Look Both Ways

[MachineGhost]

[quote=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovatio ... 180953396/]
The use of “jaywalker” was a brilliant psychological ploy. What’s the best way to convince urbanites not to wander in the streets? Make the behavior seem unsophisticated—something you’d expect from hicks fresh off the turnip truck. Car companies used the self-regarding snobbery of city-dwellers against themselves. And the campaign worked. Only a few years later, in 1924, “jaywalker” was so well-known it appeared in a dictionary: “One who crosses a street without observing the traffic regulations for pedestrians.”

Meanwhile, newspapers were shifting allegiance to the automakers—in part, Norton and Vanderbilt argue, because they were profiting heavily from car ads. So they too began blaming pedestrians for causing accidents.

“It is impossible for all classes of modern traffic to occupy the same right of way at the same time in safety,” as the Providence Sunday Journal noted in a 1921 article called “The Jay Walker Problem,” reprinted from the pro-car Motor magazine.

In retrospect, you could have predicted that pedestrians were doomed. They were politically outmatched. “There was a road lobby of asphalt users, but there was no lobby of pedestrians,” Vanderbilt says. And cars were a genuinely useful technology. As pedestrians, Americans may have feared their dangers—but as drivers, they loved the mobility.

By the early ’30s, the war was over. Ever after, “the street would be monopolized by motor vehicles,” Norton tells me. “Most of the children would be gone; those who were still there would be on the sidewalks.” By the 1960s, cars had become so dominant that when civil engineers made the first computer models to study how traffic flowed, they didn’t even bother to include pedestrians.
[/quote]

[Pointedstick]

Thanks, MG. Can't wait to check it out. Ultimately though, self-driving cars are just an extension of the basic failure mode of modern urban design that requires cars in the first place. If you don't need cars, then you don't need self-driving cars, either. It's an expensive, high-tech solution to a stupid problem that doesn't even need to exist.

For people interested in this subject, I HIGHLY recommend reading basically everything at http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... chive.html

[Ad Orientem]

A Trip down Market Street in San Francisco shortly before the big quake.
https://youtu.be/pEvB_ZIWtAg

Britain at the turn of the previous century with lots of street scenes.
https://youtu.be/lQV1_B63LTM

Two conclusions...
* People appear to be able to walk around in the middle of traffic without issues.
* People dressed much better than we do.

[Pointedstick]

Two conclusions...
* People appear to be able to walk around in the middle of traffic without issues.
* People dressed much better than we do.

It's because there were almost no cars. Those huge streets were stupidly large before cars, designed for carriages, but few could afford carriages so people walked in them anyway. Carriages move slowly, about as fast as people, so people didn't mind sharing the road with them. Look at how slow the vehicle traffic is! Like 5 MPH. As a result, the streets were a place (as opposed to a transportation system) and people like to look good when they're in places.

When cars took over transportation, their speed created danger to pedestrians, so people no longer wanted to share the roads with them. People drove instead. The streets were no longer places, and it's hard to drive in nice clothes. So utilitarian clothing became the norm, because you have to wear it in order to operate your automobile, which you have to use because you can't walk because everybody else has an automobile in the place where people used to walk.

If you want people to dress fabulously again, the car should be your one of mortal enemies, and with it, urban design that encourages or requires motor vehicles. People want to look good when they're walking around in a public place surrounded by other people. They don't feel like looking good when they're very close to a noisy and dangerous mechanized transportation infrastructure.

[Kriegsspiel]

Thanks, MG. Can't wait to check it out. Ultimately though, self-driving cars are just an extension of the basic failure mode of modern urban design that requires cars in the first place. If you don't need cars, then you don't need self-driving cars, either. It's an expensive, high-tech solution to a stupid problem that doesn't even need to exist.

For people interested in this subject, I HIGHLY recommend reading basically everything at http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... chive.html

Nice find. I know what I'll be doing tomorrow and possibly into Wednesday morning.

[Pointedstick]

* People dressed much better than we do.

I knew I'd eventually find the perfect article for you among this gold (seriously, required reading for everyone here)!

http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... 70311.html

Today, we think that these things don't matter. Who cares how you dress? The important thing is building an immense suspension bridge, airport, skyscraper, hydro dam, etc., and of course, driving on the moon. Except that those things, which used to be important to us, are not really that important anymore. People don't really oooh and ahhh over the Brooklyn Bridge, Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building the way they used to, when Heroic Materialism was in its full flower. Today, our Heroic Materialist (i.e. machine-making, concrete-pouring) ambitions are focused almost entirely on computers and the Internet. Which is fine, but we could have all of that, just as we do today, and also so much more in addition.

