3 ms·

>It makes no sense to take entire lanes out of service for the tiny minority of people who can integrate biking into their daily commute. Cart meet horse. I be

>It makes no sense to take entire lanes out of service for the tiny minority of people who can integrate biking into their daily commute. Cart meet horse. I believe we have to "build it and they will come." It's a 'tiny minority' (well, minority) due largely to lack of infrastructure (bike lanes, sharrowed roads with modest speed limits, &c.). Then, you hit upon the other issue... >And for most people in the US, public transit is not an option because you have a last mile problem at both the starting point and ending point. America needs more transit everywhere, and maybe more importantly, we need to dissolve the notion that mass transit is not just how low-income people solve transportation. I love meeting New Yorkers and Chicagoans and their ilk because they are already on board with transit, they just don't continue use in newCity because the coverage is inadequate. Playing devil's advocate for the car culture we do face the fact that the USA is huge and our cities have sprawled as a result. This makes cycling end to end take way more effort and often dictates that there be some powered locomotion to cover the bulk of the distance. And that's where transport fits perfectly. Tl;dr. There's a symbiosis that needs to happen between bikes and transit to achieve critical mass and this wider adoption in urban centers. If we find strategies that get us to that tipping point then I think wider change is possible. (me: currently commute by bike-bus-bike and previously did bike only (26 miles/day. I'll admit, the LA climate is a big help with this, no doubt.)

AceyMan 7y ago
[errata] s/not just/only in ¶ starts "America needs ..." (I double-negatived myself after an edit <shrug>.)
- kqr 7y ago
  Pah, you could as well have gone full sed: /^America needs/,+4s/not just/only/
rayiner 7y ago
> America needs more transit everywhere, and maybe more importantly, we need to dissolve the notion that mass transit is not just how low-income people solve transportation. Transit is completely impractical in almost all the places where most Americans live and work. We’re talking about a commute that starts in a suburban cul-de-sac and ends in a suburban office park. Where would you put the transit lines? There is also the issue of speed. If you have enough lines and stop to actually cover most people (it would have to be bus service, anything else would be completely unfeasible economically), the commutes would be dog slow. America has among the shortest commutes in the OECD, because our whole country is built around point-to-point car trips. There is a saying: you won’t excel if you constantly beat your head against your weaknesses. Our country is structurally not set up for transit, and our political systems are incapable of the coordinated effort necessary to make transit work. Atlanta is never going to be walkable like Paris, any more than Paris is ever going to get an orderly street grid like Chicago. And even if you tore down Atlanta and rebuilt it as a walkable city you’ll never convince Americans to walk or bike long distances in 90 degree weather/90 percent humidity. Trying to make it so is a fool’s errand. Focus on the things America can do: electric vehicles, etc.
- lmm 7y ago
  > Transit is completely impractical in almost all the places where most Americans live and work. We’re talking about a commute that starts in a suburban cul-de-sac and ends in a suburban office park. Where would you put the transit lines? Again, chicken and egg. You need density to get to a point where non-car commutes are practical, and you won't get that as long as you build car-first. It wouldn't be practical to turn the whole country into Manhattan overnight. But at every level there are steps that localities can take to make things marginally better: permitting higher density housing, permitting housing and offices to be built close together, reducing or eliminating street parking. And the various bits of better cycling or transit infrastructure add up: add secure bike parking to the office park and a few hardy souls will start cycling, then you'll gain more value from adding bike lanes, which in turn will get more people switching and then more extensive infrastructure becomes more affordable. Start giving buses priority at lights and more people take the bus, then it becomes more practical to build rail lines along the busiest corridors, and so on. > our political systems are incapable of the coordinated effort necessary to make transit work. Political systems are made up of people, and as the newer generation takes over the system responds to their wants. Many people want denser neighbourhoods and better transit and they are - slowly but surely - starting to get them. > And even if you tore down Atlanta and rebuilt it as a walkable city you’ll never convince Americans to walk or bike long distances in 90 degree weather/90 percent humidity. Sounds like a similar climate to Hong Kong, which is famously low-car. No doubt many parts of the US will not have great transit for centuries. But that's not a reason to avoid building it in the places where it will work. If you look at many places that are now famously low-car, there was a similar level of skepticism when they first started introducing bike lanes etc..
  - rayiner 7y ago
    > Again, chicken and egg. You need density to get to a point where non-car commutes are practical, and you won't get that as long as you build car-first. The simple fact that you're missing is that the country is already built.
    - lmm 7y ago

AceyMan 7y ago

[errata] s/not just/only in ¶ starts "America needs ..." (I double-negatived myself after an edit <shrug>.)

kqr 7y ago
Pah, you could as well have gone full sed: /^America needs/,+4s/not just/only/

rayiner 7y ago

> America needs more transit everywhere, and maybe more importantly, we need to dissolve the notion that mass transit is not just how low-income people solve transportation. Transit is completely impractical in almost all the places where most Americans live and work. We’re talking about a commute that starts in a suburban cul-de-sac and ends in a suburban office park. Where would you put the transit lines? There is also the issue of speed. If you have enough lines and stop to actually cover most people (it would have to be bus service, anything else would be completely unfeasible economically), the commutes would be dog slow. America has among the shortest commutes in the OECD, because our whole country is built around point-to-point car trips. There is a saying: you won’t excel if you constantly beat your head against your weaknesses. Our country is structurally not set up for transit, and our political systems are incapable of the coordinated effort necessary to make transit work. Atlanta is never going to be walkable like Paris, any more than Paris is ever going to get an orderly street grid like Chicago. And even if you tore down Atlanta and rebuilt it as a walkable city you’ll never convince Americans to walk or bike long distances in 90 degree weather/90 percent humidity. Trying to make it so is a fool’s errand. Focus on the things America can do: electric vehicles, etc.

lmm 7y ago
> Transit is completely impractical in almost all the places where most Americans live and work. We’re talking about a commute that starts in a suburban cul-de-sac and ends in a suburban office park. Where would you put the transit lines? Again, chicken and egg. You need density to get to a point where non-car commutes are practical, and you won't get that as long as you build car-first. It wouldn't be practical to turn the whole country into Manhattan overnight. But at every level there are steps that localities can take to make things marginally better: permitting higher density housing, permitting housing and offices to be built close together, reducing or eliminating street parking. And the various bits of better cycling or transit infrastructure add up: add secure bike parking to the office park and a few hardy souls will start cycling, then you'll gain more value from adding bike lanes, which in turn will get more people switching and then more extensive infrastructure becomes more affordable. Start giving buses priority at lights and more people take the bus, then it becomes more practical to build rail lines along the busiest corridors, and so on. > our political systems are incapable of the coordinated effort necessary to make transit work. Political systems are made up of people, and as the newer generation takes over the system responds to their wants. Many people want denser neighbourhoods and better transit and they are - slowly but surely - starting to get them. > And even if you tore down Atlanta and rebuilt it as a walkable city you’ll never convince Americans to walk or bike long distances in 90 degree weather/90 percent humidity. Sounds like a similar climate to Hong Kong, which is famously low-car. No doubt many parts of the US will not have great transit for centuries. But that's not a reason to avoid building it in the places where it will work. If you look at many places that are now famously low-car, there was a similar level of skepticism when they first started introducing bike lanes etc..
- rayiner 7y ago
  > Again, chicken and egg. You need density to get to a point where non-car commutes are practical, and you won't get that as long as you build car-first. The simple fact that you're missing is that the country is already built.
  - lmm 7y ago