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grover posted:Twice the size and twice the weight will take twice the energy to speed up/slow down. Unless you're constantly coupling/decoupling cars throughout the day, you're going to end up with massive trams running virtually empty during off-peak hours, which actually really hurts the overall energy efficiency of the system, and ends up being less efficient than if those passengers had driven hybrid-electric passenger cars (really). I'd think the streetcar would be no better or worse in terms of energy efficiency because it doesn't scale as well. And worse from a rider perspective- I'd rather have more smaller cars coming more often than a single giant tram only showing up every 30 or 60 minutes. The inherent efficiency of all-electric vehicles and passenger scaling ensures that trams are more energy efficient than both personal cars and buses. Note that both forms of public transit are significantly more efficient than taxis, which are a closer comparison to the kind of high-volume stop-and-go driving that exists in the inner city (i.e. taxis are cars that can't take advantage of the energy efficiency of highway travel). When the comparison is limited to intracity driving, trams use 1/5 the energy of a personal car (as per the industry white paper I posted previously). The US Transportation Energy Data Book states the following figures for passenger transportation in 2009: code:
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Nov 17, 2013 17:52
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grover posted:I think Hedera Helix had a really good observation- trams seem novel to communities that don't presently have them, and don't have the stigma of buses as a poor man's ride (yet). They fundamentally seem no different than buses, though, and just doesn't make sense. Are you sure about that? At least here, streetcars were reintroduced in 2001, and people still think they're neat. And a proposed expansion to the wealthy suburb of Lake Oswego was cancelled last year due to concerns over "crime trains" and "loot rail", even though the westside streetcar is (heavily) used by businesspeople and tourists.
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Nov 17, 2013 19:30
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It never stops being funny that people sincerely believe that someone's going to take the light rail into their town, grab their TV, and then patiently wait at the station platform to take it back to Crime City.
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Nov 17, 2013 19:34
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My personal local favorite is when they were building a small tunnel for the MUP.(it crosses a busy street at surface level which meant people on it usually had to hit the crosswalk button, a situation that made neither motorists or MUP users happy, so they decided to just go under it) The comment sections of local papers was the usual "great, urban thugs gonna come up and ruin the town" as if the crosswalk provided a huge barrier, and if these criminal masterminds about to steal all their stuff never noticed the 4-5 lane avenue running parallel to the MUP with sidewalks and buses running along it. e: although that town in Ohio that was near willing to lose millions of dollars in transportation funds if it meant not having to put in a bus stop takes the cake.
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Nov 17, 2013 19:56
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Amused to Death posted:My personal local favorite is when they were building a small tunnel for the MUP.(it crosses a busy street at surface level which meant people on it usually had to hit the crosswalk button, a situation that made neither motorists or MUP users happy, so they decided to just go under it) The comment sections of local papers was the usual "great, urban thugs gonna come up and ruin the town" as if the crosswalk provided a huge barrier, and if these criminal masterminds about to steal all their stuff never noticed the 4-5 lane avenue running parallel to the MUP with sidewalks and buses running along it. Washington State threw away $1.2 billion in federal funding recently when they decided to halt the replacement of a critical interstate bridge because it would connect Vancouver with Portland's fantastic light rail system. And they featured the exact same kind of inane fearmongering. Oregon legislatures thought it was so crazy to summarily shut down a 10-year project and throw away all that federal transit funding that we're coming up with a plan to fund the entire project by ourselves. http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/06/columbia_river_crossing_implos.html http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/oct/06/oregon-taking-up-i-5-columbia-river-crossing/
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Nov 17, 2013 20:20
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Kaal posted:Washington State threw away $1.2 billion in federal funding recently when they decided to halt the replacement of a critical interstate bridge because it would connect Vancouver with Portland's fantastic light rail system. And they featured the exact same kind of inane fearmongering. Oregon legislatures thought it was so crazy to summarily shut down a 10-year project and throw away all that federal transit funding that we're coming up with a plan to fund the entire project by ourselves. So they spent $200 million on what now amounts to nothing? American infrastructure projects! Also one of the bridges is 100 years old and it's not being replaced now, correct?
