Today’s Headlines

Speaking of transit turf wars, notice the big pushback against Cuomo holding that the MTA can no longer afford projects like the LIRR third track because that money should go to fix the subway?

But no one is saying do both, but don’t add a fourth lane to the Van Wyck or the second span of the Tappan Zee.

Agreed – it’s a crisis, so temporary measures should be to reallocate 1 motor lane on the BQE, FDR, and Henry Hudson Parkway for express commuter cycling.

This is a dirt cheap solution which could be implemented in a matter of months using jersey barriers and baily bridges

Unfortunately we’re beyond that. The amount of resources the existing system is going to suck up to NOT educate children is just going to be too great. We’re beyond worrying about developmentally appropriate, and just trying to figure out how to get SOMETHING.

And one of the usual ways they adjust for it is to slash starting pay to make up for soaring retirement costs and out of classroom assignments. Right now class sizes are well over 25 with a student to instructional worker just north of 8 and one year in retirement for each year worked for those who don’t depart early in their careers. And it’s going to get worse.

I guess it depends on what your school experience was like. I would have been really happy to have spent at least grade school online. I don’t remember a single pleasant thing about my grade school experience. I think high school and perhaps part of middle school is where you need to get out into the world for your own development. The early grades are mostly spent learning the basics.

Most of early childhood development other than learning is done playing with other children. Most of this is done outside of school. In fact, I used to hate the forced interaction in grade school with a passion, as well as just about all the activities the teachers chose.

Homeschooling is great for just about everyone through at least grade school. The idea is to learn the basics well. You can best do that in a comfortable, familiar environment. Schools are often just the opposite. I remember classrooms which were too hot or too cold to really concentrate on learning. Some kids get bullied. Most get made fun of at one point or another. And a lot of the school day is spent on BS which has nothing to do with learning. I’m pretty sure my development wasn’t helped much by having to write “I must not talk in class.” a few hundred times every single week. No, I didn’t talk in class, but the idiot teachers thought “group punishment” was a great idea. I really hope that concept fell out of vogue. Punishing children for something they didn’t even do is great at giving them a sense of powerlessness, hopelessness, and apathy, which is exactly what it did to me.

You’re right if we’re talking high school and some enrichment activities in middle school. At some point a child outgrows what they can do at home. And I think early teens is also the age where regular interaction with your peers starts to be somewhat important.

the prussian educational model adopted in the US is horrific

Larry, you have a tendency to talk about a lot of things as if you are an expert on all those things. Sometimes, you are right on point. In this case, you are not even close. And please don’t point me to some blog post of yours to back up what you are saying using your own words. That really gets annoying after a while.

“And I think early teens is also the age where regular interaction with your peers starts to be somewhat important.”

“Starts to be”???!!!

Regular interaction with peers is a fundamental part of kindergarten (and pre-school), and an important part of education throughout primary school.

Going 8 or 10 miles stop-and-go on local streets just doesn’t cut it.

Only 13% of people who work and live within NYC travel between 8 and 10 miles from home to work. The bicycle might not be the best solution for them, except for seasoned cyclists.

11% live within 1 mile of where they work. They should probably be walking.

30% travel between 1 and 4 miles between home and work. This is cycling’s sweet spot. Average Citibike travel time is 21 minutes for trips in this distance range. It’s faster than walking. It’s also faster than bus or subway, when walking distance to/from bus/subway and waiting time for bus/subway are included.

If e-bikes become legal, they will extend the range beyond 4 miles.

Fine. Can you point me to something other than one of my blog posts that shows the trend in NYC public education spending per student over 20 years, adjusted for inflation, and how much of that is going to teacher compensation?

And how that compares with other places?

Orignal data here.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/school-finances.html

While you are at it perhaps you can point me to some other compilation of the latest transit finance data from the National Transit Database too.

I think what you will find is the reason I take the trouble to compile this information and provide it to the public is that thousands of people are paid to NOT provide this information to the public.

