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Absolutely this, and then the real estate in the 'job centers' in dense urban areas that have streets removed or lanes cut down to turn into bike lanes vastly j

Absolutely this, and then the real estate in the 'job centers' in dense urban areas that have streets removed or lanes cut down to turn into bike lanes vastly jump up in price because you have to be within a bus ride or bike ride to work to get those good jobs, thus demand outstrips supply. Commuting 90+ minutes from the suburbs is a non-starter for most. Look at how much it costs to live in SF, London, Paris, etc. Applauding these methods is questionable, it certainly doesn't help people trying to find work and puts up a barrier to entry to access these desirable jobs. Its massively gentries those areas which makes sure the only kinds of people able to get those jobs are the already well-off. I find it ironic that HN'ers complain about SF and other big city pricing, but also encourage 'lock in' strategies like over-use of bike lanes, elimination of parking lots, and anti-car policies that only make real estate more expensive.

njs12345 10y ago
All of the places you listed have massive problems with NIMBYism. If the places a 30 minute cycle away from the City of London had the residential density of Hong Kong, what do you think house prices would be like?
LordKano 10y ago
We're seeing this happen in my city. Areas that were on the verge of becoming urban wastelands 15 years ago are now upscale. They won't ever admit it but city planners are trying to use economic forces to reverse the white flight of the 60s and 70s by pushing poorer, darker people out into the suburbs and attracting a more affluent, whiter demographic into the city. They're billing these things as quality of life enhancements but all they're doing is making traffic less tolerable. This city has half the population it did 60 years ago and the commute is as terrible as ever.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  I live in one of these areas and very close to my downtown job, and when I first started my career I absolutely couldn't afford to live here. Worse, the never-ending clamor of removing more traffic lanes for bike lanes continues on, even as traffic only gets worse. There's definitely an aspect of "I got mine, fuck you" at work here and definitely an attraction to keeping the 'wrong' people out. I find myself thinking like this sometimes and try very hard to fight it. I find the bike crowd is almost exclusively white and relatively well off and I don't think that's a coincidence. I also think there's something wonderful about having streets and enough traffic capacity to allow people access to every part of the city and region. We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign especially in my town where bike lane usage is low and 6 months out of the year unusable due to the cold.
  - LordKano 10y ago
    Here, the bike lanes are unusable from November through March but the mayor keeps pushing to have them added at the expense of car lanes.
  - jimlawruk 10y ago
    I kinda wish this would happen in my city, where motorists rule, and the brave cyclists are treated like inferior annoyances. I do agree these "rich" areas should not be limited to a select few.
    - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
      Yes its really 'brave' to ignore all traffic laws and scream at pedestrians while you dangerously weave in traffic with headphones on and without a helmet because "bikes are more nimble than cars, so the rules don't apply to us." Lets stop with the generalizations. There are shitty bikers the same way there are shitty drivers, the difference is shitty drivers get ticketed while shitty bikers function with impunity.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        > while shitty bikers function with impunity. Plenty of cyclists get tickets, even if they're fully compliant with law, because some police are so ignorant of what the laws are.
        LordKano 10y ago
        You must disabuse yourself of the notion that it's the job of the police to enforce the law. It's their job to enforce order.
      - awjr 10y ago
        Shitty drivers kill.
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    >We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign I'm not sure what do you mean. Do you imply that poor people cannot afford to walk or cycle, only to go by car? Where I live this is pretty much the opposite, but I'm pretty sure even where you live a not so well off guy can also park the car, get out and walk into a street reserved for walking. If those bikers are so well off, they probably won't steal the car.
galdosdi 10y ago
Don't be ridiculous. Very little of your 90 minute suburb commute is attributable to bike lanes and narrower lanes downtown. That probably adds 3 minutes. NYCDOT has done many studies, and sometimes it even speeds traffic up because there's less lane changing in dense traffic, which wastes lane-time. Adding bike lanes also tends to make motorists and pedestrians (but paradoxically, not really cyclists) safer. You're welcome. Most of your crap commute is caused by too many drivers on the freeway and arterial roads, where you spend most of your stop-and-go time. The bigger problem is you insist on an absurdly large amount of living space (which is what causes all the sprawl and traffic) If you compromise on this, then in most US cities you can get a reasonable commute at a reasonable price
- closeparen 10y ago
  Having lived in a hacker-house bunk, a 600sqft 1-bedroom is in fact not an absurd amount of living space to insist on, yet affording one (while keeping the commute to 60 minutes each way) requires driving part of the way. It's hard not to scream at the people telling me I should go back to a many-roommates situation, or lose even more than 10 hours a week commuting. The average car travel time to work in the US is 25 minutes [0], by the way. [0] https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html#5.00/42.000/-89.500 https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html#5.00/42...
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    Yes, that IS an absurd amount of room to insist on. No wonder we have a housing crisis. 600 square feet is enough for about TEN rooms of size 6x10 each. Think about that. Maybe it's arranged very poorly. Typical arrangements make it easy to waste lots of room. Also, if you grew up with lots of space and have never lived smaller, maybe it takes a while to get used to how to arrange things more efficiently? Source: I live in 330 square feet, and have for many years (though I lived in 300sqft before that, and it was too small -- mainly because of the layout, which was square, which minimized perimeter; railroad layout feels much more spacious)
mdpye 10y ago
London and Paris both have metro systems which can carry you significantly further than a car significantly faster. In London there are not significant numbers of people driving to work compared with public transport.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  The problem with light rail is that it doesn't go far enough. Whether your commune is 90 minutes on a commuter train to light rail or 90 minute in a car is moot. Light rail didn't fix the problem of absurd real estate costs in those cities.
- tzs 10y ago
  > In London there are not significant numbers of people driving to work compared with public transport Unless there have been big chances since 2013, about 60% as many people drive to work in London as take public transport [1] [2]. That's pretty significant. According to that BBC story, as of 2013 1/3 of London workers relied on a car or van to get to work in London. 1/5 took the underground. Then came bus and train, then walking, then cycling. According to one of the graphs in the report itself, which breaks down the categories more, about 28% of London workers get to work by car where they are the driver of the car. It looks like all public transit combined covers about 50%. Biking and walking cover about 15% (11% to walking, 4% to biking). The remaining 5% is mostly people working at home. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25175752 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25175752 [2] http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/car-and-the-commute-web-version.pdf http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/d...

njs12345 10y ago

All of the places you listed have massive problems with NIMBYism. If the places a 30 minute cycle away from the City of London had the residential density of Hong Kong, what do you think house prices would be like?

LordKano 10y ago

We're seeing this happen in my city. Areas that were on the verge of becoming urban wastelands 15 years ago are now upscale. They won't ever admit it but city planners are trying to use economic forces to reverse the white flight of the 60s and 70s by pushing poorer, darker people out into the suburbs and attracting a more affluent, whiter demographic into the city. They're billing these things as quality of life enhancements but all they're doing is making traffic less tolerable. This city has half the population it did 60 years ago and the commute is as terrible as ever.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
I live in one of these areas and very close to my downtown job, and when I first started my career I absolutely couldn't afford to live here. Worse, the never-ending clamor of removing more traffic lanes for bike lanes continues on, even as traffic only gets worse. There's definitely an aspect of "I got mine, fuck you" at work here and definitely an attraction to keeping the 'wrong' people out. I find myself thinking like this sometimes and try very hard to fight it. I find the bike crowd is almost exclusively white and relatively well off and I don't think that's a coincidence. I also think there's something wonderful about having streets and enough traffic capacity to allow people access to every part of the city and region. We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign especially in my town where bike lane usage is low and 6 months out of the year unusable due to the cold.
- LordKano 10y ago
  Here, the bike lanes are unusable from November through March but the mayor keeps pushing to have them added at the expense of car lanes.
- jimlawruk 10y ago
  I kinda wish this would happen in my city, where motorists rule, and the brave cyclists are treated like inferior annoyances. I do agree these "rich" areas should not be limited to a select few.
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    Yes its really 'brave' to ignore all traffic laws and scream at pedestrians while you dangerously weave in traffic with headphones on and without a helmet because "bikes are more nimble than cars, so the rules don't apply to us." Lets stop with the generalizations. There are shitty bikers the same way there are shitty drivers, the difference is shitty drivers get ticketed while shitty bikers function with impunity.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      > while shitty bikers function with impunity. Plenty of cyclists get tickets, even if they're fully compliant with law, because some police are so ignorant of what the laws are.
      - LordKano 10y ago
        You must disabuse yourself of the notion that it's the job of the police to enforce the law. It's their job to enforce order.
    - awjr 10y ago
      Shitty drivers kill.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  >We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign I'm not sure what do you mean. Do you imply that poor people cannot afford to walk or cycle, only to go by car? Where I live this is pretty much the opposite, but I'm pretty sure even where you live a not so well off guy can also park the car, get out and walk into a street reserved for walking. If those bikers are so well off, they probably won't steal the car.

