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Sounds like the Bay Area. We don't like cars but we refuse to build comprehensive transit. To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equa
by infecto 2y ago
Sounds like the Bay Area. We don't like cars but we refuse to build comprehensive transit.
To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen.
Some of the worst localized pollution I have experienced in my life was while living in the Bay Area with the massive traffic jams.
- akira2501 2y ago> Some of the worst localized pollution I have experienced in my life How did you quantify this? Or this a purely anecdotal observation?
- throwup238 2y agoNot the OP but air quality monitors that measure particulates at different sizes? It's a pretty standard way of measuring air quality. There's a map of official California monitors: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/applications/air-monitoring-sites-interactive-map https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/applications/air-monitoring-sites-int...
- akira2501 2y agoYes, I'm aware of how one would do it, I am questioning whether that was actually done in this case or not. Further, I would question, what other places outside of your commute have you measured air pollution? They offered it as a data point. I think it's fine form to question it.
- galago 2y agoThe EPA Air Quality Index isn't everything, but it is a standard value displayed in a phone weather app. I'll notice in times and places when I suspect its bad. If you live outside a city in place without forest fires or other environmental issues you might not notice its there. Some people with respiratory issues monitor this stuff constantly.
- seadan83 2y agoIIRC, pollution from the tail pipe of a car falls off as a cubic function as you get further away from it. Similar for other sources of pollution. Pollution is very akin to smoke, hard to predict, and very localized. It can depend on wind, terrain, can get caught in places, underneath temperature inversions, etc.. All that said, the pollution you experience on a sidewalk next to a road, would be significantly higher than at the weather app meter station. Determining pollution exposure can be done anecdotally. I've done a number of long distance bike trips, the few times where I was next to a highway for upwards of 8 hours - having a nose bleed by the end of that is pretty common for me. In that vein, recognizing air pollution effects is not necessarily that difficult. Symptoms include: sore throat, headache, burning eyes, etc.. The other side, people do get used to low level irritants, and yeah - you don't really notice its there until you go somewhere else and realize "the air smells different."
- infecto 2y agoSince its my experience its anecdotal. That said higher particulate from diesel engines its pretty common when not at highway speeds. Combine significant traffic with highways/interestates close to buildings and residential areas, its a bit nasty. Sure rush hour in Saigon is without a doubt worse but the bay area is pretty bad on a localized level. Keep in mind I am saying localized, just the immediate areas around these high traffic areas. I can recount a number of buildings I have been in where you would get significant soot buildup on a weekly basis. CA is fairly unique in this respect in that there are major road ways with residential close by.
- EasyMark 2y agoThere’s another huge way to put a dent it and let people live where they want: work from home works. The pandemic proved it. It’s not a 100% solution but there is seldom a 100% solution that doesn’t involve totalitarian government since not everyone wants to live in the city in concrete towers.
- dymk 2y agoThat’s a decision of employers, not policy makers
- eikenberry 2y agoUntil they decide to make it their decision and do something like tax companies per onsite worker and/or increased property taxes for office space that could have been better used. Lots of options.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoCities also have their own perverse incentives to maintaining the 9-5 downtown status quo. A whole host of businesses depend on these workers and they are involved in the chamber of commerce and various other orgs city leaders listen to when making decisions.
- jayd16 2y agoSo you drive the office workers out of the city and then what do you do with the other commercial business? They still commute or you raise taxes enough for the city center to die out and hope for suburbanization?
- eikenberry 2y agoYou tear down those old, unsafe office buildings (we have lots of them in our city) and put up modern mixed use buildings. More people == more workers == more customers == more businesses. Add in some cultural features and you have a vibrant downtown that doesn't rely on commuters and doesn't become a ghost-town after 5:00.
- tonynator 2y ago[flagged]
- ambyra 2y agoTry a motorcycle! The laws for lane splitting are the best in the country. You could probably fit 6 motorcycles in the space of one car.
- S_A_P 2y agoThe #1 killer of people I know up to this point in my life is motorcycle accidents. I would never ride one and would do all I can to prevent my kids from doing so.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- someguydave 2y agoMotorcyles have a roughly 30 times higher fatality rate per mile driven compared to cars
- ein0p 2y agoEven better if you only worry about CO2. /s
- prmoustache 2y agoHow much of these fatalities involve some daredevils? I became a motorbike in my late 30's and I see I am not taking risks like a lot of riders around me. I am taking ample distance between me and cars, act as if I was invisible and other users would do the most insane thing possible at all times and don't swerve around vehicles. I am even slower descending a mountain pass on my motorbike than I am riding my road bicycle. I know from my experience driving cars at the same age that it would have been totally stupid to let 20y old me ride a motorbike. OTOH motorbiking would be much safer with less cars on the road.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoI’ve seen way too many clips of bikers to no fault getting wrecked that its just not for me. At least with a human powered bike you have the physics of only going about 15 miles an hour on your side and aren’t going to turn into a crayon.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago>> you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen You live in a country with the wrong type of political system for that. Valuing everyone's opinion equally is called democracy.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoNo, democracy says 51% of people can enforce their will on 49% of people.