I would suggest that these aesthetic things are the only thing that matters. Because, once you have the basics of life covered, adequate caloric intake and some sort of shelter, what else is there? A bigger TV? A house with more bathrooms than people?

This big picture cultural critiquing is very nice, and maybe nice cocktail chatter among a certain set, but I want to make some first, practical steps in this direction. This helps people get a feel of what I mean in real life, not just as an intellectual exercise. Plus, it's something you can do yourself, today. And, your wife/girlfriend/future wife or girlfriend will love it.

We are going to dive right in the Heart of Darkness here, one of the most hideous aspects of our early 21st century Heroic Materialist lifestyle, men's fashion.

[barrett]

...It's because there were almost no cars. Those huge streets were stupidly large before cars, designed for carriages, but few could afford carriages so people walked in them anyway. Carriages move slowly, about as fast as people, so people didn't mind sharing the road with them. Look at how slow the vehicle traffic is! Like 5 MPH. As a result, the streets were a place (as opposed to a transportation system) and people like to look good when they're in places.

Don't know about the looking good part but many places in Southeast Asia are still like this. Cars, street vendors, cyclists and pedestrians all share many side roads and the cars just have to plod along until they get to the main arteries. I often complain that I can't walk around in most of my CT town but am realizing now that this is also how I grew up. That was in a Philly suburb in a housing development built in 1955-1956. Everyone had half-acre lots but there were no sidewalks. It just never bothered us kids then because it was understood that we could be on other people's property as long as we were just passing through.

One of the things that I like about NYC is that pedestrians still like to assert some ownership over the streets, and the cops are happy to look the other way. In CA, forget it. If you are a pedestrian, the police are your enemy.

[Pointedstick]

Thanks, MG. Can't wait to check it out. Ultimately though, self-driving cars are just an extension of the basic failure mode of modern urban design that requires cars in the first place. If you don't need cars, then you don't need self-driving cars, either. It's an expensive, high-tech solution to a stupid problem that doesn't even need to exist.

For people interested in this subject, I HIGHLY recommend reading basically everything at http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... chive.html

I look forward to your realizing that this is just as irrational as your Trump-mania. 

Probably, it usually turns out that way in the end! Do you have any specific objections?

[dualstow]

... It's an expensive, high-tech solution to a stupid problem that doesn't even need to exist.

For people interested in this subject, I HIGHLY recommend reading basically everything at http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... chive.html

Nice find. I know what I'll be doing tomorrow and possibly into Wednesday morning.

Same here. 

[dragoncar]

Interesting. 

Note that there are usually a lot of circumstances where it is perfectly legal to cross in the middle of a road.  It obviously depends on jurisdiction, but I've found that usually jaywalking is narrowly defined. Here's a sample ordinance:

21955.  Between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control
signal devices or by police officers, pedestrians shall not cross
the roadway at any place except in a crosswalk.

Sacramento City Code section 10.20.020 states that “No pedestrian shall cross a through street within three hundred feet of a crosswalk other than within such crosswalk...”

And so on.  Unfortunately, the language is often vague enough for abusive enforcement (is a stop sign a "traffic control device" and how close is "adjacent"?)

[MachineGhost]

In CA, forget it. If you are a pedestrian, the police are your enemy.

The oppression is palpable.  Only colored people more or less walk outside in SoCal.  Basically, a car is a status symbol for your socio-economic class (and which sub-class depends on the make and model you choose).  If you got to walk outside and/or take the bus, you're labeling yourself as lower class, a drunk driver or something else at the bottom barrel of society.  I'm with PS in that this really sucks and want very little to do with it, but it is current reality.  It's not a battle I want to fight to reform, so expatriating to a less congested shithole is the only realistic option.  Is it any wonder that your McMansion home becomes your castle, a refuge from all of the unpleasantness?

But yeah, developing Asia is different.  I think PS is a little crazy because if you look at the relative shithole India is with hundreds of millions of people walking outside along with the endless animals that they worship, you really don't want to live like that.  OTOH, Japan seems to do it much better and they're a developed economy but they're also an island, so space is at a premium.  Japan would be the first place I would move to if they're weren't such xenophobic fucks.

Still, the fact is the whole developing world is moving to the American suburban model.  This is what people want.  Whether they realize it brings them happiness or not is a higher level on Maslow's hierarchery.

[Pointedstick]

In CA, forget it. If you are a pedestrian, the police are your enemy.

