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I live in a much smaller city where my total commute each day is maybe 10 minutes to basically anywhere I need to go. How do you justify the long commutes? Do y

I live in a much smaller city where my total commute each day is maybe 10 minutes to basically anywhere I need to go. How do you justify the long commutes? Do you pass the time somehow?

ghaff 9y ago
In addition to those who don't have reasonable options to move elsewhere for family and many other reasons, NYC (and Manhattan specifically) is filled with people who can't imagine living anywhere else. A lot like the Bay Area in that regard. Even those who live elsewhere (e.g. bedroom communities to the north) often have to take the subway once they reach the city by train. All of this, by the way, is a topic that's rarely discussed when people are going "build up!" and otherwise densify cities. Without the rest of the infrastructure it's a recipe for complete gridlock.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  Cities have multiple tools to handle building more infrastructure as density goes up. There's land value capture which is a tax developers (or new occupants) agree to pay on any excess value created by a transit improvement (i.e. chicken before the egg). Then there are development proffers, which requires developers to pay for certain public improvements (i.e. egg before the chicken).
  - ghaff 9y ago
    In theory. In practice, as we see, building things like new subway lines take decades. More money certainly helps but build a few skyscrapers of residential housing over the next decade and you might get incremental subway lines to support that in fifty years or so.
    - martinald 9y ago
      It shouldn't take decades though. Perhaps a decade max including planning. Other cities manage to do that. It seems to be a particularly US problem that any transport project of capital size >10bn becomes a complete disaster.
    - jdavis703 9y ago
      Then invest in things like top-end cycling infrastructure. Copenhagen has pretty bad subway infrastructure (at present it's missing some important destinations, like the central station, the M3 and M4 will create a lot of important connections). But the bike infrastructure is top-notch and high capacity. In some regards they can create a very car-lite-city by focusing so much on bicycles.

I live in a much smaller city where my total commute each day is maybe 10 minutes to basically anywhere I need to go. How do you justify the long commutes? Do you pass the time somehow?

ghaff 9y ago

In addition to those who don't have reasonable options to move elsewhere for family and many other reasons, NYC (and Manhattan specifically) is filled with people who can't imagine living anywhere else. A lot like the Bay Area in that regard. Even those who live elsewhere (e.g. bedroom communities to the north) often have to take the subway once they reach the city by train. All of this, by the way, is a topic that's rarely discussed when people are going "build up!" and otherwise densify cities. Without the rest of the infrastructure it's a recipe for complete gridlock.

jdavis703 9y ago
Cities have multiple tools to handle building more infrastructure as density goes up. There's land value capture which is a tax developers (or new occupants) agree to pay on any excess value created by a transit improvement (i.e. chicken before the egg). Then there are development proffers, which requires developers to pay for certain public improvements (i.e. egg before the chicken).
- ghaff 9y ago
  In theory. In practice, as we see, building things like new subway lines take decades. More money certainly helps but build a few skyscrapers of residential housing over the next decade and you might get incremental subway lines to support that in fifty years or so.
  - martinald 9y ago
    It shouldn't take decades though. Perhaps a decade max including planning. Other cities manage to do that. It seems to be a particularly US problem that any transport project of capital size >10bn becomes a complete disaster.
  - jdavis703 9y ago
    Then invest in things like top-end cycling infrastructure. Copenhagen has pretty bad subway infrastructure (at present it's missing some important destinations, like the central station, the M3 and M4 will create a lot of important connections). But the bike infrastructure is top-notch and high capacity. In some regards they can create a very car-lite-city by focusing so much on bicycles.