Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

Post by fragmede » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:14 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #134

avianlyric wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a freeway through a city improve traffic in a city vs building a freeway around a city (no need to bother with the expense of tunnelling under). Cars on a freeway are either headed to your city as a destination, in which case the speed at which you deliver them into the city doesn’t make much difference, they’re always going to cause traffic when they leave the freeway. Or the cars are headed through the cit…

The highway under Boston has turned out to be one of the better solutions that the area could've had, I think. It doesn't mean that the highway that goes around (I-95) is unused, or even underused, but I-93/the former Central Artery going underground has allowed some really important revitalization of parts of the city while also giving pretty direct and (outside of the worst part of rush hour) quick access to most o…

Post by efields » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:15 PM UTC

adregan wrote: post #145

bloopernova wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof, that's pretty bad. I did not know that. Do you happen to know if forests would help clean that soil? Feels kind of appropriate if you could grow forest on a site for 50 to 100 years or more. Then harvest the wood with all the nasty stuff in it. Then bury all that contaminated wood somewhere deep. Then build houses on the newly clean earth.

You can build new soil on top of contaminated soil to bury it. Here’s a permaculture site in an old rail bed in nyc that has nasty stuff lurking beneath many layers of new soil[0]. Not really sure if trees uptake heavy metals. 0: https://youtu.be/UqyK_9iybD8?si=rx7iCjsTu1Zn6YbO

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:18 PM UTC

wtp1saac wrote: post #4

Strong Towns has called a good amount of attention to the mandatory parking requirements in many cities (and shockingly, many downtowns). Thankfully, it seems a fair number of cities are removing such restrictions, but hopefully it becomes more widespread. In general I hope the US can urbanize, the older I get the more I realize it’s not really enjoyable living in this country. I don’t think I want hyper dense, but h…

Post by angarg12 » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:23 PM UTC

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #67

I'd even go a step further and set a maximum amount of parking in a given area to disincentivize driving. As an extreme example, if a mall is only allowed to have 5 parking spaces then they'll need to design around supporting public transit. So many places in the US are almost impossible to live in without owning a car - you might have bike paths if you're lucky, and in many places there aren't even sidewalks

Post by fragmede » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 11:24 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #149

bertil wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most common criticism I hear against cities is that they are loud. Cities aren't loud; cars are loud. You experienced a bad compromise of having high density of a city and the high car ownership of suburbia. Like a "stroad," a road that is trying to be a street, it doesn't work. Try to spend a week in a place with walkable density and no cars: Amsterdam, Oslo, or closer to US, Disney Land.

Cars aren't that loud. Trucks, buses, and trains are loud, and that is what you have a lot of in urban areas.