4 ms·

The Library of Congress has a great film taken from the front of a cable car in pre-fire San Francisco [1]. It's absolutely terrifying to see how unsafe the str

The Library of Congress has a great film taken from the front of a cable car in pre-fire San Francisco [1]. It's absolutely terrifying to see how unsafe the streets were. It wasn't just cars either: horse-drawn carts dart in and out of traffic just as cars did, pedestrians cross at-will in front of all vehicles, and at one points kids mess about jumping on the back of vehicles. It's obvious major regulation was needed, and not just for pedestrians. Pretend cars didn't exist on that street for a moment and think about the changes needed to make it safe: carts needed lanes and rules for changing lanes, cable cars needed dedicated lanes, intersections needed a system to allow traffic from multiple directions, and pedestrians were being a bit too free with their judgement calls. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINgSqEU26A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINgSqEU26A

paldepind2 3y ago
Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing. It looks a bit chaotic but honestly not _that_ unsafe to me as everything is going quite slow. It reminds me a bit of the idea of "shared space" which is a recent concept that is actually claimed to make streets safer.
- ilaksh 3y ago
  I think it comes down to things like speed. If we accept that the road is a place to be able to quickly move a lot of vehicles, then that just isn't a safe place for pedestrians. If we go back to lower speeds then maybe it could be manageable in a same way. But as it is actually used now for 3000 pound vehicles to zoom about in, it makes no sense for pedestrians to be intersecting and sharing the space at all. Just due to the physics of collisions between a person and a vehicle. I don't think slow vehicles is a good solution because we do need to get places. I think an actual good (but very expensive) solution is for new cities to be designed differently in several ways. One of which is for roads to be only for small autonomous vehicles and entirely separate from pedestrian paths. To make that reasonably practical you need some other core assumptions to be changed. And also a totally new development probably.
  - alexfoo 3y ago
    Luckily some countries don’t think about it like this. Many European countries put pedestrians first in cities and towns. Cars can go “quickly” between cities and towns but around pedestrians they really do need to slow down. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere where the car is king and everyone else must cede to its ultimate priority. People need to give themselves more time to get places, rather than thinking they are far more important than the greatly decreased safety of others.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Cars are perfectly capable of going slow... The American mindset is not. I swear that a huge portion of people in the US have been propagandized to believe that the car is king and that any idea to the contrary is heresy punishable by death under the front bumper of a Ford F-250 jacked up 3 feet higher.
    - yowzadave 3y ago
      Bingo--this argument (like many others) is one that doesn't require us to speculate or to invent new ways of building cities. We just need to look around the world to cities that have dealt with this problem successfully, and learn from their examples.
  - snthd 3y ago
    The Dutch do road design/purpose very well, and they didn't start with a new development. https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/sustainable-safety/ https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/sustainable-sa... https://swov.nl/system/files/publication-downloads/dv3_en_kort_rapport.pdf https://swov.nl/system/files/publication-downloads/dv3_en_ko... (pdf)
  - Maarten88 3y ago
    > ... new cities to be designed differently in several ways. One of which is for roads to be only for small autonomous vehicles and entirely separate ... As I understand it, this vision does not compute. The number of movements of people in a dense city is too large for everyone to move in a car, autonomous or not. Cars take a lot of space. They need to stop someplace for someone to get in and out, merge in and out of traffic. Streets cant be designed in a way that accomodates this at the scale of a city like NY. Similarly, in spread-out suburbia, autonomous cars would still get stuck in traffic jams if everyone has to use them to get to work. Making cars autonomous makes things a bit more efficient, but not by orders of magnitude. Mass transit, combined with walking and biking, is simply way more efficient for moving people in cities and is a proven model that does scale.
