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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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I wouldn't describe this as flexible, though; they are pretty much limited to those places unless they take a car. I also agree that any form of transportation may not reach their theoretical maximum capacity, which is why I compare actual observed numbers of usage and don't rely solely on arguments like "there could be much more usage if we just bit the bullet and built more". I'm not inherently against transit, I just think they should be built where they make sense to be built.

Sure, but this goes back to my point about land use. Cities with extensive transit + infrastructure for other modes of transit are also typically laid out so that you can get to a lot of places via those modes. The transit isn't a handful of lines, it covers the whole city, and places you need to go tend to be much closer.

(like Not Just Bikes hated when in Amsterdam they removed surface parking spaces and replaced them with a new underground parking garage). It's also just as possible for transit to take up as much space (like a rail station 40 tracks wide on the surface). As @ZorbaTHut has pointed out in the past, there's plenty of ways the surface space taken up by cars can be reduced. If an urban planner decides to have a giant sprawling surface parking lot instead of an underground garage, sure, yell at them, but I don't think they inherently must take up so much space, nor is the amount of space taken up inherent to any form of transportation.

NJB seemed ambivalent about replacing surface lots with double the number of underground parking spaces, not "railing against."

Cars do take up more space, I'm not sure how this is controversial. A parked car takes up several hundred square feet, and one on the highway takes up several thousand once safe following distance is accounted for. If you look at the downtowns of even cities with over half a million people there's an enormous amount of space dedicated to parking.

I'd like to know where you got that description

I quoted it from https://charlesandcharles.co.uk/f/take-a-look-at-the-katy-freeway-in-texas

Is this really the case? Tulsa's bus routes look like they're surrounded by plenty of stores and homes. You might have to walk or cycle a bit more than in Zurich but it's doable. I did a quick perusal on Google Maps but I don't buy this narrative that transit in North America always just happens to be built around nothing and nowhere by incompetent city planners.

There might be "some stuff" but it's much less than there should be. Why do you think that there's so low ridership in Tulsa?

If there's a North American city that initially had very low ridership (like Tulsa does now) but managed to generate tons of ridership by simply brute-forcing the amount of service they provided, I'd love to know about it.

I never said that merely increasing frequency will cause the buses to all be full. But the combination of fewer things near transit, low frequency, buses being stuck in traffic, etc. all contribute. It's not a population problem--it's a design problem.

hear this claim all the time that transit is faster than driving in countries outside the US, but is it actually true? If you do some Google Map tests like @ZorbaTHut did, it really doesn't seem like it.

I know that Zorba made these claims, but it's pretty laughably weak evidence in my opinion. Is there any reason to believe that Google Maps is sufficiently accurate for all modes? I'm very skeptical, as in my experience maps doesn't handle varying congestion very well. Same with traffic lights.

Also compare this video from Singapore, a country that heavily restricts driving and it makes it prohibitively expensive for many people (understandably so since it's a tiny island nation). In the video, driving is faster (though then of course the argument becomes "well it's nicer to be able to sleep or use your phone and not have to pay attention"). Maybe they restricted cars too much and now driving, if you can afford it, is too good compared to a country that doesn't restrict driving so heavily.

It's possible that Singapore in particular has gone off the other direction, but there are good reasons to believe it's unlikely, and she mentions that she's driving in at *noon. Hardly rush hour. In any event, the person being interviewed prefers transit even with the longer time spent. Time spent driving is almost pure loss, while you can actually do things on the train.

If all of the people on those trains drove instead, how long do you think driving would take?

Where is the proof that they know that this happens, and this breakaway pole isn't just a standard design that's used for any sort of pole anywhere? That's the impression I got doing a quick search for "breakaway traffic light pole" with articles like this.

Know that what happens? Know that pedestrians stand next to the button they have to push in order to cross? I'm confused by your question.

Again, I wouldn't assume malice here, and I would attribute this to ignorance before jumping to conclusions and attributing it to malice.

That's... basically what negligence is?

NJB seemed ambivalent about replacing surface lots with double the number of underground parking spaces, not "railing against."

Ambivalent is still the wrong reaction to have. Surface space is valuable, so he should be happy that the space is removed, and that the underground spaces were built (else where would the cars parked on the surface go?).

And if NJB is a bad example, look at CityNerd's video on why he thinks parking garages are bad then.

Cars do take up more space, I'm not sure how this is controversial.

My point was that the amount of surface space taken up can be reduced, by e.g. building multilevel parking garages or double-decker freeways. And it's often the surface space that is most primary and valuable here. My secondary point was that any form of transportation can be argued to take up more space by looking at instances of it that have been implemented poorly, e.g. a railyard that's 40 tracks wide.

