7 ms·

Implementing a Personal Transportation Hierarchy

64 points by ingve 3y ago

bombcar 3y ago
There’s a corollary to this which is you need to prioritize design to not take you out of your way more the higher up you are. A pedestrian path that goes a block out of your way is discouraging in a way that a half mile dogleg in a car is not. Sidewalks need to connect directly to destinations; not wander blocks out of the way to circuit parking lots. The best “pathing” should be for pedestrians, followed by that for bikes. Cars and busses can go far out of their way, and trains can stay on their tracks.
- digdugdirk 3y ago
  There is also the "enjoyment factor" that doesn't necessarily need to match up with pure efficiency. Separate bike paths that cut through parks or use their own cordoned off streets can make a trip so much more relaxing that it moves up the personal choice hierarchy, even if the time it takes to get somewhere increases. Not having to dodge F150s or breathe in exhaust fumes can go a long way to upping the desire to ride your bike to work in the morning.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    From my experience that only goes from "bad to neutral". I'll gladly waste extra 5 minutes if my work commute cycling path doesn't have to share road with cars or otherwise car-congested area but if it is "just a cycling road" vs "a cycling road near nice forest", most times I go the shorter one.
    - digdugdirk 3y ago
      Very true, my comment was more directed towards what you're discussing. The difference between "sharing a lane with SUVs on a regular street" and "physically separated bike path" is massive, and the lack of bike infrastructure makes cycling a complete non-starter for many.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Almost by definition if you are not using a private vehicle you have already given up on the time factor (because while it is possible to find cases where bike/transit/walking beat a car they are rare or less than a block). And on a bike it feels different than on foot - I like walking the nice trail but it is 10 minutes longer than the silly sidewalk, and it just kind of dumps you in nowhere three blocks from anywhere you would like to be.
- kodah 3y ago
  > A pedestrian path that goes a block out of your way is discouraging in a way that a half mile dogleg in a car is not. In Portland it's actually worse than this. The areas that have built or maintained sidewalks are generally rich areas. The city puts sidewalk construction and maintenance on home builders and has an exhorbitant permitting scheme.
- _aleph2c_ 3y ago
  You don't need to change the city, you can change yourself instead. I was stuck in a traffic jam once and decided to change my behavior. I bought an electric long board that can go off-road, that I could also carry on my back, so I can take the train and the bus. I'm a big guy so I had to buy a bruiser of a board (50 pounds) and a pack that could carry it. The board has an 80km (50 mile) range and it can go as fast as you want, but it speed wobbles at 50 km/hour (31 mile/hour), which requires you to put your weight onto the front and accelerate through the resonance. It's illegal to ride in my city, so now I'm an outlaw, I get great exercise when I pack it, and an incredible sense of freedom when I rip past the traffic, or politely navigate the bike lanes. The board is dangerous, so I can get out of my head: if I don't pay attention, I die; so it forces a flow state and clears all of my life worries -- something my motorcycle friends talk about a lot. I have crashed, and though painful, I usually go at a speed that I can run-out-of if something bad happens. You don't get sweaty like you do from riding a bike, so you can wear a suit under the safety gear. No need to change the city, you can get the revolution you want by deploying your own technology. If you live in a dirt-bag city, like I do, you don't have to worry about your windows being smashed or whatever, because you are carrying your car on your back.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dublinben 3y ago
    It turns out that most people are not willing to risk their lives in this manner to get where they're going, so building proper infrastructure is necessary.
throwaway22032 3y ago
I wonder what percentage of people prefer this kind of hierarchy. Personally if driving were super deprioritized where I live, I'd have more incentive to move out of the city and live more rurally, which seems like a net negative overall (environmentally). Probably, most people would stay in the city and balance it out though. I enjoy cycling and walking, but I'd rather keep my usage of public transport to a minimum. If we could completely exclude all arseholes, make public transport cover far more places, make every bus and train have good climate control, it might be different. 3 seems possible, 2 seems like it would then approach the energy requirements of driving, 1 is a non starter.
- digdugdirk 3y ago
  The point is that (in the US) no one outside of New York City and maybe Chicago has any ability to really experience this kind of hierarchy. Even in those cities, it's still not prioritizing pedestrians and bicyclists, it's just increased the relevance of public transport due to the inherent density making driving and parking a pain. Mid sized cities (or larger cities built up after the 50's) just aren't designed to support this kind of lifestyle, and would require laws to change around zoning/parking/etc.
  - throwaway22032 3y ago
    Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not sure that you could go much further than NYC without making private car ownership impossible for most, though. Maybe that's the point. Despite having a good transport network overall (I live in London), it's just such an integrated part of my life to be able to jump in the car and go and visit friends say 50 miles away that I can't imagine ever wanting to give that up. I'd rather have that than the fancy downtown bars. Am I old? :)
    - rainsford 3y ago
      The point that always seems to get lost in these discussions is that it really shouldn't be an either/or thing. There's no reason you can't still have a car for journeys that make sense to drive while having great alternatives so you aren't forced to use a car for every single trip, which would be a huge transportation improvement over what exists now in the vast majority of American cities.
