2 ms·

Yeah sure, there's all kinds of ways to pack lots of people into a little space and get them marginally close to where they started from and where they need to

by bane 11y ago

Yeah sure, there's all kinds of ways to pack lots of people into a little space and get them marginally close to where they started from and where they need to get to. But there's still the first and last legs of that journey. Even in Paris, where no spot in the city is further than 500m from a station, means you may still have to walk a km in the worst case. It's fine when holding nothing, now do it with a couple armfuls of groceries or whatever. A car free city eliminates cars, which carry around big empty storage boxes in the back all day, and can go from right where you are to right where you need to go. Bikes are an "ok" solution for some segment of the population, but not for every. A quick example, my 80+ year old father, who walks with difficulty with a cane, would not be able to live in a car free, train only city at all, and bikes are not an option for him for the same reasons. But he still insists on working every day because retirement bored him. There's lots of people like my father, old, handicapped, both, how do you design a mass transit system that can accommodate people like him? That's why transit systems designed by healthy 20-40 something internet forum people are usually bad ideas, they optimize for these kind of best-case scenarios, but there's so many edge cases in humans that these solutions work poorly in general. Cars work well in general, but a terribly many of them in places like NYC are personal vehicles used for just a few minutes a day, adding to congestion. There's only ~13k Taxis in NYC and ~40k other for-hire vehicles. What if we doubled those numbers, and killed off all other personal non-business vehicles entirely (the majority of vehicles in the city)? Sounds like that solves pretty much all of the problems. Okay it doesn't solve all of the problems, you still have to deal with Taxi drivers.

upofadown 11y ago
>It's fine when holding nothing, now do it with a couple armfuls of groceries or whatever. Fortunately, these days, we have advanced shopping bag technology. We no longer have to carry our groceries in our arms. Heck, I know this is out there, some people have even mastered the use of shopping carts.
Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
Bikes can actually be better for people with mobility issues than cars. Biking is pretty low impact and uses less energy than walking, so for some people for whom walking is a challenge, biking might be possible. With safe bike infrastructure, these people can still get around without cars. As a bonus, the exercise will keep them mobile longer. > There's lots of people like my father, old, handicapped, both, how do you design a mass transit system that can accommodate people like him? You build an ADA compliant system. Compare the NYC subway, built long before the ADA, and the DC Metro. Except when elevators are broken (a big problem given WMATA's incompetent stewardship of the system), you can use pretty much the entire DC metro system in a wheelchair. Escalators are in every station. In Japan IIRC there were markings in the walkways of train stations, airports, and sidewalks to help the blind navigate, and we could incorporate that in the States.
- bane 11y ago
  > You build an ADA compliant system. Right, the system can be very easy to get around in, but it's the system to destination legs that can be impossible. This is almost always bridged with some kind of handicapped-accessible bus system in addition to the normal bus system. But then we're back to surface vehicles. Trains can never provide door-to-door service, it's a classic "last mile" problem.
TheCoelacanth 11y ago
I would never suggest eliminating car travel; just providing more efficient alternatives for the most common use cases. 90% or more of people are physically capable of using mass transit. Why should they take up 30 times as much space as they need to just because the other 10% need to use a less efficient means of transportation?

by bane 11y ago

upofadown 11y ago

>It's fine when holding nothing, now do it with a couple armfuls of groceries or whatever. Fortunately, these days, we have advanced shopping bag technology. We no longer have to carry our groceries in our arms. Heck, I know this is out there, some people have even mastered the use of shopping carts.

Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago

Bikes can actually be better for people with mobility issues than cars. Biking is pretty low impact and uses less energy than walking, so for some people for whom walking is a challenge, biking might be possible. With safe bike infrastructure, these people can still get around without cars. As a bonus, the exercise will keep them mobile longer. > There's lots of people like my father, old, handicapped, both, how do you design a mass transit system that can accommodate people like him? You build an ADA compliant system. Compare the NYC subway, built long before the ADA, and the DC Metro. Except when elevators are broken (a big problem given WMATA's incompetent stewardship of the system), you can use pretty much the entire DC metro system in a wheelchair. Escalators are in every station. In Japan IIRC there were markings in the walkways of train stations, airports, and sidewalks to help the blind navigate, and we could incorporate that in the States.

bane 11y ago
> You build an ADA compliant system. Right, the system can be very easy to get around in, but it's the system to destination legs that can be impossible. This is almost always bridged with some kind of handicapped-accessible bus system in addition to the normal bus system. But then we're back to surface vehicles. Trains can never provide door-to-door service, it's a classic "last mile" problem.

TheCoelacanth 11y ago

I would never suggest eliminating car travel; just providing more efficient alternatives for the most common use cases. 90% or more of people are physically capable of using mass transit. Why should they take up 30 times as much space as they need to just because the other 10% need to use a less efficient means of transportation?