141–150 of 156 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On a per-unit basis, sure. There are way more cars than buses or delivery trucks though.
If I can't use my car, a lot more things need to be delivered. Anything I can't carry for half a mile, anything for which I'd be robbed …
Earlier quoted context omitted.
40,000 people are killed every single year in the USA due to cars. Over 2 million are injured or disabled. And that is direct deaths, not including deaths from pollution. That is the tip of the iceberg for problems with cars. And yet, you can't see why cars are a problem? I don't believe you.
Millions are killed by medical mistakes. Does that mean we should do away with doctors? You can’t count the negative and ignore all the positives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> price-prohibitive congestion pricing and street-parking pricing [...] That way, for any of those stubborn and wealthy enough who refuse to use public transit, we can direct all funds generated to improving public transit* That seems to hand the shared public resource to the wealthy. (Regardless of whether you envision the revenue being used to someday provide a comparably attractive option for the non-wealthy.)
Is it really "handing" if it's market priced?
2. If rich people can zoom around the city much faster than poor people, then rich people have more of this right than poor people. Not good.
3. Crucial to this argument is that the price is prohibitive in nature, and that transit by car is a rivalrous good. So other rights, such as easy access to food, don't fall so easily to this argument because poor people can still buy nutritious food from their wages, even if rich people can buy more expensive and better food.
Imagine if, in high density areas like Manhattan, cars were simply not allowed. Wow. The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy. Would be so awesome.
I don't understand why "cabs" is an allowed exception here. Cabs are like cars, except more expensive, and they drive around without anyone using them for transport looking for business. Why are they superior? I'm picking on this example not because I think that list is meant to be complete or perfectly thought out, but because cabs often seem to get exceptions like this (e.g. in HOV lanes) and I really don't underst…
Of course, once cabs are available, people will use them for convenience rather than the valid reasons. I don't have a solution for this, but I think the valid reasons are strong enough that cabs should be allowed in cities where private cars are banned/strongly discouraged.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On a per-unit basis, sure. There are way more cars than buses or delivery trucks though.
If I can't use my car, a lot more things need to be delivered. Anything I can't carry for half a mile, anything for which I'd be robbed …
2. As for carrying, based on my experience of living in a walkable neighbourhood where thousands of people lived within a kilometer of the central shopping area, a lot of people would bring carts that they would push their groceries home in. If you can push a small wheeled grocery cart through the total 100 meter aisles of the grocery store, then you can push a big wheeled cart the 1000 meter to your house on the sidewalk. Given that I often saw 80 year olds doing that, most healthy people should also be able to do it, no problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Instead of an outright ban, I'd love to see price-prohibitive congestion pricing and street-parking pricing (prohibitive in the sense that it wouldn't make financial sense to drive a car as the primary mode of transport, not that if someone needed to occasionally use a car they couldn't) within Manhattan, with the aforementioned provisions carved out for those who demonstrate a need for a car. That way, for any of th…
> price-prohibitive congestion pricing and street-parking pricing [...] That way, for any of those stubborn and wealthy enough who refuse to use public transit, we can direct all funds generated to improving public transit* That seems to hand the shared public resource to the wealthy. (Regardless of whether you envision the revenue being used to someday provide a comparably attractive option for the non-wealthy.)
If we could entice people to get out of their cars and politicians to drastically increase public investment in transit, then yes, congestion pricing wouldn’t be necessary at all — but in general that hasn’t been the case, and nothing in recent history points to this paradigm shift happening on its own.
I believe this issue is in many ways one of prioritization and balance, and right now the status quo is already cutting off some of the most vulnerable demographics from this “shared public resource.”
The tech industry is floating all these complex technological ideas so solve traffic congestion, from apps that track traffic, to ride hailing to autonomous cars, but the reality is that traffic congestion is not a tech problem but rather a simple physics problem (and political problem). The core issue is simply that cars physically take up too much space on the road, and move too few passengers. This simple physics…
Autonomous cars and ride-hailing weren't/aren't meant to solve traffic congestion. Traffic tracking actually does help by allowing people to make use of underused capacity. Otherwise, I agree -- cars take up too much room, especially when there's just one or two people in them. And I like bus lanes, but I think per-vehicle traffic pricing is a better idea, because it achieves the "densification incentive" in a way th…
If the bus is to be dependable, it needs to arrive on time, and that means that the lane in front of it needs to be free. Consistently free — the bus past my house stops 20 times, so that's 20 points at which the bus needs to be on time on order to be seen as dependable. The bus needs to drive at the same speed every day, and even be able to drive a little faster.
You can either regard the free asphalt as "spare capacity" or regard it as being used by the bus that's not visible right now, but will pass by in a minute or two.
Perhaps it's more correct to say that the free asphalt is being used by the route schedule than the vehicle itself.
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The work of Robert Moses is slowly getting undone. He left a major imprint on NYC, building infrastructure to support the automobile. For Moses, the car was the great middle class equalizer. The result is NYC has 2 highways going up and down it's waterfront when it could have focused on integrating it's city on the rivers as opposed to using them to funnel cars into Manhattan.
I sometimes visit a Brisbane development forum which cannot fathom my suggestions to adopt "the big dig" with our city riverfront freeway. They all see this as a waste of time, and I still see this as returning 100+ year value to something precious: waterfront is too valuable to waste on cars. The ground is amenable to tunnels. We should be getting rid of the flyovers.
The public are vehemently against more busways while also complaining about how congestion on Gympie Road, Lytton Road and Wynnum Road are constantly getting worse. It all really beggers belief.
We continue to throw money on making roads bigger but it doesn't help, all it means is more and more people move to the other end before the status quo reaches equilibrium again, and the cycle of road works starts again. This of courst assumes the road works ever finish. I'm looking at you, Kingsmith Drive, Mudeergaba Exit on the Gold Coast. All the while we're saying there's less commuters using public transport year on year than ever before.
This is a surprise to no one if you notice busses take an hour to travel 8km when you're contending with gridlocked cars for the entire distance.
Less you purchase a moped or a motorcycle and join me and the 2 Wheel Nomads that Brisbane's starting to enjoy.
The article is behind a pay wall, I'm not sure how to get around it.
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The tech industry is floating all these complex technological ideas so solve traffic congestion, from apps that track traffic, to ride hailing to autonomous cars, but the reality is that traffic congestion is not a tech problem but rather a simple physics problem (and political problem). The core issue is simply that cars physically take up too much space on the road, and move too few passengers. This simple physics…
Unfortunately the side effect is, the drivers feels entitled and drive like they own the roads (well, since they paid for it!)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> price-prohibitive congestion pricing and street-parking pricing [...] That way, for any of those stubborn and wealthy enough who refuse to use public transit, we can direct all funds generated to improving public transit* That seems to hand the shared public resource to the wealthy. (Regardless of whether you envision the revenue being used to someday provide a comparably attractive option for the non-wealthy.)
Is it really "handing" if it's market priced?
Markets heavily bias in favour of the richest consumer.