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Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes? Or is it going to be a regressive transfer? What about Big Walking Shoe, are they going to pay for these si

Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes? Or is it going to be a regressive transfer? What about Big Walking Shoe, are they going to pay for these sidewalks or are we going to continue to subsidize their profits?

gatlin 3y ago
[flagged]
- marcellus23 3y ago
  I don't necessarily agree with it, but it's not inane. It was the government that paid for roads and highways, after all, not Ford or GM.
  - treis 3y ago
    I feel like I've stumbled into bizarro world. Self driving cars would be a massive boon to quality of life in every American city with perhaps a few exceptions. I couldn't care less if my city spent a billion dollars a year making them work. Way better than that billion going to the current public transit system that sucks out loud.
    - marcellus23 3y ago
      Many people think that money could be better spent on improving transit so that it no longer sucks.
      - treis 3y ago
        We tried that about 7 years ago. Zero projects from that tax increase have been delivered and the one actually under construction is mostly pointless.
        gatlin 3y ago
        I am sympathetic that pressing issues need solutions sooner rather than later, and that a lot of public good will was indeed spent on projects that have vanished into thin air with zero accountability. Is it not worth perhaps investing time and energy into fixing the stagnant, shitty processes that have lead to what I will agree (for the sake of good faith argument) are ineffective-at-best shitty decisions and policies? My $0.02: looking to simply abandon civic involvement and completely privatize the solutions?
killjoywashere 3y ago
Pedestrians (aka everyone) pushed for sidewalks, long before cars. Cyclists (a much smaller voting block), pushed for bike lanes, and it took them much longer. What voting block is going to push for infrastructure improvements needed by self-driving cars?
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  >>Pedestrians (aka everyone) False, everyone is not a Pedestrian, I moved into my current home specifically because there are no sidewalks (and no HOA), and I resist any movement to add them to my street. >>What voting block is going to push for infrastructure improvements needed by self-driving cars? People that want to use and benefit from Self Driving cars, just like people that vote for sidewalks. I have a feeling the number of people that want the dream of being able to have a car that just drives itself is FAR FAR FAR FAR higher than the number of people that utilize sidewalks. At least for my Geographic region...
  - low_key 3y ago
    The dream of a "car that just drives itself" works for everyone. It serves both goals of letting people such as yourself take your car (optionally paying attention), while also making sure that car doesn't run over pedestrians, cyclists, and the like. Your geographic region doesn't really matter.
    - cozzyd 3y ago
      You're talking to someone who thinks PHP is the best.
  - _dain_ 3y ago
    >False, everyone is not a Pedestrian, I moved into my current home specifically because there are no sidewalks (and no HOA), and I resist any movement to add them to my street. What the fuck!? Why don't you want a sidewalk? Why would any street even be built without a sidewalk, like how is that even an option. How is anyone meant to walk safely? >I have a feeling the number of people that want the dream of being able to have a car that just drives itself is FAR FAR FAR FAR higher than the number of people that utilize sidewalks. At least for my Geographic region... Where are you from, Mars? Cause you may as well be speaking Martian, I can't comprehend your mindset at all. How does anyone go for a morning run? Walk their dog? How do kids get to their friends' houses? Even in a low density suburb people do these things. "The number of people who use sidewalks" is like ... 99%. Everyone uses them at least a little, unless you're literally bedridden or something. Or out in the middle of nowhere.
hermannj314 3y ago
I'm pretty sure the garbage truck in a single weekly trip does more damage on my street than all the bikes and cars combined for that same period of time. Time and weight consume road and sidewalk infrastructure.
- Akronymus 3y ago
  The huge amount of cars makes it seem attractive to widen roads and such. Which, more road surface leads to more maintenance. Along with that, widening also induces more demand and such.
  - hermannj314 3y ago
    There is a great YouTuber [1] that talks about city planning. They have a lot of content, but a theme is tax revenue per square foot, and the mathematical reality of a sustainable city being unattainable because collective expectations regarding road infrastructure are so expensive. [1] - Not Just Bikes
