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In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

nytimes.com

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Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#111

Post by the-alchemist »

theodorejb wrote: post #11
aqme28 wrote: post #3

> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero. This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

Not to mention greater wear on the road and increased particle emissions from brakes and tires due to heavy batteries in EVs. https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/business/evs-release-more-toxi...

Very misleading statement.

First, NY Post is kind of a tabloid. You gotta dig deeper. Here's the actual study: https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat09/1...

I recommend reading it. It's actually pretty well done.

Secondly, the report itself and common sense dictate that regenerative braking on EVs (or hybrids) greatly decrease brake usage, therefore brake dust. Some EVs have "one-pedal" modes where you don't use the brakes at all in normal usage.

Thirdly, tires is a different calculation. This looks like a fairly unbiased source (https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/2020/1/28/tyres-not-..., https://www.nokiantyres.com/company/news-article/there-is-a-...).

Looks like tire issue is a toss up, and it depends on what the type of tire and how you drive. The much higher torque on an EV and a heavy foot will wear down the tires a lot more, but that has more to do with driver behavior than EVs.

Also, this whole issue is kind of a red herring because tractor trailers and heavy pickups and SUVs are a much, much larger source of brake and tire dust, and overall particulate pollution.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#112

Post by yencabulator »

tromp wrote: post #68
tomrod wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a democracy. Not even at the state level. For many aspects and holons it is a representative republic.

The U.S. is a democracy, albeit a deficient one rather than a working one [1]. At least is the least deficient one amongst those. [1] https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

No, that would be Uruguay.

And for context, the ranking says USA is the 36th most democratic country, which is pretty darn low if you ask me.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#113

Post by micromacrofoot »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #90

As someone who loves trains and buses and planes, I wish that people who pushed public transport would actually engage with the reasons why people don't want to use it rather than just making alternatives worse. There are three main issues that need to be solved for even me, a train lover, to prioritise using them. 1) Undesirables need to be removed. I don't want to deal with beggars or other general hoodlums. Transp…

I have to imagine you don't like libraries either

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#114

Post by fastball »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #59
fastball wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What science is being ignored? Traffic expanding to fill capacity is not a bad thing, that is efficient use of capacity?

Fossil energy is artificially cheap (the price its consumers pay does not even begin to pay for the negative externalities of producing and burning it -- and most of it goes into private hands that don't intend to use it for any kind of mitigation anyway). This causes all kinds of problems, has all kinds of causes, and is generally a disaster all around, but at the very least we shouldn't deliberately make it worse b…

Highways can be filled with electric cars.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#116

Post by someguydave »

dreadlordbone wrote: post #20
throwaway22032 wrote: post #5

"Induced demand" as a reason not to do something is illogical. The Green Revolution increasing crop yields induced demand for humans. Metro systems existing and building new lines induce demand, in some cases resulting in overcrowding. Building housing and offices induce demand in a location. There is nothing wrong with improving a thing so that more people are able to do that thing. I can understand concern about em…

cars bad

rich people cars very bad

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#117

Post by more_corn »

someguydave wrote: post #32
ambyra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try a motorcycle! The laws for lane splitting are the best in the country. You could probably fit 6 motorcycles in the space of one car.

Motorcyles have a roughly 30 times higher fatality rate per mile driven compared to cars

That sounds about right. Rode a motorcycle in SF traffic for years. About twice a day people would do something that could have killed me. Changing lanes without looking, blowing a stop sign, just generally not paying attention. I had a woman pull up while I was waiting to pull out of a gas station. She somehow thought that I should back up, up hill and let her in. I don’t think she realized that motorcycles don’t have reverse. She got super mad and her boyfriend wanted to fight me. He stormed over with chest puffed. People are dangerously stupid and clueless. About half way over he noticed the armored knuckles on my gloves and realized it probably wouldn’t go well for him.

It is super dangerous. I couldn’t stop though because my commute was 4x as long in a car and 6x-8x as long on public transportation.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#118

Post by adolph »

nullindividual wrote: post #76
adolph wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the government wants to reduce something, it needs to be more painful to acquire or use. . . > given a large segment of the population distrusts or dislikes the government. I have a notion the former is related to the latter and might even be a downhill spiral.

People may use sin taxes or similar as an outward excuse, but I doubt rational individuals want to overthrow the government because they are paying an extra 25 cents for soda or haven't had their wetlands paved over for additional parking spaces.

Goalpost movement noted.

Is being "driven by the cattle prod" a valid excuse to hold views described as "distrusts or dislikes the government?"

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#119

Post by someguydave »

turnsout wrote: post #100
someguydave wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing people into having correct desires is the role of government?

Sometimes it is. If you desire to be naked on the subway, the government will punish you. You don't just get to do whatever you want. The government's job is to look after The Public and ensure that most people get what they need —not to ensure that all people get what they want.

Indeed, and when The People voted to pay and appoint people to build roads they were expressing Thier Needs

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#120

Post by someguydave »

turnsout wrote: post #107
someguydave wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this were absolutely true, the wide highways would be completely packed at 2am

Induced demand does not turn people nocturnal

Neither does it magically summon infinite traffic under all conditions
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