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My Imaginary GF
Jul 17, 2005

by R. Guyovich

Popular Thug Drink posted:

it's just cheaper to construct and operate. basically nobody builds their own corporate towers anymore in the us, tower construction has slowed down a lot and when they are constructed they're built by real estate firms who are looking to rent to various tenants. so if you want to be your own landlord a campus is really the only way to go

there's plenty of companies which take the opposite route, and even google bought a massive tower for its NYC office. but if you want to do the ultimite prestige project and build some hyper avant garde architectural thing in america in the 21st century you're probably not building a tower

Its the same trend which done killed the slaughterhouse industry in America. Why have a vertical facility when one can spread it out horizontally?

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MaxNV
Jan 3, 2011


Great thread.

If I may suggest a reading. It's a little dated at this point and might be hard to find a copy of but it's an absolutely excellent history of urban transit in North America.

Metropolitain Railways: Rapid Transit in America. William D. Middleton, 2003. Indiana University Press

The Oldest Man
Jul 28, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 13 hours!

Popular Thug Drink posted:

it's just cheaper to construct and operate. basically nobody builds their own corporate towers anymore in the us, tower construction has slowed down a lot and when they are constructed they're built by real estate firms who are looking to rent to various tenants. so if you want to be your own landlord a campus is really the only way to go

there's plenty of companies which take the opposite route, and even google bought a massive tower for its NYC office. but if you want to do the ultimite prestige project and build some hyper avant garde architectural thing in america in the 21st century you're probably not building a tower

Unless you're Amazon.

Curvature of Earth
Sep 9, 2011

Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Popular Thug Drink posted:

it's just cheaper to construct and operate. basically nobody builds their own corporate towers anymore in the us, tower construction has slowed down a lot and when they are constructed they're built by real estate firms who are looking to rent to various tenants. so if you want to be your own landlord a campus is really the only way to go

there's plenty of companies which take the opposite route, and even google bought a massive tower for its NYC office. but if you want to do the ultimite prestige project and build some hyper avant garde architectural thing in america in the 21st century you're probably not building a tower

Apple's new donut-campus costs $5 billion, which is more than the cost of the new World Trade Center in the middle of loving Manhattan.

Tech company headquarters are built in suburbia because their founders/executives are born-and-bred suburbanites. For them, suburbia is the default. It has nothing do with cost and everything to do with uncritically embracing the system they're most familiar with.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

Curvature of Earth posted:

Apple's new donut-campus costs $5 billion, which is more than the cost of the new World Trade Center in the middle of loving Manhattan.

FWIW, neither building cost includes cost of land, and the donut has more square footage than the WTC.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Curvature of Earth posted:

Apple's new donut-campus costs $5 billion, which is more than the cost of the new World Trade Center in the middle of loving Manhattan.

Tech company headquarters are built in suburbia because their founders/executives are born-and-bred suburbanites. For them, suburbia is the default. It has nothing do with cost and everything to do with uncritically embracing the system they're most familiar with.
Counterpoint: no. You haven't shown this to be the case. One of the biggest isn't even in suburbia, and the bay area would be almost impossible for a company like Apple or Google to put their HQ in a real city, where would it even go? SF, the city that already hates techies and development?

Also, Google has been pushing as hard as it possibly can for dense housing right on top of their corporate campus in Mountain View; the new zoning changes that went in the other week allow for buildings up to twelve stories in the center of the development (at the edges I think the cap is like 4 or 5 stories). Twelve story apartment complexes don't exactly scream "suburbia". Google is also explicitly aiming to make the area where they're located (Palo Alto/Mountain View/Sunnyvale) more Copenhagen-like in its bike-friendliness, which is hardly a suburban quality in America: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/06/googles-new-bike-plan-wants-silicon-valley-to-be-more-like-copenhagen/395885/

Cicero fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Apr 19, 2016

mastershakeman
Oct 28, 2008

by vyelkin

My Imaginary GF posted:

Its the same trend which done killed the slaughterhouse industry in America. Why have a vertical facility when one can spread it out horizontally?

