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Fitzy Fitz posted:Is anyone actually claiming that roads shouldn't be built to remote outposts though? There are thousands of cities across the US alone that could benefit significantly from an aggressive build-out of public transportation infrastructure that reduces reliance on cars. EVs are a half-measure that are already happening anyway, so what's the point in advocating for them? Why not argue for something better that could actually benefit from more support? quote:We would make a huger dent in the carbon we put in the atmosphere if we just Maybe he was joking I dunno
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Aug 22, 2023 17:38
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Count Roland posted:Setting unreasonable goals is not the way to take something seriously. "Serious" policy proposals aren't synonymous with "don't do anything difficult." Society wasn't always based on cars. That was a choice. We can undo that choice.
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Aug 22, 2023 17:39
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Battery powered personal vehicles are undoubtedly not ideal. Though clearly less bad for the global environment than gas ones even if worse locally near lithium mines. A lot of existing car infrastructure can be reworked for mass transit though. Existing roads can be used by buses. People complain about the wires for trolley buses and the noise and emissions of diesel buses. Battery or hybrid buses largely eliminate those concerns (though I would say complaints about trolley bus wires is just NIMBY bullshit, and they are way cheaper to operate long-term after the expense of the wires is recapitalized.) Saying "no more roads ever" is dumb and as unrealistically counterproductive as saying "ev's will solve all and we need to change nothing." EVs, including personal, cargo, and mass transit will all be useful in combating climate change.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:00
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Nitrousoxide posted:People complain about the wires for trolley buses and the noise and emissions of diesel buses. At least in America, this is the stupidest bullshit I've ever heard. Plenty of other cars are louder and have worse emissions than diesel buses.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:19
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poo poo's complicated. Any solution to any of these problems is going to require multiple components, each of which individually might accomplish nothing or even make things worse without the other components. Also the solution as a whole will have to be resilient to compromises necessitated by accommodating people trying to live through it while in progress. "X won't save us" is kind of a facile objection.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:42
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Bongo Bill posted:poo poo's complicated. Any solution to any of these problems is going to require multiple components, each of which individually might accomplish nothing or even make things worse without the other components. Also the solution as a whole will have to be resilient to compromises necessitated by accommodating people trying to live through it while in progress. "X won't save us" is kind of a facile objection.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:45
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Ham Equity posted:EVs not only won't save us, they will actively make things worse without a bunch of other changes that basically nobody with any power is talking about making. That is what I said.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:48
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Ham Equity posted:EVs not only won't save us, they will actively make things worse without a bunch of other changes that basically nobody with any power is talking about making. I don't think this is really fair either. Biden's infrastructure bill puts truly vast amounts of money towards things like offshore wind. I think it includes money for upgrading electrical power infrastructure to handle the increased use of electricity. I don't know if that bill will come out as planned, nor am I saying this bill will defeat climate change or anything. But there is quite a lot being done, not just talked about, but legislated and funded.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:18
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Count Roland posted:I don't think this is really fair either. It also puts a bunch of money towards building more roads. And Biden has been pushing out a shitload of fossil fuel infrastructure.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:27
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Count Roland posted:nor am I saying this bill will defeat climate change or anything. So what else needs to be done, and why aren't we talking about that instead?
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Aug 22, 2023 19:31
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Because, I suspect, this is the Urban Planning thread.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:51
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Ham Equity posted:It also puts a bunch of money towards building more roads. And Biden has been pushing out a shitload of fossil fuel infrastructure. Also note that even countries that take public transit far more seriously than the US still have plenty of cars. I'd love to get rid of car dominance in the states, that poo poo sucks, but even if you were able to copy Japan or Singapore overnight, that wouldn't translate to no cars. Whatever cars remain, it's still better to have them as EV's.
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Aug 22, 2023 21:37
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I'm curious if anyone has run across any research paper or study or comprehensive plan that actually sets out to examine what it would take to retrofit an existing suburb for usable transit and walkability? It's pretty easy to find articles that speak about it in broad terms, or bring up some example of a particular neighborhood within a town that is uncharacteristically walkable, but I'd love to see an actual A-Z plan for a specific town that goes over how it could be done.