E-bikes are the game changer here. If we finally legalize them, they’ll enable 10 or 15 mile each way bike commutes but only if we have the infrastructure where they can run non-stop for most of the trip. Ditto for velomobiles.

Citibike may be faster than bus or subway on regular city streets but that’s like saying a tortoise is faster than a slug. 6 or 7 or 8 mph average speeds belong in third-world countries. We can and should aim to do a lot better than that.

Right, and when I was young nearly 100% of that interaction was playing with other kids after school or on weekends, or with my siblings. The primary purpose of school is to teach academics. Only in modern times have we extended that function to include “socialization”. I personally see lots of problems with that. For one thing, most teachers don’t have much background in psychology, psychiatry, or childhood development. They’re not really equipped to function as social directors for large groups of children. For another, the type of forced socialization often done in the early grades may well cause more harm than good. Kids like to choose their playmates. And some just happen to prefer mostly being by themselves. Teachers will try to pair kids off who otherwise want to have nothing to do with each other. They’ll also be quick to say those who might prefer to be alone most of the time have “issues”. Don’t even get me started on forcing children to play “team sports”. I get it that exercise should be a part of classroom instruction. I also think there should be a choice between team and solitary activities.

It’s funny how schools seemed to work a lot better when they focused exclusively on academics and physical education.

In my area two cars per family seems pretty common. It may not be in places with alternate side parking. Once you get out of NYC two cars are the rule if both parents are working.

That bit of afterschool coverage is pretty expensive from what I’ve read. Moreover, employers push people to work long days. If we’re talking “career” parents, you might be needing 6 or 7 hours of afterschool care.

Bet these people wish they had Robert Moses to build them a riverfront freeway like the FDR

https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLzNM_rzDSme6P4gvpkVIVGEo1ta2TFMeS&v=m4RSUnLJD2U

they’ll [ebikes] enable 10 or 15 mile each way bike commutes

That’s 10% of the journeys to work.

You should to define the problem and the solution parameters before proposing a solution. How many people will this help and by how much? How long should the journey to work take? Only after these parameters are defined, then the search for a solution should be undertaken.

Be careful for what you wish. The reason traffic signals became necessary is that high speed cars could not negotiate a right of way at intersections. It wasn’t a safety consideration. Cars would entangle intersections and were unable to get unclogged.

Traffic signals halved the average speed. The solution was to permit cars to drive faster. Pedestrian and cyclist deaths were collateral damage.

Also, further distances made possible by faster cruising speeds would encourage sprawl. The compact city alternative is the slow lane.

“Don’t think teacher’s unions, plus everyone else who benefits from the status quo with schooling, aren’t funding most of the research you allude to.”

Dude, there is massive pressure from a variety of sources to bring technology into classrooms. And good research going on about the effects of it – positive and negative – and how to do it well and badly.

You’re completely ignorant of not just the content of that debate, but even that that debate is happening. The fact that you think you can speak authoritatively about elementary education is profoundly ignorant.

[Link to article] “Scientists discover how to ‘upload knowledge to your brain’ ”

You apparently have zero understanding of what happens in elementary school.

Anything which enables faster long commutes will also benefit shorter commutes. That’s why we need to get more bike routes free of traffic signals. A 4 mile bike trip at an average speed of 6 mph takes 40 minutes. If we get that speed up to only 12 mph, which is still not blazingly fast, we cut 40 minutes off the round trip.

Also, trips to work aren’t the be all and end all. Recreational trips tend to be longer. Why not enable people to see their friends in other boroughs by bike or e-bike?

Also, further distances made possible by faster cruising speeds would encourage sprawl. The compact city alternative is the slow lane.

Why does it always have to be an either/or proposition? I would think you would want faster average travel speeds regardless of travel distance. That’s why we built the subway. NYC isn’t a compact city. That’s why some of the things I propose, which maybe wouldn’t make sense in Amsterdam, make lots of sense in NYC. NYC is not only huge geographically, but the streets are too congested. They’re also optimized for cars, to the detriment of cyclists and pedestrians. Hence the need for a bike analogue to car highways.

I’ve found when I do 140 miles a week or more my body starts to rebel. It doesn’t matter much how I distribute those miles. I could do 3 40 mile days (with a day of rest in between) and a 20 mile day, or 7 20-mile days. Either way, I start to feel it after a few weeks of this. 100 miles a week seems mostly doable on a semi-continual basis (i.e. December through February mostly off). That typically results in 4,000 miles a year.

Last few years on account of my job and taking care of my mother I’ve been off. Only 1,000 miles in 2014 and 2015. Less than 800 miles last year. Less than 100 miles so far this year (major back issues which kept me off the bike completely for over 5 months). I hope to eventually get back to 3K or 4K but who knows when?

I’ve read tons of stuff of about charter schools and the push back these have gotten from teacher’s unions. I’m no fan of charter schools, but the basic premise here is anything which threaten’s the unionized teacher’s hold on education is going to try to be discredited.

FYI, here’s exactly what I’m talking about:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/education/01virtual.html

You apparently have zero understanding of what happens in elementary school.

No, I have a different opinion of what schools should do. As schools have tried to take over more of the functions parents and extended families should be doing, they’ve become worse at their primary goal of educating. I not only want education to go back to the basics (and if we can do that without physical schools so much the better) but I want parents to start going back to being parents. I personally feel the last election especially was a referendum of a how the schools have failed to produce independent, thinking adults who can wisely choose their leaders. It’s pretty apparent what we’re doing now isn’t working.

Dude, there is massive pressure from a variety of sources to bring technology into classrooms.

That’s a separate issue from using technology to get rid of the classroom entirely. We should be doing both at this point. Maybe online learning in its present state of development will only work well for 15% of students. The way I see (and the number of patents issued to Americans bears this out) one area the schools are failing at big-time is educating those who are above average. This was a problem even when I was in school but it’s gotten worse. I was bored stiff through most of my early schooling. I also didn’t enjoy interacting with most of my peers for the same reason. Suppose bright children have access to a curriculum which lets them proceed at their own pace instead of dealing with hours of tedium in a regular classroom? It’s even better on another level. Bright kids are always the subject of ridicule in a regular classroom among their peers. I’m pretty sure that kind of “social interaction” doesn’t help their development.

The bottom line is “classrooms” are a one-size-fits-all solution which frankly doesn’t work well for those who are very far ahead of their peers. It may not work all that well for those who are very far behind, either. I think if we start online schooling for the group most likely to benefit from it (and least likely to be hurt by it), we’ll gain knowledge to decide whether it merits application to the general school population.

Wait until we have technology capable of replacing teachers and classrooms. That’s when you’ll have real push back. What you’re talking about sounds great but it’s hardly a threat to teachers. AI may well be capable of giving the type of in-person tuition you’re talking about. Not now, but in a generation or less.

You cannot have kids, especially elementary age kids, in front of screens for even more hours a day. It will destroy them.

Why are you assuming screens will always be the way people interact with technology? Even now VR is making serious inroads. Imagine a kid learning at home in a virtual classroom with a virtual AI teacher who can offer one-to-one teaching? And imagine that such VR is virtually indistinguishable from reality. I wouldn’t hedge my bets that such technology won’t exist in a generation or less.

While on the subject of screens, the problem here if we still assume screens for online learning is the amount of screen time outside of school. 5 or 6 hours of school screen time probably equals the amount of time kids spend on their phones or TVs the rest of the day. Maybe we don’t give them phones, and perhaps don’t let them watch TV on school days. That means no more screen time than they’re getting now. Moreover, it’s subjectively better screen time.

Honestly, I’m not disagreeing with you about the issue of screen time. Frankly, if I had kids they wouldn’t get phones until they could pay for them, and they wouldn’t watch TV at all on school nights. That’s regardless of whether or not they went to online schools. I personally wouldn’t want my children exposed to the commercial cesspool which TV has become. I can’t think of much good which comes from exposing young minds to a constant barrage of ads exhorting them to buy stuff they don’t need.