Well, that and the cost per sq ft is much higher in downtown buildings. Let alone the fact many of them are much older than suburban ones.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

Curvature of Earth posted:

Tech company headquarters are built in suburbia because their founders/executives are born-and-bred suburbanites. For them, suburbia is the default. It has nothing do with cost and everything to do with uncritically embracing the system they're most familiar with.

ah, can i dual class suburbanite/hipster or do i get a racial penalty

mastershakeman
Oct 28, 2008

by vyelkin

Popular Thug Drink posted:

ah, can i dual class suburbanite/hipster or do i get a racial penalty

It's called a yupster

Ardennes
May 12, 2002

Cicero posted:

Counterpoint: no. You haven't shown this to be the case. One of the biggest isn't even in suburbia, and the bay area would be almost impossible for a company like Apple or Google to put their HQ in a real city, where would it even go? SF, the city that already hates techies and development?

Also, Google has been pushing as hard as it possibly can for dense housing right on top of their corporate campus in Mountain View; the new zoning changes that went in the other week allow for buildings up to twelve stories in the center of the development (at the edges I think the cap is like 4 or 5 stories). Twelve story apartment complexes don't exactly scream "suburbia". Google is also explicitly aiming to make the area where they're located (Palo Alto/Mountain View/Sunnyvale) more Copenhagen-like in its bike-friendliness, which is hardly a suburban quality in America: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/06/googles-new-bike-plan-wants-silicon-valley-to-be-more-like-copenhagen/395885/

In all honesty I spent quite a bit of time around the Santa Clara valley, and public transportation there is just rather terrible to be honest and barely better than Greater Los Angeles. I guess better density is a okay thing, but ultimately the vast majority of those employees are going to be in cars and I doubt bike lanes almost no one is going to use is going to change. I mean by and large as far as the physical surrounding of that area, it really doesn't look or work that differently than Orange County.

That said, If anything the Apple HQ really make even sense because the only public transportation around it is a local bus line, and it literally faces single family dwellings. It really looks like a HQ some alien overlord just dropped down from space on a random lot with zero thought about anything around it. The 280 is already a parking lot anyway, I guess ten thousand more cars isn't going to hurt.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Ardennes posted:

In all honesty I spent quite a bit of time around the Santa Clara valley, and public transportation there is just rather terrible to be honest and barely better than Greater Los Angeles.
Yeah it sucks. It's slowly getting better with Caltrain in the process of electrifying and BART slowly making its way down through the east bay down to SJ, but it's slow going. The VTA wants to create center-running BRT (along with protected bike lanes) down El Camino but some of the cities have basically voted it down I think.

quote:

I guess better density is a okay thing, but ultimately the vast majority of those employees are going to be in cars and I doubt bike lanes almost no one is going to use is going to change. I mean by and large as far as the physical surrounding of that area, it really doesn't look or work that differently than Orange County.
I think this is unreasonably pessimistic. For Google's HQ, 9% of workers currently bike to work, and 21% of those that live within 9 miles bike to work. Those are incredibly high rates, especially when you consider that most bike infrastructure in the area, except for the nearby trails (which are excellent), is garbage. And already, less than half of Googlers there drive to work alone. Part of that is biking, but of course a bigger part is the extremely extensive network of shuttles that Google runs all over the place.

Plus, the whole idea of throwing in a bunch of high density housing there is that people who live < 1 mile away probably aren't gonna drive. Yes, ultimately Google is limited in what they can do if the surrounding local governments don't get their act together with decent transit, but they're clearly trying very hard.

quote:

That said, If anything the Apple HQ really make even sense because the only public transportation around it is a local bus line, and it literally faces single family dwellings. It really looks like a HQ some alien overlord just dropped down from space on a random lot with zero thought about anything around it. The 280 is already a parking lot anyway, I guess ten thousand more cars isn't going to hurt.
Apple is more reclusive, so it fits that they're building a campus that's not really integrated into anything around it.

edit: I can't get over how defeatist "I doubt bike lanes almost no one is going to use is going to change" is. Like, I can understand how people might say that not many people are going to ever bike in hilly and rainy Seattle, or very hilly SF, but we're talking about a place that is largely flat and has about as close to perfect weather for biking as you could ask for. Amsterdam's climate sucks for biking compared to the south bay: colder, windier, wetter.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Apr 20, 2016

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

-Troika- posted:

Why the hell do most transit projects have to file environmental impact anythings anyways. 99% of them are going through urban areas where there is no environment to speak of other than grassy medians and some trees.

