87 comments on Urban Renewal: Getting Cars Out of the City Center
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The disconnect is with people who don't live in the city.
I worked for the NYSDOT in NYC several years ago. Some in the community were calling for expanding "the world's longest parking lot" (AKA the Long Island Expressway). We dutifully drew up rough plans for making the LIE a double-decker highway, thus doubling the capacity, but we all knew it wouldn't happen. Not only would it be insanely expensive, but it wouldn't do any good. It would just encourage people who were carpooling, taking the bus, or taking the LIRR to drive in their own vehicles. Call it a corollary of Parkinson's Law: traffic increases to fill the capacity of any highway you build.
At the same time, a perfectly good ramp was being torn down and replaced upstate, in the Albany area. Why? There was a 10-minute wait during morning rush hour. New Yorkers considered it hilarious that 10 minutes was considered a long wait, and ridiculous that ramp is almost-new condition was being torn down.
If you've ever been to Austin, with a core city of 750K and metro area well over 1 million (plus exurban sprawl, but we won't count that), you'll see one state capital that, mass transit quality or no, is underserved by freeways.
Austin at 5 p.m. Friday is worse than anything we normally have here in Dallas, and approaches the Southland or NYC in congestion levels at times.
The east reliever freeway will help, but it won't be done for several years.
I'm not sure what the answer in the west is. Many of those cities were built for the car.
But in the northeast, the best answer may be to simply do nothing. The cities there were built before WWII, and were designed for limited car use. They may be ideally designed for the post-carbon age. The downtowns will renew themselves as gas prices rise.
Even where there is good rail connections, the service stinks...
I think the key for the Northeast will be revitalizing the old city centers and linking them to each other with good rail. Connecticut is a good example of a state with good serviceable rail system that it can fall back on. New Jersey is quickly catching up with some of their light rail projects. The NYC, Boston and Philly metro areas are very well connected to their suburbs.
Buses can be a short term fix until rail can be restored.
The only thing that gives me pause about trains is that the infrastructure is so vulnerable. As it is, metal theft is an increasing problem. It's often treated as a joke. Three miles of train track dug up and stolen in Germany. Police in Canada ordered to guard recycling bins because so many cans are stolen. Aluminum goal posts stolen and sold for scrap.
The crack epidemic was raging when I worked in NYC. Someone peeled the aluminum trim off a car while I was sleeping in it. He could get $2 a pound for it. People would occasionally fall through the street, because some crackhead had stolen a cast iron manhole cover. Grand Central was shut down one Friday afternoon, leaving 300,000 people stranded, because someone stole 100 feet of copper signalling cable.
Just another reason why I think it's going to be hard to maintain our infrastructure in the post-carbon age.
Rail can be protected by placing fences on both sides of the rail line, but I guess the problem has not risen yet to an extent that it would be worthed the effort.
BTW I know for example that in Bulgaria sabotaging rail lines is a heavy felony. Think that could help a bit if implemented everywhere.
I suspect most people don't even know where the oil and gas pipelines are. (If they ever find out, perhaps oil "bunkering" will catch on here, too...) But everyone knows where the train tracks are.
We had several such cases in Bulgaria even though there in not that much pipeline network. Not to mention about the electricity being stolen by people, mostly from the poor minorities - the amount is in the range of tens of millions kwth yearly. You would think it is dangareous and you would be right, but the thiefs get better and also better-equipped with time.
It is amazing what people do when energy is scarce or they can not afford it.
"
Theft or attempted theft from pipelines has been a
consistent feature of operations, particulary in
Eastern Europe, over a number of years and a major
cause of incidents. A recent case in Italy unfortunately
led to the death of the perpetrator. One
presentation described the measures being taken in
Hungary to address this problem. Between 1992
and 1999, the Hungarian system was attacked more
than 100 times. Although not all of these attempts
were successful, the value of fuel lost was substantial.
Even more expensive was the cost of clearing
up the spilt oil. To counter this threat, a sophisticated
leak detection system has been installed. This
not only detects leaks, but also pin-points the position
of the leak which facilitates rapid intervention.
As a result, the number of attempted thefts has now
decreased dramatically.
"
Day bin robin dat gas wid hot taps down sa Na'orlens town na on 100 yera.
There's too many pipeline qualified welders and too much wild swamps to keep an eye on every foot of pipeline. Those guys get out there and make hot taps (welding on the pipeline while under pressure) to run a 1 inch line over to the house. Fortunately, that's gotten harder to get away with since the advent of leak detection. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
Down in Colombia they just used explosives. If they didn't have that, they would unbolt the flanges. Not very discrete and makes a BIG mess.
You can also run a parallel wire under a Hi V electrical transmission line and induct power off of it without ever touching it, but also illegal.
It's really amazing what you can get away with if you're wearing a coverall or a hardhat. People just ignore you, assuming you're on some kind of official business.
Someone stole the soda vending machine from my office. He just dressed in a coverall and brought a handtruck. Not only did we not stop him. We helped him load it in his truck.
Take out 3 or 4 high power electrical towers and poof most places have to re-route. I have only written in Fiction, I am wondering If I should even try to publish that story. "Sucidial mailman car bombs city" But the Mailman save the day.
Almost all of our inplace day to day living is in a map somewhere and is up for public veiwing.
If they really wanted to hurt us, we could not stop them.
There is a guy who drives a beat up Toyota pick-up and is always here on tuesday and wednesay to pick of anything metal, to sell. Keeps himself in spare parts for his Toyota.
I pull apart old computer parts for the items inside.
But I am like you, once we go to far down a road, we are never going to get back up it. Just hiking a round trip make sure you can travel all the way back the way you came. OOpps Oil is gone joe,, what do we do now??
For all I care, WTSHTF, you can eat me, I just want to make sure the two of you get along. As long as you keep me laughing before that.
The largest place I lived was Long Beach in Califormia. The smallest, The USGS did not include a spot on the map for it, though it had been a house at some time before cars, Ozark mountains. The wild reclaims thing very fast.
As to Crack dealers, or other drugs. They sell it openly on my street. Until mid-May or At the latest late-May I live in Huntsville Alabama, Relocating to Colorado. I doubt they are bold everywhere. But the cop traffic goes down when the complaints reduce or stop.
I learned to drive in a town so small there weren't even any traffic lights.
The cost of road maintenance is soaring
Due to high fuel prices, of course.
Even considering that, Austin saw considerable growth as a tech center in the 90s -- all the high tech areas saw considerable traffic congestion. Or maybe the disastrously designed double-decker part of I-35 turned Austinites off to freeways. :)
I'm a suburban Dallas newspaper editor, and have to go down there at least once a year for state high school sports championships. It takes me as long, literally, to drive the last 30 miles as the first 175, at times.
Of course, the whole way from Dallas to Austin, you have "left-lane lopers," etc. bollixing traffic up in non-urban areas.