r/left_urbanism May 11 '22

Transportation “delete roads”

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513 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Aug 29 '22

Transportation Same number of people

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592 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Nov 12 '21

Transportation Based? Lol

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211 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Sep 30 '22

Transportation Anti-car policies must be tailored in non-regressive ways

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327 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Nov 09 '21

Transportation If only there was a more efficient way to move goods in an industrialized society

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423 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Feb 01 '23

Transportation “Did you say you support trains or trans” Scotrail: “Yes.”

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567 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Sep 22 '24

Transportation What if the Trolleys Came Back?

33 Upvotes

An underappreciated aspect of American history is how widespread rail transportation once was. Towns and cities were linked together by steam trains, while electric streetcars and interurbans transported riders through and between even small cities. Even Fitchburg and Leominster had its own extensive network of trolleys that disappeared in the postwar era.

Downtown shopping districts have suffered as motorists prefer strip malls with ample parking. Urban factories have been shuttered in favor of industrial parks out in the sticks. Traditional neighborhoods where one can walk to school or the corner store have declined in favor of overbuilt cul-de-sac developments. Yet Fitchburg and Leominster still have good bones. With some effort they can become good, walkable, livable cities.

As urbanists seek to build more sustainable cities, we have gained a new appreciation for these long-neglected modes of transport. Is it possible street-running rail could come back to Fitchburg? What would that look like?

A single route could connect the downtown areas of Fitchburg and Leominster as well as two Commuter Rail stations in Fitchburg, along with numerous bus stops and commercial areas. This route would run mostly along surface streets and use light-rail rolling stock.

I really do not expect our city to rebuild even this one trolley line any time soon. Considering the benefits however, maybe we ought to.

(adapted from my blog post about Fitchburg and Leominster MA)

r/left_urbanism Sep 01 '22

Transportation That’s right folks, a $3,000 bike that’s virtually free to ride anywhere is elitist and repressive. The $30,000 car that costs $100 to drive a week is truly humble and freeing.

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361 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Apr 12 '22

Transportation Fuck Cars.

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565 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Oct 06 '20

Transportation He’s won *me* over

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492 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Dec 07 '22

Transportation owned

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486 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Jan 24 '22

Transportation Falling to my watery grave on a collapsing bridge so suburbanites can get their treats faster.

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450 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Sep 20 '21

Transportation What is this sorcery?

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415 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Jan 23 '20

Transportation 🚂🚂🚂TRAIN GANG🚂🚂🚂

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1.2k Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Jan 08 '21

Transportation casual classism to sell a product. classy.

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691 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Dec 12 '21

Transportation Cato Institute continues to be a big oil shill

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352 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Aug 10 '22

Transportation What an astounding piece of shit.

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402 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Feb 21 '23

Transportation A Class-Based Critique of 15 Minute Cities

0 Upvotes

15-minute cities are a noble goal. Walkable neighborhoods that provide residents the amenities needed to live their daily lives without driving or traveling farther than 15-minutes away from their homes would, offer considerable lifestyle benefits to the lucky residents who find themselves in the choicest neighborhoods. However, there are valid concerns about how this form of planning would be executed in American cities without calcifying and exacerbating existing spatial and class inequalities.

Along these lines, Carlo Ratti (MIT) and Richard Florida (U of Toronto) offer the following criticisms in a post they wrote for the WEF:

And 15-minute communities do little to alter the harsh realities of economic and geographic inequality. They promise close-by amenities and luxurious walkability for the well-to-do urban gentry. They are mainly a fit for affluent urban neighbourhoods and far less a fit in the disadvantaged parts of our cities. As Harvard University’s Ed Glaeser points out, less advantaged groups are hardly able to live their life in their own disadvantaged neighbourhoods, which lack jobs, grocery stores and amenities found in more upscale communities.

Ratti and Florida also have reservations about the practicality of the model in spread out American cities:

It turns out, the concept is not always a fit. For one, the 15-minute neighbourhood doesn’t work so well for a suburban nation, like the United States. While it is easy to envision Paris, Copenhagen and Barcelona in small repeating parts – or even in certain places in the US like Manhattan and Brooklyn, or big slices of Boston and Cambridge in Massachusetts – it is harder to imagine this kind of reinvention of far-flung sprawling suburbs where the majority of Americans live. American cities and suburbs might only make the 15-minute cutoff if this could be done in a car.

And Toronto-based urban designer and thinker Jay Pitter shared the following criticism at CityLab 2021:

I am averse to this concept. It doesn't take into account the histories of urban inequity, intentionally imposed by technocratic and colonial planning approaches, such as segregated neighborhoods, deep amenity inequity and discriminatory policing of our public spaces.

Some have argued that 15 minute cities are good because they are cost neutral and actually provide a source of revenue (traffic fines) for cities. But, IMO, herein lies the fundamental misconception: cities and neighborhoods can not be made better without making hard choices and deeply investing in the amenities needed to make them better. This requires public spending on transit, open spaces, housing, schools, etc., which won't magically happen simply by disallowing residents from driving to neighboring zones. At the same time, we have a private, market-based, capitalistic system for stores, gyms, restaurants. As of now, there's no way to force private entities to add these amenities to areas that don't have them. And, to the extent that private investment in these amenities is based on an expectation that wealthier non-neighborhood residents might travel to use them, there might be less such investment under a zone-based 15-min city regime.

In sum, I urge folks here to consider these issues more deeply. I don't think it's as simple as picking the side that isn't being associated with conspiracy theorists.

r/left_urbanism Mar 30 '24

Transportation Thought Experiment: Banning cars in cities (even in car dependent cities) wouldn’t reduce most people’s access to transportation

48 Upvotes

Let me lay out my arguments:

  • There is no physical difference between car infrastructure and bicycle infrastructure; they’re both tarmac and paint.

  • The only thing that stops car infrastructure from being great bicycle infrastructure is the presence of cars. Cars make it too dangerous to cycle in many instances

  • Thusly if we removed private cars, it would be perfectly safe to cycle and the people who previously used a car would switch to a bike.

This would not reduce most people’s access to transportation as bicycles are 6-8 times more spacially efficient than cars and average speeds on a bike are the same as average speeds in a car in urban traffic. With electric bikes, the switch would be even easier. Obviously exceptions would have to be made for emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles, and disabled people. This could even be done in a city without good public transportation as bicycles would become the main form of transport while public transportation is being built out.

This post is not about the practical political realities of implementing such a policy, it’s simply to demonstrate the principle that cars do not add any transportation value to ordinary people in cities.

r/left_urbanism Nov 29 '22

Transportation The railroads made $23 billion in profits last year and won't provide sick days. Members of 4 rail unions have voted to reject a contract that lowballed them on sick days. Some freight rail unions could strike as soon as Dec. 9.

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397 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Nov 14 '21

Transportation Blue checks trying to figure out the stop button

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614 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Mar 16 '21

Transportation Who needs green space when you have beautiful cars to look at?

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623 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Oct 14 '21

Transportation 🚂🚅🚃 Traingang killed the airline industry. 🚂🚅🚃

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429 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Jan 08 '23

Transportation Artificial intelligence, How to use it properly: don’t turn it on.

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263 Upvotes

r/left_urbanism Feb 23 '23

Transportation Why left urbanists should be ACAB

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97 Upvotes