We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by epistasis » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

lgregg wrote: post #111

epistasis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I meant that in the sense of, make sure that there's enough of the type of living space that people actually want.

Right now people have to pay absolutely MASSIVE premiums, both in terms of absolute space and in $/sqft, in order to live in dense walkable neighborhoods. And there's one reason: zoning has been bad and prevented many people from having the life they want.

For health reasons, sure, separate industrial zones.

For building safety, yes, have building codes.

But as far as general office/retail and housing, we need far more places where growth is allowed to happen at least a little bit organically. Maybe have some small nudges here and there for central planning, but overall city planners build for what they want, not for what the populace wants.

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

#122

Post by oftenwrong » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #77

oftenwrong wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give you an idea: I have a 3 grocers within walking distance, and I will usually just go buy what I need for whatever I am going to make the same day. One bag is usually fine. I have never purchased that much fertilizer, but I have purchased a 50lb bag of sand at the hardware store on the corner. It is so close, I would be surprised if my walk home was not shorter than your wife's walk back to her car. Living in t…

Well, how many people can physically live as close to those things as you do without having a 1-hardware-store-per-100-feet or 3-grocers-per-square-mile density?

I don't really know, but I would say that, in areas where people largely walk and bike, businesses tend to have a smaller area that they draw regular customers from, and it is easy for a few businesses of the same type to coexist relatively close to one another. There are duplicates of many types of businesses in my neighbourhood. Walking is the most distance-sensitive major form of transportation. People who mainly walk tend to shop at the closest possible place. Nothing in walking distance will match the selection of a big store like Tractor Supply or Home Depot. I use Zip Car when necessary, but it is pretty rare, especially now that everything can be ordered online.

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

#123

Post by thereisnospork » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #86

thereisnospork wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In your example a corner to corner trip would take ~90 minutes by scooter, considering the 20 mile Manhattan distance + stoplights. A ring highway would get you there in 15-20 minutes. Even a set of properly timed lights would allow 35mph traffic to cross the width in ~20 minutes - which notably can't be (or just never are?) efficiently timed for pedestrians/scooters.

for the extra hour+ that scooter would take (given no/low traffic) there is no price where its worth it vs the ~$10 that trip costs in a car. (20 miles, irs rate of ~50c/mile)

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

#124

Post by kps » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #10

kenjackson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the person you're replying to is saying that you should build exclusively for one class of people. You need to look more broadly when you design cities.

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…

> The point of the article is that what is being done in places like San Francisco […]

Got it. For other places, step 1 is to build a dome over the city to establish San Francisco climate.

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

#125

Post by cup-of-tea » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #109

I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a generation comes along that can more easily afford them again. The area I live in is pretty dense (a mixed commercial-suburbanish area in the most densely-populated state) and also very car-enabled, and it works out fine. The stores I go to are within minutes of driving for me, and work is 10-15 minutes away. I don't know the official term for such a…

> I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a generation comes along that can more easily afford them again.

In the UK you could afford a car on minimum wage. I have a car. I still don't think cities should be designed for cars. How can anyone look at one of those pictures of American five-lane highways of bumper-to-bumper traffic and think that is in any way sane?

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

#126

Post by cimmanom » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

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…

There's a concept called "loading zones", which are curb space set aside specifically for commercial vehicles to stop for short periods while loading and unloading deliveries.

They're very compatible with the rest of the curbside lane being set aside for parking (if they're actually enforced), or with that lane being built out with sidewalk extensions, micro-parks, bicycle parking, bus bulbs... etc.

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

#127

Post by mwfunk » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #120

scythe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>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, payi…

Well, either that or you're the one who's been culturally conditioned. You're posting on HN after all. :) I would personally prefer to live someplace like Manhattan than amongst suburban sprawl, but I'm in the minority of basically everyone I've known all my life (which is also anecdotal of course).

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

#128

Post by AcerbicZero » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #35

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…

If we actually billed those that actually caused road damage appropriately, then no it would not cost $5 to drive 30min to work. Semis are incredibly damaging to roads, they cause 1,400x more wear than cars! [1] — The very same semis city dwellers and anybody who buys anything relies on. Cars currently subsidize other, much more damaging vehicles' road damage, seeing as they're not paying 1,400x more in fuel tax. Any…

Agreed. It's amazing how much damage medium single axled, and heavy multi-axled vehicles do to the roads, and while emissions from those vehicles are better than they once were, its still not great.

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

#129

Post by cimmanom » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

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…

Other people have mentioned picking up a day's worth of groceries on the way home from work.

And now and then when you need to buy more than you can carry? You use one of these: https://cdn.instructables.com/FP2/EECN/FRXUSVAV/FP2EECNFRXUS...

And I think part of the point is that for a city we should be building for dense apartments, not single-family residences.

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

#130

Post by AcerbicZero » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft.

For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but the buses are un-ridable most of the time due to the rampant homeless issue(and all that comes with a large homeless population) while the light rail is usually better about being a semi-safe, semi-clean environment, that just happens to be so overloaded between between 7am-9am, and 3pm-6pm, that there is almost any price I'd pay to avoid it.

The sad part is that no matter how excessive the taxes or how limited the parking the ones to suffer first, and worst, will be the low-income families and workers. The homeless will continue to do whatever they can get away with, and those of us with higher incomes will grumble a bit and pay the taxes. The only solution I've seen that has a chance to change this is to come down hard on poor public transit behavior, perhaps by putting actual people on the buses with the specific job of cracking down on the drunk/high/piss soaked/etc types, in an effort to improve the quality of the service to the point that the middle-upper income groups uses it again.