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Can America stop using Cars?

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Posts

  • BamelinBamelin Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    ronya wrote: »
    What Goumindong said - the context of my remark was this:
    ronya wrote: »
    Really the cycle will only break when the middle class finally runs out of land into which to flee urban decay - when all the land near city centers becomes developed and travel time from further away is unacceptable.


    But that won't happen. Eventually once people move out further and further, some of the outlying areas start to develop and then become their own little cities which people flee from to even further outlying areas.

    We've still got lots of land to keep this cycle going on for generations.

    Bamelin on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    ronya wrote: »
    What's Fresco's view?

    e: for that matter, what's yours? :P

    Like... no money... man.

    His basic stance is that if we can get technology off of a profit motive based system then we will move to a post scarcity world.

    His explicit city planning may conform to a standard economic view, but the rest of it... not so much

    Goumindong on
    wbBv3fj.png
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited June 2010
    @Bamelin & HamHamJ:

    It doesn't matter; once that happens it will remain the case that the remaining people who choose to live near the original city center will be stuck there if they choose to live and work in the same city. They can't move around the periphery of the city any more, because now it's full of other suburbs (possibly of other newer cities). People will move from one side of a city to another side; I doubt they will ditch their work and entertainment so easily to move to another city.

    Which finally incentivizes political reform rather than endless flight.

    ronya on
    aRkpc.gif
  • DeebaserDeebaser on my way to work in a suit and a tie Ahhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Feral wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    Here we see a typical exit to a subdivision. The lack of sidewalk and the fact that it exits into a main road means that if anyone from that subdivision is to use public transportation, you pretty much have to put a bus stop right there. Now, if the bus just stops, that will back up traffic for miles, because let me tell you, in the morning that road is packed.

    Or, you know, you have the bus pull in to a turnout.

    Not rocket science.

    Is civil engineering.

    Another thing you can do is Emminent Domain a bus stop's worth of land from that dude's dirt lawn. Shit, ED 's been used to uproot fucking neighborhoods to build highways in the first place.

    Deebaser on
  • Protein ShakesProtein Shakes __BANNED USERS regular
    edited June 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    GnomeTank wrote: »
    It's systemic, but it's deeper than that. It's very, very deeply rooted in the American psyche: Nice car, nice house, acre of land, two kids, one dog, picket fence.

    You're basically asking people to completely re-arrange what their idea of a comfortable existence is.

    How many people here can even afford a house on an acre, though? Like, an acre that's not in the fucking Ozarks. I mean, at some point you have to realise the dream is dead.

    Also, I find it entertaining that you all mentally excise big cities in the US like New York from your minds when you're talking about the 'real America'...

    I don't think you quite appreciate just how powerful "the dream" is. It was one of the primary reasons of the housing bubble collapse: people bought huge houses they couldn't afford, then they couldn't make their payments on them. If it wasn't for the idea of the American Dream, this would not have happened.

    Protein Shakes on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Bamelin wrote: »
    But that won't happen. Eventually once people move out further and further, some of the outlying areas start to develop and then become their own little cities which people flee from to even further outlying areas.

    We've still got lots of land to keep this cycle going on for generations.

    Not really. Hub cities tend to form for geographic reasons. I.E. if business decides it wants another port.

    Otherwise all the business is still going to be in and near the city and all the wishing in the world wont build downtowns where no one works.

    This is why Houston has some shopping hubs, but no sub cities in an otherwise massive area. While Seattle has hub cities close by (Tacoma, Everett provide more access to various places in the Sound. Bellevue is literally right next door to Seattle. If there wasn't a lake in the way they would pretty much be one singular downtown.


    I mean. Houston has 2m people in 600 sq miles. Seattle Metro has 4m in about 550. Seattle Metro is massively sprawled with some of the worst traffic in the nation but contains three major downtown hubs(Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue). Houston has one hub.

    edit: I mean, consider how downtowns are formed. Basically it works kinda like this

    People start a business and plant it down. Enough business gets around to an area and then a couple of places to eat say "hey, will make a place to eat lunch there so that those guys don't have to leave, I will get their business".

