Unless this was purposely created to kill cyclists, this is the most criminally stupid bike lane design I have ever encountered:
Keep in mind that all of this is happening on a fairly steep downhill grade in a city that gets a lot of rain.
14 years.
Thomas J. Campanella for The Design Observer:
But the same community activism has at times devolved into NIMBYism, causing several infill projects to be halted and helping drive development to greenfield sites. (Cows are slow to organize.) It’s made the local homeless shelter homeless itself, almost ended a Habitat for Humanity complex in Chapel Hill, and generated opposition to a much-needed transit-oriented development in the county seat of Hillsborough (more on this in a moment). And for what it’s worth, the shrillest opposition came not from rednecks or Tea Party activists but from highly educated “creative class” progressives who effectively weaponized Jane Jacobs to oppose anything they perceived as threatening the status quo — including projects that would reduce our carbon footprint, create more affordable housing and shelter the homeless. NIMBYism, it turns out, is the snake in the grassroots.
“Weaponized Jane Jacobs.”
I have now spoken of lime and sand, with their varieties and points of excellence. Next comes the consideration of stone-quarries from which dimension stone and supplies of rubble to be used in building are taken and brought together. The stone in quarries is found to be of different and unlike qualities. In some it is soft: for example, in the environs of the city at the quarries of Grotta Rossa, Palla, Fidenae, and of the Alban hills; in others, it is medium, as at Tivoli, at Amiternum, or Mt. Soracte, and in quarries of this sort; in still others it is hard, as in lava quarries. There are also numerous other kinds: for instance, in Campania, red and black tufas; in Umbria, Picenum, and Venetia, white tufa.In any case, stone, when used for columns or piers, must first be affixed to a hollow box made from composite board and then should be set firmly upon the bed of a wooden porch or deck. Further the wooden base should then itself be set, in it's turn, upon stone and mud pavements to allow the wood to fully participate in the humours of water. [emphasis added].
Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture. Book II, Chapter VII. Vitruvius. Morris Hicky Morgan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. London: Humphrey Milford. Oxford University Press. 1914
Who am I to argue with 2000 years of tradition?
I love mid-20th century visions of the future, though often incredibly wrong they sometimes hit the mark. As with the above cover image which depicts, if I'm not mistaken, a giant stadium with an expensive retractable roof destroying the downtown of a city…
A lot more here, via BoingBoing.