Scott Adams made this joke, then had to publicly apologize for (allegedly unintentionally) plagiarizing a Ziggy comic.
edit: He also verified my clam [sic]. Just sayin'.
this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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You'd get at least twice the life of these expensive roads if everyone rode bikes. Think about that.
Someone posted this link below and you have the right idea (that bike = less damage = road lasts longer) but you're ever so slightly off with you 2x estimation. Just a smidge out :-D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
The road stress ratio of truck to car is 10,000 to 1.
The road stress ratio of the car to bicycle is 160,000 to 1.
To put it another way. This means that after 160,000 crossings, the bicycle causes as much damage as the car does when driving on the road only once.
A truck, ONE truck, ONE time, is this number of bike crossings (if I mathed it right??): 1,600,000,000?! What even is that number?? It's in the billions!? I mean there might not be that many bike crossings before the heat death of the universe?! And that's just ONE truck, ONCE!?
Conclusion: Roads would last till the ends of time if they were only utilised by bicycles! Even if you only built roads to last ONE year under heavy truck use, under heavy bike use this same road would last 1.6 billion years!? Is this even real?! Am I mathing wrong?!
They wouldn't last till the ends of time, but the limiting factor would be environmental weathering (frost heaving, weeds growing in cracks, etc.) rather than vehicle loads.
I know :-p Spherical cow in a vacuum :-) It highlights the difference in truck v car v bike, all else removed from the equation, and shows that bikes basically have (approaching) zero impact on roads built for cars/trucks. Another way to look at it is if you only had to engineer roads for bikes they could be a fraction of the cost AND last a lot longer! Sigh, dreams are free!
I have to say this is always my thought when I see those signs. "Road work ends" would convey what they mean in normal English.
Similarly the strange US habit of text on the ground being written bottom to top. I get what they intended, but I don't get why, then they first saw the effect, they didn't laugh and realize it didn't work. There's a road lane near me that says "BUSES NO" "TRUCKS NO" and I always picture someone disciplining a naughty bus.
ONLY BUS
I’m so glad someone made this photo. I’m always telling people I should do a photo like this, and now I don’t have to.
Similarly the strange US habit of text on the ground being written bottom to top. I get what they intended, but I don’t get why, then they first saw the effect, they didn’t laugh and realize it didn’t work.
The text on the ground is written bottom up because the bottom is seen earlier in a moving vehicle, making reading it easier when in motion as the 'bottom' word is 'first' to the driver. This is more noticeable in cars that are lower to the ground, and they continue to use it because it does work.
Not all applications need to take vehicle motion into consideration, but they keep it for consistency.
I know why they did it, as I said. It's obvious. But it doesn't really pay off in practice.
I'll repeat the comment I made in that thread:
Unironically, I support completely ceasing all road construction (even “just” repaving, let alone widening) until every street has been brought up to “complete streets” standard with proper sidewalks and bike lanes. Car drivers do not deserve more spending until cyclists and pedestrians are made first-class citizens!
While this is a nice thought in theory, it breaks down as soon as you start actually thinking of it in practical terms.
- Some rural road that gets a few cars a day at best does not really need sidewalks and certainly does not need bike lanes.
- A road with potholes is more dangerous to pedestrians and bikers due to the potential for cars to lose control, or for drivers to swerve to miss a pothole and potentially endanger other travelers.
- Adding bike lanes and sidewalks is just impractical in a lot of areas. Where is that space coming from, when private property extends to the road edge currently? Are we just declaring eminent domain and taking 3-6 feet of everyone's property frontage for this initiative? I'm sure that will be a very unpopular initiative. What about areas where buildings are too close to the street to allow for this? There's just too many areas where it's not practical or possible to do.
I'm all for phasing out cars in areas where it's reasonable to do so, but your proposal just isn't compatible with reality.
Where is that space coming from?
You can literally add separated light rail in the center and bike lanes next to the sidewalk and there would still be two car lanes left, one for each direction.
What about areas where buildings are too close to the street to allow this?
This street is too narrow to add a dedicated sidewalk, right?
Which is why the blue square sign is there: The speed limit on this street is walking pace and pedestrians have priority on the entire road.
Therefore: Put bicycle lanes wherever possible, reduce the speed limit where it isn't.
However, we could apply the idea to just roads that are compatible with bike lanes and pathways. It would be a start. I agree that priority needs to be given to safety first but even with that, the next priority needs to be anything but cars where possible.
start taxing trucks proportional to the wear they cause on public roads. doing so will supplement funding for repairing said roads as well as to encourage rail hauling instead of dangerous hulking vehicles on the same roads we have to commute on.
The larger vehicles tend to get worse mileage and thus pay more taxes on gasoline/diesel that are used for roads without the government needing to track mileage.
Electric cars, which are heavier than comparable ICE cars, throw a wrench in the fuel paying for roads concept.
Yes, but the increase in fuel cost per unit mass is not proportional to the increase in road wear, which is exponential and absolutely massive in commercial use. Hugely important fact that plays into my opinion that vehicle size should be taxed.
I didn't say it was a perfect system, just that the system does collect more taxes on heavier vehicles already.