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Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

blog.transloc.com

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Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#41

Post by king_jester »

ktsmith wrote: post #30
ericmoritz wrote: post #29

I was having a discussion with someone about how much of our transportation issues would be solved if we were content traveling at Think about it, how much of your everyday needs around within 5 miles of you? Unless you live in a rural area, I'd suspect 100% of your needs are within 5 miles of you. At that speed, you could get to anywhere in ~15 minutes inside of that 5 mile radius.

Lots of American cities are very spread out so you don't have to be in a rural area in order to have to travel more than five miles to satisfy your every day needs.

This is the major problem with transit in a lot of places. Development spread outward to cheaply priced land, creating large distances between residential areas and commercial areas. Major cities that didn't have the land or prices to allow outward development instead developed upward (and download, with buildings and transit systems below ground). The end result is that a lot of places are simply not sustainable without tremendous investment in their transit systems and city planning. As gas more and more expensive, a lot of people will end up having to abandon these areas because it will simply be too expensive to live there.

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#42

Post by protomyth »

scythe wrote: post #19

Having eight feet of steel behind you makes a lot more sense when you get rear-ended by a drunk driver going 45 mph while you're sitting at a red light. >The industrial food system is another. Our food, which could be grown from local sunshine and local compost, is instead grown in distant places with pesticides and fertilizers made from petroleum and natural gas. Meanwhile the sun beats down on our cities only to fa…

The industrial food system is efficient use of land and keeps those smells city folks don't like far away. There are other advantages that people have looked at other than food to decide where to put a city.

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#43

Post by dominastrum »

DanielStraight wrote: post #34
gaius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, cars raise a lot of tax revenue. There's a 400% tax on petrol in the UK. 80p out of every pound spent on petrol is pure revenue for the govt. And people hate the oil companies if the price of a gallon goes up by 1p...

That alone doesn't tell us anything though. Public transportation tends to be much cheaper for riders than private transportation is for drivers. A year-long ticket for Munich is around $1000. At current prices, that won't even buy you 10k miles worth of gas in a compact car, to say nothing of the price of the car itself, insurance and repairs. I say that to say this, if people have more money in their pocket, they w…

The Atlantic has a post somewhat on this, slowing how transit-centric behavior can lead to more disposable income:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/the-fina...

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#44

Post by protomyth »

DanielStraight wrote: post #17
choko wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must live in a city with a public transportation system that doesn't take 2 hours to get you to a destination only 5 to 7 miles away and doesn't require huge taxpayer subsidaries to exist. I would gladly use public transportation if it didn't suck so hard in my city.

No, I live in a city with woefully inadequate public transportation, and I drive everywhere I go. But, I lived in Germany for 5 months and only rode in a car 2 or 3 times, and Germany doesn't even have the best public transportation in the world. Public transportation will require a lot of tax money, but roads require a lot of tax money too.

> Public transportation will require a lot of tax money, but roads require a lot of tax money too.

On a cost basis, public transportation is more expensive and less versatile than roadways.

// no bus stop within 90 miles of where I am and the flooding is seriously problematic for rail

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#45

Post by gamble »

quanticle wrote: post #14

>Actually, now the other cars on the road looked strange. Why were they so large? Why did cars stick out six feet in front of the driver? Why did they drag around another eight feet of metal behind? It was an epidemic of automotive obesity. Smarts aren't actually that efficient. The small body means that the car has to be very strong, and therefore very heavy in order to withstand collisions. I was looking at a Smart…

The Smart Fortwo wasn't designed for efficiency or cheapness; it was intended to be a tiny car for dense European cities where the ability to park in very tight spaces would allow you to find a space quickly. Parking on curbs and in odd spaces may be relatively common in Europe, but it's generally a good way to get ticketed or towed in the US, so the main selling point for the car is moot.

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#46

Post by bostonpete »

mikk0j wrote: post #4
unwind wrote: post #2

It took me a while to realize that the author meant Smart (as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_%28automobile%29 ). Using the marketing typography made it seem generic, which I find amusing in some ironic way. Also, speaking of typography, what's the deal with the bar over the 'o' in TransLoc? Is it like röck döts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dots )?

