4 ms·

Individually owned cars--and the infrastructure needed to support them--are a very inefficient mode of transportation, even in the use-cases that you mention.

by 16bytes 10y ago

Individually owned cars--and the infrastructure needed to support them--are a very inefficient mode of transportation, even in the use-cases that you mention. Plenty of people with children and elderly live in New York city which has among the lowest levels of car ownership in the nation. Every other method of high-density transportation is also a "human amplifier" and vastly more efficient. "Built for people" means that you aren't forced to have a car to live in a location. There are plenty of demographics that would prefer to not have a car if they could. Removing the need for car ownership would be big step forward and communities that have this property are highly sought-after.

ploxiln 10y ago
I live in NYC. I enjoy being able to take the subway to many world-class establishments in under 45 minutes. If/when I have children, I'm getting the fuck out of here. Many (most?) people do the same. There are huge numbers of people here, so of course there are lots of children here. They're either super wealthy, or really not living up to my standards for quality of life. (I was not raised in a big city.) If you see lots of children around NYC, consider the case of cars. I don't have a car in the city, and no one I know does. But there's clearly many cars all over, more than can really fit in the roads and curbs and parking garages. Having a car in NYC is a huge pain in the ass. It's not a great car experience. Same with children.
- cylinder 10y ago
  Same here. Also, the people who can afford it and have been in Manhattan their whole lives often have a car or two parked in garages. Brooklyn and Queens are still very car heavy as well. Also, after a while, those who can afford it (or those who can't but still spend) use Uber / Lyft / Gett / Juno / etc liberally. I haven't been in the subway for at least two months because I can't stand it anymore, and it's especially disgusting in summer. No car ownership is no way to live your whole life. I feel trapped here. No, I do not want to go through the hassle of renting every time I want to get out of town either. As far as daily commuting, underground systems always suck especially for longer trips. I like above ground commuter trains of hiqh quality, and I like cycling when there's investment in infrastructure and shower / lockup facilities everywhere. Unfortunately not the case.
  - arkades 10y ago
    > "I feel trapped here." Precisely. My wife was rabidly anti-car (living in the northeast) until one summer a friend went out of the country and left their car with us. The precise word she used was "free" - we were free to get groceries on the fly, we were free to go out of town. We just had an enormous number of options open up to us, as our travel overhead / travel radius improved so dramatically. It was freeing. I never had to argue with her after that; when we had the chance to acquire a car, we did.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - EarthIsHome 10y ago
    > I feel trapped here. I find this sentiment interesting because I have the complete opposite feeling that you have. In my view, NYC is light-years ahead of Atlanta (where I live) when it comes to walkability, bikeability, and public transit. I would love to live in a city like yours. Given that Atlanta is nowhere near NYC in those regards, it's weird that I feel trapped every time I get in a car here. I don't own a car because I feel free without a car. This goes to show me that even though I think NYC, Portland, Minneapolis, et al. would be amazing to live in, there are many other opinions and sentiments. :-)
- Nav_Panel 10y ago
  I feel like this comment applies to Manhattan but not greater NYC. I also live in NYC and many of my coworkers have children. They all live out in Queens, though. Areas like Forest Hills have a cute suburban feel and are car-friendly but also afford solid public transit options. Sure, it might cost more than a comparable house in the suburbs, but you can find a full house for under $1mm.
  - sotojuan 10y ago
    Plenty of non-rich people with children in Brooklyn too (Sunset Park at least).
JoshTriplett 10y ago
> Every other method of high-density transportation is also a "human amplifier" and vastly more efficient. It might be more efficient on average, if you measure in terms of throughput. It isn't more efficient for individual people, who care more about latency. I don't want to turn a 20-minute trip into a 60-minute trip to improve throughput. I do look forward to fleets of efficient self-driving cars as a better option; that could meaningfully replace driving. Trains and buses alone cannot.
- 16bytes 10y ago
  Driving is only faster in high density areas due to misappropriation of infrastructure. The subway, light rail, and dedicated bus lane can be faster than cars, especially when you factor in parking. This is the case in many areas of many cities that do have appropriate infrastructure in place. For example, I can take a dedicated bus lane into my city center in about 30 minutes, whereas driving takes at least 45 minutes during rush hour. It's faster for me to drive my bike to work than to take my car. Furthermore, if you have mixed-zoning, you probably won't have to drive 5 miles to get what you need. This isn't about making cars illegal, it's about reducing our dependence on them.
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    Yes, you can take a bus into your city center faster at rush hour. That's exactly what public transit is really good at: getting people to a common destination at a common time. Now, how fast can you get from an arbitrary point in the city to an arbitrary point in the city at an arbitrary time of day?
    - malyk 10y ago
      I just spent a couple of weeks and paris/barcelona and I'd say you could probably do it faster by subway/walking than by car especially when you figure in the cost/annoyance of finding and paying for parking. There's a huge "but" there though. We rode the metro over 30 times in those two cities and never waited for a train for more than 3 minutes. Both cities have trains coming every 4 minutes at all hours of the day (as far as I can tell). That is something we would have to fix in most US cities that have public transportation. I mean, it must feel like the third world here for a European visitor who comes to DC or SF (the two cities I'm most familiar with) and tries to ride the metro. 12 minutes between rush hour trains in DC and 20 or 24 minutes between trains in DC and SF outside of rush-hour. When you can pop into a metro that is ~5 minutes from your flat, be on the train in less than 4 minutes, and be within ~5 minutes walk of wherever you want to be...why would you own a car, pay insurance, pay for a parking spot at home, pay for gas, and then pay for parking at a location when public transit is so convenient?
Turing_Machine 10y ago
Having centralized mess halls serving bland, but nutritious meals (rather than individual kitchens and nice restaurants) and hot-bunk dorms with people sharing beds in shifts (rather than individual bedrooms) would also be "more efficient". Efficiency isn't the end-all of life.