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Nov 17, 2013 20:29
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Amused to Death posted:So they spent $200 million on what now amounts to nothing? American infrastructure projects! Yep and the bridge is critical to the regional economy. And that project was part of a larger $10 billion transportation bill that was collateral damage and has to be reformulated. And both sides of the bridge are considered obsolete. And not only that but a Washington bridge on the same I-5 corridor (albeit 3.5 hours North) collapsed into the Skagit river back in May. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-5_Skagit_River_Bridge_collapse Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Nov 17, 2013 |
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Nov 17, 2013 20:42
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Kaal posted:The inherent efficiency of all-electric vehicles and passenger scaling ensures that trams are more energy efficient than both personal cars and buses. Note that both forms of public transit are significantly more efficient than taxis, which are a closer comparison to the kind of high-volume stop-and-go driving that exists in the inner city (i.e. taxis are cars that can't take advantage of the energy efficiency of highway travel). When the comparison is limited to intracity driving, trams use 1/5 the energy of a personal car (as per the industry white paper I posted previously).  Also worth considering is that while cars will typically take the shortest path from Pt A to Pt B, passengers using rail or buses are stuck with set routes and will often need to travel roundabout routes (EG, more passenger miles) to accomplish the same journey, so the numbers have some skew with that respect: cars are actually better than this chart shows, and buses/trains worse. grover fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 03:56
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And you can jimmy these numbers any way you want. I can say that by emphasizing energy per passenger mile you're encouraging long trips. We can build compact communities where the average trip is shorter, resulting in less energy usage per trip, since people actually take trips and not miles.
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Nov 18, 2013 04:09
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grover posted:That number is for an average car at an average 1.57pax. If you expand that to include hybrid-electric cars like I specifically mentioned, letalone EV cars, and carpooling: I'm not against implementing hybrid-electric rideshares, but I don't think that they're a reliable transportation backbone. And it'll be a long, long time before Teslas and Priuses become the standard American automobile. quote:Also worth considering is that while cars will typically take the shortest path from Pt A to Pt B, passengers using rail or buses are stuck with set routes and will often need to travel roundabout routes (EG, more passenger miles) to accomplish the same journey, so the numbers have some skew with that respect: cars are actually better than this chart shows, and buses/trains worse. True, but then those cars need to find city parking, which eats up the routing efficiency. Any way you look at it, trams do pretty well when it comes to efficiency.
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Nov 18, 2013 05:23
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The problem with the United States is that the country is anything but compact. Cars will always be more efficient when Point A and Point B are 10 miles away and buried deep in areas with no outlet that can't possibly be serviced efficiently by transit (short of PRT). It's a design choice that practically the entire country allows to happen, resulting in American transit systems that perpetually suck. That said, Demand Responsive Transit (DRT/Flex) is quickly taking hold across the US as the "poor man's PRT" - a hybrid of regular bus route and on-demand, off-route pickup/dropoff service using paratransit vans. The only problem there is that there's significant cost bloat from unions. Give it 10 years, self-driving buses will change the game. USF just announced an institute dedicated to automated vehicle research, so there's a good chance I'll be dealing directly with that tech in the near future. Ask me about DRT, it's my specialty. 