    That happens and then some people say "i want to eat out, i will go to where the restaurants are. They are where that business is." and then entertainment venues say "there are people eating late at night, they can also watch movies, go to shows, etc etc. And build up. Then businesses say "that is a great place to live, i will move there".

    And so on and so forth.

    But if you don't start with the business there is no incentive for the others to bunch up. Businesses still want to go where most of the entertainment and food is (predominately) and other entertainment venues want to capture as wide an audience as possible, which means they won't bunch as much unless there are a lot of people.

    This is why suburban development tends to see lots of interspersed drive in malls rather than highly dense development. If you want to capture market share in the suburbs you have to spread out.

    Goumindong on
    wbBv3fj.png
  • BamelinBamelin Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    ronya wrote: »
    @Bamelin & HamHamJ:

    It doesn't matter; once that happens it will remain the case that the remaining people who choose to live near the original city center will be stuck there if they choose to live and work in the same city. They can't move around the periphery of the city any more, because now it's full of other suburbs (possibility of other newer cities). People will move from one side of a city to another side; I doubt they will ditch their work and entertainment so easily to move to another city.

    Which finally incentivizes political reform rather than endless flight.


    People relocate (job wise) all the time when moving. The middle class can usually be found working for continent spanning corporations, or have the education that finding a new position isn't particularly difficult. I know because I did it myself just last year.

    You have to understand that in the scenerio I described in my last post people aren't moving across the country or anything ... just further out from the downtown core. This causes peripheral suburbs to grow into cities in their own right ... and cities bring in jobs opportunities and growth. Generally these suburbs grow out along the highway meaning that it's relatively easy to get back into your "old" city to visit friends/family.

    The biggest thing that will limit this type of growth is the cost of gasoline. In Canada we pay 1.00 a litre. That's about 4 dollars a gallon. I was in the US last week and was shocked to hear you guys were paying something ridiculously cheap like 2.50 a gallon.

    If gasoline goes way up in price it will stop the spread of suburbs cold.

    Bamelin on
  • MKRMKR Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    The problem is that the spread already happened here. Increase gas prices too quickly, and millions of people are stranded in impoverished crapholes more so than they already are.

    MKR on
  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited June 2010
    The important thing to start with is to stop the spread of these cities, and then a slow, gradual reduction.

    Cars will never be eliminated, but they can certainly be reduced in prominance.

    Incenjucar on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    spreading cities actually isn't that bad. public transportation can be implimented fine in cities

    it's suburban sprawl that public transit has problems dealign with effectively

    Evander on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    So I'm not sure what's wrong with mass transit where it makes sense, subsidies on things like electric cars where it doesn't, and a subsidy for people or businesses to relocate closer to places where mass transit does make sense

    I cannot think of a realistic scenario where those in poverty who are dependent on their cars won't be fucked as the decline of oil happens though. There are scenarios where they don't get fucked, just none that the government will ever see happen.

    override367 on
  • NewblarNewblar Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    dispatch.o wrote: »
    yalborap wrote: »
    My biggest thing? Just that cars are bloody expensive. Even a cheapo beater is several hundred to a grand, and that's the bare minimum, which'll need serious love and attention.

    So, building a society where we need to either put a bunch of time into a crappy car, or spend several years paying off a $10,000+ thing just to get around well seems...kind of retarded.

    Some company needs to build the ultimate commuter car. A radio, an air conditioner and good mileage and safety features, then not charge 18k for it. I don't need electronic ass-massaging warming seats or nine directional zone air conditioning.

    Make a car that costs around 7k with the priority being a solid simple engine and reliability.