kdmccormick 3y ago
Nice article, although I wonder why walking is considered greener than cycling. Is it because producing bicycles and bicycle infrastruce has an environmental impact? Regardless, once you own a bike and once bike lanes are built, there's no environmental reason not to bike instead of walk whenever you want to, right?
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  The pyramid also takes into account how “vulnerable” each mode of transportation is, in other words, who yields to whom. If you’ve ever been run over by a cyclist - it hurts. So it stands to reason that pedestrians should be prioritized and protected by users of modes towards the tip of the pyramid.
  - jychang 3y ago
    Disagree, it only applies to your walking/cyclist example. I suspect getting hit by a bus will hurt a lot more than getting hit by a car.
    - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
      It’s also far less likely - fewer buses on the road and bus drivers are better trained than the millions of reckless private car owners.
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  Bicycles still take physical space with racks and stuff. Also, e-bikes directly use energy though they're not listed (neither are motorbikes). I agree that this is pretty trivial in terms of environmental impact, it's probably just about the friction involved, we already have legs.
  - mwint 3y ago
    Friction as in mechanical friction? It’s certainly less total energy expended per mile to cover the same distance on a bike vs. legs, right?
fnord77 3y ago
In SF, the city leaders are trying to make it impossible to use a SOV. Yet public transit is unusable except for small swaths of the city. And building new transit is virtually impossible due to corruption (a new 1.9 mile subway spur recently opened after 20 years of construction and $2 billion). Even worse in recent years crime has gotten out of control on transit and drug users are using train cars to smoke fent. So nobody wants to use transit. The city built a lot of bike lanes but owning a bike is impossible because it will get stolen just about instantly. so yeah we have the worst of all worlds
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffbee 3y ago
  Sounds like you read this in your local newspaper in Nashville or something. The entire city is well-covered by transit services. 450k people ride Muni every day. 65k people use BART stations in SF every day. Only Washington and NY enjoy significantly more transit ridership than SF does.
  - fnord77 3y ago
    I have lived in SF for 20 years. public transit sucks
gfiorav 3y ago
Several comments on this thread tend to slip into the trap of comparing countries. It's important to remember that population density plays a crucial role in financing public infrastructure. Consider Argentina's case, for instance. Its size is comparable to India, yet it has a population smaller than Spain, making it a daunting task to fund extensive rail networks. The same rationale can be applied to the US in comparison to smaller European nations. Ultimately, promoting driving by making cars more affordable and investing in the highway system may indeed be the most adaptable and practical strategy for larger countries. Just something to ponder over.
- rainsford 3y ago
  It's a valid point to consider, although I'm not sure that looking at average density across the entire country makes a lot of sense since you don't have to apply the same solution nation-wide. When considering transportation options for a denser part of a country, like the US east coast Boston-Washington DC corridor, it's irrelevant how much empty space there is in Wyoming. The same is true on a smaller scale as well. Sure, the fact that Denver is so far away from any other large population centers means building a bunch of high-speed rail lines there might not make sense, but there's no reason Denver itself can't have better non-car transit options to get around the city and metro area. Edit: The US east coast is always a particularly interesting use-case since it's more comparable to the density found in a lot of countries with far better transit while also being significantly richer. The Bos-Wash corridor has about the same population as Spain but it is significantly more dense and with 3x the GDP. Yet Spain has far better inter-city high-speed rail and other transit options.
  - gfiorav 3y ago
    I’d argue those cities in the east coast you mention are closer together and more densely populated. If you were to look at the northeast region by itself (Boston, New York, Washington), I bet its rail is comparable to similar European countries.
    - kdmccormick 3y ago
Racing0461 3y ago
[flagged]
slooonz 3y ago
Why are taxis so high in this hierarchy ? It seems to me they should be barely different from single occupancy vehicles.
- alexchamberlain 3y ago
  Maybe because they do so many more miles and a lot of the carbon emissions these days are actually in the manufacturing process?
- goda90 3y ago
  Taxis don't need the same parking as a bunch of people driving to a destination. Less parking means denser land use which can mean less travel time and more green space.
- analog31 3y ago
  One thing is that taxis don't need to be parked in urban centers, or if they are, their parking facilities don't have to be pleasant or convenient to peoples jobs. The search for a parking space increases car traffic and congestion. Also, parked cars occupy space that could be used to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Taxis (including uber, lyft, etc) greatly reduce costs for someone who only needs to travel by car sporadically, possibly making cities marginally more affordable.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Right but it is above high occupancy vehicles, that by nature carry more. Also taxis net more traffic as the time taxi driver is driving to the next customer is essentially useless.
- rogerdb 3y ago
  Taxis are complementary to the higher-priority parts of the hierarchy. It's easier to commit to walking/cycling/public transport knowing that you can always take a taxi in a pinch. SOVs have the inverse effect - it's hard to combine them with other modes of transportation, and if you're already paying to own/maintain/insure a vehicle, you're incentivized away from considering alternatives.
kodah 3y ago
The author and I have lived in the same places, almost on the same timeline, except SF actual. > Since then, I’ve come back to Portland, and the options to get around without a car are better again. Portland has a pretty good bike share program, an above average light rail system, and an okay bus network. Plus, my neighborhood is pretty walkable, with a 73 walk score. Portland's friendliness to biking has dropped in recent years. Pedestrian deaths have risen quite a bit, which makes people not want to use our many bike lanes. Some background: https://bikeportland.org/2023/03/15/city-counts-reveal-data-behind-portlands-precipitous-drop-in-cycling-371407 https://bikeportland.org/2023/03/15/city-counts-reveal-data-... There's two main theories that I think reflect the whole truth: - PBOT built a lot of bus and train infrastructure. Turns out they designed it in a way that can be hostile to biking. - We eliminated our traffic division and around that time pedestrian and motorcycle fatalities greatly increased. I'd also like to point out that walkability in Portland mostly correlates to how rich/new (almost the same thing in Portland) the area is. Portland has a lot of old neighborhoods and they don't really have a density strategy, meaning they'll just build in density anywhere including demolishing most of a street and compounding a whole two lane street with dense housing. The thing I've learned from this is that density needs to be integrative; it should be smartly built among SFHs and should not the the majority or only housing on an existing street. That's to say, if you take a street designed for 10 homes and then you turn it into quadplexes bad things happen to traffic, much less the vibe of the area. My street is a good example of how to do it right, they capped the dense housing so it could only occupy half of the street. We have condos for a quarter of the street, quadplexes for a quarter, and SFHs for half. Why does this matter? Portland ties paving of roads and building of sidewalks to new construction. It's a perverse incentive that resulted in there being sidewalks and a minimally paved road up to my house. Everything thereafter is a gravel road in the middle of Portland. It's dangerous during Portland's rainy season, but the city doesn't really care. This is their carrot. When we asked the city to come in and pave the road and finish the sidewalk so that folks can get to our deli/grocery store easier, Portland responded that we could raise money and build our own on their land and we still needed to pay the exhorbitant city permitting fees. On the other hand, Portland does an excellent job with mass transportation. Just outside my neighborhood you can catch a bus to anywhere around Portland, including the train, which in three hours can take you to Seattle. It's really nice.
neither_color 3y ago
This mental model is great if you assume that you're always going from home to Point A then back home. I've lived in decently walkable cities and whenever on a particular day I need to get to 3-4 or more destinations before coming back home non-car ends up being the most difficult option. Partly because at different destinations I dress differently(change of clothes for the gym), partly because I might want to buy more than a backpack full of groceries or other items, and partly because metro/bus only take you near your destination and all those last-mile journeys in one day add up to a lot of time.
- cantaloupe 3y ago
  In a walkable city, gyms and grocery stores are walkable from where you live, so there is no need to string together a bunch of stops. When you can walk to the gym or the grocery store in less than 10 minutes, no pre-planning is needed to optimize a route. And one usually doesn’t need more than a backpack full of groceries if within walking distance of a grocery store, because stocking up isn’t necessary. It’s amazing how much a truly walkable area simplifies life.
a_c 3y ago
As illustrated in the video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V1kOLhhSjl8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V1kOLhhSjl8 it is hard to solve transportation by patching part of it. How people go to work, get health care, buy groceries, go to school, get entertainment, etc all require transportation. The denser the city, the better it is suited to do transportation right. London is notorious for its traffic, but given its size and population, I think it is doing very decently. I wonder how many transport improvements is coming from an US centric hammer, i.e. a better, environmental friendlier car
entropicgravity 3y ago
This is a good strategy for the pre-EV era but in the EV era 'vehicles' can and will be much smaller than what most people think of as a car today. This is because EV technology scales much better than ICE vehicles for cities. A small ICE car is still heavy and cumbersome and polluting primarily because of require pollution controls. Small EV's have none of that so they can be much lighter and smaller than similar ICE implementations. In particular, EV's that are less than half a standard lane width wide would allow the grid capacity to double overnight at almost no extra cost. This will happen first in the busy city cores where the usual single occupancy gas vehicle will be dissallowed (already happening in a few cities in China and Europe). So basically this is a cross between and bicycle and a the current regular ICE cars. But wait, there's more. Because EV's are non-polluting city core roads can be covered in poor weather and parking can be almost anywhere. This won't be your father's city core.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  Parking is still a huge issue, even for small EV cars. Micromobility modes like bikes (EV / non-EV), scooters, EUCs, etc. are more space efficient. Also charging these vehicles is easier than a micro car. However, I could definitely see a city core where all personal car traffic is banned and commercial truck traffic is only allowed if it's EV and under a certain tonnage.
- c-cube 3y ago
  What you're describing is literally called e-bike, bike lanes, and bike racks. It's known technology and it's just not cars. (apparently there are tiny electric cars for handicapped people, in use in the Netherlands, with rights to access bike lanes and such with a permit)
RecycledEle 3y ago
Taxis burn an incredible amount of fuel getting to each new customer. How are taxis more efficient than personal cars?

64 points by ingve 3y ago

There’s a corollary to this which is you need to prioritize design to not take you out of your way more the higher up you are. A pedestrian path that goes a block out of your way is discouraging in a way that a half mile dogleg in a car is not. Sidewalks need to connect directly to destinations; not wander blocks out of the way to circuit parking lots. The best “pathing” should be for pedestrians, followed by that for bikes. Cars and busses can go far out of their way, and trains can stay on their tracks.

digdugdirk 3y ago
There is also the "enjoyment factor" that doesn't necessarily need to match up with pure efficiency. Separate bike paths that cut through parks or use their own cordoned off streets can make a trip so much more relaxing that it moves up the personal choice hierarchy, even if the time it takes to get somewhere increases. Not having to dodge F150s or breathe in exhaust fumes can go a long way to upping the desire to ride your bike to work in the morning.
- ilyt 3y ago
  From my experience that only goes from "bad to neutral". I'll gladly waste extra 5 minutes if my work commute cycling path doesn't have to share road with cars or otherwise car-congested area but if it is "just a cycling road" vs "a cycling road near nice forest", most times I go the shorter one.
  - digdugdirk 3y ago
    Very true, my comment was more directed towards what you're discussing. The difference between "sharing a lane with SUVs on a regular street" and "physically separated bike path" is massive, and the lack of bike infrastructure makes cycling a complete non-starter for many.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Almost by definition if you are not using a private vehicle you have already given up on the time factor (because while it is possible to find cases where bike/transit/walking beat a car they are rare or less than a block). And on a bike it feels different than on foot - I like walking the nice trail but it is 10 minutes longer than the silly sidewalk, and it just kind of dumps you in nowhere three blocks from anywhere you would like to be.
kodah 3y ago
> A pedestrian path that goes a block out of your way is discouraging in a way that a half mile dogleg in a car is not. In Portland it's actually worse than this. The areas that have built or maintained sidewalks are generally rich areas. The city puts sidewalk construction and maintenance on home builders and has an exhorbitant permitting scheme.
_aleph2c_ 3y ago
You don't need to change the city, you can change yourself instead. I was stuck in a traffic jam once and decided to change my behavior. I bought an electric long board that can go off-road, that I could also carry on my back, so I can take the train and the bus. I'm a big guy so I had to buy a bruiser of a board (50 pounds) and a pack that could carry it. The board has an 80km (50 mile) range and it can go as fast as you want, but it speed wobbles at 50 km/hour (31 mile/hour), which requires you to put your weight onto the front and accelerate through the resonance. It's illegal to ride in my city, so now I'm an outlaw, I get great exercise when I pack it, and an incredible sense of freedom when I rip past the traffic, or politely navigate the bike lanes. The board is dangerous, so I can get out of my head: if I don't pay attention, I die; so it forces a flow state and clears all of my life worries -- something my motorcycle friends talk about a lot. I have crashed, and though painful, I usually go at a speed that I can run-out-of if something bad happens. You don't get sweaty like you do from riding a bike, so you can wear a suit under the safety gear. No need to change the city, you can get the revolution you want by deploying your own technology. If you live in a dirt-bag city, like I do, you don't have to worry about your windows being smashed or whatever, because you are carrying your car on your back.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dublinben 3y ago
  It turns out that most people are not willing to risk their lives in this manner to get where they're going, so building proper infrastructure is necessary.

throwaway22032 3y ago

I wonder what percentage of people prefer this kind of hierarchy. Personally if driving were super deprioritized where I live, I'd have more incentive to move out of the city and live more rurally, which seems like a net negative overall (environmentally). Probably, most people would stay in the city and balance it out though. I enjoy cycling and walking, but I'd rather keep my usage of public transport to a minimum. If we could completely exclude all arseholes, make public transport cover far more places, make every bus and train have good climate control, it might be different. 3 seems possible, 2 seems like it would then approach the energy requirements of driving, 1 is a non starter.

digdugdirk 3y ago
The point is that (in the US) no one outside of New York City and maybe Chicago has any ability to really experience this kind of hierarchy. Even in those cities, it's still not prioritizing pedestrians and bicyclists, it's just increased the relevance of public transport due to the inherent density making driving and parking a pain. Mid sized cities (or larger cities built up after the 50's) just aren't designed to support this kind of lifestyle, and would require laws to change around zoning/parking/etc.
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not sure that you could go much further than NYC without making private car ownership impossible for most, though. Maybe that's the point. Despite having a good transport network overall (I live in London), it's just such an integrated part of my life to be able to jump in the car and go and visit friends say 50 miles away that I can't imagine ever wanting to give that up. I'd rather have that than the fancy downtown bars. Am I old? :)
  - rainsford 3y ago
    The point that always seems to get lost in these discussions is that it really shouldn't be an either/or thing. There's no reason you can't still have a car for journeys that make sense to drive while having great alternatives so you aren't forced to use a car for every single trip, which would be a huge transportation improvement over what exists now in the vast majority of American cities.

kdmccormick 3y ago

Nice article, although I wonder why walking is considered greener than cycling. Is it because producing bicycles and bicycle infrastruce has an environmental impact? Regardless, once you own a bike and once bike lanes are built, there's no environmental reason not to bike instead of walk whenever you want to, right?

loloquwowndueo 3y ago
The pyramid also takes into account how “vulnerable” each mode of transportation is, in other words, who yields to whom. If you’ve ever been run over by a cyclist - it hurts. So it stands to reason that pedestrians should be prioritized and protected by users of modes towards the tip of the pyramid.
- jychang 3y ago
  Disagree, it only applies to your walking/cyclist example. I suspect getting hit by a bus will hurt a lot more than getting hit by a car.
  - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
    It’s also far less likely - fewer buses on the road and bus drivers are better trained than the millions of reckless private car owners.
throwaway22032 3y ago
Bicycles still take physical space with racks and stuff. Also, e-bikes directly use energy though they're not listed (neither are motorbikes). I agree that this is pretty trivial in terms of environmental impact, it's probably just about the friction involved, we already have legs.
- mwint 3y ago
  Friction as in mechanical friction? It’s certainly less total energy expended per mile to cover the same distance on a bike vs. legs, right?