Varance fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 06:01
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Amused to Death posted:My personal local favorite is when they were building a small tunnel for the MUP.(it crosses a busy street at surface level which meant people on it usually had to hit the crosswalk button, a situation that made neither motorists or MUP users happy, so they decided to just go under it) The comment sections of local papers was the usual "great, urban thugs gonna come up and ruin the town" as if the crosswalk provided a huge barrier, and if these criminal masterminds about to steal all their stuff never noticed the 4-5 lane avenue running parallel to the MUP with sidewalks and buses running along it. If you're referring to Beavercreek, I live in that town in Ohio, though we did end up approving the bus stops at the Mall at Fairfield Commons. The funny thing is, there are now two malls in Beavercreek - Fairfield Commons is the older one, built in the 90s. In 2006, we opened The Greene, one of those outdoor town center type malls, a few exits further down I-675. While Fairfield Commons is fine, most of the higher end stores moved to The Greene, and it's definitely the "nicer" mall in the area. But the property that The Greene sits on is bordered by Stroop Road, which forms the boundary between Beavercreek and Kettering, and Kettering allows RTA stops. The upshot of this is that our nicer mall has been served by the bus via a Stroop Road stop since it opened, and somehow avoided becoming a crime haven, yet we were almost willing to lose over $10 million to save the older mall from the bus. 
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Nov 18, 2013 19:21
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That's such a small town america thing how malls have like 10-20 year shelf lives and then "the new nicer mall" goes up and all the "nice" stores move there and the old mall gets shittier and shittier stores until it shuts down and the whole area is just ignored and forgotten. And of course every new mall needs significant infrastructure work and often its own traffic light/turning lanes. What a god drat society.
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Nov 18, 2013 19:31
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Baronjutter posted:and the old mall gets shittier and shittier stores until it shuts down and the whole area is just ignored and forgotten And then they tear the whole thing down and build a new Walmart / Staples / etc. box store plaza. The circle of life! Around here, the upscale malls do stay upscale, but that's because they are in upscale areas, and there isn't that much land around to build new ones. I imagine that's different if there is plenty of open land to just start over.
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Nov 18, 2013 19:47
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Baronjutter posted:That's such a small town america thing how malls have like 10-20 year shelf lives and then "the new nicer mall" goes up and all the "nice" stores move there and the old mall gets shittier and shittier stores until it shuts down and the whole area is just ignored and forgotten. And of course every new mall needs significant infrastructure work and often its own traffic light/turning lanes. What a god drat society. That's basically what happens to office buildings in the Netherlands.
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Nov 19, 2013 00:01
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That's nuts, I have a big problem with the idea of disposable architecture and the whole short-term thinking we put into our entire built environment, from office buildings to houses to roads and infrastructure. I really thought the Netherlands would be better with this.
Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 01:48
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Baronjutter posted:That's nuts, I have a big problem with the idea of disposable architecture and the whole short-term thinking we put into our entire built environment, from office buildings to houses to roads and infrastructure. I really thought the Netherlands would be better with this. Buildings are heavily recycleble so long as they haven't suffered some form of toxic spill or extreme rot. And just about any new building will come with improved energy efficiency compared to 10+ year old buildings.
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Nov 19, 2013 02:38
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Install Windows posted:Buildings are heavily recycleble so long as they haven't suffered some form of toxic spill or extreme rot.
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Nov 19, 2013 02:48
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I've loosly been following Sydneys new light rail plans, as they attempt to build a new network (they ripped up their trams like all other Australian cities except melbourne back in the 60's-80's) and this is what one newspaper is talking about emissions for the new network.quote:THE light rail network will emit more carbon per passenger kilometre than buses or trains by 2021 unless it switches from fossil fuel to renewable energy.
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Nov 19, 2013 11:26
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In the last two weeks 6 people have been killed cycling on London's roads. But roads are getting safer, see! Unless you're on a bike in which case gently caress you  Segregated bike lanes for all.
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Nov 19, 2013 12:57
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Roads aren't safer, cars are. Imagine if we had safety standards for bikes.
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Nov 19, 2013 13:53
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Unless you're on a bike in which case gently caress you How about helmets? Surely you have a bike helmet law?
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Nov 19, 2013 15:27
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Helmets don't prevent accidents (and are for wusses).