    The Tata Nano says Hi

    250px-Nano.jpg

    The barebones Indian version was around $2,200 US when it first released in 2009.
    A better featured version that had to meet Euro standards is around $6,000 US
    The version expected to be released in the US in 2011 is supposed to be $8,000. They haven't announced what will be included with this version yet.


    There are supposed to be electric and hybrid versions in development with the electric version expected to be about comparably priced to the gas version US with an 80 mile range.

    It's a stop gap though as its lower price throughout the world means more cars.

    Newblar on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    spreading cities actually isn't that bad. public transportation can be implimented fine in cities

    it's suburban sprawl that public transit has problems dealign with effectively

    Aye. The problem is that suburbs are terrible for transportation.

    They aren't designed FOR cars. They are designed with the idea that everyone has a car. Which is a very important difference.

    What they are designed for is space.
    And this is a terrible, terrible way to design anything.

    Shit, even 50 years ago suburbs were designed better. Looking at a 50s suburb (that are by now usually considered "in the city") compared to one built 20 years ago is night and day. The newer ones are bigger lot, bigger house, sprawlier and the whole thing is designed to make traffic flow as slow as possible. And they are just plain further away with a longer commute.

    And the only real way to stop this is to economically disincentivize this kind of living. It will happen on it's own eventually, as commutes get too long or too expensive or whatever, but we need to stop it long before that. If for no other reason then that rising gas prices will crush long flung out, badly designed suburbs at some point, so the sooner we raise gas prices and kill the creation of those things, the better. Because it means we'll have less suburban decay to deal with in the future.

    shryke on
  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Amusingly, or perhaps infuriatingly, the very first suburbs were designed around public transit. But then we ripped up all the street-car lines. Whoops.

    Corvus on
    :so_raven:
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Incenjucar wrote: »
    The important thing to start with is to stop the spread of these cities, and then a slow, gradual reduction.

    Cars will never be eliminated, but they can certainly be reduced in prominance.
    I can't see politicians running on a platform based on smaller houses and higher gas prices.

    I live in DC and I like being in an urban area, but I'm unusual in that regard. Most Americans have voted with their feet and prefer living in suburban and rural areas.

    If it gets to the point where gas becomes $10, the most likely result is that businesses will shift to allowing most of their employees to telecommute.

    Modern Man on
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  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    edited June 2010
    I get to telecommute two days a week. It is pretty damn awesome.

    Corvus on
    :so_raven:
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Corvus wrote: »
    I get to telecommute two days a week. It is pretty damn awesome.
    My wife telecommutes at least 4 days a week. It's pretty awesome.

    I actually take the bus in to work, since it's really convenient. On nice days, I can walk since I'm only about 2.5 miles from work.

    But, my commute isn't typical, even in DC.

    Modern Man on
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  • jefe414jefe414 "My Other Drill Hole is a Teleporter" Mechagodzilla is Best GodzillaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2010
    There used to be a really robust public transit system in CT. My grandfather used to tell me all about the electric trollies that went everywhere in the state. Hell, if you had the time you could take a trolley from New Haven to Boston.

    jefe414 on
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  • The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Goumindong wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    Jacques Fresco. He's an engineer who used to be a prominent technocrat & Trotskyist... he's become a little, erm, 'eccentric' & unrealistically utopian in his viewpoints over time, but I really admire a lot of his urban planning concepts and they match, more or less, what you were saying spot on.

    Not really. Fresco is very radically economically. Ronya's position is more just a liberal reading of the more or less standard view.

    Yeah, that's what I said - he's become very utopian & eccentric, but his urban planning models are wonderful.

    Reserve me a spot in one of the concentric ring cities.

    The Ender on
    With Love and Courage
  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Bamelin wrote: »
    ronya wrote: »
    What Goumindong said - the context of my remark was this:
    ronya wrote: »
    Really the cycle will only break when the middle class finally runs out of land into which to flee urban decay - when all the land near city centers becomes developed and travel time from further away is unacceptable.


    But that won't happen. Eventually once people move out further and further, some of the outlying areas start to develop and then become their own little cities which people flee from to even further outlying areas.

    We've still got lots of land to keep this cycle going on for generations.

    London is a good example of the first situation (can't live in the kind of suburb that is popular in the US and still be able to commute in a reasonable amount of time - though the exception is areas along the main rail routes), Birmingham (UK) is a good example of the second situation, Wolverhampton, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, etc are really their own "centres".

    japan on
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that one of the motivations for moving out of urban areas is the question of where your kids go to school.

    Young childless people don't care about the quality level of schools. But, unless they're wealthy enough to send them to private schools, you see couples leaving urban areas for the suburbs once their kids approach school age.

    And, once you get kids, a car becomes pretty important.

    Modern Man on
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    Rigorous Scholarship

  • PotatoNinjaPotatoNinja Fake Gamer Goat Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    That's true MM, but the way schools are funded is also absolutely terrible and we'd be better off if schools weren't so reliant on local property taxes and an uneven distributions of students.

    PotatoNinja on
    Two goats enter, one car leaves
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    That's true MM, but the way schools are funded is also absolutely terrible and we'd be better off if schools weren't so reliant on local property taxes and an uneven distributions of students.
    Maybe, maybe not. But, I think we can agree that is unlikely to change anytime soon. As long as you have good schools in the suburbs and shit schools in the urban areas, families are going to gravitate to the 'burbs. Which means more cars.

    Modern Man on
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    Rigorous Scholarship

  • GungHoGungHo Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Driving to the middle of Houston from the edge would be like driving from downtown Seattle to Microsoft. Granted, Houston has a lot more side streets connecting the two because there isn't a lake in the way, but anyone who has driven on I-5, 405, 90, or 520 can rightly tell you that the commutes around Houston must be absolutely atrocious.
    Yes. Yes, it is.

    GungHo on
  • Commander 598Commander 598 Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    At least Houston has something vaguely like decent infrastructure planning in it's design...UNLIKE LOUISIANA.

    Commander 598 on
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    The main problem with US public transit is that it demands grand steps, when small ones would suffice. For example, here in San Francisco a big step would be to complete the loop around the bay, and add the line crossing the golden gate bridge. A small step would be to develop better cleaning and maintenance methods so the line only needs to be closed 2 hours a day rather than 6. Instead however we have a situation where it's just the first to be cut.

    Americans do like public transit if it can be placed for them. Yes not everyone can use it, but put down a light rail line in a city where there is a central area people like and those on it will use it. THis doesn't help people who don't live near it, but it is better than nothing.

    tbloxham on
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  • ScalfinScalfin __BANNED USERS regular
    edited June 2010
    Corlis wrote: »
    Why do Americans go to all sorts of lengths, on a variety of subjects, to try to prove that they are incapable of replicating the successes of other countries? It's very confusing to me.
    European cities are old, up to a good 3,000 years old in places, and for the bulk of their existence the main method of transportation was on foot, or more rarely on a horse-drawn carriage of some sort. The cities were therefore designed for foot traffic rather than automobile traffic. Streets are narrow and twisted, and residential areas were necessarily put near to the commercial and industrial districts, and so forth. When the automobile came along, the former fact made it difficult for lots of people to adopt it, and the latter meant that they didn't really have to do so anyhow. The lack of people using cars, however, meant for much more call for public transportation, and the density of the cities made it more cost-effective.

    Conversely, the American city is only a few hundred years old at most, and even then only in the downtown cores. Much of America's cityscape has been built during the time of the automobile, and therefore designed with it in mind: residential areas are far away from industrial areas, everything is more spread out, and roads are nice and wide. The first two facts make public transportation difficult, because you have to run more busses and dig more tunnels, and the latter fact makes it much less tempting for anyone to take the bus. To make public transportation as easy for Americans as it would be for Europeans, they'd either have to spend a lot more money for the same quality, or they'd have to kick everyone out of the cities, raze them, and then rebuild them from the ground up.

