The Stroad • Hacker News Board

Re: The Stroad

#301

Post by quadrangle » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #137

quadrangle wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly a case of people not knowing what they really want. Demand-driven economy has a place, but it's definitely not something to accept simplistically. Famous examples: people wanted better horse-carriages and didn't anticipate cars. People wanted better keyboards on their blackberry-style phones, not an iPhone. Etc etc. Nobody who experiences life in the Netherlands where biking and walking is actually safe e…

> It's mostly a case of people not knowing what they really want While this is possible to be true, I suspect on a per-utterance basis, it’s wrong way more often than it’s right. People often do know what they want; it’s just inconveniently not the same as what the utterer prefers.

"really want" is a poor phrase, but it was intended to mean not "what people sincerely/honestly want" but instead "what people would choose if they really had deeply informed understanding of the options".

People's utterances about what they want are almost never in light of the question of what they "really want". We rarely have the space and perspectives to reflect on and learn about what we "really want" to be able to even answer that question.

Most of life is people having low-level fears about loss and acceptance and so on and expressing our wants from that position. We rarely settle into our deeper values enough to even ask what we "really want" let alone find answers.

Re: The Stroad

#302

Post by treis » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

cozzyd wrote: post #286

treis wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, it's the suburbs that lack economy of scale. The walkable areas contribute far more per acre in taxes than the suburbs. They also require fewer resources to maintain per person because they're physically smaller. The suburbs have such a paucity of "economies of scale" that municipalities around the country have gone into debt to support them. Yes, Strong towns loves to say this too despite it being obviously not…

I mean City of Chicago has lower property tax rates than suburbs (due to the large amount of taxable commercial property in the city).

Tax rate is only half of the calculation so it's a meaningless number on its own. Plus, there's sales tax and other assorted fees.

Re: The Stroad

#303

Post by airza » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

eyabs wrote: post #276

PaulHoule wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dutch versions of these have elaborate systems to separate pedestrian and bike traffic that minimize the "divide neighborhoods" effect. The first time I went to the Netherlands I walked from Schiphol airport to the center of Amsterdam and it was an easy but amazing experience. Walking from JFK to Manhattan is a completely possible walk in terms of distance (I usually do better than a 20 minute pace on the flats s…

It's a half marathon's distance as the bird flies from JFK to midtown. That's almost four and a half hours at a twenty minute pace. Not walkable for anyone but an athlete.

Barring something like serious obesity or disability it’s impossible for me to imagine an adult who couldn’t walk for for and a half hours, especially on flat terrain. That’s basically an easy hike.

Re: The Stroad

#304

Post by clairity » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #215

throw0101a wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of digging through that PDF, the charts on this post show how a higher speed can drastically increase the odds of fatalities: * https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/3-graphs-that-explain... Remember from physics class that kinetic energy is generated proportional to the square of velocity. Doubling speed quadruples energy.

Not only does speed increase the damage inflicted by a given collision, it also makes them more likely: there is less time available to see and respond to hazards, and the space required to stop also is proportional to (speed^2). So for a given road, the risk level (frequency * consequences) is probably even steeper than squared: perhaps more like (speed^3).

no, this is an all-too-common misconception, because you’re missing the other half of the distribution where accidents were avoided because the car speeded past an accident that would have happened at a lower speed.

speed increases the severity of an accident (e.g., more fatalities vs. injuries), but doesn’t generally cause the accident. distractedness and impairment are overwhelmingly the primary causes of auto accidents. it’s important for policy decisions that we keep this very clear, and why we have ineffective, revenue-oriented programs like speed enforcement rather than attention-oriented policies.

Re: The Stroad

#305

Post by knorker » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #263

occz wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Induced demand is nonsense. It's been shown to be real in studies upon studies - what are you trying to say here?

Sure it has been shown: because people have places they would like to get to that the city is making too difficult for them. It clearly exists, it is just a stupid excuse.

Adding lanes has been shown (as you agree) to not help the people who want to use the road, as is just induces more demand.

So how is it an excuse? If spending billions on new lanes doesn't actually help anyone, that's just government waste.

Re: The Stroad

#306

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

cozzyd wrote: post #289

sokoloff wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If slower traffic kept right, there’d be a lot less passing on the right. (If you’re getting passed on the right regularly, you might consider your own lane discipline as well as that of those passing you.)

Yes, this is also true, but I think the bigger problem is just speeding. People on the left are usually moving faster than people on the right or middle, on average, but some people want to go 20-30 mph over the speed limit. Normally I'd pull to the right so they can pass, but by the time I start doing that they're already starting to change lanes too!

True. If you take a highway that people feel is reasonable and prudent to drive at 75-85 mph and post it as 55, people will drive 20-30 mph over. I think the problem is more likely the 55 signage in that case.

