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A bike is a poor replacement for a car. If you try and replace a car with a bike and make literally no other changes in you're life, you're going to have a bad time. Who cares if I can only stick a couple of bottles of wine in my bag if I walk by the liquor store every day on my way home from work. Same with groceries etc. Live close to stuff, and you'll find it's easy to run your regular errands.
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Apr 28, 2016 22:18
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FISHMANPET posted:A bike is a poor replacement for a car. If you try and replace a car with a bike and make literally no other changes in you're life, you're going to have a bad time. Granted, the question is if the changes you make are clearly that important. For example just ordering paper towels/boxes of wine/furniture online rather than driving out to Costco/whatever big box store. If anything the time and effort saved is probably worth more than what ever shipping/fees are involved. Well, to be honest, if I am on the train I am doing something semi-productive [email] as well if not outright working. In reality it is pretty easy to live without a car, you just spent the time and effort on a car [like trying to find parking in any major metropolitan area] and use it elsewhere. Ultimately, the issue is that a lot of American cities just have such terrible non-car infrastructure because any alternative was purposefully destroyed for largely ideological reasons. There are probably about what half a dozen cities in the US you can get by without a car and they are almost consequently the ones with the highest competition for housing. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Apr 28, 2016 |
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Apr 28, 2016 22:39
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My Imaginary GF posted:Why the gently caress is this your problem? It's not, so quit loving thinking every single detail and trust the transporter to deliver the goods. Most good new parking policy aims to eliminate cruising like that.
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Apr 28, 2016 23:11
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Eskaton posted:Most good new parking policy aims to eliminate cruising like that. Don't you see, though? Apparently we are trying to micromanage delivery people by providing them convenient ways to complete their job, or some such thing. MIGF's proposed system of "having kids in the car to get out while the driver cruises" also suffers from the fact that, in the absence of parking, you have to stop in the middle of the street to load the kids and the cargo, which is a bad thing. But, I will concede to him, it is possible and we shouldn't mandate that couriers do things one way or the other 
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Apr 28, 2016 23:34
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PT6A posted:Don't you see, though? Apparently we are trying to micromanage delivery people by providing them convenient ways to complete their job, or some such thing. And if they do that, you gently caress'n fine 'em for a moving violation and make some revenue for your community. Its win-win-win all around!
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Apr 29, 2016 02:56
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Ah yes, but if moving violations and parking tickets become a "cost of doing business" for couriers, then the costs will be passed on to the consumer, decreasing the attractiveness of using a delivery service compared to driving one's personal car and finding/paying for parking.
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Apr 29, 2016 03:04
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PT6A posted:Ah yes, but if moving violations and parking tickets become a "cost of doing business" for couriers, then the costs will be passed on to the consumer, decreasing the attractiveness of using a delivery service compared to driving one's personal car and finding/paying for parking. Who gives a poo poo, when your city has a revenue stream which it can use to fund greenscaping and public transit infrastructure?
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Apr 29, 2016 03:07
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Noo transit thread, turn left and part in the commercial loading zone, don't keep circling the block 
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Apr 29, 2016 12:34
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Cities are dogshit places to live and we oughta find a way to make suburbanism work.
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Apr 29, 2016 12:37
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Panzeh posted:Cities are dogshit places to live and we oughta find a way to make suburbanism work. 2/10 troll. Why don't you go practice in the dem primary thread.
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Apr 29, 2016 15:30
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My Imaginary GF posted:Who gives a poo poo, when your city has a revenue stream which it can use to fund greenscaping and public transit infrastructure? Lol, what revenue streams? The ones they sold to private enterprise for 75 years?
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Apr 29, 2016 15:45
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RuanGacho posted:Lol, what revenue streams? The ones they sold to private enterprise for 75 years? Fines. See also: red-light cameras, speed-on-green cameras, speed traps in general, etc.
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Apr 29, 2016 15:52
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Funding a public transit system with traffic fines sounds like a terrible idea.
