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Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

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Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#121

Post by ocschwar »

opportune wrote: post #42
rayiner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don’t really get to pick. Dense European style cities are outlawed in the US. Hell, dense European style suburbs are outlawed here. My pre-zoning code suburb has lots that are less than 3,000 square feet. It’s awesome—easy to walk and you see your neighbors all the time. But it’s completely illegal to build more neighborhoods like mine. The minimum lot size now is more than five times bigger—we have legally m…

Dense suburbs are only "outlawed" because certain places, usually at the municipality level, zone the buildings that way. You know it is also "outlawed" for most European cities to build too high vertically too right? Also, it varies from city to city (and within cities). Although most of the 20-35 crowd probably would prefer a denser city, old people prefer owning homes with lawns, so they wouldn't even want to live…

Zoning codes in the US are mostly copies of zoning code templates published decades ago, so even though every single place has its own, it's a little-modified version of what everyone else has.

Even dense US towns are zoned against density. Somerville, Massachusetts had a rude awakening 5 years ago when they discovered the entire city is in violation of the zoning code. Every single home is out of compliance for one reason or another.

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#122

Post by echlebek »

_m8fo wrote: post #8

I always get an inkling that buses (like Bolt/Mega/PeterPan) + the existing highway + roads are superior and more scalable than any other type of transportation, dollar for dollar. Why do people push for rail? Self-driving cars obviously can enhance this (the bus idea), but I suspect they will create even more traffic if we insist on having 5 passenger cars be 75% empty. Buses are great because demand can be realloca…

Rail has far better bandwidth. Buses will never be able to match it.

That doesn't mean that buses aren't useful too. You need both.

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#123

Post by QuarterReptile »

Pxtl wrote: post #89
Johnny555 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends how many people you need to move and how often you need to move them. Rail has a high capital cost, but lower operating cost due to the fact that a single engineer (and maybe a conductor) can run a 2000 passenger train while a bus driver carries 50 - 100 people so you only need about 1/20th the number of operators. Another drawback of buses on the road is that unless they have dedicated lanes, they are s…

BRT in the English speaking world is hamstrung by the BRT creep as drivers demand their lanes back. In Latin America, BRT is proven out as a cost-effective approach to mass transit. Rail mainly offers comfort, a small incremental improvement in speed, lower manpower costs for drivers (offset by the massive capital costs) and greener running. Comfort and speed should not be underestimated. There's a reason middle clas…

Buses are great for getting people to the train, but probably only provided that the bus is a no- or low-cost addition to the train pass or fare. And middle class people will absolutely take buses that come reliably and frequently, especially once you get a plurality of them to feel comfortable together. Just like gentrifying a neighborhood.

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#124

Post by jdietrich »

jonathanyc wrote: post #86

I think this is an awful situation, but at what point do we call seniors’ desires unreasonable? Is their want to stay in their suburban homes which are designed for cars really something the state should be concerned about when the working poor struggle to afford the subway?[1] I think we should make relocation easy for the elderly who aren’t able to get around. I think it is terrible if they can’t move from their ho…

France have a peculiarly Gallic compromise - the light quadricycle. It's a class of vehicle weighing less than 425kg (~940lbs) with a top speed of no more than 28mph. Anyone aged over 14 can drive a light quadricycle without a license. They're a fixture of everyday life in rural France, providing independent transport for teenagers, the elderly and habitual drink-drivers.

They're deathtraps for the driver, but their limited speed and distinct lack of structural integrity mean they pose minimal risk to other road users. It's far from an ideal solution, but it seems to work. I understand that golf carts are a popular mode of transport for elderly people living in some private retirement communities; perhaps it would make sense for US states to legalise their use on the public roads.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35210572

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#125

Post by echlebek »

revelation wrote: post #58

That's because prior to being too old to drive, they didn't give a fuck about the public transportation system. Actually, even after being too old to drive, they happily continue to vote against public transportation. It's bizarre to suggest our transportation system is failing them. It's exactly the transportation system they voted for, the transportation system a good bunch of them built, designed, railroaded throu…

I generally agree, but "many centuries"? Come on. :)

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#126

Post by lovich »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #93
sevensor wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be county sponsored transportation for medical appointments. How's your experience been with that kind of service? There's a reason lawbreaking octogenarians still ride golf carts down the sidewalk to get to the doctor's office, hoping they won't get ticketed. > Uber. I'm sorry. Did I mention my grandmother is 96? Ninety-six ?

> I'm sorry. Did I mention my grandmother is 96? Ninety-six? HN forgets that not everyone has coastal tech money a lot .

That is true, but periodic Ubers are also way cheaper than owning a car. If you only need to travel once a week it would likely be far cheaper than car taxes, gas, and maintenance

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#127

Post by QuarterReptile »

ghaff wrote: post #45
btrettel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rail is faster and more comfortable than buses in my experience. The comfort is more than just less bumps in the road and less starting and stopping. Some trains even have bathrooms. The bathrooms on the (US) MARC commuter trains I've taken are considerably better than those on flights or Amtrak, for example. Buses usually have no such amenities, and when they do I'm told the bathrooms generally are disgusting.

In the US, for the most part, inter-city buses (in particular) are almost exclusively transportation for those who can't afford anything else. People lining up for a Megabus in NYC without any sort of covered waiting area aren't there because they prefer it to Amtrak or flying. And the Port Authority may not be the worst bus terminal on the planet but it's pretty awful.

People in the Northeast would also be well-served in these discussions by knowing that Amtrak falls into that same description in other areas of the country, especially the Southeast: where everyone smokes and drinks from brown bags, the shared rail means lots of stops, and stopping for hours because of a stalled car on the tracks is entirely too common.

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#128

Post by virmundi »

BigJono wrote: post #118
virmundi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically churches and other community groups, including the Masons, would help in this regard. It appears as if this gone now. For example, black churches use to have get out the vote buses that helped people register. They would work with their paritioners and the large community to make sure that people could get to DMVs or wherever the locality required people to sign up. It appears like that is largely gone.…

I feel like there's a void to be filled here. Something that allows people to build a sense of community without all the make-believe crap.

There might be. I don't know what it is.

As a former Mason, the teachings are symbolic. Few people think they are historical. People don't really do symbolic anymore. We do TV.

Not be too much of a curmudgeon, but I don't think our society at this time has much of a philosophical bone left in it. As a result, we mostly reflect on ourselves as narcissists. Look at Facebook. It's use is a known cause of depression. We feel bad because others make their lives look so perfect or interesting. We get in flame wars on political topics. We no longer appeal to traditions like Locke or Rousseau. We don't reason about things. We feel and are offended.

If what I said is even mostly true, how do you build a society on that? At this point we've stared too long into the abyss. Perhaps we need the "make-believe crap" to bind us. Perhaps its not crap, but rather what the world is and our ignoring is leading to our own demise?

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#129

Post by [deleted] »

revelation wrote: post #58

That's because prior to being too old to drive, they didn't give a fuck about the public transportation system. Actually, even after being too old to drive, they happily continue to vote against public transportation. It's bizarre to suggest our transportation system is failing them. It's exactly the transportation system they voted for, the transportation system a good bunch of them built, designed, railroaded throu…

[deleted]

Re: Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system fails them

#130

Post by avs733 »

virmundi wrote: post #114
dundercoder wrote: post #101

I’m 36, live in the suburbs, and in recent years have gone (legally) blind from Retinitis Pigmentosa. Voluntarily giving up my license was one of the hardest and most important decisions I’ve made. There is literally 0 public transportation here. Not even Uber or Lyft have come around. America’s sprawl and dependence on cars is incredible. It wasn’t until I spent time in London, Oxford, and Paris that I could recogni…

Out of curiosity, why give up your license? It's a great ID. You don't have to use it. I know plenty of people with licenses to carry concealed, but don't. To you point about car dependence, not using one is humiliating, at least for me. I live about .25 miles from my office. I walk daily to and from (twice). I feel, and have seen, people look at me like I'm poor. It is a foreign concept to many that walking or bikin…

I, and several of my friends when I used to live in Phoenix, were big walkers. Its evening? go for a walk around the neighborhood. Walk to work, even though it was like 1.5 miles...just...walk.

Each of us were stopped at least once by police for being suspicious...near as I can tell (we were all >middle class white people) all that was suspicious was us walking on sidewalks. Outside of the biggest cities America is actively antagonistic towards walkers. My sincere belief is because of the assumption that they are poor and should be judged.

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