Definitely has his grip on reality, this one
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“No one in New York drove. There was too much traffic.” -Phillip J. Fry
communism is when bike lanes.
Gee, I wonder what causes congestion in high speed lanes and roads? Too many fucking cars at the same time? Nah, it must be some communist subversion
It’s wild deer, there might not actually be any but just the idea of them makes people drive in a less efficient manner. It doesn’t help that the deer are communist.
“Ants don’t *create* ant colonies.”
I drive. The biggest causes of congestion I see are…
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Dumb driving because Americans aren’t taught to zipper merge and can be dangerously unpredictable due to do widespread emotional instability.
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Bad car design. The customer isn’t always right, regular folks should not be driving tanks and should not have AI superseded user control. People die here all the time because of these things. Cybertruck is the most obvious example given its lack of bumper zones and tech that’s so cheap it kills it’s own users but the most common example is probably a Ford or GM pickup truck. I think the Japanese may have the best cars as I saw a compact van that seemed far more practical and safe than many American vehicles. China has some good looking ones too. Compact doesn’t look as sexy but is way better for everyone.
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Bad road design. I have no problems with bike lanes or even less lanes if travel time is roughly the same. I love roundabouts and sidewalks full of trees to shade pedestrians and wide enough to protect them from cars. I love when corners give me good visibility going around corners. In the US this is rarely the case. We are plagued by construction contractors milking cities to do projects slowly and create problems the people will want them to fix in the future and lack of regulation to ensure all modes of transport are viable in all but a few cities.
I think it’s established fact that you can’t reduce congestions by adding more lanes and roads. Not because of bad road design but because the amount of cars will fill up those new lanes. So saying ‘cars cause congestions’ is pointing at the fact that regardless of how many roads or lanes we have the will be filled. Hence roads aren’t the problem, but cars are.
I think it’s established fact that you can’t reduce congestions by adding more lanes and roads.
I mean, if it worked we would see the successes in all those giant freeway cities but instead the problem just grows.
If we just turn everything into road then nobody will have anywhere to go. It’s the perfect solution
I think more lanes can be a solution but it has a more particular place than does now and there seems to be diminishing returns after about three lanes.
Another reason it doesn’t reduce congestion is that lane changes are frequently the cause of accidents or hard braking, which creates traffic jams. And Americans’ complete lack of lane discipline just makes it all worse.
Actually, inadequate lanes do contribute to congestion. The traffic will always be pretty much standard… the time of transit however is slowed so it may seem like there are less cars… but no, it is less road. Also, the curvature of the roads – especially on on ramps can affect visibility of oncoming traffic and not providing for a properly lengthed merge lane is also a big problem. Some things that can help slow down (prevent speeding at merging areas/onramps) so it is easier to merge is having islands between the right and left lanes with greenery, more lights/slowdowns and providing a fast lane for carshares and buses. Building in service roads and bypasses also decreases the congestion.
pretty sure that mostly applies to mega cities that shouldn’t have multi-lane roads to begin with
It applies to smaller cities as well as fat as you I’m aware, not just mega cities.
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Actually none of those cause congestion, not demolishing 1,000,000 of homes to add 100 lines to my commute route does :3
/s
Isaiah is not a smart man.
Y’all are both stupid. Society creates congestion in car-transportation and on-foot transportation. Mass transportation is just more efficient in certain societal configurations and needs. There will still be trucks and deliveries of all kinds and workers and shit that need to use cars for their jobs to be efficient.
A lot of people could use mass transportation or try to reduce the distance they need to travel, but all of this petty back and forth is fucking stupid and worthless if it remains petty and shallow, and continues to avoid the real topic, which is not cars, which are just tools that allow an individual a range of autonomy that is faster and further in certain societal configurations.
So, the issue should be societal configurations (and human values), not cars.
Using cars is such an unproductive wedge issue that just irritates everybody who can see the bigger issues. It’s noble, but amounts to basically greenwash trolling to anybody outside of your community (fuckcars). It’s a hyperfixation on a ultra specific, single-solution to an ultra broad collection of societal efficiency and random other related topics that feels like some of you are just misplacing personal childhood trauma, and really need therapy, or you just enjoy being irritating, thus my belief that some of this really is just greentrolling, which, if you really wanted to fix stuff, there are better ways of doing it.
