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.
The next step for many subdivisions has been the installation of gates so that only residents and their guests get access.
Keep in mind many, if not most, newer subdivisions are built on private roads. People in those subdivisions would never agree to increase urbanization or to allow mass transit.
Subdivisions are built the way they are because that's how a significant percentage of the American population prefers to live. They have no interest in mass transit or living in an urban area. I doubt even $10 gas would change that- people would just make adjustments in other expenses, or push for the ability telecommute, rather than move into more urbanized areas.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
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.
The next step for many subdivisions has been the installation of gates so that only residents and their guests get access.
Keep in mind many, if not most, newer subdivisions are built on private roads. People in those subdivisions would never agree to increase urbanization or to allow mass transit.
Subdivisions are built the way they are because that's how a significant percentage of the American population prefers to live. They have no interest in mass transit or living in an urban area. I doubt even $10 gas would change that- people would just make adjustments in other expenses, or push for the ability telecommute, rather than move into more urbanized areas.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
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.
The next step for many subdivisions has been the installation of gates so that only residents and their guests get access.
Keep in mind many, if not most, newer subdivisions are built on private roads. People in those subdivisions would never agree to increase urbanization or to allow mass transit.
Subdivisions are built the way they are because that's how a significant percentage of the American population prefers to live. They have no interest in mass transit or living in an urban area. I doubt even $10 gas would change that- people would just make adjustments in other expenses, or push for the ability telecommute, rather than move into more urbanized areas.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
Ok. Assuming you're right, it's still irrelevant to this discussion.
If you want people to give up a lifestyle they prefer and can probably continue to afford for the foreseeable future, you're going to have to come up with a better approach than calling them names.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
If they genuinely don't care, no argument is going to sway them. Accurately labeling and filing them on the shelf is all we can do.
Some people genuinely don't care about how their actions impact others.
If you can't win them with a morality/ethical argument, you need a practical one. Even with $10 gas(pretending that wouldn't increase bus prices).
the argument breaks down like this for my GF's commute.
Bus->train:
Cost ~$5 A day Time:2-2.5 hours a day
Drive:
~$5 of gas
$200 a year for a parking pass 1 hour a day.
In Chicago, the only reason people use public transit(if they have a car) to get downtown is if their job has no parking, and they can't afford the $200 a month it costs to use a public parking garage. Or they are planning on getting hammered.
If you want people to use it otherwise you have to actually make the time it takes somewhere near comparable to using a car, and cheaper or around the same price as driving yourself. Time and the comparative pleasantness of being alone in a car instead of on a noisy and crowded bus, have a high enough value to people that making their commute cost a few extra bucks every day isn't going to change their behavior.
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.
The next step for many subdivisions has been the installation of gates so that only residents and their guests get access.
Keep in mind many, if not most, newer subdivisions are built on private roads. People in those subdivisions would never agree to increase urbanization or to allow mass transit.
Subdivisions are built the way they are because that's how a significant percentage of the American population prefers to live. They have no interest in mass transit or living in an urban area. I doubt even $10 gas would change that- people would just make adjustments in other expenses, or push for the ability telecommute, rather than move into more urbanized areas.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
I think the most amusing thing about those neighborhoods is that they're running away from "the poors" and the projects, and all they're doing is turning themselves into projects that cost more to live in.
How viable would it be to just load cars up and move people between where they commute to and from? Like a road ferry.
When it's a train it's referred to as Motorail.
The example I'm most familiar with is Eurotunnel, which is a little unusual because there isn't an option to drive the same journey and the drivers stay in their cars for the duration. For long distance services it's more usual to load the car onto one train, and have the passengers travel separately and collect their car at the other end.
It's used more for long distance (often overnight) journeys.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
I'm sorry, but I grew up on a farm. Any part of a city feels like a ghetto. I would live in poverty before living like so much stacked drift wood.
I don't get that like, at all.
I grew up between cities, farms, and suburbs.
Farms are boring places where old people are the most boring. Suburbs are boring but your friends are okay. Cities aren't boring because places to go and things to do are actually like, right nearby.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
Ok. Assuming you're right, it's still irrelevant to this discussion.
If you want people to give up a lifestyle they prefer and can probably continue to afford for the foreseeable future, you're going to have to come up with a better approach than calling them names.
