Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:51     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.


How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?



You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.


Are you listening to yourself?


They're right. Why don't we have 15 mph speed limits on the beltway or 270? Because eventually we make the determination that some risk is appropriate so that people can get to where they're going. Similarly, there are some jobs with a significant risk of death (https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states); we don't abolish those jobs, though I suppose that's what you'd prefer. Why do we insist on vision zero so that people can jaywalk rampantly, but allow the professions of roofing and garbage collecting to continue?

You should take a law school torts class, where they teach that we put a value on human life in basically everything we do.


Normal people: we should do what we can to reduce hazards that kill people.
People who have taken a law school torts class, apparently: well ACKSHUALLY sometimes it's acceptable for some people to die so that other people can have what they want.

Difficult decisions need to be made when prioritizing the allocation of resources. No government has unlimited funds and we cannot afford to maximize outcomes for everything. Vision zero advocates are ignoring reality and living in a magical world where tradeoffs and negative externalities do not exist.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:51     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.


How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?



You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.


Are you listening to yourself?


They're right. Why don't we have 15 mph speed limits on the beltway or 270? Because eventually we make the determination that some risk is appropriate so that people can get to where they're going. Similarly, there are some jobs with a significant risk of death (https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states); we don't abolish those jobs, though I suppose that's what you'd prefer. Why do we insist on vision zero so that people can jaywalk rampantly, but allow the professions of roofing and garbage collecting to continue?

You should take a law school torts class, where they teach that we put a value on human life in basically everything we do.


Normal people: we should do what we can to reduce hazards that kill people.
People who have taken a law school torts class, apparently: well ACKSHUALLY sometimes it's acceptable for some people to die so that other people can have what they want.


So we should just ban cars entirely so we can reduce traffic deaths to zero?? Most Americans do not want this and and they accept on some fundamental level that there will be some level of traffic deaths that is unavoidable. It can definitely be reduced from where it is now, but zero deaths is both unrealistic and undesirable due to tradeoffs.


But it's not necessary to ban cars in order to reduce traffic deaths to zero.

https://apnews.com/article/hoboken-zero-traffic-deaths-daylighting-pedestrian-safety-007dec67706c1c09129da1436a3d9762

And as you say, it's also a desirable goal to simply reduce the number of people killed in car crashes. For example, by building transit-accessible housing, bikeways, and bus rapid transit (BRT), as well as creating a complete street with wider sidewalks, comfortable public transportation stops, and safe access.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:49     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Of course they never do this kinda upzoning in Takoma Park historic district, Chevy Chase, or Bethesda.

This will inevitably mean giant apartment complexes right along the highways. Then of course all of the cheap residents in them won't want to pay for garage parking, which means 2000 cars all parked in neighborhoods.

Can't stand progressive morons that want to ruin SFH neighborhoods. They almost always propose these for neighborhoods other than where they live, or they simply have this disgusting attitude that no one deserves anything nice and that after they import poverty into the county that anything good has to be spread around equally.

Communist morons are driving the county into a cesspit. MoCo is turning into Baltimore and will be a trashole soon.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:47     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.


How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?



You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.


Are you listening to yourself?


They're right. Why don't we have 15 mph speed limits on the beltway or 270? Because eventually we make the determination that some risk is appropriate so that people can get to where they're going. Similarly, there are some jobs with a significant risk of death (https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states); we don't abolish those jobs, though I suppose that's what you'd prefer. Why do we insist on vision zero so that people can jaywalk rampantly, but allow the professions of roofing and garbage collecting to continue?

You should take a law school torts class, where they teach that we put a value on human life in basically everything we do.


Normal people: we should do what we can to reduce hazards that kill people.
People who have taken a law school torts class, apparently: well ACKSHUALLY sometimes it's acceptable for some people to die so that other people can have what they want.


So we should just ban cars entirely so we can reduce traffic deaths to zero?? Most Americans do not want this and and they accept on some fundamental level that there will be some level of traffic deaths that is unavoidable. It can definitely be reduced from where it is now, but zero deaths is both unrealistic and undesirable due to tradeoffs.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:42     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.


Go move to a city then. I moved to the suburbs for a reason.


and the reason is?


Because I like having space and not living on top of people. Let people who want to live in SFH do that in peace. Stop pretending you know what's best for everyone.


Nobody is going to take your house away from you. You can stop worrying.


No they'll just throw an apartment building up next to me


Well, then you will have two choices. Choice 1: stay. Choice 2: sell and move somewhere else. I don't think the county's housing policy should be based on your desire to not live next to a building that has apartments.


So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county.


They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input.


They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines.


It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way.


I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies


Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want?

I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard.

It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that.


It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere.


DP. So you don't even live there and you're upset about them not listening to your opinion?


I don’t live in Gaza, either, but I have opinions about that.

Pretty sure that most of the YImBY cult doesn’t live in the neighborhoods, either. However, if that’s a deciding factor then we should definitely let the residents decide.


Do you expect the local government of Gaza or Israel to care about your opinions?

I do live in this zone, and I support this, tell me why the government should care about your rantings over my opinions?