by 16bytes 10y ago

ploxiln 10y ago

I live in NYC. I enjoy being able to take the subway to many world-class establishments in under 45 minutes. If/when I have children, I'm getting the fuck out of here. Many (most?) people do the same. There are huge numbers of people here, so of course there are lots of children here. They're either super wealthy, or really not living up to my standards for quality of life. (I was not raised in a big city.) If you see lots of children around NYC, consider the case of cars. I don't have a car in the city, and no one I know does. But there's clearly many cars all over, more than can really fit in the roads and curbs and parking garages. Having a car in NYC is a huge pain in the ass. It's not a great car experience. Same with children.

cylinder 10y ago
Same here. Also, the people who can afford it and have been in Manhattan their whole lives often have a car or two parked in garages. Brooklyn and Queens are still very car heavy as well. Also, after a while, those who can afford it (or those who can't but still spend) use Uber / Lyft / Gett / Juno / etc liberally. I haven't been in the subway for at least two months because I can't stand it anymore, and it's especially disgusting in summer. No car ownership is no way to live your whole life. I feel trapped here. No, I do not want to go through the hassle of renting every time I want to get out of town either. As far as daily commuting, underground systems always suck especially for longer trips. I like above ground commuter trains of hiqh quality, and I like cycling when there's investment in infrastructure and shower / lockup facilities everywhere. Unfortunately not the case.
- arkades 10y ago
  > "I feel trapped here." Precisely. My wife was rabidly anti-car (living in the northeast) until one summer a friend went out of the country and left their car with us. The precise word she used was "free" - we were free to get groceries on the fly, we were free to go out of town. We just had an enormous number of options open up to us, as our travel overhead / travel radius improved so dramatically. It was freeing. I never had to argue with her after that; when we had the chance to acquire a car, we did.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- EarthIsHome 10y ago
  > I feel trapped here. I find this sentiment interesting because I have the complete opposite feeling that you have. In my view, NYC is light-years ahead of Atlanta (where I live) when it comes to walkability, bikeability, and public transit. I would love to live in a city like yours. Given that Atlanta is nowhere near NYC in those regards, it's weird that I feel trapped every time I get in a car here. I don't own a car because I feel free without a car. This goes to show me that even though I think NYC, Portland, Minneapolis, et al. would be amazing to live in, there are many other opinions and sentiments. :-)
Nav_Panel 10y ago
I feel like this comment applies to Manhattan but not greater NYC. I also live in NYC and many of my coworkers have children. They all live out in Queens, though. Areas like Forest Hills have a cute suburban feel and are car-friendly but also afford solid public transit options. Sure, it might cost more than a comparable house in the suburbs, but you can find a full house for under $1mm.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Plenty of non-rich people with children in Brooklyn too (Sunset Park at least).

JoshTriplett 10y ago

> Every other method of high-density transportation is also a "human amplifier" and vastly more efficient. It might be more efficient on average, if you measure in terms of throughput. It isn't more efficient for individual people, who care more about latency. I don't want to turn a 20-minute trip into a 60-minute trip to improve throughput. I do look forward to fleets of efficient self-driving cars as a better option; that could meaningfully replace driving. Trains and buses alone cannot.

16bytes 10y ago
Driving is only faster in high density areas due to misappropriation of infrastructure. The subway, light rail, and dedicated bus lane can be faster than cars, especially when you factor in parking. This is the case in many areas of many cities that do have appropriate infrastructure in place. For example, I can take a dedicated bus lane into my city center in about 30 minutes, whereas driving takes at least 45 minutes during rush hour. It's faster for me to drive my bike to work than to take my car. Furthermore, if you have mixed-zoning, you probably won't have to drive 5 miles to get what you need. This isn't about making cars illegal, it's about reducing our dependence on them.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  Yes, you can take a bus into your city center faster at rush hour. That's exactly what public transit is really good at: getting people to a common destination at a common time. Now, how fast can you get from an arbitrary point in the city to an arbitrary point in the city at an arbitrary time of day?
  - malyk 10y ago
    I just spent a couple of weeks and paris/barcelona and I'd say you could probably do it faster by subway/walking than by car especially when you figure in the cost/annoyance of finding and paying for parking. There's a huge "but" there though. We rode the metro over 30 times in those two cities and never waited for a train for more than 3 minutes. Both cities have trains coming every 4 minutes at all hours of the day (as far as I can tell). That is something we would have to fix in most US cities that have public transportation. I mean, it must feel like the third world here for a European visitor who comes to DC or SF (the two cities I'm most familiar with) and tries to ride the metro. 12 minutes between rush hour trains in DC and 20 or 24 minutes between trains in DC and SF outside of rush-hour. When you can pop into a metro that is ~5 minutes from your flat, be on the train in less than 4 minutes, and be within ~5 minutes walk of wherever you want to be...why would you own a car, pay insurance, pay for a parking spot at home, pay for gas, and then pay for parking at a location when public transit is so convenient?

Turing_Machine 10y ago

Having centralized mess halls serving bland, but nutritious meals (rather than individual kitchens and nice restaurants) and hot-bunk dorms with people sharing beds in shifts (rather than individual bedrooms) would also be "more efficient". Efficiency isn't the end-all of life.