We could move to improve the quality of city and state urban policies, and back urban groups that can present opposition to subsidizing even more services aimed at the suburbs.
Designing neighborhoods stupidly is an awful way to discourage traffic. Just make the road slow with lots of stop signs, and have much faster main roads for people to use instead.
Designing neighborhoods stupidly is an awful way to discourage traffic. Just make the road slow with lots of stop signs, and have much faster main roads for people to use instead.
Idiots, and in particular drunk people, have a wild tendency to ignore both speed limits and stop signs...whereas knowing they'll get lost as fuck keeps them away entirely. Also, depending how bad traffic is on the main roads, 25mph with stop signs might be preferable. Lastly, you want to make sure that it's still convenient for residents to get to the main roads, so too many stop signs just gets counterproductive...whereas limiting through streets (and straight streets) works just as well (or better) at slowing/discouraging through traffic while allowing those that know the neighborhood (residents) to get through quite quickly and easily.
Not that I enjoy the practice, or anything. But there are some decent arguments behind it.
Designing neighborhoods stupidly is an awful way to discourage traffic. Just make the road slow with lots of stop signs, and have much faster main roads for people to use instead.
The idea isn't to just slow down traffic, since the people staying there want to travel within it easily. The idea is just to isolate it.
Designing neighborhoods stupidly is an awful way to discourage traffic. Just make the road slow with lots of stop signs, and have much faster main roads for people to use instead.
Idiots, and in particular drunk people, have a wild tendency to ignore both speed limits and stop signs...whereas knowing they'll get lost as fuck keeps them away entirely. Also, depending how bad traffic is on the main roads, 25mph with stop signs might be preferable. Lastly, you want to make sure that it's still convenient for residents to get to the main roads, so too many stop signs just gets counterproductive...whereas limiting through streets (and straight streets) works just as well (or better) at slowing/discouraging through traffic while allowing those that know the neighborhood (residents) to get through quite quickly and easily.
Not that I enjoy the practice, or anything. But there are some decent arguments behind it.
There really aren't actually. The whole "limiting traffic" thing is itself a terrible, terrible idea. And really, it's all designed to make isolated little pocket communities. Gated communities without the gates.
Twisty streets just make neighborhoods barren and car dependent and absolutely murder any aspect of community an area might develop, which is bad for other issues like crime.
Stop signs are by far the better option (although they tend to put to many of those anyway)
I think speedbumps would work better than the stupid curvy roads. There's a few roads around here that people use to get between two main roads where they like to drive 45-50mph down a 25mph street.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
I'm sorry, but I grew up on a farm. Any part of a city feels like a ghetto. I would live in poverty before living like so much stacked drift wood.
How unfortunate for you. Blame your parents.
Is it really so hard for you to understand that different people might want to live their lives differently?
It's not like people choosing to live in suburbs or in rural areas makes any real difference in your life. I like living in the city, too, but I'm not arrogant enough to demand everyone else live that way.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Nobody's going to ban living in suburbia. We just need to price it accurately, which the market has failed to do.
If the suburban lifestlye is unsustainable, the problem will sort itself out over time.
However, given the popularity of the suburban lifetsyle, it's unrealistic to expect politicans to support anti-suburban policies.
The American people have basically voted in favor of the suburbs.
The Founding Fathers decided to let slavery sort itself out. Slavery sorted itself out with a Civil War that almost ended the Union.
Agriculture in the mid-west* during the early 20th century was unsustainable. It sorted itself out in one of the worst environmental disasters of American history during the worst depression of American history.
I don't think we want major problems with society to sort themselves out. But with people the way they are, they probably always will.
Edit: Should have said Great Plains, to be accurate.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
I'm sorry, but I grew up on a farm. Any part of a city feels like a ghetto. I would live in poverty before living like so much stacked drift wood.
How unfortunate for you. Blame your parents.
Is it really so hard for you to understand that different people might want to live their lives differently?
It's not like people choosing to live in suburbs or in rural areas makes any real difference in your life. I like living in the city, too, but I'm not arrogant enough to demand everyone else live that way.
Rural areas are arrogant enough to demand that everyone else subsidize them so they can live that way though.
Nobody's going to ban living in suburbia. We just need to price it accurately, which the market has failed to do.
