161–170 of 451 posts
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Counties with significant domestic car industries: * USA * Japan Countries out of the first list, with policies favouring cars: 1/2 Conclusion: Insufficient data.
German public transportation is also excellent and if they aren’t considered to have a significant domestic car industry, I’m not sure who else does qualify.
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We need to give this argument a rest. Cycling infrastructure has everything to do with availability and very little to do with hills. I don’t avoid biking to work because of the hills, I avoid it because it’s treacherous.
Disclaimer: I don't like cars, I love driving, but as a sport, not in urban areas. Biking is like running, playing soccer, playing tennis, swimming, many people don't do it because they don't do any sport. Biking requires skills that normal people usually don't have, but that they believe they have. It is in fact more dangerous than driving (compared to the driver, not pedestrians) As soon as older people could not b…
Walkable cities are for everyone.
This is trivially untrue. Cities with lots of steps or staircases are only accessible for pedestrians, but no one else.
Bikeable cities are just for bikers.
I guess it depends a lot on what you consider "bikers". When you think of bikers, do you think of image [1] or [2]?
[1] https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/sightseeing/copen...
[2] https://www.betteshanger-park.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites...
"Yet the most prominent way of setting and adjusting speed limits, known as the operating-speed method, actually encourages faster driving. It calls for setting speed limits that 85 percent of drivers will obey. This method makes little provision for whether there’s a park or senior center on a street, or for people walking or biking." This statement causes me to question the veracity of the rest of the article. Prac…
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Reducing your speed increases the likely hood of collisions because pedestrians tend to no care about their safety at all if they can shave off 2 seconds. They don't wait for your car to pass. If you are on the left lane and the right lane is free then they will walk onto the street and anticipate that you will pass them by the time they have reached the left lane. If you reduce your speed then their guess turns out…
In that case you are gonna see them. Aren't you going to slow down if somebody tries to jump in front of your car? A behavior like that should be illegal for both party. The driver is at fault of causing the incident and the pedestrian is at fault of being inconsiderate and a danger to the vehicles (one collision can cause many other collisions) independently from whether the accident actually happened.
I think you have it backwards. The pedestrian that darts out into traffic that cannot stop in time causes the accident. The driver who does not travel slow enough to reasonably hedge themselves against a pedestrian darting out is being inconsiderate.
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And it helps to live in a famously flat country.
We need to give this argument a rest. Cycling infrastructure has everything to do with availability and very little to do with hills. I don’t avoid biking to work because of the hills, I avoid it because it’s treacherous.
First of all, this person meant to say "particulates" [1] and so we are not talking about CO2 at all. Secondly, the source that he links to has this table in it for PM10 (the table for PM2.5 would be analogous) [2]. Almost all of this argument is based on "resuspension". Basically, the car's slip stream. Seriously?
By the way, these values are (virtually) calculated all on acount of EVs being heavier. Well done I guess for assuming that braking in EVs won't have PM emissions .
It's a pity that an argument based on traffic accidents and cars has to reference such a random and irrelevant article. I agree that Americans like cars too much.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates
[2] Table 5
Comparison between expected PM 10 emissions of EVs, gasoline and diesel ICEVs (mg/vkm)
(Vehicle technology) (Exhaust) (Tyre wear) (Brake wear) (Road wear) (Resuspension) (Total)
EV 0 7.2 0 8.9 49.6 65.7
Gasoline ICEV 3.1 6.1 9.3 7.5 40 66.0
Diesel ICEV 2.4 6.1 9.3 7.5 40 65.3
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Your comment makes me think of the premise behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Judge Doom: Several months ago I had the good providence to stumble upon this plan of the city council's. A construction plan of epic proportions. They're calling it a freeway. Eddie Valiant: Freeway? What the hell's a freeway? Judge Doom: Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena. Smooth, safe, fast. Traffic jams will be…
Today, San Francisco only has trains along Market Street, fingering out into a half dozen neighborhoods. Most of the city is served by buses. Originally, many of those buses were, in fact, trains: > ...as SF's rail network was removed or replaced with bus lines in the mid-century, it went from 16 rail lines to five... The reason we still have the trains we do is because they were the lines that used tunnels, so they…
Another way of stating this could be "transport is a policy question." How cities are built and what transport infrastructure they're built around. Im fairly sympathetic to the overall aims of this article. I think a transport system more similar to those in the Netherlands makes for better urban landscapes. But... this habitual style of treating everything as a conspiracy, built around a personified enemy ("They gav…
I too don't like the article presented that way. I should note that it was a conspiracy in this case. Automobile manufacturers ran media campaigns and lobbied to make walking across the street a crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM Most of these are also laws passed by groups of people deciding to control others for a mix of perceived altruistic and selfish reasons. It's not secret but there's people co…
Another way of stating this could be "transport is a policy question." How cities are built and what transport infrastructure they're built around. Im fairly sympathetic to the overall aims of this article. I think a transport system more similar to those in the Netherlands makes for better urban landscapes. But... this habitual style of treating everything as a conspiracy, built around a personified enemy ("They gav…
No conspiracy required when a lot of people are acting according to a common view. People see the real advantages of owning a car and the freedom it brings, and that activity builds industries and has an impact on policies. Of course, GM really did conspire to put the trolleys out of business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... However, this is the kind of thing organizations (companies,…
> The next thing should preserve the immense freedom and flexibility that cars brought.
In addition to stimulating sprawl and it's enormous costs, this limits the actual freedom and choices of people who can't or won't drive.
Even ex-burb homeowners whose every trip begins and ends in a parking spot eventually get pissed as the only way for a city to grow is then to pave more and more highways, and spread out in distance making automobile commutes a daily misery literally spanning oceans of asphalt.
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Speaking as a Dutchman, I experience much more flexibility and freedom riding a bike than my car. That's probably a consequence of both the overcrowding of our roads, and the density of our infrastructure -- I rarely have to drive more than 15 minutes to reach any kind of shop, and by bike I can take shortcuts that my car can't follow, especially in inner cities. Ultimately, my car has been relegated to recreational…
And it helps to live in a famously flat country.
Contrary to a slope the wind can also hinder you on the way there and on the way back (when you stayed long enough for the wind to turn). Yay.