American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage • Hacker News Board

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#151

Post by agoodthrowaway » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

Derived wrote: post #39

angarg12 wrote: post #2

I visited the US (particularly the bay area) for the first time recently, and I was baffled by the sparsity of buildings. Suburbs and shopping areas are so far away that you need a car to go anywhere, and in turn you need massive expanses to held all those vehicles, which means that stores are even more spread apart, which essentially becomes a snowball. Being used to high density housing and underground parking spac…

America has plenty of cities that are just like cities everywhere else...we're a big country, we hardly have need to pack everyone in like sardines. I live in a major city, downtown. And I'm starting to hate it. No personal space, no yard, shared (or no) garage, and I'm a car enthusiast by the way, which I'm sure is practically a dirty word around most city-dwellers now. I'm seriously considering moving out to the su…

Yeah I used to love the city and all the action too. But I tired of the filth, noise, hassle. I just wanted peace and quiet so I moved to the country. Couldn’t believe how much I loved the quiet. Also I love how dark it is at night and being able to see stars. When I get home, the air is noticeably fresher too. I can more or less do what I want to do on my property without anyone telling me what to do. I would have never thought I’d have loved it as much as I do.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#152

Post by jschwartzi » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

btrettel wrote: post #118

jschwartzi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A friend of mine has additionally pointed out that the city tends to put the cycle track on the downhill side of the road (but not the uphill), which is exactly the opposite of what they should do because cyclists go much faster downhill than uphill. I saw a really good example of an unsafe bike lane when I lived in Kent, wa. As you say the planner had put it on the downhill side of a 45 mph main thouroughfare drop…

Great example. I've seen drivers swerve into the bike lane when convenient far too frequently. This also shows that planners often try to make dangerous roads less dangerous, when they instead should often instead push for cyclists to take entirely different paths than drivers. The planners are thinking like drivers, wanting to take the most direct route, when in my experience cyclists will gladly take a less direct…

Google does the same thing. When I was first plotting a bike route it tried to take me down the most direct, dangerous route instead of the route I had discovered. It was only because I knew the area that I knew to look.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#153

Post by ende » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #71

narrator wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason that everything is so not integrated is because of the American culture of containment. You have very very different kinds of people living in close physical proximity who often want nothing to do with each other. Think East Palo Alto and Palo Alto for example, especially in the 90s when East Palo Alto had the highest murder rate per capita in the U.S. Nowadays, physical proximity means less and less. Rela…

“You have very very different kinds of people living in close physical proximity who often want nothing to do with each other.” Knowing that the US is probably one of the most segregated countries, this makes me smile :-)

Right behind France and it’s Parisian suburbs, no monsieur?

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#154

Post by jdietrich » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

dsnuh wrote: post #43

cmurf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A family member describes to me the love affair of the automobile ~65 years ago did this. It became so ingrained in the culture, intentionally designing cities around the car so that you could drive more . Americans loved showing off cars, they loved driving them. Teenage boys' psyche used it as a way to get out of the house, away from their parents (this is city life in middle America during and post-WWII) in partic…

I'm not familiar with licensing requirements in other countries, are they more rigorous?

Here in the UK, you need to take a multiple-choice theory test and a practical driving test. The practical test takes about 40 minutes and is conducted on public roads. The pass rate for both the theory and practical test is about 50%. It's not uncommon for learners to fail the practical test several times. You're not required to have professional instruction but the vast majority of people do, because it's extremely difficult to pass the driving test without it. Most instructors recommend 30 to 40 hours of tuition before attempting the test.

Learners who are driving on a provisional license prior to passing their test must be accompanied by someone who has held a full license for at least three years. They must display an L-plate on the front and rear of the vehicle and cannot use motorways (freeways) unless they are accompanied by a licensed instructor.