fnord77 3y ago

In SF, the city leaders are trying to make it impossible to use a SOV. Yet public transit is unusable except for small swaths of the city. And building new transit is virtually impossible due to corruption (a new 1.9 mile subway spur recently opened after 20 years of construction and $2 billion). Even worse in recent years crime has gotten out of control on transit and drug users are using train cars to smoke fent. So nobody wants to use transit. The city built a lot of bike lanes but owning a bike is impossible because it will get stolen just about instantly. so yeah we have the worst of all worlds

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jeffbee 3y ago
Sounds like you read this in your local newspaper in Nashville or something. The entire city is well-covered by transit services. 450k people ride Muni every day. 65k people use BART stations in SF every day. Only Washington and NY enjoy significantly more transit ridership than SF does.
- fnord77 3y ago
  I have lived in SF for 20 years. public transit sucks

gfiorav 3y ago

Several comments on this thread tend to slip into the trap of comparing countries. It's important to remember that population density plays a crucial role in financing public infrastructure. Consider Argentina's case, for instance. Its size is comparable to India, yet it has a population smaller than Spain, making it a daunting task to fund extensive rail networks. The same rationale can be applied to the US in comparison to smaller European nations. Ultimately, promoting driving by making cars more affordable and investing in the highway system may indeed be the most adaptable and practical strategy for larger countries. Just something to ponder over.

rainsford 3y ago
It's a valid point to consider, although I'm not sure that looking at average density across the entire country makes a lot of sense since you don't have to apply the same solution nation-wide. When considering transportation options for a denser part of a country, like the US east coast Boston-Washington DC corridor, it's irrelevant how much empty space there is in Wyoming. The same is true on a smaller scale as well. Sure, the fact that Denver is so far away from any other large population centers means building a bunch of high-speed rail lines there might not make sense, but there's no reason Denver itself can't have better non-car transit options to get around the city and metro area. Edit: The US east coast is always a particularly interesting use-case since it's more comparable to the density found in a lot of countries with far better transit while also being significantly richer. The Bos-Wash corridor has about the same population as Spain but it is significantly more dense and with 3x the GDP. Yet Spain has far better inter-city high-speed rail and other transit options.
- gfiorav 3y ago
  I’d argue those cities in the east coast you mention are closer together and more densely populated. If you were to look at the northeast region by itself (Boston, New York, Washington), I bet its rail is comparable to similar European countries.
  - kdmccormick 3y ago

Racing0461 3y ago

[flagged]

slooonz 3y ago

Why are taxis so high in this hierarchy ? It seems to me they should be barely different from single occupancy vehicles.

alexchamberlain 3y ago
Maybe because they do so many more miles and a lot of the carbon emissions these days are actually in the manufacturing process?
goda90 3y ago
Taxis don't need the same parking as a bunch of people driving to a destination. Less parking means denser land use which can mean less travel time and more green space.
analog31 3y ago
One thing is that taxis don't need to be parked in urban centers, or if they are, their parking facilities don't have to be pleasant or convenient to peoples jobs. The search for a parking space increases car traffic and congestion. Also, parked cars occupy space that could be used to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Taxis (including uber, lyft, etc) greatly reduce costs for someone who only needs to travel by car sporadically, possibly making cities marginally more affordable.
- ilyt 3y ago
  Right but it is above high occupancy vehicles, that by nature carry more. Also taxis net more traffic as the time taxi driver is driving to the next customer is essentially useless.
rogerdb 3y ago
Taxis are complementary to the higher-priority parts of the hierarchy. It's easier to commit to walking/cycling/public transport knowing that you can always take a taxi in a pinch. SOVs have the inverse effect - it's hard to combine them with other modes of transportation, and if you're already paying to own/maintain/insure a vehicle, you're incentivized away from considering alternatives.

