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A Sassafrasin' Separate Thread about [Transportation]
Astaereth
In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
Transportation. Huh! What is it good for? Well, this:
But the real questions, courtesy the SCOTUS thread, are:
1. Is transportation (or driving access) a right?
2. What, if any, public transportation is a government obligated to provide its citizens?
Also:
3. How do self-driving cars look to change the answers to 1 and 2?
4. Speaking of self-driving cars, how do we anticipate solving the trolley problem?
https://youtu.be/ixIoDYVfKA0
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Personally I think we need to acknowledge that rights can come with limitations and regulations. Also, if people in rural areas are too far away from one another they should move closer. Problem solved!
But I don't know much of anything about this, so I'm really interested to see where this discussion goes. Have at it, folks.
But the real questions, courtesy the SCOTUS thread, are:
1. Is transportation (or driving access) a right?
2. What, if any, public transportation is a government obligated to provide its citizens?
Also:
3. How do self-driving cars look to change the answers to 1 and 2?
4. Speaking of self-driving cars, how do we anticipate solving the trolley problem?
https://youtu.be/ixIoDYVfKA0Jason Kotke wrote:What if the consumer could choose the sort of safety they want? If you had to choose between buying a car that would save as many lives as possible and a car that would save you above all other concerns, which would you select? You can imagine that answer would be different for different people and that car companies would build & market cars to appeal to each of them. Perhaps Apple would make a car that places the security of the owner above all else, Google would be a car that would prioritize saving the most lives, and Uber would build a car that keeps the largest Uber spenders alive.
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Personally I think we need to acknowledge that rights can come with limitations and regulations. Also, if people in rural areas are too far away from one another they should move closer. Problem solved!
But I don't know much of anything about this, so I'm really interested to see where this discussion goes. Have at it, folks.
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I don't think anyone has a right to their own private vehicle. If someone opts to live way out in the middle of nowhere and pay for their own that's fine. But they're not entitled to have their own car free of regulation or compliance just because they've decided they want to live in the country.
https://www.eliomotors.com
I'd love to have a car like that, I really would, but it's the other vehicles on the road that stop me from even considering this as a solution.
Sorry, but crumple zones are important
I wouldn't say personal vehicles are a right, but i can certainly envision a situation in which it's in the government's best interests to provide them to some people.
Besides, part of government's job is making good long-term decisions when everyone else is thinking short-term. Sure, tax breaks might be nice for a month, but a good mass transit system pays off for decades. edit-see Social Security for an example
I drive a motorcycle, and I'm not dead yet!
And in a serious tone, the reason motorcycles are way more dangerous than cars is that people tend to completely ignore motorcycles they see, because they don't think of them as vehicles. While crashes are more likely to be more deadly due to, you know, motorcycle, the biggest safety issue isn't the lack of crumple zones.
From personal experience, I can say that driving a motorcycle feels way, way, way less safe when the weather isn't great, because people just seem to forget that motorcycles exist. Once the streets are lousy with them, people remember to look for them, but as soon as I'm the only motorcycle on the road, people lose their minds. I would imagine if there were fleets upon fleets of these little things zipping around, the number of accidents involving them would not be overly high.
In terms of the general thread, I'm of a couple of minds. 1: Public transit is, in most cases, the thing to invest in. Personally, there's a subway-ish rail system coming about a 15-minute bycicle ride/10-minute drive(surprisingly the bike is about as good just because of traffic) from my house, that gets me within a 5-minute walk from my school, and also about a 5-minute walk from place I will probably be going to for work. As soon as that's there, I will probably never take the car(unless I get hired in a place that's not on the route or the weather's terrible). 2: Public transit is obviously not the greatest thing in all situations. It was brought up to me before that there are people who live in remote places where public transit would be really inefficient to run. I do feel like this is a minority though, for people who live in those areas and cannot afford transportation of their own and need to go somewhere else for work and cannot afford to relocate closer to work. 3: Car share programs are starting to show up in cities, and while I haven't used one(I have a car of my own, and need to drive out of the radius normally), I've heard a lot of great things about them. 4: Robot cars will change freaking all of this anyways.
