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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)

#301

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

calohorn wrote: post #222
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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". It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving everywhere. >> For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but…

>> If homeless people on buses are a problem where you live, that has nothing to do with public transport in general. When you hear of people being aggressive, high, inconsiderate, or here in Portland two people had their throats slit on the light rail recently near my house, it makes the public not feel comfortable using the public transportation. Since it's called public transportation and these things effect the p…

Public transport in Portland, is not "public transport in general". It's public transport in Portland.

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

#302

Post by ht_th »

MR4D wrote: post #39
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 think your point gets missed by many people. Europeans tend to have cities that have been around much longer than cars have, and you can see it in the design - they were built back when horses were the fastest mode of transportation. Many small American towns were built after the introduction of the automobile (or at least significant chucks of the towns were). Trying to undo history, or even taking a new mode of d…

Although European cities do exists for way longer, for most cities, that's only true for the small city center. The larger newer parts have been built in about the same period as most USA cities: the 19th and 20th century. Since the 1940s the car has become the dominant mode of transportation in European cities as well, and particularly up till the early 1970s new city planning was quite car focused. You can still see that today by these large multi-lane roads through heavily populated areas in cities. But also a lot of industrial parks have been setup with only cars in mind. In the meanwhile these choices are in the process of being reverted by limiting through car traffic, adding bike lines, sidewalks, more green areas, and so on.

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

#303

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

DrScump wrote: post #291
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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". It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving everywhere. >> For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but…

If homeless people on buses are a problem where you live, that has nothing to do with public transport in general It has everything to do with public transportation policy . Example: VTA (Santa Clara County). They started allowing "homeless" to just hang out on a given long route bus all day , recirculating directions, so they could claim higher ridership. Of course, the real-world effect is that those people who wou…

>> It has everything to do with public transportation policy.

Local transportation policy, maybe, but that is not "public transport in general", i.e. the concept of public transport in the abstract, as opposed to its implementation in specific situations.

To put it bluntly, Santa Clara County is not the world.

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

#304

Post by yellowapple »

peterwwillis wrote: post #155
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 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…

On another note, cracking down on drunks using public transit will encourage them to get behind the wheel, which is almost certainly a worse outcome for everyone.

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

#305

Post by yellowapple »

peterwwillis wrote: post #219
baddox wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a bit bizarre to imply that individual citizens have the responsibility or even capability of meaningfully solving major public welfare or health issues. Surely no one would imply the same for, say, crime or disease epidemics.

But they do have that responsibility. They're supposed to wash their hands. That's the #1 way to stop the spread of viruses and bacteria. We also require they put their garbage into garbage cans and out to the street every week, so that the streets aren't literally covered in contaminated waste, like they were a century ago. We also require they call the police when a crime is occurring. And the fire department when…

"In many cities in America, it is illegal for a citizen to give a sandwich to a homeless person."

Which cities? This is the first I've ever heard of this.

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

#306

Post by cup-of-tea »

wahern wrote: post #262
jimmaswell wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying there are probably unexplored good solutions to that kind of congestion. Another I just thought of is the city motivating companies to make shifts not so centered around 9-5. Spread the rush with shifts of 8-4, 10-6, etc.

The 9-5 work schedule went away a long time ago. In places like the Bay Area rush hours are roughly 6-10AM in the morning and 3-7PM in the evening precisely because of differing schedules[1]. And that's for white collar work. Factories and service work have much more varied schedules. [1] There's a long tail, too. IME traffic becomes noticeably heavy around 6AM and 3PM, but there's a long tail after 10AM and 7PM.

Yep. In the UK on a weekday the M1 near London and M25 start to get busy after 04:00 and stay busy all day.

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

#307

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

arethuza wrote: post #296
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…

I use public transport a lot (trains mostly, but the occasional bus) here in Scotland and I can't remember the last time I had anything unpleasant happen on public transport. And I've got a decent new car which I do use a fair amount but I'm perfectly happy taking the train or bus as well.

I think it's really something local to big US cities (or even smaller ones).

A friend who lived in Athens, Greece once told me how his sisters, who live in New York, came to visit him. He said that they were afraid to go on the tube, because they thought it wouldn't be safe. He said that they were used in the NY tube that they didn't think was safe.

I've had a few similar experiences myself (e.g. people being afraid of side streets in my cheery seaside town, where the biggest danger is someone from a hen or stag do getting sick on your new shoes). That's even more striking considering I don't actually meet that many US citizens. The few I do seem to always be looking over their shoulder.

I guess, the flip side of it is that people in Europe don't realise how safe our little region of the world is. We kind of take it for granted that just walking down a street in London or Paris, or other big European capitals doesn't automatically put your life and property in danger. For people living in places with high rates of violent crime, like the US, South Africa, Brazil or Mexico and so on, it's all very different.

I get that, in that sort of context, public transport is seen as unsafe- because anything "public" is seen as unsafe, and probably for good reasons. But that's not because public transport is inherently unsafe; it's public spaces that are unsafe in specific parts of the world. It's hard to decouple the two in peoples' minds though :/

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

#308

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #218
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…

LA, Chicago, Portland, SF, any major metro area.

So what I'm getting from this thread is that it isn't a problem with public transport, it's a problem with the US.

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

#309

Post by dbatten »

wahern wrote: post #267
dbatten wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've basically just described a libertarian economic philosophy. We can have an intelligent conversation about whether that's a good idea or not, but it's a very serious political philosophy that lots of very intelligent people subscribe to...

Libertarianism may be a serious economic philosophy but it's a poor political philosophy. It completely ignores issues like path dependency, importance of culture and socialization, etc. Don't you find it odd that societies that exemplify the sort of globally optimal yet individually rational choices such as in Japan or Nordic countries have laws and norms more often than not in direct contradiction to Western Libert…

Yes, this is exactly the sort of intelligent conversation we can have when we stop using sarcasm to dismiss serious positions we disagree with.

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

#310

Post by naravara »

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…

I don’t see what homelessness has to do with transit viability aside from them making you uncomfortable. When everyone rides the bus or train, the share of people behaving badly goes down fast. The reason areas with poor transit have their busses overloaded with vagrants is because every public good gets overloaded with vagrants if not enough people are using it.

>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.

Or you could, I don’t know, treat them like human beings, get them counseling, and reintegrate them into society?

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