7 ms·

Public roads are a public transit system. A very useful and productive one. Before paved roads and trucks, many towns and farms were only served by a single rai

Public roads are a public transit system. A very useful and productive one. Before paved roads and trucks, many towns and farms were only served by a single rail line. If competing water transportation was not available, the private railroads would charge extremely high rates, extracting all excess production of the area. The coming of public paved roads and trucks was blessing. Many roads are now past capacity much of the time, which makes them much less useful, and many modern cities have been designed only for people in cars (is there a word like bicyclist for a person in a car?) instead of people walking, which is definitely a mistake. But the high speed, point to point, on demand, variable cargo, transit system of public roads is a great thing. Deride and shame it at your peril. We need to improve the road system in many ways. Some possibilities are congestion pricing, lots of tunnels, and public spaces people can walk to from their homes, but to believe some externally controlled system for transit is what we should shoot for as a society, I think, is mistaken.

adrianN 8y ago
"Motorist" is commonly used for people in motor vehicles. The problem with cars is that they use so much space. Not only while in transit, but especially when parked. Look at how much prime real estate is devoted to parking in typical American cities. That reduces density and makes cars more important, a vicious circle. The most liveable cities are those where little transport is needed because most things one wants to do are within walking or cycling distance. Such city planning is at odds with car centric designs.
- njarboe 8y ago
  A single passenger vehicle could have a parking footprint about 1/10th of what they currently have. My hope is that we could have electric bikes that are like a mountain bike, can go in bike lanes (at slow speed) or on the street but can go fast enough to take on a freeway.
  - BerislavLopac 8y ago
    I'm still disappointed that Segway hasn't become more popular as a concept.
    - lylecubed 8y ago
      It's too slow. You can ride a bike faster than you can ride a segway. It's healthier for you, too. And, as I said to the parent, at least half the US is under snow 4-6 months of the year. A transit system that is not 100% enclosed, heated and air conditioned is a non-starter.
  - lylecubed 8y ago
    There's no way to make ebikes safe at 70mph. Plus, quite a bit of the US is under snow 4-6 months of the year.
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      You can achieve 20+% biking mode share in wintry places like Finland: https://torontoist.com/2017/02/what-toronto-can-learn-about-winter-cycling-from-oulu/ https://torontoist.com/2017/02/what-toronto-can-learn-about-...
    - njarboe 8y ago
      As safe as a smallish motor cycle? I would think so. But "safe"? The word describes a feeling a person has, so unless you specify some kind of measurable metric, like "50% of the population would feel safe using it" or fatalities per mile would never be less than 3 times that of cars, using it is just you personal feeling about things. Useful to you but not so useful to people that don't know what safe means to you.
      - lylecubed 8y ago
        > As safe as a smallish motor cycle? I would think so. No. Compare even a beefed up e-bike like the greyp to a smaller motorcycle like a Suzuki DR-Z400 SM. The wheels, fork, frame, rear swingarm, geometry and rake are all different. They need to be to handle freeway speeds safely. By the time you've souped up an ebike to be as safe as a motorcycle at high speed, you've converted it into a motorcycle. Those same changes make it less nimble, and therefore less useful, as a mountain bike. I'm not sure I would mix even small motorcycles in with bicycles on a public road. > Useful to you but not so useful to people that don't know what safe means to you. I'm an avid motorcyclist, but most people are not. They don't feel comfortable going those speeds unless they have a cage lined with airbags around them. The fatality statistics suggest they're not crazy for wanting such a thing.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    A single passenger vehicle could have this. The (American) market has shown that people overwhelmingly do not like small personal cars when presented with other options, without the distorting effect of subsidies and tax breaks.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      Unfortunately there has been a 25% import tax on trucks since the 1970's and only a 2.5% tax on import cars. Is it any wonder that somehow(marketing for decades) people have been convinced that only losers would drive a minivan (counted as a car). If someone like Apple or another new company could make a one passenger car really cool looking and inexpensive (Say $5-10k), probably electric, small enough so a least two go into a regular parking space, and a way that those people can share spots, it might just take off. Imagine that when you went to the city, if you see an empty spot in your mini transport, you park. No spots? Well you can park with someone else with a mini (and share the price). Set this sharing up in software and let the cars automatically switch positions, if needed, and I think you could have a real winner. Maybe three or six could fit in one spot. Electric cars sucked and only really strange, low status, people drove them. Post Tesla, I would say that is not the case any more. Similar thing could work here.
