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Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

strongtowns.org

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Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#351

Post by wtvanhest »

reaperducer wrote: post #3

This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago, for example, mandates that all new development from a simple three-story building to a 100-story skyscraper has retail at its base to improve the walkability of its streets and make its business corridors vibrant. This also helps push down retail rents even in the CBD, allowing local upstart businesses a shot at reaching the masses. Chicag…

They key to the best neighborhoods for walk-ability isn't just retail. It is retail with narrow store fronts. By keeping the store fronts narrow you create a situation where you have a lot more variety per walking distance. SOMA (south of market in san francisco) is way less good than it could be because there is so much less variety than say 24th street in the mission, or valencia in the mission or Green/Union etc. in North Beach.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#352

Post by mjevans »

Johnny555 wrote: post #336
goda90 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key really is self driving only. No human drivers. Communication between cars and road systems. At that point, collision avoidance becomes only about pedestrians, animals, and other random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict, and respond to that, and communicate the need to stop to the cars behind far faster than a human driver. With inter-car communicatio…

random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict How does a self-driving car predict the unexpected? Braking distance of a 30mph car is 45 ft (ignoring reaction time) so anything that happens less than 45 feet in front of a self-driving car is going to need evasive action. On a busy street with cars in all lanes, the self-driving car is going to need to decide wheth…

You're forgetting that the cars in front need to break as well.

With an intelligent mesh the emergency lane abort order will propagate from one to many within the local area and a standard algorithm will determine what each traveling vehicle must do as they all react at the same time to avoid the intruding objects and bring energy in play to a minimum, hopefully zero, value in the affected area.

At the same time emergency response services would automatically be notified as well.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#353

Post by mjevans »

I keep saying that vehicles need to be on a different layer than pedestrians and cyclists.

I think what I'd prefer to see is a reduction in the total number of streets, but for each street that remains to be fully dedicated to vehicle traffic, with wide single direction entry/exit ports for buildings.

Pedestrians would walk through and between buildings at non-vehicle level height (under them seems to be the best option); most likely beneath the roads that were removed (imagine skylights where the roadway was).

Obviously the pedestrian areas would be insulated from the weather.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#354

Post by princeb »

Johnny555 wrote: post #336
goda90 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key really is self driving only. No human drivers. Communication between cars and road systems. At that point, collision avoidance becomes only about pedestrians, animals, and other random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict, and respond to that, and communicate the need to stop to the cars behind far faster than a human driver. With inter-car communicatio…

random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict How does a self-driving car predict the unexpected? Braking distance of a 30mph car is 45 ft (ignoring reaction time) so anything that happens less than 45 feet in front of a self-driving car is going to need evasive action. On a busy street with cars in all lanes, the self-driving car is going to need to decide wheth…

yes this particular prediction of the future doesn't make too much sense to me.

if a car were to drive as if every thing in its vicinity has the potential to move rapidly in front of the car, and hence it takes precautions for all potential accidents, it can't be moving very fast can it? if it is traveling on a busy street with a lot of vehicular traffic and pedestrians on the sidewalk, must it take precautions for each and every vehicle and person around it? how fast can such a self driving car possibly go, if this were to be the case?

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#355

Post by Johnny555 »

mjevans wrote: post #352
Johnny555 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict How does a self-driving car predict the unexpected? Braking distance of a 30mph car is 45 ft (ignoring reaction time) so anything that happens less than 45 feet in front of a self-driving car is going to need evasive action. On a busy street with cars in all lanes, the self-driving car is going to need to decide wheth…

You're forgetting that the cars in front need to break as well. With an intelligent mesh the emergency lane abort order will propagate from one to many within the local area and a standard algorithm will determine what each traveling vehicle must do as they all react at the same time to avoid the intruding objects and bring energy in play to a minimum, hopefully zero, value in the affected area. At the same time emer…

You're forgetting that the cars in front need to break as well.

I don't understand? A pedestrian steps in front of a 30mph self driving car that's 20 feet away. There's a sidewalk to the right and oncoming traffic to the left.

The car needs 45 feet to stop, so it's going to strike the pedestrian. Which I assume you recognize this since you said EMS will be called.

