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The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

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Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#141

Post by dpark »

hogrug wrote: post #103
dpark wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And again, the conversation here is about delivery trucks, not cars. Eliminating cars doesn’t eliminate the need for infrastructure for moving goods.

> Eliminating cars doesn’t eliminate the need for infrastructure for moving goods. Burying other last mile utilities that waste less land was not insane when real estate was a fraction as valuable as now and engineering technology was worse.

I wonder how many miles of fiber would have been laid if fiber required a tunnel big enough to drive a delivery truck through.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#142

Post by hogrug »

dpark wrote: post #141
hogrug wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eliminating cars doesn’t eliminate the need for infrastructure for moving goods. Burying other last mile utilities that waste less land was not insane when real estate was a fraction as valuable as now and engineering technology was worse.

I wonder how many miles of fiber would have been laid if fiber required a tunnel big enough to drive a delivery truck through.

You bring up an interesting point for the US to have a first world level of fiber to the home it needs to require diesel.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#143

Post by vessenes »

wzdd wrote: post #115
vessenes wrote: post #29

Boy I had a liminal moment looking at these photos and videos - this all could easily have been a fun AI media project. In fact, I think the first photo used outpainting (“street background expanded” reads the subtitle). I’m enjoying my last year or so of visual media trust, as ephemeral as that is in reality.

> In fact, I think the first photo used outpainting And it looks bad. The streetlamps on the right are way too close together and the building on the left looks like a prison or something out of Dickens.

I think this is precisely why I locked in so hard on the essay; I got suspicious right from the gate. Interesting troll to have uncanny valley AI about a real and unusual thing right up front. There should be a word for it.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#144

Post by dpark »

hogrug wrote: post #142
dpark wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many miles of fiber would have been laid if fiber required a tunnel big enough to drive a delivery truck through.

You bring up an interesting point for the US to have a first world level of fiber to the home it needs to require diesel.

When I see bad faith arguments like this I earnestly worry that maybe sometimes I do the same and just don’t recognize it.

Did you read my comment about the cost of laying fiber being far different from the cost of digging truck-sized tunnels and make a conscious choice to pretend I was making a nonsense argument about diesel-powered fiber, or did you construct this strawman without realizing it?

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#145

Post by hogrug »

dpark wrote: post #144
hogrug wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up an interesting point for the US to have a first world level of fiber to the home it needs to require diesel.

When I see bad faith arguments like this I earnestly worry that maybe sometimes I do the same and just don’t recognize it. Did you read my comment about the cost of laying fiber being far different from the cost of digging truck-sized tunnels and make a conscious choice to pretend I was making a nonsense argument about diesel-powered fiber, or did you construct this strawman without realizing it?

I don't think you are trying to look at it rationally but simply in terms of priors where sprawl has cost an immense amount of resources. A tunnel where 2 pallets can cross is not much larger than a sewer, fits bellow a pedestrian/emergency vehicle system and is more valuable than a larger tunnel because it can never be DoT approved.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#146

Post by Anamon »

echelon wrote: post #124
jclulow wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car usage is going to 2-10x. What a bleak vision of the future.

It's beautiful. Automated conveyance from front door to anywhere. Perfectly comfortable, unscheduled, private. I cannot fathom the bleak pessimistic perspective of wanting fixed trains and busses over this. Crying babies, rude people. American transit sucks and it's not getting better. It's tolerable in cities like NYC, but even so it's a far cry from Asia. If you're not American, please don't project. We'll never ha…

I vote for the "bleak" interpretation.

The main problems with cars are not about the fuel they run on, or the level of automation. They're the space they occupy per passenger and duration of use, the mass they have to move around, the materials required to build them, tire particulates, and the danger they pose to other traffic participants. None of these are alleviated by the thing-du-jour the car industry presents as a solution to all the problems on any given day. The real issues are all endemic to the concept of a car in the first place.

And, maybe, if more people stopped seeing random encounters with some of their co-humans as just an annoying moment of having to deal with icky other people, we'd make some progress on our loneliness, aggravation and political polarisation problems.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#147

Post by crazygringo »

coryrc wrote: post #138
crazygringo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know what that means. Residential streets with little traffic don't even need bike lines. But many of the busiest avenues have them. NYC could always do better, but there's nothing "table scraps" here? It's massively improved my cycling experience. And it gets better every year.

How much surface land does public transit occupy per primary transit user? How much does pedestrian-first and bicycle-first occupy per primary walking/cyclists? Now how much land does car-first take per person primarily using car for mobility? The last is far, far higher than the others. Depending on the city, cats get dedicated infrastructure covering 25-75% of all land! Add buildings and parks and you get scraps fo…

> you get scraps for everything not cars.

In a place like Manhattan, the sidewalks are wide and, like I said, plenty of space has been made, and continues to be made, for bike lanes.

The good thing is that space for pedestrians and cyclists doesn't actually require taking away that much space from cars as a percentage. There's plenty of room, you just knock out a lane, as NYC has been doing.

So I don't really know what you're arguing? It's not "table scraps". You certainly don't need the width of a 4-lane highway just for pedestrians and cyclists.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#148

Post by Nasrudith »

DeepYogurt wrote: post #95

We need to bring the term Autoped back. Beats the snot out of escooter

Personally I suspect Autoped wouldn't do too well, it would provoke too many jokes about robo-pedophiles, not quite as bad as Nonce Finance, though.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#149

Post by Nasrudith »

bluescrn wrote: post #19
ajb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London is edging in that direction with the introduction of "low traffic neighbourhoods". Basically this involves preventing vehicles using them as a through route, by limiting some connections to only emergency vehicles. The problem is that it's also annoying for residents as it means the allowed entry/exit routes aren't necessarily in the direction you need to go. Does Barcelona have a smarter method?

LTNs and pedestrianised areas are great for criminals on illegal high-powered e-bikes. Purpose-built getaway routes.

Reminds me of the one bizzare rationalization in California claiming high speed stops will somehow bring burglaries. I am not sure what blend of NIMBYism, racism, classism, or xenophobia came up with that.
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