

Video of 1 week before and soon after 1904 San Francisco earthquake - fnazeeri
http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DNINOxRxze9k%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded&start1=&video2=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DVTALTvev7Is%26feature%3Drec-LGOUT-exp_stronger_r2-2r-2-HM&start2=&authorName=DJ+E-Train

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stretchwithme
amazing how much more vibrant it was before the quake than it is today.
Traffic flowed in all directions all at once and somehow it all worked.

There's some recent thinking about removing all of the traffic signs and
signals actually making a street safer.

often we build up these systems with incremental steps that seem to make sense
to somebody, but put all together actually produce a worse result.

but don't expect it to change quickly. its only the users that have the
information. the planners will take a lot longer to figure it out.

there is also thinking to close streets to traffic, even if just for a few
days a month. people love it. but they used to flow pretty freely, on foot and
on bikes before all the traffic management

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trop
Two different models of travel: One up which everyone is equally opportunistic
(or kindhearted) and the system solves itself bottom-up. The other in which
people are protected from their worst instincts (or those of others, who may
be stupid or malevolent) by a rigid set of rules and signals. Of course this
is a dialectic not just for traffic flow but political systems, public/private
class variables...

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stretchwithme
very true. "we'll tell everyone what to do and when" seems a good model in the
abstract but in practice its not as good as everybody making their best
judgements based on the signals available where they are, while broadcasting
their own intent.

There are good reasons why human intelligence is naturally distributed.

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dangero
I believe it was in 1906.

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fnazeeri
You're right. It was 1906
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake> April 18, 1906 at
5:12AM.

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albemuth
Wasn't anyone else annoyed by the ultra high pitched beep, I thought my ears
were going to bleed

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gcb
mean the fire of 1904 caused by the quake?

