Been in Colorado for the past week or so. You guys are a lot further ahead than Illinois is. Lots more bike paths and lanes, better traffic control that doesn't result in stop and go movement, overall a lot more green space in your shopping centers and in human spaces, also lots more walking areas.
Don't beat up your state too much, it's fantastic compared to mine. :'c
I'm from So. IL originally and been to CO 4 times. Colorado is so much better in my opinion. People biking and jogging everywhere, everyone I met was really nice, like went out of their way to help my friends and I nice. Obviously that's not everyone there, but it was the experience I had. Overall, it's probably my favorite of the states I've been to and hope to go back, maybe permanently, someday.
I'd love to be a gatekeeper saying "we're already full, turn back around", but I'm a CA transplant myself. Personally, I'm looking to leave myself: too cold most of the year, and it's getting really $$$. YMMV
Compared to other countries, yes. And that’s not even comparing it to the US, which would be like kicking someone lying on the ground.
Try riding a train in rural France, outside the 5 TGV lines, for instance, and you’ll pray for Deutsche Bahn. Ever been to the UK?
But we could have much better PT if Germany weren’t the world’s greatest car exporter by far and the ministry of traffic deep in the pockets of automobile makers, that’s true as well.
So, as a not very smart man. Wouldn't underground roads be better? I feel with it being underground it'd be easier to manage pollution and install some things to fight it.
Underground roads are crazy expensive. You need something to hold up the earth and anything else above it. There's issues with water leaking in. Piping will have to go around it. If it breaks down somehow it will take longer to repair. It's only really an option if the detour would be a lot longer or within urban areas for the extra space it frees up.
Or if you know, having greener spaces and roads underground are actually better for climate change. I'm not sure if this would help in that matter or not, but I think it's a possibility. Not everything is about our made up concept of money.
What’s better for climate change is less cars on the road, not underground roads. If we are going to be digging these expensive tunnels in every city they should be for subway systems. That would be a substantially better use of the funds and would be a good step towards reducing the emissions of a city. This is all assuming that we stop subsidizing car ownership so heavily of course.
The entire process of building and repairing roads is pretty carbon intensive due to the amount of concrete involved.
I doubt it would affect pollution significantly. It's not like both ends of the tunnel aren't open to the air. It would definitely locally displace it so it's not distributed across the above ground length of the road, but the same amount more or less (minus whatever adheres to walls) is still coming out of either end.
Underground tunnels also have the danger of fires rapidly spiraling out of control and in the past have killed dozens of people, and that was before electric cars became common. I would not want to be in a tunnel when a Tesla's battery explodes.
I'm not saying this has no advantages, but for the trouble and cost it seems like a train would be better.
Nothing underground generates oxygen, but moving the roads from above to underground gives more "it's free real estate" to grow grass and trees, like in the second photo, which generates oxygen and stores carbon. It's not the best thing like suppressing the cars all together, but it's better than the first picture.
Yeah, I completely forgot about the whole fire thing.
When yku say it like that. It makes more sense. It's a shame we don't have super efficient ways to convert exhaust gasses into healthier gasses. But yeah, if it's just a short tunnel, the entrance and exits would just not funnel it right. I wonder if really long tunnels would be better. Maybe being able to use the entrances with a system to input clean air and force the exhaust through vents.
And I wonder if those fire suppression systems that starve the fires of oxygen could be something that could be useful? But that'd require automated doors to seal the tunnel, and then if someone is trapped on there, the fire is the last of their issue. Unless there were refugee points that also seal, but then you've gotta make sure everyone's in them. I wonder if some form of scanner could be used to allow humans in. But then there's that thing where a fire has been starved, but then gets a sudden burst of oxygen and it becomes explosive. I forgot what it's called. I'm sure someone actually smart could brainstorm it better.
I feel it's more likely they don't understand proper usage of quotation marks like that. They probably think they give emphasis; I see it all the time.
It's so backwards. Making this stretch of coastline walkable means more people show up, and if businesses realize this potential then they can capitalize. Makes sooo much sense
Fun fact this is actually the Rhine river that runs sort of ⅔ of the way through Düsseldorf, similar to the Thames in London or the Seine in Paris.