      - bobthepanda 8y ago
        I mean, there are still small status cars with good marketing (Mini) and those are not really that small, nor do they sell as well as large cars. You can blame it on marketing, but it's still a problem. What you're proposing just moves cars into the "small, cheap, and shabby" category; people buy cars for status, not just economics.
        MrMorden 8y ago
        The current MINIs' size is, for the most part, dictated by safety requirements. They don't sell as well as large cars because they're BMWs and are priced accordingly. Kei cars (which are similar in size to the classic Mini) do sell large volumes in Japan and are quite cheap, but they don't meet the aforementioned safety requirements (in either the US or EU) and their sales numbers are heavily inflated because you don't need proof of off-street parking to register one.
  - jashkenas 8y ago
    Could have, can go, and most certainly do! It's spelled m-o-t-o-r-c-y-c-l-e. And it's a wonderful way to get around both city and country. Motorbikes reduce overall traffic, can fit about 8-10 vehicles into a car parking footprint, have generally low fuel emissions (and can be even lower — lots of new small bikes get ~80 mpg in real world use), and never have trouble finding parking. Speaking for myself, it makes commuting from the East Bay into San Francisco, not just tolerable, but something to look forward to. 21-25 minutes door to door at peak rush hour; park for free; the view from the bridge is superb. Of course, the danger of cruising through a flood of slow-moving, angry, distracted, stop-and-go car traffic is considerable — but there's good reason to think (CA CHP motorcycle cop accident statistics) that it doesn't have to be much more dangerous than driving in the first place.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      I ride myself. But having one that could transition into using a bike lane would be even better. I hope if automatic cars ever work, then requirements for getting a drivers license can be dramatically increased and riding a motorcycle won't seem dangerous to the general populaton.
- xorcist 8y ago
  > Look at how much prime real estate is devoted to parking in typical American cities. Not just in the US, but everywhere. Given that most cars are in use for a tiny fraction of their lifetime, they occupy real estate somewhere. Dedicating public space to parking is a huge subsidizing for motorists not often discussed. If parking was market priced on par with commercial or residental dwellings congestion would become less of a problem but not many people would be able to drive in the larger cities around the world. The latter is a very hard sell for voters for whom cars are of the bigger investments they've made. But in the larger scope of things it's probably akin to throwing good money after bad.
bobthepanda 8y ago
Problem is that point to point is not scalable. Automated platoons only work in highway settings, not in urban areas where pedestrians and cyclists need to cross traffic at regular intervals very frequently. (The American experience shows that even erecting large physical barriers to crossing roads does not work.) And you can't build more roads to get out of this mess, because we have tried and tried and tried and even 26 lanes is not enough to decongest a highway [1]. The new thing is congestion management. Schedule deliveries only for off-peak or evening/night hours. Charge tolls to maintain traffic flow, as high as needed (I-66's market clearing price for a single lane was at one point $46.75 [2]). And above all, stop mandating parking with buildings, and disallow bundling of off-street parking with rent. [1] - https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2016/09/11/braess-paradox-and-the-katy-freeway/ https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2016/09/11/braess-paradox... [2] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/03/05/the-toll-on-i-66-hit-46-75-for-solo-drivers-monday-morning/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.32a81bddd761 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/03/0...
- njarboe 8y ago
  You can scale with tunnels. I also suggested congestion pricing in my last paragraph. Having congestion pricing on highways is also a good idea because it can reveal the price people are willing to pay for uncongested travel. That gives people an idea on how much a tunnel could make and motivate spending money on building it.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    Tunnels right now are way too expensive per lane mile. And you also need interchanges to connect surface with tunnels, which runs into the same space issues that exist above ground. Yes, the Boring Company is suggesting we can somehow solve this expensive tunnel problem with sleds for cars and vertical elevators, but those are all proof of concepts, and in any case they would probably be less reliable than current infrastructure due to the addition of more moving parts.
    - njarboe 8y ago

