
We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016) - mrzool
http://devonzuegel.com/post/we-should-be-building-cities-for-people-not-cars
======
AcerbicZero
It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost
always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient,
to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes
sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its
core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit
is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on
an Uber/Lyft.

For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but the buses are
un-ridable most of the time due to the rampant homeless issue(and all that
comes with a large homeless population) while the light rail is usually better
about being a semi-safe, semi-clean environment, that just happens to be so
overloaded between between 7am-9am, and 3pm-6pm, that there is almost any
price I'd pay to avoid it.

The sad part is that no matter how excessive the taxes or how limited the
parking the ones to suffer first, and worst, will be the low-income families
and workers. The homeless will continue to do whatever they can get away with,
and those of us with higher incomes will grumble a bit and pay the taxes. The
only solution I've seen that has a chance to change this is to come down hard
on poor public transit behavior, perhaps by putting actual people on the buses
with the specific job of cracking down on the drunk/high/piss soaked/etc
types, in an effort to improve the quality of the service to the point that
the middle-upper income groups uses it again.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost
always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient,
to force people to use public transit".

It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport
cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving
everywhere.

>> For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but the buses
are un-ridable most of the time due to the rampant homeless issue(and all that
comes with a large homeless population) while the light rail is usually better
about being a semi-safe, semi-clean environment, that just happens to be so
overloaded between between 7am-9am, and 3pm-6pm, that there is almost any
price I'd pay to avoid it.

I live in a small town on the South coast of England, which just happens to
have one of the largest populations of homeless people, nationally. It also
has very good public transport, namely, buses, that are always full. I've
never seen a homeless person using a bus as crashing space, or causing trouble
of any sort. I can't say I ever particularly noticed homeless people on a bus.
If homeless people on buses are a problem where you live, that has nothing to
do with public transport in general.

Anyway, I think everyone gets the public transport they deserve. If everyone
wants to go around by car, then we won't have good public transport- because
why would we?

~~~
calohorn
>> If homeless people on buses are a problem where you live, that has nothing
to do with public transport in general.

When you hear of people being aggressive, high, inconsiderate, or here in
Portland two people had their throats slit on the light rail recently near my
house, it makes the public not feel comfortable using the public
transportation. Since it's called public transportation and these things
effect the public and the transportation, it actually has a lot to do with the
public transportation.

~~~
rorykoehler
It has nothing to do with public transportation. Wrong level of abstraction.
It has to do with the fact the US is turning into a inequality dystopia.

~~~
grasshopperpurp
This is exactly right. It's the price people pay for living in a place that
doesn't care about its people.

------
johngalt
This is one of those scaling vs. switching cost problems. If you have a small
town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a large metropolis,
transit is better. The problem is that as a city scales up, each individual
step results in continually adding infrastructure for cars without ever making
the active decision to switch, and redesign the entire city.

When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense to add car
infrastructure rather than rebuild everything. Again when you grow from medium
to large it remains cheaper to add that new interchange rather than change the
fundamental structure of the city. Growing from large city to metropolis often
means incorporating other cities and their car based infrastructure, and
making a coordinated move to anything else is extremely difficult/expensive.

Edit: I doubt we could properly identify the "next big metropolis" early
enough to put the proper infrastructure in place. Even if we could, the
politics surrounding who gets the infrastructure spending would cloud the
process. Neither do I think we could simply set up a new metropolis some where
and "build it _correctly_ from the start".

The best bet is to find a means of bootstrapping the conversion of existing
metropolises to walkable/dense/transit oriented methods. How do we mortgage
the immense future benefits to apply pressure to make changes now? Is there an
achievable half step toward the goal that provides enough benefit to drive the
rest of the conversion? When I'm confronted with a switching cost vs scaling
cost problem in operations, I would be putting in dual use infrastructure.
Maintain compatibility while removing dependency.