The other bank is much more residential and a little high end so it’s not really a gathering place for the population, whereas the bank shown in the picture is 2 blocks from a tram line that runs parallel to the river and runs into the heart of the CBD making it an extremely approachable body of water and pedestrian strip.
On the weekends, the city holds public events to draw people to gather on this bank like food fares, carnivals, concerts. It’s always packed on the weekends and generates a shit ton of foot traffic for all the pubs and restaurants in adjacent streets.
I had no idea all this was covered in highways just a few decades ago, making the city more walkable was an amazing choice. If you’ve never been to Düsseldorf before or don’t know anything about it, it is definitely one of the highlights of Germany once you’ve had your fill of all the war sites. Extremely liveable city without feeling overcrowded, and just a stones throw from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
This title is under a few layers of irony, there are similar pictures floating around of green spaces converted to highways in the US with the same title, OP is suggesting the European version actually is progress
I remember as a kid hearing this vague ideological warfare around it. The Boston Science Museum had a big exhibit on it, as a kid I learned nothing about it. Then it was lamented for being wasteful spending - and only now do I hear about how it was meant to give us back urban areas.
That's surprising to me. I remember at the time, NBC Nightly News and PBS Newshour (my family's news diet in the 90s) did stories about it, and they both definitely mentioned reclaiming city space as one of the benefits.
I think the Big Dig, while it ended up costing several times what it was supposed to, will go down in history as one of the best highway projects of its era. It also proved infrastructure naysayers wrong. A lot of people insist that any highway projects always just induce demand, resulting in even more congestion, but the Big Dig did nothing of the sort. To this day, 30 years on, Boston traffic is still not as bad as it was pre-Big Dig.
A lot of people insist that any highway projects always just induce demand, resulting in even more congestion, but the Big Dig did nothing of the sort. To this day, 30 years on, Boston traffic is still not as bad as it was pre-Big Dig.
Induced traffic does not mean that traffic on a specific place inevitably goes back to what it was before a new highway. It means that total traffic, including old and new infrastructure, always goes up if the total road capacity goes up.
Do you think the total car traffic in the Boston area today is greater than it would have been had the Big Dig not been built? If yes, the 'infrastructure naysayers' were correct.
Of course, this means new highways can be locally beneficial, for example when they are used to divert car traffic from a city center. But they still deepen the overall car dependency. Investing in rail-bound transportation while imposing heavy fees on car traffic into the city would likely be a better use of resources.
Do you think the total car traffic in the Boston area today is greater than it would have been had the Big Dig not been built? If yes, the ‘infrastructure naysayers’ were correct.
It's probably gone down, actually, at least in per capita terms. Boston's population is a lot bigger than it used to be, so that has to be taken into account.
Keep in mind, the Big Dig actually reduced the total number of highway ramps, which is part of why it increased traffic flow. And by reclaiming neighborhoods from elevated highways, it reconnected areas. You can easily walk places that were not possible before.
But they still deepen the overall car dependency. Investing in rail-bound transportation while imposing heavy fees on car traffic into the city would likely be a better use of resources.
Boston is far from car dependent; it's probably one of the worst cities in America for drivers, and best for cyclists and pedestrians.
It’s probably gone down, actually, at least in per capita terms. Boston’s population is a lot bigger than it used to be, so that has to be taken into account.
The comparison is between today and 'today but without the highway', not between today and before the highway was built. If the population increase is greater with the highway there, that's still part of the induced demand.
Boston is far from car dependent; it’s probably one of the worst cities in America for drivers, and best for cyclists and pedestrians.
A city being "bad for drivers" is not a great indicator of it not being car dependant. Cities in the Netherlands are probably the most walkable and bikable on the planet, and also great to drive in because there are hardly any cars.
The cars are still there, in massive numbers. You just can't see the tunnel they built between those two pictures. It's right beneath the feet of the pedestrians.
Yeah, it will probably work out if all 1.4 billion people all drive alone in a car, occupying at least 15m² each. Needs one more lane, but then traffic will be solved!
By your own definition "logical city planning" is best done with a good and well integrated public transportation network and the spaces thus freed by having fewer cars being repurposed for uses with proven health benefits compared to roads ... which just happen to be green spaces as there are actual proven benefits for human mental and physical health, both from the greenery and the reduction in noise an particulate polution when big roads with heavy traffic are removed.
