Reply to D.C. needs to get a lot more car friendly

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "D.C. needs to get a lot more car friendly"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm for options. Bike lanes, ample parking, safe pedestrian crossings, good public transport. The bikers and the greenies (who the development bros sometimes masquerade as) are never for options tho. They're just for "their way" of getting around. Alienating and annoying.[/quote]

Options are fine.  But what we DON'T need is more lanes for cars.[/quote]
And you’ve just proved the PPPs point.  :mrgreen:

You want to live in a suburban cul-de-sac you can do that.

Manhattan is the greatest urban area in the world and 36% of its land area is road. It’s this resilient street grid and a resilient transit infrastructure that has created the conditions for NYC to flourish.

The goal of transportation infrastructure is to move the most people the most quickly and efficiently. And when cities do that well, that’s what makes them vibrant.

Right now there are restaurants closing in DC and opening in Pike & Rose and the Mosaic district. Maybe some reflection on transportation infrastructure could inform why that is. [/quote]

You think driving in Manhattan is an example of... good??  Did you visit once on Thanksgiving day???[/quote]
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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics