To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars • Hacker News Board

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#251

Post by asdff » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #176

wozniacki wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet not a pip when the new governor of California, Gavin Newsom announced that the high speed rail projects there will be scaled back, markedly.[1] [2] Between Los Angeles and San Francisco, no less ! Atleast not from these pro high-density living and pro urban transit folks. I don't get how you pick and choose what you'd like to criticize and what you'd like to champion on one side and what you conveniently igno…

Unfortunately, he was right here, because that project was hopelessly overpriced. Yes, we badly need HSR in America, but the prices they're talking about are completely ridiculous. What we really need to do is just hire the Japanese to build HSR for us, because we obviously can't do it ourselves.

The Japanese will come here and also have to deal with the hugely inflated prices of land and material acquisition. Everyone in the path of this project or a potential vendor all up and down the line is eager to profiteer and jack up the cost no matter who is engineering it. We need to keep large government projects far away from contractors because like every large government project involved with the private sector in history, costs will rise and rise and rise until people have had enough and the project is scaled back and/or killed. Otherwise, costs will rise until they hit that point, because as a contractor for the government, you have zero incentive not to profiteer.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#252

Post by afettere » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

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Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#253

Post by francisofascii » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #77

benj111 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mention utopia. I did say "Its just cars are so entrenched in western cultures that its easy to overlook all the problems" Eg in a society dominated by cars, there are going to be people without cars that can't easily get to work. You didn't have that problem pre car, and no one complains about not being able to get to work easily because they don't have a helicopter. Cars create sprawl, and create a situati…

> in a society dominated by cars, there are going to be people without cars that can't easily get to work. You didn't have that problem pre car, "pre car" people would walk or ride horses/bicycles for hours to work. You can still do that now, or go faster by bus. > Cars create sprawl, Growing cities create sprawl. Necessary infrastructure for large cities (yes, you need fire trucks, garbage trucks, buses) as well as…

Just look at a map with satellite view of any sprawling area. You will notice a ton of wasted space, mostly due to parking lots, and empty space between the businesses and and the houses. It gets worse you farther you go out from the city center.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#254

Post by Kaiyou » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

dkural wrote: post #194

philwelch wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not entirely clear that racial animus was the primary motivating factor. Once civil rights legislation was passed to stop housing discrimination, for instance, there was also black flight, when middle-class black families also moved to the suburbs. It’s also not clear how one is supposed to reverse the effects of white flight; when middle-class whites move into a majority-nonwhite urban area, this is usually con…

My issue is the article doesn't once mention this as factor at all . I also object that one needs racial animus to have racist policies. "I've got no animus towards blacks, I just don't want to share large chunks of civic life with them" is racist. Blacks wanted to move to the suburbs due to lack of city & civic infrastructure in black neighborhoods - as the whites fled; so did polling stations, hospitals, banks, sto…

Why would not wanting to share your life with them be racist? Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another. It has nothing to do with who you want and don't want to have in your neighborhood. And people should be allowed to choose whom to associate with.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#255

Post by zip1234 » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #63

This is one of the reasons the self-driving craze in tech is so silly: We have vehicles you can commute in and not drive called public transit. Self-driving cars is desire for public transit that doesn't have your rich self sitting next to a poor person on the way to work.

I think the issue is that public transportation is rarely point to point. A point to point self-driving transportation capsule could be more efficient and be better utilized than public transportation.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#256

Post by inapis » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #163

inapis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India still invests a lot in public infrastructure. Bangalore is an exception. Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur etc have invested a lot in urban infra especially the metro. Bangalore was just not ready for the influx of IT companies and is having serious trouble keeping up. But I love the airport buses though. Given India’s population, landscape plus the stave vs central govt politics, its unlikely India will see major car-depe…

4 million a day is full capacity in a city of Delhi’s size? They better start building then https://m.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/capital-chaos-delhi-...

4M what? Delhi doesn't have 4M cars. It's pretty much bordering on 9M cars, 10M if you include the greater NCR area.

The closest number I can find is 31.8L daily ridership in the metro which seems reasonable. The metro had an annual ridership bordering on 1B in 2017-2018.

Given a population of 20M, the whole city doesn't travel at once.

Add on other factors like - * 30% people (kids, housewives, elders etc etc) do not have a significant commute.

* Then a significant portion of the population has a commute less than 5 kms for which taking metro makes less sense - this is evident in the gargantuan numbers of e-rickshaws, tuktuks, tempos seen on indian roads which primarily serve distances upto 5 kms and are nary unoccupied during peak times.

* Then another significant chunk has commutes smaller than 10kms. Only a small percent has any significant commute.

* Plus based on other factors I know, and which would be too tedious to link here, metro is the third most occupied transport behind buses (first) and small transport like e-rickshaws etc.

Delhi doesn't need to build more, in non-peak times you'll find plenty of space. Even in peak times, even though you'll be uncomfortable, you'll still reach your destination within 10-15 mins of what it would take in non-peak time. The current plan is well developed till 2021 and would probably serve the needs of the city with sufficient capacity, though not necessarily comfortable.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#257

Post by ataturk » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #21

RickJWagner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. People who live in cities don't need cars. People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. It will all change if/when economic forces bring it about. Directly forcing it through politics probably isn't the right approach.

> I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. I don't either but I do see it a sad lack of imagination and resignation to out-of-date mythologies about individualism. There's no defensible reason why work-home-school-retail structures rural places can't nucleate closer together into walkable "main street" towns. Much of the design of fly-over states is dictated by developers. It starts when a farmer who want…

There's nothing at all out of date about individualism, it is simply sad that collectivism is all most of you seem to have ever known.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#258

Post by inapis » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #50

inapis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India still invests a lot in public infrastructure. Bangalore is an exception. Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur etc have invested a lot in urban infra especially the metro. Bangalore was just not ready for the influx of IT companies and is having serious trouble keeping up. But I love the airport buses though. Given India’s population, landscape plus the stave vs central govt politics, its unlikely India will see major car-depe…

My anecdotal experience taking the Metro in Mumbai suggests calling it full is a criminal understatement.

Mumbai has two rail-based transports. The metro is tiny compared to the western railways network but expanding and going to cover huge swaths of the city. Though, I can totally understand about your experience with the railways. As a non-mumbaikar, those trains terrify me.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#259

Post by adrianN » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #137

myself248 wrote: post #123

Funny how the loudest voices in these sorts of articles are always from places with temperate weather.

And places that are already dramatically denser than the vast majority of the developed world. Over the weekend I found myself looking for a place in Europe in satellite view, outside of an urban core, and I was struck by how many single-family houses there were, complete with driveways and cars. Here on HN I have been led to believe that Europe is a utopia of forward-thinking people too concerned about the environme…

Half the people in Berlin don't own a car. 45% of the commutes in Copenhagen happen by bicycle.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#260

Post by asdff » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #197

makerofspoons wrote: post #60

If our species is to survive this century we have to get out of our cars. There is no way to sustainably build billions of electric cars- we need to consider that our existing ICE fleet needs to simply be retired and not replaced. Cars are one of the ultimate symbols of the consumption that needs to end if we are to address climate change. Between the asphalt and concrete needed to build infrastructure for them to th…

I'd love to have a shared car pool situation with an automatic driver booked via an app that takes me door to door with say 5 minutes notice for a short trip (say upto 5 miles), and half hour notice for a longer trip (say upto 50 miles), and maybe 5 hours notice for a 500 mile trip. One that's clean, reliable, has appropiate child seats. That's not happening in the next 20 years. My country is still going down the pr…

You can't rent an uber XL?