    While this is old, I feel the need to correct you. Even before cars were adopted as the main source of transportation, communities would often be quite far from the jobs in London, with a large number of people taking the train from Kent each morning.


    If we were to use public transportation as a primary means of transport, we'd probably build a system with more connections, trains moving between connection points exclusively, and trains stopping at different stop patterns (every station, every other station, et cetera).

    Scalfin on
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    The rest of you, I fucking hate you for the fact that I now have a blue dot on this god awful thread.
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Goumindong wrote: »
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Looking at a map I don't see any reason Houston has run out of space to sprawl to. Usually absent mountains or water US cities will just keep sprawling out forever.

    Looking at a map Houstin seems to be wall to wall built up for about a 40 mile diameter. Which is to say that new suburbs are going to have between a 30 minute to 60 minute commute assuming no one else is on the road

    To compare with Seattle, a vastly sprawled area(which doesn't have good public transit folks. Its only good within the immediate city really) is about 30 miles tall from Edmonds to De Moines. Seattle under this example would have two downtowns. One in Seattle and one next door in Bellevue. Another 30 miles south and you would run into Tacoma, which also has 200,000 people.

    Driving to the middle of Houston from the edge would be like driving from downtown Seattle to Microsoft. Granted, Houston has a lot more side streets connecting the two because there isn't a lake in the way, but anyone who has driven on I-5, 405, 90, or 520 can rightly tell you that the commutes around Houston must be absolutely atrocious.

    Yeah, Seattle's transit somewhat overrated, but even fairly well out into the suburbs it still blows Phoenix's out of the water (at least from when I was there).

    It's crazy the kind of commutes people will deal with, though. Like, I heard the new thing is people moving to fucking Bakersfield to commute into LA. No idea if it's true, but honestly it wouldn't surprise me. When your idea of "culture" is a movie theater and a Barnes and Noble, there really isn't much draw to living anywhere near the urban core...and people just really like having a yard. It's not like you can't still drive into the city for the occasional ballgame or concert.

    I stand by my assertion that the only thing that will stop city sprawl is raw geography...absent mountains/water, they'll keep going.


    I was almost going to argue that Seattle isn't that badly sprawled...but damn. Looking at Seattle/Tacoma versus Phoenix (same map scale on Google) it's insane. I think part of the problem is that Seattle and Tacoma were so far away (compared to Phoenix/Mesa). It's just strange, because spending time in central Seattle it's a much more vibrant and dense urban area with a better mix of residential and commercial than Phoenix had...but damn, the density in the suburbs (and spacing) must just be terrible.

    And yes, I'm allowing for the water area.

    mcdermott on
  • President RexPresident Rex Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    As boring as William Penn may be, I don't understand why suburban planners insist on inefficient, confusing, wasteful roads that meanders and have dead-end cul-de-sacs. The only legitimate argument they have is that it can deter people from speeding...but then when people do speed it's even more dangerous.

    Here's an example from Chicago of decent subdivision design next to terrible cul-de-sac, curvy road hell.

    sidebysidesubdivisions.jpg

    Cul-de-sacs/dead ends and small looping avenues are circled in red; intersections that are difficult to navigate due to the angles of the roads are in blue. Those circles also don't indicate the lack of main road access. Grid patterns tend to form more access points to major traffic arteries, where as subdivisions - and their reclusive nature - favor limited inlets.

    Not that grids specifically are necessary, the portion above of Windsor-Cambridge-Armitage-Vantroba would work fine (at least, you could include Vantroba if it didn't have a dead end sticking to it).

    President Rex on
  • ScalfinScalfin __BANNED USERS regular
    edited June 2010
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Looking at a map I don't see any reason Houston has run out of space to sprawl to. Usually absent mountains or water US cities will just keep sprawling out forever.