Re: The Stroad

#307

Post by bluGill » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

knorker wrote: post #305

bluGill wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it has been shown: because people have places they would like to get to that the city is making too difficult for them. It clearly exists, it is just a stupid excuse.

Adding lanes has been shown (as you agree) to not help the people who want to use the road, as is just induces more demand. So how is it an excuse? If spending billions on new lanes doesn't actually help anyone, that's just government waste.

> Adding lanes has been shown (as you agree) to not help the people who want to use the road, as is just induces more demand.

Only when you don't add enough lanes. It hurts some people who are already using the existing lanes, but it helps other people who previously found the trip so painful they didn't take make it at all, but now the level of pain is low enough that they make it. Focusing only on those who are already using the road isn't the answer, we need to focus on everyone.

Re: The Stroad

#308

Post by bluGill » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

knorker wrote: post #300

LeChuck wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I think people are downvoting you because they misunderstand your first sentence. Using the concept of induced demand to justify building fewer roads is bullshit, if you don't figure out why there's so much pent up demand to begin with. The way forward should be making all the alternatives more attractive, so that the demand for cars disappears.

> Using the concept of induced demand to justify building fewer roads is bullshit Well, you don't have infinite money, or space. Adding a bus lane and a car lane clearly will add more capacity than doing just one of them, but adding a bus lane will likely reduce traffic so much in the other lanes that you don't even have to add another car lane. And adding just a car lane means people would rather be stuck in their c…

> Adding a bus lane and a car lane clearly will add more capacity than doing just one of them, but adding a bus lane will likely reduce traffic so much in the other lanes that you don't even have to add another car lane.

The first is true, but the second doesn't follow. For a bus lane to make a difference you need more than a lane, you also need good bus service using that lane. Bus service in many cities horrible and so nobody sane will ride it. A lane of empty buses running around helps nothing. If you propose a bus lane you need to do it with all the service that will happen so we can evaluate it.

Re: The Stroad

#309

Post by bluGill » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

knorker wrote: post #297

throwawaysea wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that induced demand is nonsense, but for a different reason. Demand either exists or it doesn't. It is either fulfilled or unfulfilled. Building more lanes into a road doesn't "induce" demand. It fulfills it. People use up that road space because they genuinely get a benefit from it. It's really that simple. After all, if you built 100 lanes there wouldn't magically be 100 lanes of traffic. Demand is fulfille…

> I agree that induced demand is nonsense It's not. This is a fact. It sounds like you are trying to reason about this from pure logic, and are not aware that this is an empirical fact. You can only go so far armchair guessing about how city planning "ought to" work. > Demand either exists or it doesn't. To get to the place, yes. To get to the place in a car , no. If you double the capacity of a road network, that me…

Why are you assuming you have to use a car to solve the problem. The problem is people want to get someplace in your city and currently it is inconvenient for them to do so.

If people leave your transit system for a car it is because your transit system sucks. Fix that problem. (hint, trains can easily reach speeds 3x faster than cars, stops should not take too long, and there should always been a train almost here for when you missed the last one - running good transit isn't easy)

Re: The Stroad

#310

Post by acdha » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #221

xmprt wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the reasons your friend gave for not wanting to live in SF? The common reasons I see are often that it's too expensive, there's too much crime and homeless people, and it's noisy and full of traffic. All of these are solvable problems. Cost is fixed by building more housing and traffic is solved by making the Bay Area less car centric (public transportation in the Bay Area isn't terrible but it can still be…

Their reason often came down to “raising a family of four in 700 sq ft 2 bed kinda sucks”. For the same amount of money they could get a 1,100 at ft home, with a yard, lots of families close by and good schools. You cant “build more housing” if the desirable housing is a single family home with a yard. SF is out of space. Like I said in my other reply, countries where raising a family in a 2 bed apartment is mostly d…

> Their reason often came down to “raising a family of four in 700 sq ft 2 bed kinda sucks”.

> For the same amount of money they could get a 1,100 at ft home, with a yard, lots of families close by and good schools.

You can't build tons of detached single family homes but you certainly can build higher-density housing with public parks and playgrounds. Similarly, I'd say the lack of families and schools is more of a symptom than a cause of not having the infrastructure to support families. In the United States there's a lot of marketing, culture, and laws which mean the detached single-family suburban home model is heavily subsidized but if you look at the better U.S. cities or many examples internationally, there's no shortage of families living in smaller places using shared public space — even a small playground is going to be more fun than the average back yard.

Schools are similarly prone to this: standardized test scores closely track family socioeconomic status so if you're in an area where there's limited family-friendly housing, lack of areas for kids to exist safely without getting hit by cars, etc. the scores will go down as the most affluent parents move without any change in the quality of the school's education.