Yes - you could improve it and they are trying in most places but unless the city is designed with public transit in mind you can't get many people on to it.
Exactly. Outside of rush hour, buses through Calgary suburbs only have a handful of passengers. Would doubling the frequency boost those numbers significantly? I doubt it. We can mandate higher density in new communities to make transit more efficient, but what do you do about existing low-density communities? You can’t just bulldoze them all down and rebuild. Home delivery of groceries, etc would move the needle a lot more. Though at the cost of even more automation and job losses in food and retail.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
I don't see how home delivery of groceries does much. You have a van that can hold what, maybe 5 or 10 orders. But most grocery trips are short distances of a few km, maybe 2 or 3 times a week. You gain a hell of a lot more reducing commuter traffic.
If you want to change the culture around owning a car, there needs to be ways for people to to move from point A to point B easier than jumping in their car to do so.
This is the biggest thing for me. I always think back to an example I have of this. My car was in a specialty shop getting some work done. They called and told me it was done. My ride to the shop fell through, so I took transit.
It took me 2 1/2 hours between busses, trains and walking to get to the shop.
This is the biggest thing for me. I always think back to an example I have of this. My car was in a specialty shop getting some work done. They called and told me it was done. My ride to the shop fell through, so I took transit.
It took me 2 1/2 hours between busses, trains and walking to get to the shop.
It took me 20 minutes to drive home.
Why don't I take transit? That's why.
The buses themselves are very unreliable as well. Most are crammed during peak hours, and run very sporadically outside of peak hours. On top of that, Calgary's winter weather can be very difficult to deal with when waiting outside for a bus for 40+ minutes.
Unless you are going and coming within a few blocks of a train station, transit in Calgary is a challenge.
No doubt cities should be designed better here. But that's also something that can't be fixed anytime soon. So you're essentially punting a fix to 50 years down the road.
And again with the carbon tax, yes the costs are pushed onto you but you see a refund of the tax so you end up coming out even unless you are a big consumer. And the point is to make gas or whatever more expensive so people use less of it.
Citation needed for your claim that people will go on welfare instead of working because of the carbon tax.
I think there are a lot of immediate things that can be done regarding city planning.
1. When planning low-density subdivisions, the developer should have to agree to build some office/commercial/industrial developments close by. They should also contribute to a fund that builds LRTs to connect the subdivisions better.
2. Public transport should be focuses more on getting people to work instead of just getting them to shopping areas and universities. I am about a 15-20 drive from my office. If I want to take a series of buses to get them, I am looking at about 3 hours. The you consider things like taking the kid to day care/shcool in the opposite direction every day, running other important errands, and work related travel throughout the day, public transit just isn't feasible.
3. Re-zoning. There is a an empty mall close by where I live and I don't see why it can't be turned into residential housing right in the middle of a high density urban area. There are a lot of vacant and for sale commercial building that could be turned into housing instead of plopping suburbs everywhere. They should make it cheaper to live closer to where you work, but instead of doing that, they just make it more expensive and then punish people who need to commute.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Assuming the other side doesn't get it, or are unwilling to acknowledge something, is not a path to success or intelligent discourse.
I think you're being too general with this statement. For example, wouldn't you say that flat earthers don't get it? Climate change deniers? Trump supporters? etc.
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By the way, the last crisis affecting humanity (also due to overpopulation) was the certainty of mass famine. In the 60/70s it was widely accepted that this was an unavoidable crisis, would be upon us within 10 years or less, and it was far too late to do anything about it.
Technology pulled us through. Without even breaking a sweat.
In hindsight, many people argue that it wasn't that desperate of a crisis. But that would be wrong. It was real. It was unavoidable. And it was beaten.
I am not saying that climate change will be so thoroughly beaten with some simple technological advances. Or that technology alone can beat this. But I am saying that humanity's ability to generate technological advances - when absolutely needed - should never be under-estimated.
Neither should the threats and dangers that climate change presents to our species and our world. Those famines may have been put off for several decades, but they very well could still happen. Thanks to climate change, there's a very strong chance that they will. Perhaps not in G7 countries, but other parts of the world are in a precarious spot right now.
I guess I would be more optimistic about a mostly technological solution if it weren't for the fact that we've known about climate change for many decades, yet here we sit with carbon emissions continuing to soar every year, and only a tiny fraction of the world's energy coming from clean energy. If technology was going to be the answer all along, why hasn't it come along further than it has?