If the suburban lifestlye is unsustainable, the problem will sort itself out over time.
However, given the popularity of the suburban lifetsyle, it's unrealistic to expect politicans to support anti-suburban policies.
The American people have basically voted in favor of the suburbs.
The Founding Fathers decided to let slavery sort itself out. Slavery sorted itself out with a Civil War that almost ended the Union.
Agriculture in the mid-west during the early 20th century was unsustainable. It sorted itself out in one of the worst environmental disasters of American history during the worst depression of American history.
I don't think we want major problems with society to sort themselves out.
Probably not. But, the history you listed seems to suggest that letting any problem sort itself out will be exactly how we approach this.
A combination of politicans who want to get re-elected and a populace that likes their current living arrangements doesn't strike me as a reform-friendly scenario.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Nobody's going to ban living in suburbia. We just need to price it accurately, which the market has failed to do.
If the suburban lifestlye is unsustainable, the problem will sort itself out over time.
However, given the popularity of the suburban lifetsyle, it's unrealistic to expect politicans to support anti-suburban policies.
The American people have basically voted in favor of the suburbs.
The Founding Fathers decided to let slavery sort itself out. Slavery sorted itself out with a Civil War that almost ended the Union.
Agriculture in the mid-west during the early 20th century was unsustainable. It sorted itself out in one of the worst environmental disasters of American history during the worst depression of American history.
I don't think we want major problems with society to sort themselves out.
Probably not. But, the history you listed seems to suggest that letting any problem sort itself out will be exactly how we approach this.
A combination of politicans who want to get re-elected and a populace that likes their current living arrangements doesn't strike me as a reform-friendly scenario.
Ha, I added an edit to express your exact sentiment
We'll just hope that there is never a problem that will eventually cause the extinction of the human race.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Nobody's going to ban living in suburbia. We just need to price it accurately, which the market has failed to do.
If the suburban lifestlye is unsustainable, the problem will sort itself out over time.
The issue here is that you think we're defining "people living in suburbia" as the problem. We're not. We're defining "possibly irreparable environmental damage, leading to uncountable financial and personal damage" as the problem. "people living in suburbia" is one cause of that problem. The fact that that cause will slowly dissipate as petrol prices rise means little in the context of solving the greater problem, whose effects are largely delayed.
We need to price carbon emissions. The true costs of fossil fuel use are not reflected in its price as it stands today, and as it stood in the past. If people want to fuck up the planet in exchange for living in their preferred environment (or whatever), then they can pay what we'll need in order to clean up the mess that results from their choice 50 years down the road.
Designing neighborhoods stupidly is an awful way to discourage traffic. Just make the road slow with lots of stop signs, and have much faster main roads for people to use instead.
Idiots, and in particular drunk people, have a wild tendency to ignore both speed limits and stop signs...whereas knowing they'll get lost as fuck keeps them away entirely. Also, depending how bad traffic is on the main roads, 25mph with stop signs might be preferable. Lastly, you want to make sure that it's still convenient for residents to get to the main roads, so too many stop signs just gets counterproductive...whereas limiting through streets (and straight streets) works just as well (or better) at slowing/discouraging through traffic while allowing those that know the neighborhood (residents) to get through quite quickly and easily.
Not that I enjoy the practice, or anything. But there are some decent arguments behind it.
Roundabouts are the key, my (suburban) city started installing them on side streets and they are great. Can't blow through 'em and you don't have to ruin street to get the "traffic calming" effect.
pdk01 on
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
edited June 2010
Except California apparently doesn't know that the whole point of a roundabout is not to impede traffic, and so all of the roundabouts here also have four-way stop signs. And generally speed bumps (wait, sorry, "undulations") which retarded people screech to a stop before going over.
I'm pretty sure that people 'round these parts are just trying to make development as nonsensical as possible. Because there's no way that sentient creatures could deliberately design this shit thinking that it's a good idea.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Then you just get North American drivers complaining about how they're hard to navigate and will cause accidents. Additionally most North Americans also love their land and even tiny applications of eminent domain or restrictions on land bordering public property get people in a huff (especially at intersections set for expansion). People may lose square meters of land. Think of the weeds that they could grow there!
Or you get incompetent small-town government officials (...redundant?) who put up stop signs at the roundabout entrances.