It is my understanding that the British process is relatively straightforward by European standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#155

Post by cmurf » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #69

cmurf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A family member describes to me the love affair of the automobile ~65 years ago did this. It became so ingrained in the culture, intentionally designing cities around the car so that you could drive more . Americans loved showing off cars, they loved driving them. Teenage boys' psyche used it as a way to get out of the house, away from their parents (this is city life in middle America during and post-WWII) in partic…

>Literally no experience required, no driver's education required. Your uncle can teach you how to drive. Driver's ed at least used to be pretty common,in part because it gave a discount for the (expensive) insurance covering younger drivers. I don't see anything special about the typical driver's ed instructor anyway. It's not like the typical driver's ed is some expensive defensive driving course taught by an ex ra…

You learn bad habits by doing things incorrectly over and and over again too. As a pilot, the rigorousness of aeronautical training compared to the complete lack of training requirement for car driving, is ridiculous to me. The point is you have to learn how to fit into a system, because it's a shared system.

But somehow driving, and the daily experience of it is: fuck you, me first. And it shows. It's an adversarial system. I'm really impressed that it works as well as it does, despite being the #1 killer of teenagers, and 40,000 total deaths on the road per year.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#156

Post by antoineMoPa » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

Felz wrote: post #122

We can build over all of the parking lots once driverless cars become a thing, can't we? Public transportation looks awfully like a dead end in that light. If you don't have to park and drive them, cars are better in nearly every way.

Public transport also reduces the amount of congestion in roads that driverless cars can only worsen.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#157

Post by felipemnoa » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #48

smallnamespace wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just an example of 'path dependency', i.e. 'history matters'. It's not baffling if you consider that sparse, car-driven infrastructure makes a lot of sense in a country with low population density, and population density has tripled in the US since 1930 [1]. At that time, Germany's population density was about 6x the US's. However, changing transportation infrastructure is a chicken and egg problem. People ge…

Exactly. Furthermore, the US is a comparatively young country. A lot of cities with great public transport either already existed before cars were around, or had the necessary population density to support mass transit. I recently came back from a visit to London, and did not once need a car (I did take an Uber because I wanted to see what it was like to drive from the left side!). It was fantastic being able to take…

>>I recently came back from a visit to London, and did not once need a car

Well, to be fair, if you are talking about a specific city in Europe then you should do the same here in the USA. London's american equivalent is NYC. You will not need a car here either.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#158

Post by cozzyd » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #98

dsnuh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those barely capable give up and take cabs, then explain my morning commute. ;) Seriously though, I don't see truly autonomous vehicles unless we acheive general artificial intelligence. I don't see that happening in my lifetime or my children's, but obviously I am not an optimist. I don't know that driving skill will correlate with desire to drive or own a car. I think getting average Americans to give up their p…

In major cities, its already more convenient not to own a car, even if your stuck using mass transit. The area where that is the case will expand enormously once a chauffeur driven limousine is cheaper than standing-room-only mass transit. There's no way I'd drive up to San Francisco and deal with parking when I can be driven up there and dropped off for the same money. Even twice the same money would be a good deal.

But buses will be much cheaper to operate too, so they wouldn't be standing room only. A city that had only buses and no private cars would have a very fast and efficient transportation network.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#159

Post by antoineMoPa » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #108

amptorn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Being self-driving doesn't make a car take up less space.

A self-driving car will ideally drop you off in front of your commute target and go find a parking space at a convenient location that might even be outside town.

This would multiply traffic in cities, which would be a terrible alternative.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#160

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #64

dsnuh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I hear this notion that autonomous vehicles will replace private car ownership in the U.S., it strikes me as a futurist pipe dream. I think truly autonomous vehicles are a long way away, if ever. The capital and construction required to totally rearrange the average American city to get to the scenarios you describe would be incredible. I also think we are underestimating the cultural aspect of car ownersh…

I think it will tke longer than most of the optimists project. But it will happen. And there will continue to be people who choose to drive. I don't see a problem with that. If anything, they will be much more capable than today's average driver, as those barely capable give up and take cabs. They will certainly receive more scrutiny, as the number of cameras on the road will explode.

[deleted]