This is a bit old but I just wanted to point out that the "environment" in an EIS doesn't mean "trees and nature and air" but literally the physical space. Displacing residents would be an environmental impact. Tearing down homes would be an environmental impact. Etc etc. It's a nuch broader sense of environment than we typically think of.

Ardennes
May 12, 2002

Cicero posted:

I think this is unreasonably pessimistic. For Google's HQ, 9% of workers currently bike to work, and 21% of those that live within 9 miles bike to work. Those are incredibly high rates, especially when you consider that most bike infrastructure in the area, except for the nearby trails (which are excellent), is garbage. And already, less than half of Googlers there drive to work alone. Part of that is biking, but of course a bigger part is the extremely extensive network of shuttles that Google runs all over the place.


Plus, the whole idea of throwing in a bunch of high density housing there is that people who live < 1 mile away probably aren't gonna drive. Yes, ultimately Google is limited in what they can do if the surrounding local governments don't get their act together with decent transit, but they're clearly trying very hard.

Fine the shuttles make a difference, but the they are an issue on their own and ultimately the issue is that really nothing around that area but that housing is conductive to that life style and if you want to "get off campus" you probably are going to need a car. Now it may help limit commutes, which is a good thing but it is far from actually constructing any type of real urban environment. Basically, it is company housing that exists to serve the needs of its owner, which is fine, but it doesn't really mean any dramatic shift here.

quote:

edit: I can't get over how defeatist "I doubt bike lanes almost no one is going to use is going to change" is. Like, I can understand how people might say that not many people are going to ever bike in hilly and rainy Seattle, or very hilly SF, but we're talking about a place that is largely flat and has about as close to perfect weather for biking as you could ask for. Amsterdam's climate sucks for biking compared to the south bay: colder, windier, wetter.

The difference is Amsterdam is an entire city that has had its infrastructure built around public transit and bike use, you can get across almost all of Amsterdam very easily with a bike and public transportation. It really isn't the case of the Santa Clara valley, especially since the distances are comparatively vast. More bike lanes is fine, and I am sure a few people are going to use them but ultimately the mistakes of the fifties are still going to guide the future of the valley. It is a situation that is hosed in a way that will take generations to be fixed if ever, and is only compounded by being wanting to live in SF [which tried to resist those mistakes].

To be clear, I don't think any of these improvements are really bad at all, but rather you have to be realistic about how far behind California is and if anything any improvement will probably be balanced out by companies that don't give a poo poo [Apple]. If anything, LA [I know] seems more serious about infrastructure investment at this point and even then it is going to be a very very long time.

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



The Pyongyang Metro is apparently now entirely open to tourist groups! (Beforehand only two metro stations were open, so you'd get on at one stop and then get off at the next station.)

Highly recommended that you check it out, the photographs and captions are very detailed.

Fun facts from the article:
- If you thought your railcars were bad, Pyongyang's are literally taken off the too-old-for-service scrap heap from Berlin.
- There's almost certainly a secret rail line used exclusively by the government, given that North Korea purchased twice the necessary number of railcars.
- This is definitely a new policy because the North Koreans at the newly accessible stations are very freaked out.

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



La Caisse (The Quebec Deposit and Investment Fund) created an infrastructure group last summer, and it looks like we now know why: they really really really wanna build a light rail line that connects Montréal's far western and far eastern suburbs and airport to downtown, both of which have been rather neglected by the current Métro system.

The Deets:
- Fully automated, Vancouver-style
- Total cost: $5.5 billion CDN, of which La Caisse is ready to put up $3 billion. :eyepop:
- Construction projected to start spring 2017, grand opening in 2020 :eyepop: :eyepop: (this is very aggressive)
- Planned operation hours of 5 AM to 1 AM every day.

[Link to press release]
[Link to Radio Canada story en français, désolé mes petites anglophoniques]





PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
That's cool and good, I have no idea why YUL doesn't have a train connection to downtown in a city that has, otherwise, very good rail transit.

