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

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 783 posts

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

#541

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

oceanplexian wrote: post #363
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.

If you are stuck in gridlock in a two hour commute with a soulless car that functions as nothing more than an appliance, then sure, that sounds like my personal version of hell. But for me “The driver’s objective is arriving at a destination.” couldn’t be more of a false statement. Give me a nice European sports car, a manual transmission, an empty highway and some nice scenery and commuting can be an incredibly rela…

Same minus the highway (sports car != touring car). Well, Except that I have it: depressed man driving a new MX-5 in the south of France, driving is one of my last joys in life together with food and sleep.

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

#542

Post by bluecalm »

sien wrote: post #193
Gigachad wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If boomers want to continue driving, they can. Just make them pay for what they use. Work out the real market value for the space and charge for it.

Yep. The same should be done for public transport. In the US Farebox Recovery Ratios of 20% or less are common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio#United_... Only 58% of fuel tax in Australia is spent on any kind of transport including rail. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-21/fuel-excise-not-being... Australians drive a similar amount to the US. From https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/13/h…

Cars don't pay for their costs and it's not close. Fuel tax doesn't even cover a small fraction of infrastructure cost in most European countries. Building roads is heavily subsidized from federal budgets, land given for free, accident costs covered by public money etc. etc.

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

#543

Post by bluecalm »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #190
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…

>> I believe the argument would be that not creating induced demand will provide market effects to encourage the use of transit Induced demand is a concept that anti-car people use, but I don't think it makes much sense. Imagine a library that only has a few copies of some best selling children's books. There's a very long queue to check out those books. Someone might argue that, "We should buy more copies of the bes…

You can think of it in terms of simpler concept: "giving people free stuff causes more people to take free stuff".

Cars and infrastructure for them is heavily subsidized so building more if it (giving free stuff away) induces more people to use it.

As car infrastructure has a cost which car drivers don't cover building more if it is very expensive for everyone else that's why we shouldn't want more if it.

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

#544

Post by Foreignborn »

rayiner wrote: post #450
tcmart14 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In both Singapore and Hong Kong, I never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a train and the stops were pretty much within 3-4 blocks within anything I'd want to get to.

I stayed recently in Askakusa on a family trip and the train was about a 15 minute walk away. Even in the close in districts there are many residential places that are a 15-20 minute walk away, and on top of that you might have to take a bus to the train, or transfer lines, etc. Even in Tokyo the door to door time is usually much faster driving. I don’t know about Singapore or Hong Kong. But I suspect rich people the…

I believe you're vastly overselling driving. We're talking saving ~10 minutes on the mean ride, at a huge increase in cost (and IMO, health).

Source:

>>> Differences between cities [public transportation vs car transportation times] mainly concern the magnitude of the ratio, where the car is remarkably faster than public transit in Los Angeles but _not that much in Tokyo and Seoul._ (Emphasis mine)

```

PT travel time (minutes) Min: 9 Max: 121 Mean: 52.8

Car travel time (minutes) Min: 11 Max: 123 Mean: 41.8

PT travel cost (¥). Min: 110 Max: 1290 Mean: 430.8

Car travel cost (¥) Min: 149 Max: 6138 Mean:2102.6

```

Source: Altieri, M., Silva, C., & Terabe, S. (2021). Keep pushing! Analysing public transit and car competitiveness in Tokyo. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 9(2), 457–465. doi:10.1016/j.cstp.2021.02

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

#545

Post by gitgud »

mrangle wrote: post #393
mtalantikite wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has never had a license and admittedly doesn’t know much about car costs, aren’t they expensive? Like how much is a car payment plus insurance every month? And then gas and maintenance? It seems like requiring car ownership to survive is also not great. But yeah I’m sorry your commute was so bad. No one should need to spend two hours on a bus commuting to school, that sounds like a failure of local pub…

Public transportation isn't exactly cheap when used every day. Then factor in your time and frustration. Nothing is as expensive as your time. Cars are amazing at their current cost, comparatively. And as I said, we should work on making them cheaper. Toward an ultimate goal of making everyone "richer". Which begins with reducing hidden poverty taxes like unavoidable multi-hour public transportation commutes. My ulti…

> Public transportation isn't exactly cheap when used every day. Then factor in your time and frustration. Nothing is as expensive as your time.

