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A 175m road scaled in reference to the 35m wide lane:
Yeah i was thinking that too, no way 175m is that narrow.
Quality contribution. I completely overlooked the relative sizes.
i mean yeah but how much of that energy can you get out of that uranium, and at what speed?
With about 200kg of the right kind, pretty much all of it quite quickly.
Isn’t fission actually remarkably inefficient? It’s just that extracting even a single percent of the energy in matter is enough to make it the most ludicrously powerful thing we can do
Can’t be less efficient than boiling water.
Okay, but if you look carefully at the top of the inverted pyramid, you’ll notice that there are no homeless people allowed to participate.
Also, the bottom has no less than six trees which is Woke.
The whole thing stinks of socialism.
Like we should, idk, pool our resources to “improve” our lives or something…
Nah, I’d rather burn prehistoric forests in my trukk because I’m so free.
America, fuck yeah
“Now I’m gonna go roll coal just to own the libz”
How about for bicycles?
Just 1 tandem bike with 50,000 seats
So instead of a quint bike you get a quindecuple bike?
that’s gonna suck for the last guy on the route
It’s fine, it’s only 49,999 farts at most
And, once again, we re-invent the bus.
1 meter wide road with one ebike attached to 10 trailer behind.
Forget the electric part, you could develop some killer quads hauling all that.
That’s several bikes per second. One hour has 3600 seconds.
I guess for bicycles, you’d get that down to about 7 meters. Estimated from heavily used bike lanes in Copenhagen where at rush hour two bikes per second pass (7200 persons per hour). Edit: Here is a video of bike rush hour in Amsterdam - try to count the number of persons passing per second.
Fun fact: The distance at which bikes with good paths are faster than metros / rapid transit / commuter rail, or light rail is surprisingly large. I commute to the center of Munich, 14 kilometers one way. It is about 50 minutes on the bike and 60-75 by light rail. And I go at leisurly speed. Plus the bike is much more reliable (outside of icy winter weather, where bike paths are not cleared).
Edit: I’d like to add that for bikes, you don’t need necessarily need a single 7 meter wide connection. Four connections, each 2 meters wide, will do fine, too!
Or just work remotely from home.
the problem with bicycles is they are not weather proof. if it’s cold or hot or stormy or hails, bicycles suck. then on top you’re excluding people who are not physically fit enough to use a bicycle for more than 5 minutes. and that includes people with disabilities of all kind.
so you still need public transport options anyway. on days with bad weather, you can expect that at least 90% of people are gonna prefer public transport, so you have to size your buses and trams large enough to carry the full population anyways.
so now you already have full public transport. at this point, why bother with bicycles, apart from the fun and physical exercise people get?
that’s why i conclude that bicycles are only for recreation/sports, not actually for mass transport.
the problem with bicycles is they are not weather proof. if it’s cold or hot or stormy or hails, bicycles suck.
You can certainly use bicycles in many kinds of weather. Because this is a world-wide forum, we need to be a bit more specific about the weather conditions:
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You can ride bikes when it is raining, even heavily so. (Here in Germany, this happens less frequently than 20 years ago). Good rain clothes help with that.
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You can also ride a bike during stormy weather, though one needs to be a bit more careful. Said that, I have lived in Scotland and Northern Germany (which often has stormy weather in winter), and have been blown off my bike only a single time in, wait, over 40 years. And no, I am using bikes all the time - I never had a car.
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You can also ride bikes in quite cold weather - they are popular in Finland even in deep winter. What you do need to do then is to protect your extremities, especially hand and feet and also the face, against the cold. I use bar mittens (like these) for long rides in temperatures below - 10° C, and I find them super comfortable. If the road is a bit icy, studded tyres are great! In Germany, not much people use bikes in icy weather but this is mostly due to bike paths not cleaned from ice by the municipal road service, snow is melting and freezing again for days so that they can not be used in a safe way. In Finland, things are different, and bikes are used even in deep winter, as a preferred mode of transport.