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Aug 23, 2023 01:39
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Baronash posted:I'm curious if anyone has run across any research paper or study or comprehensive plan that actually sets out to examine what it would take to retrofit an existing suburb for usable transit and walkability? It's pretty easy to find articles that speak about it in broad terms, or bring up some example of a particular neighborhood within a town that is uncharacteristically walkable, but I'd love to see an actual A-Z plan for a specific town that goes over how it could be done. Strong Towns goes around to advise places on how to improve the walkability/zoning/etc of places. They may have case studies on the site, or may be willing to provide some to you if you reach out to them.
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Aug 23, 2023 01:45
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Baronash posted:I'm curious if anyone has run across any research paper or study or comprehensive plan that actually sets out to examine what it would take to retrofit an existing suburb for usable transit and walkability? It's pretty easy to find articles that speak about it in broad terms, or bring up some example of a particular neighborhood within a town that is uncharacteristically walkable, but I'd love to see an actual A-Z plan for a specific town that goes over how it could be done. Montgomery County, Maryland, has a bunch of plans or plans in development that reflect these general goals. While the county is far from perfect, the relatively ringfenced multicounty planning entity (and the extremely unsual concentration of wealth, education and diverse cultures in the area) mean there's a lot more overt long-term development planning, and, generally, better planning, than in many other parts of the country. Also they have more planning documents than any one person can read in a lifetime. Prepare to choke on literal thousands of pages. https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/communities/ Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 02:37
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Nitrousoxide posted:Strong Towns goes around to advise places on how to improve the walkability/zoning/etc of places. They may have case studies on the site, or may be willing to provide some to you if you reach out to them. Thanks, I follow Strong Towns and enjoy reading about their projects, but their proposals are, understandably, more limited in scope. If something of that depth existed, it would at least allow for some interesting discussion in this thread about how a municipality could meaningfully decrease vehicle use and what the cost and trade offs would be. e: Discendo Vox posted:Montgomery County, Maryland, has a bunch of plans or plans in development that reflect these general goals. While the county is far from perfect, the relatively ringfenced multicounty planning entity (and the extremely unsual concentration of wealth, education and diverse cultures in the area) mean there's a lot more overt long-term development planning, and, generally, better planning, than in many other parts of the country. Baronash fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 02:49
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Specifically for bikes, Vancouver BC doubled their bike mode share within a handful of years via protected bike lanes IIRC. That's not a suburb, but it is a retrofit.
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Aug 23, 2023 04:24
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Baronash posted:I'm curious if anyone has run across any research paper or study or comprehensive plan that actually sets out to examine what it would take to retrofit an existing suburb for usable transit and walkability? It's pretty easy to find articles that speak about it in broad terms, or bring up some example of a particular neighborhood within a town that is uncharacteristically walkable, but I'd love to see an actual A-Z plan for a specific town that goes over how it could be done. Sprawl Repair Manual comes at it from the urban design side. "Draw a grid in the mall parking lot!" The better Retrofitting Suburbia comes at it from the real estate development side and describes actual projects and the regulatory changes and financing that got them built. Count Roland posted:Maybe he was joking I dunno If you want to carry water for GM, Elon, Canadian *mining* companies' lithium subsidiaries, and your local asphalt contractors, feel free. I'm under no obligation to "be realistic" and fight to continue inducing VMT. There are public works engineers who still push cities to block homes because of impacts to level of service, ffs. I'm here to shrink streets so the bus goes faster, cars go slower, and fewer kids get run over. Chevron isn't negotiating with itself on your behalf to reduce the amount of oil it pumps. GM isn't planning to shut down the Silverado and eHummer lines. The rich people from your local golf course exurbs aren't coming to the table having pre-accepted any limitation on their ability to come speeding through your neighborhood on their way someplace else. Why are you compromising with yourself before you even begin? The only way to be realistic is to demand the impossible. Greg12 fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Aug 24, 2023 |
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Aug 24, 2023 18:39
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"Realistic" in this context inherently means patting yourself on the back for being smarter than everyone else who demands better things. You don't demand better things. You demand change in snall increments because it's what serious people do.
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Aug 24, 2023 18:56
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Is anyone else following New Jerseys opposition to NYC congestion pricing? The arguments against it are so infuriating. Car owners keep complaining about how expensive commuting already is and how poor mass transit is. They then use that as the excuse why they need to continue spending several hours a day stuck in traffic. Feels like they're insisting the hole they shot in their own foot is merely leaking victory wine as they lash out at anyone trying to stem the bleeding. 
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Aug 24, 2023 18:56
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That's the American model yeah. Suburbs refuse to vote for or cooperate on decent mass transit that would help commuters because the residents there prefer car dominance. Then if the major city of the area implements multimodal policies that reduce how much space cars get or make it more expensive to drive/park, they whine and trash because transit isn't good enough (because they intentionally made it bad). The only solution is to just go through with actually good policies, and once suburban residents actually feel the pain, they'll have enough incentive to support public transit.
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Aug 24, 2023 19:09
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The state of New Jersey is suing the...federal government iirc? to stop NYC from implementing congestion pricing. The irony being that commuter rail is already part of the culture of the tristate area.
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Aug 24, 2023 19:12
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Minenfeld! posted:"Realistic" in this context inherently means patting yourself on the back for being smarter than everyone else who demands better things. You don't demand better things. You demand change in snall increments because it's what serious people do. Yeah, pretty much. It's how urban planning works. Everyone has their ideas on how to make a city better but it's always hard because there's already so much stuff sitting around. Any change pisses off somebody, and important changes often piss off everybody. But starting anew is never an option, so incremental change is the only option. Getting rid of cars or whatever would be great. But even if a political revolution does occur which makes it possible, it still falls to planners and bureaucrats and engineers and grubby city councillors to decide what goes where and who wins and who loses. To me that's what makes urban planning as a field so interesting. Its obvious impact on mundane daily life, sure, but the sausage-making of how things (don't) get done reveals much.
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Aug 24, 2023 19:41
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Minenfeld! posted:"Realistic" in this context inherently means patting yourself on the back for being smarter than everyone else who demands better things. You don't demand better things. You demand change in snall increments because it's what serious people do. Like, don't even bother, may as well go full hedonism if all we're going to do is seek a .2% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:02
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Like I said, you're all free to negotiate yourselves down to failure before you even meet with your opponents. I won't. I don't know what to tell you if you think the bad guys are coming to the table having already negotiated with themselves on your behalf that public transportation should exist, that it should be legal to build anything within walking distance of anything else, or that there should be new homes in their high-resource neighborhood. We do not have the five 20-year comprehensive plan cycles it will take on your "realistic" time scale to harden our civilization against climate change. Jfc.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:49
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Ham Equity posted:At this point, "change in small increments" is societal suicide. Indeed it is, if my sarcasm wasn't understood before. I think the further irony here is that our current car poisoned world wasn't exactly done subtly or in small increments.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:50
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Minenfeld! posted:"Realistic" in this context inherently means patting yourself on the back for being smarter than everyone else who demands better things. You don't demand better things. You demand change in snall increments because it's what serious people do. Was somebody doing that or was that how you interpreted other people's arguments?
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Aug 29, 2023 23:51
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On one hand, gas getting even mildly more expensive for a sustained period of time would alone be huge for basically everything that we want/need. More ridership on public transit, so more money for transit and a constituency for it (high ridership also partially solves some problems like people feeling unsafe). More movement away from big rear end in a top hat trucks for accountants, towards EVs and hybrids. On the other hand, it would substantially increase the odds of the party that doesn’t believe climate change is real taking power. The biggest benefit of EVs isn’t actual their emissions imo: it’s that widespread EV adoption gives politicians and political parties less need to keep the car sauce flowing cheaply. Even if they didn’t have any benefits in other aspects and that was all they did, people not getting pissed when number go up at the pump is pretty massive in terms of the possibility space it opens up. Fill Baptismal fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Aug 31, 2023 |
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Aug 31, 2023 08:33
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Fill Baptismal posted:The biggest benefit of EVs isn’t actual their emissions imo: it’s that widespread EV adoption gives politicians and political parties less need to keep the car sauce flowing cheaply. Even if they didn’t have any benefits in other aspects and that was all they did, people not getting pissed when number go up at the pump is pretty massive in terms of the possibility space it opens up.