- tomrod 2y agoThe US is not a democracy. Not even at the state level. For many aspects and holons it is a representative republic.
- tromp 2y agoThe U.S. is a democracy, albeit a deficient one rather than a working one [1]. At least is the least deficient one amongst those. [1] https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking
- em-bee 2y agoapparently by 2023 it got upgraded to working: https://www.democracymatrix.com/online-analysis/matrix#/chart1/United%20States%20of%20America/2020/core/chart2/United%20States%20of%20America/2023/core https://www.democracymatrix.com/online-analysis/matrix#/char... after further looking it turns out that it was also categorized as working before 2020 and after 2020. the difference being 0.01 points. in 2020 it took a dive in rules settlement and implementation for which there is an obvious culprit: covid. https://www.democracymatrix.com/online-analysis/country#/United%20States%20of%20America/total_index_core,decision_equality_core,intermediate_equality_core,communication_equality_core,rights_equality_core,rule_settlement_equality_core,decision_inst_index_core,intermediate_inst_index_core,rule_settlement_inst_index_core,rights_inst_index_core,communication_inst_index_core,equality_dim_index_core,rule_settlement_control_core,rule_settlement_freedom_core https://www.democracymatrix.com/online-analysis/country#/Uni...
- ambyra 2y agoHere's a nice study: https://newatlas.com/motorcycles-reduce-congestion/21420/ https://newatlas.com/motorcycles-reduce-congestion/21420/ They say 10% of traffic being replaced by motorcycles reduces congestion by 40%. California has pretty good weather so it's probably feasible to commute by motorbike almost every day.
- thorncorona 2y agoI would rather not die.
- ambyra 2y agoYou are more likely to die from lung cancer, than from a motorcycle accident, statistically. You are also wasting a lot of your life sitting in traffic. The cost of ownership is much higher, so you could say you’re wasting more hours at work to pay for the large vehicle. I’d say it breakeven at best.
- _blk 2y agoColorado with 300 sunny days a year is a great place for motorcycles. Most of the year it's warm enough too with somewhat decent clothing and a pair of balls. I'll take the bike any day the road is dry and temps are double digit. But if you really want to increase throughput [FWIW, I don't care that much], just enforce driving on the right lanes when not passing. Then anyone who feels they need to go 15 over the limit can safely do that while at the same time funding the police that the metro is trying so hard to defund. Everyone wins. Bam.
- medellin 2y agoIt is not. At most you get 8 months of the year. The rest even if the weather is sunny you are looking at strong wind or unpredictable storms that pop up. We just had golf ball sized hail at the end of may.
- cjalmeida 2y agoMotorcycles are substantially more dangerous than cars. We can’t even convince people to buy European style compact cars instead of large trucks and SUVs
- troyvit 2y ago> To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen. Yep.[1] The governor is _trying_ to build comprehensive transit in Colorado[2], but between an incompetent transportation district and the difficulties of building public transit infrastructure to serve our metastatic urban sprawl makes public transit difficult to fund over cars.[3] Our state metro areas just refuse to accept that if they want growth they'll need density. They'd rather pave their farms because they value the taxes they get from McMansions more than actual food. [1] https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/17/rtd-leadership-elections-continue-despite-legislative-proposal-to-revamp/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/17/rtd-leadership-elections-cont... [2] https://www.cpr.org/2024/01/12/jared-polis-2024-state-of-the-state-interview/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/01/12/jared-polis-2024-state-of-the... [3] https://pressbooks.uwf.edu/envrioscience/chapter/14-3-the-impacts-of-urban-sprawl/ https://pressbooks.uwf.edu/envrioscience/chapter/14-3-the-im...
- kjkjadksj 2y agoAll they have to do is restart the old passenger rail system they had in the 40s. It connected the entire front range with salt lake and all the major cities in utah including park city, went down to santa fe in the south, and hit just about all the towns and ski resorts that were around at the time. Even the ones that are a little more annoying to get to today like aspen or telluride. What is even more tempting is that all this infrastructure and right of ways are still there. A lot of these towns have the old station land empty still, some have the old station preserved even. A lot of the rail grades are either sustained by freight rail or have been railbanked as trails. Its practically turn key as the hard part of gathering all this land was done over a century ago. Too bad rail ambition is so paltry in comparison today.