- Animats 3y ago
  > It reminds me a bit of the idea of "shared space" which is a recent concept that is actually claimed to make streets safer. It's a 1990s concept from France. It was implemented in the 1990s on Theater Way in Redwood City. CA, and did not work well. One side of the street has a curb, but the other side does not. Vehicle traffic was allowed, and people could get out in front of the movie theater. The other side of the street, with no barriers, had cafe tables.[1] This worked badly. The cafe tables kept creeping outward. Some auto traffic was too fast. During COVID, the outside seating kept growing into the roadway. Plastic bollards were erected to discourage non-delivery traffic. Overpowered electric bikes zooming through became an problem. Police cars were sometimes deployed to block the roadway. Then plastic Jersey-type barriers were set up at one end, but not filled with water, so they could be moved for deliveries. Currently, one end of the street has been torn up for installation of some kind of raiseable barrier. [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@37.48560402,-122.22909676,5.0720458a,0d,90y,2.50676999h,92.55658834t,0r https://earth.google.com/web/@37.48560402,-122.22909676,5.07...
mlazos 3y ago
Characterizing that as terrifying is a bit hyperbolic. It looks like Europe in the present day. If cars were moving slower it would be much easier to be a pedestrian safely
- sudobash1 3y ago
  I was strongly reminded of the driving in Italy, except much slower (and more horses).
lkramer 3y ago
As someone who lives and occasionally drives in London that feels like my daily life to be honest..
limitedfrom 3y ago
It's chaotic, but not terrifying or likely that dangerous given the speed / injury/deaths are very unlikely at such low speeds[1]. Vehicles are moving at near-walking speeds, and even with the added weight of carriages/cars, there's a lot of reaction time. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds
deleted 3y ago
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freedomben 3y ago
More of a meta-comment, but somebody working with AI to upscale/enhance images/videos ought to take a crack at making that picture quality better. Would be fascinating to generate a reasonable audio track as well of what it would have sounded like, especially as cars/motors accelerate, people shout things, etc. Certainly not an easy task, but would be super cool
- piscisaureus 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/VO_1AdYRGW8?si=0q_u8ASJKn3YXGdd https://youtu.be/VO_1AdYRGW8?si=0q_u8ASJKn3YXGdd
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Wow, thank you! That's amazing! Can't believe not only has it been done, but it was 3 years ago and was very popular!
deleted 3y ago
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joshuahaglund 3y ago
Looks fine to me. I think the unsafe thing is speed. Top speed of a cable car is 9.5mph. No vehicle appears to be going over 15mph. There's a cyclist pretty casually keeping pace with the cars. https://youtu.be/uINgSqEU26A?t=153 https://youtu.be/uINgSqEU26A?t=153 From https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/ https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve... "Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph." Slower speeds mean a collision is less likely to occur. We're pretty good at moving in crowded conditions without frequent collisions at low speeds. See also NYC sidewalks. Also, it appears the video is slowed down. I played at 1.5 speed to make my estimates
- obelos 3y ago
  A lot of car-centric people conflate “I don't know exactly what's about to happen next” with “danger!” What's actually dangerous is the hubristic trance people fall into when they believe they do know exactly what's about to happen next. When that happens at car speeds in a world that is inherently unpredictable, it's often deadly.
doctorpangloss 3y ago
> It's absolutely terrifying... Pretend cars didn't exist on that street for a moment You can easily experience the scenario you envision, practically average 1905 San Francisco roads, by walking or biking through JFK street in Golden Gate Park, which is closed to all vehicles but food trucks and shuttles. It's so crazy fucking nice, fun and safe so I have no idea what you're talking about.
diogenes4 3y ago
> It's obvious major regulation was needed, and not just for pedestrians. Wait why would your impulse be to regulate pedestrians at all? The street doesn't even seem that dangerous without high-speed vehicles.

