7 ms·

Private automobiles do not belong in cities. They are guests there. But they've invited themselves in and taken over the place. It's disturbing how common it i

• ghaff 3y ago
  Cities are welcome to erect whatever barriers they like to private cars. But don't think there wouldn't be economic impact if far fewer people commute in, come in for the evening, or decide to move out because visiting the suburbs or the mountains is too much hassle. But maybe it's a worthwhile experiment.
  • Panzer04 3y ago
    The misunderstanding here is that cars are the primary way people commute into the city. This might be true in some places, but for most cities PT and residents make up the bulk of commercial traffic in a city - it makes sense when you consider that most roads only let a few dozen cars a minute through, vs a few hundred people per train (and way more during peak hours). However, you look at the built environment in a city and the pedestrians often only get 20% of the road area between buildings, while cars get 80%.
    • ghaff 3y ago
      I can't speak to averages but I'll say car traffic into Boston is at least as bad as ever and commuter rail is still way down relative to pre-pandemic. So, yes, people take train but a huge number of people drive. (I try to take train the rare times I go into the office although it takes about the same 2 hours as driving.) And the commuter rail is totally impractical to use for an evening event.
      • gwbas1c 3y ago
        Hah, I was about to respond roughly the same thing: Taking the rail into Boston is so impractical that it's easier to drive. FWIW: The T/Commuter Rail (apologies for blending the two) has more than 90% of US rail accidents. I noticed a ton of maintenance problems the last time I rode it (in 2021) and I don't know if/when I'll try it again.
        • ghaff 3y ago
          I know there have been efforts to improve things but service was also cut back during the pandemic. (There are some express trains again.) I'll still take it preferentially for 9-5ish situations like one I'll have next week but it's not actually any faster in general (though I can sort of relax for most of the trip) and is totally unusable for going in for an evening play. And that's almost certainly a pretty good commuter rail system by large urban US standards. (Not as good as NYC of course.) So, to my original point, saying "don't drive" is essentially equivalent to saying stay out of the city in general.
          • bedobi 3y ago
            Car skeptics are not saying “don’t drive” They’re saying “allow viable alternatives to driving”
            • ghaff 3y ago
              You wrote "Private automobiles do not belong in cities." I'm not sure what's ambiguous about that. Certainly if you tell me I don't belong someplace, I would take that literally.
          • gwbas1c 3y ago
            > pretty good commuter rail system by large urban US standards I used to take the Caltrain from Palo Alto to San Francisco. The line from Kingston to Boston doesn't even compare. Caltrain: Tinted windows, comfortable seats. I'm comfortable using a laptop to check email while I ride to work. MA Commuter Rail: No tint on the windows, seats so bad I'm uncomfortable using a laptop. I wouldn't call MA commuter rail "Good" by US standards. It's treating MA residents like a captive audience, and then the politicians and leaders scratch their heads and wonder why we'd rather clog the freeway with luxury cars instead of taking the train.
    • rufus_foreman 3y ago
      >> for most cities PT and residents make up the bulk of commercial traffic "According to the American Community Survey (ACS), public transportation commuters constituted about 5 percent of all workers in the United States in 2019. Though public transportation (transit) was a relatively uncommon method of traveling to work in the United States as a whole, it played a prominent role in certain places, like the cities of New York, where over 2 million people commuted by public transportation, and San Francisco, where over one third of workers did so." -- https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-48.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio... So even pre-pandemic when public transportation was in higher usage, there was maybe one city in the US that meets your criteria. For the other 19,494 of the 19,495 cities in the US, private transportation was a large majority. 5% of commuter trips in the US are by public transportation. Under 3% are walking. 85% are car, truck, or van, either alone or carpooled. If cars only get 80%, sounds like they are being cheated. They should get 85% instead.
      • bedobi 3y ago
        So your observation is US cities don’t have transit, therefore we should invest more in car infrastructure?