~~~
coldtea
> _If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a
> large metropolis, transit is better._

Were did that came from? In a small town, you can get by fine with walking,
bikes and so on -- like tons of Europeans do in tons of small (and even
larger) towns, including towns where cars are totally forbidden and others
were (because the town was built in medieval times and its buildings still
stand just fine) they are impractical in large areas of a town.

And besides costly transit infrastructure like subways (which you probably
have in mind), buses and trams are totally find for small towns as well.

In (most of) Europe you don't have to be a heroin addict or homeless person to
ride the bus. Nobody has a problem riding the bus.

> _When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense to add car
> infrastructure rather than rebuild everything._

Again, what? Who said there's any need to "rebuild everything"? You can keep
the "historic center" (as it's usually referred to), that is, the original
small part of town, and build around it, all the while improving and extending
transit infrastructure.

No reason to extend the city around car infrastructure -- like the horrible
sprawls one sees in Texas for example.

In fact the US has a nice example of a "city" (speaking of the main area of
Manhattan up and slightly beyond the Central Park) that has great density, and
if there was the will, could be equipped with a great modern subway (not the
way NYC subway is now), and lots of quality buses (modern, air-con, well
maintained, not meant for the piss poor), a trolley line, and so on.

The area could be expanded from ~ 1 million people, to say 5 times the size,
and with all those plus Uber/Taxi options, bikes and electric scooters, nobody
would even care for driving their car there.

~~~
wrycoder
I live in a New Hampshire city of about 10,000. I'm about three miles out of
town, too far to walk regularly. You should try biking downtown in January in
the snow, slush, and wind! I don't see anyone biking with shopping bags, even
in the summer. We bike for recreation. We've made our choices.

There used to be a railroad that came up from Boston and deadheaded here. It
went out of business, was revived, and failed again. There isn't even a
scheduled bus through town.

The nearest Lyft is 45 minutes away right now. Meanwhile, my car works great.
It's convenient, clean, fast, private, and fairly inexpensive. It hauls my
goods, my kids, and my pets. I only need to drive it a few thousand miles a
year, so gasoline costs aren't much of a consideration.

~~~
vilmosi
>>> I don't see anyone biking with shopping bags, even in the summer.

See, this is where cultures clash. You don't expect people with shopping bags
in bike friendly European cities either. Why? Because they don't buy groceries
for a week at a time.

------
Someone1234
I agree, but "people" should mean all people, not just the able bodied.

Cities keep on inexplicably designing these cool pedestrian only areas for the
able bodied and young. There are people who can only travel limited distances,
so if you set the beach front back half a mile, you've now cut it off from
many older and disabled people.

What I am saying is: For the physically young and able, vehicle-less areas as
great, for the elderly and or disabled, vehicles are an absolute lifeline to
be able to gain access to things.

For a specific example, where I grew up the shops were pedestrianized (think
outdoor mall), my mom had a stroke and struggles to walk, but can drive. The
distance from a car door to a shop is a good ten minutes, so she simply
doesn't go there. She goes to out-of-town supermarkets with disabled bays
right near the entrance.

If the utopia this article wants comes to pass you have to design it with
disabled access in mind. "Walk ten+ minutes" is a non-starter.

~~~
drblast
Oh yes.

I just had surgery that requires me to be on crutches for a few months, so I'm
temporarily disabled.

If you're young and able-bodied (like me pre-surgery) and want to understand
what it's like to not be young and able-bodied (which you almost definitely
won't be at some point) you should put your right leg in a brace, and try not
to let your foot hit the ground for a day or two and try to live that way. The
ground is lava for one leg.

"Walking distance" means about a block or two before you get sore from
crutches or your arms get tired or your hands fall asleep.

Disabled access is a godsend, everywhere. And while I can't cook a meal in my
own kitchen because I can't move around and hold a plate of things at the same
time, I can drive to get takeout and carry the bag inside.

The world changes when you can't easily walk.

Edit: Those electric scooters at Costco aren't as fast or fun as they look.

