather.
What could be done? Well, one of the main problems is that the public transport infrastructure is organized in a way where basically every connection runs via the center. So even if your destination isn't on a straight line from where you're at towards the center, you will still have to go there, change trains and then move out on another radial line. Now, with the ever increasing numbers of passengers this leads to lots of congestion on the stations in the town center (anybody who has e.g. tried changing subway lines at Sendlinger Tor during the morning or evening rush hours can confirm this).
The logical conclusion is of course to build a loop subway. Reduce dependency on the center and increase priority. This should become a priority.
(It is perhaps noting that such a loop exists in the public transportation network, but it is a patchwork of tramways and busses. So the necessity was recognized already, only the implemented solution falls short.)
Screw that. When are those lazy anarchist pedestrians going to start paying sidewalk and crosswalk tax? And when are they going to have registration plates so we can report jaywalkers? I'm getting rather tired of people thinking they're just free to move about anyway they want to. Don't even get me started on adults offering piggy-back rides. Clearly unsafe. Also, peds should have to wear belts and helmets and hi-viz.
Since road wear scales with the 3rd or 4th power of axle weight, a 200 lb cyclist should pay about 1000'th of the road taxes as a driver with a 2000 lb car (or 1/5360'th as much as a 3500 pound car). So if you pay $1000/year in taxes for your 3500 lb Honda Accord, the cyclist would pay about 20 cents.
There are other costs to building and maintaining a road besides simple road wear. The biggest cost of a road is usually the land acquisition in order to build one. A bike lane takes up far more than 1/5360th of the land that a car lane uses. Probably closer to 1/3rd.
And there are other causes of road wear than the weight of vehicles traveling on it, such as water damage from rain puddles, freeze/thaw cycle, etc
You forgot to factor in the road shoulders and parking strips that are a part of most roads -- in many cases a bike lane takes 0% of the space a car needs to drive on the roadway. But since drivers rarely pay the acquisition costs of roads (especially roads that were in existence before cars came along), it seems a little unfair to suddenly charge cyclists for roads that were originally easily shared between bikes and horses.
And there are other causes of road wear than the weight of vehicles traveling on it, such as water damage from rain puddles, freeze/thaw cycle, etc
One of the dedicated bike paths I ride to work has been in existence for nearly 30 years without repaving or major maintenance (only tar sealing cracks). The busy road in front of my house has been resurfaced 2 times in the past 15 years and it's still pothole strewn, the city tries to fix them as they occur, but their 5 year plan includes grinding off the top surface and repaving. A cycling path is much cheaper to build, not only is it a lot narrower than even a single lane road, it typically uses only a few inches of fill under the surface compared to a road that requires 12 - 16" of subsurface prep and drainage before paving.
I live in Denver, and just moved. My previous commute was about 3.9 miles via bicycle, with about 2.5 miles of it on bike lanes. My new commute is 4.5 miles, with about 3.5 miles of it on a dedicate recreational path (Denver's Cherry Creek Trail), and the other 1 mile almost all on bike lanes.
My new commute, while having a longer distance, takes me less time. In addition, it is a lot less stressful. The recreational path makes all the difference. It is limited access - there are ramps to the trail about every .2 miles - no motorized vehicles, and goes from my neighborhood (an urban residential-heavy area) to downtown.
I have commuted via bicycle in a wide variety of cities on the East Coast and can say that this new commute is about as ideal as it could be. I dread the days I have to drive into work. Even without traffic (which doubles the time needed), it takes me longer to drive.
A lot of US cities I have lived in see separated paths for recreational use only. They never seem to see that a trail going from residential areas to business areas can be a great encouragement for bicycle commuting.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman