[throwaway9980]

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?

[xracy]

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]

Source? I can easily make the other argument.

Car lanes bring more customers from far away locations etc. etc.

[xracy]

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=NotJu...

[cscurmudgeon]

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]

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?

[midoridensha]

>I am not going through an ad-infested StrongTowns video to hunt for references.

You don't know how to install an ad-blocker?

[Akronymus]

> 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.

[xracy]

Also, huge one... How many cyclist -> pedestrian fatalities are there?

I would bet dollars to donuts that 99.9+% of cyclist fatalities are cars hitting cyclists. (As opposed to cyclists hitting pedestrians. If there are any driver deaths from cyclists hitting cars I will eat my shorts)

[briandear]

Do bikers pay usage taxes or registration fees?

[eesmith]

Flipping things around, do drivers pay enough in usage taxes and registration fees to cover the cost of the road they use?

No. Usage taxes and registration fees only cover ~37% of the cost of the roads.

"In 2020, state and local motor fuel tax revenue ($53 billion) accounted for 26 percent of highway and road spending, while toll facilities and other street construction and repair fees ($22 billion) provided another 11 percent. The majority of funding for highway and road spending came from state and local general funds and federal funds." - https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

The remaining ~63% comes from other sources, including property taxes, sales taxes, and income taxes which bikers pay either directly or indirectly (eg, through rent).

[ghaff]

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]

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.

[briandear]

They aren’t a net positive for everyone when valuable transportation lanes are lost for bicycles. I’m not taking my four kids to the doctor on a bicycle. In an emergency, I’m not going to pedal my way to the emergency room. When it’s pouring rain, or baking hot, I’m not going to ride a bicycle. If I’m buying groceries for a family of six, I’m not going to carry a week’s worth of groceries in a backpack. A bicycle trip of 15 miles takes a whole lot longer than a car trip of the same distance. How about transporting young babies on a bike? Bikes are far more unsafe than cars.

[dalke]

It's only valuable lanes you're concerned with, right?

That is, you are okay with giving up low-value car transportation lanes for valuable bicycle lanes, yes?

You may be interested in Braess's paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox describe it as "the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it."

That Wikipedia entry gives a few examples where closing roads helped automobile throughput, and links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand for more details about how building more highways fails to reduce congestion. ("the more highways were built to alleviate congestion, the more automobiles would pour into them and congest them and thus force the building of more highways – which would generate more traffic and become congested in their turn in an ever-widening spiral that contained far-reaching implications for the future of New York and of all urban areas").

Thus feels very much like there are net-negative transportation lanes which can be replaced by bicycle lanes and improve your transit rates.

Are you against removing those lanes? Are you against experiments to determine where those lanes might be?

As for the rest of your comment, you live in an area designed for cars, so of course cars are essential for your daily life. If you don't know what you're missing, it's easy to overlook how other solutions exist.

I happen to live in a walkable part of my city. Our health care center is 4 blocks away. The urgent care center is about a mile away. Both are walkable, even with two stroller-age kids, which we've done.

When we've needed to get to the hospital in a hurry, we've used a taxi. The savings in not having a car more than pays for both a bus pass and the occasional taxi.

We've got a good bus system, so when the weather is horrible, people switch from walking or bikes to buses when going to work.

We get our groceries delivered - again, the cost of delivery is less than the cost of owning a car.

And since we live in a walkable area of the city, we used strollers to move babies around, including on the bus, and to get to preschool. (We had several choices within walking distance.)

The big box store is about 10 minutes away by bus, and it's 5 minutes to the bus stop. When we've bought something big, we pay for delivery and removal of the old item, but car/truck rentals are also possible.

Nor must one be without a car to live here. We have several neighbors with a car, parked in the parking garage on our block. Instead, we've made the choice to not have a car.

While you don't have that choice. You are stuck, just like most people in the US. It's no wonder you interpret any talk about opening other possibilities as a diminishment of your life.

But on the other hand, having everyone's life organized around the way you personally want it diminishes the ability for people who want a car free life, and for those who for whatever reason cannot drive.

Consider that in a few years your kids will need you or another adult to drive them to all the places they want to go. The proverbial soccer mom is an unpaid chauffeur, and likely needs an extra vehicle for that purpose.