Every airport in a major city should be reachable by metro or light rail, in my opinion. Buses are especially intimidating and unpleasant for people who don't know exactly where they're going, which describes every tourist/visitor. Also, they often can't use google maps to use transit, because of international data roaming fees.

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



PT6A posted:

Every airport in a major city should be reachable by metro or light rail, in my opinion.

Oh poo poo I forgot

:dance: :pcgaming: :dance: Denver International Airport now has a train connection to downtown! :dance: :pcgaming: :dance:

https://twitter.com/SenBennetCO/status/723565710081953792

EDIT: Also, in the case of Montréal, the YUL bus to downtown is actually pretty fast and good, which might be why it's been so long since a real rail option was floated.

Still freakin' ridiculous that places like DC's Dulles will have existed from 1962 to 2020 without a rail link while handling millions of passengers but that's car life for you :911:

Combed Thunderclap fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Apr 23, 2016

Greatbacon
Apr 9, 2012

by Pragmatica

Combed Thunderclap posted:

Oh poo poo I forgot

:dance: :pcgaming: :dance: Denver International Airport now has a train connection to downtown! :dance: :pcgaming: :dance:

https://twitter.com/SenBennetCO/status/723565710081953792

:co:7 Our little big city has finally joined the illustrious ranks of "Cities with good public transit to the airport"

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

Greatbacon posted:

:co:7 Our little big city has finally joined the illustrious ranks of "Cities with good public transit to the airport"
Congrats you beat NYC and Los Angeles!

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010


I've made a huge mistake.

Combed Thunderclap posted:

Oh poo poo I forgot

:dance: :pcgaming: :dance: Denver International Airport now has a train connection to downtown! :dance: :pcgaming: :dance:

https://twitter.com/SenBennetCO/status/723565710081953792

EDIT: Also, in the case of Montréal, the YUL bus to downtown is actually pretty fast and good, which might be why it's been so long since a real rail option was floated.

Still freakin' ridiculous that places like DC's Dulles will have existed from 1962 to 2020 without a rail link while handling millions of passengers but that's car life for you :911:

It's a plot to feed more sacrifices to the Horse Demon.

The Maroon Hawk
May 10, 2008

My friend went to the ribbon-cutting ceremony at DIA and managed to catch the very first train on the new line, I was green with envy that I had to work.

I'd imagine little to none of the passengers this weekend will be actual airport passengers, especially since all RTD train rides are free and they're sponsoring station parties at every station all day.

I'll probably take it for a ride on Sunday :toot:

My Imaginary GF
Jul 17, 2005

by R. Guyovich

Ardennes posted:

Plus, the whole idea of throwing in a bunch of high density housing there is that people who live < 1 mile away probably aren't gonna drive. Yes, ultimately Google is limited in what they can do if the surrounding local governments don't get their act together with decent transit, but they're clearly trying very hard.

Fine the shuttles make a difference, but the they are an issue on their own and ultimately the issue is that really nothing around that area but that housing is conductive to that life style and if you want to "get off campus" you probably are going to need a car. Now it may help limit commutes, which is a good thing but it is far from actually constructing any type of real urban environment. Basically, it is company housing that exists to serve the needs of its owner, which is fine, but it doesn't really mean any dramatic shift here.


The difference is Amsterdam is an entire city that has had its infrastructure built around public transit and bike use, you can get across almost all of Amsterdam very easily with a bike and public transportation. It really isn't the case of the Santa Clara valley, especially since the distances are comparatively vast. More bike lanes is fine, and I am sure a few people are going to use them but ultimately the mistakes of the fifties are still going to guide the future of the valley. It is a situation that is hosed in a way that will take generations to be fixed if ever, and is only compounded by being wanting to live in SF [which tried to resist those mistakes].

To be clear, I don't think any of these improvements are really bad at all, but rather you have to be realistic about how far behind California is and if anything any improvement will probably be balanced out by companies that don't give a poo poo [Apple]. If anything, LA [I know] seems more serious about infrastructure investment at this point and even then it is going to be a very very long time.

If you are a tech company, why would you want your employees to go off-campus?

