Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#161

Post by philwelch » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 12:40 AM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #157

superuser2 wrote: post #102

I feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives. Growing up in the suburbs without a car, I was really excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago). I'm on the opposite corner of the neighborhood from the business districts, so a little errand like CVS or the grocery store is around half an hour by foot each…

>I feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives. I was really excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago). And you have the experience of using transit on what's generally considered a Top-5 system nationally! The transit experience elsewhere is often significantly worse than yours. We have "urbanists" here…

Nobody is going to care about transit unless it's for everybody and not just for the poor. Also, oftentimes the best way to make transit better is to divert resources away from individual automotive transport. A dedicated bus lane means fewer lanes for cars. Wide sidewalks mean fewer lanes for cars. For streetcars and light rail to be effective alternatives to driving they have to be grade-separted, and that means fewer lanes for cars. Money that could be spent widening a freeway could instead be built constructing a subway.

Cars are also a classic example of socializing losses and privatizing gains. Taxpayers build and maintain the roads, air pollution and carbon emissions affect the global climate, and pedestrians and cyclists are driven out of public space in fear for their lives, but at least you can get point-to-point between your house and Wal-Mart. There are ways in which driving will always be "better" for the individual driver, but only in a fundamentally selfish and antisocial way.

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#162

Post by superuser2 » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 12:47 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #161

maxsilver wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives. I was really excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago). And you have the experience of using transit on what's generally considered a Top-5 system nationally! The transit experience elsewhere is often significantly worse than yours. We have "urbanists" here…

Nobody is going to care about transit unless it's for everybody and not just for the poor. Also, oftentimes the best way to make transit better is to divert resources away from individual automotive transport. A dedicated bus lane means fewer lanes for cars. Wide sidewalks mean fewer lanes for cars. For streetcars and light rail to be effective alternatives to driving they have to be grade-separted, and that means fe…

>A dedicated bus lane means fewer lanes for cars

>For streetcars and light rail to be effective alternatives to driving they have to be grade-separted, and that means fewer lanes for cars.

Yes, and setting dedicated right-of-way for public transit makes it faster, which should compensate for at least some of the reduced drivability in the overall navigability of the city. I think this counts as making transit better first (or at least at the same time).

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#163

Post by barrkel » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 12:51 AM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #160

superuser2 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Reducing parking in cities is one decision that could have large scale effects and that doesn't require a dictatorship or nationwide collective epiphany to institute. Making cities worse is likely to have the effect of driving people out of them. You do in fact need a collective epiphany (or a Constitutional amendment to shut down freedom of movement) to get people to accept that they simply need to live worse lives…

What are you talking about? Removing, say, 10% of parking spots per year for 8 years wouldn't require any of that. It would result in the same frustration that people already have and already cope with: "it sucks to park in the city." It's clear this isn't going anywhere, have a good weekend!

People would vote out politicians that put in place such obvious frustration-increasing measures.

IMO the "solution" is necessarily holistic and incremental. Create a fast intra-city link, and you've effectively increased the density of the two areas joined by the link. If you think about space in terms of time required to go from point A to point B using a given subset of transport methods[1], fast point-to-point links warp space and cause it to overlap. Density is the lifeblood of cities, just as lack of density is what hollows out cities. Increased density means employees and consumers can live closer to businesses and entertainment. Increase the density enough, and private transport isn't required as much.

Anti-car policies aren't going to increase this time-to-destination-as-a-measure-of-space density much. In fact, without something to replace them, they will decrease effective density.

[1] See e.g. https://petertrotman.com/special/london-underground-travel-t...

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#164

Post by jomamaxx » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 12:51 AM UTC

thesauri wrote: post #150

jomamaxx wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not 'bikes v cars'. It's how the city was planned. European cities have small, walkable centers, the mid-density around that, then instead of suburbs, they have a lot of higher density hamlets around them. Also - they don't have horrific winters in which walking/biking is a pain. So - even for Frankfurt, which has a bunch of US style high-rises in the middle ... you can comfortably walk many places, an…

> Also - they don't have horrific winters in which walking/biking is a pain. As someone living in the Nordics, that's news to me.

"> Also - they don't have horrific winters in which walking/biking is a pain. As someone living in the Nordics, that's news to me"

A) Biking when there is snow on the ground is not something most people want to do.

B) Nordics have pussy winters ... you're on the water and it's fairly mild. I'm from Canada where we have real winters buddy. Weeks of -30C, blizzards, often snow up to your waist. Not only is it 'very uncomfortable' to bike in the winter here in Montreal, on most days it's impossible.

