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American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

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Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#81

Post by dsnuh »

stretchwithme wrote: post #64
dsnuh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I hear this notion that autonomous vehicles will replace private car ownership in the U.S., it strikes me as a futurist pipe dream. I think truly autonomous vehicles are a long way away, if ever. The capital and construction required to totally rearrange the average American city to get to the scenarios you describe would be incredible. I also think we are underestimating the cultural aspect of car ownersh…

I think it will tke longer than most of the optimists project. But it will happen. And there will continue to be people who choose to drive. I don't see a problem with that. If anything, they will be much more capable than today's average driver, as those barely capable give up and take cabs. They will certainly receive more scrutiny, as the number of cameras on the road will explode.

If those barely capable give up and take cabs, then explain my morning commute. ;)

Seriously though, I don't see truly autonomous vehicles unless we acheive general artificial intelligence. I don't see that happening in my lifetime or my children's, but obviously I am not an optimist.

I don't know that driving skill will correlate with desire to drive or own a car. I think getting average Americans to give up their private vehicles and rely solely on public transportation or autonomous vehicles is a SV pipe dream.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#82

Post by Tiktaalik »

angarg12 wrote: post #2

I visited the US (particularly the bay area) for the first time recently, and I was baffled by the sparsity of buildings. Suburbs and shopping areas are so far away that you need a car to go anywhere, and in turn you need massive expanses to held all those vehicles, which means that stores are even more spread apart, which essentially becomes a snowball. Being used to high density housing and underground parking spac…

I've heard this referred to as the "cycle of autodependency". This graphic describes it well.

https://imgur.com/Kuu4j8m

Once you've created an auto dependent city it's really difficult to undo it.

Surrey, the biggest suburb of Vancouver, is trying to shift from being a car centric suburb to building its own compact downtown. It will take decades to change development patterns. They're trying to jump start it by creating their own LRT system, but of course due to auto dependency there is push back because LRT will "get in the way of the cars..."

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#83

Post by guelo »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #16
angarg12 wrote: post #2

I visited the US (particularly the bay area) for the first time recently, and I was baffled by the sparsity of buildings. Suburbs and shopping areas are so far away that you need a car to go anywhere, and in turn you need massive expanses to held all those vehicles, which means that stores are even more spread apart, which essentially becomes a snowball. Being used to high density housing and underground parking spac…

This is how we have had such economic growth. We use our own population as a testbed where we disintermediate all of our own cultural support systems so that everything must be hired out. Food, transport, entertainment, self concept, family, all of it has been reformed in the U.S. over the last 100 years to replace community labor with commercial relations. This means we get first dibs on these new industries (Softwa…

Wow I love this comment. Especially because I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#84

Post by stale2002 »

Derived wrote: post #45
mattlondon wrote: post #34

I always thought it was weird how there is so much parking in the centre of US cities. When I talk to colleagues in various US cities and they say they drive to work it just Does. Not. Compute . In central London, driving to work is essentially unheard of unless you are the Prime Minister. There is parking available in London, but the prices are fairly high - I just had a quick look on parkopedia [1] and it looks lik…

It's that expensive because of the population density and government meddling. There's no need for that in the US...are you saying we should artificially charge the pants off of everyone driving to work just to force them to use public transport? Why? I like my car. I like driving my car. I don't want to ride a train, or a bus. If I can work to the office, I will. I'll drive everywhere else.

It is because of government meddling that the US doesn't have high density living.

Yes, please please please let's get the government OUT of the housing market, and let's get rid of those building height limits that disallow anything above 6 stories, even though rent is in the thousands of dollars for a studio.

You should be allowed to drive your car and live in whatever low density place you want. Can you offer the same thing for me, by allowing the market to produce high density living as well?

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#85

Post by guelo »

christiangenco wrote: post #49
erikpukinskis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how we have had such economic growth. We use our own population as a testbed where we disintermediate all of our own cultural support systems so that everything must be hired out. Food, transport, entertainment, self concept, family, all of it has been reformed in the U.S. over the last 100 years to replace community labor with commercial relations. This means we get first dibs on these new industries (Softwa…

This is the first time I've heard the phrase "Guiltlessness As A Service" - from a google search I think it may be your own term? Regardless, I like it. I think you're using it to describe businesses that do things like sell carbon credits or do humanitarian work?

Or maybe he meant companies destroying the environment, or anything else, for you so you don't have to feel guilty about it.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#86

Post by jhabdas »

angarg12 wrote: post #2

I visited the US (particularly the bay area) for the first time recently, and I was baffled by the sparsity of buildings. Suburbs and shopping areas are so far away that you need a car to go anywhere, and in turn you need massive expanses to held all those vehicles, which means that stores are even more spread apart, which essentially becomes a snowball. Being used to high density housing and underground parking spac…

The Bay is the garbage dumb of modern America. I'm sorry that it left av memory. Next time head to Chitown or NYC and absorb some culture.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#87

Post by stretchwithme »

cozzyd wrote: post #68
55873445216111 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this. How do you arrive at the conclusion that autonomous taxi adoption results in a doubling of the number of cars? Do you have a link?

