People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one • Hacker News Board

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#271

Post by pxtail » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:06 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #266

pxtail wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These (American) articles on urbanism and what not always make it seems much more insane than it is. Wholeheartedly agree, and what is also funny that usually it is described from POV of citizen living in: tier one city center with mild weather whole year round and relatively flat topography/terrain - and at the same time it's written in a way that suggest that it's THE SOLUTION absolutely applicable everywhere els…

The solution applicable almost everywhere with some dozens of thousands of population is multimodal. Public transportation supported by infrastructure for cycling and cars relegated to their place in a multimodal system: inconvenient for shorter/regular trips, accessible for when it's needed. Stockholm doesn't have mild weather all year long, it's not flat, and still people will use public transportation or a bike. O…

And again, as examples you provide two capital cities of two richest countries in the world - capital cities are rich, can easily afford building public infra and also population density is big enough to make public transportation almost profitable - but not everybody lives in a capital city.

https://lovetransit.substack.com/p/most-profitable-public-tr...

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#272

Post by nothercastle » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:13 PM UTC

jddj wrote: post #64

nothercastle wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French work week is 7 hours so they get an extra hour to fuck around with public transportation a day. So that might help quite a bit. Still I’d be curious how upper middle class folks with kids survive without cars. Maybe that 33% covers the affluent folks with kids tho.

Are you saying here that you think traveling by metro in Paris takes an hour longer than driving would?

Yeah if you have to change transit method it adds a lot of extra time. So metro+ bus adds at least half an hour each way

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#273

Post by gizmo » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:16 PM UTC

dividefuel wrote: post #270

gizmo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is driving to a costco, parking on a giant parking lot, walking through a massive store, loading up a cart, walking the the cart to your car/truck, unloading everything, returning the cart, and then driving home at all efficient? People do giant shopping trips exactly because the whole process is so cumbersome. The US has the longest commutes of any country in the world because of urban sprawl and zoning. Car-fre…

Door-to-door, a Costco trip usually takes me about 90 minutes. I go to Costco probably once every two weeks. Just a data point. I'd love to hear how often urbanites go to the grocery store and how long each trip typically takes.

If you go once every 2 weeks, where do you get your fresh fruit and veggies? Do you just live off of frozen food? Do you plan all your meals 2 weeks ahead? What if you have people coming over for dinner on short notice?

Urbanites still have the option to go to a big-box grocery store. Mine is an 8-minute drive away, but we just never go there.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#274

Post by addcommitpush » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:16 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #112

addcommitpush wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the job thing _easier_ if you live in a denser town? If you have more jobs per km² you're less likely to need to move when you switch job.

Maybe yes maybe no. A lot of the jobs in a big city metro are out in the burbs. Until fairly recently, my company's only office in the area was a 45 minute drive from downtown. There are more tech jobs in the city proper than there were 15-20 years ago when there were approximately zero. But a lot of the jobs in the area are still spread around the suburbs and exurbs.

I don't think proponents of the "car-free" or "15-minutes" cities have:

- supermarkets are super close

- everything else is super far (including workplaces)

- you don't have a car

in mind. I don't think that in London (the main example in the article) most jobs are a 45 minute drive from central London nor that most people drive to work.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#275

Post by piva00 » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:19 PM UTC

pxtail wrote: post #271

piva00 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution applicable almost everywhere with some dozens of thousands of population is multimodal. Public transportation supported by infrastructure for cycling and cars relegated to their place in a multimodal system: inconvenient for shorter/regular trips, accessible for when it's needed. Stockholm doesn't have mild weather all year long, it's not flat, and still people will use public transportation or a bike. O…

And again, as examples you provide two capital cities of two richest countries in the world - capital cities are rich, can easily afford building public infra and also population density is big enough to make public transportation almost profitable - but not everybody lives in a capital city. https://lovetransit.substack.com/p/most-profitable-public-tr...

Those are just examples of two cities I'm closely familiar. People also bike everywhere in China, many Chinese cities have decent public transportation (much better than almost any non-big city in the USA).

Small cities in the Netherlands are able to afford bus lines, and provide infrastructure for bikes which are much cheaper than roads for autos.

Good public transportation is a net contributor to a city, it provides residents with ways to be more economically active without costing them much. You don't need underground metro, not even trams in most cases, a simple and reliable bus transit system can provide a lot if it's not delayed by traffic.

You don't need to be rich to have decent and reliable public transportation, Southeast Asia has quite good examples of that.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#276

Post by AmigoCharlie » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

eddieroger wrote: post #30

tejohnso wrote: post #12

Not even sure how you'd start off hating the idea. Less noise, less pollution, shorter commute, cheaper infrastructure, more green, more walking, improved health...I mean...just off the top of my head I'm thinking of tons of advantages. I can't think of a single disadvantage. The only reason I need a car is because the city / neighbourhood is configured around the expectation that everyone has a car.