Kansas City MO is going to get a streetcar system by the middle of next year... It's a measly two mile route, but even though they've only finished putting down the actual line and the cars are still being delivered, never mind placed on the rails and tested, it's already done amazing things to the growth of business and development along it's route. So much so that there is a serious effort to push for extending the system already, especially to the poorer parts of the city that could use it the most, and the thing hasn't even had it's first passenger yet.
Why is it only two miles? Like your second part says, people think short-term over long-term. City council decided on a district-by-district vote for the money to pay for it (mainly because they were pressured to put it to popular vote, and they were smart enough to know that if it was a city-wide up or down vote, it hadn't a chance in hell), and that was pretty much the only part of the city that said yes.
I live in the Vancouver area, and our terrible premier decided to hold a referendum on a 0.5% sales tax(which, granted, is a dumb way to do the tax, but still) to fund a massive expansion of the transit system. People voted against it either because a: they have money and cars so who cares, not like there's ever traffic, right? or b: because they decided that the public transit wasn't good enough, so weren't going to vote to support it. They needed to, apparently "send a message". What that message was, nobody ever really said.
BTW, the transit here is goddamn amazing compared to many places. The only problem is that it can't afford to keep a bunch of routes running as much as would be best, so it does result in long waits at places. The solution to that though isn't "refuse to fund them". I will admit that it's a dumb system because our transit is a contracted out private company, because we apparently wanted to "save costs" or some shit, but it does a pretty damn good job, all things considered.
I still get angry that "Hey this will be good for the city and the future" was even made a vote.
While I am a above-average driver (:P), I have my off days where I'm tired, or sick, or just rushed and stressed, but I still have to get behind the wheel.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
I'll wait for IIHS rating that equals my Subaru before switching brands myself, especially with the inclement weather we see in my area. But to be fair, they have addressed safety as one of their top priorities (as they should!):
No I'm pretty sure the biggest safety concern with motorcycles is the fact that they have zero crash safety features.
Look at the gains in safety just seatbelts make. Take those away and then also the airbags and the entirety of the car and you've got a problem should ANYTHING go wrong.
The fact that they have only 1 crash safety feature(though, granted, in many states an appropriate crash helmet is not mandatory, which is totally insane) contributes to the fact that accidents are more likely to be fatal or seriously injurious in motorcycle accidents.
The biggest safety concern is that in two thirds of motorcycle crashes, the non-motorcycle vehicle violated the motorcycle right-of-way and caused the accident. The predominating cause of motorcycle accidents is "The failure of motorists to detect and recognize motorcycles in traffic"
Water is wet, sky is blue...
I will really, really miss going out for country drives, but 100% automated vehicle adoption can't come soon enough
Edit: I'm not actually sure I'm agreeing or disagreeing with anyone here so feel free to disregard this post
The predominant cause of injuries in those accidents is that motorcycles have no safety features whatsoever. Motorcycles are inherently death traps because it's all the dangers of driving a high-speed vehicles with none of the safety features.
Cars are easier to see and more likely to be seen then motorcycles and still get in tons of accidents. Accidents happen. The difference is when they happen in a car, you are much less likely to be injured or die.
An interesting question regarding that is whether it's a function of government structure, however. I know, for example that public transport provision was atrocious in this city, (NZ, admittedly), but has been rapidly improved as the governmental structure around it has been simplified.
You just need to fund it and not have half the government trying to sabotage it.
Yeah, but "the government lets private companies compete to build the infrastructure, then claims it as public property once it's built" is also a great model, I think.
Better than what they ussually do, which is the exact opposite.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
This is a great vid showing how crazy NY's subway system is. Its running on 100 year old vacuum tubes and relays. Luckily the companies that built the subway had a lot of great foresight because the systems they use are nearly idiot proof if they're maintained.