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The limit is probably for extremely hot and humid temperatures, like are frequent in India, East-Asia, and some parts of Brazil. Here in Southern Germany, we rarely have above 33°C and perhaps 60% humidity, and being on the bike is still more comfortable than using a bus with poor ventilation, and much more comfortable than using a car without AC. Actually, I have now read several times of incidents in summer where AC was broken in very full trains, but never of any health damage a person took because of commuting by bike in hot weather. That’s because the movement provides ventilation by the headwind, and ventilation cools (at that European level of humidity). (One more funny thing is that in Germany, AC in cars became only popular in the last 15 years or so. Now, some people are saying that on a bike, you “get too sweaty” for working in an office in Summer. That’s funny, because entering a car without AC on a warm day was always like entering an oven, but nobody ever suggested to use the bike instead because it was less hot. All in all, that is just one of the many ways how people use made-up arguments to rationalize decisions that maximize their comfort, but are bad for their health).
then on top you’re excluding people who are not physically fit enough to use a bicycle for more than 5 minutes. and that includes people with disabilities of all kind.
I think you are making a mistake here, and this seems to affect the central point of your argumentation: You are assuming that somebody is demanding that a whole city uses either bikes or public transport, in an exclusive way. In reality, bikes and public transport are superb complements. Reasons for that include speed, economical factors, travel time, last-mile connections, urban life and more. Last not least because public transport in metros is two orders of magnitude more expensive than bikes, and therefore always limited in capacity. You can see this is way: Each time you are using a crowded metro, bus or street car, when you could as well go by bike, you are taking away a place from an perhaps elderly or ill person which really needs it.
In contrary, cars are not helpful for disabled and elderly people: Not only they can often not drive them, but they take away walking space and make their transport less safe.
so you still need public transport options anyway.
Of course, nobody was saying that one should exclusively use bikes! This is a strawman argument.
on days with bad weather, you can expect that at least 90% of people are gonna prefer public transport, so you have to size your buses and trams large enough to carry the full population anyways.
That depends a lot on culture and also on whether you have safe bike paths. Generally, normally rain, warm or cold weather does not impede cycling. What is making the difference is safe infrastructure and ways. One can see that clearly from the enormous rise of popularity of using bikes in Paris, once the necessary safe infrastructure was there.
so now you already have full public transport. at this point, why bother with bicycles, apart from the fun and physical exercise people get?
Again, bike and public transport are great complements - public transport will always be needed for elderly / disabled / ill people, and commuting or travelling large distances, and bikes are more economical, faster, and more convenient for shorter distances.
that’s why i conclude that bicycles are only for recreation/sports, not actually for mass transport.
Looks like you never have lived in a city or culture where the bike is a normal mode of transport. I guess you are American?
(And yes, I am aware that a community like this one which discusses alternatives to fossil-free transportation, might be frequented by poorly-informed people and also be targeted by astroturfing and 10-cent armies directed by the fossil fuel industry… one sees this in every discussion on climate protection.)
(And yes, I am aware that a community like this one which discusses alternatives to fossil-free transportation, might be frequented by poorly-informed people and also be targeted by astroturfing and 10-cent armies directed by the fossil fuel industry… one sees this in every discussion on climate protection.)
downvote for insinuating that i’m a paid bot of the fossil fuels industry for disagreeing with you.
You were insinuating that cycling in the rain like here does not exist or is not possible.
That’s bullshit.
Which leads to the question why are you telling such things?
And why I immediately think in astroturfing when I read such statements - I have seen them many times always when the discussion was how to reduce car dependency. And what raises my suspicion is that they come as (incorrect) fact statements, while at the same time they mostly emotionally appeal to discomfort - especially to people which do not know the situation by own experience. The thing is that when moving on a bike, factors like rain, cold or warm weather are actually much less uncomfortable than when you are standing outside, waiting for a bus, or sitting in a car. Because the movement warms your body in the cold (you need far less clothing than when hiking), and in warm weather the movement through the air boosts evaporative cooling.
So, the whole statements looks to me as if geared toward dissuading people which lack own experience.
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somehow the dutch seem to get by just fine cycling in the rain, despite also having good public transport…
You’re not made of sugar, and there’s no bad weather only bad clothing.
Helsinki just had 0 traffic deaths this past year because they focused all their funding on improving public transportation and bike lanes, disincentivizing car use, and punishing motorists who use their phone or speed by setting up cameras.
I sure wish somebody would look at that incredible success story and try to emulate it here. Unfortunately, public transit seems to be getting less reliable over time instead, which just encourages more car use.
Whenever someone brings up a European city like this, they seem to ignore the fact that the entire country of Finland is roughly the size of the state of Montana. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.
The greater Helsinki area has literally more than 20% of the entire Finnish population, and way more people than the largest city in Montana (Billings)
So, how exactly is what you said even remotely relevant to anything?
Public transit makes a lot more sense with so many people in one area, that’s how.
On the other hand, the population of Montana is a lot more spread out, so having effective public transit is more difficult for various reasons.