~~~
the_gastropod
Cars are not the _only_ solution here. Transporting a single disabled person
does _not_ require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.

~~~
thereisnospork
But doing it fast, cheap, and flexibly does.

Cars cost 50 cents a mile, go anywhere at as fast as anything that doesn't
fly, and require negligible physical exertion or special skills to operate.
When there is adequate infrastructure that's pretty optimal.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
The point is, in a walkable city, nobody needs the speed. What's the point of
driving at 40mph in a 10x10mi city vs using a scooter at 15mph? You'll
probably hit a stoplight after hitting 20mph, and then waste braking to stop
again.

Electric mobility scooters are, per-mile, much much cheaper than cars, and
cost much less to purchase.

~~~
thereisnospork
In your example a corner to corner trip would take ~90 minutes by scooter,
considering the 20 mile Manhattan distance + stoplights. A ring highway would
get you there in 15-20 minutes. Even a set of properly timed lights would
allow 35mph traffic to cross the width in ~20 minutes - which notably can't be
(or just never are?) efficiently timed for pedestrians/scooters.

for the extra hour+ that scooter would take (given no/low traffic) there is no
price where its worth it vs the ~$10 that trip costs in a car. (20 miles, irs
rate of ~50c/mile)

~~~
Karrot_Kream
In a walkable city you don't _need_ to go from one end of the city to the
other. 10 mi. is insanity. You should be able to go a maximum of 2 mi. and
find what you're looking for. I'm in a biking-density neighborhood, and have
multiple grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, and furniture stores
within 1 mi. of me. In a walking density neighborhood, I would expect that to
all be available within 0.5 mi. of me.

~~~
thereisnospork
Nobody needs to do much of anything, but people want to. 10 miles is 130th st
to downtown Manhattan, a distance people most certainly either want or need to
travel regularly. Even in the most culture/store/apartment dense corner of the
country.

Now I'm all for effective public transit and dense neighborhoods, but walking
and/or biking are simply worse for a lot of use cases.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
I'm not familiar with Manhattan, are you describing the phenomenon of building
dense commuter urban-areas and far-flung residential areas? Because that is
not part of being a walkable neighborhood.

But what stops public transit from being the solution here? In fact, over a 10
mi. radius, public transit scales much better than single-occupancy vehicles,
and even fully loaded sedans. Go to Tokyo and folks take trains all day. If
you're taking about low-to-medium density areas (which isn't a city) then yes,
cars are the most effective.

------
Zaskoda
I'm one of those folks who would love to drop everything I have going to
wander off into the desert/forest/underwater/whatever with the intention of
bootstrapping a new city from scratch. The more I talk about it, I've found
that there are a lot of people who would love such an adventure - if we could
all just find some effort worth getting behind. It's sort of like starting a
hippy commune, only with high-tech intentions. I'd rather embrace the world
and one-up it than to hide away from it. I meet a lot of people who agree so
I'm surprised there aren't more projects of this nature getting traction.

~~~
njarboe
Need a kickstarter like system. Get 10,000 people to deposit $10,000 and you
have got $100,000,000 to acquire a nice plot of land, set up planning and
governance, and incorporate a new town. I'd be interested in seeing plans for
such towns and would be interested in living in one.

Or one billionaire with similar ambitions.

~~~
zumu
> Or one billionaire with similar ambitions.