Yeah, the entire reason why Elio is designing a three-wheeler is to avoid having to meet collision and emissions standards for cars. Three-wheeled vehicles (in most jurisdictions) only have to meet the standards for motorcycles. Now, I ride a motorcycle myself, but nobody ever tried to bullshit me into thinking my sportbike was as safe as a car. That's what Elio's doing here, though. That statement you quoted is basically meaningless (what the hell is a similar vehicle? a Can-Am Spider?) and their trike hasn't been crash tested by any independent agency.
You also need to have sufficient population density, obviously.
I lived in Christchurch, New Zealand for a few months, right near the city center and main bus hub; and I could get damn near anywhere I wanted to be reasonably quickly with a combination of buses and walking. I miss that.
Oh man, CBTC. The Atlantic has an article discussing the MTA and CBTC in detail, worth a read as a companion piece to that youtube.
To fix legacy issues? You might not be able to.
To combat it's spread? Increase the cost of personal transportation (like higher gas prices or something) and better zoning procedures in general.
Any transportation system is going to have to deal with sprawl, though, because there's just so much of it.
Higher gas prices will disproportionately hurt the poor; it's basically the same mechanism as a regressive tax.
Raise taxes, increase minimum wage, increase government programs, improve zoning, etc.
Also in that Atlantic article,
Its amazing to me that one of the largest and wealthiest cities on the planet can't afford to keep its main arteries running on anything better than duct tape and hope
It is amazing, and the reasons are varied and many, depending on who you ask.
-Some people argue, convincingly, that the NYC subway system has only recently started recovering after decades of neglect. That it survived Robert Moses' best attempts to destroy it is already a testament to the quality work that went into building the subway system in the first place. As with all things, if you didn't maintain it when you could, any follow up work is going to cost more, not to mention expansions.
-Another argument is that the subway system is not able to retain revenue. Instead, everything is channeled up to the state level then redistributed by the MTA. If the subway was self-contained, it is probably one of the most profitable mass transit systems and could fund its own expansion and upgrade quite well. However, due to the need to fund all the other MTA projects, the subway falls into neglect.
-A few more reasons are covered by The Atlantic. The subway system does not shut down. This is something that a lot of people find difficult to understand. Most other transit systems shut down for maintenance and upgrade work. Not the NYC subway, and New Yorkers are used to it. The only time to do work is over the weekends when the system shifts over to the weekend schedule and shuts down segments of lines at a time. This drags things out. The union probably also does have a stranglehold over the MTA's ability to upgrade equipment.
All in all though, the NYC mass transit system is a working marvel that stretches from Connecticut to New Jersey with all of its branches. That it works as well as it does is a testament to the fact you cannot just build a single line, or a single subway system, and expect it to work. You need to have interlocking systems that take people to where they need to go.
On this, we've had a similar issue in Toronto. They needed to inspect and replace the tunnel liners for a good chunk of the Yonge line between Finch and Eglinton, which is some ~11km of track. Except the way the line is built, there's no third track for most of it and no easy maintenance access north of Eglinton. The TTC does shut down at night, but only from like 2 AM to 6:30 AM. Which, okay, 4.5 hours of maintenance time... except not even, because the last train at night to Finch needs to go back around to the depot at night, and the first train needs to arrive before 6:30, so they got maybe 3.5 hours of maintenance time.
So they decided to start shutting down the subway north of Eglinton at 12:30, so the last train pulled in to Finch at 1, adding an extra hour of maintenance. They did this for something like FOUR YEARS, and as they continued to miss deadlines, they finally just gave up and started adding weekend closures too, so they could get something like 50+ hours of maintenance in a week. Took half a year of that, and everything's done now.
Yeah... nothing will get done in a timely manner with that little amount of time to work.
Chicago had to do some work on the Red Line this past year, major maintenance on track and stations on the south side of the city. It was projected to take 5 years with weekend and night closures. They decided instead to shut down that section of the line completely for 5 months and ran busses between the stations, and got it done on time and under budget.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/upshot/transportation-emerges-as-crucial-to-escaping-poverty.html
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.