I don’t, but you should feel free to share that opinion with folks on college campuses. Are they trying to get people in Gaza to care about them or are they protesting against something systemic?

As expected you are really moving the goalposts here. You said that my opinion doesn’t matter because I don’t live there. Now you are doubling down on that, and that’s fine, then let the people that live there decide. This is what you are saying, correct?

You live there, so your opinion counts more than mine, but at the same time it counts the same as the other folks that live there. I think you’ll be pretty handily outvoted if we were to ask the residents that live within 500 feet of University.

Your misguided masochism aside, what could this offer to them? More neighbors? More renters? More cars? Fewer resources for the schools? More dogs barking?

In exchange for what? A big bus and some sidewalks that they won’t use?

In fact, it does involve all of us because it’s a test to see how they can best infect the rest of the county.


DP. No, it doesn't. Should people who live in the area get to provide input? Yes, and they have this opportunity. Should residents of Montgomery County who don't live in the area get to provide input? Yes, and they have this opportunity. Should people who live in the area have the exclusive authority to decide what will be allowed in the area in the future? No. The Montgomery County Council has this authority.

It's sad that you're afraid of people and change, but you have a right to have your feelings.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:37     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.


Go move to a city then. I moved to the suburbs for a reason.


and the reason is?


Because I like having space and not living on top of people. Let people who want to live in SFH do that in peace. Stop pretending you know what's best for everyone.


Nobody is going to take your house away from you. You can stop worrying.


No they'll just throw an apartment building up next to me


Well, then you will have two choices. Choice 1: stay. Choice 2: sell and move somewhere else. I don't think the county's housing policy should be based on your desire to not live next to a building that has apartments.


So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county.


They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input.


They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines.


It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way.


I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies


Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want?

I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard.

It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that.


It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere.


DP. So you don't even live there and you're upset about them not listening to your opinion?


I don’t live in Gaza, either, but I have opinions about that.

Pretty sure that most of the YImBY cult doesn’t live in the neighborhoods, either. However, if that’s a deciding factor then we should definitely let the residents decide.


Do you expect the local government of Gaza or Israel to care about your opinions?

I do live in this zone, and I support this, tell me why the government should care about your rantings over my opinions?


I don’t, but you should feel free to share that opinion with folks on college campuses. Are they trying to get people in Gaza to care about them or are they protesting against something systemic?

As expected you are really moving the goalposts here. You said that my opinion doesn’t matter because I don’t live there. Now you are doubling down on that, and that’s fine, then let the people that live there decide. This is what you are saying, correct?

You live there, so your opinion counts more than mine, but at the same time it counts the same as the other folks that live there. I think you’ll be pretty handily outvoted if we were to ask the residents that live within 500 feet of University.

Your misguided masochism aside, what could this offer to them? More neighbors? More renters? More cars? Fewer resources for the schools? More dogs barking?

In exchange for what? A big bus and some sidewalks that they won’t use?

In fact, it does involve all of us because it’s a test to see how they can best infect the rest of the county.


I never said that, and I don't engage in debates with people who can't read. It's not fair.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:35     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.


Go move to a city then. I moved to the suburbs for a reason.


and the reason is?


Because I like having space and not living on top of people. Let people who want to live in SFH do that in peace. Stop pretending you know what's best for everyone.


Nobody is going to take your house away from you. You can stop worrying.


No they'll just throw an apartment building up next to me


Well, then you will have two choices. Choice 1: stay. Choice 2: sell and move somewhere else. I don't think the county's housing policy should be based on your desire to not live next to a building that has apartments.


So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county.


They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input.


They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines.


It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way.


I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies


Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want?

I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard.

It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that.


It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere.


DP. So you don't even live there and you're upset about them not listening to your opinion?


I don’t live in Gaza, either, but I have opinions about that.

Pretty sure that most of the YImBY cult doesn’t live in the neighborhoods, either. However, if that’s a deciding factor then we should definitely let the residents decide.


Do you expect the local government of Gaza or Israel to care about your opinions?

I do live in this zone, and I support this, tell me why the government should care about your rantings over my opinions?


I don’t, but you should feel free to share that opinion with folks on college campuses. Are they trying to get people in Gaza to care about them or are they protesting against something systemic?

As expected you are really moving the goalposts here. You said that my opinion doesn’t matter because I don’t live there. Now you are doubling down on that, and that’s fine, then let the people that live there decide. This is what you are saying, correct?

You live there, so your opinion counts more than mine, but at the same time it counts the same as the other folks that live there. I think you’ll be pretty handily outvoted if we were to ask the residents that live within 500 feet of University.

Your misguided masochism aside, what could this offer to them? More neighbors? More renters? More cars? Fewer resources for the schools? More dogs barking?

In exchange for what? A big bus and some sidewalks that they won’t use?

In fact, it does involve all of us because it’s a test to see how they can best infect the rest of the county.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:27     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.


How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?



You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.


Are you listening to yourself?


They're right. Why don't we have 15 mph speed limits on the beltway or 270? Because eventually we make the determination that some risk is appropriate so that people can get to where they're going. Similarly, there are some jobs with a significant risk of death (https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states); we don't abolish those jobs, though I suppose that's what you'd prefer. Why do we insist on vision zero so that people can jaywalk rampantly, but allow the professions of roofing and garbage collecting to continue?