I was with you until this part. I'd rather not live in a city with an 'owner'.

~~~
sobani
A benevolent dictator does have its advantages. For example being able to
determine a culture until it's proven and critical mass makes it unlikely to
change. It's comparable to the eternal September problem.

Say some 'hippies' try to bootstrap a city that's very walkable and people
flock to it because they want to live in such a city. But it takes a while to
get used to a new situation and during that time it's very easy to say "I like
to walk to the shops, but I'm used to doing my groceries once a week, so allow
me to use my car for _that_." Before you know the 'short-sighted yuppies'
overwhelm the 'stubborn hippies' and cars are allowed everywhere one exception
at a time.

The biggest disadvantages of a dictator are overcome by being able to move
easily and the city being part of the larger legal framework of the country
it's in.

------
massysett
The very title is as ridiculous on its face as is the underlying idea. It
suggests that the car is a being of its own that the city was built for. It
doesn't occur to the author that each car has at least one person in it.
Almost always that person is driving so she may interact with other people,
work with other people, or transact business with other people, or he is
himself driving for a business that is doing work for other people.

The city was built so people can get around and interact with others. The
means by which people are doing this is cars and trucks. The city is indeed
built for people, which is precisely why the city accommodates cars: they are
immensely useful means of transportation. It's ridiculous to suggest the city
is "built for cars" as though the car is some sort of being with wants and
demands. The car is serving the people of the city.

~~~
jesperlang
I see this point coming up a lot. But if you consider the car a medium of
transport for the individual and how it affects the collective it makes more
sense. Think of it as "build cities for people, not individuals"

------
earlz
I do a lot of traveling for business and staying in a city like Dallas, St.
Louis, or some suburbia part of the bay area is absolutely my least ideal
place to stay almost always. I love that uber exists, but my favorite part
about traveling is walking around and doing photography so that I'm not just
sitting in a depressing hotel. If everything interesting is at least 2 miles
apart, it's hard to enjoy a city. And especially in Texas cities, many times
there are no sidewalks so that walking even short distances is a big pain

~~~
pm90
Texan cities are all very car friendly and pedestrian unfriendly. It is just
not possible to get anywhere without a car, and people will look at you
strangely even if you walk down to the grocery store a mile away or so. One
fine Houston morning, my friends and I decided to walk down to the strip mall
for lunch after a night out; the sidewalks were unmaintained and cracking, but
also... we were the _only_ ones walking! It was quite a shock to me to see
that, especially since the roads were chock full of traffic.

~~~
lgregg
The suburb (south Houston suburban city) my mom lives in has a token sidewalk
for people to run or walk their dogs. That's literally 90-95% of the type of
uses I see there minus one guy I see every once and awhile who looks like he's
going to or coming from work. It's pretty sad.

I do get one thing, it is really hot in Houston, so I think that plays a lot
into the mentality of cars vs walking, at least there.

------
dbatten
Rather than trying to force some particular vision of "the good life" on
people, what if we tried to price transportation and other things
appropriately?

For example, get rid of the gas tax. Toll all state and federally funded
roads. Scale the toll according to the amount of wear and tear the vehicle
causes for the road. Price something in to account for emissions. Make sure
the tolls are high enough to pay for the road and its ongoing maintenance.
Cameras capturing license plates at intersections can keep track of everything
(tolled highways near me already work this way). Bonus points if you get
municipalities on board and reduce property taxes being spent on
transportation.

If you started doing stuff like this, I think people's choices will start to
change. When it costs $5 to drive 30 minutes in to work every day, people are
going to choose to live in big houses with big lots in suburbia and drive
everywhere. When they have to pay the full cost of making that drive, their
preferences may start to change.

Yes, a lot of stuff would have to change to get people to agree to this sort
of thing and make it work. But the author is already talking about re-making
cities, so we might as well do it in a way that maximizes freedom and consumer
choice... right?

~~~
ProfessorLayton
If we actually billed those that actually caused road damage appropriately,
then _no_ it would not cost $5 to drive 30min to work. Semis are incredibly
damaging to roads, they cause 1,400x more wear than cars! [1] — The very same
semis city dwellers and anybody who buys anything relies on.

Cars currently _subsidize_ other, much more damaging vehicles' road damage,
seeing as they're not paying 1,400x more in fuel tax.

Anyway, the problem isn't transportation, it is the absurd zoning laws
throughout the U.S. that force people to rely on personal cars to go anywhere.

[1] [https://www.lrrb.org/pdf/201432.pdf](https://www.lrrb.org/pdf/201432.pdf)

