5 ms·

Seconded, Ghent in belgium is also pretty cool car-wise. It has so-called pedestrian-centric planning. For example, the city centre may not be entered with a ca

by dmos62 8y ago

Seconded, Ghent in belgium is also pretty cool car-wise. It has so-called pedestrian-centric planning. For example, the city centre may not be entered with a car, only by foot, bicycle or public transport. It's great. I enjoyed Musk's Boring Company's presentation, where they talk about some problems with transportation today and present some solutions, with emphasis on transportation within city borders [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwX9G38vdCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwX9G38vdCE

montenegrohugo 8y ago
Yeah, underground transportation is definitely one solution that can help solve the transportation problem. The Boring Company seems to be more US focused, so maybe it can help with the "bigger" challenges that the US is facing in de-caring their cities.
- close04 8y ago
  This isn't necessarily a transportation problem. The question is "what kind of transportation?". A full (electric) bus is vastly more efficient than 20-50 SUVs carrying nothing more than their driver regardless if you do it on the surface or underground. And you don't need tunnels or even most of today's infrastructure if most surface traffic is public transportation. Musk's idea basically focuses on moving cars underground if I understood correctly. It should focus on moving most of the public transport underground and simply "decommissioning" some of the road infrastructure from the surface. A large network of tunnels many levels deep would fix congestion in any city, no matter how large it grew (just keep adding levels). That's not the solution if still you plan on having every person and their car move around. Maintaining the infrastructure for cars on the surface is already expensive and inefficient. Suddenly we can do it better or cheaper by multiplying it underground? You won't get rid of any of today's problems except one: drivers will be able to move from one side of a city and create a traffic jam on the other in no time. Tunnels are great if you plan on connecting a few hubs spread around a city. From there you can use the most efficient surface transportation available. A bike, a bus, a tram, even on foot. One lesson that most city planners learned in time is that the more infrastructure you build for cars, the more cars you'll have clogging it. The solution is o discourage the reliance on cars in cities and it worked every time it was applied.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    > That's not the solution if still you plan on having every person and their car move around. Maintaining the infrastructure for cars on the surface is already expensive and inefficient. Suddenly we can do it better or cheaper by multiplying it underground? You won't get rid of any of today's problems except one: drivers will be able to move from one side of a city and create a traffic jam on the other in no time. That's not quite true: by completely splitting car traffic and pedestrian traffic on different levels, you can create a city which is much denser and easier to walk because you don't need large car streets, and at the bottom you don't need pedestrian affordances alongside car traffic. Plus by banning car traffic far away you disincensise car traffic within the city: it's usually easier to walk, bike or take public transport than go to the bottom, get into your car, drive, park over there and go back up. Louvain la Neuve works on that model, the city is built on a huge concrete slab and entirely pedestrian, with car traffic and parkings underslab.
    - close04 8y ago