You should take a law school torts class, where they teach that we put a value on human life in basically everything we do.


Normal people: we should do what we can to reduce hazards that kill people.
People who have taken a law school torts class, apparently: well ACKSHUALLY sometimes it's acceptable for some people to die so that other people can have what they want.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 10:16     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.


How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?



You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.


Are you listening to yourself?


They're right. Why don't we have 15 mph speed limits on the beltway or 270? Because eventually we make the determination that some risk is appropriate so that people can get to where they're going. Similarly, there are some jobs with a significant risk of death (https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states); we don't abolish those jobs, though I suppose that's what you'd prefer. Why do we insist on vision zero so that people can jaywalk rampantly, but allow the professions of roofing and garbage collecting to continue?

You should take a law school torts class, where they teach that we put a value on human life in basically everything we do.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 09:58     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.


Go move to a city then. I moved to the suburbs for a reason.


and the reason is?


Because I like having space and not living on top of people. Let people who want to live in SFH do that in peace. Stop pretending you know what's best for everyone.


Nobody is going to take your house away from you. You can stop worrying.


No they'll just throw an apartment building up next to me


Well, then you will have two choices. Choice 1: stay. Choice 2: sell and move somewhere else. I don't think the county's housing policy should be based on your desire to not live next to a building that has apartments.


So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county.


They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input.


They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines.


It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way.


I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies


Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want?

I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard.

It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that.


It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere.


DP. So you don't even live there and you're upset about them not listening to your opinion?


I don’t live in Gaza, either, but I have opinions about that.

Pretty sure that most of the YImBY cult doesn’t live in the neighborhoods, either. However, if that’s a deciding factor then we should definitely let the residents decide.


Do you expect the local government of Gaza or Israel to care about your opinions?

I do live in this zone, and I support this, tell me why the government should care about your rantings over my opinions?
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 09:56     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.


How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?



You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.


This is a common fallacy when discussing urban traffic. Higher speed limits don't always equal higher average speeds. Right now that stretch of University has a posted 35 MPH limit, but traffic actually moves between an of 10-25 MPH depending on the time of day. That's actually only slightly faster than the stretch of Connecticut Ave. with a posted 25 MPH that was the focus of another thread. That's mostly because of lights and the back ups they cause.

Why are there so many lights on University? Because drivers off the side streets can't get onto University safely when you have six lanes of traffic moving at 35+. So they demand a stop light. Now every dinky road has a light with a minute+ cycle time.

So what happens when you reduce peak speeds? You can remove traffic controls, down grade them, use traffic circles, etc. Your average travel time remains largely the same while everything gets safer and more pleasant.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 09:54     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.


How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?



You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.


Are you listening to yourself?
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 09:48     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.


Go move to a city then. I moved to the suburbs for a reason.


and the reason is?


Because I like having space and not living on top of people. Let people who want to live in SFH do that in peace. Stop pretending you know what's best for everyone.


Nobody is going to take your house away from you. You can stop worrying.


No they'll just throw an apartment building up next to me


Well, then you will have two choices. Choice 1: stay. Choice 2: sell and move somewhere else. I don't think the county's housing policy should be based on your desire to not live next to a building that has apartments.


So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county.


They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input.


They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines.


It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way.


I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies


Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want?

I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard.

It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that.


It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere.


Well, we're all entitled to our opinion, but I don't know if you know that RIGHT NOW there are apartments that are MORE THAN 500 feet away from University Boulevard?
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 09:40     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.


Go move to a city then. I moved to the suburbs for a reason.


and the reason is?


Because I like having space and not living on top of people. Let people who want to live in SFH do that in peace. Stop pretending you know what's best for everyone.


Nobody is going to take your house away from you. You can stop worrying.


No they'll just throw an apartment building up next to me


Well, then you will have two choices. Choice 1: stay. Choice 2: sell and move somewhere else. I don't think the county's housing policy should be based on your desire to not live next to a building that has apartments.


So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county.


They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input.


They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines.


It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way.


I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies


Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want?

I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard.

It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that.


It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere.


DP. So you don't even live there and you're upset about them not listening to your opinion?


I don’t live in Gaza, either, but I have opinions about that.

Pretty sure that most of the YImBY cult doesn’t live in the neighborhoods, either. However, if that’s a deciding factor then we should definitely let the residents decide.
Anonymous
Post 05/07/2024 09:29     Subject: More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.


Go move to a city then. I moved to the suburbs for a reason.


and the reason is?


Because I like having space and not living on top of people. Let people who want to live in SFH do that in peace. Stop pretending you know what's best for everyone.


Nobody is going to take your house away from you. You can stop worrying.


No they'll just throw an apartment building up next to me


Well, then you will have two choices. Choice 1: stay. Choice 2: sell and move somewhere else. I don't think the county's housing policy should be based on your desire to not live next to a building that has apartments.


So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county.


They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input.


They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines.


It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way.


I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies


Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want?

I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard.

It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that.


It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere.


DP. So you don't even live there and you're upset about them not listening to your opinion?