4 ms·

Coming from Paris, NYC has pretty terrible transport (and Paris’s isn’t that great either)

rayiner 7y ago
Yes, and almost everywhere else in the US has even worse transport, and it costs us five times as much to build it as Europe. Which is why the idea of banning cars in the US pretty much anywhere outside of Manhattan and maybe a few downtown roads is fanciful.
- pcwalton 7y ago
  > Which is why the idea of banning cars in the US pretty much anywhere outside of Manhattan and maybe a few downtown roads is fanciful. Perhaps the most compelling reason to do so is safety. For example, it's universally agreed that banning cars from Market St., which was approved yesterday here in San Francisco, is going to save many lives over the years. It is a very dangerous street and was never designed for the traffic configuration it has today. (Search for "sf market st deaths" on Google.) Even if you were to suppose that prohibiting private vehicle traffic on Market is just going to shuttle it onto nearby roads (which is not typically what happens, empirically, but anyway), that itself would be a large safety improvement, because it would help to separate pedestrian/bicycle/streetcar traffic from private autos.
  - octorian 7y ago
    Good 'ole San Francisco... A city that's such a pain in the arse to get in and out of by car that I basically avoid going there at all. I just wish that getting in and out of SF by public transit wasn't a 2+ hour adventure (1.5hr if you're lucky to match an express schedule), when its less than an hour of drive time.
- magduf 7y ago
  Maybe we could try not making things cost 5 times as much as over in Europe? Seriously; (western) Europe isn't exactly known as a cheap-labor place, and is generally regarded as having a lot of bureaucracy and high taxes, according to conservative Americans. So if it still costs us 5x as much to build things, then there's something obviously f-ed up here.
vonmoltke 7y ago
What, in your view, makes it terrible?

Yes, and almost everywhere else in the US has even worse transport, and it costs us five times as much to build it as Europe. Which is why the idea of banning cars in the US pretty much anywhere outside of Manhattan and maybe a few downtown roads is fanciful.

pcwalton 7y ago
> Which is why the idea of banning cars in the US pretty much anywhere outside of Manhattan and maybe a few downtown roads is fanciful. Perhaps the most compelling reason to do so is safety. For example, it's universally agreed that banning cars from Market St., which was approved yesterday here in San Francisco, is going to save many lives over the years. It is a very dangerous street and was never designed for the traffic configuration it has today. (Search for "sf market st deaths" on Google.) Even if you were to suppose that prohibiting private vehicle traffic on Market is just going to shuttle it onto nearby roads (which is not typically what happens, empirically, but anyway), that itself would be a large safety improvement, because it would help to separate pedestrian/bicycle/streetcar traffic from private autos.
- octorian 7y ago
  Good 'ole San Francisco... A city that's such a pain in the arse to get in and out of by car that I basically avoid going there at all. I just wish that getting in and out of SF by public transit wasn't a 2+ hour adventure (1.5hr if you're lucky to match an express schedule), when its less than an hour of drive time.
magduf 7y ago
Maybe we could try not making things cost 5 times as much as over in Europe? Seriously; (western) Europe isn't exactly known as a cheap-labor place, and is generally regarded as having a lot of bureaucracy and high taxes, according to conservative Americans. So if it still costs us 5x as much to build things, then there's something obviously f-ed up here.

vonmoltke 7y ago

What, in your view, makes it terrible?