D.C. needs to get a lot more car friendly
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Anonymous
So a family of five on one bike? |
Anonymous
I understand the goal, however it’s a bit underwear gnomes innit? Step one, reduce capacity for cars. Step two ????? Step three cars magically disappear. Well, step three is sort of true but not in the way imagined. Instead what happens is that by reducing road capacity you decrease the volume of cars but increase congestion. You might feel safer, but you’re now adding significant externalities to living in your neighborhood which also has public health consequences. Meanwhile, the the % of vehicles that are squeezed out will avoid your street which also mean avoiding the restaurants and retail in your neighborhood which increases the likelihood that these business will not be sustainable. If you value the commercial and retail parts of your neighborhood you should be supporting efforts that make it easier for people to want to come there instead of proposing measures with the net effect of discouraging them. |
Anonymous
You think driving in Manhattan is an example of... good?? Did you visit once on Thanksgiving day??? |
Anonymous
That’s the whole point. You seem to miss it. Manhattan is the most successful urban area in the world because of good planning (1811 street grid) and resilient and efficient transportation options. The chaos, the crowds, the noise, the traffic, the people, all of it is what makes NYC such a vibrant and dynamic city. That’s the attraction. That’s what drives the economy. You on the other hand want to turn a city into a suburban cup-de-sac and what I will tell you is that you may get your wish, but you will also lose the amenities that city living provided. You cannot have it all. It doesn’t work that way. |
Anonymous
Oh, I'm a different poster. I think Manhattan needs more car exclusion areas. It's so much better without. Traffic there is awful. Driving into Manhattan is nuts. |
Anonymous
Yup the earlier poster is delusional and misinformed. The car ownership rates in Manhattan are the lowest in the country and people who live there are at their wits end about traffic and all of the noise and pollution that comes with it, much of it (as in DC) caused by non-residents. The only vehicles that should be on the streets of Manhattan are public transportation, deliveries and taxi/ride share vehicles. Luckily the city is finally moving ahead with a congestion tax which should hopefully discourage idiots from the suburbs and other boroughs from driving in and making the city a daily nightmare of honking, air pollutin and blocked intersections. Hopefully DC will have the good sense to do the same. And BTW the earlier posters suggestion that the street grid has anything to do with NYCs success is laughable - all of New York's neighborhoods north of Canal Street were built after the subway lines opened. |
Anonymous
No, a grid does help. A lot. Suburban neighborhoods aren't walkable because they're not designed in a grid. Most areas surrounding DC are designed to keep non-residents out. The streets wind around and it's rare you can walk anywhere directly. Even in DC the main arteries are built for rapid traffic, and there are blocks and blocks of nothing but houses. Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx (most areas of them) are all functional carless because of effective transit and local retail. You are rarely not within ten blocks of a grocery store or laundromat, as an example. DC doesn't have this density in most of its neighborhoods. Would that it did. Further complicating matters, most of DC has permitted parking. Most of New York has free for all street parking except for street cleaning rules. Again, discouraging car ownership, but also reducing the insularity of its neighborhoods. In DC, your neighbors will literally call the police to report a "strange car" parked on their block. And yet, you all demand the right to drive everywhere. As long as no one drives in your own neighborhoods. The surrounding burbs aren't any better. You've got heavily trafficked main arteries that are unpleasant to walk on and deserted side roads that wind in circles before going anywhere. Add to that hills and crime, and I understand why no one leaves their cars. I get it, I really do. But how can it be fixed? Thats the question I'd like to consider. I would think streetcar lines down the middle of some of the main arteries might work, but I don't have a lot of faith in your ability to get them built. For obvious reasons. |
Anonymous
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What frightens me is that the PPs posting above in complete ignorance unfortunately share the views that are in ascendancy right now but are completely ahistorical. It’s like there is a whole group of people that read some blogs and social media posts and fancy themselves urban planners but haven’t actually done the reading.
Let me help you.
https://thegreatestgrid.mcny.org/greatest-grid/ |
Anonymous
| pp also seems quite confused about dc urban planning. Do they live in the suburbs? We have a grid. It’s tidily alphabetical and everything. |
Anonymous
A huge percentage of New Yorkers don't drive and don't own cars. A big percentage of the cars on NYC streets are taxis and ubers. NYC has robust mass transit. And, I'm not sure why you brought up Mosaic district - that place can be a traffic mess |
Anonymous
45% of NYC households own a car. Specifically for Manhattan it’s 22% of households who own cars and 8% of Manhattan workers drive to work, which is over 100,000 people. Lots of car ownership in NYC, lots of cars in Manhattan and lots of Manhattanites commuting with cars. |
Anonymous
The DC grid is horrid. One of the reasons the NYC grid works so well is all the one way streets. And the associate lack of left hand cross traffic turns. |
Anonymous
Oh! Sorry! I thought you were one of the rip-out-bike-lanes-for-more-private-cars posters! I agree that we should make the DC grid all one way with lots of stops and safe pedestrian crossings. Like Manhattan. Or L St and that general area of NW right now that someone upthread was bewailing as the worst urban planning choice in DC history. |
Anonymous
| If we ever get back to normal, L Street NW will be a parking lot. 20th Street also. in many places there is only one lane that goes through, where there used to be 3 or 4 lanes. I drive kids to school in the morning and then proceed to my office downtown. Metro and biking are not an option. |
Anonymous
A person who has never lived in Manhattan, or never lived in Manhattan without a doorman and a parking garage points out that the 22% of residents who have range rovers parked in their parking garages to avoid the jitney and see the grandparents in New Jersey count as driving. The fact that only 8% of those cars are used daily tells you a lot more... If you were capable of hearing it. |