adrianN 8y ago

"Motorist" is commonly used for people in motor vehicles. The problem with cars is that they use so much space. Not only while in transit, but especially when parked. Look at how much prime real estate is devoted to parking in typical American cities. That reduces density and makes cars more important, a vicious circle. The most liveable cities are those where little transport is needed because most things one wants to do are within walking or cycling distance. Such city planning is at odds with car centric designs.

njarboe 8y ago
A single passenger vehicle could have a parking footprint about 1/10th of what they currently have. My hope is that we could have electric bikes that are like a mountain bike, can go in bike lanes (at slow speed) or on the street but can go fast enough to take on a freeway.
- BerislavLopac 8y ago
  I'm still disappointed that Segway hasn't become more popular as a concept.
  - lylecubed 8y ago
    It's too slow. You can ride a bike faster than you can ride a segway. It's healthier for you, too. And, as I said to the parent, at least half the US is under snow 4-6 months of the year. A transit system that is not 100% enclosed, heated and air conditioned is a non-starter.
- lylecubed 8y ago
  There's no way to make ebikes safe at 70mph. Plus, quite a bit of the US is under snow 4-6 months of the year.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    You can achieve 20+% biking mode share in wintry places like Finland: https://torontoist.com/2017/02/what-toronto-can-learn-about-winter-cycling-from-oulu/ https://torontoist.com/2017/02/what-toronto-can-learn-about-...
  - njarboe 8y ago
    As safe as a smallish motor cycle? I would think so. But "safe"? The word describes a feeling a person has, so unless you specify some kind of measurable metric, like "50% of the population would feel safe using it" or fatalities per mile would never be less than 3 times that of cars, using it is just you personal feeling about things. Useful to you but not so useful to people that don't know what safe means to you.
    - lylecubed 8y ago
      > As safe as a smallish motor cycle? I would think so. No. Compare even a beefed up e-bike like the greyp to a smaller motorcycle like a Suzuki DR-Z400 SM. The wheels, fork, frame, rear swingarm, geometry and rake are all different. They need to be to handle freeway speeds safely. By the time you've souped up an ebike to be as safe as a motorcycle at high speed, you've converted it into a motorcycle. Those same changes make it less nimble, and therefore less useful, as a mountain bike. I'm not sure I would mix even small motorcycles in with bicycles on a public road. > Useful to you but not so useful to people that don't know what safe means to you. I'm an avid motorcyclist, but most people are not. They don't feel comfortable going those speeds unless they have a cage lined with airbags around them. The fatality statistics suggest they're not crazy for wanting such a thing.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  A single passenger vehicle could have this. The (American) market has shown that people overwhelmingly do not like small personal cars when presented with other options, without the distorting effect of subsidies and tax breaks.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    Unfortunately there has been a 25% import tax on trucks since the 1970's and only a 2.5% tax on import cars. Is it any wonder that somehow(marketing for decades) people have been convinced that only losers would drive a minivan (counted as a car). If someone like Apple or another new company could make a one passenger car really cool looking and inexpensive (Say $5-10k), probably electric, small enough so a least two go into a regular parking space, and a way that those people can share spots, it might just take off. Imagine that when you went to the city, if you see an empty spot in your mini transport, you park. No spots? Well you can park with someone else with a mini (and share the price). Set this sharing up in software and let the cars automatically switch positions, if needed, and I think you could have a real winner. Maybe three or six could fit in one spot. Electric cars sucked and only really strange, low status, people drove them. Post Tesla, I would say that is not the case any more. Similar thing could work here.
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      I mean, there are still small status cars with good marketing (Mini) and those are not really that small, nor do they sell as well as large cars. You can blame it on marketing, but it's still a problem. What you're proposing just moves cars into the "small, cheap, and shabby" category; people buy cars for status, not just economics.
      - MrMorden 8y ago
        The current MINIs' size is, for the most part, dictated by safety requirements. They don't sell as well as large cars because they're BMWs and are priced accordingly. Kei cars (which are similar in size to the classic Mini) do sell large volumes in Japan and are quite cheap, but they don't meet the aforementioned safety requirements (in either the US or EU) and their sales numbers are heavily inflated because you don't need proof of off-street parking to register one.
- jashkenas 8y ago
  Could have, can go, and most certainly do! It's spelled m-o-t-o-r-c-y-c-l-e. And it's a wonderful way to get around both city and country. Motorbikes reduce overall traffic, can fit about 8-10 vehicles into a car parking footprint, have generally low fuel emissions (and can be even lower — lots of new small bikes get ~80 mpg in real world use), and never have trouble finding parking. Speaking for myself, it makes commuting from the East Bay into San Francisco, not just tolerable, but something to look forward to. 21-25 minutes door to door at peak rush hour; park for free; the view from the bridge is superb. Of course, the danger of cruising through a flood of slow-moving, angry, distracted, stop-and-go car traffic is considerable — but there's good reason to think (CA CHP motorcycle cop accident statistics) that it doesn't have to be much more dangerous than driving in the first place.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    I ride myself. But having one that could transition into using a bike lane would be even better. I hope if automatic cars ever work, then requirements for getting a drivers license can be dramatically increased and riding a motorcycle won't seem dangerous to the general populaton.
xorcist 8y ago
> Look at how much prime real estate is devoted to parking in typical American cities. Not just in the US, but everywhere. Given that most cars are in use for a tiny fraction of their lifetime, they occupy real estate somewhere. Dedicating public space to parking is a huge subsidizing for motorists not often discussed. If parking was market priced on par with commercial or residental dwellings congestion would become less of a problem but not many people would be able to drive in the larger cities around the world. The latter is a very hard sell for voters for whom cars are of the bigger investments they've made. But in the larger scope of things it's probably akin to throwing good money after bad.