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Apr 29, 2016 15:55
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Badger of Basra posted:Funding ... with traffic fines sounds like a terrible idea. Fixed that for you. Albany just had a "fun" case of this: the mayor pushed red light cameras through the city council by proposing a budget that depended on projected income from tickets related to them. Well, lo and behold, Albanians didn't run enough red lights, and it created a budget deficit that had to then be covered by the State.
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Apr 29, 2016 16:59
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PT6A posted:Fines. See also: red-light cameras, speed-on-green cameras, speed traps in general, etc. Oh, shake-downs. Definitely how we want to fund infrastructure.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:07
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redscare posted:Oh, shake-downs. Definitely how we want to fund infrastructure. True. Taxes just aren't regressive enough.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:31
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There's always the option of not breaking traffic law to escape the "shakedown".
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Apr 29, 2016 20:34
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Fame Douglas posted:There's always the option of not breaking traffic law to escape the "shakedown". I'm sure all those black people in Ferguson were just rampant lawbreakers.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:38
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Badger of Basra posted:I'm sure all those black people in Ferguson were just rampant lawbreakers. Didn't realize red light cameras were involved.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:40
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Fame Douglas posted:Didn't realize red light cameras were involved. Interestingly if you lool at the placement of red light cameras in this town, they are almost all in low income areas. They were once more mixed, but all the rich people complained and got rid of them. Traffic laws disproportionally hurt the poor. If I make $10,000 per month, $200 is really no big deal. If I make $1,000 a month, that's a pretty huge slice of my income. Further people in older cars and minorities are much more likely to get pulled over.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:49
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redscare posted:Oh, shake-downs. Definitely how we want to fund infrastructure. I think it's a horrible idea, I'm just pointing out that's what MIGF was talking about. Fame Douglas posted:There's always the option of not breaking traffic law to escape the "shakedown". The problem with fixed cameras is they don't discourage breaking traffic laws in general, only in the specific places where practically everyone knows they are. God bless my city for embracing them wholeheartedly, it's made it possible for me to speed almost everywhere and never get a speeding ticket.
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Apr 29, 2016 21:15
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Fame Douglas posted:Didn't realize red light cameras were involved. Red light cameras are infamous for being rigged to screw people over and don't add any safety benefit. Most cities in Southern California have gotten rid of theirs (LA included).
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Apr 30, 2016 02:16
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redscare posted:Oh, shake-downs. Definitely how we want to fund infrastructure. Don't wanna risk a shake-down? Walk more, drive illegally less.
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Apr 30, 2016 12:50
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redscare posted:Red light cameras are infamous for being rigged to screw people over and don't add any safety benefit. Most cities in Southern California have gotten rid of theirs (LA included). So if there's no safety benefit, why have any red lights at all?
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Apr 30, 2016 14:16
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Fame Douglas posted:So if there's no safety benefit, why have any red lights at all? To make some gently caress'n money, stupid.
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Apr 30, 2016 14:20
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Fame Douglas posted:So if there's no safety benefit, why have any red lights at all?  Basically just for the money.
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Apr 30, 2016 17:10
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Recently I'm watching a nearby city vote a parks bond down because "traffic is bad and we need to invest in infrastructure instead" and then also squawking that the city needs to fix it, especially the two state owned roads that go through town "without raising our taxes". This is a city with a total operating budget of about 13.5 million a year.  For perspective, the average basic road project of " add sidewalks, resurface, underground utility polls, maintain proper water penetration facilities and add a median to a quarter mile stretch of road" is around $20 million
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Apr 30, 2016 17:46
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Fame Douglas posted:So if there's no safety benefit, why have any red lights at all? Red light cameras are likely very cost-effective enforcement for local police departments. Instead of having a patrolman babysit a problematic intersection during busy times, the camera is always 'on duty' and can bust a violator any time of the day. I'm also pretty sure people are less likely to try to fight the ticket since it will show a photograph of the offender in their vehicle, with the license plate in full view. Another big problem with red light cameras is conflict of interest, in my opinion. See, the company that licenses the equipment to the police agencies gets a cut of all the fines levied from the cameras. So money is definitely a big motivator here.