Public transport is cheap for an individual, and when many people use it, it reduces traffic and pollution.

Cars have the opposite effect. They are expensive for an individual, and when many people use them, it increases traffic and pollution…

Don’t aim to increase cars on the road, it’s better and cheaper for everyone to improve public transport

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

#546

Post by Tempest1981 »

Reminded me of the Embarcadero Freeway in SF, which was torn down in 1991 after being damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake:

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-story-of-the-embarca...

"The city adapted to the new traffic network with few problems"

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

#547

Post by [deleted] »

joe_the_user wrote: post #458
dmix wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dont poor people in Paris live on the edges of the city far away from the good jobs downtown and are closer to the highways? I don't know much about European cities but maybe it's easier to build housing there than it is here because that's always the main issue in north america. The only reason people live in the suburbs where everyone is forced to drive is because a) housing it cheaper and b) its safer (most EU cit…

The poor in Paris indeed live far from the center. These suburbs are dreary like most but the French public transit system is good enough that getting to the center areas from many suburb is still relatively quick.

[deleted]

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

#548

Post by prmoustache »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #370
analog31 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and you're also not going to travel on a high speed, congested road. For one thing, there's usually no point.

Well from these clips, the road doesn’t have to be congested for things to go sideways before reaction time kicks in. And even from my own experiences, I once hit a big board with my car on the freeway. Didn’t see it until there it was. Four flats and a bit of a scare vs the end of my life probably right then if I were on a bike in all likelihood.

You have probably hit that big board because you are driving an extension of your living room and are thus totally incentivised by dangers and not following legal and recommended security distance between you and the vehicle in front of you.

Also dangers are easier to avoid on a bike provided you are going at reasonnable speed because your own vehicle is smaller. The biggest danger is target fixation but that is something riders need to train against.

Obviously training both of riders and drivers vary a lot between countries and that is where lie most of the problem as well as considering that driving/riding is a right and not a privilege accorded to people serious enough to operate vehicles safely. I find it completely insane that some countries like the USA allows kids to drive with barely any training. IMHO before 24-25 year old, there are very few adults that are mature enough to drive safely. I also fThat is probably ind insane that a country allow people to buy, rent and drive a vehicle after more than 2 DUI convictions. That should lead to a lifetime ban.

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

#549

Post by ericmay »

zdragnar wrote: post #364
ericmay wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to talk about the topic at very high level but for many American cities like Columbus where I live the answer lies at least partially converting surface parking lots in downtown areas into economically productive assets like housing or businesses which are also not extractive to the local economy. This density makes it easier to walk and bike as well. Many cities, including Columbus, are expanding bus rapid…

> the answer lies at least partially converting surface parking lots in downtown areas into economically productive assets like housing or businesses which are also not extractive to the local economy. This density makes it easier to walk and bike as well. That only answers where new development should go. It does nothing whatsoever for the people who already live in neighborhoods with no (useful) access to public tr…

The increase in appropriate density tends to make public transit solutions more viable [1] and you also (with good zoning practices) can make small businesses more viable too so you walk 5 minutes down the street for your local cafe instead of driving 15 minutes to Starbucks to send profits to Seattle instead.

[1] Car-only infrastructure isn’t viable economically but it’s hard to make that argument in this context because it’s the default and the costs are hidden.

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

#550

Post by AnthonyMouse »

oefrha wrote: post #536
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Problem is we don't even have enough political capital to enforce this. The problem is that you're proposing a new problem rather than a solution. Suppose there are two car lanes and they're somewhat congested. You suggest converting one to a bus lane to encourage people to take the bus. The result is to make the remaining car lane disproportionately more congested, because the bus lane gets 10% of people to take t…

You’re telling us that buses must be empty, because people won’t take buses, because there aren’t enough buses, because buses would be empty if there are enough buses. Can you spot where the logic breaks down?

I'm telling you that buses must be empty because if they only go along the busiest roads then nobody takes them because their route is sleepy road -> busy road -> sleepy road, and a bus that only travels along the busy road can't pick them up or drop them off. Whereas a bus that travels along the sleepy road will be empty, because it's a sleepy road which only gets one car an hour as it is. These can both be true at once because the sleepy roads outnumber the busy roads in regions where most of the land area is the suburbs.
Post reply on HN