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      If that's what you've taken away from it, you need to rewatch it; the financial theme is not "sustainable cities are impossible" the theme is "American sprawling car dependent suburbia is insolvent because it doesn't generate enough tax revenue to pay for the sprawling roads/water/sewage/garbage disposal/other services that it uses", and it's like a Ponzi scheme where the construction and sale of a new chunk of suburbs pays for the maintenance work on the previous one. Denser inner-city areas generate much more tax revenue with less cost of services because they have to cover a smaller area, and this can be solvent and subsidises the suburbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI "Suburbs are subsidized: Here's the Math" NB. the last time I linked this on HN someone dismissed it as "Strong towns propaganda" claiming that if suburbs didn't exist, everyone would starve. They completely failed to respond to followup questions about cities which are not sprawling suburbs and are not starving. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238666
Akronymus 3y ago
> Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes? Or is it going to be a regressive transfer? The fact that there are less cars on the road already is a HUGE benefit to them. Less cars => less parking lots and less noise pollution => less maintenance costs => savings for tax payers.
- ghaff 3y ago
  What on earth makes you think that autonomous driving that alleviates a driver from having to drive (and park) in some of the least pleasant to drive in conditions will result in fewer cars? Having to drive into the city that's about an hour away is a major consideration for me not doing it more frequently.
  - Akronymus 3y ago
    I was writing about why bike paths are a net positive for everyone, rather than a regressive transfer. Even if just by reducing the amount of cars.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Except that bike lanes often cut into lanes for auto/truck/bus traffic. Traffic has gotten worse over the past few years since a lot of bike lanes were put in. Maybe that's a reasonable tradeoff (probably), but bike lanes almost certainly didn't make things better for drivers. (ADDED: Around where I live I suspect bike lanes serve more as an alternative to walking and public transit than they do cars. Again, they're probably for the best but they don't really help drivers.)
      - xracy 3y ago
        Citation needed for "Traffic has gotten worse over the past few years since a lot of bike lanes were put in." For one thing, it's not even a causal statement, but you're implying it is. For another bikes take up ~half the space of a car going in the same direction. So the inclusion of bike lanes and their usage would only improve traffic because it removes the actual cause of traffic (cars) from the road.
xracy 3y ago
I don't know if you've ever been to a walkable city, but they pay for themselves. Because people don't spend all of their time driving to and from the place they want to be, they get to spend extra time shopping and growing local businesses that pay taxes for infrastructure to stick around. Car lanes are paying money for people to skip those places and only go to one place at a time without drawing them to other places in the same area. If I'm driving to the store, I'm driving... To the store. I'm not going to walk around outside of the store after I'm done. This has no benefits for adjacent businesses.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  Source? I can easily make the other argument. Car lanes bring more customers from far away locations etc. etc.
  - xracy 3y ago
    I believe this is the video I was going off of to extract the info from. You can make the other argument... but can you bring the other data for it? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI&ab_channel=NotJustBikes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI&ab_channel=NotJu...
    - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
      Can you? You just linked a StrongTowns video. (I was 100% expecting that lol). Let me spell it out. I was looking for peer-reviewed publications. I am not going through an ad-infested StrongTowns video to hunt for references. He has links to his Patreon, paid-subs on Nebula, and donations but zero links to any peer-reviewed articles. That says a lot.
      - xracy 3y ago
        Oh, cool, still more evidence than you've provided. And honestly, you can Google for peer-reviewed publications just as well as I can if you're just going to complain about my sources. Where are your "peer-reviewed publications" that prove I'm wrong. How about let's see that first, since you've provided nothing (not even an argument) for why I'm wrong. You just stated you could make the argument, and you yada yada yada'd your way through the rest of the point: > Car lanes bring more customers from far away locations etc. etc. How about you fill out the etc's with some peer-reviewed publications?
UncleEntity 3y ago
> Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes? Are bike manufacturers operating the bicycles for profit? > What about Big Walking Shoe… Are they operating the shoes for profit? Or is it the citizens, taxpayers if you will, operating the shoes and bikes as part of their “social contract” with the city? Now, are the citizens of SF owning and operating robocars as part of this social bargain or is it for-profit entities 100% doing it to extract income from the citizens? Not that I’m saying profit as an incentive is wrong but you do see the difference in these two things, right?