I quoted it from https://charlesandcharles.co.uk/f/take-a-look-at-the-katy-freeway-in-texas

The image on that page isn't even of the Katy freeway. It might be in China or someplace else but it might not even exist in reality. It seems to be right that there's 6 lanes in each direction but I'm still not sure what it means by "eight feeder lanes" (frontage roads?) and "six managed lanes" (I'm completely at a loss here). I wouldn't trust anything on that page without verifying with other sources.

Why do you think that there's so low ridership in Tulsa?

Because there's barely any demand for it. I'd imagine that if they aren't using the bus, then people are using the car instead, or getting rides from others.

I know that Zorba made these claims, but it's pretty laughably weak evidence in my opinion. Is there any reason to believe that Google Maps is sufficiently accurate for all modes? I'm very skeptical, as in my experience maps doesn't handle varying congestion very well. Same with traffic lights.

I don't know what your experience is, but Google Maps does pretty well at estimating longer times if you are viewing a route during rush hour. If there's congestion at that point in time, it will definitely show it. I don't have the link on hand but there's a thing one guy did in Germany where he dragged a bunch of phones in a wheelbarrow down the road to make it seem like the road was hugely congested, coloring it red on Google Maps.

In any case, I think Zorba's point was to use numbers favorable to both transit and driving, and show that driving still wins, thus explaining why some people prefer to use cars. Of course other people may prefer to use transit regardless, and that's fine too. I don't know the exact numbers of people who prefer to drive versus use transit but I'd imagine in North America the number of transit preferrers is lower than the number in Europe. Most people don't consciously think about the costs and benefits of driving versus transit and have restrictions (like needing to be at work on time at a specific time) that simply make driving favorable to them. The Singaporean woman commuting in to work at noon doesn't sound like she has any of those restrictions.

If all of the people on those trains drove instead, how long do you think driving would take?

In Singapore, extremely long because it's a tiny island nation with probably not much capacity to handle it (I haven't checked though). This isn't necessarily true for other places, however.

Know that what happens? Know that pedestrians stand next to the button they have to push in order to cross? I'm confused by your question.

Again, I wouldn't assume malice here, and I would attribute this to ignorance before jumping to conclusions and attributing it to malice.

That's... basically what negligence is?

My point was that if you have a standard policy to use a specific pole design everywhere, then it's a mistake to ascribe intent or knowledge to engineers that simply isn't there. That's also partially why I pointed out that the pole was mounted on a concrete bollard in the pictures Charles Marohn showed - it seems to just be a standard thing rather than them knowingly recognizing that pedestrians stand there, and then simply not caring about them.

There's also a kind of Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics thing going on here - if the engineers didn't use the breakaway pole, then things would be worse for everyone, but Charles Marohn wouldn't be on stage talking about how engineers have gross negligence for the safety of people. So again, I don't want to accuse engineers of negligence here. I feel like if they were sued for this (as he advocates elsewhere) then they simply wouldn't use the breakaway pole design, which I guess wouldn't be a negative (or a positive) for pedestrians but would just make drivers worse off for no reason.

Ambivalent is still the wrong reaction to have. Surface space is valuable, so he should be happy that the space is removed, and that the underground spaces were built (else where would the cars parked on the surface go?).

The people who owned them could no longer have a car, or perhaps store it somewhere outside the city, so it's less likely to be driven around what is clearly a walkable area.

My point was that the amount of surface space taken up can be reduced, by e.g. building multilevel parking garages or double-decker freeways.

You can do those things, although they quickly become much more expensive, and still occupy a lot of space. A double-decker highway 3 lanes wide on either side still carries maybe 18,000 people per hour per direction. Because of parking requirements, apartments and offices in downtowns will often be built on top of several stories of parking, which of course makes the actual usable space more expensive

I'm still not sure what it means by "eight feeder lanes" (frontage roads?) and "six managed lanes" (I'm completely at a loss here). I wouldn't trust anything on that page without verifying with other sources.

The same source says:

  • The managed lanes carry mass transit vehicles during peak hours and are only made available to single-occupancy vehicles for a toll-fee during odd-peak hours.

Do you have a preferred source?

Because there's barely any demand for it.

Ok, but why?

I don't know what your experience is, but Google Maps does pretty well at estimating longer times if you are viewing a route during rush hour.

I'm aware that Maps indicates traffic, it just usually isn't sufficiently accurate for me to believe that it can actually tell you what's faster on a regular basis. I don't know if it holds up across countries, etc. I've definitely spent enough time in and around NYC to know for a fact that taking the train can be much faster than driving for many trips.

