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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

#611

Post by izacus »

thsksbd wrote: post #594
s_dev wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland has incredible trains and train networks. Just before people chime in with "Trains are good but mountains are too much of a challenge so might work in other places better with a flat geography". Sounds reasonable until you see how the Swiss do it. Nobody said that but that's where I feel this conversation is going and the previous commenter did say 'buses first'. Probably to exploit the existing road netw…

Colorado is five times larger and has a much smaller population.

Which should make construction much easier, faster and cheaper due to lack of expensive private land boyouts.

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

#612

Post by chgs »

CalRobert wrote: post #480
detourdog wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with reducing minimum parking is that in rural areas it doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t stop people in my rural town of 2,500 houses advocating for reducing parking requirements.

Why doesn't it make sense? I don't see why you should be forced to build parking if you don't want to.

The problem we have in the U.K. where most housing has a shortage of parking is people assume they have a right to store a car - typically one per adult too. If their property doesn’t have a space for a car they therefore assume that means there is a requirement for the public to provide the space. That view is by far the most common view, therefore vast quantities of public space is used to store people’s private possessions.

By removing the mandated private space for storing vehicles, you increase the public space used to store vehicles.

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

#613

Post by chgs »

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…

How much are you willing to pay for all those resources and space you want to monopolise?

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

#614

Post by chgs »

tcmart14 wrote: post #438
rayiner wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars fit in cities just fine. Just got back from Atlanta. Much nicer and cleaner and cheaper than New York City. The only problem is the pollution, which is fixed by EVs. The other stuff, like a few tens of thousands of deaths in car crashes a year, is vastly outweighed by the time saved by everyone else compared to even an excellent public transit system. Trains are not the solution. Even the best train systems are…

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 spent some time in a managed apartment in singapore. Public transport was terrible from the suburbs, took about 1h30 to do a 7 mile commute to my office. I ended up taking taxis every day, which were generally ok out of town, but getting one in the morning was always a bit of a risk - could take 5 minutes one day but 30 the next.

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

#615

Post by chgs »

rayiner wrote: post #442
osigurdson wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this possibly in the evening and thus less busy?

I was getting out of a Taylor Swift concert with 50,000 people so it was busy.

Fortunately for you there weren’t 50,000 taxis all doing similar journeys.

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

#616

Post by itishappy »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #281
itishappy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop punishing people by widening roads! It hasn't been shown to decrease transit times, but it has been shown to harm local standards of living.

The point of widening roads is to let more people use them, not to decrease transit time.

People are already complaining about traffic! Drivers taking I70 between Denver and Loveland on weekends aren't doing so because of their love of the road. Why would we want to increase the number of people experiencing traffic? To assume my prior hyperbolic tone: Widening roads is punishing people for driving!

I'd argue the true goal of the exercise is to increase the capacity of the transit system, and that includes the proposal to not widen the roads. This isn't being done to punish drivers, regardless of how someguydave wants to frame it. The money (to the tune of a cool billion dollars) is being reinvested elsewhere in the network with the intent of increasing the number of people the city can move. The naive proposal of widening roads does work! It increases capacity, but it also makes everybody's experience worse via traffic and pollution. Let's see if there's something better!

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

#617

Post by usaar333 »

Foreignborn wrote: post #544
rayiner wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are these comparing the exact same route?

Fwiw, my experience is same as OP. In Shanghai, it is far faster to take a Didi than public transit. It's typically a 20 minute door to door vs 40.

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

#618

Post by datavirtue »

rayiner wrote: post #453
wozniacki wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean even the part where people get stuffed into already packed trains? [1] I get it. Japanese trains are some of the best anywhere but lets not make them into some downside-free experience, not including the amount of walking thats involved trying to get into and out of the maze of levels at some of the stations, dodging salarymen and other straphangers.[2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSuU3GOKWAY [2] htt…

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Japanese transit system. It’s a marvel. But rich people in Japan usually drive because it’s faster than even an amazing transit system. And the beauty of somewhere like Atlanta is that everyone can live like that. It’s also extremely inconvenient with three kids, especially if you’re trying to bring a stroller onto the train during rush hour. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every…

It's not just that the transit is faster by car but there is less mental overhead. Just get in the car and drive at your pace instead of memorizing schedules (or futzing with an app) and negotiating crowds.

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

#619

Post by datavirtue »

thsksbd wrote: post #597
8organicbits wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans have an obsession with strollers that I haven't understood. I took my infants on Caltrain, BART, and light rail using a baby bjorn. When they could walk, they walked or were carried. It's not something you should avoid having kids over.

Thank you for that lifestyle lecture. My kids hated the bjorn and so did my (very third world communist country) foreign wife. I liked it. The stroller also has storage space for, for example, the medicine bag that keeps my last kid alive in case he swallows . The stroller has everything ready to go except the baby and we don't have to don our various accessories. Finally, as Europeans, we find those Americans and th…

Ah dignity. The reason mass transit will never take hold in America.
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