4 ms·

"That is what is being lost because I live in a state/city that puts infrastructure projects near the bottom of the priority list." I'm not belittling your pro

by roel_v 12y ago

"That is what is being lost because I live in a state/city that puts infrastructure projects near the bottom of the priority list." I'm not belittling your problem or saying that it's your own fault or anything, and it's empirically true that that short commutes contribute significantly to QoL, but more or better infrastructure is not (should not be) the goal. The mantra (which has become the norm in transportation research, to a lesser degree in professional transportation planning circles and only to a small degree in policy circles) is 'we don't need better mobility, we need better accessibility'. To make this more concrete, you don't need better roads, you need better jobs close to your home. But you'll only get these once this becomes the common sentiment and people start voting with their feet. Because what you're doing now (take better job in exchange for worse commute) only makes the overall situation worse - more people competing for jobs in central locations, and/or people trading bigger houses further away for a longer commute. A lot of work is being started (in Europe, I know little details of efforts elsewhere but from the current literature it seems this is a global trend) on getting people to change their sentiments on transport and home/work location. It will take a number of years for the first effects to show of course. Just spatial planning policy interventions take 10 years to become active, let alone for their effects to be significant.

johnchristopher 12y ago
> A lot of work is being started (in Europe, I know little details of efforts elsewhere but from the current literature it seems this is a global trend) on getting people to change their sentiments on transport and home/work location. European here. Could you point to some ressources on that work being started in Europe ?
- roel_v 12y ago
  Well when I mean 'work', I mean that in the research sense (since for me that's 'work' :) ), and what I see and hear on conferences and symposiums, so I don't have any easy links. There are some FP7 projects that worked on this (search e.g. the Urbact websites, the FP7 website under transportation and sustainability themes, the Interreg website under the respective themes etc) and there are also many calls in Horizon 2020 that cover these aspects. There were some calls in the past in ICT subjects with open submissions that were won by projects working on crowd-sourcing and serious gaming applications that also covered this subject. Furthermore (and again without having anything concrete at hand), there are regularly articles that cover aspects of this in the usual journals: European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, Transportation, Transportation Journal, Transportation Science etc.
twelvechairs 12y ago
European countries have been fighting to keep their polycentralism for at least a century but it hasn't stopped them becoming more monocentric (both within cities and in comparing cities themselves) than ever today. There is a continued trend in the west for jobs to want to be located in centres, particularly as most white collar jobs want physical access both to other workers and to government buildings (courthouses, politicians, central govt offices, etc). None of this shows much sign of abatement. The big trends to deal with this now are improving transport (which you argue against), moving people into dense centres (which you seem tacitly against) and remote working (which is a trend in tech but hasn't taken off in any other industry). There is little to suggest that smaller centres will be the focus of future economic activity, though I'd be interested in your sources. this is my field as an urban deisgner by the way
- galfarragem 12y ago
  Good to know that I'm not the only architect in HN. I completely agree with you.
- roel_v 12y ago
  While I understand how you can understand that from my post, the stream-of-consciousness style of posting on websites muddled my points: - I see as the only long-term sustainable trend for much more people to move into smaller, much more densely populated areas - megacities. But there are no (not yet) facts that corroborate this claim, although more people in my field and adjacent fields are at least informally starting to share this idea. Not that it's very relevant what the objective situation is - many people feel cities are Bad and think we need to move away from them. And politics follows popular opinion, on macro topics like this. - 'Accessibility' is not just 'smaller centres'. Without wanting to get into the debate over which of the 5000 definitions is the 'right' one, what I meant was that thinking of time it takes to get to different places in terms of 'we need to increase rush hour capacity so that I can get to work faster' is (apologies to the GP, not meant personally) stupid. The congestion-decreasing effect of adding a lane on a main artery lasts, give or take a few years, 5 years. After that, people have adapted to the new circumstances - i.e. bought houses further away from where they work, because it's cheaper there (in the first years after the intervention) and thereby made the problem worse. - I disagree with your assertion that the trend to build more and wider roads and more public transport are a way to deal with concentration of economic activity on less area. Moving people into dense centres is, but 'improving transport' is (imo) a band aid to deal with negative externalities of densification - i.e. rising house prices, lagged upgrades of amenities in areas that increase in density, etc. Said in a less roundabout, academic and cautious way: politician build more roads to deal with constituents bitching about not being able to buy a detached house with 10 ares of lawn for their children to play on in the area where I work, and look there are plenty of houses in that shithole farm town over there, just build a road and I'll vote for you. I'm not quite sure any more where exactly I'm going with this to be honest, just wanted to say that the solution to transportation issues is not 'build more roads' but 'create an environment in which people will naturally need to travel less'. But building roads is easier, of course.
humanrebar 12y ago
> we need better accessibility So why aren't more localities actually innovating around this principle instead of blaming their constituents? Off the top of my head: * Encourage telecommuting * Encourage flexible work schedules * Encourage new product delivery systems: delivery groceries, delivery laundry, Seamless, Uber, etc. * Hold employers accountable for commute times, especially in the absence of telecommuting and flexible work schedules * Make employers accountable for reassigning employees (you're working across town now, but it's still within driving distance, so no relocation benefits)
- prostoalex 12y ago
  Because localities don't make money on accessibility, they make money on property and commercial taxes, which encourages build-out and real estate development of anything that's left untouched. Better accessibility (and higher density) would also mean a leaner city services staff needed to service it all, so it's understandable a municipal bureaucracy is not going to be the prime advocate of that.
- nickik 12y ago
  We should start by chaing laber market laws that pushe everybody into the traditional work day schedule.
lucaspiller 12y ago
The idea of a 'business park' [0] seems like it could solve these problems, but the only examples I've seen (in the UK) are dull and lifeless blobs of concrete in the middle of nowhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_park