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Apr 30, 2016 17:58
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Fame Douglas posted:So if there's no safety benefit, why have any red lights at all? I don't know if you're obtuse or just trolling, but for the sake of everyone else, what they found was that while accidents caused by people running red lights decreased, rear end accidents increased due to people slamming their brakes at the last minute to avoid the ticket. There was also a huge shakedown aspect with most cities setting theirs to be overly sensitive for right turns on red.
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Apr 30, 2016 18:11
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Replace intersections with roundabouts problem solved
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Apr 30, 2016 18:13
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Panfilo posted:I'm also pretty sure people are less likely to try to fight the ticket since it will show a photograph of the offender in their vehicle, with the license plate in full view. They're actually unconstitutional and easy as gently caress to fight. People basically ran interference for as long as possible here until the missouri supreme court banned them for violating a bunch of amendments.
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Apr 30, 2016 19:03
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Peven Stan posted:They're actually unconstitutional and easy as gently caress to fight. People basically ran interference for as long as possible here until the missouri supreme court banned them for violating a bunch of amendments. As an unironic and serious question: What amendments do they end up violating? Like, I am trying to think here, and all the usual suspects don't seem to apply in a wholly public space, with publicly visible plates and windows that you'd have no reasonable expectation of not being seen through.
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Apr 30, 2016 19:27
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Moinkmaster posted:As an unironic and serious question: What amendments do they end up violating? Like, I am trying to think here, and all the usual suspects don't seem to apply in a wholly public space, with publicly visible plates and windows that you'd have no reasonable expectation of not being seen through. Generally some state version of the confrontation clause. I don't think they're generally found federally unconstitutional, but state unconstitutional. It is kind of bullshit because the guy who set up the camera doesn't testify and the entire ticket is based on the assumption the camera only fired after the light went red as they rarely show the light itself. It places the burden on the defendant to prove it didn't work correctly, which will generally cost more than paying the ticket. This isn't just idle. In San Deigo some cameras were firing in green and it was only discovered because some rich dude fought it on principle. If you're pior or middle class, you're not hiring expert witnesses to fight a loving traffic ticket.
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Apr 30, 2016 19:39
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Panzeh posted:Cities are dogshit places to live and we oughta find a way to make suburbanism work. Cicero fucked around with this message at 03:37 on May 1, 2016 |
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May 1, 2016 03:35
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Cicero posted:Suburbs are okay, it's sprawly car-dependent suburbs that suck. Plenty of places in the world that have little suburban towns that are still walkable, with good commuter transit to a major city. Commuter suburbs organized around their heavy rail to Chicago are very gently caress'n nice still. Expand the Electric to Kankakee, I say, and bring METRA up to Madison.
