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No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

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Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#221

Post by Symbiote »

skrebbel wrote: post #126
flicken wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the intersection is alive and well without traffic signals. That's my favorite intersection in Graz, the five-way intersection of Zinzendorfgasse, Halbärthgasse, Schubertstrasse, Leechgasse, and Beethovenstrasse. The Google Maps street view has a nice view of pedestrians, bikes, and cars sharing the intersection. Buses also use the intersection, but I couldn't find any in the Google Maps view. https://www.google…

Learning that there are people who have favorite intersections really made my day.

See also: https://www.roundaboutsofbritain.com/

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#222

Post by eru »

chinesempire wrote: post #163
clairity wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you really only need to price it properly. one approach would be to require landlords to list the cost of parking separately in their lease agreements, and allow renters to opt out of that cost independent of the rest of the lease. edit: oh, and have city-wide permit parking as well, so that municipal street parking is priced properly too.

Roads are public spaces in Italy, only the state (the city) can charge for public parking And major cities are already charging as much as they can That's why people with kids usually move out, that's why they need cars, that's why telling them to go by bike is unimaginable

Are you saying high cost of parking is why cars are attractive?

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#223

Post by eru »

chinesempire wrote: post #160
eru wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fix it over time, by allowing (but not forcing!) people to build taller. Also check out http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

It doesn't fix the problem of having to drive 40kms a day to go to work and the fact that many people don't live in the city because it's more expensive. So now you have two problems: you have to convince them to bike and to live in smaller houses spending more money

I don't see how that follows?

If anything, we'd be suggesting bigger houses. Tall and with nice and large flats in them.

In the city centres where that makes commercial sense. Just allow tall buildings, and let developers worry about whether they _should_ build tall.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#224

Post by eru »

_jal wrote: post #109
eru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit weird that some people (not you) single out Uber and Lyft when talking about congestion. A congestion charge would solve the problem in a principled way, with no need for exceptions for special vehicles. Buses and even fire engines and ambulances could just pay the congestion charge, too.

If you have a nearly full cup, and someone dumps a bunch more water at it, who do you blame for the mess?

Perhaps. Though I don't see how they are adding congestion? If people would take their own cars instead, that would congest the streets just as much, plus use up parking space.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#225

Post by eru »

wahern wrote: post #111
thedance wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can’t be true. Taxis often run with zero passengers, whereas a private car never does.

I could only find two studies on capacity utilization: * Judd Cramer, Alan B. Krueger, "Disruptive Change in the Taxi Business: The Case of Uber", 2016, https://www.nber.org/papers/w22083 and * Y.M. Nie, "How can the taxi industry survive the tide of ridesourcing? Evidence from Shenzhen, China", 2017 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0968090X1... Both seem to confirm that ride-hailing has better util…

Personal car usage doesn't have a 100% utilization: lots of time is spent cruising for parking and coming back from some out of the way parking. You can't really count that as being productively utilized. It's the opposite.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#226

Post by eru »

brailsafe wrote: post #158
eru wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, that makes car use more attractive again.

As a former but not current car user, congestion does not factor into how desirable car use for commuting is. I don't keep my eye on how many less cars there are, waiting for that moment when I can finally get another one because my hypothetical commute time dropped 5 mins. If it's even on par to not drive to work, that's what I'll do, and I'd pick a job in such a place that allows it. Driving to work sucks.

If your commute is a twenty minute race on an empty Autobahn, most people wouldn't mind, and some people might even enjoy it.

The more of a slog it become is stop-and-go traffic, the more people will have your (and my) sentiment that driving to work sucks.

You are right, that for individuals 5 minutes more or less is not making much of a difference in their choices---most of the time. People have thresholds where it gets too annoying, so they stop completely if they can at all (like you suggest).

Average over lots of people, those discrete thresholds look much smoother.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#227

Post by eru »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #53
eru wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What time in the past are you talking about? Funny enough, the total amount of physical stuff churning through the US economy has declined since the 1930s (or so?) just in terms of sheer mass. Btw, your observation sounds much less surprising when you say 'transistors got cheaper since the 1970, yet we are spending more in total on transistors than ever'.

> the total amount of physical stuff churning through the US economy has declined since the 1930s (or so?) just in terms of sheer mass. That’s an extraordinary claim to me, especially given population growth, and I would need some rigorous evidence to believe it. Cars are bigger, homes are bigger, people live further apart, and people travel more. How can the sheer mass not be more simply because of the mass of all t…

Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dematerialization_(economics) for a start.

I remembered reading about a comparison with 1930 as the peak. The Wikipedia article just mentions:

> Between 1977 and 2001, the amount of material required to meet all needs of Americans fell from 1.18 trillion pounds to 1.08 trillion pounds, even though the country's population increased by 55 million people. Al Gore similarly noted in 1999 that since 1949, while the economy tripled, the weight of goods produced did not change.

If you follow the references, or Google some more, you can find more.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#228

Post by ryanseys »

eindiran wrote: post #192
beefalo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I"m not a fan of riding a bike at Embarcadero. I would like to see more bike/walk areas like the one on Townsend between 7th and 5th where there is a clearly marked bike only and walking only section.

The last time I rode my bike to the Caltrain, which was admittedly a while ago, everything was being ripped up on 5th near Townsend (I think it was 5th at least -- it was one of the nearby numbered streets); is that all finished now?

Nope.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#229

Post by bloogsy »

chinesempire wrote: post #157
bloogsy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of them don't even hold a driving license This is absolutely not true in the UK, and probably not in most major cities. The overwhelming proportion of cyclists here are adults, and many have decided to take up cycling after already going through the normal rite-of-passage of learning to drive. Base on data from the national travel survey, it's estimated that 83% of cyclists hold a driving license in the UK[1].…

Where does op says they are not adults? My fiance is an adult and she doesn't have a driving license. Because public transport allowed her to move without driving

You are misunderstanding my point - I'm saying that because the majority of cyclists are adults, who got into cycling after they turned 18, the majority of them have learned to drive (at least from my experience), not that the cyclists OP is talking about aren't adults.

I do not hold a driving license either, aged 29, but I am in the minority. I am also learning to drive this year, to stop burdening my friends and family members.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#230

Post by SirLJ »

CraneWorm wrote: post #75
SirLJ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At -20 feels great...

You'd be surprised if you tried cycling at -20. I have, it beats cycling in 30+C. Just don't forget cold protection and you'll be fine.

on ice? spiked tires or chains?
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