...Yes, one of the roundabouts in my neighborhood had stop signs.
[edit] Hah, El Jeffe has also hit this problem ...proving once and for all that much of the population has no concept of street planning or traffic flow [/edit]
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
I'm sorry, but I grew up on a farm. Any part of a city feels like a ghetto. I would live in poverty before living like so much stacked drift wood.
How unfortunate for you. Blame your parents.
Is it really so hard for you to understand that different people might want to live their lives differently?
It's not like people choosing to live in suburbs or in rural areas makes any real difference in your life. I like living in the city, too, but I'm not arrogant enough to demand everyone else live that way.
Rural areas are arrogant enough to demand that everyone else subsidize them so they can live that way though.
Yes, we're sorry for growing all your food. I guess us poor rural yokels will just have to keep all of our bounty.
ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
edited June 2010
A) Not all rural folks are farmers. Isn't most food in the US grown by massive conglomerates and/or exceedingly wealthy people who don't actually live in rural areas?
C) Don't farmers typically receive ridiculous subsidies from the government to artificially lower the price of a lot of crops, to the point where many farms wind up destroying the food they grow because there's too much of it to actually use in this nation?
Basically, the idea that rural folks are all noble farmers selflessly toiling away to care for our country is sort of... umm... wrong.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
I'm sorry, but I grew up on a farm. Any part of a city feels like a ghetto. I would live in poverty before living like so much stacked drift wood.
How unfortunate for you. Blame your parents.
Is it really so hard for you to understand that different people might want to live their lives differently?
It's not like people choosing to live in suburbs or in rural areas makes any real difference in your life. I like living in the city, too, but I'm not arrogant enough to demand everyone else live that way.
Rural areas are arrogant enough to demand that everyone else subsidize them so they can live that way though.
Yes, we're sorry for growing all your food. I guess us poor rural yokels will just have to keep all of our bounty.
Yes, yes, be pissy and stupid and completely miss the point. How predictable of you.
People living in rural areas are a subsidized minority. So yes, actually, they do make a difference in my life. We are all paying to support your rural lifestyle.
And, to bring this back around, there's no reason to do so unless you are doing something useful out there. Like growing food.
People in the suburbs, on the other hand, are generally pretty useless from that point of view (ie - they aren't out there for any good reason)
To sum up:
Living out in the country is not some sort of inherent right. Largely because living out there in any sort of conditions we would consider "modern" isn't sustainable without subsidies from the urban population.
You may want to live your life differently, but that doesn't mean I gotta pay for it.
Unless, again, you are doing something useful out there. Like farming.
Nobody's going to ban living in suburbia. We just need to price it accurately, which the market has failed to do.
If the suburban lifestlye is unsustainable, the problem will sort itself out over time.
However, given the popularity of the suburban lifetsyle, it's unrealistic to expect politicans to support anti-suburban policies.
The American people have basically voted in favor of the suburbs.
The Founding Fathers decided to let slavery sort itself out. Slavery sorted itself out with a Civil War that almost ended the Union.
Agriculture in the mid-west during the early 20th century was unsustainable. It sorted itself out in one of the worst environmental disasters of American history during the worst depression of American history.
I don't think we want major problems with society to sort themselves out.
Probably not. But, the history you listed seems to suggest that letting any problem sort itself out will be exactly how we approach this.
A combination of politicans who want to get re-elected and a populace that likes their current living arrangements doesn't strike me as a reform-friendly scenario.
And once again you prove that you don't understand economics at all. If you had any education in the area at all, you would have been taught about externalities on the first day.
Except California apparently doesn't know that the whole point of a roundabout is not to impede traffic, and so all of the roundabouts here also have four-way stop signs. And generally speed bumps (wait, sorry, "undulations") which retarded people screech to a stop before going over.
I'm pretty sure that people 'round these parts are just trying to make development as nonsensical as possible. Because there's no way that sentient creatures could deliberately design this shit thinking that it's a good idea.
I have never seen such a thing here in Michigan. That just completely defeats the purpose of a roundabout and actually makes them worse than an intersection.
PAers, has this retardation (roundabout + stop signs) spread beyond California?
And MKR demonstrates beautifully why the progressive left makes no progress in this country.
Because the right is laden with silly geese who can't discuss policy like adults, and it leads to me giving up after the thousandth try.