~~~
AcerbicZero
Agreed. It's amazing how much damage medium single axled, and heavy multi-
axled vehicles do to the roads, and while emissions from those vehicles are
better than they once were, its still not great.

~~~
wahern
You can't ignore the reason the trucks exist in the first place. The trucks
exist because towns and commercial spaces are spread out, and they're so
spread out because of cars.

It's sort of like saying that cars don't emit CO2, burning gasoline does. The
gasoline is burnt to operate the cars. Trucks deliver products to our car-
centric landscape. If everybody lived in cities we'd only need a fraction of
the trucks.

~~~
MagnumOpus
You could however internalise the costs they cause by charging road taxes
based on the amount of street damage a vehicle causes.

This might actually create unexpected side effects, like semi trucks with 12
axles instead of 3 - but that would be a genuine contribution to lowering the
costs of repairing roads!

------
paulddraper
> Websites like Zillow and Apartments.com offer calculations for commute
> length and walkability to everyday destinations like grocery stores

If I'm walking to the store, do I (a) try to carry 20+ grocery bags home for
my family of five or (b) make a grocery trip twice a week? I don't love either
of those.

And that's only groceries, not shopping in general. My wife got a 50lb bag of
fertilizer from Tractor Supply yesterday morning. How close does that store
need to be for walking to make sense? At the end of my driveway?

Basically....if you have a crowded city of apartments, sure, don't do much for
cars. If you have a city of single-family residences (and three quarters of
Americans do live in single-family residences), it's _really hard_ to not
build for cars.

~~~
slededit
Its pretty great to get groceries the day of on your way home from work.
Ingredients are fresh, and nothing sits around wasting away in your freezer or
fridge. Your town has to be setup well for it though.

~~~
toasterlovin
Being able to store 2 weeks of groceries in the fridge is a feature for people
with > 2 children. It's not a bug.

------
WhompingWindows
We definitely need to transition from a car-centric to a person-centric urban
landscape. Free public storage (parking) of personal property is a blight, and
it's reprehensible that polluting and environmentally damaging personal
vehicles are given primary consideration in hundreds of cities. I do agree
that it's ethically questionable that many of the wonderful commercial
districts give up 10-20% of their land to park cars for a handful of citizens.
Let's get solutions in the here and now to these car-centric nightmares.

However, let's also build for technology coming down the pipeline. Urban
planners today need to think about the coming tsunami of driverless vehicles,
as well as the steadily increasing trends of cycling, scootering, e-bikes, and
other electric last-mile solutions. These technologies may not make a huge
impact like the car, but if they do, our policy-makers should be planning for
these potential game-changers.

For instance, with self driving cars, we must ask what will be their effects
on institutions like city buses? Does it make sense to have massive often
under-utilized buses which don't drop you at your desired location, or does it
make better sense to have smaller, 5-10 person self driving vans which can
dynamically adjust routes, dropping off riders at much more desirable
locations? What about cycling, scooters, and such - will these become
increasingly popular as self driving vehicles start to penetrate? I know I'd
bike a lot more places if I didn't have to deal with very unskilled and
inattentive drivers all over my narrow-streeted city. Does this mean, somewhat
paradoxically, that self driving vehicles will actually reduce the number of
vehicle trips in a city, while increasing other modes of transit? Will self
driving vehicles in non-urban settings actually increase vehicle miles
traveled, as couples in expensive metropolis areas realize they can commute
twice as far if they get to kick back and relax during the journey?

The implications of these technologies, and others we haven't seen yet, are
potentially massive. We need to bring these transport modalities into the
discussion whenever we talk about reshaping our urban landscapes.

