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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

#521

Post by Beldin »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #266
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…

A big issue with the market argument in converting car drivers to transit riders is the respective networks operate at different scales. Think of a little neighborhood with a bus line on a road; theres probably I’m not even sure call it 20x as many roads in that neighborhood that don’t have a bus line. There is so much more built out of the comprehensive road network everywhere than there is with transit. Cities are…

> As long as the coverage and convenience are so lopsided,

Two ways to fix that (in general): improve one side, or worsen the other. Some measures do both simultaneously, eg. bus lanes take away asphalt for cars and improve bus infrastructure.

It's fairly easy to make a bus network more convenient than a car in a city. You can easily take measures such as dedicated bus lanes, one way streets, pedestrian areas, narrower streets + wider pavements and cycle lanes, less and more expensive parking.

The current attractiveness of public transport is roughly how attractive cars should have been. But most US cities have focused for decades on making car use more attractive. Congratulations, it worked.

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

#522

Post by cscurmudgeon »

pkulak wrote: post #407
mrangle wrote: post #378

Hardly anyone commenting, let alone policymakers with lifelong privilege and who are career incentivized to stay within a certain perspective, has significant if any experience taking the bus. I took the urban bus to and from school for years: at least 1.5 hours each way. Often two, with at least one transfer. Outside of the city center, reliance on buses is a massive poverty tax in terms of reduced quality of life.…

> That means cheaper and faster automotive transportation. That is… extremely silly. You can’t make an inherently expensive activity cheap because you’d like it to be. Cars take up so much space that’s expensive to build and maintain. They crash into things and people constantly. The pollute the air, and they are extremely expensive to own and repair, with a total lifetime measured in a couple decades, if you’re luck…

> Trains, my friend. We need trains. Busses first, but eventually trains.

For that, we first need density.

And who is against more density in existing cities where naturally more density makes most sense?

More or less the same people arguing against cars.

https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2024/03/25/letting-aaron-pesk...

https://www.kqed.org/news/11964754/sf-supervisors-to-vote-on...

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/housing/sf-permitting-paltry...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-drivers-say-war-on...

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

#523

Post by jltsiren »

fragmede wrote: post #501
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One solution would be a large fleet of cheap electric self-driving taxis. With current pace of AI development, that could be just 10-20 years away.

Waymo's working in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, with Austin coming soon. Maybe it'll take 10 years, but the technology's already here, just needs to get scaled up.

The proof of concept is already here, but the technology still needs too much human supervision to be cost-effective. If you want to make self-driving taxis cheap enough for most people to use daily, the prices have to be something like $2/trip.

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

#524

Post by slyall »

detourdog wrote: post #493
slyall wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your town has just has 2500 people then it should be 5-10 minutes walk/bike from anywhere to anywhere. No need for a car for most journeys.

The area of the town is around 43 square miles. The houses are not near the grocery stores. New England towns used to be very neighborhood centric. Our town used to have 14 schools because everyone had to walk to school. Our schools have been centralized and now require busing. Walkability used to be a thing but no longer. Off street parking is convenient during snow removal.

Sounds like it isn't really a town except in name. More like a densely settle old farming area.

Where I'm from (New Zealand) a 2500 person town would be 1/4 acre suburban sections with wide streets surrounding some shops. eg this place:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZcHRLi9HjNiuMsvc6

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

#525

Post by rdtsc »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #499
squeaky-clean wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked the bus stop near my parents' place in Miami (I'm living in NYC now). The next bus arrives in 14 hours lol. Busses for that stop run hourly between 11am-4pm. I don't get how they think anyone can depend on that. Not only is an hour between busses incredibly frustrating, if I needed to do anything past 4pm, (like I don't know... commute to work?) I would have no way back home until the next day.

I think in such places it makes sense for a municipality to pay for Uber rides for residents, instead of maintaining bus routes.

Or have minibuses that are smaller and come more frequently. Find a few drivers willing to work after hours as a second job perhaps and let them drive smaller shuttle buses or larger passenger vans.

When big buses stop their routes the smaller ones would start.

The key is frequency and dependability.

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

#526

Post by lostdog »

tonynator wrote: post #500
nox101 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don’t. plain and simple. Tons of people living together share the costs. the few in the suburbs need to pay for their own infra. They’re not now. The cities are subsidizing the suburbs. that’s not fair. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

[flagged]

The food is not only bought with money, but also subsidized. With tax dollars from cities.

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

#527

Post by TomK32 »

gcr wrote: post #401
mrangle wrote: post #378

Hardly anyone commenting, let alone policymakers with lifelong privilege and who are career incentivized to stay within a certain perspective, has significant if any experience taking the bus. I took the urban bus to and from school for years: at least 1.5 hours each way. Often two, with at least one transfer. Outside of the city center, reliance on buses is a massive poverty tax in terms of reduced quality of life.…

My dad lived in a Colorado suburb and took the bus to work. He saw firsthand how the bus deteriorates when bad policy doesn’t fund public transportation. When he retired in his sixties, he was running on the order of 50 miles a week or so for his morning commute. Our governor adopted budget cuts that forced the public busses to run private ads, then called them an “eyesore.” People—especially poor people or families…

It's not just poor people who don't want to rely on cars but also those too young to have a license, or momentarily too sick or simply too old to drive safely and of course those with suspended licenses for whatever reason. Mobility should be a right for everyone, not just car owners.

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

#528

Post by medellin »

_blk wrote: post #234
ambyra wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a nice study: https://newatlas.com/motorcycles-reduce-congestion/21420/ They say 10% of traffic being replaced by motorcycles reduces congestion by 40%. California has pretty good weather so it's probably feasible to commute by motorbike almost every day.

Colorado with 300 sunny days a year is a great place for motorcycles. Most of the year it's warm enough too with somewhat decent clothing and a pair of balls. I'll take the bike any day the road is dry and temps are double digit. But if you really want to increase throughput [FWIW, I don't care that much], just enforce driving on the right lanes when not passing. Then anyone who feels they need to go 15 over the limi…

It is not. At most you get 8 months of the year. The rest even if the weather is sunny you are looking at strong wind or unpredictable storms that pop up. We just had golf ball sized hail at the end of may.

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

#529

Post by medellin »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #351
ambyra wrote: post #22

It would be nice if they brought back train service from Denver to Ft. Collins and Laramie. In Europe you can go so many places with just a bicycle and a train ticket.

It's in the works, currently scheduled for 2050, if we are lucky.

Hahahahaha. Unless we have a major change in direction we aren’t getting crap.

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

#530

Post by dyauspitr »

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…

What’s so great about transit besides the environmental savings. Having to share space with other people, walk to the train station, put up with a train schedule, have no way to travel past some arbitrary time (midnight to 2am in most places), no way to transport large items or groceries, no way to go off the beaten path, having to live in densely populated cities with no room for any activities. I like the idea of having public transport but not at the expense of the incredible roadways we have.
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