HorseLord
Aug 26, 2014

Ardennes posted:

The difference is Amsterdam is an entire city that has had its infrastructure built around public transit and bike use, you can get across almost all of Amsterdam very easily with a bike and public transportation. It really isn't the case of the Santa Clara valley, especially since the distances are comparatively vast. More bike lanes is fine, and I am sure a few people are going to use them but ultimately the mistakes of the fifties are still going to guide the future of the valley. It is a situation that is hosed in a way that will take generations to be fixed if ever, and is only compounded by being wanting to live in SF [which tried to resist those mistakes].

Amsterdam in the 70s vs now:



To be clear, Amsterdam and the major Dutch cities as a whole had some of the most consistently heavy congested car traffic in the world. It was basically impossible to find a parking space anywhere near your home or destination and so many children were being ran over it caused a national crisis. Cycling was a rare, dangerous activity partaken only by the terminally old fashioned or those too poor for a bus pass.


They fixed it.

CopperHound
Feb 14, 2012

I'm trying to read between the lines here. Should I start running over kids for some greater good?

My Imaginary GF
Jul 17, 2005

by R. Guyovich

CopperHound posted:

I'm trying to read between the lines here. Should I start running over kids for some greater good?

You should start quantifying the 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 year costs of running over a kid versus pedestrian focused transit policies.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

PT6A posted:

My city is in the planning stage of a new LRT line, and I just saw an interview with one of our councillors talking about how they don't want an elevated track in the downtown area. As a resident of the downtown area, I would prefer an elevated line to a street-level line (although an underground line would be my preference), to keep the streets and sidewalks clear for normal traffic and business, etc. Could someone with more experience/information than me explain what, apart from cost, is the disadvantage of an elevated line that I'm not considering?

As a life long Vancouverite that lives with elevated LRT (Skytrain!) I'd say there is not much a disadvantage over anything else. The most significant thing is possibly increased sound pollution. I live in a flat area of the city with a sight line to the skytrain that is around 750m-1000m away and I can faintly hear the train if I really listen for it. The sound carries over the flats. Presumably those much closer get even more of that skytrain sound.

The benefit of elevated rail is that you get really cool views. It is genuinely really cool to see the region fly by from an elevated view and go over the Fraser river and stuff.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

HorseLord posted:

Amsterdam in the 70s vs now:



To be clear, Amsterdam and the major Dutch cities as a whole had some of the most consistently heavy congested car traffic in the world. It was basically impossible to find a parking space anywhere near your home or destination and so many children were being ran over it caused a national crisis. Cycling was a rare, dangerous activity partaken only by the terminally old fashioned or those too poor for a bus pass.


They fixed it.

this was true of all cities when mass automobile ownership first became a thing. cities built on a human scale fare poorly when people start driving cars into and through them. most european cities, being old and well worn as human-scaled places, found it easier to ban and restrict cars. american cities, being younger and larger (really the only american city which is comparable to a european city in design terms is boston, and thats a stretch) found it easier to just ditch the whole human scale and build cities for cars instead of people. thus,



all of those blocks used to be buildings, but it turned out the better economic use at the time was to use them for car storage. lame

part of it is a sociological reaction to the deeply ingrained racism in american culture. but as america careens towards a legitimately multiethnic democracy, actual for real urbanism is becoming more popular (see: hipsters, gentrification, exploding rents in american cities) and bit by bit we're converting american downtowns into livable good places again

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich
of course that is if we don't just boot all the urban minorities into suburban ghettos as is the european style and leave the city cores for a wealthy and middle class cultural elite :iiaca:

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP
No, the issue with towns in the South is that they didn't really have any development until after WW2. Those blocks were never buildings, they started out as parking spaces.

Houston proper (as in, excluding the metro area) had 600,000 people in 1950, versus 800,000 for Boston. By the 1970s (when that photo was taken), Houston's population doubled and Boston's decreased by 25%. The difference is that Houston covers an area of over 600 square miles, while Boston covers about 90 square miles.

