Wow, I didn’t realize that there was federal funding pushing this urban density and zoning stuff. I have observed it independently in 2 completely different states where we spend time. Is there also federal funding to build ubiquitous cell towers in residential neighborhoods?
Wow, I didn’t realize that there was federal funding pushing this urban density and zoning stuff. I have observed it independently in 2 completely different states where we spend time. Is there also federal funding to build ubiquitous cell towers in residential neighborhoods?
Our region is served by a regional group (just a quick look at the website will tell you what they are REALLY about https://www.marc.org/) who is a conduit for federal grants for all sorts of wokeness. Cities gobble up this 'free money' from the Feds for all kinds of things. One city of 20K or so residents got nearly $200K for this new 'strategic comprehensive plan' process that included all of the hallmarks of the whole '15 minute city' phenomena. I do business research for a living and just wrapped up a project doing competitive intelligence for a Landscape Architecture client firm which included looking at LOTS of different city council meeting agendas, documents and video. Every LA firm I looked at has been making bank from all levels of gov in these planning, development and implementation of green new deal projects and dollars are overwhelmingly Fed. I can show you project after project that are as close to cookie cutter as you can get and since the vast majority of citizens pay ZERO attention to local meetings or even vote in local elections they have no freaking clue this is going on until it is too late to stop it. But the Left IS paying attention, and when these projects have the 'public input' part, the vast majority of the people who attend, are these utopians who lap this stuff up and applaud it. I have seen this in my city since the Obama administration and been trying to fight it but up until the past few years have been mostly a lone voice in the wilderness. I say it over and over again: LOCAL MATTERS! People need to start paying attention.
It is just delusional and anti-human. I think the WEF enlisted our governor Poisy Hat to make the Motor City the bike city and EV area, despite the fact that there are no sidewalks in Detroit and winter is 7 months and they don't plow the side streets unless we get 5 feet of snow or something. They got some big green delusional grant to destroy and gentrify the park near us, which, ordinarily is home to quadrillions of squirrels, raccoons, white tail deer, coyotes, crackheads selling and imbibing, driving at meth speeds, and male prostitution, organized via text message. First they numbered the shelters, and now they are making bike lanes and snow hills with huge amounts of construction money coming from some green source. So perhaps once every few months some spandex bicyclists will drive through the drug dealers and exhibitionist prostitutes, though the dousing with glyphosate has been killing the wildlife. I figure it is for Governor Poisy Hat and Rhashida Tlaib of Hamas to roll around with Larry Fink on the Gatsby lawns like Springtime for Hitler, synchronized, with some greedy CEOs and Chinese and Iranian spies hiding behind the maples. All on that MidEast drug that the Iranians feed to Hamas, just as the Waffen SS put all the soldiers on meth.
Yes our city has also spent big bucks putting in sidewalks and wider trail-like sidewalks (that ostensibly both bikers and walkers could both use). My hubby is a runner, though, and in the winter when they plow the streets, huge mounds of snow, that turn into giant dirty ice boulders almost completely cover these sidewalks rendering them mostly unusable.
Also, I love to cycle but it turns out that the bike lanes are being pushed by the developers so that the restaurants no longer can depend on parking spaces nearby, leading to neighborhood impoverishment and rezoning to make it more dense. In fact one of the major bike associations turns out to be largely funded by developers.
Yes, our local bike enthusiast group has been successful for years pushing for more and more 'road diet'/complete streets projects that take out lanes of traffic to put in more and more bike lanes, making traffic even worse than it already is. One road diet road near me I have NEVER seen a cyclist on it even once, despite traveling this road sometimes several times a day. I am in the midwest, and used to own a convertible. The number of 'top down' kinds of days (that I reason are also good cycling days) is probably only a third of the year. Our weather is schizophrenic - it can change from warm and sunny to cold and rain or snow at the drop of a hat. Super hot summer and super cold winters. No one is biking during the extremes. I have a neighbor who is a cycling enthusiast, but only goes out for recreation, and he and his group only go on the many trails and parks we have, they rarely go on actual roads as distracted drivers are a menace.
Same near us. As one of our protesters said, “they don’t try to put bike lanes on I 95”… So why put them on major streets where there are traffic lights and pollution?? In Europe they try to put bike paths off the Main Streets. We don’t mind having indirect more bucolic and less trafficked paths!
