Cities Are Not Loud: Cars Are Loud, and Places Without Cars Are Quiet [video]
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The infrastructure of every major city would need to be re-worked to make it not a pipe dream. The kind of re-work it would need simply doesn't happen to existing development. There's too many stake holders and too much valuable existing construction would need to be gotten rid of. Cities in Europe still have the original street layouts of their medieval cores that were left mostly intact when trains and then cars came onto the scene. If something displaces cars it will likely result in new development, not re-work of old development.
Nowadays with the general easy availability of electric bikes in city bikeshare the main complaint is now safety around cars.
Snow is suicidal, not because of your bike, it because of the drivers.
Goretex.
I'm in Toronto, Canada and generally cycle (pre-pandemic) from March to December, rain or shine. I skip January and February mostly because of road conditions. Our urban winters aren't that bad, relatively speaking, so it's reasonable most days.
I do have all the funny looking clothing, but that's mostly because I like to push things a bit to get some cardio. More leisurely pedalling would reduce sweating and probably not need a change.
I shower first thing in the morning at home: it's not the sweat that gets stinky, it's the bacteria, so if you're reasonably clean it won't be a problem.
Part of the argument is that traffic should be segregated[1] and infrastructure for bikes should be well-kept year round, regardless of local conditions[2]. If a car can slide in snow and run you over, a distracted driver can do that on ideal conditions as well. If the roads are not in a ridable condition, that means that bike infrastructure is not being prioritized, usually because it is not considered a valid commuting mechanism.
The Not Just Bikes channel, produced by an ex-pat Canadian, has a video asking why can't people in Canada cycle in the winter if the folks in Finland can?
> When talking about bicycle infrastructure in Canada, the number one excuse I hear is "winter." Many Canadians see the cold and snow as a fundamental barrier to year round cycling. But one city, Oulu in Finland, with winter weather worse than most Canadian cities, shows that winter cycling has nothing to do with the weather, and everything to do with safe cycling infrastructure. […]
The reality right now for most cities in Canada is that the cyclist is relegated to making their way through slush and snow filling the bike line while cars zoom pass spraying them with more slush - of course, people don't ride their bike in those conditions.
You can set up parking at the edge of the transit network and have people drive to there. And transit can use busses too.
Last Friday, a politician here said that in her opinion, most cars will be banned from the central area in about six years. UPS vans will drive anywhere, taxis will too, plumbers will, you won't. UPS, taxis and plumbers are necessary, justified, you're just loud. Her predictions have been good before.
The set of necessary cars is a small subset of cars. Plumbers need to have a van full of spare parts, but that justifies letting them drive, it doesn't justify letting everyone drive everywhere.
Where do you draw the line? Who "deserves" the freedom of free movement and who does not? Assuming the near-future cars are quiet and tailpipe emission-free EV's, why would you care who does/does not drive?
If you like to walk, walk. If you need to drive, drive. Why try to force everyone into the lifestyle you think is best? Not letting "everyone drive everywhere" is a scary future that I would not like to live in. If I have the means and wish to drive, I will.
Since voting happens according to where one lives, the suburban voters have next to no say in inner-city matters.
This may be seen as fair or unfair. Unfair, because it means that the most car-unfriendly voters tend to set the rules where it matters most, while the most car-friendly voters don't matter much. Fair, because it depresses the number of cars in the noisiest areas, somewhat equalising the noise/traffic people have to suffer where they live.
Since the 1950's, car centric thinking has dominated US transportation planning. Go to a US city meeting and experience the struggle to simply install a 3ft bike lane on a 4 lane road. You may recoil at restrictions being placed on cars but it's well past time for it to happen.
Car ownership rates should be understood to exist in a context where the alternatives are more or less illegal. If they weren't literally illegal, then they'd be more common.
Or is the whole comparison really just not in good faith?
other people like me have more specific issues. I'd actually love to bike or take public transit to work, but there's no bus/train that goes anywhere near my office, it would take over an hour to bike there, and all the other software companies are also outside the city. why are there no virtually no employers in my field in a major american city? kind of a tangent, but if you don't look at things like this too, you are making my life worse without offering anything.
The status quo today is that these alternatives are illegal in most parts of most cities.
Nobody is enduring a car commute into Boston, NYC, London, Paris, etc, unless their other options are downright terrible.
Sounds really like a leopard-ate-my-face moment, TBH. It's fine when they come for the things you don't like. Just wait...
That's not how statistics work.
Allow denser construction so the places you need to get are within walking distance.
There are other forms of transportation besides cars.
If you're driving around somewhere that land is at less of a premium, have fun.