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#165

Post by philwelch » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #113

ethanbond wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take cars off the roads, people will rebuild (well, reorganize) their cities to account for it. Public transit obviously needs to be better pretty much everywhere in the US, but people also don't want to pay to make it better. I'm a proponent of simply wiping out parking in most areas. That will incentivize people not to drive, therefore to walk/transit, therefore to value the transit systems and the design of…

It takes a LONG time to build out serious transit infrastructure. Like 30 years (see Seattle's recent ballot initiative). You're asking basically an entire generation to have shitty mobility for most of their working lives, so that they will vote to build trains for their children. More likely they will just leave the cities. Cities do adapt to poor mobility: local businesses get to charge huge markup because they do…

How are people going to leave cities if that's where the jobs are and you can't drive there from outside because there's nowhere to park?

We've already had shitty mobility for multiple generations. We can and should build transit much more quickly than we are today, and we could if we were actually willing to commit to redesigning our cities.

People want to live in walkable towns and cities. People have done so, happily, for much, much longer than cars have existed. Set aside the environmental and economic concerns: studies of show that walkable communities are much more conducive to human happiness. The world of freeways and suburbs that we live in isn't a natural human pattern of development; it's a futuristic dream from the 1950's that turned into a nightmarish reality. Half a century of irrational exuberance over the invention of the automobile is a mistake that can and should be rectified.

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#166

Post by philwelch » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 12:56 AM UTC

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #132

ethanbond wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take cars off the roads, people will rebuild (well, reorganize) their cities to account for it. Public transit obviously needs to be better pretty much everywhere in the US, but people also don't want to pay to make it better. I'm a proponent of simply wiping out parking in most areas. That will incentivize people not to drive, therefore to walk/transit, therefore to value the transit systems and the design of…

> It's a serious issue of sunk cost, but eventually we need to bite the bullet and start moving in the other direction. This might have been true sometime in the seventies - but its entirely a moot point now. Public transportation has nearly no future in the US since self-driving cars will pretty much solve this with 10-15 years and so much better than public transport has or would have.

Bullshit: http://cdn.torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Transi...

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#167

Post by radicsge » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 1:12 AM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #102

I feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives. Growing up in the suburbs without a car, I was really excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago). I'm on the opposite corner of the neighborhood from the business districts, so a little errand like CVS or the grocery store is around half an hour by foot each…

Don't know about Hyde park, but all these small distance problems can be solved by bike, which is way faster then car in this range. Don't see a problem here, really.

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#168

Post by superuser2 » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 1:17 AM UTC

radicsge wrote: post #167

superuser2 wrote: post #102

I feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives. Growing up in the suburbs without a car, I was really excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago). I'm on the opposite corner of the neighborhood from the business districts, so a little errand like CVS or the grocery store is around half an hour by foot each…

Don't know about Hyde park, but all these small distance problems can be solved by bike, which is way faster then car in this range. Don't see a problem here, really.

From late October through late May (I am not exaggerating that much) bikes are a pretty bad time here.

Maybe a problem global warming can solve!

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#169

Post by radicsge » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

serge2k wrote: post #153

ethanbond wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it controls infinite amounts of money? As I've said in other comments, I'm all for investing heavily in transit infrastructure. If you want a solution that totally ignores the fiscal reality of the world, then yes, I agree, dumping massive amounts of money into public transit would be part of it.

Hardcore anti-car people don't live in reality.

.. or more willing to see the big picture, rather then their own comfort. There are places when common should come first not individualism.

Re: Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

#170

Post by maxsilver » Sun, Aug 07, 2016, 1:28 AM UTC

drcross wrote: post #17

The elephant in the room is that personal mobility is going to undergo a complete redesign in the coming decade as vehicles drive for themselves. This will bring about a complete change in usage patterns so doing anything in this space is pre-mature and we should hold off to see how society's requirements change. For example maybe on street parking will become a thing of the past as your self driving Uber goes on it'…

> The elephant in the room is that personal mobility is going to undergo a complete redesign in the coming decade as vehicles drive for themselves.

The way the argument is going right now, personal mobility won't get redesigned -- it will get eliminated.

Faux-urbanists will continue to fight for (and win) at getting cars more-or-less banned in cities. Cars will continue to get better at zero-emissions and self-driving, but that won't stop people from hating them. Attempts at better public transit will be promoted, but nothing nearly as fast/efficient/convenient as cars currently are.

I suspect in the coming decades, people simply won't be allowed to move around as much, and folks will succeed in convincing people that this is "better" for them. Personal mobility will be a concept for history books, like privacy.