Okay? We can still compare Helsinki to a similar sized American city. I don’t see how that’s unfair.
Metros are good for extremely heavy lines and lrt/tram/whatever other similar form of transit is good for convenience and accessibility(that even well built cities often ignore…) but the king is still bikes in my opinion. I live in a city of 150k so its quite a bit smaller than most places where youd have more mass oriented transit but its still interesting to see that the fastest path to city center is with bike. Not bus, not train(except if you live right next to it) and not car.
The main problem i have with any personal vehicle is that you have to bring it with you, which IMO is a pretty severe limitation in many cases.
Bike/scootershare systems are great for this reason, they let you combine the convenience of micromobility with the flexibility of not having a personal vehicle. For example if you live on a big hill you could take the bikeshare downhill, then going home when you’re all tired you can just hop on public transport home. Best of both worlds!Yeah i agree. Funny thing is, judging from your name youre swedish, and i actually live in sweden and where i live actually happens to be on a hill. Because there is no bikeshare service here a lot of people use electric bikes but i like to suffer so i just have to get back up somehow.
Now do it with lifted pickup trucks assuming 1.25 seating capacity use
Some say that cars represent freedom and the ability to go where you want when you want.
But tech oligarchs want to destroy that, too. Basically by having their cars require a connection and monitor your every movement within the car and where you are going and when. They also are obsessed with self-driving cars because they then would have more control over your movements.
In short there will BE no plus side to having a car in the very near future. They are enshittifying everything.
If it wasn’t so dystopian, I’d be for it. Self driving cars that you can book as needed would require less space be devoted to parking and one vehicle could serve as transportation for more people. Combined with easy and accessible public transit and thoughtful pedestrian and cyclist-friendly city design, being less reliant on vehicles sounds like a dream. If you could book the equivalent of an Uber and have it be available within 5 minutes for a reasonable price, why wouldn’t you? In such a scenario, cars would only be for hobbyists. Those who aren’t able to drive (elderly, people with disabilities) would have more equitable access to, well, anything that requires you to physically be somewhere.
Truthfully though, I don’t see a place where capatilism would allow this to happen. Selling everyone their own vehicle, with their own maintenance fees (and now subscription fees), accessories, fuel, etc… is way too lucrative.
i maintain that in a sane world any even vaguely urban area would have transitioned to rideshares as the standard way of using a car 10 years ago.
It’s just objectively better in so many ways, even if you want to drive to work every day you can just get a smaller car for that and rent a larger one whenever you need it.
A very large blender and a single water truck.
or blended and sent down a tube! then you get reconstituted into a person at the other end of the pipe.
who needs the train.
*reconstitution methods tbd
Isn’t this pretty much how the teleportation tech in Star Trek works?
their version is a bit less moist
Very much not proportional this representation.
What is this nonsense? We’re better than that
What nonsense?
50k PPHPD is near the top of what can be easily achieved in a metro with one track per direction, but certainly achievable. 2x4m wide tracks and some space for ancillary equipment and fencing is reasonable.
You get maybe one passenger per two seconds in a car lane, or about 1800 per lane per hour. That implies 28 lanes each way, 55 total, or about 165m assuming 3m lanes (pretty narrow). Seems fair to me.
No comment on buses, cyclists, or pedestrians.
Roads with 56 lanes are not a thing and I don’t see the need for implying they were. In reality you would probably get way less route capacity as transport just doesn’t scale linearly like that. There is a perfectly fine graphic on Wikipedia that gets the same message across without implying anything absurd.
Isn’t them not being a thing kinda part of the point. You see how stupid the building must get to reach the same throughput
Are you the kind of person who thinks “Where’s the any key?” when the computer says “press any key to continue”? Like, overly literal, inability to parse intent and deep meaning?
Nope I just think this image is stupid
One train track moves people faster than this entire highway.
roads with 56 lanes are not a thing.
Maybe not yet. Keep following the “just one more lane, bro” planning strategy and we will have them by 2050.
Infographic not to scale (for some reason)
One should include bikes and also costs per person per journey. Will probably need logarithmic scale.
My limited experience with public transit in Texas is that it costs way more for me because I still have to drive 25 miles to the train station, pay 10 bucks to park, pay another 10 for the train that only comes like 5 times a day, walk the last mile in 110 degree heat, and come back earlier than I’d like to catch that final train trip and then pay for a new window for my car because someone broke into it.