Favoring individual cars in a urban environment is actually worse in pretty much every metric: not just mental and physical health but even timewise as better public transportation means way less time wasted in traffic jams, because of all the cars removed from the road and because paradoxically more roads incentivise more cars, so new/bigger roads solve traffic jam problem for a while and then eventualyl it get as bad or worse than before only now there are even more cars, hence more people, stuck in traffic, so more public transportation means shorter commuting times even when you reduce the number/size of roads.
I get the impression that your logic in thinking of more roads for cars as "logical city planning" comes from never having experienced living in an urban setting with a proper well integrated public transport network or widespread use of cycling for short commutes, which is a critical blindspot in knowledge when claiming to understand urban planning.
"Logical city planning" for you does not include planning a city that people enjoy living and breathing in. Just one that cars dominate more every year.
Ah yeah they should’ve just done the American thing instead and bulldozed the whole strip of town to put in a 20 lane wide interstate with a Bucees and Walmart/s
What people call „Rhine“ is a heavily straightened and channelized artificial water road.
Especially in the 19th century they cut off many loops and bends to make it more accessible for ships, to make the land useable and to get rid of flooding (narrator: „it didn’t work“):
I think this is my first time seeing the “/s” on lemmy. And I really hope it doesn’t follow users here. We fully understood the sarcasm without it. It was honestly so much more a statement with ironic wording than it was even sarcasm.
I feel like we’re better than this. We can’t complain about Hollywood and advertising dumbing everything down to the level they think we need and then turn around and spoon feed each other the most basic forms of speech.
You might be able to easily spot sarcasm, but not everyone is blessed with that ability. Many autistic people, for instance, struggle to detect sarcasm. And comments being text only makes it harder. "/s" is an accessibility tool and implying that using these tools is "dumbing down" communication is honestly a very shitty move.
Beyond autism, that /s has become all the more necessary these days in the wake of this huge wave of anti-intellectualism. Outside of private circles, it's so hard now to tell the difference between absurd sarcasm and the genuinely ignorant takes some people proudly share, there's too much of an overlap between the two lol
Autistic person here, yeah I can’t read tone for shit through text sometimes, and especially online you never can tell if and when someone’s being serious.
It's sometimes impossible to detect sarcasm from just text, that's why Poe's law exists. You may be good at understanding sarcasm and satire, but some people aren't and putting /s is making sure that everyone understands instead of just you.
I feel you on the dumbing down part though, but I think sarcastic comments are not a form of media that must be left only to be enjoyed by the people who are "better than this".
I mean... They don't have to be left to anyone. Is it really that hard to ask for or wait for more context before popping off? If I misunderstand sarcasm I just say oh oops I misunderstood my bad and move on with my day. It's such a non-issue.
Because when the word "progress" is used, it is usually a loaded term with some specific connotations. The quotes indicate this is a reference to the word "progress", not a use of the word "progress", and it's intended to draw your attention to the fact that this change, while clearly a positive and desirable one, contrasts strongly with what is usually meant when a person says it.
No, by replacing it with public transportation and human-scaled spaces. Well, leaving one small part of it for service vehicles and people who absolutely need to go buy car if there is no better option.
They actually can't afford not to. Walkable cities improve the economies of cities because people are actually able to get to stores on roads that would otherwise be swamped with cars. It improves health and safety as well.
Why scare quotes? I lived in Düsseldorf back in '90 (go alts - that was the name of my school team, and yes it was sponsored by Alt bier 🍺... different times), it's always been one of Germany's more clean cut, upmarket cities, but this picture makes me want to go back and check it out again.
Then again, I'm a queer transfem and I'm in BERLIN, THE QUEER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. Düsseldorf is in the last instance just meh.
I grew up next to Düsseldorf. I freaking love this city. Wouldn't it be so expensiv i would live there.
Because it is a magnet for anime fans, i early came in contact with queerness and different worldviews. Düsseldorf still has a big connection to art and due to figures like Joseph Beuys the art community is still pretty progressive. I went to university there and the campus had a progressiv Atmosphere there as well.
But on the other side the city is full of rich and conservativ people. A weird contrast. I would say Düsseldorf is educated while cologne is more open and welcoming.