The oppression is palpable.  Only colored people more or less walk outside in SoCal.  Basically, a car is a status symbol for your socio-economic class (and which sub-class depends on the make and model you choose).  If you got to walk outside and/or take the bus, you're labeling yourself as lower class, a drunk driver or something else at the bottom barrel of society.

Who cares what other people think of you if you decline to act like a conformist dope? Joke's on them! I walk around my car-dependent suburb all the time, and as a result the whole family drove 2,500 miles last year and paid an average of about $14/mo for gas. 90% of those car trips that we did take were pure luxury trips of less than a mile and a half that could easily be done on foot or bicycle if we couldn't afford a car. Walking trips of that distance are actively pleasurable if you're not walking 10 feet from roaring traffic all the time, and you'd see more people do it voluntarily. And if there was less traffic, things wouldn't need to be so far apart, so a one and a half mile foot trip could take you to way more!

But yeah, developing Asia is different.  I think PS is a little crazy because if you look at the relative shithole India is with hundreds of millions of people walking outside along with the endless animals that they worship, you really don't want to live like that.  OTOH, Japan seems to do it much better and they're a developed economy but they're also an island, so space is at a premium.

It doesn't have anything to do with the amount of space available, really. There are lots of nice French villages surrounded by endless farms. All you need to do is draw a firm line between urban and rural, not try to muddle things up by making a city that's some weird mutant hybrid with buildings but lots of useless turfgrass, "green space", huge roads, etc. If it's a city, it's a city (even if it's very small), and if it's not, then it's a farm or wild nature, red in tooth and claw.

Anyway, Japan is a nicer because it's a first-world country where most of the population is economically, socially, and culturally secure, while India is a dirty, poor, developing world craphole with hugely stratified social classes where the economic elite want to come to the USA rather than sticking around to improve their homeland.

[dragoncar]

One of the things that I like about NYC is that pedestrians still like to assert some ownership over the streets, and the cops are happy to look the other way. In CA, forget it. If you are a pedestrian, the police are your enemy.

Haha!  Someone has never been to SF, Berkeley, Oakland...

[Pointedstick]

Any transportation system allows you to "live where you want to rather than where you must." A train system, for example. If the objection to a government-run train system (but then again, who says it even needs to be government-run?) is that the government could use its ownership and power to revoke that privilege, then it must likewise apply to a government-owned road network, even if the vehicles are privately owned. Cars gave people no transportational freedom that trains haven't also give people in places where they are prevalent. In both cases, the limitation is the spread of roads or tracks, not the format of the vehicle itself.

[jafs]

I'm a big fan of public transportation, at least in theory.

But there's no question that individual cars give you much more freedom and the ability to get where you want directly and more quickly.

In our town, a direct car trip to my wife's job takes about 10-15 minutes.  If she took the bus system, it would take about 45 minutes, and involve a transfer+waiting time.  And, its a ludicrously inefficient way to get there, because the buses go away from her destination first, and then wind back around to it, whereas she can drive directly there.

[dualstow]

Ultimately though, self-driving cars are just an extension of the basic failure mode of modern urban design that requires cars in the first place. If you don't need cars, then you don't need self-driving cars, either. It's an expensive, high-tech solution to a stupid problem that doesn't even need to exist.

I'm all for public transportation even though it can be a hassle where I live. I walk when I can.

I think my ideal would be trains AND self-driving cars, and here's why: a car is still best for taking two golden retrievers and a noisy toddler to the beach; a rowboat and oars strapped to the top; a road trip with private conversation, stopping in restaurants on the way just because they happen to look good. No stranger at the wheel, no delays due to a bad track or a signal problem.

However, I wouldn't feel the need to own that self-driving car, since that would only be an occasional event. Hopefully, people can just rent one, or even better, the empty cars would be driving themselves around and one could just hop in or summon them. It would be another part of public transportation, but with privacy for the user. And no parking lots or garages.

[Pointedstick]

It's true that public transit is often less efficient in terms of going directly from point A to point B, especially in the USA. But consider how much of this is because of the enormous physical size and spread-out-ness of most American cities. Without cars, they could be made much more compact in the first place simply by making the streets designed for people instead of cars, which lets you narrow the street widths to like 15 feet and get rid of most useless public-facing landscaping. And imagine how much lower your property tax bills would be in a city like this with a local government that didn't spend a huge amount of money on maintaining roads and landscaping and maintaining a fleet of police vehicles. It's highly likely that you wouldn't even need to take the bus or train for the majority of trips because nearly everything you cared about would be within a 20 minute walk radius.