      • Panzer04 3y ago
        It will depend on your definition of "city". I live in Melbourne, AU, and realistically only the inner couple of km around the CBD are "proper" city area where space is truly at a premium. In the CBD and surrounding area you'd have to be insane to drive - there's simply not enough space. However, in the "metro area" which sprawls for many km in all directions, I would expect a lot of commuting is done by car, due to poorer PT service coverage and frequency, along with lesser traffic congestion.
    • wolverine876 3y ago
      > you look at the built environment in a city and the pedestrians often only get 20% of the road area between buildings, while cars get 80%. How is that significant? I very rarely have run out of room on the sidewalk. Cars are larger than I am, they need more space. I agree with the general consideration that cars waste real estate, but sidewalk width hasn't been a problem that I've seen.
      • bedobi 3y ago
        Uh, I encounter that everywhere from San Jose to NYC to Miami
        • wolverine876 3y ago
          You run out of room on the sidewalk? Like a traffic jam? Maybe we're talking about different things. I rarely have to stop moving on a sidewalk, or if I do it's not for more than a moment, and I'm talking about the most dense cities. Maybe NYC in the theater district when some plays are letting out ...
          • ghaff 3y ago
            Times Square can get pretty bad. But, yes, that's unusual.
      • Panzer04 3y ago
        My more conventional frustration is wide roads with shitty traffic signalling that hold up a crowd of pedestrians while 10-15 cars crawl through the intersection. That being said, at peak times some areas definitely get extremely busy with pedestrian traffic. Realistically you do need vehicles in cities for logistical reasons etc, so it's not really a sensible line of thought - but it's still annoying :). It's probably worse in other cities, as Melbourne has plenty of street-level trams with separated rights of way as well as many roads being single-laned both ways, so it's honestly not that bad here.
    • zdragnar 3y ago
      > The misunderstanding here is that cars are the primary way people commute into the city The number of cities this is true for in the US is extremely small.
  • treyd 3y ago
    On the contrary, building cities to be nicer places to be a pedestrian in means you can design them more around people without cars. Look up statistics on how much land we dedicate to parking. You end up with far more effective use of land, higher overall productivity, and a larger tax base which helps support the infrastructure investment in a virtuous cycle. Park and rides in suburbs so commuters don't have to take up disproportionate space in the more valuable city environment are just a part of this, but the root of the issue is providing viable alternatives to driving. Housing policy and public transit policy are deeply linked with this.
  • SECProto 3y ago
    > Cities are welcome to erect whatever barriers they like to private cars. This is inaccurate - for liability purposes, most road design in the US conforms to the MUTCD (and other design standards), which have very car-centric requirements. For example, the minimum lane width it allows is 11 feet (3.3m). If you design and install a 10 foot lane, you're not supported by that standard, and will likely get sued for damages if someone sideswipes someone, etc. The same applies for many other features that can improve pedestrian safety. It's one of the fundamental reasons north American built environment looks so much different (even compared with a car-centric design in other countries)
    • ghaff 3y ago
      Yes, but cities can presumably limit parking, make it very expensive, perhaps implement congestion charges. They have lots of levers to keep cars out if they want to without not complying with design standards.
      • SECProto 3y ago
        > cities can presumably limit parking, make it very expensive, perhaps implement congestion charges These are three very difficult to implement changes (due to complaints), and also very ineffective at increasing safety (fewer vehicles = more speeding = no improvement in accident rates). > have lots of levers to keep cars out It's not about keeping cars out, it's making them behave safely. You can put a 20mph limit at an elementary school, but if your lanes are limited to 11 foot width, you'll still have cars driving 40, you still have long crossing distances, you still have all these factors reducing safety. If your corner radius has to be designed for a transport truck turning at 15 mph, you'll have cars turning at 40, failing to yield at crosswalks, etc. > without not complying with design standards. It's not about "not complying with design standards" - it's about the standards being too car-focused and having unintended consequences for others.
