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In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

nytimes.com

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Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#221

Post by SoftTalker »

wonder_er wrote: post #70
n8henrie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought brake dust would be drastically decreased due to regenerative braking?

that sounds right. Tire rubber microplastic generation would go way up, though, because of the vehicle weight. I propose small motor scooters (as is common in asia) as the solution. Cars also take up a godawful amount of space, all the time. Especially in a city. That's the real harm, the tailpipe emissions are trivial compared to the space consumption.

Small motor scooters are not a good solution in the rain and snow

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#222

Post by zip1234 »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #203
currymj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the point of "induced demand" is that you sometimes can't really fix -- specifically -- traffic or parking congestion problems by building more. if you widen the roads, in many cases it won't make your commute any quicker. if you add more parking spots downtown, more people will drive downtown. it's not that there's no benefit to the wider road or parking spots, just that the benefit people really care about…

>> if you add more parking spots downtown, more people will drive downtown But that's good if you wan't more people to drive downtown, isn't it? What am I missing here?

At some point when you clear out all the actual places to go in order to add parking and make it easy to drive there, people realize there is nothing down there and stop going, at which point you just have what happened to Detroit.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#223

Post by standardUser »

aqme28 wrote: post #3

> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero. This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

> They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

Breaking: construction and manufacturing require energy and materials, film at 11!

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#224

Post by troupo »

thereisnospork wrote: post #218
lkurtz wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this analogy is quite correct. Driving on a particular route is not a driver’s objective like reading a particular book is a reader’s objective. The driver’s objective is arriving at a destination. The objective in driving is not a finite resource, but the multiple route options to the objective can be, which differs substantially from a library queue.

Let's consider a library with both a manned librarian and a self checkout, two different queues, same objective. Let's call the self checkout the 'highway' queue and the manned one the 'surface street' queue. Each of which could be expanded to improve throughput (more lanes:more self checkout lanes, more streets:more librarians). Ultimately the problem with anti-car rhetoric is that it seeks to limit access to the ob…

The people who freely use terms like "anti-car" always assume that the car is always the fastest most efficient way of getting anywhere... and then sit stuck in standstill on a 6-10-lane highway

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#225

Post by em-bee »

SSJPython wrote: post #82
rufus_foreman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen You live in a country with the wrong type of political system for that. Valuing everyone's opinion equally is called democracy.

> You live in a country with the wrong type of political system for that. Valuing everyone's opinion equally is called democracy. Infrastructure should not be subject to peoples' opinions. Like utilities and defense, infrastructure is crucial for security and commerce. People simply don't know better.

but there is a solution to this problem: education.

and i don't mean propaganda, but teaching people not to be selfish, to care for others and consider others needs, to contribute to the betterment of society. to have compassion, remove prejudice, etc.

if these values were taught in schools, then the next generation would make better choices and they would know better and vote for better infrastructure.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#226

Post by baq »

kentonv wrote: post #164
s1artibartfast wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own. Most Americans hate high density. I'd rather drive 2 hours than live high density.

High density is awesome right up until you have kids and then it's awful. I think a lot of young people who don't have kids have trouble understanding this. If I had no kids I'd love to live in a downtown high rise apartment. Really wish I had done so when I was younger. Among a lot of things I wish I could go tell my younger self to do...

plenty of non-Americans live in high density areas, have children and are very happy they don't have to drive them anywhere and everywhere all the time.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#227

Post by gotoeleven »

languagehacker wrote: post #51

I just read Paved Paradise as well as The High Cost of Free Parking. This seems like the current gradual trend towards reversing the hidden subsidy for drivers, first by giving them less affordances at remarkably low prices or for free. A few folks in the comments have mentioned a couple of times that it doesn't make sense to make a policy like this without supporting transit. I believe the argument would be that not…

[flagged]

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#228

Post by prmoustache »

jcranmer wrote: post #53
ambyra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try a motorcycle! The laws for lane splitting are the best in the country. You could probably fit 6 motorcycles in the space of one car.

As a passenger in a car, watching motorcyclists zip down at high speed on the lane markers between cars in dense, stop-and-go traffic was incredibly unnerving. I can't see how that's safe.

you don't have to zip down at high speed on the lane markers when you ride a motorcycle.

It is like the stupid people who say all cyclist burn the lights. They are just so jealous they only see the one that do and completely ignore those that stop at the lights.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#229

Post by sokoloff »

zip1234 wrote: post #222
rufus_foreman wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> if you add more parking spots downtown, more people will drive downtown But that's good if you wan't more people to drive downtown, isn't it? What am I missing here?

At some point when you clear out all the actual places to go in order to add parking and make it easy to drive there, people realize there is nothing down there and stop going, at which point you just have what happened to Detroit.

Have you been to downtown Detroit lately? It's beautiful (and easily navigable by car anytime the Detroit GP isn't going on...)

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#230

Post by sokoloff »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #179
languagehacker wrote: post #51

I just read Paved Paradise as well as The High Cost of Free Parking. This seems like the current gradual trend towards reversing the hidden subsidy for drivers, first by giving them less affordances at remarkably low prices or for free. A few folks in the comments have mentioned a couple of times that it doesn't make sense to make a policy like this without supporting transit. I believe the argument would be that not…

When it comes to transit I think the lol make driving sucky so people will support mass transit is inane because of the backlash potential. Much better to get ahead of the hose than always be trying to grab it's ass. You're not going to get boomers and GenX to take the bus. You probably could get younger generations to do that especially if there are options. Really there should be a high speed rail along the front r…

If you make the bus better than driving, people will take the bus.

Ideally, you'd do that by improving the bus rather than accepting the current shitty bus situation and degrading driving to the point that it's even worse...

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