Ardennes
May 12, 2002

HorseLord posted:

Amsterdam in the 70s vs now:



To be clear, Amsterdam and the major Dutch cities as a whole had some of the most consistently heavy congested car traffic in the world. It was basically impossible to find a parking space anywhere near your home or destination and so many children were being ran over it caused a national crisis. Cycling was a rare, dangerous activity partaken only by the terminally old fashioned or those too poor for a bus pass.


They fixed it.

The issue here is that even during the seventies, Amsterdam had the building blocks to make that transformation possible including just the density itself compared to the Santa Clara valley which by and large is more or less standard California issue suburbia. It took the Dutch decades to fix Amsterdam, how long will it take to fix a place that was never intended to be livable for people without cars?

There are some American cities that did turn around, like Portland. However, if you talk about a city like Portland, most people st commute to work by car on a road system developed for about half the amount of people and its local government is struggling to find money to find any alternative.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

computer parts posted:

No, the issue with towns in the South is that they didn't really have any development until after WW2. Those blocks were never buildings, they started out as parking spaces.

yeah i doubt they just laid out perfectly orthogonal parking areas conforming to the block gridiron. no, this was the ugly face of urban renewal, when it made economic sense to tear down low rise brick and wood structures so you could build parking lots. notice the random blocks with like a single one story structure tucked off in a corner? those are the survivors

you're right about the post-ww2 boom (an ugly secret is that federal military spending really jumpstarted the southern urban economy, sort of like reconstruction but 80 years later) but that was largely related to sunbelt growth pressure which coincided with the largest wave of white flight and suburbanization, creating a huge incentive for all that automotive travel necessitating wide swathes of parking to begin with

computer parts posted:

The difference is that Houston covers an area of over 600 square miles, while Boston covers about 90 square miles.

kind of a red herring - we're not interested in the size of the jurisdiction, we're interested in the specific economic pressures on that patch of land called downtown

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Apr 24, 2016

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Popular Thug Drink posted:

yeah i doubt they just laid out perfectly orthogonal parking areas conforming to the block gridiron.

Orthogonal areas don't really correlate with buildings, they correlate with newer construction. Boston isn't laid out orthogonally at all, because it's several hundred years old. That's the same reason why states in the Western US have much neater boundaries - they were organized with a specific plan in mind rather than evolving naturally.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

computer parts posted:

Orthogonal areas don't really correlate with buildings, they correlate with newer construction

the road network, orthogonal or not, is much tougher to rebuild than just knocking down a set of buildings and consolidating lots. i'm not really sure what you're trying to argue here - are you saying that most of downtown houston was virgin land that was first developed as postwar parking lots? or are you saying that the civic government took an aggressive stance in imposing an orthogonal grid of purpose build parking over previous development, because that's a stretch for houston, city of no zoning ordinance. what are you trying to argue here, because midcentury urban renewal's tendency to destroy pedestrian oriented urban framework for a wasteland of cars is pretty well established as a trend in american urban planning and i'd like to hear more detail about your alternate theory

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Ardennes posted:

The issue here is that even during the seventies, Amsterdam had the building blocks to make that transformation possible including just the density itself compared to the Santa Clara valley which by and large is more or less standard California issue suburbia. It took the Dutch decades to fix Amsterdam, how long will it take to fix a place that was never intended to be livable for people without cars?
Most of the Santa Clara Valley has ok density, certainly enough for at least bikes to work easily, since bikes don't depend on high density as much as walking or transit. The Mountain View/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara area has about the same population density as Seattle, San Jose is just a bit behind that.

The problem is that yes, the streets have been designed around cars. How long would it take to fix? Depends on the political will. There are already a decent number of painted bike lanes around, just upgrading them to protected would make a huge difference, you could probably do most of that in a few years if you were really serious about it. Lowering speed limits (e.g. to 20 mph in residential areas or ped/bike-oriented streets) could also be be done very quickly if you wanted it. Other upgrades, like protected intersections, new BRT/rail, extended sidewalks, etc. would take longer.

quote:

There are some American cities that did turn around, like Portland. However, if you talk about a city like Portland, most people st commute to work by car on a road system developed for about half the amount of people and its local government is struggling to find money to find any alternative.
It's also struggling just to support the road system. We seem to have lost our appetite for investing in infrastructure, but we haven't lost our appetite for complaining about it.

edit: developers are actually helping this now btw. For example, this parking lot wasteland* near where I live at the corner of Lawrence and El Camino on the border of Santa Clara and Sunnyvale is now being redeveloped into a big mixed-use spot.

