Downtown Freeway Loops

[badrunner]

Today I learned that the space shuttle is the slowest form of transport ever conceived by man once you include the total number of work hours required to research, develop, manufacture, operate, and maintain it. I read it in a study once, which I refuse to cite, but trust me bro.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

In case there's any question, the point is that we should design cities so that they can be fully and conveniently accessed by transit so that we can benefit from the greater efficiency it offers without losing out on mobility.

The point is you always lose out on mobility when you take transit. Even in the most transit friendly cities. You only have access to a fraction of the city.

And most people who have the means emphatically do NOT want to live in a city where they are forced to take transit everywhere. You're living in a fantasy world.

[MAC123]

^ When you design a city around cars, everyone loses out on mobility, especially the poorer of the city.

[Doady]

Average commute times for 15 largest MSAs in 2019:

New York-Newark 37.7 minutes
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim 31.7
Chicago 32.4
Dallas-Fort Worth 28.6
Houston 30.7

Washington 35.6
Miami 30.3
Philadelphia 30.8
Atlanta 32.5
Phoenix 27.9

Boston 32.6
San Francisco-Oakland 35.2
Riverside-San Bernardino 33.9
Detroit 27.5
Seattle 31.6

Detroit has much shorter commute times compared to San Francisco. Seattle has longer commute times compared to Dallas and Houston despite being half their size. Phoenix is better than Washington, DC. And of course LA is better than NYC.

Dallas, Phoenix, Detroit, these are the metropolitan areas that stand out in their tier. They are ones that should be the models for rest of their peers, if speed is the priority.

But I think NYC, Washington, SF, which also stand out in their tiers, can be models too. Cars have their own advantages in terms of efficiency too, multiple people travelling together, but the efficiency of transit in terms using energy and space cannot be denied. And I don't think there is as much conflict and contrast between cars and transit as is often suggested, and we can learn from Dallas as much from NYC.

It's walking that is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to cars, not transit. Extreme long distances vs. extreme short distances. Transit is the grey area, the middle ground, medium distances. High transit usage can be a product of auto-centric urban design as much as it is of walkable urban design. I've seen it myself growing up as a suburban transit rider. People cannot walk? Workplace too far away? Distance too far? So they are forced to use transit. If distance is even farther, then they might be forced to drive.

So getting people in these post-war subdivisions to take transit is not actually difficult or a huge accomplishment, it is just a small first step toward cycling, and then toward walking. Walkability, that is the real ultimate goal. When we start to look at transit as the ideal, as some sort of outlandish fantasy or something, something that requires tremendous commitment and investment, a huge cultural shift, complete abandonment of autocentric urban design and infrastructure, that way of thinking is the real obstacle toward reducing car dependence. High transit dependence is not as bad as high car dependence, but it is still bad.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by MAC123

^ When you design a city around cars, everyone loses out on mobility, especially the poorer of the city.

When you design a city around transit, everyone loses out on mobility, except the rich of the city, who are the only ones who get to enjoy the luxury of private vehicular transport.

[badrunner]

As a Neolithic-American I agree 100%

Walking is the only way to go. Hell, sometimes I go on 15 mile urban walks just for fun.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by badrunner

The point is you always lose out on mobility when you take transit. Even in the most transit friendly cities. You only have access to a fraction of the city.

And most people who have the means emphatically do NOT want to live in a city where they are forced to take transit everywhere. You're living in a fantasy world.

What an idiotically wrong take. By this logic you can't enter buildings if you drive a car because they don't fit through doors.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by badrunner

This is a very narrow way of measuring the efficiency of a method of transportation, and it completely misses the point.

A car isn't an efficient mode of transport because it's the cheapest way to get from point A to point B. It's an efficient form of transport because you can get from point A to any arbitrary point in your city within a reasonable amount of time. How efficient is public transit in doing the same? It simply can't do it. People keep missing the main point of driving a car.

This isn't true for every city. It's really only true if your city had depressed land values and can afford to devote a ton of space to parking.

[homebucket]

The nice thing about public transit too is not having to circle around to find parking. Often times, it can drop you right in front of where you want to be, or within a block or two. In cities with scarcity of parking, you can waste a lot of time circling around looking for street parking or inside a garage to look for an open spot, especially if there's a line of cars inside. And often times, you'd still have to walk several blocks to get to your ultimate destination.

In this case, public transit and walking is far more efficient.