We have a wonderful trail system in our area, including one that is a former rail line that cyclists and hikers alike have plenty of room. Love going there when the weather is decent. If you are a cycle enthusiast, MO has the KATY trail https://katytrailmo.com/ (another former rail line) that nearly criss crosses the entire state. Lots of nice stops along the route, wineries, B&B's, etc. Our local one has just a few mile gap before it links to the KATY trail but has not yet gotten funding (and would require cooperation between multiple jurisdictions) All the cyclists I know use the trails, not the roads. But then I don't know any of the 'activist' ones other than I see them at all the meetings. The leader is a doctor who loves to wax about the 'health benefits' but willing to bet he drives his car to his medical practice.
I support the ability to commute on a bicycle even if it’s just nice weather or April to November. During Covid our public transportation system basically stopped. So I tried to bicycle from one end of town to the other without getting into the traffic, and it was almost impossible to figure out all the little roads (no help from google.) I don’t want to be riding on a road with lots of traffic, who does? The whole premise is cockamamie.
I sure wouldn't want to bike on a busy road these days, what with people texting and driving, and guys who are intentionally killing cyclists either for fun or as a gang initiation rite. Not to mention people having "medical emergencies" at the wheel.
Not to mention getting to work all sweaty and dirty 😕 Unless there’s a way to shower and change, I’m not sure I’d be up for that. Especially with all the other issues mentioned.
My understanding from talking to someone more knowledgeable than I am is that developers want to get certain "green" certifications. Probably they are incentivized by government. But to get those certifications, there are are a certain number of points they have to get. They chose to get points through easy things like bike lanes rather than hard things that cost a lot. Bike lanes and other low hanging fruit are what they go for to get their certification, which the local governments just eat up. They say, "wow, your build will have this green certification? Well, you get the green light, then!"
2017 my apartment complex forced green energy on us. Put in led’s everywhere and lit up the parking lot. I had to get a note from my doctor to get my regular shower head back on from the useless energy efficient one. The bushes and trees started dying after they installed the new lighting but it could be the 5 g also or the chemtrail pollution killing the plants.
Wow, I didn’t realize that there was federal funding pushing this urban density and zoning stuff. I have observed it independently in 2 completely different states where we spend time. Is there also federal funding to build ubiquitous cell towers in residential neighborhoods?
Our region is served by a regional group (just a quick look at the website will tell you what they are REALLY about https://www.marc.org/) who is a conduit for federal grants for all sorts of wokeness. Cities gobble up this 'free money' from the Feds for all kinds of things. One city of 20K or so residents got nearly $200K for this new 'strategic comprehensive plan' process that included all of the hallmarks of the whole '15 minute city' phenomena. I do business research for a living and just wrapped up a project doing competitive intelligence for a Landscape Architecture client firm which included looking at LOTS of different city council meeting agendas, documents and video. Every LA firm I looked at has been making bank from all levels of gov in these planning, development and implementation of green new deal projects and dollars are overwhelmingly Fed. I can show you project after project that are as close to cookie cutter as you can get and since the vast majority of citizens pay ZERO attention to local meetings or even vote in local elections they have no freaking clue this is going on until it is too late to stop it. But the Left IS paying attention, and when these projects have the 'public input' part, the vast majority of the people who attend, are these utopians who lap this stuff up and applaud it. I have seen this in my city since the Obama administration and been trying to fight it but up until the past few years have been mostly a lone voice in the wilderness. I say it over and over again: LOCAL MATTERS! People need to start paying attention.
It is just delusional and anti-human. I think the WEF enlisted our governor Poisy Hat to make the Motor City the bike city and EV area, despite the fact that there are no sidewalks in Detroit and winter is 7 months and they don't plow the side streets unless we get 5 feet of snow or something. They got some big green delusional grant to destroy and gentrify the park near us, which, ordinarily is home to quadrillions of squirrels, raccoons, white tail deer, coyotes, crackheads selling and imbibing, driving at meth speeds, and male prostitution, organized via text message. First they numbered the shelters, and now they are making bike lanes and snow hills with huge amounts of construction money coming from some green source. So perhaps once every few months some spandex bicyclists will drive through the drug dealers and exhibitionist prostitutes, though the dousing with glyphosate has been killing the wildlife. I figure it is for Governor Poisy Hat and Rhashida Tlaib of Hamas to roll around with Larry Fink on the Gatsby lawns like Springtime for Hitler, synchronized, with some greedy CEOs and Chinese and Iranian spies hiding behind the maples. All on that MidEast drug that the Iranians feed to Hamas, just as the Waffen SS put all the soldiers on meth.