      So the plan is to duplicate all needed infrastructure underground? Basically the equivalent of streets, parking lots, everything plus the added elevators to the surface) will now be moved on several levels of underground? The BC FAQ suggests it will have to accommodate current traffic. Isn't this an enormous waste that will only move traffic congestion underground? You can already reap most of the benefits without enormous investments in tunnels. I will point out the fact that according to Wikipedia Louvain la Neuve has ~30.000 inhabitants and ~30 square Km (12.5 sq mi). It is also 2Km on the longest side. How do you see this applied to New York or London, cities that need it the most? And why is it better to still spend billions moving infrastructure underground instead of shrinking what's already available to the point where pedestrians get the vast majority of space and the infrastructure only serves the needs of public services? > banning car traffic far away you disincensise car traffic within the city I don't know what "far away" means but in reality drivers still go out of their way to drive the car. Think about this: they are willing to spend hours in traffic jams. You think an elevator ride to level -4 will discourage them? P.S. I'm using info from BC [0] and their vision on this looks a lot like "let have the same traffic as today but on many levels of tunnels". Only the company drilling the tunnels walks away happy. You just pay a crapload of money to hide some of the issues of urban traffic. [0] https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/ https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/
CaptainZapp 8y ago
In addition Ghent must have the most awesome bars and pubs per m2 in Europe with an absolute abundant collection of premium Belgium beers.
- dmos62 8y ago
  Speaking of abundant collections of beers, this bar in Ghent, Dulle Griet, boasts a choice of 500 beers. It has a great interior, and, I was surprised to learn just now, you can go inside via Street View [0]. It has these cool multi-liter (can't remember exact capacity) beer glasses that look like something out of a chemistry lab, because of their shape, and the fact that they come with a wooden frame for support. You can see an image of one on the wall right of the bar, near the winking cartoon man and the word "MAX" in big lettering [1]. And, if you look up at the ceiling, there's a curious looking basket there. Comes evening, it has a bunch of non-matching shoes in it, because when you order that big-beer-glass-with-frame they take one of your shoes, lower the basket, put it in, and raise it again. You get the shoe back when you return the glass intact! Downside is that the bar is pricey and touristy, and most of the beers seem to be commercial. We were in this bar in Bruges last winter, it has 300 kinds of beer and all from small breweries. If a brewery is acquired by a big company, they don't serve it anymore. They also have almost no tourists there, which is refreshing for Bruges. I'll try and find what it's called. Edit: The Bruges bar is called Le Trappiste [3]. Apparently, it's well advertised in touristic literature. They even have a website. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,75y,55.74h,93.96t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipM71bYV_bcE0-A2ZMvQ2J7HcPYEMj0lgQvfldmf!2e10!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,75y,55.7... [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,28.6y,203.93h,96.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipM71bYV_bcE0-A2ZMvQ2J7HcPYEMj0lgQvfldmf!2e10!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,28.6y,20... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,51.1y,221.84h,151.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipM71bYV_bcE0-A2ZMvQ2J7HcPYEMj0lgQvfldmf!2e10!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,51.1y,22... [3] https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g188671-d4295035-Reviews-Le_Trappiste-Bruges_West_Flanders_Province.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g188671-d42950...
masklinn 8y ago
> Seconded, Ghent in belgium is also pretty cool car-wise. It has so-called pedestrian-centric planning. For example, the city centre may not be entered with a car, only by foot, bicycle or public transport. It's great. Louvain La Neuve (in french-speaking belgium) has an interesting take on this: the entire city is on a concrete slab, topside is entirely pedestrian, and underslab hosts car streets and parkings.
- anticensor 8y ago
  This technique will not work in less developed countries as one misplaced building is enough to break entire city.

