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

We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

devonzuegel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 344 posts

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#221

Post by jonknee »

davidw wrote: post #52
MR4D wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your point gets missed by many people. Europeans tend to have cities that have been around much longer than cars have, and you can see it in the design - they were built back when horses were the fastest mode of transportation. Many small American towns were built after the introduction of the automobile (or at least significant chucks of the towns were). Trying to undo history, or even taking a new mode of d…

The town I live in now, Bend, Oregon is barely over 100 years old, which is pretty new even for the US. And yet the downtown is still fairly walkable, if perhaps not quite as much as an Italian town. The really bad stuff only really started coming out after we got zoning and then accelerated with post WWII development. Can we make something just as walkable and nice as those Italian cities? Maybe not, but we can cert…

> And yet the downtown is still fairly walkable, if perhaps not quite as much as an Italian town.

But I bet almost everybody has a car.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#222

Post by calohorn »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #189
AcerbicZero wrote: post #130

It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bi…

>> It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving everywhere. >> For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but…

>> If homeless people on buses are a problem where you live, that has nothing to do with public transport in general.

When you hear of people being aggressive, high, inconsiderate, or here in Portland two people had their throats slit on the light rail recently near my house, it makes the public not feel comfortable using the public transportation. Since it's called public transportation and these things effect the public and the transportation, it actually has a lot to do with the public transportation.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#223

Post by toomanybeersies »

kasey_junk wrote: post #170
wrycoder wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, if you are doing shopping which involves any significant volume of goods or groceries, carrying it on public transit is a real problem. The tendency is to buy small amounts frequently at higher prices. If there are two or more in a small car, it's also usually less expensive. If the parking problem were forthrightly addressed, this, along with the increasing use of efficient Uber/Lyft/taxi, would greatly…

The argument about buying “small amounts at higher prices” is really interesting to me. I recently downsized places for a much more walkable environment. Keeping less stuff in my house is a feature . One I was worried was going to cost me. But my budget has largely not changed. Any increase in costs associated with bulk buying are at least offset by lowered transport costs. It’s really hard to exactly account though.…

I've moved to lean cooking (as in lean manufacturing, not healthy food).

I don't really keep any food in the house, except for herbs and spices, and condiments. I don't keep anything perishable or frozen.

Every day or so, I'll go to Aldi and get my vegetables for one or two meals.

My food wastage these days is about zero.

Conveniently I live practically next door to an Aldi so I don't pay a lot for my food, I'm down to $7 day or so as I've moved to a vegetable based diet.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#224

Post by mrep »

drb91 wrote: post #171
AcerbicZero wrote: post #130

It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bi…

> bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft. How can this be true? Public transit allows your attention to wander and typically is much, much faster than traffic. Adding uber/lyft will get two of the worst attributes: traffic and high cost, although you’ll be able to do something else simultaneously. Furthermore, it’s not clear how parking fees affe…

Maybe you can travel in peace on public transportation but my 5 foot 3 inch 110 pound girlfriend cannot. She gets constantly harassed by guys when I'm not around and some (especially the homeless) get violent about it. And to make matters worse, when you are on a bus, there isn't really anywhere you can go to get away from some creepy guy. Your stuck having to deal with that person until you get to your destination.

It's so bad she refuses to use public transportation here in seattle without me due to how unsafe she feels.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#225

Post by Bekwnn »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #130

It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bi…

There was an anecdote from a woman in Vancouver about how she would never again use public transit. She described being groped a dozen times in private places, and being followed off the bus by men on 3 occasions or more. I dont see how anyone could blame young women who go through that for refusing to use transit.

Just as a man riding on the same transit system, I totally believe that level of frequency and wouldn't expect anyone to be willing to put up with it. There were other anecdotes about drunks vomiting, fist fights on buses, racist slurs, and more.

I love the idea of transit, but it has some serious personal space, privacy, and safety problems that make personal transportation much more appealing.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#226

Post by epicureanideal »

drb91 wrote: post #220
epicureanideal wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High throughput and low cost are not the only metrics that commuters care about, clearly, or else they'd be riding public transit. If you offer to PAY ME a dollar to ride on BART next to a smelly, loud homeless person for an hour, versus me PAYING $10 in gas to drive to work, I'll pick the latter without hesitation.

Well, that’s the rational consumer side of you. What about the side of you that’s a member of a community—how do you start caring about externalities?

Theoretically that's what our elected officials should be dealing with. I've tried to intervene with loud or aggressive passengers before and I'll end up being the only person in 40 people on a BART car to do so, and after a couple experiences where I saw that nobody was going to back me up, I decided I should not risk my life over such things. I'd rather drive my car to work and make sure I get home to my children.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#227

Post by Karrot_Kream »

thereisnospork wrote: post #216
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a walkable city you don't need to go from one end of the city to the other. 10 mi. is insanity. You should be able to go a maximum of 2 mi. and find what you're looking for. I'm in a biking-density neighborhood, and have multiple grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, and furniture stores within 1 mi. of me. In a walking density neighborhood, I would expect that to all be available within 0.5 mi. of me.

Nobody needs to do much of anything, but people want to. 10 miles is 130th st to downtown Manhattan, a distance people most certainly either want or need to travel regularly. Even in the most culture/store/apartment dense corner of the country. Now I'm all for effective public transit and dense neighborhoods, but walking and/or biking are simply worse for a lot of use cases.

I'm not familiar with Manhattan, are you describing the phenomenon of building dense commuter urban-areas and far-flung residential areas? Because that is not part of being a walkable neighborhood.

But what stops public transit from being the solution here? In fact, over a 10 mi. radius, public transit scales much better than single-occupancy vehicles, and even fully loaded sedans. Go to Tokyo and folks take trains all day. If you're taking about low-to-medium density areas (which isn't a city) then yes, cars are the most effective.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#228

Post by mr_toad »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #130

It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bi…

> solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit"

Most of the article talks about walking, and making cities more walkable. This isn’t about public transport.

The housing problems and transport problems in many cities are both symptoms of the same urban planning decisions; in a nutshell it’s about zoning regulations.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#229

Post by gjs278 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #219
baddox wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a bit bizarre to imply that individual citizens have the responsibility or even capability of meaningfully solving major public welfare or health issues. Surely no one would imply the same for, say, crime or disease epidemics.

But they do have that responsibility. They're supposed to wash their hands. That's the #1 way to stop the spread of viruses and bacteria. We also require they put their garbage into garbage cans and out to the street every week, so that the streets aren't literally covered in contaminated waste, like they were a century ago. We also require they call the police when a crime is occurring. And the fire department when…

you are so incredibly full of shit it hurts. you don't have to call the police if you see a crime. you can stand there and let it happen.

this is iamverysmart material, and it won't cost an extra $1.50 in local taxes. like the other commenter said, sign off and go fix it yourself, it will at least spare us from having to read this self righteous drivel.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#230

Post by peterwwillis »

homonculus1 wrote: post #211
peterwwillis wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The homeless will continue to do whatever they can get away with, and those of us with higher incomes will grumble a bit and pay the taxes. The only solution I've seen that has a chance to change this is to come down hard on poor public transit behavior, perhaps by putting actual people on the buses with the specific job of cracking down on the drunk/high/piss soaked/etc types, in an effort to improve the quality o…

Most of them are addicts who don't want help. You could give them a job and a free house and they'd end up right back where they are now.

This attitude is the reason this problem isn't getting solved.
Post reply on HN