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We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

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Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#81

Post by yardie »

djsumdog wrote: post #76
lgregg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the headaches could be avoided by zoning in ways that allow for density improvements to occur. We can't just build every new city as a planned green city too (i.e. Masdar City). I think it would be beneficial if there was some kind of standard at a state level for not just building codes but zone codes. It would also be nice if there was some kind of zoning and code for underground, so lower levels c…

American cities don't like to mix commercial and residential zoning. If you had a mix, you'd see more places with grocery stores you could walk to, like in London or Chicago.

They don't like to but they are doing it now. They have no choice as a younger demographic is clamoring for it and developers are responding by getting zoning for it. If a city isn't planning with mixed use, mid/high density housing in mind then I'm not sure I'd call them a city.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#82

Post by ingsoc79 »

djsumdog wrote: post #75
johngalt wrote: post #24

This is one of those scaling vs. switching cost problems. If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a large metropolis, transit is better. The problem is that as a city scales up, each individual step results in continually adding infrastructure for cars without ever making the active decision to switch, and redesign the entire city. When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense…

This is simply not true at all. There were countless small towns in America that had streetcars. It scales up quite well too. Your town turns into a city? Demolish the park-n-rides and turn them into stores. I hate this bullshit of "America is too spread out for transit." No, it is now. It's only happened in Jena, Germany is a town of $100k with 4 trams and 3 intercity rail stations. Chattanooga, TN, home of the famo…

The reason the streetcars went away in the US was because of competition from cars, which, not coincidentally, were beginning their rise to dominance ~100 years ago. GM and Ford were in the process of killing streetcars the moment the Model T went on sale.

The vast majority of American towns, with their lower density and wider streets than their European counterparts, were simply better served by the automobile than by mass transit in 1920, and after 100 years of car-centric planning are even more so today.

The genie is already out of the bottle, and with the exception of a few rapidly-growing cities, mass transit use in most American cities is falling.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#84

Post by jimmaswell »

spraak wrote: post #57
Someone1234 wrote: post #3

I agree, but "people" should mean all people, not just the able bodied. Cities keep on inexplicably designing these cool pedestrian only areas for the able bodied and young. There are people who can only travel limited distances, so if you set the beach front back half a mile, you've now cut it off from many older and disabled people. What I am saying is: For the physically young and able, vehicle-less areas as great…

From the_gastropod below: > Cars are not the only solution here. Transporting a single disabled person does not require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.

Rendering a webpage does not require an 800+ watt 50-pound computer setup. A balanced diet does not require flavor. Clothes do not require coloring.

We can't just throw out having nice things because they aren't "required."

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#85

Post by jaredklewis »

InitialLastName wrote: post #36
davidw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is from a small town in Italy. It doesn't have transit, but it's quite possible to get around it on foot or by bike, because it's compact.

I'd bet anything that your wife's small town in Italy was mostly settled and developed before cars, in a time when being able to get around town by foot (or by horse, at the fastest) was important.

Obviously. But it still seems optimal to build cities this way today, and it is surprising we don’t.

With modern levels of obesity and pollution, why don’t we want walkable cities?

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#86

Post by Karrot_Kream »

thereisnospork wrote: post #71
the_gastropod wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are not the only solution here. Transporting a single disabled person does not require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.

But doing it fast, cheap, and flexibly does. Cars cost 50 cents a mile, go anywhere at as fast as anything that doesn't fly, and require negligible physical exertion or special skills to operate. When there is adequate infrastructure that's pretty optimal.

The point is, in a walkable city, nobody needs the speed. What's the point of driving at 40mph in a 10x10mi city vs using a scooter at 15mph? You'll probably hit a stoplight after hitting 20mph, and then waste braking to stop again.

Electric mobility scooters are, per-mile, much much cheaper than cars, and cost much less to purchase.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#87

Post by jschwartzi »

Someone1234 wrote: post #19
jschwartzi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the article is that what is being done in places like San Francisco is what looking more broadly looks like. It's not ableist to allow people who'd prefer not to drive to bike or walk instead, and it's also not ableist to build our cities to allow these different modes of transport in addition to cars. Framing it like it's ableist ignores the near century of subsidies and prioitization of the automobile…

You're taking away a mode of transport some disabled people depend upon, you have to take their needs into account while doing so. Simply adding ramps and slapping ADA stickers onto everything isn't an actual answer, just a convenient way to simplify the problem. If you go from heavily vehicled areas to large pedestrian areas where vehicles are banned, you've gone from one extreme to the other. In both cases disabled…

I agree.

The thing I'm concerned about is that reintroducing cars into these areas is a trickle opening onto a floodgate in terms of causing us to backslide into car-centrism. And by your argument ADA compliance becomes a good excuse to erase all the pedestrian- and cyclist-only areas and replace them with "good old" city streets again. It effectively becomes an argument for people who want car-centric infrastructure only to disguise their desire and hide behind the disabled to accomplish their goals.

What I'm wondering is if there's a way to accommodate without using cars? In a market we could provide some scooters or other motorized transport that's more compatible with the market's layout.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#88

Post by madhadron »

isostatic wrote: post #72
reaperducer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Why? Studies show that narrower streets cause cars to drive more slowly, making neighborhoods more livable. (Less noise, among other factors.) There are other methods used that also cause cars to slow down - road humps, textured (fake cobblestone) crosswalks, pedestrian refuge islands, pedestrian bump-outs, replacing parallel parking with angled end-in parking, etc... When you have raised sidewalks traffic spee…

How about all those amazon deliveries? I'm all for banning garaging on roads, and I don't see why private cars need to be driven in the centre of major cities at all, especially during the day. Things like the London congestion charge for all cars from say 7AM to 9PM (depending on when transit is running well) are great, although should really scale with the value of the car. But when the supermarket drops the weekly…

A number of large cities had extensive networks of pneumatic tubes and underground rail runnels for delivery. They fell out of use with the rise of cars, but the idea that deliveries go via vehicles on streets is far from a given.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#89

Post by pm90 »

ingsoc79 wrote: post #82
djsumdog wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is simply not true at all. There were countless small towns in America that had streetcars. It scales up quite well too. Your town turns into a city? Demolish the park-n-rides and turn them into stores. I hate this bullshit of "America is too spread out for transit." No, it is now. It's only happened in Jena, Germany is a town of $100k with 4 trams and 3 intercity rail stations. Chattanooga, TN, home of the famo…

The reason the streetcars went away in the US was because of competition from cars, which, not coincidentally, were beginning their rise to dominance ~100 years ago. GM and Ford were in the process of killing streetcars the moment the Model T went on sale. The vast majority of American towns, with their lower density and wider streets than their European counterparts, were simply better served by the automobile than…

No, no, no. The amount of misinformation in this post is staggering. I'm assuming good faith on your part but its hard to do so.

> The reason the streetcars went away in the US was because of competition from cars, which, not coincidentally, were beginning their rise to dominance ~100 years ago. GM and Ford were in the process of killing streetcars the moment the Model T went on sale.

They killed it because they knew that a car-dominated culture would substantially increase their markets. By killing streetcars, they were simply increasing their market. They did not do this out of any sense of altruism.

The other step that greatly helped was convincing the Federal Government to invest in an interstate highway system that deliberately cut through the major cities.

> The vast majority of American towns, with their lower density and wider streets than their European counterparts, were simply better served by the automobile than by mass transit in 1920, and after 100 years of car-centric planning are even more so today.

They weren't always this way. Suburbia as we know it now was a consequence of the postwar boom and white flight; most towns fairly dense. In fact, they were dense enough to be effectively served by trams!

> The genie is already out of the bottle, and with the exception of a few rapidly-growing cities, mass transit use in most American cities is falling.

No its not.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#90

Post by coldtea »

johngalt wrote: post #24

This is one of those scaling vs. switching cost problems. If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a large metropolis, transit is better. The problem is that as a city scales up, each individual step results in continually adding infrastructure for cars without ever making the active decision to switch, and redesign the entire city. When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense…

>If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a large metropolis, transit is better.

Were did that came from? In a small town, you can get by fine with walking, bikes and so on -- like tons of Europeans do in tons of small (and even larger) towns, including towns where cars are totally forbidden and others were (because the town was built in medieval times and its buildings still stand just fine) they are impractical in large areas of a town.

And besides costly transit infrastructure like subways (which you probably have in mind), buses and trams are totally find for small towns as well.

In (most of) Europe you don't have to be a heroin addict or homeless person to ride the bus. Nobody has a problem riding the bus.

>When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense to add car infrastructure rather than rebuild everything.

Again, what? Who said there's any need to "rebuild everything"? You can keep the "historic center" (as it's usually referred to), that is, the original small part of town, and build around it, all the while improving and extending transit infrastructure.

No reason to extend the city around car infrastructure -- like the horrible sprawls one sees in Texas for example.

In fact the US has a nice example of a "city" (speaking of the main area of Manhattan up and slightly beyond the Central Park) that has great density, and if there was the will, could be equipped with a great modern subway (not the way NYC subway is now), and lots of quality buses (modern, air-con, well maintained, not meant for the piss poor), a trolley line, and so on.

The area could be expanded from ~ 1 million people, to say 5 times the size, and with all those plus Uber/Taxi options, bikes and electric scooters, nobody would even care for driving their car there.

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