#pedestrian pathways

[rjzimmerman]

From Grist: How car-free streets can help with social distancing. Coronavirus is exposing our lack of walking space.

[queenofthursday6599-blog]

Everyone should want diverse transportation infrastructure in their town

Trains, trams/streetcars, bikes, pedestrian pathways, rapid bus transport, monorail, it doesn’t matter. No one should want their hometown to be a car dependent town. Not even people who like to drive should want their city to be completely car dependent.

Why?

Because more options to get around means fewer people who have to drive a car to get somewhere. And no matter how much you might like driving, I’m positive there’s at least one other person in your hometown who hates it as much as you love it.

Getting people to use something other than their own vehicle to get around improves traffic, which improves driving safety and road safety for everyone involved. Fewer private vehicles driving means fewer collisions and accidents of all sorts. That’s just numbers after all, fewer cars means fewer car accidents.

So if you personally like driving, but hate other drivers, you should go out and support whatever public transit initiative your area is trying to set up.

It might just end up getting the drivers you hate out of the drivers seat and onto some other type of transit.

[rjzimmerman]

Opinion | We’re From the Government and We’re Here to Build a Bike Path

Municipal officials are using eminent domain to take private property for recreational uses.

Whining republicans again.........why? What harm to convert abandoned railroad rights of way to pedestrian or bicycle paths? I used to be a rabid bicycle rider, until my discomfort with crazy, reckless and speeding drivers caused me to reconsider, and cut back, biking. I remember once when I was riding on a public road to get to the Illinois Prairie Path. I was doing all the right things, riding on the right side, staying as close to the curb as possible, signaling when I needed to. Some old fart man, with his old fart wife or girlfriend, pulled up really close to me, dangerously, as his car was moving and the woman was rolling down the window, and yelling at me me to get my “fucking toy” off the road. I thoroughly enjoyed kicking his rear fender as he drove by, and then scooting down a skinny alleyway so he couldn’t get me.

Excerpt from this Wall Street Journal story:

A handful of farmers in Ohio’s Mahoning County are getting an unpleasant lesson in government power at the hands of a local park district. Mill Creek MetroParks, a public agency governed by five unelected commissioners, wants to take over an abandoned railroad line running through about a dozen local farms for a recreational bike path. Last year, when landowners balked at the idea of strangers wandering across their properties, the park district decided to invoke eminent domain and gain right of way.

“I asked the park representatives if there was any way we could negotiate on this, and they told me, ‘The time for talking is over. We’re taking this property,’ ” says Ohio state Rep. Don Manning, who tried to intervene on the farmers’ behalf. Rep. Manning, a Republican, has sponsored legislation that would limit the use of eminent domain in Ohio.

The practice of government taking land for recreational uses—typically bike lanes, hiking paths and fashionable “rail trails” and “greenways”—is spreading across the country, marking a sharp and troubling expansion of eminent domain. The Takings Clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment grants government the authority to seize property to be used for the public good, as long as government pays “just compensation” to the owner. Over the years, the Supreme Court has consistently expanded what is considered a “public good” to justify government seizures. In 2005, for instance, the high court upheld the taking of Susette Kelo’s waterfront home by the city of New London, Conn., so that a local development corporation could build high-end condos and a hotel. The redevelopment was intended to boost property values and increase municipal tax revenues.