4 ms·

The point is to provide options - sure, if your job requires a car/truck you're obviously not going to use public transit. If you're in poor physical health, yo

The point is to provide options - sure, if your job requires a car/truck you're obviously not going to use public transit. If you're in poor physical health, you probably can't take standard public transit - though accessibility options often exist. If you travel with kids often you might be less inclined to take transit (though plenty of people with kids do anyways). But if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of other people in a major metro who don't fall into those categories, you'd probably appreciate the option to not have to obtain a personal vehicle or use it exclusively for your commute, errands, a night on the town, etc.... and the best part is that for all the remaining people who do drive, every person who takes transit is one less person contributing to traffic congestion! Transit options benefit everyone. Your comment reads like you don't support transit options because they don't suit your particular tastes - I suggest you instead consider advocating for transit to make life better for both yourself and your community, regardless of whether you personally use transit or not.

closeparen 10y ago
Options are great. However, many on HN take the stance that we should push people to public transit by eliminating parking and closing (some) streets to vehicle traffic because density leads to bus routes and bicycles are intimidated by cars. That's not an option so much as a mandatory shift. I'd be fine making that shift if the public transit deployed today were actually good enough to be a like-for-like replacement of car ownership. It isn't unless you live in very expensive conveniently located neighborhoods.
- pm24601 10y ago
  Society should STOP accommodate individual lifestyle choices that are not in society's best interest. You say: > should push people to public transit by eliminating parking and closing (some) streets to vehicle traffic because density leads to bus routes and bicycles are intimidated by cars. That's not an option so much as a mandatory shift I say society should stop giving away publicly owned real estate to the narrow segment of people who want to make driving their lifestyle choice. I would prefer that the parking lots be replaced with something more economically valuable. For example, 1. stores 2. apartments 3. office space. Take a look at Louisville's "award winning" parking crater: http://brokensidewalk.com/2016/parking-crater/?utm_content=buffer5a5a5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer http://brokensidewalk.com/2016/parking-crater/?utm_content=b... What is the economic value of so much real estate devoted to machine storage? --- < $0 ( because it takes away from the economic value of surrounding businesses ) If someone wants to drive then they can pay for the privilege. In the meantime, the rest of society should spend the money saved to make the automobile a museum curiosity.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    We have cars and roads because they massively increase the land area within n minutes of a destination relative to demand, which is the only way most of us are able to live in a decent home and not spend our whole lives commuting. You'll notice that affordability is emphatically not a feature of high-rise, parking-starved, conveniently located urban neighborhoods. The economic value of parking is in the thousands of dollars per person per month not spent on rent to be within walking distance, and the free time not sacrificed to low-speed transportation. The people who drive to those stores from ~20 miles around would not necessarily have any money left to spend once they are forced to find homes within 2 or 3, or no will to visit them once transit times from affordable neighborhoods increase from ~15 minutes by freeway to ~90 by bicycle. Despite the environmental benefits, living within walking distance of downtown offices and amenities is the most ostentatious and fiscally wasteful choice modern humans seem to be proud of making. What we need to STOP doing is humoring the notion that spending big on urban rent is somehow more virtuous than an equivalently priced vacation or designer handbag, and especially that public policy ought to increase the pressure to spend ever-increasing proportions of income on land value. You want to kill cars, find a suitable replacement. Paying more for less housing, living with roommates, or multiplying commute times are not acceptable approaches. Bedroom communities around actually good (fast, frequent, reliable, comfortable) commuter rail systems are a lot more compelling. Getting the rent differential between city center and suburb down below the threshold of TCO on a basic car would help too.
    - pm24601 10y ago
      Really? Average cost per year to own a car is $9000 per the AAA website. Car storage has its own cost to cities - because parking lots generate no /little property taxes or sales tax. Many Americans disagree about the value of walkability. ( https://www.houselogic.com/save-money-add-value/save-on-utilities/does-walkability-raise-property-values/ https://www.houselogic.com/save-money-add-value/save-on-util...) : > If you’re able to walk instead of drive to the store for a gallon of milk, you and your neighborhood home values may benefit from the exercise. A 2009 study sponsored by CEOs for Cities, a national consortium of civic and business leaders, found that homes in neighborhoods with good walkability are more valuable than similar homes in neighborhoods where residents have to drive to get to amenities. > Walkability adds anywhere from $4,000 to $34,000 to home values, according to the study. The bigger, more urban the city (think San Francisco or Chicago), the bigger the boost in home prices walkability adds. Neighborhoods in cities with less dense populations like Tucson, Ariz., or Fresno, Calif., have the smallest boost in home prices from being walkable. > The availability of public transportation also played a role. The higher home values tended to show up in walkable neighborhoods near good public transportation where people could live without an automobile.