Anyhow, here's a great video on the topic that I'd recommend (16 minutes):
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I'm guessing that this has already been discussed somewhere in here, or in the science thread, but the Canadian fusion reactor now has a test site in the UK.
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A prototype power plant designed by architect Amanda Levete's firm AL_A with a nuclear fusion reactor is set to be built in Oxfordshire, England.
Located on the UK Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA) campus in Culham, the Fusion Demonstration Plant will be used to prove the viability of Canadian energy company General Fusion's nuclear fusion technology as a carbon-free energy source.
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"Humans contribute to climate change, but not the main cause" 26%, that's quite sad.
Global climate change is well understood at this point, we know humans are the cause of this, it's not the sun, orbit, or something naturally occurring.
At least the hoax % is relatively low on CP, yay for that I guess.
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I'm guessing that this has already been discussed somewhere in here, or in the science thread, but the Canadian fusion reactor now has a test site in the UK.
Exactly. Outside of rush hour, buses through Calgary suburbs only have a handful of passengers. Would doubling the frequency boost those numbers significantly? I doubt it. We can mandate higher density in new communities to make transit more efficient, but what do you do about existing low-density communities? You can’t just bulldoze them all down and rebuild. Home delivery of groceries, etc would move the needle a lot more. Though at the cost of even more automation and job losses in food and retail.
One of the more radical ideas put forth by the author of Strong Towns is letting certain far reaching neighbourhoods die off. The premise being that what we’ve built in basically all of North America is unsustainable, and inflexible, as it was built to a finished state that’s hard to iterate on, so our energies should be focused on salvaging and reinforcing neighbourhoods with flexibility of lifestyles, housing, and transportation.
I can’t remember the exact criteria he outlined for salvageable neighbourhoods, but one of the key elements for sustainability was a mix of public & private dollars, and offloading neighbourhood decisions to the neighbourhoods. Basically having the city front “mini-bets” to the neighbourhoods and allowing them on an individual basis to add value to things like community squares or bike infrastructure without heavy red tape from the city.
The neighbourhoods that prove their value over time would attract new residents and private investment, while pulling in from the neighbourhoods that don’t go an upward trajectory.
But of course the very idea of letting a neighbourhood die also leads to a litany of issues, first and foremost the folks who mortgaged their lives to be there, with no options to leave, effectively creating suburban ghettos.
I guess I would be more optimistic about a mostly technological solution if it weren't for the fact that we've known about climate change for many decades, yet here we sit with carbon emissions continuing to soar every year, and only a tiny fraction of the world's energy coming from clean energy. If technology was going to be the answer all along, why hasn't it come along further than it has?
The same argument can be made (more emphatically, IMO) with respect to constraint and human behavior - if human can change, why haven't they?
"Humans contribute to climate change, but not the main cause" 26%, that's quite sad.
Global climate change is well understood at this point, we know humans are the cause of this, it's not the sun, orbit, or something naturally occurring.
At least the hoax % is relatively low on CP, yay for that I guess.
Wow, I hadn't actually looked at the CP poll results. Do any of the 26% want to venture what the biggest cause of climate change is, if not humans? Sure there are natural fluctuations over the epochs but we're talking about the current situation of rising global temperatures and their effects. Mostly natural? Explain.
I can’t remember the exact criteria he outlined for salvageable neighbourhoods, but one of the key elements for sustainability was a mix of public & private dollars, and offloading neighbourhood decisions to the neighbourhoods. Basically having the city front “mini-bets” to the neighbourhoods and allowing them on an individual basis to add value to things like community squares or bike infrastructure without heavy red tape from the city.
The neighbourhoods that prove their value over time would attract new residents and private investment, while pulling in from the neighbourhoods that don’t go an upward trajectory.
I suspect StrongTowns will be in for a shock when most of the successful neighborhoods are filled with low-density, single family homes with big yards and driveable to separated commercial and industrial areas.
I suspect StrongTowns will be in for a shock when most of the successful neighborhoods are filled with low-density, single family homes with big yards and driveable to separated commercial and industrial areas.
Successful neighbourhoods or neighbourhoods for successful people?
Neighborhoods successful in attracting more residents.
Here's the problem in a nutshell. As long as we have the attitude that we get to choose how we live and the options are there, then we won't see any improvement. People aren't good at making self-sacrificing choices. Take away the choice and people will fall into line.
We are in love with a whole bunch of bad ideas; in fact we are so smitten that we believe we are entitled to these bad ideas.
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