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No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit
- Tepix 7y agoJust the fact that riding a bicycle got more attractive and 25% more people are using their bicycles now means that there will be less people left stuck in traffic in their cars. Not to mention the people who are exercising by using their bicycles will have health benefits as well.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoWill 25% more cyclists have much of an impact on the number of cars on the road? 25% more of a small number is still a small number.
- abyssin 7y agoIt will have an impact on congestion. For instance in Brussels, a 10% reduction in number of cars on the road translates to a 40% percent reduction in traffic jams.
- bagacrap 7y agoWhich seems like it would translate to at least 10% more people being willing to drive...
- rcMgD2BwE72F 7y agoAnd yet, even more will discover than riding a bike is more pleasant than driving a car once the city has been designed that way. I'm one of them, and many of my friends are just waiting for the infrastructure to be further improved to make the switch. More space, better markings (…), just more reasons to drop the expensive, polluting, stressing space-taking cars and take a breath of fresh air while commuting.
- u801e 7y ago> And yet, even more will discover than riding a bike is more pleasant than driving a car once the city has been designed that way. Most people aren't going to find cycling more pleasant than driving in inclement weather, cold weather, hot weather, low traction conditions, uphill, or carrying cargo.
- loa_in_ 7y agoAs the number of cars drops below critical saturation, the flow can transition to intermittent to smooth
- eru 7y agoOf course, that makes car use more attractive again.
- aguyfromnb 7y agoYep. Physicists laugh at economists, but this is the same underlying structure that explains how even though everything we use is now more energy efficient, we use more energy overall.
- eru 7y agoWhat time in the past are you talking about? Funny enough, the total amount of physical stuff churning through the US economy has declined since the 1930s (or so?) just in terms of sheer mass. Btw, your observation sounds much less surprising when you say 'transistors got cheaper since the 1970, yet we are spending more in total on transistors than ever'.
- tpxl 7y agoThis is generally called Jevons paradox: When you make something more efficient, demand rises because it is more efficient, which in the end leads to using more of the base resource (but getting a lot more for it). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox#
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoNot true at all, like all paradoxes its loosely defined and not quantified, so should not be taken too seriously. Demand I crease assumes that demand is perfectly elastic, which it isnt for ant real world case - price of shoes dropping 100x would not result in demand for shoes going up by same amount. In fact many demands are totally inelastic, I.e. food consumption does not change much, because people have to eat the same amount of calories. Secondly the price of a good is made up of more than its base resource, it's people's time, arketing, opportunity cost etc. So a 2x increase in resource efficiency of shoes manufacturing does not result in shoe price dropping 2x.
- _jal 7y agoThere are public bike counters along Market St. with displays. If you live here you can go and look at the numbers yourself, there's one not far from Twitter's office. I don't know what the overall daily ride count is now. About 5 years ago it was something like 90K trips/day, and had been on a more or less linear growth path.
- wpietri 7y agoMarket Street is a busy cycling route. During rush hour I'd often ride in a pack of 20 or 3 cyclists. According to MUNI, cyclists peaked at 650/hour before the change. That's in contrast to 400 cars per hour. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Car-free-Market-What-happens-to-the-side-14999923.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Car-free-Market-...
- asjw 7y ago> more people are using their bicycles now means that there will be less people left stuck in traffic in their cars It doesn't follow though More people using bikes is not a direct consequence of less people using cars It could be, but there is no cause-effect relationship For example in Milan where I live more people are using bikes because many people moved in recently and owning a car is expensive here and the weather has improved since climate change started showing its effects But they are people that weren't driving before, they used public transport Most of them don't even hold a driving license
- half_way 7y ago> Most of them don't even hold a driving license Maybe true in Milan, but not anywhere in the US. Driving is near imperative in all areas of the country, unfortunately even in big cities, meaning everyone who can get a license, does.
- chrisseaton 7y agoIs driving an imperative even in cities like NY and SF? Where would you even be driving to or from in cities like that? Where would you be parking? I wouldn’t attempt to drive in NY in a million years.
- ghaff 7y agoNY (Manhattan and certain areas of Brooklyn in particular) somewhat uniquely don't really require a car. Partly it's because owning a car is a pain/expensive and partly because of transit. But it's also because there's a general mindset that as a professional 30 year old, you're not really expected to have a car and activities and people's expectations are set accordingly. In other cities--and there are other cities that have better transit options than SF which is actually fairly poor--you can get by without a car. But Uber, Zipcar, rentals, etc. only take you so far for weekend activities and visiting the friends who probably don't live on transit lines. You can manage but you adjust activities accordingly. [ADDED: Also, lots of jobs are actually outside the city and you mostly need a car to get to them.] FWIW, I know a couple who live in SF who don't own a car. But they make heavy use of Uber and car rentals of various types. Short-term rental and rideshares make not owning a car more practical for a certain class of urban dweller than it used to be. But not even having a license reduces your options, including both work and recreational options, a lot.