closeparen 10y ago

Options are great. However, many on HN take the stance that we should push people to public transit by eliminating parking and closing (some) streets to vehicle traffic because density leads to bus routes and bicycles are intimidated by cars. That's not an option so much as a mandatory shift. I'd be fine making that shift if the public transit deployed today were actually good enough to be a like-for-like replacement of car ownership. It isn't unless you live in very expensive conveniently located neighborhoods.

pm24601 10y ago
Society should STOP accommodate individual lifestyle choices that are not in society's best interest. You say: > should push people to public transit by eliminating parking and closing (some) streets to vehicle traffic because density leads to bus routes and bicycles are intimidated by cars. That's not an option so much as a mandatory shift I say society should stop giving away publicly owned real estate to the narrow segment of people who want to make driving their lifestyle choice. I would prefer that the parking lots be replaced with something more economically valuable. For example, 1. stores 2. apartments 3. office space. Take a look at Louisville's "award winning" parking crater: http://brokensidewalk.com/2016/parking-crater/?utm_content=buffer5a5a5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer http://brokensidewalk.com/2016/parking-crater/?utm_content=b... What is the economic value of so much real estate devoted to machine storage? --- < $0 ( because it takes away from the economic value of surrounding businesses ) If someone wants to drive then they can pay for the privilege. In the meantime, the rest of society should spend the money saved to make the automobile a museum curiosity.
- closeparen 10y ago
  We have cars and roads because they massively increase the land area within n minutes of a destination relative to demand, which is the only way most of us are able to live in a decent home and not spend our whole lives commuting. You'll notice that affordability is emphatically not a feature of high-rise, parking-starved, conveniently located urban neighborhoods. The economic value of parking is in the thousands of dollars per person per month not spent on rent to be within walking distance, and the free time not sacrificed to low-speed transportation. The people who drive to those stores from ~20 miles around would not necessarily have any money left to spend once they are forced to find homes within 2 or 3, or no will to visit them once transit times from affordable neighborhoods increase from ~15 minutes by freeway to ~90 by bicycle. Despite the environmental benefits, living within walking distance of downtown offices and amenities is the most ostentatious and fiscally wasteful choice modern humans seem to be proud of making. What we need to STOP doing is humoring the notion that spending big on urban rent is somehow more virtuous than an equivalently priced vacation or designer handbag, and especially that public policy ought to increase the pressure to spend ever-increasing proportions of income on land value. You want to kill cars, find a suitable replacement. Paying more for less housing, living with roommates, or multiplying commute times are not acceptable approaches. Bedroom communities around actually good (fast, frequent, reliable, comfortable) commuter rail systems are a lot more compelling. Getting the rent differential between city center and suburb down below the threshold of TCO on a basic car would help too.
  - pm24601 10y ago
    Really? Average cost per year to own a car is $9000 per the AAA website. Car storage has its own cost to cities - because parking lots generate no /little property taxes or sales tax. Many Americans disagree about the value of walkability. ( https://www.houselogic.com/save-money-add-value/save-on-utilities/does-walkability-raise-property-values/ https://www.houselogic.com/save-money-add-value/save-on-util...) : > If you’re able to walk instead of drive to the store for a gallon of milk, you and your neighborhood home values may benefit from the exercise. A 2009 study sponsored by CEOs for Cities, a national consortium of civic and business leaders, found that homes in neighborhoods with good walkability are more valuable than similar homes in neighborhoods where residents have to drive to get to amenities. > Walkability adds anywhere from $4,000 to $34,000 to home values, according to the study. The bigger, more urban the city (think San Francisco or Chicago), the bigger the boost in home prices walkability adds. Neighborhoods in cities with less dense populations like Tucson, Ariz., or Fresno, Calif., have the smallest boost in home prices from being walkable. > The availability of public transportation also played a role. The higher home values tended to show up in walkable neighborhoods near good public transportation where people could live without an automobile.