211–220 of 325 posts
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Rem Koolhaus calls this thinking the “culture of congestion” in his 1978 book “Delirious New York”. It’s fascinating, and these ideas have all been explored before. Have multi-level streets ever worked?
> Have multi-level streets ever worked? They work well everywhere they've ever been built. Chicago is probably the most well known example.
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Unfortunately in the US most of the major cities have essentially been designed (or redesigned) around private vehicles, so banning them is not going to happen. However you are absolutely correct - walking through Times Square in NYC is a pleasure (aside from all the guys in Batman costumes) with traffic removed compared to turn of the millennia. I don’t care to bike but the bike lanes squeezing out all the auto traf…
The most recent part of Manhattan to be designed was still over two centuries ago in 1811, so we're not going to have that problem at least. But I think you're over-estimating how hard it would be to get rid of traffic in many other urban cores in the US. You don't need to do the entire city; you can just do the densest parts. It's not that hard to beef up a city's existing bus services and use them to totally replac…
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How are they moving furniture, though? No joke, really curious how they coped with the downsides.
You just ban the most common forms of car throughput. Moving vans would be allowed.
Electric vans also could be the preferred method of supplying shops with goods. That need not be much more expensive if containers can be moved from larger vans onto such smaller vans at city boundaries.
If you have furniture that’s so large that you have to hoist it up and get it into the building through a window, you likely already need a permit to use the device that hoists up the furniture.
This seems to ignore freight. First, since there are no freight railroads into Manhattan; everything consumed by the residents and the much larger daytime population has to arrive by truck. Most freight into Manhattan comes via the Hudson River bridges and tunnels since the container port is in New Jersey and the rail yards are also there. There is little barge traffic, although I think that garbage is barged out via…
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my theory is its rooted in this: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/13/science/when-the-brain-sa... people who spend an hour+ a day for years on end in their car have mentally expanded their subconscious definition of themselves, their corporal being, with the skin of the car. this is a necessary mental process to prevent them from clipping mailboxes and 'rubbing paint' with other drivers that they then can't really "tu…
That is an absolutely brilliant explanation of the "personal attack" feeling of road rage. After commuting by foot/subway/bike/scooter for a few years its shocking to see the reactions of my own (educated, professional) friends when someone dares to walk through a sidewalk! Don't even get them started about "those damn bikers".
IIRC: Overstimulation of some senses simultaneously shuts down those senses (autoamputation) and makes us hyper aware of other senses.
I work a few blocks from 14th St and, man, the place was eerie this week. I really liked it and support the concept of banning cars, even as I own one because I live in the far reaches of an outer borough.
NYC needs to dump a lot of work into their rail system, and not slack off in the good times. They keep flipping from having one of the best systems in the US to being plagued by terrible issues, every decade. Chicago hasn't expanded in a while, but they maintain their tracks, buy new stock and renovate stations. I don't think people appreciate how incredibly important all that maintenance is to the city. I hope Chica…
This seems to ignore freight. First, since there are no freight railroads into Manhattan; everything consumed by the residents and the much larger daytime population has to arrive by truck. Most freight into Manhattan comes via the Hudson River bridges and tunnels since the container port is in New Jersey and the rail yards are also there. There is little barge traffic, although I think that garbage is barged out via…
I remember showering after getting home from bars and the smell of smoke coming out of my hair. People claimed we'd lose business to Hoboken bars where people could still smoke.
Within a couple years, Hoboken had to ban smoking in bars and restaurants to stop losing business to Manhattan.