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

Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–156 of 156 posts

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#151

Post by Symbiote »

jrockway wrote: post #93
Scoundreller wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vancouver took their 2-lane each way (4 total) roads and dedicated the outer lane to bikes. They protected that lane from car with planters. So, it can definitely be done. Makes snowplowing a mess. NYC can’t just shutdown like Vancouver does every time it snows :)

It is street parking that ruins winter for bikes. The snow plows can't get to the edge of the road, so the bike lane which marks the parking/plowable road area suffers. I don't think it's a big deal because we don't really get a lot of snow in NYC. A plan to improve the 50 weeks a year without snow on the ground is better than not doing the plan because a couple weeks in February will be miserable.

Here in Copenhagen, the city has narrow versions of the usual equipment for clearing bike lanes. The bike lanes are cleared before the car lanes!

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/12/ultimate-bike-lane-snow...

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#152

Post by tim333 »

adrianN wrote: post #136
quietthrow wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially what you are saying is have really really good public transportation and the traffics problem can be solved. Can any HNers from Japan or Singapore chime in here. Is traffic congestion common in your country’big cities given you have some of the worlds best public transportation infrastructure?

Congestion is roughly constant in all cities because people's willingness to tolerate it is roughly constant. Build more roads and people drive more, but more public transport and more people can get to where they want to be with less resource use.

Pricing can help. Build more roads but charge.

Also having been in for example Singapore and Manila there are major differences. (Singa's better)

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#153

Post by smileysteve »

randallsquared wrote: post #125
amarshall wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are noisy (engines, superfluous horns) and lower air quality. They often drive aggressively and are a hazard to bicyclists and pedestrians. They cause congestion, slowing buses that are vastly more space-efficient. Look at some of “urban plazas” [1] that have replaced short sections of road and witness how much more peaceful and open the city can feel when roads are removed in favor of people. Or, go down to 14t…

Yeah, sorry, those reasons make total sense. But, > The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy. was the part that made no sense. Cabs are at least as noisy and air-quality-deficient as other cars, and there will be a lot more of them if other cars are banned from some large part of Manhattan. As a pedestrian (which is…

Perhaps the easiest way to implement this is to require all ultra high efficiency vehicles.

- UPS already uses natural gas and often hybrid electric

- Prius-es are common as cabs (often lower tco)

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#154

Post by smileysteve »

rubyboss wrote: post #5

I don't understand this anti-car sentiment from the city liberals. It's already happened here in London and it's getting worse. From 20mph speed limits to blocking roads for bus-only traffic to ultra-low emission zones and congestion charges. It's becoming pretty clear that they don't want people to own their own cars. I'm struggling to see how this is progress.

In the U.S. at least; we've seen the greatest number of pedestrian deaths since 1990

and

> Traffic deaths are now the leading cause of death globally for those between the ages of 5 and 29.

> Pedestrian deaths are up 51.5 percent since hitting a low of 4,109 in 2009, according to GHSA. They now make up 16 percent of all road deaths, up from 12 percent in 2009.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/02/28/pedestr...

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#155

Post by jshaqaw »

danielharan wrote: post #130
jshaqaw wrote: post #87

I’m torn on the cars in Manhattan debate. I live my whole city life on public transport. I hate the pollution of cars and I hate how perilous it is for my kids to cross the streets. At the same time we sometimes do want to or have to travel outside the city. I’m not really sure how that would work in a car free city.

You could have parking with rental cars on the periphery of the city or its car-free zone.

Sort of. It sounds OK in pure theory. In practice when we end up loading the car to visit parents/grandparents for a week plus a dog in tow I’m not sure how we end up getting from our apartment door to the peripheral rental car zone which this being Manhattan is presumably in NJ. That’s a lot of cargo! Again I would love a car free Manhattan if I could figure out how to make it work. But many of those who argue this most vehemently I often suspect aren’t trying to raise families in NYC.

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#156

Post by desert_boi »

lhopki01 wrote: post #106
desert_boi wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised Budapest had a nicer Metro than Boston/NYC. The Orange Line in Boston is probably older than any of the lines in Budapest.

The Budapest metro is the second oldest metro in the entire world. Only preceeded by the London metro. Boston is the 6th oldest beaten by Chicago in the US.

I meant the age of the trains themselves. Boston's Orange Line is rolling stock from the '79-'81.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Line_(MBTA)#Rolling_sto....

Boston's T (1897) is just a year younger than Budapest's Metro.

Post reply on HN