------
billsmithaustin
A more transparent slogan would be, "Let's build cities for walking and
bicycles rather than cars." Or maybe "Let's build cities for walking and
subways and electric scooters." Or whatever. But whatever means of
transportation you optimize for today may be inappropriate a century from now.
It was horses in the not-too-distant past, and as much as I like bicycles, I
can imagine a figure in which bicycles and bike lanes are obsolete too.

------
joshuaheard
Visiting the Leonardo Da Vinci museum, I saw an exhibit where Leonardo did an
urban design plan. In it, he made the street level pedestrian only. Under the
street was another level for horses and wagons (cars and busses today), where
each building had an underground entrance to this level through an underground
garage. This seems like an elegant solution in an urban area from the man who
invented the helicopter, parachute, and painted the Mona Lisa.

~~~
pm90
Except that it would also be ridiculously expensive. If construction costs
reduce in the future due to automation though, might be workable.

~~~
wahern
Tunneling costs will come down, almost certainly through automated tunneling.
Not because of the demands of urban transit, but because suburbia is
fundamentally not economically viable unless the cost of running utilities and
paving roads drops dramatically. American society is too wedded to suburban
culture to move away from it to any significant extent, so sheer necessity
will drive technological innovation. It helps that the costs of suburbia are
largely hidden, so either the technology emerges or America continues to
descend into a paved-over hellscape.

Like many things America will end up paying 10x to solve problems with
sophisticated, overwrought technology that could have been solved through
simple social and cultural shifts, but at least we'll get fancy new tools out
it.

------
whitepoplar
For anyone who wants to see a pragmatic way to build cities and communities,
I'd highly recommend Christopher Alexander's _A Pattern Language_.
[https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-
Constructi...](https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-
Environmental/dp/0195019199)

~~~
carapace
And his "Build Living Neighborhoods" site:
[http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-
exp.htm](http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm)

------
jimmaswell
I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a generation
comes along that can more easily afford them again.

The area I live in is pretty dense (a mixed commercial-suburbanish area in the
most densely-populated state) and also very car-enabled, and it works out
fine. The stores I go to are within minutes of driving for me, and work is
10-15 minutes away. I don't know the official term for such a thing, but near
my apartment is what's like a micro-city that you can easily walk/bike around
while car use isn't very hampered. The major grocery store's plaza gets a
large parking lot and otherwise there are street parking areas. In the other
direction are major high-traffic roads that connect to interstates. There are
also major businesses around here with tech jobs, and they use large complexes
with their own large parking lots. There's a lot I don't like about New Jersey
but this kind of mixed area seems to work out really well and makes me
question the necessity of block-style cities where it's just depressing
concrete towers in a grid as far as the eye can see.

Maybe there are more solutions that just take some imagination to support both
cars and others in increasingly-dense areas. More car bridges, extra lanes by
replacing some sidewalks with sky bridges, underground tunnels, parking lots
on the roofs, more reversible lanes, allow motorcycles to use shoulders. Just
brainstorming here but I don't like the idea of throwing out the baby with the
bathwater with cars - nothing else provides the same freedom to spontaneously
go wherever you want on your own terms instead of being beholden to transit
schedules or only being able to go as far as you can walk or bike.

~~~
cup-of-tea
> I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a
> generation comes along that can more easily afford them again.

In the UK you could afford a car on minimum wage. I have a car. I still don't
think cities should be designed for cars. How can anyone look at one of those
pictures of American five-lane highways of bumper-to-bumper traffic and think
that is in any way sane?

~~~
jimmaswell
I'm saying there are probably unexplored good solutions to that kind of
congestion. Another I just thought of is the city motivating companies to make
shifts not so centered around 9-5. Spread the rush with shifts of 8-4, 10-6,
etc.

~~~
wahern
The 9-5 work schedule went away a long time ago. In places like the Bay Area
rush hours are roughly 6-10AM in the morning and 3-7PM in the evening
precisely because of differing schedules[1]. And that's for white collar work.
Factories and service work have much more varied schedules.