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May 1, 2016 03:53
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hey everyone sorry I've been slacking on these, but I found out my 171-year-old West Philly house is being torn down for more ugly UPenn student apartments, because gently caress history, right? ain't been easy finding an equivalent quality house, which is affordable, in the same area...  ugh, so 7:25 AM, South Philadelphia, on a Friday The Gang, sans Mac, sits at Paddy's. ENTER Mac. MAC: I finally tried to use Paddy's Dollars at the TGI Friday's in Fox Chase and it worked man! DEE: Those are regular dollars with a leprechaun sticker on them. DENNIS: Shut up Dee! How are we going to get our Paddy's Dollars back from Fox Chase though? FRANK: I got it! MAC: What? FRANK: I'll buy a railbus!  Unusual for many commuter rail systems in the world, SEPTA has several lines which begin and end within the city limits of Philadelphia. These are the Chestnut Hill West Line, the Chestnut Hill East Line, the Cynwyd Line, and the Fox Chase Line. (and the Airport line, depending on your interpretation.) The Fox Chase Line was originally owned by the Reading Railroad. It runs 12.4 miles to Fox Chase, and never leaves the city limits.  Prior to 1983, the service went another 15.4 miles to the town of Newtown. It was called Newtown because when it was founded, it was new, I guess. Originality is not the hallmark of Pennsylvanianans.  This area has grown considerably since the 80s, and while it's served by two other commuter lines, the Newtown segment is gone? How did that happen? Welp, as mentioned in the last post, when SEPTA was created, the late, great Frank Rizzo secured federal funding for the Center City Commuter Connection, a tunnel linking the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad commuter lines. To save money, it included no ventilation stacks for diesel locomotives. The Newtown Line, north of Fox Chase, had no electric catenary. Budd built Rail Diesel Cars (RDCs) operated north of Fox Chase at a reduced schedule, as had been the case since steam trains had been replaced. Passengers transferred to electric trains at Fox Chase:  This wasn't an ideal set up, but it worked for many years. Most Reading RDC trains, since they traveled long distances, had restrooms, and also snack bars which served alcoholic beverages -- you could get piss drunk on your commute home instead of waiting until you got there. What's not to like? This all worked fine until the creation of Conrail in 1976.  Conrail was a government-subsidized attempt to bring life back into the shambling hulk that was the Penn Central. The idea was this: if merging three failing railroads together made a huge loving mess, then surely merging seven more in would solve all the problems! Thus the Penn Central (itself a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the New York Central railroad, and the New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad) merged with the Erie Lackawanna (itself a merger of the Delaware, Lackawanna, & Western and the Erie Railroad), the Ann Arbor Railroad, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Lehigh & Hudson Railroad, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and a huge array of assorted short lines were merged into the behemoth Consolidated Railroad Corporation, or Conrail. The gimmick this time around was that only certain lines of each railroad would be taken over, and others would be abandoned or sold to the states under a master plan. it didn't work This created a bizarre situation for SEPTA and several other fledgling transit agencies (New Jersey Transit, Metro North, and MARC, especially) -- most had been previously running trains under contract with the various railroads in a subsidy format, if they existed at all. (i.e. SEPTA contracted the Philadelphia & Reading to run a train from Reading to Philadelphia, rather than run the trains using their own employees and equipment.) Now, they found themselves running trains under contract with Conrail over tracks that they owned themselves -- as was the case with the Newtown Line. The entire Newtown Line had been transferred to SEPTA in 1976. Conrail was given permission to exit the commuter rail business by 1983 by the Reagan administration. SEPTA outright ended service to Reading and Bethlehem and Newark NJ early on -- those counties did not wish to provide financial support. However, Bucks County, PA, was still in the game, and thus the diesel Newtown line had to stay. So begins the saga of "Newtown Rapid Transit." In anticipation of the Conrail exit in 1983, in 1981 SEPTA gave their city transit workers from the Broad Street Line a 6-week training course, and had them run trains on the Newtown Line north of Fox Chase. Conrail crews would continue to run electric trains south of Fox Chase to center city Philadelphia. Service was increased from four round trips to eight round trips per day, owing to the savings incurred by having lower-paid city transit workers, and the lack of conductors on the trains north of Fox Chase. Unfortunately, Conrail crews, represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, did not like city transit personnel, represented by the Transit Workers Union, muscling in on their territory. There was retaliation. Conrail crews would deliberately leave Fox Chase moments before trains from Newtown arrived to make a connection. They protested -- the first day of operations resulted in a whole train cancelled and a second being 30 minutes late due to BLET protests, in which six engineers were arrested. The whole operation was