4 ms·

Brings to mind a quote from the mayor of Bogota, Colombia: "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transpor

by aharner 14y ago

Brings to mind a quote from the mayor of Bogota, Colombia: "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transport."

sheraz 14y ago
I completely agree. I would encourage anyone interested to watch "Urbanized" by Gary Hustwit [1]. My favorite part is about Bogota and their charismatic mayor. Very, very interesting ideas are playing out there. [1] - http://urbanizedfilm.com/ http://urbanizedfilm.com/
rayiner 14y ago
One of the things I love about New York city is that you can get on a bus in the afternoon rush hour, and sit down with a banker making $5m/yr on one side and a Starbucks barista on the other.
- joonix 14y ago
  And can anyone really argue that private cars add to quality of life in Manhattan? It should be limited to licensed taxi cabs (preferably electric/hybrid), emergency vehicles, commercial (delivery, maintenance, etc), and that's about it. Why should an individual be allowed to bring his Hummer into that tiny island full of pedestrians? Close more roads to vehicles and give them back to pedestrians and cyclists. If it's hard to ban, just jack up the bridge and tunnel tolls to $50/car.
  - rdouble 14y ago
    I was probably not adding to the quality of life, but I used to really enjoy driving around downtown Manhattan at night. FWIW, there were few signs of life down there after 10pm.
    - MrFoof 14y ago
      For car nuts living in the city, it's a bit of a thing you do. I live in Boston, and I'm fairly certain that the local Porsche dealership is catering to potential customers with very early morning test drives on Storrow Drive with demo cars. During the summer months I almost lose count of the number of 911s I encounter at 2AM (with a driver and a passenger, almost always both male) with window stickers on them, carving through the elevation changes and off-camber corners well beyond the speed limit. Last year it was so frequent I just got over to the rightmost lane whenever I would hear a wailing flat-six approaching.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    I don't really disagree. Many communities in the U.S. are very pedestrian hostile (and that's perfectly fine if that's what they want)--I don't see why a city where most people don't own cars needs to avoid being car hostile.
  - chaz 14y ago
    There was an interesting story on NPR Planet Money that indicates that private cars are actually not the issue in Manhattan, and adding more taxi cabs will actually slow traffic down. The context is that NYC is looking at adding 2,000 cab licenses to the 13,000 licenses it already has. The summary is that the commutes are brutal, but the private cars get to work and get parked, off the road, and they're not a big deal. But cabs are on the road and take up space all the time. The 2,000 additional cabs will cause traffic to move 12% slower, including deliveries, buses, and commutes. People commuting in/out of the city is not as bad as just getting around the city. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157477611/does-new-york-city-need-more-taxis http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157477611/does-new...
  - dublinben 14y ago
    I'm still surprised that NYC's business-savvy mayor hasn't introduced congestion pricing yet. It's successful everywhere it's been tried so far, but people are very resistant to it.
    - chaz 14y ago
      He tried in 2008, which included federal money. It didn't get enough Democrat support. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/congestion-pricing-plan-is-dead-assembly-speaker-says/ http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/congestion-pric...
jacques_chester 14y ago
There are common use cases for which cars remain a superior alternative. Shopping is the main one. Cars allow shops to be very large (providing more variety and creating economies of scale), and the ability to site shops in cheaper locations contributes to lower purchase prices. The other classic problem with public transport is that it cannot replace the point-to-point nature of cars. Sometimes that matters, sometimes it doesn't. But it matters for enough people that cars are the dominant mode of transport. Self-driving cars will help some of this, particularly the car daycare problem. Though they will have problems of their own. Ever tried to get a taxi at rush hour? Ever been on a bus with suspiciously damp seats? People will still want their own cars and will still want to travel at the same times. As an aside, one thing I really like about my city (Perth) is that there are a number of free bus routes in the CBD. You really do find CEOs riding the bus to get around.
- meric 14y ago
  You can have minibuses where you can get on/off anywhere along the designated route. Farm these out to private operators (regulated, of course), and you will have lots of cheap point to point public transport. It requires a city to be dense, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus#Pros_and_cons_of_public_light_buses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus#Pros_and_cons_...
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    We both know that this is not the same. Let me put it in networking terms. Cars provide a circuit model. You go from point to point over a single dedicated "channel". Any kind and combination of public transport does not do that. It is a packet model and you, the human, are the packet. You must change modes of transport and hope that they sync up, aren't running early or late, fit your schedule and so on. Except in the cases where point-to-point travel takes substantially longer (very dense urban cores), I think most people will always prefer cars. (Yes, I know the analogy is imperfect because the car can be seen as a packet blah blah blah. But cars are not sentient. Humans are and it is humans who decide what mode of transport to use.)