galdosdi 10y ago

Don't be ridiculous. Very little of your 90 minute suburb commute is attributable to bike lanes and narrower lanes downtown. That probably adds 3 minutes. NYCDOT has done many studies, and sometimes it even speeds traffic up because there's less lane changing in dense traffic, which wastes lane-time. Adding bike lanes also tends to make motorists and pedestrians (but paradoxically, not really cyclists) safer. You're welcome. Most of your crap commute is caused by too many drivers on the freeway and arterial roads, where you spend most of your stop-and-go time. The bigger problem is you insist on an absurdly large amount of living space (which is what causes all the sprawl and traffic) If you compromise on this, then in most US cities you can get a reasonable commute at a reasonable price

closeparen 10y ago
Having lived in a hacker-house bunk, a 600sqft 1-bedroom is in fact not an absurd amount of living space to insist on, yet affording one (while keeping the commute to 60 minutes each way) requires driving part of the way. It's hard not to scream at the people telling me I should go back to a many-roommates situation, or lose even more than 10 hours a week commuting. The average car travel time to work in the US is 25 minutes [0], by the way. [0] https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html#5.00/42.000/-89.500 https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html#5.00/42...
- galdosdi 10y ago
  Yes, that IS an absurd amount of room to insist on. No wonder we have a housing crisis. 600 square feet is enough for about TEN rooms of size 6x10 each. Think about that. Maybe it's arranged very poorly. Typical arrangements make it easy to waste lots of room. Also, if you grew up with lots of space and have never lived smaller, maybe it takes a while to get used to how to arrange things more efficiently? Source: I live in 330 square feet, and have for many years (though I lived in 300sqft before that, and it was too small -- mainly because of the layout, which was square, which minimized perimeter; railroad layout feels much more spacious)

mdpye 10y ago

London and Paris both have metro systems which can carry you significantly further than a car significantly faster. In London there are not significant numbers of people driving to work compared with public transport.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
The problem with light rail is that it doesn't go far enough. Whether your commune is 90 minutes on a commuter train to light rail or 90 minute in a car is moot. Light rail didn't fix the problem of absurd real estate costs in those cities.
tzs 10y ago
> In London there are not significant numbers of people driving to work compared with public transport Unless there have been big chances since 2013, about 60% as many people drive to work in London as take public transport [1] [2]. That's pretty significant. According to that BBC story, as of 2013 1/3 of London workers relied on a car or van to get to work in London. 1/5 took the underground. Then came bus and train, then walking, then cycling. According to one of the graphs in the report itself, which breaks down the categories more, about 28% of London workers get to work by car where they are the driver of the car. It looks like all public transit combined covers about 50%. Biking and walking cover about 15% (11% to walking, 4% to biking). The remaining 5% is mostly people working at home. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25175752 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25175752 [2] http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/car-and-the-commute-web-version.pdf http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/d...