seen by BLET as a bargaining chip for SEPTA -- railroad crews were not necessary for commuter rail, only lower-paid city transit personnel were, in SEPTA's mind, so BLET set out to prove them wrong. This was SEPTA's first foray into actually operating a railroad, so of course they just doubled down and ignored the protests. Conrail crews refused to maintain the RDC units, so city transit personnel were instructed by management to just feed more oil into them until they sounded good. Fifteen of 17 RDCs were out of service by the end of the first year. The new single-car trains of RDCs also wouldn't trigger grade crossing gates -- resulting in a deadly accident when one of the two operable SEPTA RDCs crashed into a tanker truck. (Conrail, of course, had only operated two-car trains because they were aware of the problem,.) Combined with the RDC's lack of air conditioning, and the transfer at Fox Chase which only worked half the time, commuters fled the line in droves for the nearby and more convenient West Trenton and Warminster lines which offered a one-seat ride to center city. The last train from Newtown arrived at Fox Chase January 14, 1983. It made the trip back to Newtown, where the brakes failed and it overran the station. It was taken out of service, and a shuttle bus ran on the Newtown line forever after. Sort of. Plans to restore service cheaply circulated for a long time afterward -- especially after SEPTA took over all electric service in 1983, and irate Conrail crews were out of the picture. (SEPTA crews were still represented by BLET, however, and followed their rules for how many crewmembers should be on each train. Turns out you can't train city transit workers to run on a 6-track high speed main line in only six weeks...) So SEPTA wanted cheap, modern equipment to run the line. So they went to the only railroad with a  This is a British Leyland Railbus. It is a British Leyland bus, mounted on a British Rail freight car chassis, with some tweaks to the transmission. If you follow the Trainchat (or Locomotive Insanity in AI, I forget which) thread, you'll know that this is the only thing which is actually worse than a Pacer. (EDIT: Axeman Jim talks about the Pacer and the British Leyland Railbus in Automotive Insanity.) It is shown here at Huntington Valley, PA, in September of 1985. Tests were run several times, but to SEPTA's credit, they had higher standards than the Brits and thought the ride was just too rough to justify purchasing the units. This railbus was never used in revenue service, and instead toured the US, where every other transit agency also rejected it because the ride was too rough, and it also did not comply with FRA standards for crashworthiness. It now sits forlornly in the Connecticut Trolley Museum, their only piece of diesel equipment. Newtown service was never restored -- today it is a rail trail. Though SEPTA still owns the right-of-way, there are no plans to reactivate the line at any point in the future, despite the explosion in growth in the areas it serves. donoteat fucked around with this message at 07:03 on May 1, 2016 |
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May 1, 2016 04:56
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Moinkmaster posted:As an unironic and serious question: What amendments do they end up violating? Like, I am trying to think here, and all the usual suspects don't seem to apply in a wholly public space, with publicly visible plates and windows that you'd have no reasonable expectation of not being seen through. The cameras here only captured plates so they would send you a letter in the mail asking you if you were the driver along with the ticket. If you marked "no" they'd send you another letter asking you to point the finger at the real driver, which is a 5th amendment violation against self recrimination. That and the inability to confront accusers tanked the cameras here. There will probably be a ballot proposal in the future sponsored by rurals to ban them since they hate people like MIGF on a cultural level.
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May 1, 2016 06:00
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Cicero posted:Suburbs are okay, it's sprawly car-dependent suburbs that suck. Plenty of places in the world that have little suburban towns that are still walkable, with good commuter transit to a major city. Those ones are way too expensive for actual working class people to live in, much like everything else in the cities.
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May 1, 2016 10:17
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Panzeh posted:Those ones are way too expensive for actual working class people to live in, much like everything else in the cities. It depends on how badly white flight blew up a city. Detroit/St. Louis tier cities actually have extremely cheap urban real estate with the wealth being concentrated in the formerly whites only suburbs. It's far more expensive to rent an apartment in the automobile suburbs here (the white ones at least) than it would be to rent one in the city.
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May 1, 2016 14:38
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Panzeh posted:Those ones are way too expensive for actual working class people to live in, much like everything else in the cities. That's because we have like five of them total so they're just as in demand. If most suburbs were built that way they wouldn't be so expensive to live in.
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May 1, 2016 18:08
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