General Road and Highway Discussion

[BuildingScout]

I don’t see how it adds a lot of value to say things like “I never see any cyclists on this road [while I’m spending a minute driving 65 km/h down it].” Pheidippides provided some real data: that’s useful. The information is out there. We have traffic counts for many streets, and case studies on many actual changes that have been made.

It’s not always possible, but when it is, we should talk about real facts. I’m happy to be proven wrong if I had an assumption about a certain change being good, and data show the change didn’t make much difference. But when we say that something is a waste of money because it means we had to drive a bit slower, and we don’t see anyone biking down it anyway, I’m not sure what that’s adding.

I already argued that time spent taking the sample is not important if the event is relatively long lived. But this is clearly not about the facts. You disliked my opinion and nitpick to an extent you never do elsewhere to justify your preconceptions. All the while you yourself provide no data, which makes your complaints even more ironic.

"But when we say that something is a waste of money because it means we had to drive a bit slower, "

No one has said that, which further subtracts from your position.

And contrary to what you say, you aren't happy to be proven wrong. When provided the first inkling of evidence (in the form of anecdata) that you might be wrong you shut down with excuses instead of saying "gee, now that I think about it, I haven't seen that many cyclists on that road either" (if you had you would have undoubtedly mentioned them).

No one is claiming (except you) that an anecodote/anecdata is the ultimate word. They are data points that allow us to make hypothesis that we (or city hall) can follow further if there's action to be taken.

 This is how all anecdotes are treated here and in other forums. Did you go berzerk when Canard reported the posts on the Weber underpass were rusting? Did you claim that a scientific sample had to be taken for them to determine if they needed to be replaced? Of course not, that would be non-sense. Yet that is exactly what you are doing here.