In any event, NJB has also made videos about how nice driving in the Netherlands is compared to other countries. Part of that is due to how many people take transit instead. These comparisons are not "favorable to driving" in the sense that you can extrapolate the results to a place where everyone drives.

My point was that if you have a standard policy to use a specific pole design everywhere, then it's a mistake to ascribe intent or knowledge to engineers that simply isn't there.

The use of "standards" just sounds like a way to prevent anyone from having to take responsibility for bad decisions. I don't think that a bunch of engineers thought, "man, fuck pedestrians, let's try to get them killed." But any of them could have realized, when they were designing a walk signal with the knowledge that it would be hit by a car. This isn't a question of doing something, without fixing all of the problems everywhere, because you have limited resources or narrow expertise. Designing infrastructure is their whole job.

The people who owned them could no longer have a car, or perhaps store it somewhere outside the city, so it's less likely to be driven around what is clearly a walkable area.

They could, but I'd imagine that it's a lot less reasonable to ask them to just do that rather than simply providing them a parking space elsewhere. I'm not well-versed in Netherlands politics but I'd imagine that the Green Party wouldn't have won the election on a platform to remove 10,000 surface parking spaces if it didn't have reasonable compromises like giving the car owners another place to park their cars.

You can do those things, although they quickly become much more expensive, and still occupy a lot of space. A double-decker highway 3 lanes wide on either side still carries maybe 18,000 people per hour per direction. Because of parking requirements, apartments and offices in downtowns will often be built on top of several stories of parking, which of course makes the actual usable space more expensive

Yes. And then you can use the freed-up space to go crazy with transit, protected bike lanes, pedestrian-only streets, removing street parking, etc. We're not just building more expensive infrastructure for no reason, we're doing it because we recognize that the opportunity cost of having the infrastructure spread out horizontally is far costlier. I agree that de facto parking minimums are dumb, though, and should be removed while letting the free market sort out the number of parking spaces.

Do you have a preferred source?

You can just look at Google Maps' satellite view and/or street view and count for yourself. If not, then look at PolitiFact, which says it's 13 lanes at its widest not counting frontage roads (which reasonably lines up with the 6 lanes per direction I see on Google Maps). It seems like the "26 lanes" myth is repeated everywhere you look when you do an internet search though, probably just one of those things that spread quickly without anyone fact-checking them.

Ok, but why?

Because the city is simply less dense. And yes, it's possible for the city to be built denser, but density has various advantages and disadvantages, and the residents should have a say in this regard.

I'm not well-versed in Netherlands politics but I'd imagine that the Green Party wouldn't have won the election on a platform to remove 10,000 surface parking spaces if it didn't have reasonable compromises like giving the car owners another place to park their cars.

Based on the NJB video, it does in fact seem like they are just net reducing the number of parking spaces in the city.

f not, then look at PolitiFact, which says it's 13 lanes at its widest not counting frontage roads (which reasonably lines up with the 6 lanes per direction I see on Google Maps

Why not count the frontage roads? I don't know your level of familiarity with them, but almost all of the frontage roads I drove on in Texas were basically highways themselves, with high speed limits and wide lanes. There were lights, but generally very apart, so if the main highway was uncongested you were better off on it, but if it were even mildly congested you could go just as fast on the frontage road. If the claim is "Houston still has congestion despite having X lanes" than the frontage roads should absolutely count towards X.

residents should have a say in this regard.

Sure! Through the free market, which gives all of them a say, rather than top-down planning, which lets a majority control everything.

Cars do take up more space, I'm not sure how this is controversial. A parked car takes up several hundred square feet,

Am I misunderstanding something here but that just seems like a wild overexaggeration? As far as I'm aware the average car does not take up even 100sqft, never mind several hundred. A large parking space is about 160sqft...

A reasonably sized sedan might only be something like 7 x 16 feet, but parking spaces take up more area than that, and the car is using all of that space. Based on my googling, a space in the US can be upwards of 10 x 24 feet = 240 square feet total. It's often less, although 160 is not particularly large.

Under the Intl. Zoning Code (not necessarily widely adopted, but still a reasonable indicator of common US practice), a normal perpendicular space is 9 ft × 20 ft (180 ft²), while a parallel space is 8 ft × 22 ft (176 ft²) and a "compact" perpendicular space is 8 ft × 18 ft (144 ft²).

I'd bet they're counting the parking space and also all the infrastructure required to get to the parking space. I could believe "several hundred" in that context.

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