kodah 3y ago

The author and I have lived in the same places, almost on the same timeline, except SF actual. > Since then, I’ve come back to Portland, and the options to get around without a car are better again. Portland has a pretty good bike share program, an above average light rail system, and an okay bus network. Plus, my neighborhood is pretty walkable, with a 73 walk score. Portland's friendliness to biking has dropped in recent years. Pedestrian deaths have risen quite a bit, which makes people not want to use our many bike lanes. Some background: https://bikeportland.org/2023/03/15/city-counts-reveal-data-behind-portlands-precipitous-drop-in-cycling-371407 https://bikeportland.org/2023/03/15/city-counts-reveal-data-... There's two main theories that I think reflect the whole truth: - PBOT built a lot of bus and train infrastructure. Turns out they designed it in a way that can be hostile to biking. - We eliminated our traffic division and around that time pedestrian and motorcycle fatalities greatly increased. I'd also like to point out that walkability in Portland mostly correlates to how rich/new (almost the same thing in Portland) the area is. Portland has a lot of old neighborhoods and they don't really have a density strategy, meaning they'll just build in density anywhere including demolishing most of a street and compounding a whole two lane street with dense housing. The thing I've learned from this is that density needs to be integrative; it should be smartly built among SFHs and should not the the majority or only housing on an existing street. That's to say, if you take a street designed for 10 homes and then you turn it into quadplexes bad things happen to traffic, much less the vibe of the area. My street is a good example of how to do it right, they capped the dense housing so it could only occupy half of the street. We have condos for a quarter of the street, quadplexes for a quarter, and SFHs for half. Why does this matter? Portland ties paving of roads and building of sidewalks to new construction. It's a perverse incentive that resulted in there being sidewalks and a minimally paved road up to my house. Everything thereafter is a gravel road in the middle of Portland. It's dangerous during Portland's rainy season, but the city doesn't really care. This is their carrot. When we asked the city to come in and pave the road and finish the sidewalk so that folks can get to our deli/grocery store easier, Portland responded that we could raise money and build our own on their land and we still needed to pay the exhorbitant city permitting fees. On the other hand, Portland does an excellent job with mass transportation. Just outside my neighborhood you can catch a bus to anywhere around Portland, including the train, which in three hours can take you to Seattle. It's really nice.

neither_color 3y ago

This mental model is great if you assume that you're always going from home to Point A then back home. I've lived in decently walkable cities and whenever on a particular day I need to get to 3-4 or more destinations before coming back home non-car ends up being the most difficult option. Partly because at different destinations I dress differently(change of clothes for the gym), partly because I might want to buy more than a backpack full of groceries or other items, and partly because metro/bus only take you near your destination and all those last-mile journeys in one day add up to a lot of time.

cantaloupe 3y ago
In a walkable city, gyms and grocery stores are walkable from where you live, so there is no need to string together a bunch of stops. When you can walk to the gym or the grocery store in less than 10 minutes, no pre-planning is needed to optimize a route. And one usually doesn’t need more than a backpack full of groceries if within walking distance of a grocery store, because stocking up isn’t necessary. It’s amazing how much a truly walkable area simplifies life.

a_c 3y ago

As illustrated in the video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V1kOLhhSjl8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V1kOLhhSjl8 it is hard to solve transportation by patching part of it. How people go to work, get health care, buy groceries, go to school, get entertainment, etc all require transportation. The denser the city, the better it is suited to do transportation right. London is notorious for its traffic, but given its size and population, I think it is doing very decently. I wonder how many transport improvements is coming from an US centric hammer, i.e. a better, environmental friendlier car

entropicgravity 3y ago

This is a good strategy for the pre-EV era but in the EV era 'vehicles' can and will be much smaller than what most people think of as a car today. This is because EV technology scales much better than ICE vehicles for cities. A small ICE car is still heavy and cumbersome and polluting primarily because of require pollution controls. Small EV's have none of that so they can be much lighter and smaller than similar ICE implementations. In particular, EV's that are less than half a standard lane width wide would allow the grid capacity to double overnight at almost no extra cost. This will happen first in the busy city cores where the usual single occupancy gas vehicle will be dissallowed (already happening in a few cities in China and Europe). So basically this is a cross between and bicycle and a the current regular ICE cars. But wait, there's more. Because EV's are non-polluting city core roads can be covered in poor weather and parking can be almost anywhere. This won't be your father's city core.

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
Parking is still a huge issue, even for small EV cars. Micromobility modes like bikes (EV / non-EV), scooters, EUCs, etc. are more space efficient. Also charging these vehicles is easier than a micro car. However, I could definitely see a city core where all personal car traffic is banned and commercial truck traffic is only allowed if it's EV and under a certain tonnage.
c-cube 3y ago
What you're describing is literally called e-bike, bike lanes, and bike racks. It's known technology and it's just not cars. (apparently there are tiny electric cars for handicapped people, in use in the Netherlands, with rights to access bike lanes and such with a permit)

RecycledEle 3y ago

Taxis burn an incredible amount of fuel getting to each new customer. How are taxis more efficient than personal cars?