Keep cars out of cities

[Jason]

3 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

 

Seems safe

 

 

But I've been repeatedly assured ITT that giant SUVs and pickups drive the same as small cars.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

 

[Uaarkson]

Good for them. There would be riots/kidnapping plots against any North American mayor doing something like this.

[Jason]

4 hours ago, Uaarkson said:

Good for them. There would be riots/kidnapping plots against any North American mayor doing something like this.

 

Lack of political will. Love Hidalgo kicking ass and not waiting around to take names. 

[BloodyHell]

7 hours ago, Jason said:

 

Lack of political will. Love Hidalgo kicking ass and not waiting around to take names. 

Its not about lack of will, its about you guys being a tiny minority. Politics is about support, and 80% do not support removing vehicles from our cities. It would be political suicide. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

You don't have to start, and shouldn't, with simply "remove cars from cities" (and since most cities are in Dillon rule states, the state legislature would need to allow the cities the ability to do so)

 

Building quality and better bike, transit, and pedestrian networks first, removing parking minimums and repurposing on street parking spots (outdoor dining or small curbside parks for example) and making pedestrian plazas in dense commercial/residential areas would be the required first steps. Add that along with loosening zoning so, for example, you have the ability to turn a single family home lot into multiple townhomes or rowhomes by right* (as opposed to asking council for an expensive variance) you'd be well on your way to having the political will to seriously reducing the political power of the 2 ton blocks of steel that sit idle 90% of the time.

 

*Most houses on my street have lots that have 100' of street frontage with one house per lot. There's no reason why someone shouldn't be able to sell their house/lot and have 5 - 20' wide lots be developed on it, or 2 - 50' wide lots, or similar lots with 2-3 apartments or condos on each as is the case a couple blocks down or even a mix therein. It's not like this is tract development, there's all sorts of architectural styles here from historical homes a century old to mid century to new development! 

[BloodyHell]

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

You don't have to start, and shouldn't, with simply "remove cars from cities" (and since most cities are in Dillon rule states, the state legislature would need to allow the cities the ability to do so)

 

Building quality and better bike, transit, and pedestrian networks first, removing parking minimums and repurposing on street parking spots (outdoor dining or small curbside parks for example) and making pedestrian plazas in dense commercial/residential areas would be the required first steps. Add that along with loosening zoning so, for example, you have the ability to turn a single family home lot into multiple townhomes or rowhomes by right* (as opposed to asking council for an expensive variance) you'd be well on your way to having the political will to seriously reducing the political power of the 2 ton blocks of steel that sit idle 90% of the time.

 

*Most houses on my street have lots that have 100' of street frontage with one house per lot. There's no reason why someone shouldn't be able to sell their house/lot and have 5 - 20' wide lots be developed on it, or 2 - 50' wide lots, or similar lots with 2-3 apartments or condos on each as is the case a couple blocks down or even a mix therein. It's not like this is tract development, there's all sorts of architectural styles here from historical homes a century old to mid century to new development! 

I don’t disagree that your ideas are for the greater good. Im really not trying to criticize them. I just don’t think theres any political will to do it. 
 

Flints kids are still drinking lead, rivers are being destroyed with emissions from mines, and minung companies are looking to destroy the last great salmon fishery in the world with a bunch of congressional support. 80% of this country cares for nothing but their own comfort. We can’t even get all Americans to agree killing unarmed black men is bad, and you think they’ll give up their cars?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

22 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

I don’t disagree that your ideas are for the greater good. Im really not trying to criticize them. I just don’t think theres any political will to do it. 
 

Flints kids are still drinking lead, rivers are being destroyed with emissions from mines, and minung companies are looking to destroy the last great salmon fishery in the world with a bunch of congressional support. 80% of this country cares for nothing but their own comfort. We can’t even get all Americans to agree killing unarmed black men is bad, and you think they’ll give up their cars?

Maybe, just maybe, we could fix those things, important that they are they are not relevant with regard to automobiles in cities.

[Uaarkson]

None of this shit will change until the entire country goes back to pre-war zoning. The American development pattern of the past 50 years is literally making us poorer.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

15 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

None of this shit will change until the entire country goes back to pre-war zoning. The American development pattern of the past 50 years is literally making us poorer.

Or even just something like what you see in Houston, without the parking minimums and ridiculous covenant restrictions.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Re: making us poorer

The Solvent City: What Does It Look Like? — Strong Towns

WWW.STRONGTOWNS.ORG

---

A planner in Gallatin, Tennessee does the math to find out how much infrastructure his city can support and who’s paying their share. What he finds could be the Growth Ponzi Scheme in...

 

 

[BloodyHell]

33 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Maybe, just maybe, we could fix those things, important that they are they are not relevant with regard to automobiles in cities.

I was pointing out that if those issues don’t bother most Americans, getting cars out of cities is a non starter. Americans care about themselves. Most of them anyway. Imagine the uproar if they had to walk or take public transit to get groceries. Muh Freedom! 
 

Sandy Hook changed nothing  With guns, you think a little homelessness And personal danger is going to change zoning laws? The only thing most of the country Cares about is comfort and cash. At least the part of it making the laws anyway. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

I mean there is some movement away from our current zoning situation, and it all happens within an urban area so the partisan divides aren't as pronounced (class, not so much)

[Uaarkson]

34 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Re: making us poorer

The Solvent City: What Does It Look Like? — Strong Towns

WWW.STRONGTOWNS.ORG

---

A planner in Gallatin, Tennessee does the math to find out how much infrastructure his city can support and who’s paying their share. What he finds could be the Growth Ponzi Scheme in...