Yes progress! Using the quotes there make it seem like you disagree that this is progress, which I will choose to believe you didn't mean it like that.
I have seen a few pictures like this from around the world. It's pretty encouraging
Holy crap, dude. Obviously I'm not actually literally suggesting we should just bury all cars with the people still inside them. Long term cars are actually terrible for standard of living, but there needs to be a rational transition and effective mass transit in place before we start getting rid of cars. It is stupidly, ridiculously obvious that no one in their right mind would actually want to bury people alive for doing the only things that work with our current terrible transit system.
Maybe don't just go around assuming everyone who says anything you don't like is a monster in a medium famous for it's lack of a serious tone?
Well, yeah. That's why it would be nice to work on walkable infrastructure isn't it? Because then we can reduce cars without lowering anyone's quality of life. That's the whole discussion.
Lowering the standard of living in that way is murder? That sounds a bit melodramatic. You're probably even saving people since there are less traffic accidents.
Also speak for yourself. For me, not having to drive means a better quality of life.
As an American I'm just assuming that road was moved to be widened and a bunch of low income housing and many blocks worth of historic buildings were demolished in the process.
Low income housing is a far better use of space than preserving "historic" buildings that are actually just out of code, poorly designed, and slowly decaying old houses that never actually had any historical significance.
The needs of people who are alive and struggling today are infinitely more important than your nostalgia for the homes of dead rich cunts.
That's how I feel about SoCal. I noticed on Google Maps a lot of homes are taking up the sea cliffs south of LA. I always thought that all coastline in CA was public...
Reminds me of an old science fiction novel I read years ago. Teleportation had became common, so people no longer needed cars. The entire system of interstate highways was converted to long, narrow parks.
You’ll be disappointed. It’s a very minor part of the plot, and the construction of the parks is only mentioned in passing. The novel was Ringworld by Larry Niven (written in 1970. Sexism ahoy!)
At first I read the comments and was appalled, then I realized I automatically assumed the shittier picture was the new one. I'm assuming it's because I've never seen it go this direction before.
He said it looks like it's photoshop and not real, but it is real, it's just the weird lighting that makes it look like it. (Hope you wanted a real answer and your comment wasn't just joking, couldn't tell)
The Gardiner in Toronto desperately needs to be pulled down (before people die) and replaced with tunnels.
The viaduct in Vancouver is being torn down but I don't think they plan to build a tunnel. It's the fastest way into downtown from East Van.
The difference between these inevitable projects and Dusseldorf is that property value in Canadian cities is so insane that developers will likely push for the construction of biggest types yet in these cities.
Here is another picture. you can see the church in the background. The right side is the road to the houses, and on the left is the speed-way with 2x2 lanes. It was (still) crazy back then.
EDIT: I was corrected. Its not. It is the substitute road.
Here is a recent picture looking from the other direction. Again the church now on the left. It was a crazy project but it was well received by the Altstadt/Oldtown.
In the German Wikipedia you can find another nice picture of the Rhine-Bank (Rhein-Ufer). It shows the Steps to the Rhine in 1900 - before the asphalt rolled over all that land. Notice the church and Tower in the back. And today.
Are we going to magically assume the traffic just vanished?
People and goods still need to be moved from one part of the city to another, as well as from other parts of the country and even internationally. Way too many of these "fuck cars" people naively think you can just wave a magic wand and make the transport of goods and people just disappear. Something would need to be done to solve that. Was an underground highway built? Alien teleportation? A fleet of magic carpets were made available that run on unicorn farts that allow people to get around?
A lot of cities in Europe are actively discouraging people from taking the car to get to the city center. Either by requiring a permit to enter, making it very convoluted to get to your destination by implementing one-way streets and having a few big roads made to take on traffic, outright banning older cars with bad emission, or a combination of the above.
This is typically balanced with park & rides outside the city center, from where you can easily take public transport into the city.
Suppliers are still allowed in and are able to do so because less cars are driving there.
The city I live in has recently implemented such measures. Lots of people were complaining beforehand. But after a few years, there's not less people making it inside the city, no massive congestion, better air quality,...
Edit: not saying this is necessarily the case here. From other comments, it does seem they moved traffic underground. But my reply is still valid to your comment.
