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Not for you, since if you don't get it already, you clearly won't. But for anyone else reading this, a few points: Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot bu

Not for you, since if you don't get it already, you clearly won't. But for anyone else reading this, a few points: Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot build bike lanes without destroying thousands of homes and businesses" to "there is no visible impediment for pedestrians," even that understates the extent to which designing for safety and comfort make a huge difference in usage. Walking along a high-speed road with no barrier is a radically different experience from walking along a low-speed road or a road without cars, or even a road with a barrier for pedestrians. Just like widening a road draws more traffic, creating pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly spaces draw more pedestrians and cyclists, so a lack of perceived demand given current infrastructure doesn't mean much. I provided two links, just two arbitrarily-chosen out of many, and yet even then the comment to which I'm responding focuses on disagreement with only the first, which is apparently an unimpressive case study because the current shops are too expensive. The seven examples in the second link might have helped, but I'm perhaps not. There are many, many more resources about how to build pedestrian-friendly streets[0] specifically, and a lot of information available about how to build strong towns[1] generally, if one is actually interested. About light rail, I described the system in suburbs of Dallas, Texas, pretty far from Europe, which it turns out are even less dense than Sacramento, California[2]. And yet my experience with the existing light rail lines is largely positive. While they aren't jammed full of people twice a day like trains I've experienced in other cities, I've definitely been on the train when there was standing room only more than once. It seems as if systems well-designed to match the areas might be more effective than systems that are possibly political pet projects. Where tracks and stations are located and how much tickets cost are all choices made by someone somewhere, and sometimes those decisions are better made than others. Dallas is very, very far from an ideal place for mass transit, given cultural factors and topography and geography that is very spread out, and yet three different train systems (for Dallas, Denton, and Fort Worth) seem to be able to work together and provide popular options for a good number of people anyway. It can be done, and it might help to focus on success stories more than perceived failures. All in all, I find city design fascinating, but obviously many people don't. 0. https://nclurbandesign.org/pedestrian-friendly-street-a-great-asset-to-the-community/ https://nclurbandesign.org/pedestrian-friendly-street-a-grea... 1. https://www.strongtowns.org/streets https://www.strongtowns.org/streets 2. https://www.opendatanetwork.com/entity/1600000US0664000-1600000US4858016/Sacramento_CA-Plano_TX/geographic.population.density?year=2018&ref=compare-entity https://www.opendatanetwork.com/entity/1600000US0664000-1600...

FrontierPsych 4y ago
I've been thinking about this since yesterday. >Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot build bike lanes without destroying thousands of homes and businesses" to "there is no visible impediment for pedestrians," Not really, just having a wide ranging discussion. >Just like widening a road draws more traffic, creating pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly spaces draw more pedestrians and cyclists, so a lack of perceived demand given current infrastructure doesn't mean much. Not necessarily. I've seen many bike paths and pedestrian streets that have little to no bike/pedestrian traffic. I was listening to a radio show once and they were talking about a light rail project on the east coast. It cost way more than originally planned - instead of $200 million it cost $1 billion. This is because design changes all the time. They started building it and then the bike brigade, along with other special interest groups, came along and wanted a bike path. Well, the guy they talked to said that for all that extra expense, nobody uses that bike path. Maybe the bike path cost $100 million, and so it comes out to $10 million per person who rides their bike on it. The whole segment was about why civil structure undertakings cost more than planned. I think there is a massive misunderstanding of the whole "build it and they will come" thing. That's not how it works. I do think all of these types of capital outlays for bike paths and pedestrian streets are for the Gucci crowd. Nobody is going to spend $50 million creating a pedestrian street in Compton or wherever the gangs are in Los Angeles, or in the Tenderloin of San Francisco or the south side of Chicago in the baddest part of town. Maybe spending that $100 million or whatever it costs would be better spent on getting more police in the bad parts of town, or something that can benefit the poorest of us all, instead of the bike riders who are riding $15,000 bikes. But I guess the $15,000 bike crowd has more clout than a bunch of riff raff gang members or working poor or homeless. And yes, it is a zero sum game. I don't have anything against what you're saying, I just think money could be spent better elsewhere. But, I guess it is good that people can shop at Gucci or Prada without worrying about stopping for stoplights - they can just walk where they want. And the people who can't afford the shops and buy $2,400 pair of shoes can sit at the coffee shops and buy a cup of coffee for $9.87 and pretend that they can, instead of going to their local greasy spoon diner and buying a cup of Folger's coffee for $1.25. I'm not trying to be a dick, it's just what I think about it all. It's all good.

FrontierPsych 4y ago

I've been thinking about this since yesterday. >Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot build bike lanes without destroying thousands of homes and businesses" to "there is no visible impediment for pedestrians," Not really, just having a wide ranging discussion. >Just like widening a road draws more traffic, creating pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly spaces draw more pedestrians and cyclists, so a lack of perceived demand given current infrastructure doesn't mean much. Not necessarily. I've seen many bike paths and pedestrian streets that have little to no bike/pedestrian traffic. I was listening to a radio show once and they were talking about a light rail project on the east coast. It cost way more than originally planned - instead of $200 million it cost $1 billion. This is because design changes all the time. They started building it and then the bike brigade, along with other special interest groups, came along and wanted a bike path. Well, the guy they talked to said that for all that extra expense, nobody uses that bike path. Maybe the bike path cost $100 million, and so it comes out to $10 million per person who rides their bike on it. The whole segment was about why civil structure undertakings cost more than planned. I think there is a massive misunderstanding of the whole "build it and they will come" thing. That's not how it works. I do think all of these types of capital outlays for bike paths and pedestrian streets are for the Gucci crowd. Nobody is going to spend $50 million creating a pedestrian street in Compton or wherever the gangs are in Los Angeles, or in the Tenderloin of San Francisco or the south side of Chicago in the baddest part of town. Maybe spending that $100 million or whatever it costs would be better spent on getting more police in the bad parts of town, or something that can benefit the poorest of us all, instead of the bike riders who are riding $15,000 bikes. But I guess the $15,000 bike crowd has more clout than a bunch of riff raff gang members or working poor or homeless. And yes, it is a zero sum game. I don't have anything against what you're saying, I just think money could be spent better elsewhere. But, I guess it is good that people can shop at Gucci or Prada without worrying about stopping for stoplights - they can just walk where they want. And the people who can't afford the shops and buy $2,400 pair of shoes can sit at the coffee shops and buy a cup of coffee for $9.87 and pretend that they can, instead of going to their local greasy spoon diner and buying a cup of Folger's coffee for $1.25. I'm not trying to be a dick, it's just what I think about it all. It's all good.