    Looking at a map Houstin seems to be wall to wall built up for about a 40 mile diameter. Which is to say that new suburbs are going to have between a 30 minute to 60 minute commute assuming no one else is on the road

    To compare with Seattle, a vastly sprawled area(which doesn't have good public transit folks. Its only good within the immediate city really) is about 30 miles tall from Edmonds to De Moines. Seattle under this example would have two downtowns. One in Seattle and one next door in Bellevue. Another 30 miles south and you would run into Tacoma, which also has 200,000 people.

    Driving to the middle of Houston from the edge would be like driving from downtown Seattle to Microsoft. Granted, Houston has a lot more side streets connecting the two because there isn't a lake in the way, but anyone who has driven on I-5, 405, 90, or 520 can rightly tell you that the commutes around Houston must be absolutely atrocious.

    Yeah, Seattle's transit somewhat overrated, but even fairly well out into the suburbs it still blows Phoenix's out of the water (at least from when I was there).

    It's crazy the kind of commutes people will deal with, though. Like, I heard the new thing is people moving to fucking Bakersfield to commute into LA. No idea if it's true, but honestly it wouldn't surprise me. When your idea of "culture" is a movie theater and a Barnes and Noble, there really isn't much draw to living anywhere near the urban core...and people just really like having a yard. It's not like you can't still drive into the city for the occasional ballgame or concert.

    I stand by my assertion that the only thing that will stop city sprawl is raw geography...absent mountains/water, they'll keep going.


    I was almost going to argue that Seattle isn't that badly sprawled...but damn. Looking at Seattle/Tacoma versus Phoenix (same map scale on Google) it's insane. I think part of the problem is that Seattle and Tacoma were so far away (compared to Phoenix/Mesa). It's just strange, because spending time in central Seattle it's a much more vibrant and dense urban area with a better mix of residential and commercial than Phoenix had...but damn, the density in the suburbs (and spacing) must just be terrible.

    And yes, I'm allowing for the water area.

    I'm in Boston, and we don't actually have all that much commuting simply because anybody far enough away from the city be in an area not built up to the point of self-sufficiency would have a much shorter drive simply commuting to Albany (or Worcester, whatever)

    Scalfin on
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  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited June 2010
    As boring as William Penn may be, I don't understand why suburban planners insist on inefficient, confusing, wasteful roads that meanders and have dead-end cul-de-sacs. The only legitimate argument they have is that it can deter people from speeding...but then when people do speed it's even more dangerous.

    Here's an example from Chicago of decent subdivision design next to terrible cul-de-sac, curvy road hell.

    sidebysidesubdivisions.jpg

    Cul-de-sacs/dead ends and small looping avenues are circled in red; intersections that are difficult to navigate due to the angles of the roads are in blue. Those circles also don't indicate the lack of main road access. Grid patterns tend to form more access points to major traffic arteries, where as subdivisions - and their reclusive nature - favor limited inlets.

    Not that grids specifically are necessary, the portion above of Windsor-Cambridge-Armitage-Vantroba would work fine (at least, you could include Vantroba if it didn't have a dead end sticking to it).

    I hate this crap. Omaha is a very useful grid layout for most of the city, but all the new housing areas are the twisty road cul-de-sac bullshit. The entire purpose is to discourage cars from driving through those neighborhoods.

    Which is amusing because so many exisiting curved roads here all have straightening projects planned for them. It seems like it's intentionally set up for perpetual construction projects, sometimes.

    edit:

    this

    http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Omaha,+Douglas,+Nebraska&ll=41.213497,-95.956907&spn=0.023341,0.054932&t=h&z=15

    versus this. same city! the fuck is this!

    http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Omaha,+Douglas,+Nebraska&ll=41.20294,-96.175346&spn=0.023345,0.054932&t=h&z=15

    FyreWulff on
  • MKRMKR Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    How viable would it be to just load cars up and move people between where they commute to and from? Like a road ferry.