You can see in the top picture(1990) that there are very few cargo trucks. It looks like mostly consumer traffic. The most likely altenative is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCsseldorf_Stadtbahn massive public transport system they've built since 1988.
Are we going to magically assume the traffic just vanished?
It's an underground highway. Out of sight, out of mind. I imagine they probably also improved the overall road design, like Seattle, Denver, and Boston have done (or are doing) with their projects to bury highways below-grade.
Which is basically what I said at the bottom of my post. But first off tunnels don't work everywhere, are incredibly costly, and local roads would still be needed to let buildings downtown have access.
Or maybe the number bus and tram lines increased, and the train systems expanded. "One person, one car" is a mentality we should all be saying "fuck that" to.
Yep, thats what this is
Yeah, I dunno why OP put quotes on it.
My guess is OP is being sarcastic because progress to many people means more highways & cars. More construction and development.
I wish we had more of this kind of progress near me (Colorado USA).
Been in Colorado for the past week or so. You guys are a lot further ahead than Illinois is. Lots more bike paths and lanes, better traffic control that doesn't result in stop and go movement, overall a lot more green space in your shopping centers and in human spaces, also lots more walking areas.
Don't beat up your state too much, it's fantastic compared to mine. :'c
I'm from So. IL originally and been to CO 4 times. Colorado is so much better in my opinion. People biking and jogging everywhere, everyone I met was really nice, like went out of their way to help my friends and I nice. Obviously that's not everyone there, but it was the experience I had. Overall, it's probably my favorite of the states I've been to and hope to go back, maybe permanently, someday.
I'd love to be a gatekeeper saying "we're already full, turn back around", but I'm a CA transplant myself. Personally, I'm looking to leave myself: too cold most of the year, and it's getting really $$$. YMMV
Well, it certainly beats how it was before, but there isn’t less traffic now – they just put it in a tunnel.
Germany’s public transit is fantastic too tho
thank you, but are you sure? It's pretty shit except for a few cities.
Compared to other countries, yes. And that’s not even comparing it to the US, which would be like kicking someone lying on the ground.
Try riding a train in rural France, outside the 5 TGV lines, for instance, and you’ll pray for Deutsche Bahn. Ever been to the UK?
But we could have much better PT if Germany weren’t the world’s greatest car exporter by far and the ministry of traffic deep in the pockets of automobile makers, that’s true as well.
Think about it this way, it's even worse in big parts of the world.
The road and cars still exist, they just put it underground
This is exactly what happened. They just needed the roads AND the view. The amount of cars is still the same, if not more.
So, as a not very smart man. Wouldn't underground roads be better? I feel with it being underground it'd be easier to manage pollution and install some things to fight it.
Underground roads are crazy expensive. You need something to hold up the earth and anything else above it. There's issues with water leaking in. Piping will have to go around it. If it breaks down somehow it will take longer to repair. It's only really an option if the detour would be a lot longer or within urban areas for the extra space it frees up.
Or if you know, having greener spaces and roads underground are actually better for climate change. I'm not sure if this would help in that matter or not, but I think it's a possibility. Not everything is about our made up concept of money.
What’s better for climate change is less cars on the road, not underground roads. If we are going to be digging these expensive tunnels in every city they should be for subway systems. That would be a substantially better use of the funds and would be a good step towards reducing the emissions of a city. This is all assuming that we stop subsidizing car ownership so heavily of course.
The entire process of building and repairing roads is pretty carbon intensive due to the amount of concrete involved.
Yes, replacing surface roads with greenery is good for climate change, or more locally for reducing the heat island effect.
They likely also redesigned the roads to reduce stop and go traffic, with all the extra pollution that creates.
I doubt it would affect pollution significantly. It's not like both ends of the tunnel aren't open to the air. It would definitely locally displace it so it's not distributed across the above ground length of the road, but the same amount more or less (minus whatever adheres to walls) is still coming out of either end.
Underground tunnels also have the danger of fires rapidly spiraling out of control and in the past have killed dozens of people, and that was before electric cars became common. I would not want to be in a tunnel when a Tesla's battery explodes.
I'm not saying this has no advantages, but for the trouble and cost it seems like a train would be better.
I think it's better from a polluting point.