gatlin 3y ago

[flagged]

marcellus23 3y ago
I don't necessarily agree with it, but it's not inane. It was the government that paid for roads and highways, after all, not Ford or GM.
- treis 3y ago
  I feel like I've stumbled into bizarro world. Self driving cars would be a massive boon to quality of life in every American city with perhaps a few exceptions. I couldn't care less if my city spent a billion dollars a year making them work. Way better than that billion going to the current public transit system that sucks out loud.
  - marcellus23 3y ago
    Many people think that money could be better spent on improving transit so that it no longer sucks.
    - treis 3y ago
      We tried that about 7 years ago. Zero projects from that tax increase have been delivered and the one actually under construction is mostly pointless.
      - gatlin 3y ago
        I am sympathetic that pressing issues need solutions sooner rather than later, and that a lot of public good will was indeed spent on projects that have vanished into thin air with zero accountability. Is it not worth perhaps investing time and energy into fixing the stagnant, shitty processes that have lead to what I will agree (for the sake of good faith argument) are ineffective-at-best shitty decisions and policies? My $0.02: looking to simply abandon civic involvement and completely privatize the solutions?

killjoywashere 3y ago

Pedestrians (aka everyone) pushed for sidewalks, long before cars. Cyclists (a much smaller voting block), pushed for bike lanes, and it took them much longer. What voting block is going to push for infrastructure improvements needed by self-driving cars?

phpisthebest 3y ago
>>Pedestrians (aka everyone) False, everyone is not a Pedestrian, I moved into my current home specifically because there are no sidewalks (and no HOA), and I resist any movement to add them to my street. >>What voting block is going to push for infrastructure improvements needed by self-driving cars? People that want to use and benefit from Self Driving cars, just like people that vote for sidewalks. I have a feeling the number of people that want the dream of being able to have a car that just drives itself is FAR FAR FAR FAR higher than the number of people that utilize sidewalks. At least for my Geographic region...
- low_key 3y ago
  The dream of a "car that just drives itself" works for everyone. It serves both goals of letting people such as yourself take your car (optionally paying attention), while also making sure that car doesn't run over pedestrians, cyclists, and the like. Your geographic region doesn't really matter.
  - cozzyd 3y ago
    You're talking to someone who thinks PHP is the best.
- _dain_ 3y ago
  >False, everyone is not a Pedestrian, I moved into my current home specifically because there are no sidewalks (and no HOA), and I resist any movement to add them to my street. What the fuck!? Why don't you want a sidewalk? Why would any street even be built without a sidewalk, like how is that even an option. How is anyone meant to walk safely? >I have a feeling the number of people that want the dream of being able to have a car that just drives itself is FAR FAR FAR FAR higher than the number of people that utilize sidewalks. At least for my Geographic region... Where are you from, Mars? Cause you may as well be speaking Martian, I can't comprehend your mindset at all. How does anyone go for a morning run? Walk their dog? How do kids get to their friends' houses? Even in a low density suburb people do these things. "The number of people who use sidewalks" is like ... 99%. Everyone uses them at least a little, unless you're literally bedridden or something. Or out in the middle of nowhere.

hermannj314 3y ago

I'm pretty sure the garbage truck in a single weekly trip does more damage on my street than all the bikes and cars combined for that same period of time. Time and weight consume road and sidewalk infrastructure.

Akronymus 3y ago
The huge amount of cars makes it seem attractive to widen roads and such. Which, more road surface leads to more maintenance. Along with that, widening also induces more demand and such.
- hermannj314 3y ago
  There is a great YouTuber [1] that talks about city planning. They have a lot of content, but a theme is tax revenue per square foot, and the mathematical reality of a sustainable city being unattainable because collective expectations regarding road infrastructure are so expensive. [1] - Not Just Bikes
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    If that's what you've taken away from it, you need to rewatch it; the financial theme is not "sustainable cities are impossible" the theme is "American sprawling car dependent suburbia is insolvent because it doesn't generate enough tax revenue to pay for the sprawling roads/water/sewage/garbage disposal/other services that it uses", and it's like a Ponzi scheme where the construction and sale of a new chunk of suburbs pays for the maintenance work on the previous one. Denser inner-city areas generate much more tax revenue with less cost of services because they have to cover a smaller area, and this can be solvent and subsidises the suburbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI "Suburbs are subsidized: Here's the Math" NB. the last time I linked this on HN someone dismissed it as "Strong towns propaganda" claiming that if suburbs didn't exist, everyone would starve. They completely failed to respond to followup questions about cities which are not sprawling suburbs and are not starving. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238666