- darkstar999 7y agoI don't think it implies that 25% more people are using bicycles. It looks like bike traffic on this particular road increased 25%.
- Symbiote 7y agoThe linked article (1) says the redesign will have "sidewalk level bike lanes". If there's a way for local people to comment on this, please encourage these to be changed to in-between-road-and-sidewalk level. (Or road level with a continuous kerb in between). This makes it much, much easier for pedestrians not to accidentally wander into the lane. (2) 1 https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Car-free-Market-What-happens-to-the-side-14999923.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Car-free-Market-... 2 https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/copenhagen-denmark-april-28-2015-people-273751205?src=r5lx0IqAiK-ujRzrOcMg6Q-1-1 https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/copenhagen-denmark-...
- brnt 7y agoAs a Dutchie blunders like the one you mention are so stupifying... Takes you a ten minute visit to NL to figure out why you need to separate modalities consistently, yet even as close as Germany and France cities are designed so obviously by people who never ever bike.
- ChuckNorris89 7y agoSame in Austria, we simply grew accustomed to bikes sharing the road with cars, busses and trams which I'm sure would be terrifying to someone from NL. The problem is, after the post war boom, the cities were planned for cars and now there's simply no space left for cycling lanes unless we ban cars which as much as I wish for will never happen in my lifetime.
- abyssin 7y agoWhy do you think it will never happen? It did happen and is happening in several places, like Brussels at the moment.
- ghaff 7y agoI was in Brussels a few weeks ago. And, while the work is still in progress, my reaction was that the area near the Bourse was much more inviting than in times past. I've actually been sort of negative on Brussels previously and I didn't feel that to the same degree this year.
- scarejunba 7y agoI thought it would be mayhem but traffic overall didn't change at all. It's exactly the same.
- Areading314 7y agoI had a car for several years in the city and never drove down market a single time. Always faster to take the one-ways mission or howard.
- wahern 7y agoThat's because most cars were taken off Market St in 2015: https://www.sfmta.com/project-updates/turn-restrictions-market-street-going-effect-aug-11-2015 https://www.sfmta.com/project-updates/turn-restrictions-mark... Since then most cars on Market St north of Van Ness seem to have been Uber and Lyft. Now they're finally banned. If buses are actually running faster--not just a consequence of less traffic during the winter months--it goes to show how much Uber and Lyft have contributed to traffic in the city. They drive slow, erratically, and stop in the middle of the road on main arteries to pick people up and drop them off.
- Areading314 7y agoIt still doesn't make sense that they let the "yellow" taxis continue driving on market. They are on average much worse drivers
- new_realist 7y agoThere are fewer of them and they are more efficient, running at higher passenger utilization.
- thedance 7y agoThis can’t be true. Taxis often run with zero passengers, whereas a private car never does.
- hamandcheese 7y agoI take the 5R nearly every week day. Anecdotally, it seems like it’s been better lately (though it’s always been adequate), but I didn’t connect that with the market street car ban until now.
- Camillo 7y agoThe only redeeming feature of that part of Market Street remains the subway.
- rhn_mk1 7y agoThere are numbers on speed, but are there any on throughput?
- thedance 7y agoThroughput doesn’t change with speed, just like with cars the rate is the same at 5 or 75MPH because the spacing in terms of time stays constant. What improves is the latency for individual riders, and the reliability of the bus arriving on schedule.
- tiku 7y agoStudies? Just check out how we do this in the Netherlands. It works great here in most bigger cities.
- asjw 7y agoYou live in a flat country, were cities are quite densely populated and you don't have to travel a lot. Mine is not.
- eru 7y agoThe density could be fixed in lots of cities.
- chinesempire 7y agoHow? How can you move the offices of a company that has 2 thousands employees near to their homes, when in decades the surroundings have been optimised for that purpose: keeping big offices out of the cities. It's not so easy to fix, it could be fixed but it would take a lot of time and money but nobody knows if it would improve people lives Once you have done that, you have to convince people to bike
- eru 7y agoYou fix it over time, by allowing (but not forcing!) people to build taller. Also check out http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
- Traster 7y ago>His conclusion: When cities shut streets off to cars, people drive less. The myth of a “carmageddon”-style traffic jam is apparently overblown. This seems to completely ignore the fact that what actually has occured here is that the reduction of drivers is a negative for those drivers. Those drivers now either have to cycle or use public transport instead of their cars or have to move. That might seem positive to the people who don't have to make those sacrifices, but it's a massive negative impact on the people effected by this.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoYes, things have both pros and cons. Now list all the negative externalities of designing life around 5 passenger vehicles occupied by 1 person.