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Aug 31, 2023 16:58
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Ham Equity posted:When does this start? Because as of now, it's the most gas-guzzling vehicles that continue to be the best-selling. we can have houses within walking distance of stores with sidewalks connecting them once the plurality of voters in the 26 least-populated states are free enough from gas price pressure that gas prices cease to be a culture war lever and the sitting senators of those states when that demographic shift happens die of old age
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Sep 1, 2023 15:22
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https://twitter.com/pushtheneedle/status/1697272553197498735 And now the NYC office of planning has it's offices inside this very building that is technically illegal to build today under their own ordinances. Today's monstrous eyesores are tomorrow's beloved landmarks.
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Sep 1, 2023 20:37
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Ham Equity posted:When does this start? Because as of now, it's the most gas-guzzling vehicles that continue to be the best-selling. From the energy thread: Crosby B. Alfred posted:https://twitter.com/colinmckerrache/status/1696482907538264353?s=20 so hopefully within a few years
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Sep 1, 2023 20:49
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mobby_6kl posted:From the energy thread: Am I somehow misreading this, or are they saying that China used more gas this year than it is ever has before, and that somehow that's a good thing? Please, explain it to me like I'm five.
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Sep 1, 2023 20:54
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Ham Equity posted:Am I somehow misreading this, or are they saying that China used more gas this year than it is ever has before, and that somehow that's a good thing? Please, explain it to me like I'm five. They're anticipating a corner where gasoline demands starts dropping, and their projection for when they turn that corner has been revised to this/next year, as opposed to in a couple more years.
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Sep 1, 2023 21:01
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Ham Equity posted:Am I somehow misreading this, or are they saying that China used more gas this year than it is ever has before, and that somehow that's a good thing? Please, explain it to me like I'm five. The article quotes a Chinese company's announcement that they expect that demand for gasoline is the highest it will be (though the graph accompanying the article apparently shows the peak taking place next year) and they anticipate falling demand in China going forward. This is for gasoline only and not diesel, which they expect will continue to experience increasing demand for a few more years. e:f, b
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Sep 1, 2023 21:06
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golden bubble posted:Today's monstrous eyesores are tomorrow's beloved landmarks. 1923: These modern buildings are hideous, soulless boxes that would ruin the character of the neighborhood. loving greedy developers are squeezing as much savings as possible with inferior building materials. Why can't we go back to the timeless appeal of classic Georgian buildings? 1823: These modern buildings are hideous, soulless boxes that would ruin the character of the neighborhood. loving greedy developers are squeezing as much savings as possible with inferior building materials. Why can't we go back to the timeless appeal of classic <whatever> buildings? 9723 BC: These modern buildings are hideous, soulless boxes that would ruin the character of the neighborhood. loving greedy developers are squeezing as much savings as possible with inferior building materials. Why can't we go back to the timeless appeal of classic caves with a firepit in them?
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Sep 1, 2023 21:30
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I like the look of the new 5 over 1 mixed-use stuff going up all over the place 
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Sep 1, 2023 21:38
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Nitrousoxide posted:I like the look of the new 5 over 1 mixed-use stuff going up all over the place The "they just don't build them like they used to" one is particularly annoying to me as the person making the claim is almost always just parroting a common line that they've uncritically taken as a self-evident fact. I'm deeply skeptical of the claim that modern construction quality is uniquely inferior and would love to see evidence beyond commentators like donoteat lazily guffawing about soggy mass timber.
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Sep 1, 2023 22:07
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I think part of the reason for the perception that older buildings are better made is that the older the building the more likely it is that only well built ones will have survived the present day. Selection bias means that most of the poo poo buildings from 40 years ago will have been demolished.
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Sep 2, 2023 00:20
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Ham Equity posted:Am I somehow misreading this, or are they saying that China used more gas this year than it is ever has before, and that somehow that's a good thing? Please, explain it to me like I'm five.
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Sep 5, 2023 15:23
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