Thanks for clarification. I missed that completely at first. Even if the marketing dept. wants the logo in small caps, human-readable text has proper names capitalized. That's the way it should be.

> human-readable text has proper names capitalized

Apple products excluded, presumably...

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#47

Post by 5teev »

quanticle wrote: post #14

>Actually, now the other cars on the road looked strange. Why were they so large? Why did cars stick out six feet in front of the driver? Why did they drag around another eight feet of metal behind? It was an epidemic of automotive obesity. Smarts aren't actually that efficient. The small body means that the car has to be very strong, and therefore very heavy in order to withstand collisions. I was looking at a Smart…

As I understand it, the European Smarts are much lighter and thus more fuel efficient; the US government (perhaps in a move of trade protectionism) required a lot of extra body reinforcement for Smart cars before they would allow their import to the US. At least the last time I checked, their fuel economy was on par with other four-seaters (hybrids, 3-cyls) I looked at.

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#48

Post by pjleonhardt »

5teev wrote: post #47
quanticle wrote: post #14

>Actually, now the other cars on the road looked strange. Why were they so large? Why did cars stick out six feet in front of the driver? Why did they drag around another eight feet of metal behind? It was an epidemic of automotive obesity. Smarts aren't actually that efficient. The small body means that the car has to be very strong, and therefore very heavy in order to withstand collisions. I was looking at a Smart…

As I understand it, the European Smarts are much lighter and thus more fuel efficient; the US government (perhaps in a move of trade protectionism) required a lot of extra body reinforcement for Smart cars before they would allow their import to the US. At least the last time I checked, their fuel economy was on par with other four-seaters (hybrids, 3-cyls) I looked at.

> (perhaps in a move of trade protectionism)

I find it far more likely that the extra strength was required for the impact collisions. The other cars on the road in the US are just far larger and massive than those elsewhere, so a stronger heavier car is needed to stay safe.

It creates a bit of a Catch 22 when trying to bring down the average size / weight of a vehicle.

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#49

Post by DanielStraight »

drblast wrote: post #36

I have an oven that's about four feet wide that I hardly ever use for anything larger than a 12 inch cake. And I have more than one bathroom even though it's really rare that more than one person has to use the bathroom at the same time. I have a mountain bike that I only occasionally take up a mountain. My car can brake in a ridiculously short distance, even though I've only used that feature to save my life once. I…

Edge cases can also be served by rentals though. If you could rent an oven or a bathroom as easily as you could rent a car, your home may be designed differently.

Re: Sometimes What's Normal is Pretty Absurd.

#50

Post by quanticle »

rudiger wrote: post #39
quanticle wrote: post #14

>Actually, now the other cars on the road looked strange. Why were they so large? Why did cars stick out six feet in front of the driver? Why did they drag around another eight feet of metal behind? It was an epidemic of automotive obesity. Smarts aren't actually that efficient. The small body means that the car has to be very strong, and therefore very heavy in order to withstand collisions. I was looking at a Smart…

He's not arguing that the Smart gets better mileage than the Elantra. He's arguing that the size of the Elantra is unnecessary, and that the Smart's microcar size is better.

From the article:

Actually, now the other cars on the road looked strange. Why were they so large? Why did cars stick out six feet in front of the driver? Why did they drag around another eight feet of metal behind? It was an epidemic of automotive obesity.

Granted, with vague language like that, its hard to perceive exactly what the author is arguing. His use of the word "obesity", however, implies heaviness as well as bigness. I was pointing out that the Smart is probably nearly as heavy as my Elantra, despite being smaller.

In fact, from a strict efficiency perspective, an Elantra is much more efficient than a Smart. For the same mileage, you gain the ability to carry a substantial amount of extra passengers and cargo. The increased size of the Elantra is quite useful, and goes directly against the inefficiency argument the author makes.

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