- dbingham 7y agoWell, and the externalities of the driver's carbon emissions are a massive negative impact on all of us. In a city as dense as San Francisco, transit, walking, or biking can easily cover most people's transportation needs. The more we build safe and effective infrastructure for those modes, the more people will use them. And that will be good - in the end - for the remaining few who do absolutely need to drive (though I believe that if we get creative, with things like bike rikshaws, we can even cover that segment with out cars). If we don't change these sorts of habits, the climate will change them for us.
- Traster 7y agoI'm not advocating for designing life around increasing car ownership. I'm pointing out that re-designing existing systems to disadvantage a specific group of commuters is more than a little problematic. Let's put it this way - how would you feel if we shut down your nearest train station and used the money saved to give everyone a tax break. We can also decrease carbon emissions by just shutting down every power station in China, but targetting a single group of people to take the vast majority of the cost of fixing climate change is not reasonable.
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- flyinghamster 7y agoChicago tried this decades ago with the State Street Mall project [1]. It turned out to be an overall flop, with stores seeing reduced traffic, and by 1993 it was gone and good riddance. As a pedestrian, I hated it when I worked downtown. Maybe they'll do something on Market Street that will work better, or perhaps it might be a better fit there than in Chicago, but I wish them luck, because they're going to need it. [1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-flashback-state-street-pedestrian-mall-20191025-cos5svz7w5dvzgznqouu2xqimu-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion...
- thih9 7y ago> Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
- tom_mellior 7y agoThere seems to be an alternative interpretation the State Steet project and its failure here: https://www.wbez.org/shows/dynamic-range/the-short-sad-life-of-state-streets-pedestrian-mall/f1ebf2b0-2f64-4542-9f18-83123216400d https://www.wbez.org/shows/dynamic-range/the-short-sad-life-... but you have to listen to the recording of a radio program for all the details, which I didn't do. Anyway, I live in Vienna where we have had pedestrianized shopping streets since 1971. Before every single project there is a huge discussion that this will kill all commerce, and in these 49 years that has never happened -- quite on the contrary. These projects are so successful and popular that recently even the chamber of commerce, previously a huge opponent, called for more of them. Is the US that different? Maybe. Or maybe it just needs its own learning process.
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- lotsofpulp 7y ago
- pleasecalllater 7y agoI'm always wondering what about people with disabilities, older people with problems with walking, pregnant women, families with four kids, etc. Sometimes the public transport for such people is problematic and using taxi all the time is too expensive. Total banning cars makes a great space for the healthy ones, the rest is happily ignored. And this is sad. I like decreasing the number of cars, not forbidding them at all.
- Xylakant 7y ago> I like decreasing the number of cars, not forbidding them at all. No one plans to. That aside, cars also pose major problems to all those groups you mention. Elderly people feel unsafe driving and unsafe walking because of cars. They're the primary victims of car-caused accidents. Elderly people in bad health can also be a danger to others when driving. Kids cannot go anywhere on their own - in large parts because traffic is a killer for them, too. This places a large burden on families, as the parents need to drive them everyplace. Nearly all of the groups you mention would be better served if you'd remove cars and use the space to improve public transit. For example using dedicated bus lines - improving both speed and - more importantly - reliability. Or build tram lines.
- burfog 7y agoWith or without traffic, those groups do not feel safe out on the streets of San Francisco. They are easy prey for bad people. They don't handle the hills well; they might fall and break a hip. Public transportation isn't safe either, even before the latest elderly-killing virus. Cars work. People too weak to drive can have family members drive them around.
- crystaldev 7y ago> families with four kids We're talking about San Francisco here.
- astura 7y agoIt's much safer and easier to navigate around in a wheelchair without cars zooming by honking and splashing you. A world designed around cars is extremely hostile to the elderly, disabled, and children.
- everyone 7y agoA big traffic jam would be nothing like 'Carmageddon' An extremely popular series of computer games starting in 1997, where u race around smashing into other vehicles and running over pedestrians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmageddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmageddon Why do they keep saying carmageddon????
- wpietri 7y agoI think you could call that moderately popular at best. 20+ years ago. They keep calling it that for the same reason the game got that name: it's a cute term that quickly conveys "giant automotive disaster".
- yCombLinks 7y agoThey're not talking about the game? The game didn't create the term, the incredibly simple adding of the letter C to the word Armageddon?
- vinylkey 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_405_(California)#%22Carmageddon%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_405_(California)#%2... There's some other precedent for the word Carmageddon other than an old game that a lot people haven't heard of.
- UI_at_80x24 7y agoAm I the only one disappointed that the author was NOT referring to the PC game Carmageddon in the title. Expected summary: "Well, we were pleasantly surprised that shutting down the streets didn't lead to a rage-induced, car-killing-spree murder rampage."