[badrunner]

Today I learned that since a car only promises door-to-door mobility, instead of room-to-room mobility (did you know cars can't drive into your living room? ), the entire argument about the increased mobility of cars vis-a-vis public transit in this thread is null and void. Thanks for that totally-not-idiotically wrong take

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The nice thing about public transit too is not having to circle around to find parking. Often times, it can drop you right in front of where you want to be, or within a block or two. In cities with scarcity of parking, you can waste a lot of time circling around looking for street parking or inside a garage to look for an open spot, especially if there's a line of cars inside. And often times, you'd still have to walk several blocks to get to your ultimate destination.

In this case, public transit and walking is far more efficient.

Yeah, driving to my place, for example, is either very expensive ($$$ garages) or an exercise in circling around the block many times looking for slightly cheaper street parking, and half the time you'll end up in the garage anyway because you can only circle around for so long before going insane, particularly with the one-way streets... I guess there's valet parking on my block too during business hours, if you want to spend $$$$.

[mhays]

Cars are only economical if you forget ownership costs, public costs, and built-in commercial costs (free parking at stores etc.) They're incredibly cost-inefficient at a societal level.

Could I save 20 minutes sometimes if I had one? Sure. But 20 minutes now and then isn't worth spending thousands of dollars per year in personal costs, even without the externalities. I'll retire early instead.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The nice thing about public transit too is not having to circle around to find parking. Often times, it can drop you right in front of where you want to be, or within a block or two. In cities with scarcity of parking, you can waste a lot of time circling around looking for street parking or inside a garage to look for an open spot, especially if there's a line of cars inside. And often times, you'd still have to walk several blocks to get to your ultimate destination.

In this case, public transit and walking is far more efficient.

If I know parking is going to be an issue I'll take transit if there happens to be a station nearby. Uber is even better than transit in that case. But taking uber is still using a private vehicle, with all the advantages that come with it.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mhays

Cars are only economical if you forget ownership costs, public costs, and built-in commercial costs (free parking at stores etc.) They're incredibly cost-inefficient at a societal level.

Are cars ever "economical"? Depends on the definition of "economical", I guess. Cars are a huge money sink, but they've just become part of the cost of living in the U.S. due to lack of alternatives for much of the population.

Originally Posted by mhays

Could I save 20 minutes sometimes if I had one? Sure. But 20 minutes now and then isn't worth spending thousands of dollars per year in personal costs, even without the externalities. I'll retire early instead.

I think in a "good" city, cars aren't really that convenient.

[JManc]

You can have my heated steering wheel, surround sound and heated leather seats when you when you pry them from my cold dead hands. I love mass transit when I am traveling but doubt I can dealing with it on a daily basis.

[Velvet_Highground]

The kind of restrictive planning required to make an all encompassing mass rapid transit solution work isn’t something that is in the cards for America yet in most places. The technology is on the horizon but as long as the majority of Americans live in the burbs as they stand today the Gordian knot of inefficiency seemingly is going to be cut slowly by trial and error.

Self driving & ride sharing combined with interchange points to switch modes of transportation into more urban zones is what’s in the offing. Self driving cars can help make traffic patterns more efficient and the use of cars in general can be reevaluated as one ages and moves up the socioeconomic ladder as needs change.

Will the US reach the point of land scarcity needed to force cities to change development models doubtfully certain geographically restricted regions will but it’s hard to see in the near future a wholesale shift imo.


Touching back on the original topic Flint looks like it’s moving forward with removing I-475 a similar project to the 375 removal in Detroit but on a much larger scale. There will be a virtual meeting may 19th to discuss community input one plan has the entire freeway being replaced with a surface blvd.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Velvet_Highground

Self driving & ride sharing combined with interchange points to switch modes of transportation into more urban zones is what’s in the offing. Self driving cars can help make traffic patterns more efficient and the use of cars in general can be reevaluated as one ages and moves up the socioeconomic ladder as needs change.

Just say NO to robot cars.

[montréaliste]

Heck, even bikeshare, like carshare is a really cheap, convenient alternative to owning a bike. I would never let my bike out of view for very long. My son has a bixi (Montreal bikeshare membership that he often uses instead of his car when in the city. I mean, the annual membership cost is cheaper than a tuneup on my bike.

Carshare is definitely a potential option for a lot of people who use public transit and don’t need a car on a daily basis. My next door neighbours who also used carshare to go on two week vacation.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by JManc

You can have my heated steering wheel, surround sound and heated leather seats when you when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

Won’t your heated steering wheel be turned on?

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by JManc

You can have my heated steering wheel, surround sound and heated leather seats when you when you pry them from my cold dead hands. I love mass transit when I am traveling but doubt I can dealing with it on a daily basis.

Why do you need a heated steering wheel and heated seats in Houston? I would think cooled, ventilated seats would be preferred.