Once someone goes down the "abloobloo I might have to reduce my quality of life by mere fractions to keep the planet habitable to humans" path, I write them off. I used to try talking to these people as though they were mature, clear-thinking adults. I wasted a lot of time.
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
I'm sorry, but I grew up on a farm. Any part of a city feels like a ghetto. I would live in poverty before living like so much stacked drift wood.
How unfortunate for you. Blame your parents.
Is it really so hard for you to understand that different people might want to live their lives differently?
It's not like people choosing to live in suburbs or in rural areas makes any real difference in your life. I like living in the city, too, but I'm not arrogant enough to demand everyone else live that way.
Oh no, I get it just fine. That doesn't mean I have to approve of their lifestyle choice. I would be fine with it if it were just a handful of people doing it, but it's the whole culture of the thing that makes it a problem. Millions upon millions of people have been told this is the lifestyle everyone should aspire to, and it's ruining our planet.
Nobody's going to ban living in suburbia. We just need to price it accurately, which the market has failed to do.
If the suburban lifestlye is unsustainable, the problem will sort itself out over time.
However, given the popularity of the suburban lifetsyle, it's unrealistic to expect politicans to support anti-suburban policies.
The American people have basically voted in favor of the suburbs.
The Founding Fathers decided to let slavery sort itself out. Slavery sorted itself out with a Civil War that almost ended the Union.
Agriculture in the mid-west during the early 20th century was unsustainable. It sorted itself out in one of the worst environmental disasters of American history during the worst depression of American history.
I don't think we want major problems with society to sort themselves out.
Probably not. But, the history you listed seems to suggest that letting any problem sort itself out will be exactly how we approach this.
A combination of politicans who want to get re-elected and a populace that likes their current living arrangements doesn't strike me as a reform-friendly scenario.
And once again you prove that you don't understand economics at all. If you had any education in the area at all, you would have been taught about externalities on the first day.
Well, there's a difference between "this is what should be done" and "this is what will people will support, however stupid it is".
A) Not all rural folks are farmers. Isn't most food in the US grown by massive conglomerates and/or exceedingly wealthy people who don't actually live in rural areas?
C) Don't farmers typically receive ridiculous subsidies from the government to artificially lower the price of a lot of crops, to the point where many farms wind up destroying the food they grow because there's too much of it to actually use in this nation?
Basically, the idea that rural folks are all noble farmers selflessly toiling away to care for our country is sort of... umm... wrong.
Well, even if a farm is owned by some rich fucker in the city, somebody still has to run the machinery. Truck out the goods. Fix the machinery. Pump the gas. And it's not just farming that happens in rural areas. Where do you think wood comes from? Rural areas are where we get timber, coal, iron, and basically a ton of natural resources. Unfortunately natural resources aren't always kind enough to locate near cities for us.
Then once you have farmers, miners, and loggers living out there those people might want to, you know, not sit in a one-room shack and listen to their crank record player. So we build grocery stores, theaters, and *gasp* schools so their kids know how to read if/when they move to the city (which many do).
And other support services...linesmen for the electric company, plumbers, home builders, etc.
There really aren't a ton of people who live in rural areas "just because." It's not like it's all that fun. There's a base need for people to collect the resources (food, materials) out that way, creating a base industry, then a bunch of people who are along for the ride because we don't want our people living like it's the dark ages out there.
Sorry if every last person in Montana isn't actively tilling the soil. We try.
The issue isn't 'rural people need to have their lifestyles changed' it's that 'voters with a rural outlook need to stop dictating the terms of our transportation policies'.
We can save a lot of money and a lot of fuel if we design shit for the long haul instead of treating new developments like boom towns.
There's lots of room left to grow in America, but if we do it haphazardly it's going to suck.
Posts
Keep in mind many, if not most, newer subdivisions are built on private roads. People in those subdivisions would never agree to increase urbanization or to allow mass transit.
Subdivisions are built the way they are because that's how a significant percentage of the American population prefers to live. They have no interest in mass transit or living in an urban area. I doubt even $10 gas would change that- people would just make adjustments in other expenses, or push for the ability telecommute, rather than move into more urbanized areas.
Rigorous Scholarship
And those people can go straight to hell. They're screwing up the planet and their immediate environment, and don't seem to care.
