6 ms·

If you have single lane streets, what does an emergency vehicle do when the lane is blocked by vehicles, people, or debris? Wouldn't wider streets be better in

If you have single lane streets, what does an emergency vehicle do when the lane is blocked by vehicles, people, or debris? Wouldn't wider streets be better in every case?

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Wider streets are good for getting a lot of stuff through - up to a limit. Los Angeles and Atlanta are full of massive highways of cars that barely move. Larger streets also hurt street side commerce. Nothing chokes off wakability and storefront business vitality like multi-lane one-way streets. EDIT: I feel compelled to mention from my experience that in Rome, the most active streets with the most vibrant businesses were not the arterial roadways - those seemed to mainly serve large businesses, government buildings, and tourist traps - but rather the tiny twisted streets in place for many centuries.
- zardo 10y ago
  I think open straight streets don't fire up our spacial memory in the same way, and as a result aren't really "places" in our minds in the same way as more intricate and varied environments.
mikey_p 10y ago
Recent Philadelphian transplant here: They move or take a different street. It's interesting that people here have accepting that if they're driving and a taxi stops to drop someone off, they just wait 30 seconds to proceed, or backup and take a side street over a few blocks to proceed around the blockage.
chris_7 10y ago
If you have a narrow street, less people drive, and thus there is no issue getting an ambulance through. I see ambulances stuck in traffic on Manhattan avenues all the time (we should put grade-separated bus lanes on all of them, IMO, partially so that ambulances can always get through).
- MajorLOL 10y ago
  >If you have a narrow street, less people drive, and thus there is no issue getting an ambulance through. Huh? If you limit supply, demand goes down? Your logic would say that the solution to Los Angles traffic problems is to close half the lanes and wait for people to sell off their cars?
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    Yes. To decrease demand, you limit supply so that the price goes up. This can work dramatically if you increase price high enough that alternatives are cheaper. In the case of transportation, price is measured in time and convenience as well as dollars.
    - MajorLOL 10y ago
      So we want to shrink our road infrastructure to drive the cost up in terms of pollution, fuel costs, time and convenience? This way less people will drive. I would propose that you are forgetting that you are going to price transport into the hands of the wealthy and business who will effectively rent-seek to loan cars or taxi people who cant afford a car around. The idea of shrinking our roadways to discourage use of vehicles is challenging in a practical sense and it just cleaves off another aspect of life for business and the wealthy to enjoy without plebs interfering with the roadways they paid & still pay for.
  - hx87 10y ago
    > Huh? If you limit supply, demand goes down? It works for cars, since there are acceptable alternatives (biking, walking, carpooling, Uber, etc). It works less well for housing, as leftist NIMBYs often advocate, since one alternative (homelessness) is very unappealing, and the other (living somewhere else) just exports the problem.
  - nchammas 10y ago
    Relevant reading: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_destruction * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_traffic

If you have single lane streets, what does an emergency vehicle do when the lane is blocked by vehicles, people, or debris? Wouldn't wider streets be better in every case?

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

Wider streets are good for getting a lot of stuff through - up to a limit. Los Angeles and Atlanta are full of massive highways of cars that barely move. Larger streets also hurt street side commerce. Nothing chokes off wakability and storefront business vitality like multi-lane one-way streets. EDIT: I feel compelled to mention from my experience that in Rome, the most active streets with the most vibrant businesses were not the arterial roadways - those seemed to mainly serve large businesses, government buildings, and tourist traps - but rather the tiny twisted streets in place for many centuries.

zardo 10y ago
I think open straight streets don't fire up our spacial memory in the same way, and as a result aren't really "places" in our minds in the same way as more intricate and varied environments.

mikey_p 10y ago

Recent Philadelphian transplant here: They move or take a different street. It's interesting that people here have accepting that if they're driving and a taxi stops to drop someone off, they just wait 30 seconds to proceed, or backup and take a side street over a few blocks to proceed around the blockage.

chris_7 10y ago

If you have a narrow street, less people drive, and thus there is no issue getting an ambulance through. I see ambulances stuck in traffic on Manhattan avenues all the time (we should put grade-separated bus lanes on all of them, IMO, partially so that ambulances can always get through).

MajorLOL 10y ago
>If you have a narrow street, less people drive, and thus there is no issue getting an ambulance through. Huh? If you limit supply, demand goes down? Your logic would say that the solution to Los Angles traffic problems is to close half the lanes and wait for people to sell off their cars?
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  Yes. To decrease demand, you limit supply so that the price goes up. This can work dramatically if you increase price high enough that alternatives are cheaper. In the case of transportation, price is measured in time and convenience as well as dollars.
  - MajorLOL 10y ago
    So we want to shrink our road infrastructure to drive the cost up in terms of pollution, fuel costs, time and convenience? This way less people will drive. I would propose that you are forgetting that you are going to price transport into the hands of the wealthy and business who will effectively rent-seek to loan cars or taxi people who cant afford a car around. The idea of shrinking our roadways to discourage use of vehicles is challenging in a practical sense and it just cleaves off another aspect of life for business and the wealthy to enjoy without plebs interfering with the roadways they paid & still pay for.
- hx87 10y ago
  > Huh? If you limit supply, demand goes down? It works for cars, since there are acceptable alternatives (biking, walking, carpooling, Uber, etc). It works less well for housing, as leftist NIMBYs often advocate, since one alternative (homelessness) is very unappealing, and the other (living somewhere else) just exports the problem.
- nchammas 10y ago
  Relevant reading: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_destruction * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_traffic