Definitely has his grip on reality, this one
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Who cars what science says, I love my penis-size-compensating huge truck, so I want more and faster lanes!
Well, mr dumbfuck, why don’t you go to North Korea, they have 5 lane highways and only 3 cars a day driving them. Oh wait, true communists have no traffic jams? What?
It amazes me that this country literally has state borders built around rail systems, a huge dependence on rail for shipping, but decided to just pave over trolley rails, and jack prices of train transit to thousands of dollars for just a few hundred miles. Then the government forces us to pay shittons of money into our vehicles in taxes, insurance, etc without regulating the private companies that we’re forced to pay. Meanwhile other countries have super fast trains to travel, subsidized with tax money, and travel seems to be more efficient.
travel seems to be more efficient.
And they just ignore the negative health outcomes here vs countries where cars are not the norm.
That’s the American system working as designed.
Provide no public benefit for your taxes while forcing the populace to funnel money into predatory private businesses. This ensures the powerful can rob the population with impunity and without pesky competition while making the populace distrustful of public programs that might benefit them and deprive those wealthy, powerful robber-barons of their golden eggs.
communism is when bike lanes.
Bikes are not usually allowed on the highway, yet the highway experiences congestion. How is that?
What… next thing you know you’ll ask people to use reason. /s
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.
Because of the bike lanes in the other streets of course.
“No one in New York drove. There was too much traffic.” -Phillip J. Fry
Has he seen the roads in so called communist nations? Good luck cycling on those.
Honestly, Cuba and North Korea both have pretty decent (urban) roads. Pyongyang even has some bike lanes, bike parking, and bikesharing infrastructure
I guess it helps when only 1 in 1000 people is allowed to have a car.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita
Isaiah is kinda stupid, isn’t he?
Do you know SpongeBob? And the character Patrick Star? Isaiah is the stone Patrick lives under.
Kinda? More like extremely and painfully
Water falling from clouds doesn’t mean it’s raining.
Actually none of those cause congestion, not demolishing 1,000,000 of homes to add 100 lines to my commute route does :3
/s
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.
The problem is that often streets are not congested, and then 50km/h is much more time efficient.
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.
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.
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:
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”.
Also makes me think of Jevons’s paradox (or the rebound effect) but for attention or even more broadly cognition.
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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.
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Why’s it a problem? I crossed them every day, cars usually drive quite slowly around them.
That’s also the fastest speed before sharply increasing the likelihood of fatality in pedestrian collisions
Communism is when you don’t like cars. Apparently.
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This must be a bot.
I wish they’d follow that mental thread backward, and question why they have a kneejerk response to call anything that’s about caring for other people communist, and then why they think that’s a bad thing.
That’s the thing. They don’t really do the whole “thinking” thing. Their argument is based entirely around emotion, parroting words they’ve heard before which correspond with the emotion they are feeling rather than actual meaning. If you tried to engage this person in a meaningful dialogue, they would likely dodge your questions, or start engaging in ad homenim attacks, or start talking in circles.
Ah yes. Words as magic spells to be rearranged into weapons until you’ve won the argument or else exhausted your “opponent,” rather than trying to communicate thought. And only ever used offensively, to manipulate. If you actually think about what the enemy is trying to communicate rather than just skimming for keywords, then you risk having them infect your mind and changing you.
At least that’s how I imagine they would put it.
A MAGA-before-there-was-MAGA family member of mine actually used to say “If we didn’t have these big slow buses on the streets, and commuter trains blocking the rail crossings, we wouldn’t have a traffic problem.”
Cars don’t create congestion just like guns don’t kill people. Well, that line of thinking would probably go over his head too.
running into luminaries like these online feels like stepping into dog poop :/ and the streets are plenty afoul these days.
Carbrain is a disease