    MKR on
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    FyreWulff wrote: »
    As boring as William Penn may be, I don't understand why suburban planners insist on inefficient, confusing, wasteful roads that meanders and have dead-end cul-de-sacs. The only legitimate argument they have is that it can deter people from speeding...but then when people do speed it's even more dangerous.

    Here's an example from Chicago of decent subdivision design next to terrible cul-de-sac, curvy road hell.

    sidebysidesubdivisions.jpg

    Cul-de-sacs/dead ends and small looping avenues are circled in red; intersections that are difficult to navigate due to the angles of the roads are in blue. Those circles also don't indicate the lack of main road access. Grid patterns tend to form more access points to major traffic arteries, where as subdivisions - and their reclusive nature - favor limited inlets.

    Not that grids specifically are necessary, the portion above of Windsor-Cambridge-Armitage-Vantroba would work fine (at least, you could include Vantroba if it didn't have a dead end sticking to it).

    I hate this crap. Omaha is a very useful grid layout for most of the city, but all the new housing areas are the twisty road cul-de-sac bullshit. The entire purpose is to discourage cars from driving through those neighborhoods.

    Which is amusing because so many exisiting curved roads here all have straightening projects planned for them. It seems like it's intentionally set up for perpetual construction projects, sometimes.

    edit:

    this

    http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Omaha,+Douglas,+Nebraska&ll=41.213497,-95.956907&spn=0.023341,0.054932&t=h&z=15

    versus this. same city! the fuck is this!

    http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Omaha,+Douglas,+Nebraska&ll=41.20294,-96.175346&spn=0.023345,0.054932&t=h&z=15

    The bolded. For sure. The whole point is to force people to stay on major arteries instead of cutting through neighborhoods. Occasionally this means having to drive upwards of a mile out of your way, but trust me you live in one of these cities long enough you just go along. It only takes a few times getting lost as fuck in a subdivision to avoid ever trying to cut through them.

    It's also more visually pleasing to look down curved streets than straight ones, as far as homeowners go.

    mcdermott on
  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited June 2010
    It doesn't help that all those new suburbs are ugly as fuck, all the houses are the same model, and they're painted that shitty looking brown-beige color.

    FyreWulff on
  • SageinaRageSageinaRage Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Atlanta is its own special brand of crazy, even the downtown streets are a unique kind of weirdly angled, looping, haphazard pattern. The story goes that after the straight long streets in atlanta were seen to be a disadvantage when it was invaded during the civil war, giving straight shots for artillery fire, they purposely designed streets to curve after a certain length.

    SageinaRage on
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  • KiplingKipling Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    In terms of dimensions and rail transit, this is a useful site to have.

    http://beyonddc.com/features/compare.shtml

    All the maps on equivalent scale, and you can see the horrible Atlanta sprawl versus say, DC.

    Kipling on
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  • CycloneRangerCycloneRanger Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    Atlanta is its own special brand of crazy, even the downtown streets are a unique kind of weirdly angled, looping, haphazard pattern. The story goes that after the straight long streets in atlanta were seen to be a disadvantage when it was invaded during the civil war, giving straight shots for artillery fire, they purposely designed streets to curve after a certain length.
    That still doesn't explain why they're all named the same thing, though.

    CycloneRanger on
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    MKR wrote: »
    How viable would it be to just load cars up and move people between where they commute to and from? Like a road ferry.

    Stuff like this is called - I think - the electric highways project, in various forms.

    The idea is that you take two lanes in the middle of an existing highway, and rig them so that cars run along a rail, autonomously. You reduce emissions by powering the whole thing electrically, and you reduce accidents since the system is automatic.

    electricitylikesme on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited June 2010
    mcdermott wrote: »
    FyreWulff wrote: »
    As boring as William Penn may be, I don't understand why suburban planners insist on inefficient, confusing, wasteful roads that meanders and have dead-end cul-de-sacs. The only legitimate argument they have is that it can deter people from speeding...but then when people do speed it's even more dangerous.

