It is getting a lot better that it was! Walking/ Biking (NO Motors) Some trails are 50+ mile long, mostly paved! A lot more are coming online, many connecting with each other!
@pmarin One is the Capital to Capital trail built just for this, Richmond, Va to Williamsburg, with a side trail to JamesTowne.
Another is the Va Creeper, a rails to trails path (only Bikes, People or Horses.) That is between Abingdon, Va through Damascus to White Top Mtn, Va over 30 miles. I have done this one! Great trail, awesome Views/ Background.
@chienfou@pmarin Nope! You need to get out on a Bicycle & use some legs action. Although I have heard they have made some VR stuff for a stationary bike. that that is NO fun, being outside in the sunshine, fresh air, good country side to ride through. Nothing with a motor is allowed.
@mycya4me Need to live vicariously, to avoid real exercise at all costs.
Besides, iRL, too many college-age or younger drivers around here on cell phones chalking up bikers and pedestrians. (They still give out DLs in Cracker Jack boxes?)
In the outer limits of the city, it’s good. However, we have a current state of emergency declared due to the amount of pedestrians getting hit by cars
Good, but ever since all the middle & high school kids started getting electric bikes, they’re less fun to be on. The kids ride like they’re on a motocross course.
@pmarin In the Netherlands, which is admittedly smaller than most of our States, it is possible to travel between most of the major cities via bicycle without ever having to share a lane with motor vehicle traffic. (A thing I learned on YouTube from Evan Edinger.)
In the Boston area, there are nice walking and biking paths above where the trenches were dug in '80s to extend the subway system, and there are paths along the Charles River separating Boston and Cambridge. There are also lots of bike lanes on the streets in Cambridge. There’s also the Minute Man Commuter Bikeway which extends from Cambridge out to Concord on a former railbed. It’s for walking, biking, rollerblading, etc., not just for commuting on a bike, and is paved until it enters Concord.
@ItalianScallion I have been to Boston, Mass. I had to drive to 8 different sites (kinks), Pre GPS/ Covid. I remember they had complete the “BIG DIG” then about a year later one of the large celling tiles came loose & fell onto a vehicle, It became a pancake! I prefer driving in Northern Va/ Washington DC Rush hour than Boston!
@mycya4me Ah yes, the Big Dig. I remember the before, the during, and for nearly 20 years we’ve had the after. It was an enormous project. At the time it was the most expensive highway project in the US and was plagued by delays, cost overruns, corruption, and crimes, and the death of the person in the car when the ceiling panel collapsed. I get the delays and cost overruns. How can you accurately predict duration and cost at the beginning of a 15-year project? The rest of all that was criminal, both literally and figuratively. A lot of people were and are thoroughly critical of the project, but the results were astonishing and truly changed for the better the character of a large swath of Boston.
@Kyeh@mycya4me If you want to read more mysteries set in Boston, I recommend the four-book series by Ray Daniel: Terminated, Child Not Found, Corrupted Memory, and Hacked. The series follows the adventures and mishaps of a software engineer, Tucker, who developed controversial security software and finds himself becoming something of a detective after his wife is murdered. As the series goes on, Tucker find himself in various messes, involving murder, kidnapping, and organized crime. I found all the books to be quite gripping with some unexpected turns. The Boston references are absolutely accurate and Ray captures the feeling of the neighborhoods in the city.
I should mention that I know Ray and his wife from long before his writing career when we all worked together at a Boston-area computer company. I would have liked reading these books even if I didn’t know Ray wrote them.
@ItalianScallion I also remember that Beautiful White suspension bridge. Oh that was Kinko’s that FedEx bought, now is a FedEx Office. FYI IMHO killing a well known brand name is stupid, They could have called it Kinko’s div. of FedEx Office. But No one asked me. I was just one of the many techs that worked on the merger project. (part 2 of the project that is) I did most of them in Va, A lot of them in the Wash. DC metro area. a number of them in the Philly. Pa area & of course the 8 in the Boston metro area.
@ItalianScallion@Kyeh OMG yes, I will always call it twitter.Of course when ever I see a FedEX office I will still think Kinkos (most of them were pretty big as they were copy shops (I do believe the one outside of I think Harvard/ MIT was one of their main Print shops. Plus the one at Dunkin’ Brands HQ was managed by Kinko’s.
@Kyeh@mycya4me The Fedex Office store in Harvard Square is still there, at least it was the last time I noticed it. I don’t get over the MIT side of town, so I don’t know about that one.