From this



to this



There's a similar mixed-use development currently under construction near Lawrence Caltrain station, and another one that I think is in the works for kitty corner the one in the picture above. This kind of density and building makes it much easier to support other modes of transportation. I'm glad that mixed-use is finally starting to catch on around here.

* this parking lot was almost always like 80-90% empty (basically the same as in this particular satellite shot), such a huge waste in an area with such expensive land.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Apr 24, 2016

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Popular Thug Drink posted:

the road network, orthogonal or not, is much tougher to rebuild than just knocking down a set of buildings and consolidating lots. i'm not really sure what you're trying to argue here - are you saying that most of downtown houston was virgin land that was first developed as postwar parking lots? or are you saying that the civic government took an aggressive stance in imposing an orthogonal grid of purpose build parking over previous development, because that's a stretch for houston, city of no zoning ordinance. what are you trying to argue here, because midcentury urban renewal's tendency to destroy pedestrian oriented urban framework for a wasteland of cars is pretty well established as a trend in american urban planning and i'd like to hear more detail about your alternate theory

I'm saying Houston was very small Pre-WW2 (which it was, it wasn't even 400,000 people back then) and was very spread out (because land is/was cheap), so when development did occur it was due to post-WW2 ideas of structuring society.

There is a very high correlation between US cities that were major pre-WW2 and cities that are good for public transit.

(Obviously exceptions exist, like Detroit, but their whole thing was focused around the automobile)

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

computer parts posted:

I'm saying Houston was very small Pre-WW2 (which it was, it wasn't even 400,000 people back then) and was very spread out (because land is/was cheap), so when development did occur it was due to post-WW2 ideas of structuring society.

There is a very high correlation between US cities that were major pre-WW2 and cities that are good for public transit.

this doesn't address at all what i was talking about, which is that prewar (which is just a proxy for pre mass automobile) development was knocked down for the sake of parking, to demonstrate some of the alternative responses to mass auto travel than the european tendency to push for pedestrianism first

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Popular Thug Drink posted:

this doesn't address at all what i was talking about, which is that prewar (which is just a proxy for pre mass automobile) development was knocked down for the sake of parking, to demonstrate some of the alternative responses to mass auto travel than the european tendency to push for pedestrianism first

Yeah, and your proof that it was knocked down is that "the city has orthogonal grids". In fact, that's usually evidence of development that's post-WW2.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

computer parts posted:

Yeah, and your proof that it was knocked down is that "the city has orthogonal grids". In fact, that's usually evidence of development that's post-WW2.

you misread. i questioned why parking lots, if built freely, would conform to an orthogonal grid, because you claimed that large areas of downtown houston were not developed until the midcentury as individual block-sized parking lots. you're effectively saying that this map is a fabrication



so either you have a grossly deficient understanding of american urban development in the 20th century or you're trying to bait me with an absurd troll. orthogonal grids were used in american planning since the colonial era. the ancient greeks and romans often built on a grid when they could, and the grid came back into style as 'more rational' during the rennaisance

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Apr 24, 2016

Bip Roberts
Mar 29, 2005

Popular Thug Drink posted:

you misread. i questioned why parking lots, if built freely, would conform to an orthogonal grid, because you claimed that large areas of downtown houston were not developed until the midcentury as individual block-sized parking lots. you're effectively saying that this map is a fabrication



so either you have a grossly deficient understanding of american urban development in the 20th century or you're trying to bait me with an absurd troll. orthogonal grids were used in american planning since the colonial era

You can mark out streets without developing buildings. Look at a map of California City.

Also those parking lots are significantly south of that map.

Bip Roberts fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Apr 24, 2016

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boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

Bip Roberts posted:

You can mark out streets without developing buildings. Look at a map of California City.

Also those parking lots are significantly south of that map.

i highly doubt the town engineer of houston circa 1880 marked off blocks and prevented anyone from developing them so that, fifty years later, they could be used as parking spaces

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