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Nov 19, 2013 15:39
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Well, the mayor of London got the solution. He said to the BBC he wishes he could make the use of headphones illegal for cyclists. In a way, he got a point. If cyclists can't hear cars and whatever around them, that can cause dangerous situations. But it's not like banning headphones suddenly makes the city safe for cycling.
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Nov 19, 2013 15:44
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He should probably also make soundproofing and stereos illegal for cars too then. The number of times I've seen people not getting out of the way for emergency vehicles because their music was too loud or they "didn't hear the siren" is ridiculous. Boris is a huge idiot who despite being a cyclist can't take on the drivers because politics, and his amazing bike scheme of patches of blue paint on the road is absolutely useless. Here's a cyclist's view from the Graun - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2013/nov/15/cyclist-london-cycle-superhighway-2-video
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Nov 19, 2013 18:46
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Jeoh posted:Helmets don't prevent accidents (and are for wusses). I'm pretty sure they reduce fatalities, which I think was what we were talking about.
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Nov 19, 2013 18:55
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Boris is a huge idiot who despite being a cyclist can't take on the drivers because politics, and his amazing bike scheme of patches of blue paint on the road is absolutely useless. Here's a cyclist's view from the Graun - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2013/nov/15/cyclist-london-cycle-superhighway-2-video
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Nov 19, 2013 19:00
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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They call that bunch of crap a cycle highway? This is what we would call a cycle highway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwNqpE2VpYY
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Nov 19, 2013 19:02
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Baronjutter posted:That's nuts, I have a big problem with the idea of disposable architecture and the whole short-term thinking we put into our entire built environment, from office buildings to houses to roads and infrastructure. I really thought the Netherlands would be better with this. Something bizarre like 25% of the office space square meters in the country are permanently vacant. A similar glut of retail space is coming up. A lot of pension funds and other financial institutions created a massive property bubble in commercial real estate that has not deflated yet. We have way too many offices and shops and not quite enough houses (because building houses is less profitable). Hippie Hedgehog posted:I'm pretty sure they reduce fatalities, which I think was what we were talking about. Reduced fatalities are more than offset by the decreased ammount of cyclists who will not enjoy the health benefits. Helmets also promote cycling as a dangerous activity. Helmets are stupid (and if you think otherwise you should probably use a motorcycle helmet anyway because those bicycle helmets are a joke). NihilismNow fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 19:30
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So much empty retail space in the netherlands, yet I can't even imagine how much there is in the US. Every one of these strip malls needed a massive infrastructure outlay to build. Why is there SO MUCH?! Canada is somewhere between the UK and US at 20. I wonder why the US's is so insanely high compared to even Canada which is basically the same country in terms of planning and infrastructure.
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Nov 19, 2013 19:35
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Does that chart chart available retail spaces (ammount of square feet zoned from retail use) or retail square footage actually in use? Either way WTF USA, even allowing for the much roomier shops that is quite something.
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Nov 19, 2013 19:49
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It's built space zoned retail, so I don't know maybe there's an apples/oranges thing going on here where the US has tons of huge warehouses that are also zoned retail so they have the option of having a little warehouse direct shop or something out front? Or it's just legitimately a crazy amount of retail space, which I could actually believe from my travels in the US.
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Nov 19, 2013 19:52
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NihilismNow posted:Something bizarre like 25% of the office space square meters in the country are permanently vacant. 15% and mostly older buildings. But hey, it's too expensive to tear them down, so let's leave them vacant.