    Here's an example from Chicago of decent subdivision design next to terrible cul-de-sac, curvy road hell.

    sidebysidesubdivisions.jpg

    Cul-de-sacs/dead ends and small looping avenues are circled in red; intersections that are difficult to navigate due to the angles of the roads are in blue. Those circles also don't indicate the lack of main road access. Grid patterns tend to form more access points to major traffic arteries, where as subdivisions - and their reclusive nature - favor limited inlets.

    Not that grids specifically are necessary, the portion above of Windsor-Cambridge-Armitage-Vantroba would work fine (at least, you could include Vantroba if it didn't have a dead end sticking to it).

    I hate this crap. Omaha is a very useful grid layout for most of the city, but all the new housing areas are the twisty road cul-de-sac bullshit. The entire purpose is to discourage cars from driving through those neighborhoods.

    Which is amusing because so many exisiting curved roads here all have straightening projects planned for them. It seems like it's intentionally set up for perpetual construction projects, sometimes.

    edit:

    this

    http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Omaha,+Douglas,+Nebraska&ll=41.213497,-95.956907&spn=0.023341,0.054932&t=h&z=15

    versus this. same city! the fuck is this!

    http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Omaha,+Douglas,+Nebraska&ll=41.20294,-96.175346&spn=0.023345,0.054932&t=h&z=15

    The bolded. For sure. The whole point is to force people to stay on major arteries instead of cutting through neighborhoods. Occasionally this means having to drive upwards of a mile out of your way, but trust me you live in one of these cities long enough you just go along. It only takes a few times getting lost as fuck in a subdivision to avoid ever trying to cut through them.

    It's also more visually pleasing to look down curved streets than straight ones, as far as homeowners go.

    Yeah, I mentioned this earlier. Or on another thread, I can't remember.

    But yeah, the whole idea was to stop traffic on people's streets.

    Of course, if you actually do research on this, it turns out that less traffic on your street is a bad thing. It increases crime and burglary rates and creates insane traffic nightmares while also making the area unsuitable for further urbanization or the addition of mass transit.

    shryke on
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited June 2010
    As boring as William Penn may be, I don't understand why suburban planners insist on inefficient, confusing, wasteful roads that meanders and have dead-end cul-de-sacs. The only legitimate argument they have is that it can deter people from speeding...but then when people do speed it's even more dangerous.

    Here's an example from Chicago of decent subdivision design next to terrible cul-de-sac, curvy road hell.

    sidebysidesubdivisions.jpg

    Cul-de-sacs/dead ends and small looping avenues are circled in red; intersections that are difficult to navigate due to the angles of the roads are in blue. Those circles also don't indicate the lack of main road access. Grid patterns tend to form more access points to major traffic arteries, where as subdivisions - and their reclusive nature - favor limited inlets.

    Not that grids specifically are necessary, the portion above of Windsor-Cambridge-Armitage-Vantroba would work fine (at least, you could include Vantroba if it didn't have a dead end sticking to it).

    To make it useless for passing through the neighbourhood, mostly.
    ronya wrote: »
    There is also the longstanding issue of shoddy American local governance - dense cities implicitly require a government agile enough to resist local interest-grouping. Urban planning requires a wide variety of powers to control crime, restrict ambient noise, create safe parks, construct public transport networks, and so on. In the absence of urban good government people self-segregate into regional suburbs divided by class, and create their own neighborhood governments to provide public goods.

    Since the intent is exclusionary (to keep 'those other people' away), you would generally see suburban developments advertise their privacy rather than accessibility to public transport: hence single-use zoning, cul-de-sacs, and few entrances and exits in suburban neighborhoods that connect directly to main traffic throughways, like those identified in the OP.

    ronya on
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