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Comment by zarro | Hacker News Reader

In the future it seems completely logical that all surface level traffic would be by walking, scooter or electric bike, etc, and everything else would be subsurface.

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That sounds like a fairly expensive solution. I can see eliminating most/all private car traffic in urban centers, but I think it's not likely that everything else goes underground.

High density and high traffic urban areas would be the first targets obviously.

Rather than build streets underground, in somewhere like Manhattan why not build pedestrian areas on top, with direct building entrance at level 2?

often the pedestrians don't cause traffic as much as other cars (my perspective as a lay person)

Sure, but this way allows the city to begin again without the angst of trying to ban cars.

Isn’t this basically what Chicago did?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilevel_streets_in_Chicag...

Buses (probably electric) are likely to remain surface traffic. Also, you need interconnects around the core where vehicles aren't permitted where people can transfer to private vehicles for travel outside the core.

I think underground or overhead even for buses and trains makes more sense.

Much too expensive.

It would go up with flying cars before it went down. Down is very expensive while up is free.

You presume boring will always be prohibitively expensive.

Maintaining, cleaning, lighting, environmental controls. Plus the cost to dig up existing items and move them.

We would save in road salt. Might be a good idea to start building stores/housing below and would serve as protection against climate change.

Up is very much not free. It costs a lot of energy to keep something suspended in mid-air. Airplanes that move hundreds of people are already under scrutiny for how much energy they use, there's absolutely no way we'd accept personal flying machines. Personal automobiles that can rest firmly on the ground are already criticized for their consumption even without having to lift off the earth.

Down is much cheaper.

Not sure what the future holds but if we could just remove this gravity effect they could float.

What if they were more like balloons?

I think in the far future we will be able to transport and it will be the cleanest method of travel.

For the cities that aren't as mild and flat as Amsterdam, putting the pedestrians and bicycles undergound would make more sense.

Except that kills business and is massively expensive.

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