While my kids will be able to walk, bike, or take a bus, on their own, even as 10 year olds. I'll be able to send them to the store to pick up a missing ingredient for dinner. If they get bored they can walk 6 blocks to the library, or to a park to play, or to the local youth arts and culture center, or the swimming pool, or visit friends.

What will your kids be able to do?

[ProfessorLayton]

It's worth noting that public transportation exists, not just bikes and cars. Designing city less oriented around cars would mean that you could take your kids to the doctor on a train/bus/walk, and that your grocery store wouldn't be 15mi away, and not need to buy a week's worth of groceries at a time.

Of course you could choose to drive anyway, but as long as people have the option to rely less on their cars it's a net win.

[ramblenode]

> I’m not going to carry a week’s worth of groceries in a backpack. A bicycle trip of 15 miles takes a whole lot longer than a car trip of the same distance.

The problem is solved by cars but only because it was created by cars. People used to have bigger families and walk to the grocery store.

[ghaff]

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]

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.

[gibolt]

Not 1/2, closer to 1/10 (for the exact space of the car). Cars also need far more buffer space, parking space, overall road area for maneuvering around a city. If completely replaced, infrastructure area could probably be reduced by ~20-100x

[AnimalMuppet]

Depends. If 90% of the traffic is still cars, bike lanes make it possible for the 10% that is bikes. But the 90% now have fewer lanes.

You sound like you're assuming that, given more bike lanes, 50% of the traffic will ditch their cars and ride bikes. (At least, your logic doesn't work without that assumption.) I don't think that's a valid assumption.

[ghaff]

I was speaking of a specific city that has added extensive bike lanes. No idea of causality. Maybe a lot more people have decided to drive in and out all of a sudden.

I was mostly objecting to the comment up-thread implying that bike lanes are inherently win win. They can be a good idea on net while increasing driving times.

[cozzyd]

Bike and bus lanes have only improved traffic for me. But I don't have a car...

[UncleEntity]

> 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?

[killjoywashere]

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?

[scottLobster]

Since money is speech, and this is SF, just a few rich VCs.

[phpisthebest]

>>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...

[_dain_]

>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.

[UncleEntity]

> How is anyone meant to walk safely?

Only the poors walk and they drag down the property values by their mere presence.

And kids? Nasty little creatures.

[phpisthebest]

>>How does anyone go for a morning run? Walk their dog? How do kids get to their friends' houses?

on the road, there is like zero traffic on my road, and I spend my entire child hood playing in the street.

>>Where are you from, Mars?

No the midwest... probably mars to you...

>>Why don't you want a sidewalk?

Because I do not want to maintain them, shovel them, or accept the liability of someone is injured on them.

>>Everyone uses them at least a little, unless you're literally bedridden or something.

Not bed Ridden, do not use sidewalks.

My vehicle goes from my drive to a parking lot, I walk from the inside of my home to the vehicle and then from the vehicle to the inside of a business on the tarmac of the parking lot. No sidewalks

[_dain_]

>on the road, there is like zero traffic on my road, and I spend my entire child hood playing in the street.

Same in my childhood, but there were sidewalks (pavements) everywhere. A street without one is simply defective, like if it didn't have lampposts or adequate drainage. Cars go down the middle, pedestrians go on the sides, that's just how it works.

>No the midwest... probably mars to you...

I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

>Because I do not want to maintain them, shovel them, or accept the liability of someone is injured on them.

Why on earth would it be your responsibility to maintain the sidewalk? It's not yours! It's publicly owned and it's maintained at public expense, exactly like the road surface. I've never personally had to maintain any sidewalk outside my house, they're in adequately good repair because it comes out of my taxes. Does your council expect you to mix your own concrete to patch up cracks, or something? Like the backyard steel mills in Maoist China? Are you expected to fill potholes in the road too? And why would you have any liability if someone is injured? That's not how torts work, again cause it's not your pavement. You're just making up nonsensical reasons.

>My vehicle goes from my drive to a parking lot, I walk from the inside of my home to the vehicle and then from the vehicle to the inside of a business on the tarmac of the parking lot. No sidewalks

So every single little errand you have to do requires getting in a car and driving to a new destination? And you expect everyone else to live this way on your street? Again, how do kids or anyone who doesn't have access to a car at that particular moment manage to do anything?