Because order half the time they'll be empty driving to their next pickup. The increase in ride-sharing has already greatly increased congestion: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20180316/issue01/1803...

But in the most popular areas, many cars get multiple riders and find their next rides in the same area.

And out in the boonies, some people will keep their personal cars, as it will take longer to get a ride.

Also, the average car size will shrink. Not only will we lose the driver's seat, but peak demand as people go to work may be met with even smaller one-seat cars.

You won't need a car that can handle your worst-case scenario for most of the time. Bigger cars will still be available, of course, because people do like to travel with their friends and family whenever possible.

All in all, it's a lot more likely that that most seats will be filled.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#88

Post by jschwartzi »

mandeepj wrote: post #51
mattlondon wrote: post #34

I always thought it was weird how there is so much parking in the centre of US cities. When I talk to colleagues in various US cities and they say they drive to work it just Does. Not. Compute . In central London, driving to work is essentially unheard of unless you are the Prime Minister. There is parking available in London, but the prices are fairly high - I just had a quick look on parkopedia [1] and it looks lik…

Part of it is - England is so small compared to US, which means everything is close by. Here in US, we have so much land which makes things scattered away. Hard to cover each route via public transport on such a large area

The US is spread out because we choose policies that make it easier to spread into undeveloped land than to increase density. It's not some unalterable fact such that it has to be this way.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#89

Post by stretchwithme »

dsnuh wrote: post #81
stretchwithme wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will tke longer than most of the optimists project. But it will happen. And there will continue to be people who choose to drive. I don't see a problem with that. If anything, they will be much more capable than today's average driver, as those barely capable give up and take cabs. They will certainly receive more scrutiny, as the number of cameras on the road will explode.

If those barely capable give up and take cabs, then explain my morning commute. ;) Seriously though, I don't see truly autonomous vehicles unless we acheive general artificial intelligence. I don't see that happening in my lifetime or my children's, but obviously I am not an optimist. I don't know that driving skill will correlate with desire to drive or own a car. I think getting average Americans to give up their p…

Easy to explain your commute. We don't have cheap automated cabs yet. People can't chose an option that they don't have.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#90

Post by MisterTea »

edit tl;dr there is plenty of parking where it's not needed and too little parking where it is needed.

I think the main problem is not the amount of parking but the distribution of parking. I live in NYC and avoid driving around the city as much as possible except off peak and short local runs.

The big problem is commercial centers tend to be high density and clustered together. For example, queens boulevard between Forest Hills and Rego Park has dozens of restaurants and shops where the number of parking spots on the block vs. the number of people concentrated on that block is where the problem begins. A restaurant with one or two parking spots in front might have two dozen people people inside including staff requiring at least six parking spots (assuming couples).

My neighborhood Ozone Park is in south Queens and live is a part that is a block from the A train. Super convenient location as everything is in walking distance of a few blocks including the train. There is also a school around the block. So every morning dozens of commuters pack the neighborhood looking for parking for the train and then add the teachers and other school staff who only get about two dozen reserved spots and half are blocked by construction. Your driveway is frequently partly blocked and finding street parking during weekdays is brutal until about 7-8PM.

So the blocks along the train stations are municipal free-for all parking lots. As you push out into the back areas away from the commercial cacophony there is street parking so long as the neighborhood was built with sanity meaning homes have functional driveways (most don't or can only fit a single car). And there are plenty of those areas spread throughout the city but the parking goes to waste. Then throw in neighborhoods of row houses with no driveways and again, the housing density outweighs the parking.

Face it, no planning was done for the automobile in major cities. Parking allotment is abysmal and to make things worse, maximizing the dwelling square footage is what all developers aim for to maximize the value. So there is zero incentive to build in sane parking. This is an example of a nearby 10 apartment home that was built with parking for about 8-10 vehicles if people park front to back and side-by-side underneath the front half: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.683022,-73.8445675,3a,75y,75...

Not exactly a pretty example. Down the block from me a single story ranch with a big back yard was bought by a developer, demolished and three two family homes built with the easy ability to add an illegal basement apartment with a little modding (it was so obvious when we toured them during sale). There used to be more parking on weekends before those homes went in. Now even weekend parking can be tough. And this type of development is happening all over NYC. Single family homes are bought up demolished and replaced with 4+ apartments each of which usually bring one car into the neighborhood. They also build little or no parking in. The requirements for parking are easily cheated with a long driveway that is only practical for one or two cars to use as you can't practically park six cars back to back. No one is building single family homes anymore.

Summary: it's a damn mess.

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