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"Cities Aren't Loud: Cars Are Loud": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
drukenemo 3y ago
I kind of like his ideas (I know the channel), but he’s heavily biased against cars. He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy. The reality is, cities are incredibly noisy due to cars, but also construction work, people shouting, loud music and much more.
- glial 3y ago
  Yeah but mostly due to cars.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  > “He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy.” No? He drives cars, uses multiple car rental/car shares schemes, often says that it’s not cars he dislikes it’s urban design which leads to car dependency - unsafe for anyone outside a car, no provision for anything other than driving, single family housing zoning leading to everything being too spread out to go anywhere without a car - and that he’s not a ‘cyclist’ and would prefer taking a tram when possible. The channel is even called “not just bikes” to push back against your kind of mischaracterisation.
- robswc 3y ago
  Don't forget the trash trucks setting down dumpsters. Not that I blame them, no other way really but gave me a heart attack every time.
- Aaargh20318 3y ago
  > He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy While not everything can be done on a bike, a lot of people use a car when there is no need to. I can't understand why because cycling is way more enjoyable and in most cases a much faster way to get around town than a car. Especially if you own an e-bike. I own a car but hardly feel the need to use it. I usually need to buy a full tank of gas once or twice a year.
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > I kind of like his ideas (I know the channel), but he’s heavily biased against cars. He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy. It's kind of hard to over emphasize the the damage they've done, specifically as forms of personal transportation (versus more commercial transport). He does have a video called "The Best Country in the World for Drivers", in which he shows that by reducing the need for cars for most people, actually helps the optimize things for operating a car: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k And until the ~1920s, societies managed to function pretty well without the streets being taken over by cars: * https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ I don't see why they need to have total priority with-in cities to the extant they currently do.
  - drukenemo 3y ago
    Thanks for those links. Will watch them
- i80and 3y ago
  I used to walk through midtown new york city every day. It's incredibly people-dense so there's definitely some baseline human noise, but I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely dwarfed by cars and delivery trucks it is. Construction work, shouting, music, etc. are almost a non-factor in comparison.
- notatoad 3y ago
  there's a new roundabout currently under construction about 200m from my house. i can hear the construction equipment working early in the morning and mid-afternoon when the road is quiet, but 90% of the time the construction noise is completely drowned out by the normal road noise, from the road on the far side of the roundabout. construction noise from a dozen pieces of heavy equipment working all day just isn't a significant source of noise compared to a moderately busy road. not to mention that in a few months the construction will be done, but the road will always be there. "people shouting" and "loud music" don't even factor.
- nickserv 3y ago
  Construction and loud music are localized, but car noise is everywhere.
  - spixy 3y ago
    and construction is also just temporary
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  His channel is literally named NOT JUST bikes... He makes a lot of points about other aspects of safety, like speed bumps/other speed limiters, safe roundabouts, public transportation, etc... Cars are by far the biggest noise contributor in a city and tbh i'd like drivers to pay a tax based on max sound a car may make on max engine speed(and if they want to pay less tax, speed should be physically limited to max 100km/h or something similar based on gps. But that's just a fantasy
jodrellblank 3y ago
Last night I was listening to audio, went outside for a walk, quiet area, but when a car drove by I couldn’t hear what was being said for maybe 6 seconds, from the headphones that were pushed right into my ear holes. What had been a comfortable speech listening volume is dwarfed by ordinary cars, not even modded boy racer cars speeding, just basic sedans doing the speed limit. That’s rather anti-human.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  > That’s rather anti-human. The car was probably driven by someone who needed to do a human thing. Drivers are not evil Captain Planet villains. The anti-human thing is NIBMYs driving everyone out of cities and preventing density.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    > "The car was probably driven by someone who needed to do a human thing. Drivers are not evil Captain Planet villains." In other situations where someone annoys hundreds of people, harms the health of hundreds of people, primarily for their own benefit, we'd call that bad, undesirable, and socially shame the person doing it, wouldn't we? The situation is anti-human; it's not a nice situation to exist in as an unaugmented human outside a car, not nice to walk in, to talk in, tarmac road isn't beautiful, vehicle fumes don't smell nice, they're harmful to health, and it's not cheap to build cars and roads everywhere and maintain them. Cars take a huge amount of space to move one person compared to the space of one walking human or one biking human, and they push 'places' further apart to make room for vehicles and car parks. It should be that for such tradeoffs, cars need to have an enormous payback - things which absolutely can't be done without them. For example, emergency services - noisy, but needs to move mutiple people and equipment in a hurry. Delivery vehicles needing to move large quantities of goods around, labour needing to move equipment around. However if it's done for travelling 2 miles because urban design gave no thought to walking or biking so that the only safe and convenient way to cover 2 miles is by car, even though owning a car is a huge cost, that's anti-human design. The NotJustBikes YouTube channel linked above has the message that most people are not 'car people' but will use whatever transport is (the cheapest, the quickest, the most convenient). It's a failing of urban design and big picture thinking when individual car driving is the winner for many short journeys when it could be otherwise. It's a bit of a failure when walking and driving are a sidewalk beside a main road and other routes have no (sidewalks, streetlights, bike lanes, safe crossings, etc). Compare for example the NJB videos: - "Why grocery shopping is better in Amsterdam" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk where he compares shopping for food in Amsterdam with driving to an out of town box store in Canada, and having to drive in Canada. - "Safe cycling showdown - Good vs. Bad city design" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8F5hXqS-Ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8F5hXqS-Ac which is a 20 minute video, first 10 minutes is NJB cycling from Amsterdam center to a hardware store ~10Km away on the edge of town, voice overlay is him describing what makes good/bad cycling infrastructure along the way. The next 10 minutes is an equivalent ride in Calgary, Alberta, from city center to out of town hardware store a similar distance, and similar overlay commentary. The contrast is stark.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