Your entire world amounts to your house, your car, parking lots, and the inside of shops and offices. That's unimaginably sad to me. I could never live like that. Do you really never use the two legs God gave you, and never let your lungs breathe natural air, and never let your eyes see the beauty of the world unimpeded by a plexiglass windshield?

[phpisthebest]

> A street without one is simply defective, like if it didn't have lampposts or adequate drainage.

My street has lights, drains, everything but sidewalks...

>I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

I suspected (and still do) you either live outside the US, or on one of the coasts.

>>Why on earth would it be your responsibility to maintain the sidewalk? It's not yours, it's publicly owned and it's maintained at public expense.

No, not it is not. Not anywhere I have ever lived. They are "easements" that are privately owned, and have to maintained by the home owner, at the home owners expense, and you will be fined if they are not maintained, shoveled, etc.

In some cases the city my pay for the initial creation of the sidewalks, but after that it is on the homeowner to maintain them.

>Does your council expect you to mix your own concrete to patch up cracks, or something?

Yes?... Or hire a contractor to replace them if they are disrepair.. Often times it is HOA that is responsible as well which comes out of the HOA dues you would pay. Rarely is it the city in area of single family home neighborhoods.

Example This is not my city, but my city is simliar... Peoria, IL ARTICLE VII. > DIVISION 1. > Sec. 26-231. - Declaration of disrepair; notice. [1]

>> " . The notice shall advise the owner that he must repair or contract for repairs of the sidewalk in need of repair within 30 days of the date of the mailing of the notice. The notice shall describe with particularity the location of the sidewalk in need of repair."

Now in Peoria, IL they do cover upto 80% of the bill but the owner still has to find, contract, and schedule the contractor, and the city can reject any bill they soley claim is "excessive" in costs and only reimburse what they fill is not excessive, Some / Many cities do not offer any reimbursement at all or offer a lower rate...

In either case it is still property that is owned by the home owner, the public has the right of access via an easement. Liability in those states and cities is on the homeowner.

[1] https://library.municode.com/il/peoria/codes/code_of_ordinan...

>So every single little errand you have to do requires getting in a car and driving to a new destination?

Most people in my city already do... I am the norm.

>Do you really never use the two legs God gave you, and never let your lungs breathe natural air,

Sure that is what Parks, Camping, Trails, etc are for. Not sidewalks on my street

[low_key]

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]

You're talking to someone who thinks PHP is the best.

[hermannj314]

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]

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]

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]

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 "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

[sokoloff]

There is a vast majority of suburban towns around Boston which are both quite old and quite solvent, contrary to the Strong Towns predictions.

I’ve written about them before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34599508

For convenience, they include: Arlington (1635), Belmont (1849), Waltham (1884), Watertown (1630), Lincoln (1754), Wellesley (1881), Newton (1688 town, 1874 city) among others.

[jodrellblank]

Arlington, Mass.[1] has 46k people in 5.5 square miles, population density of 9.1k people per square mile, 9.1k taxpayers paying for a square mile of services.

Lafayette, Louisiana[2] (the city from the video I linked) has 121k people in an area of 56 square miles for a density of 2.1k people per square mile, but a metro area population of 478k people over a metro area of 3,400 square miles with a density of 140 people per square mile of services.

Arlington has a median family income of $131k, Lafayette has a median family income of $54k (both from the same Wikipedia pages). Just the urban parts - roads covering 5.5 square miles in Arlington vs 56 square miles in Lafayette, but they've got a quarter of the population density who are less than half as wealthy paying taxes to maintain them. I don't know how it's funded for roads in the 3,400 square miles of suburban area.

Watertown has 35k people in 4 square miles, Lincoln has 7k people over 15 square miles with a median family income of $202,704 - these hardly seem to fit "sprawling car dependent suburbia"? I haven't looked very hard because internet argument, but I'd be surprised if the 7k people in Lincoln have their own dedicated fire service, hospital, ambulances, sewage works, dump, salt gritters, dual carriageway highways for moving cities worth of vehicles, and so on public services that a big city with 20x the population would need, which Lincoln likely shares with other places or just doesn't have.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington,_Massachusetts

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette,_Louisiana

[hermannj314]

I 100% agree with you and that was my takeaway as well from watching the series, I clearly was not very good at communicating my point.

[treis]

> about city planning. They have a lot of content, but a theme is tax revenue per square foot

Sounds more like SimCity metric than what a real life city should care about.