Seriously - we suck at transit here.
id wager that in toronto, you could build all the subways and LRT and trains, and the road traffic would stay the same. people don’t look at cars just for convince, its a cultural thing in north America, that your life is sorted out, like having a house, a good job, savings/retirement fund. people look and treat you weird if you don’t have a car or can’t drive (ask me how i know that)
People ARE assholes like that, but they will take nice public transit if it’s convenient. Especially if you want to have a drink or two going out or to a friend’s house.
Sometimes if it’s really convenient people take it instead of driving in rush hour which helps everyone!
you would be surprised how many people drink and drive. im telling you, unless there’s a dramatic shift in culture around transportation, or the next generation realizes that cars aren’t a great thing to be using, if someone can get a car and a license, they will do so as soon as possible, its so engrained even some jobs require you to have a license. People will use that lame duck as a excuse to get one.
How about a subway?
A subway is a metro line located underground. Throughput is the same. Its just more expensive to dig the tunnels
this is why you contract out the tunnel construction to past you, when labor was cheaper. worked in london, nyc, paris… hell of a trick
In practice, throughput is not the same. There are fewer cars underground that just park on the tracks, fewer traffic accidents, demos etc. Subways make you independent of almost everything that happens above ground. When Beijing introduced the subway system, that first allowed people to estimate quite precisely when they would arrive at their destination.
Also, fewer people plan to build a park underground or use that real estate otherwise. So the above-ground use of space is restricted to the station entrances. The calculation would even be different in places like Seoul, where the subway system doubles as a public bunker system.
You seem to think of a tram. A metro is grade separated. So nothing, but the trains should be on the tracks at all times.
So this for example is a metro, but not a subway:
The problem with mass transit is that each person can’t go directly to the doorstep of each specific place they need to be. And they wouldn’t be able to haul a whole lot of stuff like a week’s worth of groceries & dog in a kennel on its way to/from veterinarian appt, & 5 children & lumber from Home Depot.
Before cars, people often just died because they couldn’t walk
Yeah as someone that lives in a city with mass transit, you change your habits.
You shop two or three times week at somewhere in walking distance. You walk to the vet, and you order lumber online with next day delivery.
If I genuinely need a car, there’s one parked in the next street I can rent with an app.
On top of that parking here is a pain in the arse, and the average traffic speed is something like 7mph.
Honestly, in a denser city focused on transit and not cars, and without shit zoning laws, these aren’t really problems for most people.
You should have a supermarket, school and other essentials within walking distance of your home. Even the vet, hairdresser, etc. That’s what a human, livable city is like.
Mass transit can get you close enough. Walking 10-15 minutes to your destination is good for your health. Especially for seniors. We wouldn’t have such an obesity crisis if people got up and moved more. Humans are built for walking.
Who the heck is hauling lumber every day/week? It’s cheaper to rent a van/truck for the couple days a year than it is to own and maintain a car. I bet the lumber yard has a delivery service.
If you have 5 kids and need a car to take them places, great, cars still exist. If you have mobility issues, cars still exist. If you live in the countryside, cars still exist. But I think these cases should be exceptions to the rule. Most of those 50k people who are just commuting to work every day could be taking public transit and contributing to a more livable city.
Are you a moron? I have a car. I go to work every day with a bike. I take my children to daycare with my bike.
I go to large market with my car once a week. I go to vet a once a year. If i order large quantitys of anything building related i order it straigh to home.
You could have said all that without asking me if I’m a moron. What was the purpose of that?
I’m envious of your lifestyle. But my lifestyle is such that I am constantly traveling 2 hours North 2 hours south 6 hours East driving 70 mph every Which way, a bicycle would not get me to all the places I need to be, I would drop dead from exhaustion and weather exposure if I tried to bicycle to all the places I need to go. You are fortunate you have found your happy place and it’s all within bicycling distance.
You are right. I had a bad day. Sorry.
But i havent found my happy place. I live in a city that has build so people can use bike as a commute.
We dont have massive suburban areas or megamalls that makes cars necessary. Also both pedesterian and public transportation has huge part in the citys layout.
Of course people in rural areas and people whose work necessitas driving to different locations are always going to need cars.
I keep seeing people bring this up but what really annoyed me is people think they need to do all that 100% of the time while in reality they do it like once a month or even a year, and the proceed to use that excuse to bring down any proposal of a mass transit. Mass transit is not there to solve everyone’s problem, it’s to solve the excessive use of car that given people 0 preference other than owning and using a car, and making city worst, and also affect the experience of people that do need to drive.
People who do that often don’t think far ahead.
