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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

#631

Post by roywiggins »

thechao wrote: post #629
roywiggins wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only problem is the pollution, which is fixed by EVs. Unfortunately, EVs do not solve the problem of air pollution from motor vehicles: tires produce a LOT of particulates. https://theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-pr...

ICE vehicles don't have tires? A good way to estimate the environmental cost of a mass consumer product is its price (capex & opex), with the caveat that the unaccounted cost for burning gasoline is probably around 6$/gallon, right now. 100 gallons of gasoline produce ~1 ton of CO2, and it costs ~600$/ton to perform CO2 air capture.

Carbon emissions are not the only type of pollution. EVs and ICEs both have tires, so replacing ICEs with EVs does not fix the problem of air pollution in cities because the vast majority of particulates generated by the car while driving it are coming from the tires, not the tailpipe.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic-chemical...

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

#632

Post by CPLX »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #522
pkulak wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/hous…

So an insane and soon to be dead generation of reactionary former hippie Bay Area boomers.

I’ll give you that. Who else though?

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

#633

Post by [deleted] »

Jensson wrote: post #580
basil-rash wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live and what is your background that you think the only way a man might harass a woman is if he is drunk?

That is true everywhere, drunk or affected men are overwhelmingly more likely to harass women than sober men are. Subways here in Europe are full of pretty women, they don't go out of their way to take a car any more than men are, when I count gender on subways there are usually more women than men. When was the last time you saw women avoid grocery stores because they are afraid of getting harassed? Well used public…

[deleted]

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

#634

Post by avalys »

jayd16 wrote: post #467
rayiner wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Tokyo, that’s true. A fairer comparison would be average commute times in places that are built around cars versus ones built around trains. Average commute in Austin Texas is 22 minutes one way: https://www.ktalnews.com/news/business/shreveport-has-one-of... Average commute time in greater Tokyo is double that: https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/average-work-commu...

I'm from Los Angeles so excuse my hardy laughter. I'm sure Austin is great but that commute time will surely balloon as the population density continues to rise. Austin has ~3000/sq mi vs Tokyo's ~16,000/sq mi.

Why should population density continue to rise?

Have you ever flown over Texas?

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

#635

Post by mistersquid »

rayiner wrote: post #584
nerb wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. what in the absolute f** are you talking about? have you ever experienced the sudden death of a loved one? what about the network impact of someone dying? even if you want to look at it through a capitalistic lens, think of the reduction in capability…

This has nothing to do with capitalism. Quite the opposite, it’s about the needs of the many outweighing the lives of the few. There’s 200 million+ adults in the U.S., who save 5-10% of their waking lives by the US being car dependent compared to transit dependent places. Road deaths amount to 0.015% of that population. For every person who does, 7,000 live a more comfortable and convenient life.

> For every person who d[i]es, 7,000 live a more comfortable and convenient life.

That you see this tragedy as a benefit reveals the grotesquerie of your world view. You also do not address the downstream effects of that lost life in terms of grief, material loss, and reduced capacity. (You’re not even a good capitalist.)

May you never experience the losing end of a “more comfortable and convenient life”.

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

#636

Post by Jiro »

ColonelPhantom wrote: post #405
mrangle wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nothing is as expensive as your time. Then public transport should be way cheaper than driving, as on transit you have some downtime where you can scroll through your phone, listen to some music, or perhaps even crack open your laptop if you're on a proper train. Driving requires constant attention, so you can't relax or do anything else in the meantime.

If scrolling through your phone were worthwhile enough that being able to do it made up for the loss of time, people would deliberately take trains instead of cars just so they could take a little longer but be able to scroll through their phones.

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

#637

Post by foobazgt »

Aunche wrote: post #495
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…

Atlanta is barely a city compared to New York or Tokyo. New York City is 8 times denser. Tokyo is even denser if you're just counting the special wards, which is what most people think of as Tokyo. You need trains to alleviate the traffic unless if you want to end up with worse traffic than LA.

At what population does a city qualify to discuss transit policy? Atlanta has over 6M residents.

I think mass transit can be great in the right contexts. For ATL, I think it makes the most sense in the few sq miles of city proper, not 20+ mi out.

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

#638

Post by Tade0 »

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, which would then create greater demand for improved transit.

Almost everywhere it actually works, mass transit is heavily subsidised, with tickets covering only 20-30% of the operating expenses.

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

#639

Post by foobazgt »

nox101 wrote: post #455
jskrablin wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to live in a city. It's noisy, polluted, crowded and I really like my small countryside house with plenty of land around it. Lived in a city for 20 years, got fed up with it, despite all of the alleged 'advantages' it offers. I guess I don't deserve decent infrastructure in your world view?

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

I've watched that video and seen it quoted a fair number of times, but I don't see how it jives with the reality of tax collection and spending - at least in my area of residence (ATL). I'd love some hard data on how the city is subsidizing the suburbs.

Instead, the recent trend has been that wealthy areas near downtown (e.g. Buckhead) have been trying to incorporate so that they're no longer subsidizing the rest of the city.

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

#640

Post by sokoloff »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #579
jusssi wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardware store probably has a delivery service, because not everyone has a van or a pickup for those 2x4s. But if you DIY big stuff often enough for that to be a factor to consider, you're probably not the target group anyway. Just like people who need to drive 800 miles without a stop every other week aren't the target group for current EVs.

Is this a hypothetical future hardware store delivery service that enables a bus? No hardware store I have seen has a delivery service. I do a fair amount of gardening, and while most garden stores (not hardware stores, dedicated stores for landscaping and gardening) have the capability to deliver, it is always a very expensive service ($50-100 for a trip of less than 5 miles). Most cars can fit a few 8' 2x4s as well…

Home Depot and Lowes (the two largest chains in the US) both have delivery. Home Depot also has rental trucks, as does UHaul (trucks and vans) if you need to self-drive the product and decided to not own a car.

The local lumber/building supply companies also usually have delivery, though they can be harder to deal with than a consumer-oriented hardware store.

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