[1] There's a long tail, too. IME traffic becomes noticeably heavy around 6AM
and 3PM, but there's a long tail after 10AM and 7PM.

~~~
cup-of-tea
Yep. In the UK on a weekday the M1 near London and M25 start to get busy after
04:00 and stay busy all day.

------
techsin101
I'd share my perspective...

old cities were the best.

i visited some european cities and some middle eastern cities.

there are main roads where traffic is, and then there are streets.

Streets are NOT made of cement, softer the material the easier to walk on ...
Dirt? the best.

Streets can sprawl 4 blocks in US city size.

Streets don't have any traffic, but cars can be parked here and there
randomly. (car ownership is less)

What it did was that grocery, laundry, hardware store, restaurants, and pretty
much everything was in walking distance... you didn't need a car. and there
were no cars to get in your way.

But with 5 minutes of walking you could easily be next to highway and hail a
taxi.

All that time I was there, I was like OOOMG this make soooo much sense, I dont
need to drive 4 miles to some mega shopping mall to do shopping then come back
find parking for 30 minutes.

Oh and nobody was fat. Since everyone did light walking daily. people were
less stressed as there was culture and less stress.

I don't get why every street needs to have a freaking car in it.

from nyc btw.

------
nojvek
We don’t want cars, horses, trains, buses and things. They are all means to an
end. The means of being able to move from place A to B quickly and in relative
comfort.

People select whatever gets that means satisfied at the price they can afford.
It’s a demand supply curve.

I take a bus to Seattle everyday even though it slower, but it’s way more
confortable than driving. I always get a seat and I can read a book / get work
done.

I wouldn’t take a crowded bus though. 545 is so crowded you can smell people’s
sweat. I’d go back to driving. I love driving and bobbing my head to good
music.

But most of the days, we don’t give a shit. We just want to get to work in
morning and get back home in evening. We chose whatever means gets the job
done!

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kylec
If walkable cities are so great, why did we ever invent cars?

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the_gastropod
This is a straw man. Nobody's suggesting cars are "bad" or "evil". What is
being suggested, is that operating cars (especially at high speeds) should be
done _away_ from where we live. Supporting the use of cars within our towns
and cities is: dangerous, expensive, and wasteful (of time and natural
resources).

Cars are great for traveling great distances (20+ miles) quickly. Using them
for day-to-day travel within your own city is akin to taking a cruise ship out
on the lake for a weekend fishing trip.

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ravenstine
Is productivity actually going to be increased by reducing the number of cars
on the road? If not, then I wouldn't count on ever seeing a serious effort
towards making cities less car-centric. A politician may help bring in some
bike lanes here and there, but their interest is almost entirely in keeping
their job.

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gremlinsinc
I'd just like one small change to cities. Sidewalk escalators/treadmill of
varying speeds. It would make commutes so much easier, plus people could
actually get some modicum of a workout while commuting. I mean, it worked on
the Jetson's, right?

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brandonmenc
They could at least try it! They never try anything!

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njarboe
What I would like is an electric bike and a legal structure where I can take
one on the freeway(goes at least 60mph) and in bike lanes(go slow there).
Range 30mi.

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toasterlovin
Something that is safe at 60mph is not really a bike anymore.

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njarboe
When is something with two wheels not a bike anymore? I imagine you would use
a mass cutoff right? Or visual size? Bikes on the Tour de France get over
80mph on down hill sections so making one "safe" at 60mph seems not impossible
on first principles. Safe is usually judged by just a feeling and I would like
to check out my feeling on such a machine. I'm sure this space of vehicle has
not been worked on much and would love to see some active invention going on.

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toasterlovin
If it can go 60mph, it needs a motor. Usually something like that is called a
motorcycle.

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Bromskloss
Just so what we are on the same page: There are people in the cars.