@ItalianScallion@Kyeh what I remember was that it was a couple levels & it was on a street that was only the length of the Building, then I had to go to Post Office Square.
I live in the country (NW Oregon) - no curated walking paths here, but my property adjoins several hundred acres of commercial timber land, with many trails to explore. (There is even a creek with a small hidden waterfall that most locals don’t even know about.)
@macromeh I feel like I’ve asked you this before, but do you live in the Mulino/Beavercreek area? We used to have a five acre farm that backed on hundreds of acres and we’d hike it all the time.
I’m in the chicago area. We have many different systems in and around the city/ suburbs. We have our county forestry areas with bike/wheel traffic routes and off trail hiking areas. In winter these are shifted to snow sports cross country skiing, snow mobiles, snow shoeing…In the city proper we have a verity of options. There’s the “606” trail a reclaimed old elevated commuter rail line that has been paved for biking/ walking/rolling, etc… The Lake Front pathway system near the shore of Lake Michigan it runs from Evanston to the South Shore. There are bike lanes scattered across the city along with bike & scooter rental spots. There are designated biking areas near the Chicago river in the downtown area as well. So all in all pretty bike friendly I think. They’re trying to be more disability friendly with more accessible trails for wheelchair/scooters users as well. Far from perfect but not bad.
@jkawaguchi Don’t worry, the local government will sell the management of the bike trail system to a private company that will convert them all to toll paths and end up costing the taxpayers three times as much in taxes while delivering worse service.
We have a lot of nice trails and bike paths but there are still a handful of commercial districts that have absolutely no pedestrian means of transportation. Other than walking the shoulder of a 5 lane major roadway
Manhatten has a few really nice ones along the river and in Central Park. I don’t think the rest of the city does. There are a few on Long Island, but none near us!
In Portland there’s Forest Park. Lake O has Tryon Creek. Oregon city has Canemah Bluffs and here in Beavercreek, we have Hopkins demonstration forest. Love trail running and hiking through there with my dogs. It’s a pretty amazing spot. Also Silver Falls State Park in Silverton is quite amazing.
@Kyeh come on over to Oregon! You can stay in my fancy, not quite yet finished, studio. I should be working on stairs today but had to take a kiddo on a birthday shopping trip because she was out of school.
The DC area has some pretty great options. You’ve got the C&O canal if you’re up for a 180 mile hike and some place called ‘The Mall’ which is nice to walk if you like crowds and museums and monuments and stuff
The parks & rec department around here is pretty awesome (zip it Mediocrebot) with public parks everywhere. I was just recently over at my mom’s and found myself skipping rocks in the creek I spent most of my youth in
I live in a rural area, but I’m close to a state park with a large network of hike/bike trails that range from easy to moderately difficult. Some of the newest ones are made for mountain bikes. Here’s one:
Poop.
@yakkoTDI so, not Scottish?
@werehatrack @yakkoTDI
Because everything that is not Scottish is … poop?
@chienfou @yakkoTDI I’ it’s nae Scottish, it’s crrrrap!
The dominant feature of ours is its disconnectedness if you ignore the “shared lane” stretches.
“Shared lane” = lots of ghost bikes.
@werehatrack Sad, we have a lot of those. But the newer trails is putting a buffer between the trails & the road.
It is getting a lot better that it was! Walking/ Biking (NO Motors) Some trails are 50+ mile long, mostly paved! A lot more are coming online, many connecting with each other!
@mycya4me wow, where is that?
@mycya4me @pmarin
Wow… Online bike trails… Is that a VR thing?
@chienfou
@pmarin One is the Capital to Capital trail built just for this, Richmond, Va to Williamsburg, with a side trail to JamesTowne.
Another is the Va Creeper, a rails to trails path (only Bikes, People or Horses.) That is between Abingdon, Va through Damascus to White Top Mtn, Va over 30 miles. I have done this one! Great trail, awesome Views/ Background.
VAN GOGH! MANGO! TANGO! AWESOME!
@chienfou @pmarin Nope! You need to get out on a Bicycle & use some legs action. Although I have heard they have made some VR stuff for a stationary bike. that that is NO fun, being outside in the sunshine, fresh air, good country side to ride through. Nothing with a motor is allowed.
@mycya4me Online? What’s the URL?
@phendrick OnLine= being opened to the Public to use the trails in person/ Real life, NOT Virtual! Sorry!