To be absolutely transparent, I don’t entirely dislike y’all’s existence, in fact, I quite appreciate it in many ways. But, everytime I see one of your posts or memes, I just kinda… Tsk. And it irritates me a little bit, I can’t upvote it, and I think I’ve finally been able to put that irritation into words, and feel compelled to voice my opinion.
So, opinion voiced, carry on /rant
“Please bro one more line on the highway bro please just one more lane”
this line makes me think of ai:
bro just a few more power plants, gimme a nuclear one and some coal fired, please bro, it’ll all be worth it with just a few more gigawatts. It’ll make sense then, just a few more plants broooo
See not congested at all.
There’s quite some room in between the lanes. If they all move in a bit, I bet there’s plenty of room for an extra bike lane on either side.
Fix and expand the US public transportation system. Building infrastructure for automobiles is fucking backwards.
Fun fact: The faster a car travels, the bigger the spacing between the cars gets. That’s necessary to leave enough distance for emergency stops.
While the speed increases linearly, the spacing increases with the square, meaning at double the speed, the spacing quadruples, which in turn means that throughput (number of cars per hour) halves.
This is the reason why many regions use electronic speed signs to drop the speedlimit lower when there’s congestion. Because it increases throughput and thus reduces travel times.
The optimum speed for high throughput is 30km/h.
Counterintuitive as it might be, drivers should be all for 30km/h speed limit in cities, because it would make them get to work faster.
Another related fun fact: Larger vehicles are harder to see around, so people have to leave even more distance which reduces throughput.
You can cite an infinite amount of proven facts and studies, car brains will never accept your „communist propaganda“. This whole discussion is too emotionally loaded to be based on facts.
That’s also the fastest speed before sharply increasing the likelihood of fatality in pedestrian collisions
The problem is that often streets are not congested, and then 50km/h is much more time efficient.
And there’s where we invent roundabouts. Even when the streets are not congested the time to cross any urban area is dominated by the stops. It much more beneficial to eliminate stop signs and red lights, to keep you moving consistently than to let you speed a little more to your next stopping point
Yeah, big thumbs up for roundabouts.
Yep, and at that speed, 50km/h on an “empty” street INSIDE a city, that’s also the most “efficient” speed to avoid those pesky children bits getting stuck on your windchill were you to tackle one while checking your phone.
Apologies for the sarcasm but most drivers I encounter on a daily basis absolutely do not have the sustained concentration behind wheels to safely drive a 50km/h within actual cities.
I have seen old people driving around with oxygen tubes in their noses more times than I feel is safe.
If children are a factor (residential street, school zone, playground, etc) there’s all the reason to limit to 30, or even 20 (like the street I live where kids are playing around). Optionally time restricted.
Main avenues with clear sidewalks separated by a green strip can have 50 or even 60 km/h limits.
As an adult, relatively big (1m85) who doesn’t randomly run across a street but rather use solely clearly marked zebras I sadly have to report that I had numerous encounter with cars at a very uncomfortable distance to my body, some even touching me (not an accident proper though). I did have of course the occasional wave saying “Oops, sorry I didn’t see you or care for slowing down, moving on!”. When I say occasional it’s probably once a month or more.
To clarify this happened next to a park with very VERY good visibility, a straight line without trees, where it’s slightly higher speed than around. Namely small streets around the park are 20km/h, that avenue is 50km/h. It is actually such a problem a red light has been installed 200m further. I assume that enough cars refused to yield so that this change was made.
This makes me believe that unfortunately, even though MOST drivers are indeed able to safely drive in “Main avenues with clear sidewalks” there is still a non negligible amount from my experience as a pedestrian who absolutely can not and are a danger for everyone, kids and adults alike.
That being said, you have the right to believe that few accidents are acceptable if it allows most people to keep such a certain speed.
To clarify this happened next to a park with very VERY good visibility, a straight line without trees, where it’s slightly higher speed than around.
That’s not surprising to me (as an engineer); the dangerous encounters probably happened because the street was straight and had a generous clear zone.
Strong Towns “30 days of confessions” series has a couple of good (short! – under 2 minutes each) videos explaining it:
Also makes me think of Jevons’s paradox (or the rebound effect) but for attention or even more broadly cognition.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing!