If you want people to give up a lifestyle they prefer and can probably continue to afford for the foreseeable future, you're going to have to come up with a better approach than calling them names.
Rigorous Scholarship
Some people genuinely don't care about how their actions impact others.
If you can't win them with a morality/ethical argument, you need a practical one. Even with $10 gas(pretending that wouldn't increase bus prices).
the argument breaks down like this for my GF's commute.
Bus->train:
Cost ~$5 A day
Time:2-2.5 hours a day
Drive:
~$5 of gas
$200 a year for a parking pass
1 hour a day.
In Chicago, the only reason people use public transit(if they have a car) to get downtown is if their job has no parking, and they can't afford the $200 a month it costs to use a public parking garage. Or they are planning on getting hammered.
If you want people to use it otherwise you have to actually make the time it takes somewhere near comparable to using a car, and cheaper or around the same price as driving yourself. Time and the comparative pleasantness of being alone in a car instead of on a noisy and crowded bus, have a high enough value to people that making their commute cost a few extra bucks every day isn't going to change their behavior.
I think the most amusing thing about those neighborhoods is that they're running away from "the poors" and the projects, and all they're doing is turning themselves into projects that cost more to live in.
Is he an inventor?
I'm sorry, but I grew up on a farm. Any part of a city feels like a ghetto. I would live in poverty before living like so much stacked drift wood.
How unfortunate for you. Blame your parents.
When it's a train it's referred to as Motorail.
The example I'm most familiar with is Eurotunnel, which is a little unusual because there isn't an option to drive the same journey and the drivers stay in their cars for the duration. For long distance services it's more usual to load the car onto one train, and have the passengers travel separately and collect their car at the other end.
It's used more for long distance (often overnight) journeys.
I don't get that like, at all.
I grew up between cities, farms, and suburbs.
Farms are boring places where old people are the most boring. Suburbs are boring but your friends are okay. Cities aren't boring because places to go and things to do are actually like, right nearby.
We could move to improve the quality of city and state urban policies, and back urban groups that can present opposition to subsidizing even more services aimed at the suburbs.
Idiots, and in particular drunk people, have a wild tendency to ignore both speed limits and stop signs...whereas knowing they'll get lost as fuck keeps them away entirely. Also, depending how bad traffic is on the main roads, 25mph with stop signs might be preferable. Lastly, you want to make sure that it's still convenient for residents to get to the main roads, so too many stop signs just gets counterproductive...whereas limiting through streets (and straight streets) works just as well (or better) at slowing/discouraging through traffic while allowing those that know the neighborhood (residents) to get through quite quickly and easily.
Not that I enjoy the practice, or anything. But there are some decent arguments behind it.
The idea isn't to just slow down traffic, since the people staying there want to travel within it easily. The idea is just to isolate it.
There really aren't actually. The whole "limiting traffic" thing is itself a terrible, terrible idea. And really, it's all designed to make isolated little pocket communities. Gated communities without the gates.
Twisty streets just make neighborhoods barren and car dependent and absolutely murder any aspect of community an area might develop, which is bad for other issues like crime.
Stop signs are by far the better option (although they tend to put to many of those anyway)
It's not like people choosing to live in suburbs or in rural areas makes any real difference in your life. I like living in the city, too, but I'm not arrogant enough to demand everyone else live that way.
Rigorous Scholarship
However, given the popularity of the suburban lifetsyle, it's unrealistic to expect politicans to support anti-suburban policies.
The American people have basically voted in favor of the suburbs.
Rigorous Scholarship
If it's unsustainable, it will sort itself out exactly 30 minutes after it's caused all the trouble it can.
The Founding Fathers decided to let slavery sort itself out. Slavery sorted itself out with a Civil War that almost ended the Union.
Agriculture in the mid-west* during the early 20th century was unsustainable. It sorted itself out in one of the worst environmental disasters of American history during the worst depression of American history.
I don't think we want major problems with society to sort themselves out. But with people the way they are, they probably always will.
Edit: Should have said Great Plains, to be accurate.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Rural areas are arrogant enough to demand that everyone else subsidize them so they can live that way though.
A combination of politicans who want to get re-elected and a populace that likes their current living arrangements doesn't strike me as a reform-friendly scenario.
