Originally Posted by ianbrettcooper

I am certainly not trying to suggest that riding 'on trails' is in itself dangerous. The problem is more complex than that. Some accidents do happen on the trails themselves, often due to poor signage, inadequate trail width, mixed use, etc. But these are usually minor accidents. The things that make trails incredibly dangerous compared with even sidewalk riding are the points at which they intersect with roads. Unfortunately the folks who design trails have yet to learn that a trail is not a pedestrian way, so we get trails that end on the sidewalk whenever an intersection occurs. Most serious trail accidents happen at these crossing points, because often the trail entrance is hidden from drivers - essentially they are blind driveways. Trails could be made safe if only their intersection points were treated as road junctions, with a light like many traffic junctions. The fact that trail designers have a pedestrian mentality ends up killing cyclists.

One thing is certain, adding more of the same poor quality trails that are usually implemented will not improve conditions for cyclists. If trail planners are serious about making trails safe, they will have to do some serious thinking about how to make them safer. Simply dropping a 4ft wide strip of concrete from one sidewalk to the next will never cut it.

And that's not even getting to my earlier point, which is that most cycling is done on roads. Even if you live in a place like DC, with a vast network of trails, the reality is that most commuting is done off-trail. Many trails don't even attempt to serve commuters - they are for recreation. If trails are to become safe and widely useful, there needs to be a quantum shift in how and why trails are planned and implemented. I just don't see that happening now, and I see no impetus to change because the powers that be have so beaten down cyclists that most of them are just happy to see anything done in the name of cycling, no matter whether it makes sense or not.

London is about the only place in the English speaking world making a concerted effort to install commuter trails, and even there they still have this outdated 'pedestrian' view of cycling, so even the London bike highways, which are so forward-thinking in some ways, are still going to be dangerous places to cycle.

Originally Posted by The Human Car

Approximately 60% is covered by user fees.

And gas tax is only a small portion of that figure.

Originally Posted by z90

I was referring to the Highway Trust Fund specifically, rather than all spending on roads. That's the pot of money the AAA vs Rails to Trails fight is all about. The pie chart of the money coming into that fund looks like this;

Originally Posted by z90

The "money in question" I referred to is the Highway Trust Fund, which is the pot AAA and Rails to Trails are talking about. The pie chart shows how that particular fund is funded. The two articles you cited are referencing road funding more generally, not the Highway Trust Fund.

Originally Posted by B. Carfree

... I do feel that to be pro-car is to be anti-bike...

Originally Posted by The Human Car

That's just the breakdown of the source of user fees not the whole fund.

1. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FWHA), 92% of the funds for local roads--the ones most often used by cyclists--come from property, income, and sales taxes. Bicyclists pay these taxes just like everyone else does.
2. FWHA calculates that 92% of federal highway funds come from user fees. But 8% come the general fund, so even a bicyclist who owns no car contributes to federal highway funds, too.

(The above factoid comes from https://www.baltimorespokes.org/artic...81028210742853 )

You can get more detail here that breaks down Fed, State and local revenue sources: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs06/pdf/hf10.pdf

Originally Posted by phoebeisis

Cars aren't going to die off in the USA. They are going to become much much greener once we switch to more renewable and less net CO2 producing energy sources( wind turbines, moving water sources, NUKES...

Originally Posted by ianbrettcooper

Optimism! I love it! I just don't share it, knowing how devastating the coming oil shocks are going to be. I simply don't see any way cars can be a part of our future, unless they look a lot more like bicycles than they do now. I just don't see how the coming energy crises will permit each commuter to drag around 3 tons of steel. I really think cars won't factor into the sort of power options we're going to have available. I really don't. The lucky thing, from my perspective, is that, as a guy who's pushing 50, I probably won't be alive for the worst parts of what's to come (unless even I am being too optimistic). My daughter won't be so lucky. People who are now 20 and under are going to be in a world of hurt, as the lights go out on our oil-based world. Without cheap oil, our world simply cannot sustain anywhere near 7 billion people, and it certainly can't keep them in automobiles when the energy cars use will be needed just to keep enough food on the table.

Originally Posted by genec

It's the "oil-based" aspect that will change, but not likely the demand for individual personal transportation.

Originally Posted by ianbrettcooper

But where is the money going to come from to fund electric cars in an economy that is no longer supported by cheap oil? In 30 years, the world will barely have enough food to feed everyone even if oil can still be used for fertilizer, pesticides etc (which it won't be able to). Most people don't realize that oil-based fertilizers and pesticides are what gives us the high crop yields we currently get. A world without oil cannot possibly sustain the 9 billion people it will contain in 30 years. There will be famines even if we find some way to have what they call an economic 'soft landing'. And with the oil shocks will come massive economic depression, so a soft landing is not on the cards. We're way beyond the point at which government can help - the alternative fuel infrastructure is simply not there, and cannot be there in time. Nuclear power plants take decades and huge amounts of money to install. Only a select few are going to have money to spend buying electric cars, because most people will be finding it hard just to put food on the table, what with higher food prices caused by massive transport and production costs. The rest of us will be trying to find alternatives, and if electric mass transport isn't available (currently it's mostly diesel), there are going to be masses of people on bicycles because bikes will be the only affordable form of transport left, other than hitching our cars to horses.

There is an upside. Bicycle repair shops are going to be in great demand and We're all going to be going into backyard organic farming in a big way. That is, as long as we can find seeds that don't have Monsanto or ADM kill switches in them, LOL. If we can't, we're REALLY screwed - but at least obesity won't be a problem anymore.

Originally Posted by noisebeam