Akronymus 3y ago

> Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes? Or is it going to be a regressive transfer? The fact that there are less cars on the road already is a HUGE benefit to them. Less cars => less parking lots and less noise pollution => less maintenance costs => savings for tax payers.

ghaff 3y ago
What on earth makes you think that autonomous driving that alleviates a driver from having to drive (and park) in some of the least pleasant to drive in conditions will result in fewer cars? Having to drive into the city that's about an hour away is a major consideration for me not doing it more frequently.
- Akronymus 3y ago
  I was writing about why bike paths are a net positive for everyone, rather than a regressive transfer. Even if just by reducing the amount of cars.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Except that bike lanes often cut into lanes for auto/truck/bus traffic. Traffic has gotten worse over the past few years since a lot of bike lanes were put in. Maybe that's a reasonable tradeoff (probably), but bike lanes almost certainly didn't make things better for drivers. (ADDED: Around where I live I suspect bike lanes serve more as an alternative to walking and public transit than they do cars. Again, they're probably for the best but they don't really help drivers.)
    - xracy 3y ago
      Citation needed for "Traffic has gotten worse over the past few years since a lot of bike lanes were put in." For one thing, it's not even a causal statement, but you're implying it is. For another bikes take up ~half the space of a car going in the same direction. So the inclusion of bike lanes and their usage would only improve traffic because it removes the actual cause of traffic (cars) from the road.

xracy 3y ago

I don't know if you've ever been to a walkable city, but they pay for themselves. Because people don't spend all of their time driving to and from the place they want to be, they get to spend extra time shopping and growing local businesses that pay taxes for infrastructure to stick around. Car lanes are paying money for people to skip those places and only go to one place at a time without drawing them to other places in the same area. If I'm driving to the store, I'm driving... To the store. I'm not going to walk around outside of the store after I'm done. This has no benefits for adjacent businesses.

cscurmudgeon 3y ago
Source? I can easily make the other argument. Car lanes bring more customers from far away locations etc. etc.
- xracy 3y ago
  I believe this is the video I was going off of to extract the info from. You can make the other argument... but can you bring the other data for it? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI&ab_channel=NotJustBikes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI&ab_channel=NotJu...
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    Can you? You just linked a StrongTowns video. (I was 100% expecting that lol). Let me spell it out. I was looking for peer-reviewed publications. I am not going through an ad-infested StrongTowns video to hunt for references. He has links to his Patreon, paid-subs on Nebula, and donations but zero links to any peer-reviewed articles. That says a lot.
    - xracy 3y ago
      Oh, cool, still more evidence than you've provided. And honestly, you can Google for peer-reviewed publications just as well as I can if you're just going to complain about my sources. Where are your "peer-reviewed publications" that prove I'm wrong. How about let's see that first, since you've provided nothing (not even an argument) for why I'm wrong. You just stated you could make the argument, and you yada yada yada'd your way through the rest of the point: > Car lanes bring more customers from far away locations etc. etc. How about you fill out the etc's with some peer-reviewed publications?

UncleEntity 3y ago

> Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes? Are bike manufacturers operating the bicycles for profit? > What about Big Walking Shoe… Are they operating the shoes for profit? Or is it the citizens, taxpayers if you will, operating the shoes and bikes as part of their “social contract” with the city? Now, are the citizens of SF owning and operating robocars as part of this social bargain or is it for-profit entities 100% doing it to extract income from the citizens? Not that I’m saying profit as an incentive is wrong but you do see the difference in these two things, right?