@mycya4me Need to live vicariously, to avoid real exercise at all costs.
Besides, iRL, too many college-age or younger drivers around here on cell phones chalking up bikers and pedestrians. (They still give out DLs in Cracker Jack boxes?)
@phendrick Really the Best trails, No cars are allowed. No device with a Motor is allowed. Yes Driver are totally wacko! So try off road biking.
/showme Cats using a bicycle on a bike trail.
. . . is . . . fucking annoying
In the outer limits of the city, it’s good. However, we have a current state of emergency declared due to the amount of pedestrians getting hit by cars
Raise your hand if your in major city!
@ragingredd
@ragingredd how big must a city be to be major? i think i’m close, but not there
@ragingredd Define “major”…I live in the biggest city in North Dakota…
@ragingredd
@ragingredd No brass in this neck of the woods - the walking trails here are private.
@ragingredd
20+10+10 mile trail between cities, plus protected lanes downtown and various other marked routes.
some areas are great, some are a death trap
@spacemart Pretty much normal for a US city.
Good, but ever since all the middle & high school kids started getting electric bikes, they’re less fun to be on. The kids ride like they’re on a motocross course.
Claimed another life
I don’t know
They have done development around here; a bit better.
When I watch bicycle racing from Europe, most countries have a rule that with any new road project there is a paved separated bike path along with it.
@pmarin In the Netherlands, which is admittedly smaller than most of our States, it is possible to travel between most of the major cities via bicycle without ever having to share a lane with motor vehicle traffic. (A thing I learned on YouTube from Evan Edinger.)
In the Boston area, there are nice walking and biking paths above where the trenches were dug in '80s to extend the subway system, and there are paths along the Charles River separating Boston and Cambridge. There are also lots of bike lanes on the streets in Cambridge. There’s also the Minute Man Commuter Bikeway which extends from Cambridge out to Concord on a former railbed. It’s for walking, biking, rollerblading, etc., not just for commuting on a bike, and is paved until it enters Concord.
@ItalianScallion I have been to Boston, Mass. I had to drive to 8 different sites (kinks), Pre GPS/ Covid. I remember they had complete the “BIG DIG” then about a year later one of the large celling tiles came loose & fell onto a vehicle, It became a pancake! I prefer driving in Northern Va/ Washington DC Rush hour than Boston!
@mycya4me Ah yes, the Big Dig. I remember the before, the during, and for nearly 20 years we’ve had the after. It was an enormous project. At the time it was the most expensive highway project in the US and was plagued by delays, cost overruns, corruption, and crimes, and the death of the person in the car when the ceiling panel collapsed. I get the delays and cost overruns. How can you accurately predict duration and cost at the beginning of a 15-year project? The rest of all that was criminal, both literally and figuratively. A lot of people were and are thoroughly critical of the project, but the results were astonishing and truly changed for the better the character of a large swath of Boston.
@ItalianScallion @mycya4me I’ve never been to Boston but I heard about the Big Dig through this mystery novel (I used to read a LOT of them)
@Kyeh @mycya4me If you want to read more mysteries set in Boston, I recommend the four-book series by Ray Daniel: Terminated, Child Not Found, Corrupted Memory, and Hacked. The series follows the adventures and mishaps of a software engineer, Tucker, who developed controversial security software and finds himself becoming something of a detective after his wife is murdered. As the series goes on, Tucker find himself in various messes, involving murder, kidnapping, and organized crime. I found all the books to be quite gripping with some unexpected turns. The Boston references are absolutely accurate and Ray captures the feeling of the neighborhoods in the city.
I should mention that I know Ray and his wife from long before his writing career when we all worked together at a Boston-area computer company. I would have liked reading these books even if I didn’t know Ray wrote them.
@ItalianScallion @mycya4me Wow, interesting! I’ll check them out (literally, if the library has them.)
@ItalianScallion I also remember that Beautiful White suspension bridge. Oh that was Kinko’s that FedEx bought, now is a FedEx Office. FYI IMHO killing a well known brand name is stupid, They could have called it Kinko’s div. of FedEx Office. But No one asked me. I was just one of the many techs that worked on the merger project. (part 2 of the project that is) I did most of them in Va, A lot of them in the Wash. DC metro area. a number of them in the Philly. Pa area & of course the 8 in the Boston metro area.
@ItalianScallion @mycya4me I agree that the name change was dumb. Kinko’s was memorable; FedEx just sounds like shipping and nothing else.
