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Comment by aclimatt | Hacker News Reader

One of the main issues with elevated roadways / trains / bike lanes / what have you over city streets is the relatively dark and undesirable areas they create below them. Seattle had this problem back at the turn of the century, and it generally doesn't create a nice urban atmosphere to have massive elevated roadways above the main city, even if it's trains or bikes that run on them.

That's why cities like San Francisco consider tearing down their elevated freeways and replacing them with surface streets -- it creates a more desirable atmosphere when you're below. (Think the Embarcadero.)

Chicago's L is efficient, certainly, but the entire downtown core is hidden under a dark, loud, shaking train track. It's not the most pleasant thing to spend your time around.

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Yeah that's definitely an issue. A way Tokyo has solved this is by building buildings underneath roadway/train lines. Things like cheap restaurants, cafes (and of course the train stations themselves).

This works pretty well because you're usually close to a station so people wanting to use these facilities don't often require parking.

EDIT: A particularly clean example of this is 2k540 in Okachimachi. A bunch of kinda artsy stores, lots of lighting... kinda feels like a small mall except it's outside.

Some pics : https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=2k540&tbm=isch

The Boston Big Dig was a great improvement -- buried the highway and revitalized downtown and Seaport.

Maybe Austin should do something similar. It can narrow the streets and build some underground highways. Leave the above-ground for pedestrians and bicycles, traffic that can actually stop if it spots something interesting. Cars mostly go from here to there, never stopping in-between.

Buses are much cheaper than trains and can be re-routed if it turns out the population centers shift.

I like the idea, but I think most of Austin has limestone bedrock six feet below the surface, so that might be prohibitively expensive.

You make a good point. I wonder if the effect of an elevated bikeway would be as undesirable as a roadway. One guess is that an elevated bikeway would require significantly less space both because of the width of bike lanes vs. cars and the need to bear the weight of semi-trucks. Surely the underbelly of a bikeway could be significantly less sketchy?

I think an elevated bikeway would definitely be less terrible than an elevated train or six-lane freeway. It'd be both narrower and quieter. It would still be kind of unfortunate for those under it though, especially if they wanted to proceed with the "urban elevated parkway"-type concept (which granted is pretty cool for the people above).

That said, from the sound of the traffic problems in the article, I think Austin is going to need a lot more than just bike lanes. It's expensive, but they might need to bite the bullet and build a proper subway.

It's only Wabash, Wells, Lake and Van Buren in the downtown core, so you can always head one block over. Of course, depending on the time of day it'll still seem dark due to the size of the buildings.

The noise is the major issue with the L. And they certainly could do something about that, but honestly, the city has more important issues they should be spending money on (the schools are getting completely screwed over, and a couple of high crime areas need real solutions).

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