Of course it makes sense. In fact I believe I have a similar problem while cycling on a one way street for cars while cycling on the (non protected) bike lane of the opposite direction. I hate that street because very often cars do not move away… because they don’t look up. They are busy doing I don’t know what in their cars… probably because, if I understood the idea properly, they think it’s all fine, nobody “should” come from anywhere but behind them, so the “can” be “distracted”.
I’m an adult just slightly bigger and have never had an encounter like you describe, and I lived in a big city decades, using public transport and walking exclusively. If drivers in your environment are that bad, stricter limits are reasonable.
Yet I also see them and a lot more frequently since pandemic. I still claim everyone forgot how to drive safely.
For me the big problem is that it’s legal to “turn right on red”. However people for get that you’re supposed to come to a full stop and to yield to any road user. So many times I’m in the crosswalk with the walk signal lighted yet someone zooms through to take a right on red barely slowing and without concern for pedestrians
We also seem to have gotten a lot worse with “stretching a yellow”. Why is it that I can wait for a light to turn red, then wait a couple more seconds for the walk signal to come on, yet still be endangered by someone blasting through the intersection claiming “my light was yellow, bro”.
Or maybe it’s just the self-centeredness. People have so much trouble being aware that someone is travelling differently than they are. Pedestrians are invisible because “everyone drives”, cars zoom right up to and through crosswalks at a red light because “no one will be in the crosswalk”.
It’s become a running joke with my kids that you always have to look the wrong way before crossing the street. We regularly cross a one way street where we have twice had close calls with someone going the wrong way. Knowing the layout, I’m pretty sure it’s intentional. It would be difficult to do on accident and I can see the “short cut” being much more convenient
My guess North American (because of the turn right on red) and European car cultures are different. European cities are much more walkable and drivers are used to pedestrians. I rarely have a car not stop if I come up to a cross walk, and basically 100% if I’m with my kids.
Bikes are not usually allowed on the highway, yet the highway experiences congestion. How is that?
Because of the bike lanes in the other streets of course.
I once had the pleasure of cycling the Shimanami Kaido in Japan, a bike route that connects the islands of Honshu and Shikoku, hopping between all these minor islands on the way over suspension bridges carrying the main highway.
The bike lane is protected the whole time. In one case, the bike route is actually below the deck of the bridge, and you’re on a fenced-in catwalk hundreds of feet over the channel between the islands. Views for miles over Osaka bay.
Honestly, when I look back at my life, it’s probably my favorite thing I’ve ever done. If only the U.S. invested in bike infrastructure like that.
Current plan for the new cape cod bridges include a protected bike lane with a great view over the canal!
Too many people complain we could fit an extra lane in that space without thinking. Sure there are huge backups, but those are addressed with the new design not making cars slow down and not having entrance and exit ramps right there. Most importantly, you’re crossing to a two lane highway so there is no benefit to more than two lanes. Allowing continuous flow to the amount that the other side can handle reduces congestion. Anyone you can get on a bike is the one that will reduce congestion. And for all that is holy, let’s run the Cape Flyer often enough to be useful
That’s great to hear! I was actually living in Somerville when I did that Japan trip. The extension of the bike path and really that whole rails-to-trails project were wonderful for the community. We need more projects like that - glad to hear the cape is getting some.
What… next thing you know you’ll ask people to use reason. /s
I’d say he’s right. In a way. Cars don’t create congestion, they are congestion.
Fine. And with this realisation let’s end the phrase “I’m stuck in traffic”. Cars aren’t stuck in traffic, they are traffic.
Every bike on the road is one less car.
Other than that this guy seriously needs to get out into the fresh air and spend sometime around people (if it is a guy, it’s overwhelmingly most likely a bot and so a genuinely harmful thing to engage with, get angry about, republish here, or do anything with other than ignore).
Social media is just getting worse, and although there is much to like about defederation, a lot of the content here is not healthy.
let’s end the phrase “I’m stuck in traffic”.
I’m contributing to traffic? I’m doing my part joining the traffic?
So many tempting options highlighting our individual responsibility to the collective problem… yet none of them actually used. Ever. I wonder why. Surely it’s because of “others”!
I like “I’m traffic.” Succinct, to the point.
Shit, look at LA.