bobthepanda 8y ago

Problem is that point to point is not scalable. Automated platoons only work in highway settings, not in urban areas where pedestrians and cyclists need to cross traffic at regular intervals very frequently. (The American experience shows that even erecting large physical barriers to crossing roads does not work.) And you can't build more roads to get out of this mess, because we have tried and tried and tried and even 26 lanes is not enough to decongest a highway [1]. The new thing is congestion management. Schedule deliveries only for off-peak or evening/night hours. Charge tolls to maintain traffic flow, as high as needed (I-66's market clearing price for a single lane was at one point $46.75 [2]). And above all, stop mandating parking with buildings, and disallow bundling of off-street parking with rent. [1] - https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2016/09/11/braess-paradox-and-the-katy-freeway/ https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2016/09/11/braess-paradox... [2] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/03/05/the-toll-on-i-66-hit-46-75-for-solo-drivers-monday-morning/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.32a81bddd761 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/03/0...

njarboe 8y ago
You can scale with tunnels. I also suggested congestion pricing in my last paragraph. Having congestion pricing on highways is also a good idea because it can reveal the price people are willing to pay for uncongested travel. That gives people an idea on how much a tunnel could make and motivate spending money on building it.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  Tunnels right now are way too expensive per lane mile. And you also need interchanges to connect surface with tunnels, which runs into the same space issues that exist above ground. Yes, the Boring Company is suggesting we can somehow solve this expensive tunnel problem with sleds for cars and vertical elevators, but those are all proof of concepts, and in any case they would probably be less reliable than current infrastructure due to the addition of more moving parts.
  - njarboe 8y ago