Come to think of it, I’m less than thrilled with the effect screens are having on adults. I’m tired of seeing people absorbed in their gadgets to the extent of all else. Yeah, I often post a lot here on some days, but then there are times I hardly post for days or weeks. It’s easy to get sucked into the online world but I prefer the real one most of the time.

That’s why we need to get more bike routes free of traffic signals. A 4 mile bike trip at an average speed of 6 mph takes 40 minutes. If we get that speed up to only 12 mph, which is still not blazingly fast, we cut 40 minutes off the round trip.

A 12 mph overall speed with traffic lights implies a 24 mph cruising speed. That’s close enough to the speed limit. The same dynamics that work against the pedestrian vs. car vis-a-vis sight distances work for pedestrian vs. bike at that speed.

Morover, a bike traveling at 24 mph has a lot less maneuverability as one traveling 12 mph. It’s not as easy to avoid a collision by turning.

These two factors will make traffic signals necessary with the result of reduced overall speed.

OTOH, vehicles and bikes traveling at 12 mph or less can negotiate the right of way at an intersection, have more reaction time to avoid collisions and are more maneuverable. Traffic signals are not required, if 12 mph is the maximum speed. I would expect to see traffic signals, stop signs, etc. removed if a 12-15 mph speed limit could be effectively enforced.

The net effect between slow speed and no traffic control devices vs. high speed with traffic control devices on average speed is negligible. Unfortunately, automobile manufacturers realized that higher cruising speeds sell cars. Therefore, speed limits were raised to the detriment of pedestrians and cyclists. It was also to the detriment of drivers because they did not achieve any reduction in total trip time, due to the increased cruising speeds.

Also, trips to work aren’t the be all and end all. Recreational trips tend to be longer.

I chose the journey to work because there is good data available for it. The LEHD census data lists home and work locations by census block pairs, based on the W4 forms.

Data for recreational trips is derived from sampling. I distrust it the sampling methodology because it relies on the subjects remembering and recording all their movements. Also, because of the fewer subjects, origin and destinations are limited to census tracts.

Given, these limitations, the average trip length that isn’t classified as traveling between home and work tends to be between 2 and 3 miles. Check out NYMTC’s 2010/2011 Regional Household Travel Survey (RHTS) before you make assumptions regarding recreational trip length.

I would think you would want faster average travel speeds regardless of travel distance. .

I want convenience. That does not necessarily translate to higher average travel speeds. What I can find within a 10 minute walk is more convenient that what I can find within a 10 minute car ride or a 10 minute bike ride propelled at car speed.

That’s why we built the subway. NYC isn’t a compact city. That’s why some of the things I propose, which maybe wouldn’t make sense in Amsterdam, make lots of sense in NYC. NYC is not only huge geographically, but the streets are too congested.

You’re confusing compactness with geographic agglomeration. NYC is composed of individual neighborhoods. Most of these are compact. Most high demand services are within a 10 minute walking distance. Those congested streets make NYC safe for pedestrians. Cities that are built for the automobile have cars traveling 40 to 50 mph along their streets. These cities have 2 to 3 times the per capita pedestrian kill rate.

What you’re proposing in essence is to create the post WWII sprawl but using bicycles instead of automobiles. You are proposing to increase bicycle speeds to those approaching automobiles to overcome the obvious travel time problem. It’s not the automobiles that millennials are rejecting. It’s the life style.

Another problem with that vision is that it’s possible to create bicycle traffic jams. I’ve had experience creating some during the 1980 subway strike and for 40 years helping with the Five Boro Bike Tour. That will limit your speed, even with a network of bike only grade separated highways.

I hope to see a future where bicycles participate in the city dynamic, not where bicycles try to create an alternate universe.

I don’t know what you mean by above and below. I’m on the back side, but only barely, between 10th and 11th Avenues.

Not nearly as bad as my hometown in Yonkers!

“imagine that such VR is virtually indistinguishable from reality.”

You remind me of how we used to “argue” in middle school.