paldepind2 3y ago

Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing. It looks a bit chaotic but honestly not _that_ unsafe to me as everything is going quite slow. It reminds me a bit of the idea of "shared space" which is a recent concept that is actually claimed to make streets safer.

ilaksh 3y ago
I think it comes down to things like speed. If we accept that the road is a place to be able to quickly move a lot of vehicles, then that just isn't a safe place for pedestrians. If we go back to lower speeds then maybe it could be manageable in a same way. But as it is actually used now for 3000 pound vehicles to zoom about in, it makes no sense for pedestrians to be intersecting and sharing the space at all. Just due to the physics of collisions between a person and a vehicle. I don't think slow vehicles is a good solution because we do need to get places. I think an actual good (but very expensive) solution is for new cities to be designed differently in several ways. One of which is for roads to be only for small autonomous vehicles and entirely separate from pedestrian paths. To make that reasonably practical you need some other core assumptions to be changed. And also a totally new development probably.
- alexfoo 3y ago
  Luckily some countries don’t think about it like this. Many European countries put pedestrians first in cities and towns. Cars can go “quickly” between cities and towns but around pedestrians they really do need to slow down. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere where the car is king and everyone else must cede to its ultimate priority. People need to give themselves more time to get places, rather than thinking they are far more important than the greatly decreased safety of others.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Cars are perfectly capable of going slow... The American mindset is not. I swear that a huge portion of people in the US have been propagandized to believe that the car is king and that any idea to the contrary is heresy punishable by death under the front bumper of a Ford F-250 jacked up 3 feet higher.
  - yowzadave 3y ago
    Bingo--this argument (like many others) is one that doesn't require us to speculate or to invent new ways of building cities. We just need to look around the world to cities that have dealt with this problem successfully, and learn from their examples.
- snthd 3y ago
  The Dutch do road design/purpose very well, and they didn't start with a new development. https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/sustainable-safety/ https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/sustainable-sa... https://swov.nl/system/files/publication-downloads/dv3_en_kort_rapport.pdf https://swov.nl/system/files/publication-downloads/dv3_en_ko... (pdf)
- Maarten88 3y ago
  > ... new cities to be designed differently in several ways. One of which is for roads to be only for small autonomous vehicles and entirely separate ... As I understand it, this vision does not compute. The number of movements of people in a dense city is too large for everyone to move in a car, autonomous or not. Cars take a lot of space. They need to stop someplace for someone to get in and out, merge in and out of traffic. Streets cant be designed in a way that accomodates this at the scale of a city like NY. Similarly, in spread-out suburbia, autonomous cars would still get stuck in traffic jams if everyone has to use them to get to work. Making cars autonomous makes things a bit more efficient, but not by orders of magnitude. Mass transit, combined with walking and biking, is simply way more efficient for moving people in cities and is a proven model that does scale.
Animats 3y ago
> It reminds me a bit of the idea of "shared space" which is a recent concept that is actually claimed to make streets safer. It's a 1990s concept from France. It was implemented in the 1990s on Theater Way in Redwood City. CA, and did not work well. One side of the street has a curb, but the other side does not. Vehicle traffic was allowed, and people could get out in front of the movie theater. The other side of the street, with no barriers, had cafe tables.[1] This worked badly. The cafe tables kept creeping outward. Some auto traffic was too fast. During COVID, the outside seating kept growing into the roadway. Plastic bollards were erected to discourage non-delivery traffic. Overpowered electric bikes zooming through became an problem. Police cars were sometimes deployed to block the roadway. Then plastic Jersey-type barriers were set up at one end, but not filled with water, so they could be moved for deliveries. Currently, one end of the street has been torn up for installation of some kind of raiseable barrier. [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@37.48560402,-122.22909676,5.0720458a,0d,90y,2.50676999h,92.55658834t,0r https://earth.google.com/web/@37.48560402,-122.22909676,5.07...

mlazos 3y ago

Characterizing that as terrifying is a bit hyperbolic. It looks like Europe in the present day. If cars were moving slower it would be much easier to be a pedestrian safely

sudobash1 3y ago
I was strongly reminded of the driving in Italy, except much slower (and more horses).

lkramer 3y ago

As someone who lives and occasionally drives in London that feels like my daily life to be honest..

limitedfrom 3y ago

It's chaotic, but not terrifying or likely that dangerous given the speed / injury/deaths are very unlikely at such low speeds[1]. Vehicles are moving at near-walking speeds, and even with the added weight of carriages/cars, there's a lot of reaction time. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

freedomben 3y ago

More of a meta-comment, but somebody working with AI to upscale/enhance images/videos ought to take a crack at making that picture quality better. Would be fascinating to generate a reasonable audio track as well of what it would have sounded like, especially as cars/motors accelerate, people shout things, etc. Certainly not an easy task, but would be super cool

piscisaureus 3y ago
https://youtu.be/VO_1AdYRGW8?si=0q_u8ASJKn3YXGdd https://youtu.be/VO_1AdYRGW8?si=0q_u8ASJKn3YXGdd
- freedomben 3y ago
  Wow, thank you! That's amazing! Can't believe not only has it been done, but it was 3 years ago and was very popular!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

joshuahaglund 3y ago

Looks fine to me. I think the unsafe thing is speed. Top speed of a cable car is 9.5mph. No vehicle appears to be going over 15mph. There's a cyclist pretty casually keeping pace with the cars. https://youtu.be/uINgSqEU26A?t=153 https://youtu.be/uINgSqEU26A?t=153 From https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/ https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve... "Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph." Slower speeds mean a collision is less likely to occur. We're pretty good at moving in crowded conditions without frequent collisions at low speeds. See also NYC sidewalks. Also, it appears the video is slowed down. I played at 1.5 speed to make my estimates

obelos 3y ago
A lot of car-centric people conflate “I don't know exactly what's about to happen next” with “danger!” What's actually dangerous is the hubristic trance people fall into when they believe they do know exactly what's about to happen next. When that happens at car speeds in a world that is inherently unpredictable, it's often deadly.

doctorpangloss 3y ago

> It's absolutely terrifying... Pretend cars didn't exist on that street for a moment You can easily experience the scenario you envision, practically average 1905 San Francisco roads, by walking or biking through JFK street in Golden Gate Park, which is closed to all vehicles but food trucks and shuttles. It's so crazy fucking nice, fun and safe so I have no idea what you're talking about.

diogenes4 3y ago

> It's obvious major regulation was needed, and not just for pedestrians. Wait why would your impulse be to regulate pedestrians at all? The street doesn't even seem that dangerous without high-speed vehicles.