Madness!
Yes our city has also spent big bucks putting in sidewalks and wider trail-like sidewalks (that ostensibly both bikers and walkers could both use). My hubby is a runner, though, and in the winter when they plow the streets, huge mounds of snow, that turn into giant dirty ice boulders almost completely cover these sidewalks rendering them mostly unusable.
Also, I love to cycle but it turns out that the bike lanes are being pushed by the developers so that the restaurants no longer can depend on parking spaces nearby, leading to neighborhood impoverishment and rezoning to make it more dense. In fact one of the major bike associations turns out to be largely funded by developers.
Yes, our local bike enthusiast group has been successful for years pushing for more and more 'road diet'/complete streets projects that take out lanes of traffic to put in more and more bike lanes, making traffic even worse than it already is. One road diet road near me I have NEVER seen a cyclist on it even once, despite traveling this road sometimes several times a day. I am in the midwest, and used to own a convertible. The number of 'top down' kinds of days (that I reason are also good cycling days) is probably only a third of the year. Our weather is schizophrenic - it can change from warm and sunny to cold and rain or snow at the drop of a hat. Super hot summer and super cold winters. No one is biking during the extremes. I have a neighbor who is a cycling enthusiast, but only goes out for recreation, and he and his group only go on the many trails and parks we have, they rarely go on actual roads as distracted drivers are a menace.
Same near us. As one of our protesters said, “they don’t try to put bike lanes on I 95”… So why put them on major streets where there are traffic lights and pollution?? In Europe they try to put bike paths off the Main Streets. We don’t mind having indirect more bucolic and less trafficked paths!
We have a wonderful trail system in our area, including one that is a former rail line that cyclists and hikers alike have plenty of room. Love going there when the weather is decent. If you are a cycle enthusiast, MO has the KATY trail https://katytrailmo.com/ (another former rail line) that nearly criss crosses the entire state. Lots of nice stops along the route, wineries, B&B's, etc. Our local one has just a few mile gap before it links to the KATY trail but has not yet gotten funding (and would require cooperation between multiple jurisdictions) All the cyclists I know use the trails, not the roads. But then I don't know any of the 'activist' ones other than I see them at all the meetings. The leader is a doctor who loves to wax about the 'health benefits' but willing to bet he drives his car to his medical practice.
I support the ability to commute on a bicycle even if it’s just nice weather or April to November. During Covid our public transportation system basically stopped. So I tried to bicycle from one end of town to the other without getting into the traffic, and it was almost impossible to figure out all the little roads (no help from google.) I don’t want to be riding on a road with lots of traffic, who does? The whole premise is cockamamie.
I sure wouldn't want to bike on a busy road these days, what with people texting and driving, and guys who are intentionally killing cyclists either for fun or as a gang initiation rite. Not to mention people having "medical emergencies" at the wheel.
Not to mention getting to work all sweaty and dirty 😕 Unless there’s a way to shower and change, I’m not sure I’d be up for that. Especially with all the other issues mentioned.
My understanding from talking to someone more knowledgeable than I am is that developers want to get certain "green" certifications. Probably they are incentivized by government. But to get those certifications, there are are a certain number of points they have to get. They chose to get points through easy things like bike lanes rather than hard things that cost a lot. Bike lanes and other low hanging fruit are what they go for to get their certification, which the local governments just eat up. They say, "wow, your build will have this green certification? Well, you get the green light, then!"
Sounds about right. The same way all advertising nowadays shows only "diverse" models -- it's an easy way for corporations to score ESG points.
Oh, I didn't know that was tied in, too!! Makes me feel like we're all children in school made to participate in a points reward and demerits system.
2017 my apartment complex forced green energy on us. Put in led’s everywhere and lit up the parking lot. I had to get a note from my doctor to get my regular shower head back on from the useless energy efficient one. The bushes and trees started dying after they installed the new lighting but it could be the 5 g also or the chemtrail pollution killing the plants.
That’s awful. I have been hoarding incandescent 100 W lightbulbs for a while.
I dragged in lamps everywhere. Thankfully I since moved & unexpectedly happily married.
Research C40 Cities. Here’s a link for you.
https://www.c40.org/about-c40/
Wow. Thanks.