- closeparen 7y agoMarket St. has never been a significant thoroughfare for private cars. Of course there’s no traffic impact. Try the same thing on Mission, Howard, Folsom, Harrison, Geary, Van Ness, etc. and you’ll see a very different story.
- Tiktaalik 7y agoYou'd be surprised. Vancouver shut down its core arterial streets to traffic during the 2010 olympics (Broadway, Hastings) and spiked transit funding to compensate. Nothing bad happened and people shifted their behaviour pretty easily.
- Steltek 7y agoDid Vancouver's experience result in a shift in transportation priorities long term? Or after the Olympics, were people eager to go back to the prior status quo?
- Tiktaalik 7y agoThe funding went away so things went back to normal. Of course with any available roadspace, it will be filled up and used. Later on with a new government transit funding increased and transit has subsequently been seeing double digit growth. The entire exercise makes me feel pretty confident that you can close off road space and so long as you're funding viable alternatives things are fine.
- asdff 7y agoIt's really just a question of efficiency. People don't take the subway in nyc because its fun; it can still take an hour one way if everything is working out for the mta that day. They take it because driving in would take two hours. People take whatever is easiest, so in cities like LA it's no suprise that millions of people would rather sit in traffic hell for 45 minutes one way a day when their transit trip would be an hour and a half, if everything works. If you want less people driving, then you need to provide a better alternative beyond transit just being the civically minded thing to do. It also doesn't help when its not perceived to be the most safe alternative, in terms of crime and harassment.
- stevenwoo 7y agoThere was a world wide meeting on transportation similar to the Paris climate change one, same result, almost everyone but USA committing to better standards for future - https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1057721 https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1057721 The USA response that the market and self driving cars will fix this was pretty delusional.
- J5892 7y agoAny responses from the US from about 3 years ago to between 1 and 4+ years from now are going to be delusional.
- iblaine 7y agoThere is an impact for some retail businesses. I tried shopping near market street for items that require a car to transport. I gave up trying to get through traffic, and instead did my shopping online. This is an acceptable trade off for me, and demonstrates how some retail businesses may need to adjust.
- ARandomerDude 7y agoIt would be awesome if you had something like a bicycle, only more comfortable that could hold you, a friend, and some of your things. You could enclose it to protect you from the weather, too. For longer distances, or people with disabilities, you could add some mechanical contraption in case you can't pedal that far. That'll be the day.
- r_klancer 7y agoSome of those already exist! At increasing levels of car-like-ness: * https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-electric-cargo-bikes/ https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-electric-cargo-bikes/ * https://www.contemporist.com/5-examples-of-enclosed-bike-designs-that-are-taking-over-the-roads/ https://www.contemporist.com/5-examples-of-enclosed-bike-des... * https://www.arcimoto.com/ https://www.arcimoto.com/ (Studiously ignoring parent's intended snark) In all seriousness, I'm expecting an explosion of these new light vehicle body types in the coming decades, as global trends of cheap electric drive + batteries, increasing urban congestion, and less car-oriented urban planning trends converge
- paradox101 7y ago"I'm expecting an explosion of these new light vehicle body types in the coming decades, as global trends of cheap electric drive + batteries, increasing urban congestion, and less car-oriented urban planning trends converge" Don't motorcycles already serve that purpose? Its already the chief form of personal transportation in most of the Earth's population. The problem I see with all the concepts you posted is that they have all the drawbacks of a car and a motorcycle. They would fare as well as a motorcycle in a crash, and have almost the same footprint as a small car. Also, a motorcycle will handle much better than a trike with narrow tracks and short wheelbase at higher speeds. Then, there are electric assist bicycle. They have two main problems that small motorcycles/scooters don't suffer from. A 350lb scooter/motorcycle is much harder to steal than a 50lb electric bicycle. I own a rather expensive electric assist mountain bike that I don't feel comfortable parking it out of my sight. You can't travel on the highway with electric bicycle unlike motorcycles.
- turbostyler 7y agoI don’t notice any difference on Market from before the car ban. I also see cars driving on the street all the time.
- gok 7y agoThe main problem with Market Street for pedestrians is the heroin and poop, not cars.
- yellowapple 7y agoTranslation of the first couple paragraphs: "SF street traffic is already abysmal, and yet we still managed to make it a little bit worse." Market Street was already pretty devoid of non-bus/taxi traffic before "a month ago". If you want a better test, try closing off Van Ness or Embarcadero and see how well that goes for y'all. "No carmageddon"? SF is already a carmageddon.
- tmpz22 7y agoGreat for buses, bikes, taxis, cars that accidentally make a wrong turn, and bikes running red lights to slice through crossing pedestrians (sometimes avoiding collisions sometimes not).