by roel_v 12y ago

johnchristopher 12y ago

> A lot of work is being started (in Europe, I know little details of efforts elsewhere but from the current literature it seems this is a global trend) on getting people to change their sentiments on transport and home/work location. European here. Could you point to some ressources on that work being started in Europe ?

roel_v 12y ago
Well when I mean 'work', I mean that in the research sense (since for me that's 'work' :) ), and what I see and hear on conferences and symposiums, so I don't have any easy links. There are some FP7 projects that worked on this (search e.g. the Urbact websites, the FP7 website under transportation and sustainability themes, the Interreg website under the respective themes etc) and there are also many calls in Horizon 2020 that cover these aspects. There were some calls in the past in ICT subjects with open submissions that were won by projects working on crowd-sourcing and serious gaming applications that also covered this subject. Furthermore (and again without having anything concrete at hand), there are regularly articles that cover aspects of this in the usual journals: European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, Transportation, Transportation Journal, Transportation Science etc.

twelvechairs 12y ago

European countries have been fighting to keep their polycentralism for at least a century but it hasn't stopped them becoming more monocentric (both within cities and in comparing cities themselves) than ever today. There is a continued trend in the west for jobs to want to be located in centres, particularly as most white collar jobs want physical access both to other workers and to government buildings (courthouses, politicians, central govt offices, etc). None of this shows much sign of abatement. The big trends to deal with this now are improving transport (which you argue against), moving people into dense centres (which you seem tacitly against) and remote working (which is a trend in tech but hasn't taken off in any other industry). There is little to suggest that smaller centres will be the focus of future economic activity, though I'd be interested in your sources. this is my field as an urban deisgner by the way

galfarragem 12y ago
Good to know that I'm not the only architect in HN. I completely agree with you.
roel_v 12y ago
While I understand how you can understand that from my post, the stream-of-consciousness style of posting on websites muddled my points: - I see as the only long-term sustainable trend for much more people to move into smaller, much more densely populated areas - megacities. But there are no (not yet) facts that corroborate this claim, although more people in my field and adjacent fields are at least informally starting to share this idea. Not that it's very relevant what the objective situation is - many people feel cities are Bad and think we need to move away from them. And politics follows popular opinion, on macro topics like this. - 'Accessibility' is not just 'smaller centres'. Without wanting to get into the debate over which of the 5000 definitions is the 'right' one, what I meant was that thinking of time it takes to get to different places in terms of 'we need to increase rush hour capacity so that I can get to work faster' is (apologies to the GP, not meant personally) stupid. The congestion-decreasing effect of adding a lane on a main artery lasts, give or take a few years, 5 years. After that, people have adapted to the new circumstances - i.e. bought houses further away from where they work, because it's cheaper there (in the first years after the intervention) and thereby made the problem worse. - I disagree with your assertion that the trend to build more and wider roads and more public transport are a way to deal with concentration of economic activity on less area. Moving people into dense centres is, but 'improving transport' is (imo) a band aid to deal with negative externalities of densification - i.e. rising house prices, lagged upgrades of amenities in areas that increase in density, etc. Said in a less roundabout, academic and cautious way: politician build more roads to deal with constituents bitching about not being able to buy a detached house with 10 ares of lawn for their children to play on in the area where I work, and look there are plenty of houses in that shithole farm town over there, just build a road and I'll vote for you. I'm not quite sure any more where exactly I'm going with this to be honest, just wanted to say that the solution to transportation issues is not 'build more roads' but 'create an environment in which people will naturally need to travel less'. But building roads is easier, of course.

humanrebar 12y ago

> we need better accessibility So why aren't more localities actually innovating around this principle instead of blaming their constituents? Off the top of my head: * Encourage telecommuting * Encourage flexible work schedules * Encourage new product delivery systems: delivery groceries, delivery laundry, Seamless, Uber, etc. * Hold employers accountable for commute times, especially in the absence of telecommuting and flexible work schedules * Make employers accountable for reassigning employees (you're working across town now, but it's still within driving distance, so no relocation benefits)

prostoalex 12y ago
Because localities don't make money on accessibility, they make money on property and commercial taxes, which encourages build-out and real estate development of anything that's left untouched. Better accessibility (and higher density) would also mean a leaner city services staff needed to service it all, so it's understandable a municipal bureaucracy is not going to be the prime advocate of that.
nickik 12y ago
We should start by chaing laber market laws that pushe everybody into the traditional work day schedule.

lucaspiller 12y ago

The idea of a 'business park' [0] seems like it could solve these problems, but the only examples I've seen (in the UK) are dull and lifeless blobs of concrete in the middle of nowhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_park