Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cars Kill Cities

progressivetransit.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 223 posts

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#91

Post by edward »

zalew wrote: post #50
jseliger wrote: post #34

If you're interested in this topic, Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City are both worth reading. The former explains how "free" parking isn't really free and how it distorts a lot of behavior, and the latter is about what cities are good for and how to build healthy cities in general. Personally, I wonder why people would want to own a car if they can avoid it: htt…

> The High Cost of Free Parking convince me that 800 pages is worth it (reviews so far haven't).

Instead, you could read the 21 page paper with the same title and by the same author.

http://www.uctc.net/papers/351.pdf

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#92

Post by phaer »

VLM wrote: post #80
ars_technician wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you envision goods being delivered to people then?

They would subsist merely on great clouds of smug, rainbow baths, meditation, and unicorn droppings. The rest of us, of course, will drive a car.

Wow, wheres the argument? I guess you are a very rational, thoughtful person compared to naive hippies like me, so why don't you use your skills?

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#93

Post by arjunnarayan »

zalew wrote: post #50
jseliger wrote: post #34

If you're interested in this topic, Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City are both worth reading. The former explains how "free" parking isn't really free and how it distorts a lot of behavior, and the latter is about what cities are good for and how to build healthy cities in general. Personally, I wonder why people would want to own a car if they can avoid it: htt…

> The High Cost of Free Parking convince me that 800 pages is worth it (reviews so far haven't).

I don't understand this sentiment. You can read as much of any book as you want. I seldom finish books that I start, my finish rate is under 25%. You can get the big picture from about the first 20% of most books, and decide whether you want the in depth followup. If I don't buy the premise, or I'm mostly convinced by the argument and don't care for the details, or just have better things to do with my time, I'll stop reading.

Adopting this approach is very freeing. I don't fear the booklist. I just start stuff, and freely give up on a whim. I can say that at least the first 50 pages of the High Cost of Free Parking is great. Then I got caught up in something else.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#94

Post by sliverstorm »

VLM wrote: post #86
tedsanders wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High fixed costs and economies of scale. Cars are high fixed cost capital goods. A taxi will be driven far more over the course of its lifetime than a personal car, so the fixed cost per mile is much lower. Also, economies of scale make purchases and maintenance and repair cheaper. These are two reasons to believe taxis should be cheaper than personal ownership. Finally, let me point to airplanes. It makes far more s…

There are some interesting value engineering issues where car parts are designed to fall apart more or less simultaneously at a certain point under normal commuter operating conditions, whereas aircraft are designed to last "forever" more or less. Its going to be a very strange maintenance challenge. I suspect one will never be totaled by having the heater core rot out after 16 years, like my last car. You could prob…

I imagine it would be somewhat different than a normal car

Usually beefier in every regard, more expensive, and less performant. (Power/MPG/etc all directly conflict with durability/longevity) Longer chassis & softer suspension to reduce vibration & impacts. Just think of the Crown Vic. There's a reason it has been the commercial estate car for so long.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#95

Post by dllthomas »

kjackson2012 wrote: post #26
Tiktaalik wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars doesn't change much. Supposing that there would exist car sharing systems such that a single car may be used throughout the day by several people, then we could cut back on parking spots, but I'm sure there will be many that own their own self driving car and share it with no one. During morning rush hour the only difference from now would be that commuters could do the crossword puzzle instead of f…

Incorrect. If you have self-driving cars, the entire flow of traffic could be much more efficient, virtually eliminating traffic jams. You could drive at the speed limit with a lot smaller distance between cars, etc, packing in a greater density of people without sacrificing speed.

With sufficiently good self-driving systems, it is obviously the case that you can safely drive cars more closely together than you can safely do with people. It is not obviously much smaller - you only get to shrink the portion of time it takes the human to react, not everything else involved in stopping or maneuvering the vehicle.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#96

Post by bhavvik »

Before cars invaded Ahmedabad, India, two wheelers and rickshaws were primary modes of transportation for longer distances. Walking and bicycles were used for shorter distances.. Cars were used on occasions.. Traffic issues were non-existent. People starting using cars as primary mode of transportation because everyone else started doing it.. meaning using two wheelers became less safe, more car traffic, increased pollution effects, etc.

Idea is to go back to using cars as only ocassional mode of transportation and for that one option is govt helps reduce traffic for two wheelers/rickshaws/bicycles.. Dedicated lanes for these would help.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#97

Post by rayiner »

chongli wrote: post #22
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it would require a change in infrastructure. No, it is not necessary for the investment to be done upfront. You quickly ramp up cheap mass transit options (bus service segregated from regular vehicular traffic with dedicated lanes, MUCH cheaper than light rail construction) while using permitting/zoning to phase out car-friendly policies. It won't happen overnight, but its a start.

Bus service does not work. People hate buses, no matter how well designed and efficient their routes are. Buses have an extreme social stigma attached to them.

It's a catch-22. In most cities, the bus service sucks, but poor people can't afford anything else, so as a result, busses are full of poor people. In New York and Chicago, busses are clean and well-maintained because they serve higher income people and tourists as well. Manhattan is a place where you're just as likely to sit on a bus next to a guy making $1m+/year as some disheveled homeless dude.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#98

Post by astrodust »

nilkn wrote: post #48
astrodust wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars are usually much faster, provide much better shelter from the weather... If only there was such a thing as a car that you could call on-demand, make use of when you wanted it, and then got rid of it when you were done. Even better, what about one that comes with a driver? A crazy idea, I know. If you live in the right neighborhood, a car is a nuisance. I can go somewhere and just walk right in. I don't have to…

The following page estimates the true cost of car ownership at approximately $1.38/mile: http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html That's still quite a bit cheaper than taxi fares or the minimum $2.75 that Uber charges. Assuming that you spend $20k on purchasing the car, you'd make up for the cost of the car in just under 15,000 miles driven compared to taking Uber at the quoted rate.

What if you only travel maybe fifty miles by car per month?

If you don't have a car all the time, you don't use it nearly as often. I do not spend anywhere near $20K per year on cab fare, and can't imagine coming even close.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#99

Post by tedsanders »

ars_technician wrote: post #73
tedsanders wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High fixed costs and economies of scale. Cars are high fixed cost capital goods. A taxi will be driven far more over the course of its lifetime than a personal car, so the fixed cost per mile is much lower. Also, economies of scale make purchases and maintenance and repair cheaper. These are two reasons to believe taxis should be cheaper than personal ownership. Finally, let me point to airplanes. It makes far more s…

>Cars are analogous. No they aren't. Many people need a car every day. Almost nobody needs a plane every day.

I don't want to argue pointlessly, but while your conclusion may be right, I think your logic makes some leaps. Why is day the natural time scale? No one needs a plane every hour and no one needs a car every hour either. By that time scale, they are the same. Also, everyone needs a plane every year and needs a car every year too. On that time scale they are also the same. Only in a cherry-picked intermediate time scale are they different. :) I think your answer would be improved if you could justify why the daily time scale is most relevant.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#100

Post by marcosdumay »

jstalin wrote: post #35
Anechoic wrote: post #21

FYI, the author of that post address self-driving cars in his next post: http://progressivetransit.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/self-driv...

That betrays the basic attitude of these anti-car folks. It's not the cars, but the freedom to live where you want that they detest.

People living further away combined with the current car ownership means more cars on the streets. That's not explicitly stated at the article, but came-on, the author clearly sheers for the improved accessibility, but prefers the shared cars option.
Post reply on HN