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Unfortunately, New York City was built at a time when people rode horses, and its streets reflect that. And you can't just widen a street, certainly not in a ci
by HenryKissinger 7y ago
Unfortunately, New York City was built at a time when people rode horses, and its streets reflect that. And you can't just widen a street, certainly not in a city like NYC. You would have to destroy every building on one side of a street, and build new buildings, all for a gain of a few feet.
Large megapolises like NYC need to start exploring the concept of 3D streets. Instead of having a single street level, on the ground, start building skyways between skyscrapers, where both cars and pedestrians can move. Take 45th Street. You could build a second street 20m above the ground, straddling the buildings on the eastern side of the street. You build ramps at both ends, and you build your aerial street through the buildings. This would require heavy modifications, if not outright reconstruction, of the buildings in question, but this is the way of the future for large, dense cities in this millenium. Our current approach to city design is primitive, and quite frankly medieval. We still build cities the way we built them in the Middle Ages: independent of one another, standing next to each other. But as NYC's traffic woes show, this is not enough anymore. If you want to reduce traffic in large cities, without restricting car ownership, then you need to make way for more cars.
Or you could go underground. But I don't know if that's a viable option in a city with a subway, and straddled by rivers. You would need to protect your underground highways from water infiltration. And you can't hollow the ground below your city too much, lest the millions of tons of steel and cement and glass above the ground start collapsing.
Tl;dr we need to start building Coruscant.
- adrianN 7y agoOr you could just remove cars from the streets and replace them with much more efficient modes of transportation that don't require two tons of steel and forty square meters per person.
- steve_adams_86 7y agoHow would you get cars up to the roads 20m above the ground? How would you handle maintenance of buildings connected to suspended roads? Are there seismic safeguards for structures like this? All real questions, I'm fascinated by this idea but clueless as to how it could be implemented.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Swizec 7y ago> without restricting car ownership Why? This seems like an unnecessary optimization in a city like NYC where the population density already makes it largely unnecessary to own a personal vehicle. I live in SF which is also among the densest cities in USA and in my 5 years here never have I felt like I'd need to own a car. They're inconvenient and expensive. Most of my day-to-day is easier to accomplish on foot because I'd spend longer looking for parking than it would take me to walk there. Not having a car saves a bunch of money. Around $8,000/year according to a quick internet search on car ownership. That's a nice chunk of change. Yes that means I have to get an Uber or rent a car sometimes. Especially for longer trips. About $2,000 last year according to my expense tracker. Convenience and cost aside, optimizing for car ownership doesn't make sense from an environmental perspective either.
- chroma 7y agoTaking public transportation in the bay area is incredibly stressful. I've had people try to fight me. I've had people threaten to stab me. I've had people smoke meth on the same car as me. Hell, last year one of my friends was robbed at gunpoint on bart. If these services were run by a private company, they would be shut down for safety violations. I much prefer cars because it means I don't have to worry about vagrants, crazy people, and generally annoying assholes (such as those who play their music out of speakers instead of using headphones).
- inferiorhuman 7y agoTaking public transportation in the bay area is incredibly stressful. Counterpoint: all of the shootings up and down the I-80 corridor, wrong way drivers, sideshows, and road rage. https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/Update-4-Killed-In-Wrong-Way-Hwy-101-Collision-14491067.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/Update-4-Killed-... https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/06/25/traffic-stop-in-richmond-turns-into-chase-shooting-suspect-arrested/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/06/25/traffic-stop-in-rich... https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/05/05/chp-seeks-weekend-i-80-injury-shooting-suspect/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/05/05/chp-seeks-weekend-i-... https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/09/14/shooting-in-vallejo-shuts-down-east-i-80/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/09/14/shooting-in-vallejo-... https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/07/10/video-police-release-body-cam-footage-in-fatal-i-80-officer-involved-shooting/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/07/10/video-police-release... https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/27/fremont-police-investigate-report-of-gunfire-between-vehicles/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/27/fremont-police-inves... https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Shooting-on-I-880-in-Oakland-Shuts-Down-Freeway-513067391.html https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Shooting-on-I-880-in-O... https://patch.com/california/sanleandro/shooting-i-880-chp-seeks-witnesses https://patch.com/california/sanleandro/shooting-i-880-chp-s... https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Bay-Area-Police-Crack-Down-on-Sideshows-559021241.html https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Bay-Area-Police-Crack-... https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/06/03/oakland-weekend-sideshows-police-crackdown/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/06/03/oakland-weekend... https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/05/09/mother-of-four-killed-in-road-rage-confrontation-for-no-reason-prosecutor-says/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/05/09/mother-of-four-kille...