drukenemo 3y ago

I kind of like his ideas (I know the channel), but he’s heavily biased against cars. He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy. The reality is, cities are incredibly noisy due to cars, but also construction work, people shouting, loud music and much more.

glial 3y ago
Yeah but mostly due to cars.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jodrellblank 3y ago
> “He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy.” No? He drives cars, uses multiple car rental/car shares schemes, often says that it’s not cars he dislikes it’s urban design which leads to car dependency - unsafe for anyone outside a car, no provision for anything other than driving, single family housing zoning leading to everything being too spread out to go anywhere without a car - and that he’s not a ‘cyclist’ and would prefer taking a tram when possible. The channel is even called “not just bikes” to push back against your kind of mischaracterisation.
robswc 3y ago
Don't forget the trash trucks setting down dumpsters. Not that I blame them, no other way really but gave me a heart attack every time.
Aaargh20318 3y ago
> He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy While not everything can be done on a bike, a lot of people use a car when there is no need to. I can't understand why because cycling is way more enjoyable and in most cases a much faster way to get around town than a car. Especially if you own an e-bike. I own a car but hardly feel the need to use it. I usually need to buy a full tank of gas once or twice a year.
throw0101a 3y ago
> I kind of like his ideas (I know the channel), but he’s heavily biased against cars. He’s the “everything could be done on a bike” type of guy. It's kind of hard to over emphasize the the damage they've done, specifically as forms of personal transportation (versus more commercial transport). He does have a video called "The Best Country in the World for Drivers", in which he shows that by reducing the need for cars for most people, actually helps the optimize things for operating a car: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k And until the ~1920s, societies managed to function pretty well without the streets being taken over by cars: * https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ I don't see why they need to have total priority with-in cities to the extant they currently do.
- drukenemo 3y ago
  Thanks for those links. Will watch them
i80and 3y ago
I used to walk through midtown new york city every day. It's incredibly people-dense so there's definitely some baseline human noise, but I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely dwarfed by cars and delivery trucks it is. Construction work, shouting, music, etc. are almost a non-factor in comparison.
notatoad 3y ago
there's a new roundabout currently under construction about 200m from my house. i can hear the construction equipment working early in the morning and mid-afternoon when the road is quiet, but 90% of the time the construction noise is completely drowned out by the normal road noise, from the road on the far side of the roundabout. construction noise from a dozen pieces of heavy equipment working all day just isn't a significant source of noise compared to a moderately busy road. not to mention that in a few months the construction will be done, but the road will always be there. "people shouting" and "loud music" don't even factor.
nickserv 3y ago
Construction and loud music are localized, but car noise is everywhere.
- spixy 3y ago
  and construction is also just temporary
Moldoteck 3y ago
His channel is literally named NOT JUST bikes... He makes a lot of points about other aspects of safety, like speed bumps/other speed limiters, safe roundabouts, public transportation, etc... Cars are by far the biggest noise contributor in a city and tbh i'd like drivers to pay a tax based on max sound a car may make on max engine speed(and if they want to pay less tax, speed should be physically limited to max 100km/h or something similar based on gps. But that's just a fantasy