These are amenities that residents and local governments have elected to have, to the benefit of all. Your claim that I'm only paying for some of it is false. I'm paying exactly the required amount for it, because my taxes fund the city and have done so for a long time. Costs are also not "forced" onto people - the newcomers who don't like my car-centric city are the ones forcing themselves upon the city, demanding density beyond what can be reasonably supplied just so they can have the exact price point they want. These same people can just as well live elsewhere and form their own city instead of trying to simultaneously benefit from the community and economy current residents (and infrastructure policies) have built up over years and decades, while they also insist that things be altered drastically to their desire. Who exactly is the parasite in this picture? Hint: not the long-time residents.
Laws about required parking spaces were put into place many years ago, by different people, with incomplete information about the future.
When that information changes, the laws should change too, yes?
For example, as the Boomers age, fewer will be able to drive, making their current independent life in the suburbs unsupportable. Many elderly are able to walk even if they can't drive. But if mandatory minimum parking laws prevent the construction of walkable areas then fewer options are available to them.
These laws, often put into place in the post-war boom, don't reflect current life, so must change.
Hint: retired Boomers are long-time residents.
> I'm paying exactly the required amount for it,
Unless you have metered or paid permit parking set by free market rates, I have a hard time understanding how you can be so certain.
Cities change their tax levels and fee structures often. Surely you don't think that roads and parking happens to be perfectly funded.
BTW, many cities have gone into debt to fund their growth. What you see is "a modest, short term illusion of wealth in exchange for enormous, long term liabilities" - https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ . The current residents are not "paying exactly the required amount for it"; it's been pushed off to future residents.
Rather like parking minimum laws.
If your neighborhood was walkable and you had access to shops within walking/cycling distance, you would not need your car for this. It might even be more enjoyable for your family than sitting in a car, stuck in traffic.
Heck, your children could—gasp!—go get ice cream at the corner shop by themselves!
The simplest thing to do here is to point out that the overwhelming majority of the world does not shop for groceries the way Americans do. And they have families. Heck, many of them have bigger families than Americans.
Yeah having a pantry full of food is convenient in a way, but local stores in every neighborhood seems more convenient to me and picking up a few things on your way home, a few times a week is less of a chore than one big trip.
Meth is an important part of my life and the lives of other people I know.
You know we're fucked when being slave to a machine is viewed as an immutable fact of life
Bikes are the best transportation for small trips. No questionning it.
Unless you can't use a bike because something's wrong with your body. Then you need a car. For some people, it's obvious: they have a broken leg, or no legs at all. They'll get a pass (and boy do they need it!).
For other people, like me, it's less obvious. I still have my two legs, my two feet, but some bones are broken, and it hurts to cycle or walk just a few kilometers.
Essentially, as much as I hate it, I need a car. Otherwise each day ends in pain and misery. And public transportation doesn't solve it, since I need to walk to the bus stop.
So yes, cities need to have less cars, but please don't forget about people who don't have another solution.
Being disabled doesn't mean you need a car. In fact, it usually means that you cannot use a car at all and depend on public transit and cycle/ped infrastructure. If you are an alcoholic, epileptic, or blind you absolutely need public transportation.
Eliminating cars for American cities is not as straightforward as "just stop using cars".
More to the point, do you believe an exhaust system quiet enough to be legal is still immediately noticeable over highway-speed road and wind noise, sound-deadening, climate-control fans running flat out, and any media playing at any volume?
Some guy on a harley rides by every few days and triggers a car alarm in my neighborhood. I'm sure it gives him a bit of a thrill. Same with those guys who modded their cars.
It seems almost like the problem is that people like buying loud cars, rather than your assertion that 2 manufacturers are at fault for everything.
And something something ATVs (how does illegal ATV use equate to Ford’s complicity in loud cities?)…
Overpowered for full-range use in the city at night or while passing on a freeway, or overpowered for enjoyment of a hobby in the intended usage setting. You can be right and wrong at the same time here.
I realize this sounds like a BS "guns don't kill people, people do" argument, but in this case the actual problematic outcomes usually really do boil down to the person operating the vehicle and their level or maturity and respect.
Those flagship super powerful sedans, trucks and SUVs you are complaining about are a drop in the bucket compared to bog standard commuter sedans, hatches and crossovers.
Naturally, Delft cannot be compared to Mumbai (whose population is more than the entire population of the Netherlands), but having had first-hand experience of spending a considerable amount of time in both places, I simply cannot overstate the peace of mind felt with extremely low noise levels. As far as a good solution to noise levels in cities like Mumbai goes, there's a whole lot to be done - and a Delftian approach certainly wouldn't work.
1) Mumbai is already suffering from massive space constraints and traffic issues. A trip in a car is usually slower than walking that distance (assuming the infrastructure exists and you can walk without falling into an open pothole).
Mumbai desperately needs more public transport, and needs to add safe biking, also because of #2
2) Mumbai has very few roads per person, and further, it doesn’t have space to build anymore. Besides the fact that this means cars are not sustainable at all in the city, it also means there’s not too much quiet asphalt that would be needed to replace the existing road material.