- Pfhreak 7y agoWhen has building more roads for cars ever resulted in fixing traffic. The solution isn't to try and make the city more car friendly, it's to remove the cars entirely. Move to streetcars, subways, trains, busses, anything that moves crowds of people rather than 1-5 people. Cars are such an incredibly inefficient model for moving people around in dense areas -- every person gets their own engine, several chairs, storage areas, and a couple tons of metal? > If you want to reduce traffic in large cities, without restricting car ownership. You don't have to restrict car ownership to make people stop owning cars. Just make the alternative much better -- why would I need to own a car if public transit served my every need and I could take a zipcar/car2go/taxi for those rare, rare cases when I needed my own vehicle?
- rocqua 7y agoInduced demand means that more roads won't fix traffic. It will however, mean more people get to travel. There is real value in that.
- erik_seaberg 7y agoLatent demand does exist (not "induced", it was always there!) but it isn't infinite. There's a point where you could actually have enough supply. They just don't want to spend that much money and knock down that many buildings (give up Manhattan's density), so they say it wouldn't work.
- riffic 7y agoIt seems pretty fortunate that New York was built in the way it has to me. Your entire premise is backwards bud.
- chrstphrknwtn 7y agoRem Koolhaus calls this thinking the “culture of congestion” in his 1978 book “Delirious New York”. It’s fascinating, and these ideas have all been explored before. Have multi-level streets ever worked?
- maxsilver 7y ago> Have multi-level streets ever worked? They work well everywhere they've ever been built. Chicago is probably the most well known example.
- smileysteve 7y agoSan Francisco decided the opposite
- aiddun 7y agoAs a corollary to that, I can’t believe that the FDR is only 3 lanes at most points. It’s ridiculous for a road with that should in practice be a highway.
- point78 7y agoThis makes no sense whatsoever and probably one of the worst ideas I ever read on HN. Banning cars works very well along with pedestrian streets and public transport in Europe.
- keiferski 7y agoRobert Moses, is that you?
- manigandham 7y agoCar ownership isn't affected. It's car usage within the city that would be banned. There are much better transit options for dense cities like subways, light rail, bikes, and small electric shuttles. I do agree with skyways though. It would be great to have multiple levels of pedestrian and bike transit that isn't shared with heavier vehicles, and the views would be fantastic. It reminds me of the Highline: https://www.thehighline.org/about/ https://www.thehighline.org/about/
- bontaq 7y agoI mean it sounds like you're proposing something like the failed project to put an elevated highway at 30th st http://www.nycroads.com/roads/mid-manhattan/ http://www.nycroads.com/roads/mid-manhattan/ There's no reason for it, we should continue removing cars from the roads because then there is no traffic. I think the incoming toll for cars to enter manhattan below 42nd or so, plus removing through traffic on 14th st, are great steps.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoI mean it sounds like you're proposing something like the failed project to put an elevated highway at 30th st How about CA-480[0]? Bringing down the elevated freeway made the Embarcadero a MUCH nicer area to be in. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_480 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_480
- shmerl 7y ago> Tl;dr we need to start building Coruscant. Or Taris.
- teddyh 7y agoTrantor.