by aharner 14y ago

Brings to mind a quote from the mayor of Bogota, Colombia: "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transport."

sheraz 14y ago

I completely agree. I would encourage anyone interested to watch "Urbanized" by Gary Hustwit [1]. My favorite part is about Bogota and their charismatic mayor. Very, very interesting ideas are playing out there. [1] - http://urbanizedfilm.com/ http://urbanizedfilm.com/

rayiner 14y ago

One of the things I love about New York city is that you can get on a bus in the afternoon rush hour, and sit down with a banker making $5m/yr on one side and a Starbucks barista on the other.

joonix 14y ago
And can anyone really argue that private cars add to quality of life in Manhattan? It should be limited to licensed taxi cabs (preferably electric/hybrid), emergency vehicles, commercial (delivery, maintenance, etc), and that's about it. Why should an individual be allowed to bring his Hummer into that tiny island full of pedestrians? Close more roads to vehicles and give them back to pedestrians and cyclists. If it's hard to ban, just jack up the bridge and tunnel tolls to $50/car.
- rdouble 14y ago
  I was probably not adding to the quality of life, but I used to really enjoy driving around downtown Manhattan at night. FWIW, there were few signs of life down there after 10pm.
  - MrFoof 14y ago
    For car nuts living in the city, it's a bit of a thing you do. I live in Boston, and I'm fairly certain that the local Porsche dealership is catering to potential customers with very early morning test drives on Storrow Drive with demo cars. During the summer months I almost lose count of the number of 911s I encounter at 2AM (with a driver and a passenger, almost always both male) with window stickers on them, carving through the elevation changes and off-camber corners well beyond the speed limit. Last year it was so frequent I just got over to the rightmost lane whenever I would hear a wailing flat-six approaching.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I don't really disagree. Many communities in the U.S. are very pedestrian hostile (and that's perfectly fine if that's what they want)--I don't see why a city where most people don't own cars needs to avoid being car hostile.
- chaz 14y ago
  There was an interesting story on NPR Planet Money that indicates that private cars are actually not the issue in Manhattan, and adding more taxi cabs will actually slow traffic down. The context is that NYC is looking at adding 2,000 cab licenses to the 13,000 licenses it already has. The summary is that the commutes are brutal, but the private cars get to work and get parked, off the road, and they're not a big deal. But cabs are on the road and take up space all the time. The 2,000 additional cabs will cause traffic to move 12% slower, including deliveries, buses, and commutes. People commuting in/out of the city is not as bad as just getting around the city. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157477611/does-new-york-city-need-more-taxis http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157477611/does-new...
- dublinben 14y ago
  I'm still surprised that NYC's business-savvy mayor hasn't introduced congestion pricing yet. It's successful everywhere it's been tried so far, but people are very resistant to it.
  - chaz 14y ago
    He tried in 2008, which included federal money. It didn't get enough Democrat support. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/congestion-pricing-plan-is-dead-assembly-speaker-says/ http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/congestion-pric...

jacques_chester 14y ago

There are common use cases for which cars remain a superior alternative. Shopping is the main one. Cars allow shops to be very large (providing more variety and creating economies of scale), and the ability to site shops in cheaper locations contributes to lower purchase prices. The other classic problem with public transport is that it cannot replace the point-to-point nature of cars. Sometimes that matters, sometimes it doesn't. But it matters for enough people that cars are the dominant mode of transport. Self-driving cars will help some of this, particularly the car daycare problem. Though they will have problems of their own. Ever tried to get a taxi at rush hour? Ever been on a bus with suspiciously damp seats? People will still want their own cars and will still want to travel at the same times. As an aside, one thing I really like about my city (Perth) is that there are a number of free bus routes in the CBD. You really do find CEOs riding the bus to get around.

meric 14y ago
You can have minibuses where you can get on/off anywhere along the designated route. Farm these out to private operators (regulated, of course), and you will have lots of cheap point to point public transport. It requires a city to be dense, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus#Pros_and_cons_of_public_light_buses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus#Pros_and_cons_...
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  We both know that this is not the same. Let me put it in networking terms. Cars provide a circuit model. You go from point to point over a single dedicated "channel". Any kind and combination of public transport does not do that. It is a packet model and you, the human, are the packet. You must change modes of transport and hope that they sync up, aren't running early or late, fit your schedule and so on. Except in the cases where point-to-point travel takes substantially longer (very dense urban cores), I think most people will always prefer cars. (Yes, I know the analogy is imperfect because the car can be seen as a packet blah blah blah. But cars are not sentient. Humans are and it is humans who decide what mode of transport to use.)