Rigorous Scholarship
Ha, I added an edit to express your exact sentiment
We'll just hope that there is never a problem that will eventually cause the extinction of the human race.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
We need to price carbon emissions. The true costs of fossil fuel use are not reflected in its price as it stands today, and as it stood in the past. If people want to fuck up the planet in exchange for living in their preferred environment (or whatever), then they can pay what we'll need in order to clean up the mess that results from their choice 50 years down the road.
Roundabouts are the key, my (suburban) city started installing them on side streets and they are great. Can't blow through 'em and you don't have to ruin street to get the "traffic calming" effect.
I'm pretty sure that people 'round these parts are just trying to make development as nonsensical as possible. Because there's no way that sentient creatures could deliberately design this shit thinking that it's a good idea.
Or you get incompetent small-town government officials (...redundant?) who put up stop signs at the roundabout entrances.
...Yes, one of the roundabouts in my neighborhood had stop signs.
[edit] Hah, El Jeffe has also hit this problem ...proving once and for all that much of the population has no concept of street planning or traffic flow [/edit]
Yes, we're sorry for growing all your food. I guess us poor rural yokels will just have to keep all of our bounty.
Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ
C) Don't farmers typically receive ridiculous subsidies from the government to artificially lower the price of a lot of crops, to the point where many farms wind up destroying the food they grow because there's too much of it to actually use in this nation?
Basically, the idea that rural folks are all noble farmers selflessly toiling away to care for our country is sort of... umm... wrong.
Yes, yes, be pissy and stupid and completely miss the point. How predictable of you.
People living in rural areas are a subsidized minority. So yes, actually, they do make a difference in my life. We are all paying to support your rural lifestyle.
And, to bring this back around, there's no reason to do so unless you are doing something useful out there. Like growing food.
People in the suburbs, on the other hand, are generally pretty useless from that point of view (ie - they aren't out there for any good reason)
To sum up:
Living out in the country is not some sort of inherent right. Largely because living out there in any sort of conditions we would consider "modern" isn't sustainable without subsidies from the urban population.
You may want to live your life differently, but that doesn't mean I gotta pay for it.
Unless, again, you are doing something useful out there. Like farming.
And once again you prove that you don't understand economics at all. If you had any education in the area at all, you would have been taught about externalities on the first day.
I have never seen such a thing here in Michigan. That just completely defeats the purpose of a roundabout and actually makes them worse than an intersection.
PAers, has this retardation (roundabout + stop signs) spread beyond California?
Because the right is laden with silly geese who can't discuss policy like adults, and it leads to me giving up after the thousandth try.
Once someone goes down the "abloobloo I might have to reduce my quality of life by mere fractions to keep the planet habitable to humans" path, I write them off. I used to try talking to these people as though they were mature, clear-thinking adults. I wasted a lot of time.
Oh no, I get it just fine. That doesn't mean I have to approve of their lifestyle choice. I would be fine with it if it were just a handful of people doing it, but it's the whole culture of the thing that makes it a problem. Millions upon millions of people have been told this is the lifestyle everyone should aspire to, and it's ruining our planet.
Well, there's a difference between "this is what should be done" and "this is what will people will support, however stupid it is".
Well, even if a farm is owned by some rich fucker in the city, somebody still has to run the machinery. Truck out the goods. Fix the machinery. Pump the gas. And it's not just farming that happens in rural areas. Where do you think wood comes from? Rural areas are where we get timber, coal, iron, and basically a ton of natural resources. Unfortunately natural resources aren't always kind enough to locate near cities for us.
Then once you have farmers, miners, and loggers living out there those people might want to, you know, not sit in a one-room shack and listen to their crank record player. So we build grocery stores, theaters, and *gasp* schools so their kids know how to read if/when they move to the city (which many do).
And other support services...linesmen for the electric company, plumbers, home builders, etc.
There really aren't a ton of people who live in rural areas "just because." It's not like it's all that fun. There's a base need for people to collect the resources (food, materials) out that way, creating a base industry, then a bunch of people who are along for the ride because we don't want our people living like it's the dark ages out there.
Sorry if every last person in Montana isn't actively tilling the soil. We try.
We can save a lot of money and a lot of fuel if we design shit for the long haul instead of treating new developments like boom towns.
There's lots of room left to grow in America, but if we do it haphazardly it's going to suck.