Because that scenario isn't universal, and while you can't think of a reason, others can. Perhaps someone would rather shop at Costco because they've got a big family and need to buy items in higher quantities. You can't get a Costco in a small city setting, so you need to drive there, and even if you could, shared transit isn't amenable to getting home the types of things you buy at Costco. Or perhaps you wish to ha…

[flagged]

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#277

Post by eythian » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:27 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #56

tejohnso wrote: post #12

Not even sure how you'd start off hating the idea. Less noise, less pollution, shorter commute, cheaper infrastructure, more green, more walking, improved health...I mean...just off the top of my head I'm thinking of tons of advantages. I can't think of a single disadvantage. The only reason I need a car is because the city / neighbourhood is configured around the expectation that everyone has a car.

There are certainly disadvantages. I live in a very car-unfriendly city that invests heavily in public transport. Amongst other things, this implies that they don't invest in things like car parking space. Most residents don't have cars and cannot have cars because there are far fewer parking spaces in apartment blocks than the number of people living there. Problems include: 1. My wife (who runs a small service busi…

These largely seem to be a function of how it's done where you are, not how it has to be. Your points are generally solvable.

1. Have a park-and-ride outside the urban area but with good public transport connections. These can have a lot of parking, and (at least where I live) are encouraged by the parking fee being €1 if you then use public transport into the city where cars are slow anyway.

2. Then have better recycling/rubbish systems. Here there are two options: you can call the city and they'll arrange a pickup, or you can wait until a specific day of the week when they do large items. Also, if you order something large (a new TV say) the supplier is obliged to offer to take the previous one away.

3. If they earn such, then they're clearly in sufficient demand, and are providing an important and safety-critical role. They're arguably doing a lot more good for a city than many software engineers.

4. Better maintenance. Unmaintained roads are also bad.

5. There's no problem running at a loss if it improves the overall life and economy of the city. Some places even set the price at free because of the benefits it brings (sadly not mine.)

All this said, you're not wrong in the sense that everything is about tradeoffs. If there were no tradeoffs there wouldn't be a discussion to be had and everyone would use whatever was obviously the best. For myself, I prefer a more liveable city and happily that's the way where I live leans. There's still plenty of driving (to my annoyance sometimes, cars are big, dangerous, and prone to clogging the place up for other modes of transport) but they discourage it by lowering speed limits and restricting through-traffic. So it's possible but less attractive than going by bike or tram or whatever unless you have a special case.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#278

Post by awful » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:30 PM UTC

While this definitely does not compare this experience, it did show this young person the utility; in the early 70s when Disney World opened, we used the trams in Fort Wilderness to get around for a week; shopping and back and forth to the camp store, going to the activities in the day, evening and at night. Just running around. Did this all with and without parents, and I think they were possibly electric at that time as they stopped right outside your campsite at the corner and must have been very quiet, or maybe diesel, just don't recall. We simply learned the schedule, hopped on and then off, and simply had a great time. Like many things Disney, I thought I was looking at the future and was pleased.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#279

Post by AmigoCharlie » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:32 PM UTC

dml2135 wrote: post #232

eddieroger wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your comment as well! I feel like I'm off on Preference Island sometimes, so it's good to know I'm not. I particularly appreciate the point you make about prioritization. When I left school and started working, I lived in an apartment downtown, walked to work, hung out afterward at bars and stuff, and loved it. At that point in my life, I didn't need a car, and was fine. I'm older now. I've lived in an a…

Not to be a downer, I do sympathize with all you wrote here. But its not a simple as, people have different preferences and we should let everyone do what suits them. Cars have major externalities that harm the environment and affects the well-being of others.

Also extremely rigid ideologies and a Pol-Pot-like approach to reality (as if in: "If someone does something that I don't like, he should not be allowed to do it") have huge externalities.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#280

Post by AmigoCharlie » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:34 PM UTC

jraph wrote: post #43

tejohnso wrote: post #12

Not even sure how you'd start off hating the idea. Less noise, less pollution, shorter commute, cheaper infrastructure, more green, more walking, improved health...I mean...just off the top of my head I'm thinking of tons of advantages. I can't think of a single disadvantage. The only reason I need a car is because the city / neighbourhood is configured around the expectation that everyone has a car.

I don't have a car and I'd love my city to be car free. But some people think they need their car because they think they need to move a lot of stuff regularly, for instance between their home and their parents, and their parents don't leave in a place easily reachable without a car. This stuff can include pets, like cats. I think some of these people could do things differently, but maybe some of these people might…

"But some people think they need their car because they think they need to move a lot of stuff regularly, for instance between their home and their parents, and their parents don't leave in a place easily reachable without a car. This stuff can include pets, like cats. I think some of these people could do things differently, but maybe some of these people might genuinely have these needs"

And, precisely, who the f..k are you to think you can JUDGE the needs of other people, and what other people "need" or what they just "think they need"?