Avimor’s parent company Sun Cor sponsors an annual mountain bike race on their land. You can check it out at Knobbytireseries.com. (Coyote Classic). While I don’t think much of the concept of Avimor, if they are willing to commit some cash to bike events isn’t that a good thing?

Personally, I don’ think gas is expensive enough yet. One of the lasting truths about America and Americans is the best way to get our attention is to hit us in the pocketbook. As gas gets more and more expensive, alternative forms of transportation start to look better and better.

More people will try and ride the bus and more people will learn how much it sucks in Boise, which means Valley Ride will have more and more incentive (of the financial sort) to improve service, routes and hours of operation. Developments that are 20+ miles from the metropolitan core become less and less appealing while higher density/smart growth style living gains appeal.

Eventually, everything comes down to money. Right now, it’s very profitable to build McMansions on farmland between Boise and Meridian and the people living there don’t find the added cost of living far from everything prohibitive, so they buy them. As these costs rise, expect interest to wane and alternatives to come to the fore. The biggest problem with cycles like these, is they’re slow to come about and, unfortunately, have to hit some sort of critical mass before sweeping change takes place.

My prediction: if gas prices continue in the trend they’ve been on, in 2 or 3 years we’ll be staring down the barrel of 5 bucks a gallon and THAT will get people’s attention.

I’ve been quiet for a while but the road/car/gas/development thingy is one of my favorites.

First, people love their cars, it’s a fact. Second, we live in a mostly-free market economy. People get to choose where and how they want to live. This really isn’t such a bad thing, man, I don’t know why I call myself cynic.

Part of the problem is gas taxes. It’s per gallon burned and not per mile driven. It should be per mile driven, isn’t this obvious? And peak demand hours should cost more than off peak.

oops, gotta go, but i’ll be back, oh, I’m coming for pizza, I’ll be the one complaining.

Boise Bike Week is a celebration of the cyclist. From recreational to commuter and even our illustrious race centric types. This is a community wide event that is geared to bring our cyclists closer to the general motoring public. Awarness of our cycling public only helps our motorized public to have more consideration toward cyclists of all types (recreational and environmental riders). The support of Suncor is a statement to the public that they believe cyclists our a positive addition to our wellbeing
as a community and environmentally. Kudos to Suncor and their support of Boise Bike Week!!

And furthermore (grin)…

Wonk says, “I suspect Avimorians will mainly conserve trips internally with their bikes and, as more jobs and shopping goes into Avimor, they will make fewer auto trips out of the planned community.”

Maybe I’m just a pessimistic and cynical old goat, but I’ll be SHOCKED AND AWED if at least 90% of “Avimorians” (!!) don’t hop in their vehicles and head down Highway 55, at least 6 days a week.

I hope Wonk can say to me, 10 years from now, “Nee-ner, nee-ner, neeee-nerrrrr… see, I told you so!”

I cut my previous comment short because I had to run an errand. I think I even posted in the wrong place, I meant to post to the SV growth meet article. Oh well.

FWIW, I live downtown and ride my bike a lot. I drove only about 5000 miles last year, I have the emissions test paperwork to prove it.

Anyway, auto pollution and auto traffic are 2 separate issues. I am confident technology will solve a great deal of the pollution issues. More government incentives and disincentives may be necessary though. Technology can’t do much to solve the traffic issue. Gas tax revenue has been declining while miles driven has been rising.

Why? In spite of all the SUVs on the road, mpgs has increased. (yeah, give me a while and I’ll back these statements up). A Prius should not pay less taxes because it’s “greener” than an SUV, with respect to congestion. A car on the road is a car on the road, with minor consideration given to the length of the vehicle in regard to passenger vehicles. Trucks, semis and buses are a different story.

Part of the story that’s being left out is–we humans exist in large numbers, and if you’ve ever been to NY or LA, humans exist in very large numbers. They all gotta live somewhere. Back to the free market thingy, that’s what we have, don’t shoot the messenger here, I’m only stating a fact.

Not everyone wants to live in the central city. Should we mandate that? Communism and central planning have not proven to be very successful.

That leaves the question, what do we do about it, congestion and the apparent need for road building and widening that is. Well, read about central London’s congestion taxes. Read about the toll road construction in Orange County, CA.

Suburban flight has been about leaving the decaying inner city behind. People were/are sick of seeing rundown squalor and the criminal element that seems to be attracted to it. Therefore, if we’re going to mandate anything, it should be much stricter control of landlords and their upkeep of their properties.

Cynic, Your expanded comments are much appreciated and put light to where you were headed before. Congestion is indeed a problem as I just came back from Orange County and made the rush hour drive on I-405(carpool lanes are a big plus). I hope New York passes their proposed congestion charge and gas prices rise dramatically, so people will think twice if this car trip is really nesseccary.