Rahm's Bike Insanity
Now wonder Rahm wants to bust up all the unions. This guy has plans:
In 1897, mayoral candidate Carter H. Harrison II successfully campaigned as "the cyclists' champion." Bike-riding mayor Richard M. Daley expanded on-street marked bike lanes to 115 miles in his 22 years in office.
Emanuel plans to outdo both Daley and other bike-friendly U.S. cities.
In four years, he wants to create 100 miles of protected bike paths -- not just painted lines on the street but paths separated from car traffic by posts or other dividers. By next summer, he wants the city's first large-scale bike-sharing program, starting with 3,000 bikes.
And the cost? Mere pennies:
- The full 100 miles of bike paths could come in at around $28 million, with a half mile already done and getting heavy use. The city has applied for federal clean air funding, and is combining bike path construction with other projects, like resurfacing.
Hundreds of miles of bike paths....but no yuppies sticking around to use them.
Labels: money questions
posted by SCC at 12:03 AM
62 Comments:
"The city has applied for federal clean air funding..."
...but shouldn't get a penny until they dump the "Sanctuary City" and begin co-operating with federal immigration law.
There.
O.T. - What's going on with Google and SSC? Bing will take you directly to SSC but not Google. Strange.
Bike Lanes in a city that has 9 months of crap weather? But hey w/ all the new riverfront boathouses springing up I can canoe my way to work. Glad to see King Solomon has his priorities in order
This is what the democrats want, out of your car and onto a bike. Their version of China in the USA. I have nothing against bikes but their riders are nearly as bad as cab drivers, which makes them a road menace.
Ride yer bike to the polling office next year and vote out obama......
In my European travels, I was struck by the number of bicyclists seen during rush hour, particularly in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. At a rush hour stoplight, you could find about a half dozen autos and 50 cyclists. At the railway station near Tivoli Gardens in central Copenhagen, bike racks could easily accomodate over 2,000 bicycles.
In the U.S., Portland, Oregon would be in the forefront for "bicycle friendly", city-sponsored programs. One facet included picking up a bike for free and later depositing at other Portland locations at the end of the journey. I have no update on the free bike use and theft rate.
However, this being Chicago, I would not be shocked at thousands of "free" bikes never to be returned. Aerosol spray paint, a screwdriver and ground down serial numbers could easily cause an exponential spike in thefts of city bicycles at taxpayers' expense.
I like to ride, but I would be taking my life in my hands in one of those urban "bike route" thoroughfares created merely by putting up a sign. As for bike paths: they're great, but in a downtown situation create an ideal hunting-ground for predators. Did I mention I live in the country?
If the new bike lanes are to be separated from car traffic by posts or other dividers how will they be cleaned?
Street sweepers probably won't be able to fit down them. They will have to be cleaned by hand which means Rahm will be able to create a new patronage army of city workers.
Hmmm, how many coppers would $28,000,000.00 put on the street?
(Headlines)
"While air quality in Chicago improved by 3.6% for the month of June, homicides were up 56%."
It's just a matter of priorities!
Bike paths, solar panels, whatever.....
Very shortly, his WH staffers will be deposed about Solyndra. Lets see if these cocksuckers have balls of steel like Sorich and Co.
Gotta wonder, who did he get the solar panels on his house from?
I know there are cyclists that ride in the winter, but with these protected lanes how will they be cleared of snow?
Don't ride in the car lane, stay in yours.
With the shortage of vehicles perhaps will have more bike patrol officers?
And yet schools continue to vote for the longer day instead of fighting for what they won in negotiation. Idiots!!!
SOLYNDRA, SOLYNDRA, SOLYNDRA! EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION, $538 MILLION TAX PAYERS DOLLARS STOLEN! What did Rahm know and when did he know it? As Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm coordinated more than 10 meetings with officials from Solyndra, and the President himself attended some of those meetings. Obama visited the now defunct firm and made photo ops there. The executives from that firm took the 5th Amendment before a Congressional Comm. on Friday. Rahm's political career may be coming to an abrupt end.
He can have his bike lanes but let's charge the people using those lanes and defer the costs to them. If you ride in those lanes you need a "bike city sticker" - 75 buck a year. If you get caught riding in lane without one - 75 dollar ticket. See - I just found s way to pay for it.
In my European travels..........
9/26/2011 03:09:00 AM
When will everyone realize we are not Europe and don't want to be like Europe. Take a good look at Europe. It is a mess. Why do you think everyone wants to come here?
Why are you creating more bike lanes? People that take the train into the city to go to work are not going to rent a bike to finish the route to work. First of all, they are going to work, which in most cases means they took a shower, they styled their hair, used deodorant and in woman's cases put on makeup. Why would they get sweated up on a bike? Are you going to help companies put in showers and blow dryers to entice some people to ride bikes? This is one of the dumbest ideas put out by Rahm. WASTE OF MONEY....
The city of Chicago will soon be known as little China....rickshaws, oh wait we already have pedi bikes.
We always laugh at the liberals riding their bikes through the ghetto. And, this jackass wants to make it the norm. Send the sheep to the wolves.
It can't be any worse than the flower pots.
Anonymous said...
O.T. - What's going on with Google and SSC? Bing will take you directly to SSC but not Google. Strange.
9/26/2011 12:48:00 AM
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add it to your favorites and you wont have to Google it.
It's being done in Denver! just like the car sharing program, they have red bikes all over Denver and you can pick up or drop off in a lot of places. I was just there a few weeks ago and was amazed at how it works so well. the people of Denver love it. then again they are not nickeled and dimed for everything and they have better services, roads, etc; Fuck you Rahm !!
There isn't a 5 mile stretch in this city that could be deemed safe from thugs and uninsured foreigners that can't drive.
Anonymous said...
O.T. - What's going on with Google and SSC? Bing will take you directly to SSC but not Google. Strange.
••• click the window for the search engine,there's a drop down screen that will give you choices, change back to Google. Common error in the search window.
Protected bike lanes, fancy medians, fancy sidewalks and curb cutouts etc.. it's not just the initial cost. It's the long term maintenance and repair costs that these projects require that add a HUGE amount to these projects bottom lines, that are not addressed when these projects are approved. But then the clouted would not be able to wet their beaks.
Time for Chicago to require bicyclists that use bicycle lanes be licensed and follow rules of the road .
Anonymous said...
O.T. - What's going on with Google and SSC? Bing will take you directly to SSC but not Google. Strange.
9/26/2011 12:48:00 AM
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Maybe because it is SCC.
for a guy who cries poor mouth everyday he sure is finding money to splash around--- bribe money for teachers who break rank with the union for chump change on their pay check and a little play money for the school--- rahm's piss bum and gangbanger golden pond in 024--- money for cta and other infrastructure improvements city wide--- and now hundreds of miles of bike lanes--- layoffs for traffic aides and laborers, pension funds on the verge of becoming insolvent, a police department in a major tailspin with personnel shortages across the board, big changes looming for the fire department--- this guy has bigger plans than being the mayor of chicago for 20 years--- he wants to be the first jewish president of the united states--- he will leave this city a pile of rubble and dust and could care less about our pensions or city employee safety....
Good idea. Lets spend $28million on bikes. Not hire back those laid off families or beef up the police force! Lets give bikes to the homies so they can get around the city. Yeah good idea.
“However, this being Chicago, I would not be shocked at thousands of "free" bikes never to be returned. Aerosol spray paint, a screwdriver and ground down serial numbers could easily cause an exponential spike in thefts of city bicycles at taxpayers' expense.”
9/26/2011 03:09:00 AM
And the city will never report the thefts so they can keep the crime numbers down and make the program look like a success.
On a different note, how long before Rahm imposes a tax on all drivers that enter the downtown area? It's already happened in another city!
Having the same problem with Google. If you google second city cop the link to the blog no longer shows up.
This makes no sense.
How many people can their ride bikes all year long in Chicago with our weather? It's 90 degrees with 99% humidity during the summer, and 5 below with a 15 below windchill during the winter. So Chicago is going to spend millions on something that won't be used 6 months out of the year?
The risk of getting run over by some POS is another reason to stay away from any roads in Chicago while on your bike.
Hey, the traffic here is insane. It would be great if I could commute safely on a bike. It would also do wonders for my fat ass!
Yay, more places to get knocked off your bike, beaten, and robbed!
the Bike Paths will be nice. More places for Gang bangers,Robbers, and Killers to attack the innocent public Taxpaying Rubes. This will add to jobs for Felons in the Sanctuary City. Perhaps the City could rent bikes with Snow Plows on the front to get the public to plow the paths for free during the 6 1/2 months of snow here. We sure do have some real Einsteins in Government here in Felonois. Don't hire any Cops, but make bike paths. OK, have another Kool-Aid. Try the new flavor, Rahmmie "Commie" Red.
O.T. - What's going on with Google and SSC? Bing will take you directly to SSC but not Google. Strange.
9/26/2011 12:48:00 AM
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Maybe it's because you're typing in "SSC", instead of "SCC".
"...this being Chicago, I would not be shocked at thousands of "free" bikes never to be returned. Aerosol spray paint, a screwdriver and ground down serial numbers could easily cause an exponential spike in thefts of city bicycles at taxpayers' expense."
--9/26/2011 03:09:00 AM
Painting and tooling and grinding are all skilled work performed by people able to think and plan and foresee situations and consequences.
Oh, a few needy people will get themselves something to use -- but the run-of-the-mill bike theft is to just take the thing and ride screaming, swerving wildly through traffic with cars nose-diving and horns blaring around you, smashing the half-inflated tires over the curb, etc.. Huffy or handmade lugged-and-brazed, triple-butted, all-Campy high-end, it makes no difference. It's not yours, you performed no labor to get it, you hardly understand a thing about it -- none of this would ever enter your "mind."
The bike might be ridden to a school or park. When something more interesting supervenes, it will simply be abandoned without a thought, left laying on its side -- usually in a doorway for others to trip over -- as its rider runs off somewhere else to shout or throw rocks or search for a drug allegedly available in some doorway. Someone else wll drag it off. It ends its days as a twisted carcass dangling off the back of a junk truck.
Never overestimate this element. The people in some areas are objectified -- meaningless and disposable -- and are daily killed on purpose, by accident, by mistake, or for no reason at all.
No one even blinks.
Nike really hit a chord with its "Just Do It" slogan some years back. I kept hearing crazy young men -- about to jump out of their own skins -- muttering it over and over, like a mantra. Then something catches the eye; the convulsive leap, the chain-snatch, the 100-yard dash!
You're right about the bikes, though -- "never to be returned." Another free perquisite of the endless, attractive cornucopia that is Mayor Daley's legacy -- the Sanctuary City.
Don't worry the "Borracho Pendejos" will only use them in 014 as Express Lanes at 2am-4am!
They are GREAT! So GREAT in fact a car drove into his new green bike path and slammed into a cyclist because they confuse the shit out of you.,Uh no ticket to the driver : D
"This is what the Democrats want, out of your car and onto a bike. Their version of China in the USA."
--9/26/2011 01:47:00 AM
A. YOU get rid of your car, not them!
B. Yeah, you will become unable to afford a car -- while China builds 18 lanes of gridlock from top to bottom and side to side. They are moving away from bikes, into the automobile. India, with its similar huge population and grinding poverty, is making the same mistake -- off the land and into the tiny, tinny new "Tata" car.
"I have nothing against bikes but [some] riders are nearly as bad as cab drivers, which makes them a road menace."
Agreed.
As far as "road menace," I don't know how many people have been killed by automobile drivers in Chicago the last few days.
I was out riding my bike recently, and I happened to be in no mood to stop and talk to some motorist. Tired, no time, long day -- just minding my own business. Nothing wrong with that.
I went by -- and those backup lights went on and the maniac floored it, leaving a half-block of smoking tire tracks before he almost flipped the thing in a reverse U-turn to come after me. I found emergency cover in a nearby garage where someone was working, and the freaks drove off. Two white working-class guys, nice clothes, nice pickup, obviously had a dollar in their wallets. I picked up on a patrolling marked car and kind of followed him out of the area, looking behind me...
I mean, look up at the street sign to see where you are. If you can afford chrome exhausts and custom steps for that truck, you can afford a TomTom, or at least a $5.00 map. Everyone can't always drop everything because you can't think. Nothing here but some houses. No one ever died because they had to go around the block or something. You got here, you'll get back.
"Road rage." Nothing more frightening than the sound of a car accelerating...
Hardly the first time. I have had a whole carload of screwballs bother me -- young suburban whites who DID have a map -- and they were in mass brain-lock. Not on some section-line dirt road, but at Harlem and Addison. I pointed north for them to give them a reference, and put my finger on the map too, but they still couldn't grasp it.
Nothing you can do.
I don't know how some people make it through the day...
Ride yer bike to the polling office next year and vote out obama......
9/26/2011 02:33:00 AM
...ringin the little bell all the way...
Plus its easier to rob a biker than a person in a faster more secure moving vehicle!
As a cyclist I am amazed at the streets Chicago has designated as bike routes. You couldn't find more dangerous places to ride than some of these one lane 30+ mph roads with parking!
Hey Rahm, the city streets are laid out in grid pattern, how about designating paralell side streets as the bike routes? Darn sight safer than pedaling down a high traffic main drag.
As the city and state would start to lose money if bicycling were to
increase, look for them to require
bicycles to be licensed and insurance required of riders.
Could you edumacate your dear readers on capital expenditures vs. operational costs, and the difference between transportation budgets and public safety?
It would be grand to see some of these CPS-graduated coppers educated on how money division actually works.
Thanks!
O.T. - What's going on with Google and SSC? Bing will take you directly to SSC but not Google. Strange.
9/26/2011 12:48:00 AM
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Stick with your dial-up, Netscape, and AOL. And it is SCC (Second City Cop), NOT SSC.
cut payroll of city workers , most work a straight 8 hour day with an hour lunch , half hour waiting at gas shacks to swipe out .
Put them on a six hour work day .
SCC has been bookmarked on my laptop forever .... but for the heck of it I googled both "Second City Cop" and "SCC" and no hit!! Just links with comments from the blog.
Awwww SCC who'd ya piss off LOL!!
I work at 35th Street.
We are being forced to go down to city hall to here the push for the BLOOMINGDALE TRAIL which the mayor is pushing for.
It will cost well over $150 MILLION dollars!!!!!
Since Rahm wants this damn thing IT WILL go through.
Shortly before we lose EVERYTHING in the state and city.
City stickers for bicycles!!!!!!
cut payroll of city workers , most work a straight 8 hour day with an hour lunch , half hour waiting at gas shacks to swipe out .
Put them on a six hour work day .
9/26/2011 03:45:00 PM
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Thanks, Rahm. We value your input here.
Hey Rahm, the city streets are laid out in grid pattern, how about designating paralell side streets as the bike routes? Darn sight safer than pedaling down a high traffic main drag.
9/26/2011 02:42:00 PM
you're really not from around here, are you?
I don't know how some people make it through the day...
9/26/2011 02:03:00 PM
some people don't.
Chalkie
It's part of Rahm's New American program, since they can't get real drivers licenses, they will be given their own streets for their bikes.....
"...this being Chicago, I would not be shocked at thousands of "free" bikes never to be returned. Aerosol spray paint, a screwdriver and ground down serial numbers could easily cause an exponential spike in thefts of city bicycles at taxpayers' expense."
--9/26/2011 03:09:00 AM
You forget, Daley eliminated ALL crime related to spray paint by banning its sales within the city.....
If the city is really broke then why are we spending money on all this worthless BULLSHIT? A new park in Ravenswood cemetery, $28 Million to be spent on bike paths for yups, longer school days when the Board of Education has a huge deficit. If I can't pay my mortgage I wouldn't be taking the family down to Florida for a weeks vacation. Time to stop the spending and check the books!
Does SCC know that we cannot connect to this blog on Google. Had to try another way of getting to this blog.
Why is two faced Emmaunuel spending all our tax dollars on uneeded projects? M O N E Y!!! Contracts go to the connected few and they then make donations to all the politicians who helped line their pockets. They give jobs to their families and friends. ALL politicians should be put in cages and used for experiments.
" felonois " --- that is classic and almost as good as the opera of fuckery....
Anonymous said...
SOLYNDRA, SOLYNDRA, SOLYNDRA! EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION, $538 MILLION TAX PAYERS DOLLARS STOLEN! What did Rahm know and when did he know it? As Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm coordinated more than 10 meetings with officials from Solyndra, and the President himself attended some of those meetings. Obama visited the now defunct firm and made photo ops there. The executives from that firm took the 5th Amendment before a Congressional Comm. on Friday. Rahm's political career may be coming to an abrupt end.
9/26/2011 07:01:00 AM
Amen, Amen, Amen... Where's the News media? Why haven't the Feds said anything more? Who's the ripped off ones? Us, the Taxpayers as usual. Better get vocal people, if you let these politicians and their Cabal of Thieves continue to rip you off, that's exactly what they will do, until there's nothing more left for them to rip off of you. Then, you'll be a SLAVE to them. That's how COMmunism works...
I believe that a little venting is healthy from time to time, but a lot of you need to disinvest. Cynicism will eat away at you a little bit at a time. People are corrupt, immoral and animalistic. Got it. Off duty, don't let that be the focus of your life. Way too many inappropriate comments on here which serve to only debase you. Venting good. Hate bad. BTW - you can bike safely here at least eight months a year and this is one of Emanuel's better ideas. Stay safe.
"I believe that a little venting is healthy from time to time, but a lot of you need to disinvest."
--9/28/2011 08:06:00 PM
"Need?"
"Disinvest?"
We want a "life coach," we'll be in touch.
I'm gonna go watch my Tony Robbins tapes now.
Protected bike paths are totally the way to go. As someone who drives and rides every day (I have a folding bike that I keep in my trunk), I have to say that I see a lot of close calls every day. I see drivers not checking at turns, and I've been almost run off the road in places. Bike lanes (painted lines) are a start, but I would LOVE to see protected lanes.
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