  • wolverine876 3y ago
    > But don't think there wouldn't be economic impact if far fewer people commute in, come in for the evening, or decide to move out because visiting the suburbs or the mountains is too much hassle. Maybe more people would commute in, parking outside the city and taking public transit, and enjoying all the benefits of a low-traffic, pedestrian city: No parking problems or costs, no traffic, no fuel costs, highly available transit, things built for pedestrian and transit travel. Maybe they'd move in.
    • ghaff 3y ago
      Outside of some big commuter lots, I'm skeptical a lot of people are going to do a lot of multi-mode transport into a city outside of regular commuting. I certainly don't do it. And more pedestrian friendliness wouldn't tempt me to move into a city either.
      • bedobi 3y ago
        So you don’t even live in the city, you don’t find pedestrian or bike friendliness attractive, yet you demand that cities bend over backwards in a never ending attempt to accommodate more cars, faster bigger roads, parking lots etc etc Glad we have that on the record
        • ghaff 3y ago
          I never wrote anything like that. I said that cities should make choices about what their residents (and businesses) want to accommodate or not. Personally, I don't care much.. If I'm traveling I'm mostly not driving (so I do prefer pedestrian-friendly cities with good transit). And I rarely feel like dealing with the hassle of driving into the only nearby large city for the evening--so I mostly don't do it, which I'm perfectly fine with. I'm not demanding anything.
  • mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    > Cities are welcome to erect whatever barriers they like to private cars. https://youtu.be/VWDFgzAjr1k?si=IQbceOTAEhmJ6nmw&t=537 https://youtu.be/VWDFgzAjr1k?si=IQbceOTAEhmJ6nmw&t=537 "The real problem is that we couldn’t build another place like this if we wanted to. It’s not allowed. It’s literally illegal in Canada, to build something like this today."
    • ghaff 3y ago
      There are islands in the US that may or may not be literally car-free but certainly have very few cars, e.g. the Cranberry Islands in Maine, Isle au Haut, etc. Probably around the San Juans in Washington State. Of course, taking a boat to go to the grocery store may not be what you have in mind. But there are certainly at least almost car-free options if you're willing to live with the tradeoffs. Of course, they're not cities.
      • mitthrowaway2 3y ago
        I've never been to Maine, but we have many small islands in BC with very few cars as well. However, despite the small quantity of cars, they're as car-dependent as anywhere; it's very dangerous for pedestrians to walk across them, because the roads have high speed limits, no sidewalks or shoulders, blind turns, and no lighting, so you're in danger of being hit by one of the (very few) cars screaming by at a high speed. Just like most rural areas in North America, and nothing like the neighbourhood described in the linked video. But maybe it's better in Maine.
        • ghaff 3y ago
          Plenty of small islands off Maine have essentially no car traffic, even if they have roads, and are very safe to walk; I've done it plenty of times. Of course, others are essentially just rural communities with no sidewalks and traffic on country roads. That said, I'm guessing most people envisioning car-free cities aren't thinking in terms of a once a month trip to the mainland to buy groceries.
          • 3y ago
• itronitron 3y ago
  I find single lane one-way streets to feel much safer to walk through as I can generally manage to anticipate the actions of one driver at a time.
  • wolverine876 3y ago
    Agreed; my thought is that it greatly reduces variables for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. More specifically, I'd specify road width rather number of lanes. Roads where drivers feel they have room to squeeze by pedestrians and cyclists seem to increase risk.
    • toast0 3y ago
      Road width is tricky. If you make it too narrow, the road is hard to use. If you make it feel like there is a lot of room to get by pedestrians and cyclists, drivers will go fast. The trick is to make it feel like there isn't enough room to easily get by, while actually having enough room to do it safely. But it's also important to position yourself on the road properly. When driving on narrow roads, I drive over the middle, so opposing drivers will slow, and then get back to my side, so we can squeeze by carefully. When cycling or walking on narrow roads, I position myself where a car's tire would tend to be, not at the edge of the road; this helps a driver see that they need to avoid me, although I'll make room as they get near (yes, somewhat out of self preservation).
• AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > Private automobiles do not belong in cities. They are guests there. But they've invited themselves in and taken over the place. You seem to be ignoring what actually happened. A huge number of the people in those cities wanted automobiles. That's why governments taxed people to pay for the roads for those cars. I think I agree with the rest of your post.
  • slifin 3y ago
    https://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/ https://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/
    • AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      Um... somebody wrote a book, and here's an ad for it? OK, so? I mean, it does have a catchy title, but no, I'm not going to go order the book, and read all 170,000 words it boasts of, in order to try to figure out how you think that refutes my statement. If you've got an argument, make it.
      • smokel 3y ago
        I for one would like a system where I could simply cast FHQWGADZ as a combination of tokens that each support my stance on complex matters. It can be tiresome to have to repeat facts and opinions. It seems that grandparent has read a book, and found its contents convincing enough to share it here. A bit terse, but still relevant, no?
        • AnimalMuppet 3y ago
          No, not relevant. They read a book. They could have summarized the relevant points of the book... but they didn't. They could have given the gist of the argument of the book... but they didn't. They gave a link to a 170,000 word long book - and nothing more. Seriously, how many people are going to go read it? Very few. How many are going to read it in time to say anything relevant to the discussion here? Zero. So dropping a link to a book that size functions as an end-of-conversation move. It says "you can't argue with my unstated position until you've read this" (whether or not that was the post writer's intent). That doesn't make for a healthy conversation. For that reason, I call it out when I see it. [Editing to add: It's even worse if you think in terms of time. How long would it take the poster to give a summary? Ten minutes? Well, how long would it take me to read the book? But it's worse, because more than one person read the post. How long would it take, total, for all of them to read the book? So it's really, really, really wasteful of peoples' time to just drop a link instead of writing the summary.]
• akira2501 3y ago
  > But they've invited themselves in and taken over the place. Cars are material objects. People take them where they want them. People want them in the cities. There was no great propaganda wave that "tricked" people into doing this. Cars were better. People went with what was better for them, personally. > Most crashes are fundamentally caused by designs that encourage them. Most fatalities involve alcohol or drugs. Perhaps we just shouldn't allow the sale of alcohol in cities? At least to me, that would be very welcome, and is a necessary part of any honest "vision zero." > We know drivers speed, we know they text while driving, we know signs and even enforcement doesn't work etc etc. Yet we know they can also drive millions of miles this way before causing a single incident. > that must disallow crashes and people being hit by cars from being possible in the first place. You can have that. You're just going to have to sacrifice nearly every other modern convenience that people move into cities to experience in the first place. > Narrower, more winding streets, cobblestone, speed humps and other calming surfaces, more vegetation, raised crosswalks, dedicated and physically segregated (by bollards, concrete blocks etc) spaces for pedestrians, people on bikes etc etc. And that's the end of your federal road money. As long as your community can afford all of this on it's own, you can do it, if you can't, you must find a compromise. This idea that the compromise _must_ be thrown away because a few people can't see any other way forward is ridiculous. Particularly on "hacker news."
  • Moldoteck 3y ago
    "And that's the end of your federal road money." - actually "Narrower, more winding streets, cobblestone, speed humps and other calming surfaces" are cheaper longterm(sometimes shortterm) for federal money, esp combined with the fact that in pedestrian friendly streets there are more businesses and more customers and as result more taxed money. cars shouldn't be banned in cities, but env should be heavily redesigned to change priorities, like: pedestrian>bike>pub transp>taxis>personal cars. This is the compromise that works - cars are not banned, just less convenient compared to other methods and because of that car trips are faster compared to car priority, bc there are less cars on the road and less congestion, so ppl that actually need and can afford cars(and all related taxes) will have a more pleasant drive