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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)

#251

Post by lgregg »

refurb wrote: post #156
lgregg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That sounds incredibly inefficient.

Not really, I lived near a grocery store in two different cities. When I was in Chicago, I lived behind one for 3 years. When I lived in NYC, I was a block and half away. They were both between my commute route.

I always knew what I needed, so I'd buy it fresh (i.e. Milk, fruits/veggies, and etc.) along with a few long-term items (i.e. bags of rice, canned goods, dish soap, and etc). Now, I'm not close and my cost per month has gone up because stuff spoils because I don't want to waste time driving to the grocery store so I buy too much.

It really depends on what type of shopper you are, if you go into a grocery store and b-line to where you know everything is or if you're one to wander and mozy through the grocery store in a general direction and putting things in your cart per chance. When I was doing the daily or multi-weekly deal, most trips would be 10 mins or less depending on how busy the grocery store was.

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

#252

Post by rorykoehler »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #186
Zarath wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much can you condense a city if you have no roads at all? What I mean is that walking/biking/scootering in a city with no roads is probably twice, if not more, times more efficient.

You can compress a lot, but you can't compress away all the space currently used as roads. The space is important for allowing sunlight and fresh air to enter buildings and also acts as a noise damper in a community. Not to mention, some amount of visual privacy from neighbors. There is also the problem of emergency services (ambulances, fire trucks, police etc) being able to move around quickly. Finally, you should…

>you can't compress away all the space currently used as roads

You can however plant a lot of trees which would make a huge impact on the sustainability of cities by regulating the heat/cold much better. Also if you look at old European cities you can pretty much compress away all the car space. Jan Gehl's "Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space"[0] is a fantastic read if you're into thinking about this sort of thing.

[0] ISBN 978-87-7407-360-4

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

#253

Post by rorykoehler »

2trill2spill wrote: post #153
Zarath wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much can you condense a city if you have no roads at all? What I mean is that walking/biking/scootering in a city with no roads is probably twice, if not more, times more efficient.

How are you suppose to move goods around if you have no roads? On bike?, on foot?, by rail? Biking and on foot would be impractical for large items or many items, and if we used rail it would have to be all over the city, so your back to the same problem with roads but instead of cars and roads its trains and rail.

Design in distribution systems that are separate to human systems. There are plenty of ways you could do that from the superblock Barcelona style system to, if we're designing from scratch, hyperloop tunnels or similar sci-fi approaches.

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

#254

Post by batteryhorse »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #214
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc. Excuse me, but- where does that happen? I mention in another comment that I live in a town in England, where I've never had any problems with homeless people in public transport. I also work in London, travel by rail across Europe and often use public transport in three different European…

It's a problem in Melbourne. Although not as bad as America from what I've read here. Trains are mostly fine, but I won't take a bus or a tram if I can avoid it. If I can get somewhere by train or bus, and the train would be 10 minutes slower, I'll take the train. The other day on the tram I had to deal with drunk ex-con listening to his bluetooth speaker and verbally abusing a poor Asian lady to the point she had to…

Just as another data point, I currently live in Sydney (used to live in Melbourne), and I haven't noticed any of these problems here. Trains are much more pleasant to ride compared to Melbourne. Ferry is the best option though. Sundays get you unlimited transport for $2.60, it's great. Perhaps it's because of the sunshine?

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

#255

Post by terenia »

Bekwnn wrote: post #225
AcerbicZero wrote: post #130

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 bi…

There was an anecdote from a woman in Vancouver about how she would never again use public transit. She described being groped a dozen times in private places, and being followed off the bus by men on 3 occasions or more. I dont see how anyone could blame young women who go through that for refusing to use transit. Just as a man riding on the same transit system, I totally believe that level of frequency and wouldn't…

As a women who uses transit as part of her daily commute, it comes down to time of day and route. As well as being aware of your surroundings and understanding when there is a one-off situation occurring.

Skytrain - yes, you sometimes have the one off homeless guy, who jumped the compass gates, on the train who makes it awkward for all riders. 98% of the time during the normal commute it's peaceful. Last few trains of the day, you should anticipate the drunks on board. At least they are not on the road driving

Bus - when it's crammed, it's crammed and awkward for everyone. At least Translink now has a means to track rider data to understand the routes that require more frequent services to mitigate the crammed bus situation.

Considering Uber and Lyft have had blocks thrown in their way for approvals in Vancouver, we do not have the alternative means other cities do. Transit and bike lanes is slowly improving, but still has a ways to go.

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

#256

Post by egypturnash »

homonculus1 wrote: post #211
peterwwillis wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

Most of them are addicts who don't want help. You could give them a job and a free house and they'd end up right back where they are now.

America continues to collect the wonderful, wonderful dividends of Ronald Reagan's decision to cut the funding for mental health to the bone.

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

#257

Post by flukus »

epicureanideal wrote: post #173
drb91 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft. How can this be true? Public transit allows your attention to wander and typically is much, much faster than traffic. Adding uber/lyft will get two of the worst attributes: traffic and high cost, although you’ll be able to do something else simultaneously. Furthermore, it’s not clear how parking fees affe…

As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc. If this were stopped, then it might be better than being in a car.

> If this were stopped

Sorry, but that's called society and it will never be able to compete with the bubble you've built for yourself.

If more people were willing too embrace society instead of hiding from it then there's a better chance of improving it.

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

#258

Post by mrep »

peterwwillis wrote: post #230
homonculus1 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them are addicts who don't want help. You could give them a job and a free house and they'd end up right back where they are now.

This attitude is the reason this problem isn't getting solved.

What do you recommend then?

The homeless population in Seattle (where I live currently) vastly decrease my quality of life despite the vast sums of money our government spends on them. I would happily contribute a lot more to taxes if it actually solved the problem but I have yet to see anyone give a good solution.

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

#259

Post by megablast »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #130

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 bi…

The number and variety of excuses car drivers will make to continue with their selfish activity is really impressive. I guess it comes form the ability to ignore the 50,000 deaths a year due to cars, the horrible companies they help fund, the many more deaths due to pollution, the destruction of cities and suburbs due to roads etc... To even consider driving you have to be a completely selfish scumbag. I can't see any other way about of thinking about it.

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

#260

Post by mrep »

egypturnash wrote: post #256
homonculus1 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them are addicts who don't want help. You could give them a job and a free house and they'd end up right back where they are now.

America continues to collect the wonderful, wonderful dividends of Ronald Reagan's decision to cut the funding for mental health to the bone.

That and the war on drugs...
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