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Engineering solutions are best. A nice safe design where cars are away from people. Where turns are limited. Where pedestrians only cross at designated, high

Engineering solutions are best. A nice safe design where cars are away from people. Where turns are limited. Where pedestrians only cross at designated, high visibility areas, ideally timed to gaps in intended traffic flow patterns. Arterial routes are necessary; designate them, build them accordingly. Add a small buffer between them and residential areas. Time the dang lights on an arterial to encourage the most common flow to drive at the posted speed limits to continue hitting green lights. Avoid red lights to 'calm' traffic patterns, that just encourages bypasses through whatever alternatives exist, which will be neighborhood streets.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
That still sounds like a world designed primarily for cars. It's hard for me to picture it honestly but it doesn't sound pleasant to move through as a person.
- mjevans 4y ago
  A world designed for persons needs a __massive__ overhaul compared to what exists literally everywhere I've seen. Even the nearby major cities are still begrudgingly designed for cars. They lack external interfaces and vehicle storage warehouses sufficient to break from that paradigm. A city designed for humans would need to be far closer to Azimov's Caves of Steel world, where everything is closer together, beltways and moving sidewalks replace in city bus transit. You'd still need the vehicle layer for emergency services, construction, and bulk product delivery; those vehicles will probably be electric though, or possibly transported by in city dedicated vehicles. Walt Disney World comes to mind as a larger area intended to have several hubs of primarily human scale transport. EPCOT has the well earned acronym 'Every Person Comes Out Tired' for good reasons; it's too far of a dang walk and the humidity around that lake is murder on a hot day. The inner facade stages are roughly at the sensible limits of human scale, but they're connected either by utility corridors or paths or direct abutment to roadways behind the parks. Even in these _designed_ areas, economics dictates both vehicle and human existence mostly at the same or similar levels and very few over or under passes; where there are it's often exactly two effective layers. Some might have multiple modes of transit. E.G. between EPCOT and Hollywood there's a boat and pedestrian system, which has bridges for the pedestrians, and is crossed in one location by a major road bridge.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

That still sounds like a world designed primarily for cars. It's hard for me to picture it honestly but it doesn't sound pleasant to move through as a person.

mjevans 4y ago
A world designed for persons needs a __massive__ overhaul compared to what exists literally everywhere I've seen. Even the nearby major cities are still begrudgingly designed for cars. They lack external interfaces and vehicle storage warehouses sufficient to break from that paradigm. A city designed for humans would need to be far closer to Azimov's Caves of Steel world, where everything is closer together, beltways and moving sidewalks replace in city bus transit. You'd still need the vehicle layer for emergency services, construction, and bulk product delivery; those vehicles will probably be electric though, or possibly transported by in city dedicated vehicles. Walt Disney World comes to mind as a larger area intended to have several hubs of primarily human scale transport. EPCOT has the well earned acronym 'Every Person Comes Out Tired' for good reasons; it's too far of a dang walk and the humidity around that lake is murder on a hot day. The inner facade stages are roughly at the sensible limits of human scale, but they're connected either by utility corridors or paths or direct abutment to roadways behind the parks. Even in these _designed_ areas, economics dictates both vehicle and human existence mostly at the same or similar levels and very few over or under passes; where there are it's often exactly two effective layers. Some might have multiple modes of transit. E.G. between EPCOT and Hollywood there's a boat and pedestrian system, which has bridges for the pedestrians, and is crossed in one location by a major road bridge.