3) Mumbai already has an excellent public transport infrastructure, especially with buses. That system is currently unworkable because of all the cars clogging the road. If you were to have dedicated bus lanes, and increase service drastically, it would solve most of Mumbai’s transit issues.
4) Cars in Mumbai rarely travel over 30km/h anyways. Just moving usa. Welcome miracle for the most part.
1) Thanks to the north-south alignment of the city (further aggravated by the commercial-residential area distribution along the north-south direction) there is just an extremely high population load involved in mass movement twice a day (of course, in the usual circumstances). Better infrastructure wouldn't help so much as more structural changes like redistribution of these areas or enforcing staggered working hours.
2) I feel this is more of an administrative problem - the current model of tenders does not work very well and there seems to be little or no incentive (or deterrents) for contractors to keep roads in good shape. The current road infrastructure is dismal and would require a major system overhaul to facilitate finances and will required for replacing the existing material with quiet asphalt. But yes, this probably seems more doable.
3) The municipal corp did consider having a BRTS system (a la the Bogota model) but their surveys led to the conclusion that improving the existing suburban rail system with more frequent services was more impactful. In terms of point-to-point connectivity, Mumbai certainly has very good infrastructure (especially compared to Bengaluru and Pune).
4) Don't forget about the honking! There's little or no honking in Delft.
Sensible regulation that affects all cars/motorcycles used in the city (not just new vehicles) would go a long way to improving quality of life for many many people.
Here in CA, cruisers seem to be the loudest, but spot bikes are not far behind.
The main problem was two-stroke scooters. Not only are two-strokes inherently noisy, but users often remove the mufflers to improve the power (two-strokes hate back pressure).
However in recent times there's been a big change to four-stroke and even electric scooters. Which means that the noise levels have improved somewhat. Still terrible though.
I live in a city a few hundred feet from a highway where people are going well over 40, possibly as high as 70.
Geometrically, most of a city can't be in the center, no matter the size or arrangement. I'm not sure how this can be overlooked, but it seemingly is, a lot. The edge of the city is next to the suburbs, and that perimeter should be longer than any inner contour, right?
I live ~2000 feet from a highway and the noise is significant, and I'm not talking idiots with straight pipes. It's the constant humming and thrum of the vehicles.
I live in the center of Berlin and I can hear cars all day and most of the night even though the closest street is ~100 meters away, behind a huge building and limited 30 mph. It's a constant hum and I can guarantee you most of it is from passenger cars
A simple test is to go for a walk in the woods, the loudest noises are tree branches quietly snapping under your feet and the wind on leaves, going back to the city is torture after that. If I'm not listening to music I use earplugs
The outcomes are human-friendly sidewalk-friendly areas, and fewer cars in the areas. There are some parklets that also include bicycle racks and skateboard racks, which tend to also encourage alternative transportation and better health. What's especially nice about parklets is that business owners strongly like them because the parklets bring more customers to the areas.
My hope is that it happens. I haven't seen a lot of discussion from local officials yet, but I could see the new parklets sticking around this summer as a trial, particularly to help restaurants expand seating en route to recovery.
Also restaurants reserve the right to deny or pick who they serve and who they do not and may bar you from dining there if they do not like you or your appearance - so why should they be afforded public spaces in the form of parklets?
The cynic in me just expects that to become an argument for building more parking spots.
I also liked the idea of planting the ground that streetcar tracks run through with grass.
There’s a whole science around balancing noisiness of roads and brake length.
Porous roads sounds like sand or gravel. Not great for driving or for noise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeable_paving#Porous_asphal...
it is largely used in highways, actually near 100% of highways in Italy are paved with this kind:
https://www.autostrade.it/en/tecnologia-sicurezza/sicurezza/...
Since several years they are experimenting in various EU cities, particularly for roads restricted to buses, a type of asphalt that incorporates (recycled) rubber which reduces effectively a part of the noise and vibrations, but is seemingly used in US too:
So yes, it's not surprising that 0-10/15 kph you hear the engine more.
I’m pretty sure 90% of the comments here are from people who didn’t watch the video. Which is a shame because it was really well done.
I would, though, definitely like to banish the sound of idling diesel engines from cities. Replace diesel buses and garbage trucks, and fine the operators of ships, trains, and heavy industrial equipment based on the amount of noise they generate in an urban area.
This is the part that I like.
Why shouldn't ruining the environment be costly?
120dB leaf blower? $200 more expensive than the quiet one.
And measure car/motorbike noise for registration and have a fee for every decibel.
I can dream, can't I?
Edit: Are you referring to this video? He mentions electric cars being too quiet at low speeds and reasonably noisy at high speeds. I would imagine that speeds inside a city should be low, no?
Cities are loud because there are a lot of people in a small area.
Edit: Also if you watch the video there's a scene where he steps off a train in Delft and it's very quiet. Obviously densely settled areas must be louder, but perhaps not always loud.
Motorbikes are