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Nov 19, 2013 20:37
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Carbon dioxide posted:Well, the mayor of London got the solution. He said to the BBC he wishes he could make the use of headphones illegal for cyclists. In a way, he got a point. If cyclists can't hear cars and whatever around them, that can cause dangerous situations. But it's not like banning headphones suddenly makes the city safe for cycling. That's a terribly unfair idea. Headphones aren't any more dangerous to cyclists than any of the numerous noise distractions available to drivers. I bike with headphones all the time, and I don't have any issue with hearing traffic around me. NihilismNow posted:Helmets are stupid (and if you think otherwise you should probably use a motorcycle helmet anyway because those bicycle helmets are a joke). Helmets reduce overall injuries by ~30%, and are convenient points to mount headlamps for night-riding. I don't wear a helmet every time I ride, but once you get used to wearing them it's really no big deal. They're just like seatbelts in that way. If you think they look dorky then just go buy one that you think looks attractive. Not that a mandatory adult helmet law is a good idea.
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Nov 19, 2013 21:13
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Baronjutter posted:It's built space zoned retail, so I don't know maybe there's an apples/oranges thing going on here where the US has tons of huge warehouses that are also zoned retail so they have the option of having a little warehouse direct shop or something out front? It's called Walmart dumps their old buildings off on churches as a tax writeoff whenever they build a nearby Supercenter - which itself has an insane (150k-200k sq ft) amount of retail space. The old buildings are still zoned commercial intensive for the most part. Edit: There are also a ton of empty grocery stores and failed big boxes around the country, plus the dying malls mentioned earlier. You see this more in the rust belt states, but it happens in booming states like Florida, too... there's a dying mall in Tampa that has a vacant anchor (former JCPenney), a vacant theater complex and 49 empty stores. Canada's got some of the same problems, but to a far lesser extent... with the exception being Toronto. Honeydale Mall on the Toronto/Mississauga border is a good example, killed off by nearby Cloverdale Mall and Sherway Gardens as area retail contracted and consolidated into those two locations. There are a good half dozen other properties in the GTA in the same situation. Varance fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 21:41
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Install Windows posted:It never stops being funny that people sincerely believe that someone's going to take the light rail into their town, grab their TV, and then patiently wait at the station platform to take it back to Crime City.
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Nov 19, 2013 22:04
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Baronjutter posted:So much empty retail space in the netherlands, yet I can't even imagine how much there is in the US. Population density and migration patterns. As some place booms, you necessarily have to build retail there. Then it busts and the people leave, so the retailers leave too, leaving empty space. Plus, when land is cheap, it's easy to just make more and bigger retail space.
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Nov 19, 2013 22:33
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Baronjutter posted:So much empty retail space in the netherlands, yet I can't even imagine how much there is in the US. Uh, most strip malls only actually have a barebones driveway entrance to the parking lot and maybe a second road entrance to the back to ease deliveries. I don't know why you think they actually have a "massive outlay" to build. Most of them are even made with modular construction. Also Canada isn't listed there so I don't know why you're saying the USA has so much more compared to Canada, it's probably very close. Especially since Canada still has the largest malls in North America...
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Nov 20, 2013 04:27
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Install Windows posted:Especially since Canada still has the largest malls in North America... Don't worry, we're trying to take that title back... Also I love the idea that a new strip mall is only going to take a curb cut. What about all the storm water now going into the storm water system because it can't be absorbed by field we just paved over? And that road that we're putting a curb cut into probably isn't needed, or wouldn't need to be as big as it is were we not building such a sprawling environment. And now that the strip mall is there, we're gonna need to add more lanes or stop lights because of increased traffic. And in the guise of economic development, we've given the builders tax credits. And now we've created hundreds of new jobs. Except they're jobs that don't pay a living wage. And the people working these jobs can't afford cars, so now we're running a bus out to this pointless strip mall, and it's not cheap to service a spot like this. So yeah, it ain't no thing. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Nov 20, 2013 |
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Nov 20, 2013 05:46
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NihilismNow posted:Helmets are stupid (and if you think otherwise you should probably use a motorcycle helmet anyway because those bicycle helmets are a joke). I don't wear a helmet but god drat is this a terrible statement. You can go to the bicycle commuting thread in YLLS and see more than a few "Thank god for my helmet" posts. In fact, one was today.
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Nov 20, 2013 05:54
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