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While the attempt to hold public and/or private vehicles accountable for these violations is laudable, I question how these problems truly get fixed. NYC is ver
by WhompingWindows 9y ago
While the attempt to hold public and/or private vehicles accountable for these violations is laudable, I question how these problems truly get fixed. NYC is very densely populated, it has a lot of commercial transit, tourists, bikes, scooters, j-walkers, busses, Ubers, taxis, and getting these all to play nicely on the same road network seems beyond the current infrastructure and enforcement scheme. Obviously, many of the observed cases should be penalized, but some 100k annual violations in a city of over 10 million people, that's a drop in the bucket of violations.
In the long run, it seems to me that enforcement is not the solution as much as infrastructure, technology, and culture. Why not make major avenues/streets one-way and convert half the street into bike lanes, then remove bike lanes from other streets which are too narrow to allow cars/bikes/busses to move together well? Or, improve the subway infrastructure so that surface transit is less appealing by comparison. Or, create a system where we don't have public storage of privately owned vehicles in parking spots. How about the issue of vehicles that have 4 seats on average, but have <2 people in them in typical use. Buses are cheaper than trains to implement, however I've seen many massive buses often run completely empty, thus their capacity factor is definitely closer to 50% than the 100% that public transit afficionados would love to believe. Maybe we need more granularity in offering the right bus for the right job, which would be more energy and space efficient as well.
Given all these potential solutions, it remains to the rancorous and slow-moving world of representative government to play a massive role in these solutions. I can't foresee the problem getting substantially better any time soon via politics, but rather culture/technology will be a more nimble answer.
- lgregg 9y agoWhen I was in LA, I noticed that they had about 3 three different types of buses and their short/minibuses were everywhere.
- mjevans 9y agoThe actual solution is to separate the layers. Top: Human scale movement (pedestrians, non-motorized and 'very' small motor (1 HP per human mass being moved) personal transport devices (think wheel chairs and maybe slow-speed scooters/electrically assisted bikes). Mid (down): delivery / private vehicle / emergency services. Lower: Bulk public transit (subways and the like). While we're at it, put parks and recreation areas in the middle of the human level of traffic. Maybe storefronts along the sides.
- bobthepanda 9y agoThe problem is that actually grade-separating the layers is so ridiculously expensive that we don't do it. And not for lack of trying - the world is full of abandoned skywalk networks and mind-bogglingly expensive underground highway boondoggles.
- mjevans 9y agoYeah, you pretty much can't do this with unions; has to be automated robots to the Nth degree so that your only real costs are energy, time, and the environment.