Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oslo made its city center basically car-free

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 505 posts

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#391

Post by asciimov »

ecshafer wrote: post #360
asciimov wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Texas. My family lives 300 miles away, in Texas, and my last grandparent lives a further 200 miles in the same direction (also in Texas). The two lane highways I take are the only way I would be able to see my family. Passenger trains and airplanes don't go to those places. A bus could get me there, after taking a grand tour of some of the other metro areas in the state. For those of us out here, traveling…

But this is ignoring the fact that the only reason that population structure exists is because of auto dependence. Train lines worked before, they would work again, if people lived more reasonably close to each other so last mile wasn't such an issue.

Not hardly, loads of these small rural communities predate automobiles and didn't have a train stop. These communities sprang up to support local farming and ranching in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Maybe if the big cities didn't rely so heavily on things made on farms and ranches, like cotton, grains, and livestock, less people would be inclined to live out there.

Knowing those types, they love the rural life and wouldn't want to live in the big city, with all its big city problems.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#392

Post by twodave »

stouset wrote: post #215
quickthrower2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s tempting but I don’t want to increase my chance of getting killed, it looks scary to me, and a smaller concern is wearing leathers in 30 degree C heat.

> It’s tempting but I don’t want to increase my chance of getting killed I commented elsewhere but having run the numbers for myself, the number of minutes I "gain back" per day by riding a motorcycle over other forms of commuting more than makes up for any increased danger.

It doesn’t make up for it if you’re dead, and even if you gain a boat load of minutes in some twisted sense, dying early still leaves loved ones grieving and bereaved all the same.

Sometimes I wish we as people weren’t so self-destructively impatient. I’m not trying to single you out here, and I’m far from innocent, but really, what kind of world do we live in where we decide we’d rather DIE EARLY than sit in traffic? Why not just move? There are so many more options.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#393

Post by vonmoltke »

8ytecoder wrote: post #50
themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

Market st is already a no-go for private cars for many blocks. As much as I hate the scooters that go around in the sidewalks and then park haphazardly blocking the path for disabled people, they did reduce the traffic around Bart stations quite a bit. If it's easy to use the alternative, people do take it. There are a few who'd never leave their precious cars but most others care about the commute and not necessaril…

> Every metro region in the country must be a unified under a single transportation agency. They should have enough power to force major changes. If transportation is designed at one level above a single city (esp in a metro area), there could be a lot of efficiencies that can be derived. E.g, coordination between bus and the subway system to pick up passengers within a few minutes of disembarking from the train. Expanded subway coverage for arterial routes at least. Mini buses instead of big ones for feeder routes - with increased frequency. This is not uncommon outside the US btw.

New Jersey has a single, statewide transportation agency (local jitneys notwithstanding). It's better than nothing, but it fucking sucks.[1]. Increasing the scope of an agency, at least in the US, isn't a panacea; it just replaces one set of serious problems with a different set of serious problems. The US needs more fundamental changes than just changing the power/scope of agencies. Unfortunately I don't know what that is.

[1] https://twitter.com/FuckNjTransit

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#394

Post by [deleted] »

danjayh wrote: post #58
themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

I'm amazed that so many people who consider themselves inclusive in their thoughts don't realize how exclusionary anti-automobile policies are. As someone who suffers from mild arthritis, the trip to the back of a Wal-Mart can be painful for me, and a walk or bike ride across a city block absolutely foreboding. On the bad days, even standing in line at a checkout for an extended period of time can send my knees and h…

[deleted]

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#395

Post by bbrian »

haberman wrote: post #374
BrianHenryIE wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but let's not make cars villians. "Over half of all vehicle trips are between 1 and 10 miles." [1] ~35,000 people die on American roads each year. [2] Let's call a spade a spade. Cars are the villains. The over-reliance on your fast, personal, point-to-point convenience is killing too many people. [1] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4... [2] https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

In the US, cars comprise 90% of land-based passenger miles traveled. [1] In Europe, it's 80-90% in most countries. [2] So if we in the US are "over-reliant" on cars, Europe is not far behind. Considering that cars are the preferred method of transport for the vast majority of people, you could just as well say that "people who want to leave the house are the villains." What really bothers me about the Urbanist attitu…

US pedestrian deaths are at a 25 year high. Be ashamed.

Or don't take the car for short journeys. Be part of a positive change.

Or don't take a job that requires long commutes. People want to live in location A and want a better job in location B and accept the fact they increase the risk of death in others, directly and through pollution, as a reasonable trade-off for their comfort.

I don't drive (34, Sacramento). Most people don't need to drive.

https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#396

Post by gomox »

stouset wrote: post #236
paulddraper wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but the reasons more people don't use motorcycles are 1. They're harder to drive. 2. They're more dangerous for the driver. 3. They're uncomfortable in rainy weather. (And even more dangerous during icy weather.)

> 1. They're harder to drive. This is pretty subjective, but I disagree. There are some ways in which they're slightly more difficult (e.g., a manual transmission) but that's an incredibly minor additional challenge. On the other hand, on narrow city streets, they're often much easier to drive since your margins of error on either side of you are so much larger. It's just a matter of what you're used to. Now when I h…

You can't realistically compare the practicality of cars vs motorcycles in wet/icy weather.

I say this as a cycling fan currently getting rid of his car. If it's raining, it's Uber time.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#397

Post by gomox »

chrisseaton wrote: post #321
crowdpleaser wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a recent transplant to the bay area, I'm surprised so few people ride motorcycles - I know that it's not tenable for parents and people with medical conditions, but there are so many people here who could. I cut my commute time in half, I got a lightly used motorcycle + gear for less than the price of a used Prius, I get mileage that's comparable to an economy car and performance that rivals that of a performance…

> I'm surprised so few people ride motorcycles The noise of them is super anti-social.

Most motorcycles aren't loud. I share your hate for those that are, though.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#398

Post by vonmoltke »

CalRobert wrote: post #219
atonse wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, as a fellow armchair policymaker, it feels like his would penalize people that earn less. In most areas, if you want a more affordable house, you go further out. So now it'd get prohibitively expensive to drive to work.

Believe it or not, it is possible to build more homes near employment centers. We don't do it precisely because homeowners bitch and moan about, you guessed it, traffic and parking. So once again cars are the problem.

Homeowners bitch and moan about a whole lot more than just traffic when it comes to building more housing. Cars are a problem, but they are far from the problem.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#399

Post by vonmoltke »

ip26 wrote: post #36
atonse wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see the appeal of congestion fees now that seamless tolls are so easy to collect (using RFID, License Plate Readers, etc). But apart from that, just needlessly taxing gasoline everywhere seems silly when you're trying to just reduce congestion in cities.

If anything taxing gasoline favors city trips, vs highway trips.

How's that? Vehicles use more fuel beer unit distance in city trips than highway trips.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#400

Post by xur17 »

flurdy wrote: post #298
Reason077 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The noise nuisance from motorcycles can also be a terrible blight on urban areas. Although many motorcyclists do ride well maintained, quiet machines responsibly, there's a minority who modify their exhausts to increase noise and pollution in pursuit of a little more power. The noise levels can be ridiculous! Personally, I can't wait for electric motorbikes to take over.

Me too except for one thing: Loud motorbikes are very bad for your own hearing and disturbing everyone else's peace, but it does make you safer as cars can hear you come. Except if they are playing some loud Metal on the car stereo.

> Loud motorbikes are very bad for your own hearing and disturbing everyone else's peace, but it does make you safer as cars can hear you come. Except if they are playing some loud Metal on the car stereo.

My car would be more noticeable (and therefore safer) if I held my horn down while I drove around.

Post reply on HN