4 ms·

Proven technology around since the beginning of time - walking. The rest of the world love it. We should give it a try.

briandear 10y ago
Is that why the streets are empty and you can always find a parking space in London? How about downtown Shanghai? Or Rome? Or the suburbs of Guadalajara? This qualifies as some of the rest of the world and all of the places mentioned are traffic nightmares. It must be all of the walkers clogging up the roads. As far as the rest of the world loving it, that's ridiculous. The mom in rural Kenya walking miles each day for water.. I bet she'd love a car. When you have to get to a meeting and its 40C outside, I'm sure a brisk walk would be just adorable. Not everyone can afford to live within walking distance.
- vanderZwan 10y ago
  The walking remark by GP was perhaps a bit snarky, but there is a deeper point to be made: if the problem is caused by cars, limiting your view to designing better cars is not a smart strategy (don't get me wrong: we should build better, safer, smarter cars, they just shouldn't be the only potential solution we look at). Something something Ford something "faster horses". There's public transport, there's biking, even segways and hoverboards and those motorised skateboards everyone loves, and the list goes on. All of which are technologies which themselves can be improved too. Taking bikes as an example, since I'm most familiar with those: Dutch infrastructure is practically built around it[0] and for the vast majority of trips, which are short-distance, it is a far better solution than cars. (of course the Netherlands is unfairly advantaged here, being compact and flat, but that does not make bikes useless elsewhere). For long distance trips a combination of public transport and a locally rented bike is usually all you need to get around. Amsterdam is a famously bike friendly capital, but all our cities are, really, and especially in smaller ones like Groningen it is the de-facto mode of transportation[1][2]. As for your Kenya example, in most contexts bikes are arguably a better solution in developing countries than cars: it needs no fuel, is simple enough to fix yourself, possible to make from local materials even (see Ghana's bamboo bikes[4] for example), less dependent on roads and existing infrastructure and still enough of a time and energy saver that it brings a lot of wealth to the people who own one. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/markenlei/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/markenlei/videos [1] https://vimeo.com/76207227 https://vimeo.com/76207227 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/29/how-groningen-invented-a-cycling-template-for-cities-all-over-the-world https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/29/how-groningen... [4] http://ghanabamboobikes.org/en/ http://ghanabamboobikes.org/en/
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I agree about the point of different transport options, but then if you want to go full-efficiency with public transport, you have the concept of PRT[0]... which when you look at it you realize it's exactly what Tesla is aiming for with autonomous electric car fleets. So in this case yes, designing a better car may be a big part of the solution. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
    - vanderZwan 10y ago
      Oh yes, absolutely! The other worrying bits there are the need for a standard, for which we have the always relevant xkcd[0], and this: > The report also concluded that, despite these advantages, public authorities will not commit to building PRT because of the risks associated with being the first public implementation. Of course, there's also the question of whether this will be more or less efficient than a smart fleet of buses, for example. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- andys627 10y ago
  Yes there are bad things too. I contend the bad things about car societies are worse. Not everyone can afford to not live in walking distance... we probably can't even afford it.

Is that why the streets are empty and you can always find a parking space in London? How about downtown Shanghai? Or Rome? Or the suburbs of Guadalajara? This qualifies as some of the rest of the world and all of the places mentioned are traffic nightmares. It must be all of the walkers clogging up the roads. As far as the rest of the world loving it, that's ridiculous. The mom in rural Kenya walking miles each day for water.. I bet she'd love a car. When you have to get to a meeting and its 40C outside, I'm sure a brisk walk would be just adorable. Not everyone can afford to live within walking distance.

vanderZwan 10y ago
The walking remark by GP was perhaps a bit snarky, but there is a deeper point to be made: if the problem is caused by cars, limiting your view to designing better cars is not a smart strategy (don't get me wrong: we should build better, safer, smarter cars, they just shouldn't be the only potential solution we look at). Something something Ford something "faster horses". There's public transport, there's biking, even segways and hoverboards and those motorised skateboards everyone loves, and the list goes on. All of which are technologies which themselves can be improved too. Taking bikes as an example, since I'm most familiar with those: Dutch infrastructure is practically built around it[0] and for the vast majority of trips, which are short-distance, it is a far better solution than cars. (of course the Netherlands is unfairly advantaged here, being compact and flat, but that does not make bikes useless elsewhere). For long distance trips a combination of public transport and a locally rented bike is usually all you need to get around. Amsterdam is a famously bike friendly capital, but all our cities are, really, and especially in smaller ones like Groningen it is the de-facto mode of transportation[1][2]. As for your Kenya example, in most contexts bikes are arguably a better solution in developing countries than cars: it needs no fuel, is simple enough to fix yourself, possible to make from local materials even (see Ghana's bamboo bikes[4] for example), less dependent on roads and existing infrastructure and still enough of a time and energy saver that it brings a lot of wealth to the people who own one. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/markenlei/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/markenlei/videos [1] https://vimeo.com/76207227 https://vimeo.com/76207227 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/29/how-groningen-invented-a-cycling-template-for-cities-all-over-the-world https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/29/how-groningen... [4] http://ghanabamboobikes.org/en/ http://ghanabamboobikes.org/en/
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I agree about the point of different transport options, but then if you want to go full-efficiency with public transport, you have the concept of PRT[0]... which when you look at it you realize it's exactly what Tesla is aiming for with autonomous electric car fleets. So in this case yes, designing a better car may be a big part of the solution. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
  - vanderZwan 10y ago
    Oh yes, absolutely! The other worrying bits there are the need for a standard, for which we have the always relevant xkcd[0], and this: > The report also concluded that, despite these advantages, public authorities will not commit to building PRT because of the risks associated with being the first public implementation. Of course, there's also the question of whether this will be more or less efficient than a smart fleet of buses, for example. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
andys627 10y ago
Yes there are bad things too. I contend the bad things about car societies are worse. Not everyone can afford to not live in walking distance... we probably can't even afford it.