jodrellblank 3y ago

Last night I was listening to audio, went outside for a walk, quiet area, but when a car drove by I couldn’t hear what was being said for maybe 6 seconds, from the headphones that were pushed right into my ear holes. What had been a comfortable speech listening volume is dwarfed by ordinary cars, not even modded boy racer cars speeding, just basic sedans doing the speed limit. That’s rather anti-human.

cscurmudgeon 3y ago
> That’s rather anti-human. The car was probably driven by someone who needed to do a human thing. Drivers are not evil Captain Planet villains. The anti-human thing is NIBMYs driving everyone out of cities and preventing density.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  > "The car was probably driven by someone who needed to do a human thing. Drivers are not evil Captain Planet villains." In other situations where someone annoys hundreds of people, harms the health of hundreds of people, primarily for their own benefit, we'd call that bad, undesirable, and socially shame the person doing it, wouldn't we? The situation is anti-human; it's not a nice situation to exist in as an unaugmented human outside a car, not nice to walk in, to talk in, tarmac road isn't beautiful, vehicle fumes don't smell nice, they're harmful to health, and it's not cheap to build cars and roads everywhere and maintain them. Cars take a huge amount of space to move one person compared to the space of one walking human or one biking human, and they push 'places' further apart to make room for vehicles and car parks. It should be that for such tradeoffs, cars need to have an enormous payback - things which absolutely can't be done without them. For example, emergency services - noisy, but needs to move mutiple people and equipment in a hurry. Delivery vehicles needing to move large quantities of goods around, labour needing to move equipment around. However if it's done for travelling 2 miles because urban design gave no thought to walking or biking so that the only safe and convenient way to cover 2 miles is by car, even though owning a car is a huge cost, that's anti-human design. The NotJustBikes YouTube channel linked above has the message that most people are not 'car people' but will use whatever transport is (the cheapest, the quickest, the most convenient). It's a failing of urban design and big picture thinking when individual car driving is the winner for many short journeys when it could be otherwise. It's a bit of a failure when walking and driving are a sidewalk beside a main road and other routes have no (sidewalks, streetlights, bike lanes, safe crossings, etc). Compare for example the NJB videos: - "Why grocery shopping is better in Amsterdam" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk where he compares shopping for food in Amsterdam with driving to an out of town box store in Canada, and having to drive in Canada. - "Safe cycling showdown - Good vs. Bad city design" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8F5hXqS-Ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8F5hXqS-Ac which is a 20 minute video, first 10 minutes is NJB cycling from Amsterdam center to a hardware store ~10Km away on the edge of town, voice overlay is him describing what makes good/bad cycling infrastructure along the way. The next 10 minutes is an equivalent ride in Calgary, Alberta, from city center to out of town hardware store a similar distance, and similar overlay commentary. The contrast is stark.