 

 

 

Strong Towns. My n***a!

[cusideabelincoln]

We'll have to start a narrative of efficiency to override the current feelings of most Americans--selfishness and laziness (convenience)-- before we can even start to think about revamping cities and cars.  There's too many people who will drive minutes around a parking lot trying to find a spot that's 5 feet closer than one they could have taken previously.  Or too many assholes will stay parked in the firezone, usually blocking traffic, way longer than the 5 seconds it takes to drop/pick someone off/up, instead of walking 10 extra feet from a parking spot.

[Uaarkson]

2 minutes ago, cusideabelincoln said:

There's too many people who will drive minutes around a parking lot trying to find a spot that's 5 feet closer than one they could have taken previously.  Or too many assholes will stay parked in the firezone, usually blocking traffic, way longer than the 5 seconds it takes to drop/pick someone off/up, instead of walking 10 extra feet from a parking spot.

 

Lol. I’m from Flint, MI and you basically just described our entire way of life.

[Anathema-]

19 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

It's not like this is tract development, there's all sorts of architectural styles here from historical homes a century old to mid century to new development! 

 

Olde English tavern style apartments would look so good in VA

[Guest]

More housing, you degenerates

[johnny]

5 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

More housing, you degenerates

I feel like anytime California wants to build apartments, condos, and townhomes the homeowners want to throw a fucking bitch fit. 

[CitizenVectron]

"I want housing to be cheaper here but not my house and I want more housing to be built but not by where I live."

[Jason]

10 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

"I want housing to be cheaper here but not my house and I want more housing to be built but not by where I live."

 

There's so many layers to unpack when you get into this. I think a lot of it is people conflating housing and land. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

 

California is such a dumb state

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

moderate Republicans, everybody.

 

Good government 

 

[Jason]

Being placed in ruinous medical debt because someone else hit you with their car.

 

 

[Jason]

Why A New Michigan Law Has Non-Drivers Buying Car Insurance – Streetsblog USA

USA.STREETSBLOG.ORG

---

…and chances are, your state’s insurance laws are probably even worse.

 

[CitizenVectron]

So, the way it should work (even in a system without universal medical insurance) is something like this:

• Get hit by car
• Driver/owner's insurance policy pays out of liability
• If no liability coverage (or insufficient), sue driver/owner

The issue is usually that either the person has a really low limit of liability (I've read that some states have a legal limit as low as $10,000?), or they have no insurance at all, and also no assets to go after. Also you need to be able to pay for courts to begin with.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

this shit makes this country virtually ungovernable

 

[thewhyteboar]

I would love to live in the Eixample.

[Fizzzzle]

I have never owned my own car. Other than for a brief time a couple years ago, I just also never worked any more than about a 20 minute walk from where I've lived, and have been close enough to everything else I need. In Portland, we have done the whole "use parking spaces for outdoor dining" thing, and there's been talks of making it permanent after covid.

 

I've been curious about the long term effects on things like real estate and zoning that might come from this. A lot of businesses have decided to have at least some of their employees work from home permanently, and are ether closing some of their offices or moving somewhere smaller. for example, Amazon is moving out of one of the buildings in Seattle where they rent the top 8 floors and moving those offices to Bellevue (though to be fair I think that also has something to do with taxes).

 

People who do work from home permanently now have the option of being like "shit, I could live anywhere I want to, huh?" (anecdotal, but one of my roommates, who was told he would be permanently working from home in September, decided to take a road trip around the southwest and has been living out of his car for 3 months, doing his work outside of Starbucks and whatnot)

 

What all of this means, if it even means anything, is we don't know how all of this is going to affect city planning. Are downtown areas going to become half-abandoned office buildings and nothing else? Will more people move to the suburbs if they only work from home? Will more people move into the city if they only work from home? What does that ultimately do for housing prices in the suburbs vs. the city? Are enough people going to be working from home now that it even moves the needle?

[thewhyteboar]

 

What next??? An engine that runs on steam? What marvelous sorcery.

 

[Uaarkson]

Hyperloop is hyperbullshit. Elon Musk needs to spend a few weeks in Japan.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

42 minutes ago, thewhyteboar said:

 

What next??? An engine that runs on steam? What marvelous sorcery.

 

Saw a tweet that pointed out that the fastest steam engine is faster than this run of the hyperloop

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

41 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

Hyperloop is hyperbullshit. Elon Musk needs to spend a few weeks in Japan.

Prison*

[Joe]

So I'm doing a data science bootcamp and tomorrow is the day for our capstone presentations. I am predicting food deserts using Census and USDA data. Interestingly and relevant to this thread, I found that one of the most predictive features of food deserts is both living in an urban environment and having low vehicle access. This is suggestive to me that there is low public transportation in these areas and as a result, not many companies think it's not a good idea to build supermarkets in areas with low public transportation. America is wild, yo.

[BloodyHell]

10 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Prison*

For what? Making EV’s? Pushing space exploration? Being a billionaire? 
 

Im not a big fan either, but frankly we need more Elon Musks. He’s a bit of a grifter, but he’s definitely trying to make the world better.