To me that is real freedom: to go where I please with my own two feet, without the need for a license, identification, registration, insurance, an expensive vehicle, need to follow a huge number of traffic laws and signals, risk of victimization by police officers, risk of death because someone else was drunk or not paying attention, etc. Cars may be faster and more direct within a car-based transportation infrastructure, but freer they ain't. The rules, regulations, restrictions, and taxes associated with motor vehicle use and ownership are mind-boggling if you step back and really consider them as the freedom reducers they are. It's more obvious in a place like California, but it's nearly the same situation everywhere.

[Pointedstick]

Libertarian666, I think recall that you live way out in the country right now. And it's true that for a living arrangement like that, a car is indeed required for mobility. Without one, you can't get anywhere! But this is not an intrinsic property of freedom; it is merely illustrating the principle that a substantial component of freedom is mobility. Lose your mobility, lose a lot of your freedom. For you, a car represents mobility nearly in totality. But for a person who lives in a proper urban area (large or small) designed for people rather than vehicles, a car may not yield much of a boost to mobility at all. For such a person, a car would not meaningfully contribute to their freedom and may seem undesirable when weighed against the hassles associated with owning one. Even for me, living in a car suburb, a car adds to my freedom less than you might expect, because virtually everything we want or need is within easy walking or biking distance. It all depends on your living situation, it's not a universal thing.

[Mountaineer]

It's true that public transit is often less efficient in terms of going directly from point A to point B, especially in the USA. But consider how much of this is because of the enormous physical size and spread-out-ness of most American cities. Without cars, they could be made much more compact in the first place simply by making the streets designed for people instead of cars, which lets you narrow the street widths to like 15 feet and get rid of most useless public-facing landscaping. And imagine how much lower your property tax bills would be in a city like this with a local government that didn't spend a huge amount of money on maintaining roads and landscaping and maintaining a fleet of police vehicles. It's highly likely that you wouldn't even need to take the bus or train for the majority of trips because nearly everything you cared about would be within a 20 minute walk radius.

To me that is real freedom: to go where I please with my own two feet, without the need for a license, identification, registration, insurance, an expensive vehicle, need to follow a huge number of traffic laws and signals, risk of victimization by police officers, risk of death because someone else was drunk or not paying attention, etc. Cars may be faster and more direct within a car-based transportation infrastructure, but freer they ain't. The rules, regulations, restrictions, and taxes associated with motor vehicle use and ownership are mind-boggling if you step back and really consider them as the freedom reducers they are. It's more obvious in a place like California, but it's nearly the same situation everywhere.

Re the bolded statement:  This is all well and good for healthy, young, fit people.  It might be just a tad more difficult for that young person 20 minute stroll that turns into a 3 hour stroll behind a walker trying to lug a basket full of groceries.  Yes, I know, if one has money they can have someone deliver.  It just isn't so hot for the freedom aspects, or lack thereof.  Maybe I'm off base, the rickshaw business may bloom to cover the old and infirm.  Yo, taxi! 

... M

[Pointedstick]

Old people in New York City walk for 20 minutes with a rolling basket of groceries behind them all the time. The old men and women in the African village I lived in could walk for miles and miles at age 80, universally. It was a sight to behold. If third world dirt farmers can do it, so can members of the wealthiest and most powerful society on the planet. A city design that encourages and requires a modicum of health and fitness seems to me to be a feature, not a bug. Walking preserves your ability to walk! And besides, if your legs work so poorly that you can't walk well, what does that say about your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle?

And of course there's always the option in such a sanely-designed city of living in a multi-story apartment building with an elevator and a grocery store on the ground floor. They even have these kinds of mixed-use buildings in a lot of American cities.

[Libertarian666]

Any transportation system allows you to "live where you want to rather than where you must." A train system, for example. If the objection to a government-run train system (but then again, who says it even needs to be government-run?) is that the government could use its ownership and power to revoke that privilege, then it must likewise apply to a government-owned road network, even if the vehicles are privately owned. Cars gave people no transportational freedom that trains haven't also give people in places where they are prevalent. In both cases, the limitation is the spread of roads or tracks, not the format of the vehicle itself.

One limitation is where the tracks run, which is far more limiting by the nature of the technology than where roads run.
Another limitation is that you can't stop wherever you want, nor when you want.

You're too smart not to be able to understand the differences.