You may think it's unlikely that a pedestrian will step right in front of a car, but wait until pedestrians are trained that the car will always stop for them.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#356

Post by Balero »

mjevans wrote: post #353

I keep saying that vehicles need to be on a different layer than pedestrians and cyclists. I think what I'd prefer to see is a reduction in the total number of streets, but for each street that remains to be fully dedicated to vehicle traffic, with wide single direction entry/exit ports for buildings. Pedestrians would walk through and between buildings at non-vehicle level height (under them seems to be the best opt…

I would suggest places with nice weather have it the other way, cars underneath, pedestrians walking around on top.

Frankly living in a place that doesn't always get the best weather id rather get what little sun I could.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#357

Post by tomkat0789 »

reaperducer wrote: post #3

This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago, for example, mandates that all new development from a simple three-story building to a 100-story skyscraper has retail at its base to improve the walkability of its streets and make its business corridors vibrant. This also helps push down retail rents even in the CBD, allowing local upstart businesses a shot at reaching the masses. Chicag…

I moved to Chicago last year from a small non-walkable Southern city and I was thrilled by the public transit. I'm thankful I don't have to drive when ice gets everywhere.

My gripe is that public transit is largely optimized for getting to and from downtown. I think the city could benefit from a half ring train line from, say, Rogers Park through Garfield Park (it'd have to be bulletproof), past Midway with a terminus in Hyde Park. It'd be nicer and faster than negotiating all the complicated bus lines. Just an idea if the city ever has $20 billion dollars just lying around.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#358

Post by briandear »

stcredzero wrote: post #103
jdavis703 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the cities citizens. Northern European cities such as Copenhagen are pretty quiet, despite their high density.

The problem is the cities citizens. Northern European cities such as Copenhagen are pretty quiet, despite their high density. A lot of the character of a city does come from how its citizens imagine it's supposed to be. In the nicer parts of Stuttgart in 2000: Never once even the smell of garbage.

Paris is a Northern European town I think and it’s a disaster in terms of noise. Those damned 2 cycle scooters for instance. And dog poop and trash and people pissing wherever they feel like. And it’s expensive. Paris is an overrated nightmare.

And Copenhagen isn’t really that dense. It’s ranked 117th in the world — just under New Orleans and above Montreal: http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-...

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#359

Post by geebee »

mejarc wrote: post #345
geebee wrote: post #75

Another important factor not mentioned here is the practice of "curb cuts" http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2008-06-01... I recommend the article (not just posting for a cite, it's an interesting one). But to summarize - SF has a lot of "curb cuts", sections of the curb that are cut out and lowered so a car can drive across the sidewalk to a driveway or garage. This prevents the sidewalks from becomi…

I noticed this when I visited Boston for the first time, after several years of living in SF. I was walking down a street--and I was delighted to keep walking, unmolested by oblivious motorists zooming out of driveways and garages. Too bad WalkScore doesn't consider this experience for its assessments.

Fortunately, SF does have quite a few boulevards and other urban areas that are like this, so the enjoyable experience you mentioned can be had here. A few are mentioned in the article.

They tend to be commercial "Main Street" type streets, though. Residential streets are much more likely to have curb cuts, and that's still an important part of the streetscape.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#360

Post by zjaffee »

del82 wrote: post #19
reaperducer wrote: post #3

This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago, for example, mandates that all new development from a simple three-story building to a 100-story skyscraper has retail at its base to improve the walkability of its streets and make its business corridors vibrant. This also helps push down retail rents even in the CBD, allowing local upstart businesses a shot at reaching the masses. Chicag…

Interestingly, Strong Towns published an article a bit more than a week ago about why mandating ground-floor retail is also not the best way to go: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/8/mixed-up-priori...

Much of this is the result of high retail rental prices where there are no vacancy taxes to push property companies to rent out their units. The key issue here is that in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, the term on most retail leases is too long, where property owners know that if they wait it out, they will eventually find a tenant willing to pay a high premium on the space.

If they were willing to offer the space to a dive bar for 1000 a month, they would have no problem finding a tenant. The issue is they are asking for far more than that, where they only want tenants such as boutique stores or restaurants that are relatively clean.

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