by dmos62 8y ago

montenegrohugo 8y ago

Yeah, underground transportation is definitely one solution that can help solve the transportation problem. The Boring Company seems to be more US focused, so maybe it can help with the "bigger" challenges that the US is facing in de-caring their cities.

close04 8y ago
This isn't necessarily a transportation problem. The question is "what kind of transportation?". A full (electric) bus is vastly more efficient than 20-50 SUVs carrying nothing more than their driver regardless if you do it on the surface or underground. And you don't need tunnels or even most of today's infrastructure if most surface traffic is public transportation. Musk's idea basically focuses on moving cars underground if I understood correctly. It should focus on moving most of the public transport underground and simply "decommissioning" some of the road infrastructure from the surface. A large network of tunnels many levels deep would fix congestion in any city, no matter how large it grew (just keep adding levels). That's not the solution if still you plan on having every person and their car move around. Maintaining the infrastructure for cars on the surface is already expensive and inefficient. Suddenly we can do it better or cheaper by multiplying it underground? You won't get rid of any of today's problems except one: drivers will be able to move from one side of a city and create a traffic jam on the other in no time. Tunnels are great if you plan on connecting a few hubs spread around a city. From there you can use the most efficient surface transportation available. A bike, a bus, a tram, even on foot. One lesson that most city planners learned in time is that the more infrastructure you build for cars, the more cars you'll have clogging it. The solution is o discourage the reliance on cars in cities and it worked every time it was applied.
- masklinn 8y ago
  > That's not the solution if still you plan on having every person and their car move around. Maintaining the infrastructure for cars on the surface is already expensive and inefficient. Suddenly we can do it better or cheaper by multiplying it underground? You won't get rid of any of today's problems except one: drivers will be able to move from one side of a city and create a traffic jam on the other in no time. That's not quite true: by completely splitting car traffic and pedestrian traffic on different levels, you can create a city which is much denser and easier to walk because you don't need large car streets, and at the bottom you don't need pedestrian affordances alongside car traffic. Plus by banning car traffic far away you disincensise car traffic within the city: it's usually easier to walk, bike or take public transport than go to the bottom, get into your car, drive, park over there and go back up. Louvain la Neuve works on that model, the city is built on a huge concrete slab and entirely pedestrian, with car traffic and parkings underslab.
  - close04 8y ago
    So the plan is to duplicate all needed infrastructure underground? Basically the equivalent of streets, parking lots, everything plus the added elevators to the surface) will now be moved on several levels of underground? The BC FAQ suggests it will have to accommodate current traffic. Isn't this an enormous waste that will only move traffic congestion underground? You can already reap most of the benefits without enormous investments in tunnels. I will point out the fact that according to Wikipedia Louvain la Neuve has ~30.000 inhabitants and ~30 square Km (12.5 sq mi). It is also 2Km on the longest side. How do you see this applied to New York or London, cities that need it the most? And why is it better to still spend billions moving infrastructure underground instead of shrinking what's already available to the point where pedestrians get the vast majority of space and the infrastructure only serves the needs of public services? > banning car traffic far away you disincensise car traffic within the city I don't know what "far away" means but in reality drivers still go out of their way to drive the car. Think about this: they are willing to spend hours in traffic jams. You think an elevator ride to level -4 will discourage them? P.S. I'm using info from BC [0] and their vision on this looks a lot like "let have the same traffic as today but on many levels of tunnels". Only the company drilling the tunnels walks away happy. You just pay a crapload of money to hide some of the issues of urban traffic. [0] https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/ https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/

CaptainZapp 8y ago

In addition Ghent must have the most awesome bars and pubs per m2 in Europe with an absolute abundant collection of premium Belgium beers.

dmos62 8y ago
Speaking of abundant collections of beers, this bar in Ghent, Dulle Griet, boasts a choice of 500 beers. It has a great interior, and, I was surprised to learn just now, you can go inside via Street View [0]. It has these cool multi-liter (can't remember exact capacity) beer glasses that look like something out of a chemistry lab, because of their shape, and the fact that they come with a wooden frame for support. You can see an image of one on the wall right of the bar, near the winking cartoon man and the word "MAX" in big lettering [1]. And, if you look up at the ceiling, there's a curious looking basket there. Comes evening, it has a bunch of non-matching shoes in it, because when you order that big-beer-glass-with-frame they take one of your shoes, lower the basket, put it in, and raise it again. You get the shoe back when you return the glass intact! Downside is that the bar is pricey and touristy, and most of the beers seem to be commercial. We were in this bar in Bruges last winter, it has 300 kinds of beer and all from small breweries. If a brewery is acquired by a big company, they don't serve it anymore. They also have almost no tourists there, which is refreshing for Bruges. I'll try and find what it's called. Edit: The Bruges bar is called Le Trappiste [3]. Apparently, it's well advertised in touristic literature. They even have a website. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,75y,55.74h,93.96t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipM71bYV_bcE0-A2ZMvQ2J7HcPYEMj0lgQvfldmf!2e10!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,75y,55.7... [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,28.6y,203.93h,96.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipM71bYV_bcE0-A2ZMvQ2J7HcPYEMj0lgQvfldmf!2e10!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,28.6y,20... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,51.1y,221.84h,151.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipM71bYV_bcE0-A2ZMvQ2J7HcPYEMj0lgQvfldmf!2e10!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,51.1y,22... [3] https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g188671-d4295035-Reviews-Le_Trappiste-Bruges_West_Flanders_Province.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g188671-d42950...

masklinn 8y ago

> Seconded, Ghent in belgium is also pretty cool car-wise. It has so-called pedestrian-centric planning. For example, the city centre may not be entered with a car, only by foot, bicycle or public transport. It's great. Louvain La Neuve (in french-speaking belgium) has an interesting take on this: the entire city is on a concrete slab, topside is entirely pedestrian, and underslab hosts car streets and parkings.

anticensor 8y ago
This technique will not work in less developed countries as one misplaced building is enough to break entire city.