Public Bicycling

The Nice Ride program, which has distributed rental bicycles in selected locations throughout the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, had a presence that included two very articulate spokespersons at the NGVP criterium in St. Paul. Their bikes are the same as the ones in the accompanying video, except that they are a kind of odd green color.

Chilkoot Hill

Sunday, June 17, the NVGP racing scene moved over the hill to the St. Croix River valley town of Stillwater, Minnesota where the lady racers were scheduled to go up Chilkoot Hill and back down again 13 lung-busting times. The sockless foot of Exergy sprint super-star Teresa Cliff-Ryan, winner of the two flatter urban criteriums in St.Paul and Minneapolis of this year's edition of the NVGP. The upper part of Teresa. Former world time trial champion Amber Neben received word while at NVGP that she had been selected for the US Olympic cycling team competing in the London games. Affable Holly Breck traveled from southern California with her SC Velo/Empower Coaching team mates to try their luck against the star-studded NVGP field. The luck part didn't hold up for Holly as she suffered through mechanicals, crashes and flats but still started every stage. Nineteen year-old Mexican road racing champion Ingrid Drexler probably cemented her spot on the Mexican Olympic cycling team with a 15th place GC finish. Speciaized-Lululemon rider Emilia Fahlin powered to a second place finish in the GC. The heart of the Tibco racing powerhouse, Meredith Miller, Megan Guarnier and Samantha Schneider. Guarnier won the Stillwater stage with a solo breakaway.  Days later she won the US road racing national championship while Schneider became the U/23 national title holder.

Nature Valley Grand Prix, Uptown Edition

On Friday evening, June 15, the Minnesota cycling event of the year moved its orange barriers, announcer's stand and finish line to Hennepin Ave. in Minneapolis for the fourth stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix, a criterium in the Uptown shopping and dining neighborhood. Women's race leaders line up for the start. That's Leah Kirchmann in her red Canadian national road racing championship kit and Optum team mate Carmen Small in the race leader's yellow jersey. Tenacious Jenny Ives from the horse racing mecca of Saratoga Springs, NY explains her tactics for the upcoming race to Kenda Geargrinder team mate Lauren De Crescenzo. Cornell University student Lenore Pipes, a rare competitive cyclist from the Pacific island of Guam, represents the Kowalski's All-Stars, a team made up of college riders. Lenore surprised the rest of the peloton with a a fourth place finish in the sprint to the line at the St. Paul Criterium. Local track and road racing competitor Tara James held her own against international competition. Girls from the Minneapolis-based Optum Cycling Team wait for the starter's gun.

China's Cotton Order Jolts Market

This article in the June 16 Wall Street Journal informs us that some entity or entities in China "bought close to 94% of the 795,700 bales of the net export sales from the U.S. in the week ending June 7." The purchase was made near the low end of a market that had been falling for some time, down to 66.10 cents per pound earlier in the month. Why would the inscrutable Orientals buy immense amounts of cotton? Two reasons. First, the commodity is cheap and they are the world's largest consumer of cotton. More important, however, is the fact that they have traded electronic pixels that represent slips of paper with former US politicians engraved on them for bales of a genuine substance that will keep for some time and can be used to make blue jeans and bath towels. Their purchase is a multi-billion dollar vote against the continued viability of the US dollar.

Detlev Schlichter and Max Keiser in the same room.

Maitre d'hotel Henri Charpentier said:

"There are things in this world more subtle than the minds of men can grasp.  For all their prying , what convincing words can scientists use to tell each other how an atom of musk during years can throw off a something that in human nostrils becomes that which we call an odor, and yet, itself, be undiminished?"

Light Rail = $

Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog gives a brief financial analysis of the expansion of the light rail system in metro Phoenix:

From the AZ Republic

Valley Metro is set to break ground today on the first light-rail expansion, a 3.1-mile stretch into downtown Mesa that city leaders hope will bring a sorely needed economic boost.

The $200 million extension is expected to attract thousands more East Valley riders daily and potentially nurture new development along the line.

If we assume “thousands” means two thousand, then this means the metro area is spending $100,000 per new daily rider for this expansion, not including the additional operating subsidies that will be required to run the trains.  Given that none of these people will likely be able to give up their car, since the route goes so few places, why should they get a $100,000 subsidy?

How about we charge them what it costs?  The payment on a 30-year 5% bond is around $13,000,000 a year.  So if there are 2,000 additional round trip riders boarding or debarking at these new stations each day, that is 1.46 million trips.  So the tickets should be $8.90 per trip plus the cost of actually running the train.  We’ll round it to $10, though the cost is probably higher.  If people really think this train is so great, they should be more than willing to pay the $10 a trip it costs for the expansion.

No, they are not?  What this means is that people think this is a really go idea as long as someone else pays.

PS-  If these seem unreasonably high, or simply an artifact of looking at this expansion on a stand-alone basis, think again.  For the original system, the capital cost was $75,000 per round trip rider and the public subsidy in 2010 was $32.73 per trip.  In other words, on the main system, riders would have to pay $32.73 a trip more to be actually covering the cost of the service they are receiving.  So if anything, these incremental numbers for the expansion are probably optimistic.

PPS – I am sure transit authorities would argue that the public did support paying for other people’s transit by approving the sales tax increase for this purpose a few years ago.  But the train piece was packaged in with a bunch of highway improvements in the same proposition that people really did want.  It would never have passed on its own.  Transit official may disagree, but the proof is in their actions – they have never allowed the public to vote on the transit piece alone.

We're seeing the same thing in other localities, Minneapolis-St.Paul, for instance.  You must read a British paper to be updated on the even more grotesque situation in California.