3 ms·

> You can't just keep slicing up the existing infra pie differently, you need to grow the pie. Converting 1 out of every 4 or 8 lanes on dense cities to be bus

> You can't just keep slicing up the existing infra pie differently, you need to grow the pie. Converting 1 out of every 4 or 8 lanes on dense cities to be bus only would decrease the number of cars that can be physically on the road, but increase the throughput of people, as buses do scale much better than single occupancy cars.

steveBK123 3y ago
Agreed, we absolutely should put in real express bus lanes, and enforce them vigorously. But even this is "building" for a very low bar/definition of building. You need to actually create new bus routes, paint lanes, put up new signage, add cameras for enforcement, coordinate with NYPD to ticket, etc. Even this simple example of "building" is something the city seems paralyzed and unable to accomplish outside of what.. 14th st?
marcosdumay 3y ago
Well, as long as you have actual buses running on that strip, with trips that aren't much slower than cars, with ticket prices that are smaller than the cost of a car, and going from and to the places people want to go. In my experience, governing bodies that use terms like "induced demand" have a high probability on failing to provide those details. But will still want to take the capacity down.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Yup. I live on a street that was recently de-car'd. They didn't add a bus, light rail, trolley, or anything. They kept all the parking. But they painted cute little two way bike lanes. It's a regular pedestrian promenade. Surely increases the value of my condo. Nor did they allocate reasonable pickup/dropoff taxi zones or delivery loading/unloading, so its a giant mess of double parking and people improvising. Also makes literally zero trips for me faster, and most of them slower. And all the traffic has spilled over onto adjacent streets creating worse traffic.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Painting new lines is always cheaper and easier than actually building infrastructure, and the politician who decided on the new lines can say he's Doing Something™. Even if it's just virtue signaling and doesn't actually help, it's enough to fool voters.
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      Right, so my 3 block radius has added about 3000 new units in the last 5 years (great) and all we've done to improve transit is.. remove a road (not great).

steveBK123 3y ago

Agreed, we absolutely should put in real express bus lanes, and enforce them vigorously. But even this is "building" for a very low bar/definition of building. You need to actually create new bus routes, paint lanes, put up new signage, add cameras for enforcement, coordinate with NYPD to ticket, etc. Even this simple example of "building" is something the city seems paralyzed and unable to accomplish outside of what.. 14th st?

marcosdumay 3y ago

Well, as long as you have actual buses running on that strip, with trips that aren't much slower than cars, with ticket prices that are smaller than the cost of a car, and going from and to the places people want to go. In my experience, governing bodies that use terms like "induced demand" have a high probability on failing to provide those details. But will still want to take the capacity down.

steveBK123 3y ago
Yup. I live on a street that was recently de-car'd. They didn't add a bus, light rail, trolley, or anything. They kept all the parking. But they painted cute little two way bike lanes. It's a regular pedestrian promenade. Surely increases the value of my condo. Nor did they allocate reasonable pickup/dropoff taxi zones or delivery loading/unloading, so its a giant mess of double parking and people improvising. Also makes literally zero trips for me faster, and most of them slower. And all the traffic has spilled over onto adjacent streets creating worse traffic.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Painting new lines is always cheaper and easier than actually building infrastructure, and the politician who decided on the new lines can say he's Doing Something™. Even if it's just virtue signaling and doesn't actually help, it's enough to fool voters.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Right, so my 3 block radius has added about 3000 new units in the last 5 years (great) and all we've done to improve transit is.. remove a road (not great).