[Libertarian666]

Libertarian666, I think recall that you live way out in the country right now. And it's true that for a living arrangement like that, a car is indeed required for mobility. Without one, you can't get anywhere! But this is not an intrinsic property of freedom; it is merely illustrating the principle that a substantial component of freedom is mobility. Lose your mobility, lose a lot of your freedom. For you, a car represents mobility nearly in totality. But for a person who lives in a proper urban area (large or small) designed for people rather than vehicles, a car may not yield much of a boost to mobility at all. For such a person, a car would not meaningfully contribute to their freedom and may seem undesirable when weighed against the hassles associated with owning one. Even for me, living in a car suburb, a car adds to my freedom less than you might expect, because virtually everything we want or need is within easy walking or biking distance. It all depends on your living situation, it's not a universal thing.

No one is trying to make you own a car if you don't want to.

But the fact that you don't want or need to own a car doesn't mean that others don't.

Yes, I live in the boonies, and if I can't drive I'm in a lot of trouble. That's one reason that we are planning to move to a place with less car-dependence sometime in the next few years. But if there were self-driving cars, we could stay here.

[Pointedstick]

One limitation is where the tracks run, which is far more limiting by the nature of the technology than where roads run.
Another limitation is that you can't stop wherever you want, nor when you want.

You're too smart not to be able to understand the differences.

I do understand the differences. I just don't think they matter much, if at all. You can't stop an airplane you're flying on anywhere either. But airplanes are fantastic and allow people to cross the entire continent in just a few hours. For travel across long distances, the ability to make an intermediate stop in the middle of the journey is virtually irrelevant if it's fast enough and someone else is responsible for fuel and maintenance and the like. Long journeys from city to city or country to country simply don't require intermediate stops 99% of the time. And for short journeys--i.e. intercity travel--you can get that with your feet and a high-quality subway system (for large cities that need one). But small cities shouldn't even need a subway. I live in a city of about 100,000 people that spreads out across 103 square miles, for a density of 970 people/sq mi. By contrast, Paris (one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world to which where millions of tourists flock every year), has a density of 55,000 people/sq mi! In fact, paris is actually smaller geographically than my city! And Paris is an incredible, unbelievable, super-desirable city. At Parisian density, an entire city with the population of mine could fit into two square miles, which is easily walkable even if you live right at the extreme edge. And right beyond that edge would be the hauntingly beautiful New Mexico desert, right there in all its wildness, available on demand.

Don't imagine Dallas-Fort Worth without cars. DFW wouldn't work without cars; its density is even lower than where I live! In DFW, cars are freedom. Instead imagine Singapore or Paris or Madrid or Tokyo or Lisbon or Tel Aviv. Sure, not everyone would want to live there. I get it. But all the people who would don't have that option in the USA right now except for NYC, which is a pale facsimile of real urban life and is overrun by the worst of liberalism run amok. Nevertheless, I did live there for four years with no car and that part was lovely.

And of course there's always the option in such a sanely-designed city of living in a multi-story apartment building with an elevator and a grocery store on the ground floor. They even have these kinds of mixed-use buildings in a lot of American cities.

"the ground floor is retail" design is common in other countries, it is a interesting and old school setup, and it works well enough, but it didn't eliminate or seem to reduce the cars in the cities where i saw it, even in large cities where every apartment complex was designed that way, jobs, that thing you wanted, or the place you needed to go for an appointment, were still often a long car ride in traffic away..

[MachineGhost]

In our town, a direct car trip to my wife's job takes about 10-15 minutes.  If she took the bus system, it would take about 45 minutes, and involve a transfer+waiting time.  And, its a ludicrously inefficient way to get there, because the buses go away from her destination first, and then wind back around to it, whereas she can drive directly there.

Self-driving cars should kill the bus system.  That should make PS happy!

[MachineGhost]

Libertarian666, I think recall that you live way out in the country right now. And it's true that for a living arrangement like that, a car is indeed required for mobility. Without one, you can't get anywhere! But this is not an intrinsic property of freedom; it is merely illustrating the principle that a substantial component of freedom is mobility. Lose your mobility, lose a lot of your freedom. For you, a car represents mobility nearly in totality. But for a person who lives in a proper urban area (large or small) designed for people rather than vehicles, a car may not yield much of a boost to mobility at all. For such a person, a car would not meaningfully contribute to their freedom and may seem undesirable when weighed against the hassles associated with owning one. Even for me, living in a car suburb, a car adds to my freedom less than you might expect, because virtually everything we want or need is within easy walking or biking distance. It all depends on your living situation, it's not a universal thing.

Your idea of easy biking or walking distance seems at odds with the reality of suburban living.  Let's try this... can you walk to Costco to buy in bulk to save money (well, not their overpriced, low quality meat) and bike/walk back with all those frigging items?  Doubtful.  But situations like that is what is ideal for temporarily leasing a self-roving, autonomous car.