Live data from Hacker News

Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

twitter.com

361–370 of 524 posts

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making pedestrians go out of their way to get anywhere is a great way to discourage walking and treat it as a second class citizen to driving, when it should really be the other way around. Plus, said catwalks need to be accessible, so how many elevators are you planning on putting in and maintaining now? Pedestrian bridges flat-out suck. Better to get rid of as many vehicles as possible and slow the remaining ones w…

For one. bridge you are right. Put in dozens such that you can go several km without going back down though and things are different.

Do you realize how catastrophically expensive it would be to build and maintain all of these bridges and pathways along with the four elevators per intersection? And how closed in and claustrophobic it would make the street level feel like from blocking out so much sun?

If this idea were viable, someone somewhere in the world would have already done it. But the closest I can think of is Las Vegas, and that's only along one road, and it's not even a full pedestrian pathway but instead just some bridges over intersections, and those are primarily there to prevent drunks from getting run over by cars.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the space and extra travel distance required for above-street ramps makes them impractical? If you want to rise 15 ft in the air at a 5% grade, you need 300 ft. Now imagine a ramp every block.

That depends, is there are network of them such that you can go a few km without going outside, or is it across one road. The latter is worthless for all the reasons you mention. For dense areas (downtown) they are fairly common, office workers can go several buildings over to lunch without going outside, and things are heated in winter.

They're fairly common? Can you provide examples?

The closest thing I can think of is a series of connected pedestrian tunnels that you see in some Canadian cities like Montreal and Toronto. Those primarily exist for a different reason; winter is months-long and so cold that you don't want to step foot outside at all. Pedestrian bridges don't accomplish this goal.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what you mean with this effectiveness. I live in Prague, the city with (what they say) one of the best public transport systems in the world, and yet, going to my workplace is 45 minutes by public transport and 15 minutes by car. Even though I live close to a subway and tram station, and the workplace is right in the city center, car still wins - where is the effectiveness you're talking about? This is…

Is it possible that your easy car commute is made possible by nature of an effective public transit system removing cars from the road? And that without comprehensive transit you would have 45 minutes of traffic by car?

Of course, there are many people for whose public transport is the best option, especially anyone living right in the city centre, and people living in the major population hubs (there are 5 or more significant ones). I am not any of these, and yet I am being asked to move to public transport - so I say, first make the public transport work for me as well as it works for them.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one. bridge you are right. Put in dozens such that you can go several km without going back down though and things are different.

Do you realize how catastrophically expensive it would be to build and maintain all of these bridges and pathways along with the four elevators per intersection? And how closed in and claustrophobic it would make the street level feel like from blocking out so much sun? If this idea were viable, someone somewhere in the world would have already done it. But the closest I can think of is Las Vegas, and that's only alo…

> If this idea were viable, someone somewhere in the world would have already done it.

Hong Kong does this in the downtown area. It’s viable because of the very high population density and prevalence of foot traffic.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hong+kong+pedestrian+bridge&iax=im...

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#365
post #354

Some contextual data from US cities in 2018 City – City Population (Metro Area Population), City Density per Square Mile, City Traffic Fatalities Oslo [1]: 690,335 (1,588,457), 3,938, 1 Nashville [2][3]: 692,587 (1,930,961), 1,374, 82 Portland [4][5]: 653,115 (2,478,810), 4,911, 34 Milwaukee [6][7]: 592,025 (1,572,245), 6,155, 68 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tenn…

Need to look at total miles driven, not just population size vs. number of deaths.

Doesn't Norway have huge taxes on automobiles which chill ownership? If so, then population is not relevant. If only 10% of people can afford to own cars, then the number of crashes and fatalities will certainly be low.

The US standard of living is far higher. Whether that leads to more fatalities or not is anybody's guess. I would prefer the idea that we don't bother teaching people to drive very well or that people don't value developing their own good driving skills.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#366
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seatbelt issue is probably going away. My car will nag the hell out of me if anyone isn't wearing a seatbelt at speeds over 20 km/h. I assume this is true for most modern cars. Part of the population who didn't grow up with seatbelts is aging. I remember my late grandmother hated the seatbelts, they didn't exist when she grew up. Often she would pretend to use the belt, holding it in place by hand so that it looked l…

It will nag you even in the back?

Shit, my Tesla will nag me after I am in park and EXITING the vehicle.

Yeah, I don't have my seat belt on.. because I am getting out of the car!

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, pedestrian signals do NOT signal when it’s safe to cross. Cars almost always have a green in the same direction, meaning they can turn into you. I almost get run over once a month because of this.

When I visited the USA for a conference, I looked up a nice coffee place that was just across the street from the academic campus where I was staying. I went to the nearest crossing point, waited for several cycles of the traffic lights, and still couldn't deduce when it was safe to cross. The road markings were black and white stripes, which mean "cars must always stop for pedestrians crossing here" where I live (UK…

North Carolina sucks as far as sidewalks, parks, and well, many things. I lived there 9 years and I had no idea where all the tax money went. Some day we'll find out how corrupt it all was.

The city in the Midwest where I live now is miles ahead of anything NC had and they built all this up back in the 1980s. There's really no excuse why NC is so bad.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#368

The entire country (Norway) had 0 children traffic deaths in 2019. In total 110 traffic deaths, of which 72% were men, very similar to the past few years. About 2/3rd of deaths were drivers or passengers in a car (the rest motorbike or pedestrian), and of those in cars 1/3rd were not using a seat belt. So it's likely you could get an immediate decrease in total traffic deaths of close to 20% if you could just force e…

I wonder if this has anything to do with their extremely strict alcohol laws - no alcohol sales after certain hours and/or weekends (if I remember correctly), so less drunk drivers.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The safety increase of highway speedcameras is very limited. They help the environment and generate a lot of cash, but in terms of accidents the impact is very low because not a lot of accidents happen on highways with split lanes and only cars. And those that do happen are statistically much more related to alcohol, drugs, tired driving and adverse weather. In cities it's different, there even a 10 km/h reduction ma…

Why would you put the speed cameras on highways then? Here they are on 50-60km/h roads, some times 70. On faster roads they are only near crossings where the speed limit is reduced.

That's literally all they do in Israel. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars setting up speed cameras on Highways ONLY, and the only effect is increased revenue.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one. bridge you are right. Put in dozens such that you can go several km without going back down though and things are different.

Do you realize how catastrophically expensive it would be to build and maintain all of these bridges and pathways along with the four elevators per intersection? And how closed in and claustrophobic it would make the street level feel like from blocking out so much sun? If this idea were viable, someone somewhere in the world would have already done it. But the closest I can think of is Las Vegas, and that's only alo…

Downtown Manila basically has bridges over every intersection, or underground walkways with elevators for the disabled.

It works out great. Though admittedly it’s more of a workout than walking in flat Manhattan.

Post reply on HN