@Kyeh @mycya4me
Exhibit A: X
@ItalianScallion @Kyeh OMG yes, I will always call it twitter.Of course when ever I see a FedEX office I will still think Kinkos (most of them were pretty big as they were copy shops (I do believe the one outside of I think Harvard/ MIT was one of their main Print shops. Plus the one at Dunkin’ Brands HQ was managed by Kinko’s.
@ItalianScallion @mycya4me
I call it “Xitter” with the “X” pronounced the way it is in Portuguese.
@Kyeh @mycya4me The Fedex Office store in Harvard Square is still there, at least it was the last time I noticed it. I don’t get over the MIT side of town, so I don’t know about that one.
@ItalianScallion @Kyeh what I remember was that it was a couple levels & it was on a street that was only the length of the Building, then I had to go to Post Office Square.
I live in the country (NW Oregon) - no curated walking paths here, but my property adjoins several hundred acres of commercial timber land, with many trails to explore. (There is even a creek with a small hidden waterfall that most locals don’t even know about.)
Daughter and dog at top of waterfall
@macromeh I feel like I’ve asked you this before, but do you live in the Mulino/Beavercreek area? We used to have a five acre farm that backed on hundreds of acres and we’d hike it all the time.
@sillyheathen Nope, I live within a 5 mile radius of 46N123W. (AKA The Boonies
)
I’m in the chicago area. We have many different systems in and around the city/ suburbs. We have our county forestry areas with bike/wheel traffic routes and off trail hiking areas. In winter these are shifted to snow sports cross country skiing, snow mobiles, snow shoeing…In the city proper we have a verity of options. There’s the “606” trail a reclaimed old elevated commuter rail line that has been paved for biking/ walking/rolling, etc… The Lake Front pathway system near the shore of Lake Michigan it runs from Evanston to the South Shore. There are bike lanes scattered across the city along with bike & scooter rental spots. There are designated biking areas near the Chicago river in the downtown area as well. So all in all pretty bike friendly I think. They’re trying to be more disability friendly with more accessible trails for wheelchair/scooters users as well. Far from perfect but not bad.
@jkawaguchi Don’t worry, the local government will sell the management of the bike trail system to a private company that will convert them all to toll paths and end up costing the taxpayers three times as much in taxes while delivering worse service.
@jkawaguchi @werehatrack
No they won’t.
We have a lot of nice trails and bike paths but there are still a handful of commercial districts that have absolutely no pedestrian means of transportation. Other than walking the shoulder of a 5 lane major roadway
@DocJRoberts But there are signs that say, “No pedestrians. No horses – ridden, driven or led.”!
Manhatten has a few really nice ones along the river and in Central Park. I don’t think the rest of the city does. There are a few on Long Island, but none near us!
If you live in the city it’s pretty good. Kinda meh out in the burbs.
In Portland there’s Forest Park. Lake O has Tryon Creek. Oregon city has Canemah Bluffs and here in Beavercreek, we have Hopkins demonstration forest. Love trail running and hiking through there with my dogs. It’s a pretty amazing spot. Also Silver Falls State Park in Silverton is quite amazing.
@sillyheathen That’s some spectacular scenery!
@Kyeh come on over to Oregon! You can stay in my fancy, not quite yet finished, studio.
I should be working on stairs today but had to take a kiddo on a birthday shopping trip because she was out of school.
@sillyheathen I would love to someday!
I hope your kiddo has a fantastic birthday!
@Kyeh well to be fair it’s still a fortnight away but she had today off and she wanted to get a new swim suit for her pool party.
@sillyheathen Oh - always nice to have an extended BD celebration!
The DC area has some pretty great options. You’ve got the C&O canal if you’re up for a 180 mile hike and some place called ‘The Mall’ which is nice to walk if you like crowds and museums and monuments and stuff
The parks & rec department around here is pretty awesome (zip it Mediocrebot) with public parks everywhere. I was just recently over at my mom’s and found myself skipping rocks in the creek I spent most of my youth in
OWLS! TOWELS! JOWLS! AWESOME!
@capnjb that’s a pretty sweet hat ya got there, my friend! Also, I now want to go find rocks to skip.
@sillyheathen I do get comments from time to time. People in this area don’t know how to process a cowboy hat
I live in a rural area, but I’m close to a state park with a large network of hike/bike trails that range from easy to moderately difficult. Some of the newest ones are made for mountain bikes. Here’s one: