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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)

#111

Post by lgregg »

epistasis wrote: post #22
dbatten wrote: post #15

Rather than trying to force some particular vision of "the good life" on people, what if we tried to price transportation and other things appropriately? For example, get rid of the gas tax. Toll all state and federally funded roads. Scale the toll according to the amount of wear and tear the vehicle causes for the road. Price something in to account for emissions. Make sure the tolls are high enough to pay for the r…

A bigger impediment to building walkable spaces is that zoning and codes usually prevent it from being built. From parking minimums, to very low maximum heights, to limiting the number of units that are allowed to be built on a plot of land. All the regulations put a cap on density, to prevent it from ever happening. Instead, some cities should try putting a floor on density: maximum number of parking spots (perhaps…

> Or, just let people build what they want.

Uh, no. I wouldn't want something seedy or some industrial manufacturing plant next to my kid's school. There is a purpose behind codes and zoning that is good. It's just as you mentioned when they are used to push an agenda that hurts everyone.

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

#112

Post by jimmaswell »

spraak wrote: post #93
jimmaswell wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Your first analogy (50lb computer) is nonsense because that's exactly the point I'm saying: computers that fit on your pocket and are just a few grams can easily render a webpage. Who thinks that a 50lb computer is nice unless it's sophisticated hardware that can't be condensed? Cars are nice yes but there are plenty of other smaller and more nimble transportation devices. So weren't not throwing away nice things her…

The desktop computer will likely be a lot more responsive, let you do a lot more, have a higher resolution and screen size, let you have more tabs running at once, etc. Using nothing but a smartphone for all my home computer usage would be a major setback.

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

#113

Post by Karrot_Kream »

dragonwriter wrote: post #103
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate this bullshit of "America is too spread out for transit." No, it is now. It's only happened in Unfortunately, the American population has also exponentially grown in that same time period. It really isn't that easy to switch back to streetcars or light-rail or bicycling, and if someone figures out how, it'll probably be the biggest infrastructural development of the next fifty years.

> Unfortunately, the American population has also exponentially grown in that same time period. Even if that were true (I'm pretty sure even with immigration, the doubling time of the US population has been increasing over that period, so the growth has not been exponential, which would be constant time to any given multiple) why would that particular shape of the growth curve make a difference? If you are just misus…

Was there a reason to be pedantic here? If you look at [1] then the US population has grown exponentially, and we are in the higher slope portion of the curve. But if you zoom into 1920-{current} you can form a linear curve.

Anyway, city planners are not looking at aggregate population statistics and making their decisions based off those. Usually, cities grow due to migration of new people. As more people enter the city, city governments decide what infrastructure to add in order to sustain population growth. For many years, the consensus was simply to add more roads. Studies eventually revealed the phenomenon of Induced Demand [2] which caused more roads to be consumed after creation of the roads. This and the realization that roads filled with single-occupancy vehicles don't scale well has led to a more "modern" consensus that transit makes sense once cities become big enough. For a long time, people thought that building more roads was the way to make a city more accessible.

[1]: https://www.census-charts.com/Population/pop-us-1790-2000.ht...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

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

#114

Post by lgregg »

takk309 wrote: post #65
dbatten wrote: post #15

Rather than trying to force some particular vision of "the good life" on people, what if we tried to price transportation and other things appropriately? For example, get rid of the gas tax. Toll all state and federally funded roads. Scale the toll according to the amount of wear and tear the vehicle causes for the road. Price something in to account for emissions. Make sure the tolls are high enough to pay for the r…

The idea of tolling roads may work well in areas with high traffic volumes. However, what about rural areas that may only see a couple thousand vehicles a day? Take a state like Montana for example. We have a few urban areas and a huge amount of rural roads. Even parts of the interstate have an annual average daily traffic (AADT) of less than 4,000 vehicles a day (I-15 near the Montana/Idaho border). [1] If these wer…

Well, look at the original purpose for the Interstate. One of them was for the military to be able to move freely should something happen. The actual name is "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways"

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

#115

Post by philwelch »

zanny wrote: post #96
coldtea wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ju…

US towns stopped building as a dense collection of buildings at the end of the 19th century. Modern "towns" are a dozen or so old buildings from that era surrounded by dozens of square miles of urban sprawl mcmansion housing. Fundamentally the US simply has a density problem at all grades of construction. Its just more apparent in cities where the overconsumption of land per capita impacts more people.

The US also has a ton of land. I stayed with family in a British suburb once, and everything was still neatly squished in together, even single-family houses, compared to the expansive yards of American suburbs. Kids could walk to school and everything.

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

#116

Post by lgregg »

pm90 wrote: post #101
joshuaheard wrote: post #55

Visiting the Leonardo Da Vinci museum, I saw an exhibit where Leonardo did an urban design plan. In it, he made the street level pedestrian only. Under the street was another level for horses and wagons (cars and busses today), where each building had an underground entrance to this level through an underground garage. This seems like an elegant solution in an urban area from the man who invented the helicopter, para…

Except that it would also be ridiculously expensive. If construction costs reduce in the future due to automation though, might be workable.

It depends where you are, construction costs vary. Sure, if you're building in NYC. They built a tunnel for 2.4 billion. You can build that same tunnel elsewhere for a fraction.

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

#117

Post by lgregg »

paulddraper wrote: post #49

> Websites like Zillow and Apartments.com offer calculations for commute length and walkability to everyday destinations like grocery stores If I'm walking to the store, do I (a) try to carry 20+ grocery bags home for my family of five or (b) make a grocery trip twice a week? I don't love either of those. And that's only groceries, not shopping in general. My wife got a 50lb bag of fertilizer from Tractor Supply yest…

If you live within walking distance, why would you carry 20+ grocery bags. Just shop for what you need in the next day, not an entire month.

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

#118

Post by nitwit005 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #7
dleslie wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most sidewalks are accessible to mobility aids; like walkers, scooters, canes, wheelchairs and so forth. _All_ can be designed to be accessible to such. Moreover, the choice isn't between only pedestrians or only cars; there exists combinations of the two that are more favourable to pedestrians but allow access by vehicle for those that need it.

> Most sidewalks are accessible to mobility aids; like walkers, scooters, canes, wheelchairs and so forth. If people cannot traverse the distance required, it doesn't really help. For example someone with bad osteoporosis, and who doesn't have a $10K+ wheelchair and a $75K minivan to carry it, won't really gain much by theoretical ADA sidewalks if the distance is too far. Claiming stuff is "disabled accessible" witho…

> For example someone with bad osteoporosis, and who doesn't have a $10K+ wheelchair and a $75K minivan to carry it, won't really gain much by theoretical ADA sidewalks if the distance is too far.

You can't exactly escape the cost issue. The alternative you present is that this person has a car, which is quite expensive itself, and presumably someone to drive them given the bad osteoporosis.

Regardless of the design of your hypothetical city, such people may just need family help or public assistance to get to where they want to go.

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

#119

Post by lgregg »

spraak wrote: post #60
paulddraper wrote: post #49

> Websites like Zillow and Apartments.com offer calculations for commute length and walkability to everyday destinations like grocery stores If I'm walking to the store, do I (a) try to carry 20+ grocery bags home for my family of five or (b) make a grocery trip twice a week? I don't love either of those. And that's only groceries, not shopping in general. My wife got a 50lb bag of fertilizer from Tractor Supply yest…

> If you have a city of single-family residences (and three quarters of Americans do live in single-family residences), it's really hard to not build for cars. Yes, and how those cities are designed are a big part of the problem.

Also, three-quarters (generalization) of America is rural. You're not going to implement this everywhere. I don't think that is the point of the article or OP.

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

#120

Post by coldtea »

scythe wrote: post #107
coldtea wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ju…

>>>If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. [...] >W[h]ere did that came from? In a small town, you can get by fine with walking, bikes and so on This isn't really the point. Sure, you can build a small town which prioritizes walking over cars. There are even examples in the US, such as Helen, Georgia. However, most people (US) would not prefer to live in such a town. In Europe, those tow…

>However, most people (US) would not prefer to live in such a town.

Citation needed. Most people in the US were never given the chance to live in such a town (all other things being equal, like them being able to afford to live there).

And there's also the cultural conditioning.

Besides, there are rich areas in the US too, with little to no cars and lotsa walking and jogging, and people go live there just fine, paying millions for a house there too.

I know plenty who'd kill to live in Manhattan (and not drive, like bona fide Manhattanites) but can't afford to precisely because too many want to live there and since it's an island not much further expansion is possible.

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