Nothing underground generates oxygen, but moving the roads from above to underground gives more "it's free real estate" to grow grass and trees, like in the second photo, which generates oxygen and stores carbon. It's not the best thing like suppressing the cars all together, but it's better than the first picture.
Yeah, I completely forgot about the whole fire thing.
When yku say it like that. It makes more sense. It's a shame we don't have super efficient ways to convert exhaust gasses into healthier gasses. But yeah, if it's just a short tunnel, the entrance and exits would just not funnel it right. I wonder if really long tunnels would be better. Maybe being able to use the entrances with a system to input clean air and force the exhaust through vents.
And I wonder if those fire suppression systems that starve the fires of oxygen could be something that could be useful? But that'd require automated doors to seal the tunnel, and then if someone is trapped on there, the fire is the last of their issue. Unless there were refugee points that also seal, but then you've gotta make sure everyone's in them. I wonder if some form of scanner could be used to allow humans in. But then there's that thing where a fire has been starved, but then gets a sudden burst of oxygen and it becomes explosive. I forgot what it's called. I'm sure someone actually smart could brainstorm it better.
I feel it's more likely they don't understand proper usage of quotation marks like that. They probably think they give emphasis; I see it all the time.
It's so backwards. Making this stretch of coastline walkable means more people show up, and if businesses realize this potential then they can capitalize. Makes sooo much sense
Fun fact this is actually the Rhine river that runs sort of ⅔ of the way through Düsseldorf, similar to the Thames in London or the Seine in Paris.
The other bank is much more residential and a little high end so it’s not really a gathering place for the population, whereas the bank shown in the picture is 2 blocks from a tram line that runs parallel to the river and runs into the heart of the CBD making it an extremely approachable body of water and pedestrian strip.
On the weekends, the city holds public events to draw people to gather on this bank like food fares, carnivals, concerts. It’s always packed on the weekends and generates a shit ton of foot traffic for all the pubs and restaurants in adjacent streets.
I had no idea all this was covered in highways just a few decades ago, making the city more walkable was an amazing choice. If you’ve never been to Düsseldorf before or don’t know anything about it, it is definitely one of the highlights of Germany once you’ve had your fill of all the war sites. Extremely liveable city without feeling overcrowded, and just a stones throw from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
Colorado used to be a lot more beautiful.
I wish Colorado would seriously put forth a passenger train between Pueblo to Denver or even Fort Collins.
Utah has one from Provo to Ogden and it's amazing. Beats driving in the psycho traffic.
Boulder really wants a passenger train too!
Boulder resident here, I would kill for a train between here and Denver.
Yep, lame.
Obviously just being grammatically correct by putting the title in quotes!
Luckily for op they can edit the title, so please do @[email protected]
He was just making a point"."
Wondered the same.
He's thr CDU in Berlin. They want to reverse those two pictures.
Sarcasm.
It's a dream come true far as I'm concerned.
I haven't found anyone adding the detail that the photo is a bit deceptive.
The road is still there, it was just moved underground. It surfaces at the bridge in the background.
It's definitely better, but the car traffic is still there, just hidden.
Source: I live a couple minutes from where the photo was taken
Are you suggesting this is not progress? Because this is honestly amazing.
What's the point of water if you can't chill by the water
All my homies like chilling by the water
Hell yeah my homies are here! 💦 💦 💦
This title is under a few layers of irony, there are similar pictures floating around of green spaces converted to highways in the US with the same title, OP is suggesting the European version actually is progress
It's a worldwide phenomena. The "Big Dig" is a great example of urban space reclaimed from above-grade highways.
I remember as a kid hearing this vague ideological warfare around it. The Boston Science Museum had a big exhibit on it, as a kid I learned nothing about it. Then it was lamented for being wasteful spending - and only now do I hear about how it was meant to give us back urban areas.
Sure did. I’ve lived in RI my whole life save for when I lived just barely into MA about 5 years ago.
Pardon the Reddit link, but as soon as I saw a before and after a few months ago, I was awestruck.
That's surprising to me. I remember at the time, NBC Nightly News and PBS Newshour (my family's news diet in the 90s) did stories about it, and they both definitely mentioned reclaiming city space as one of the benefits.
I think the Big Dig, while it ended up costing several times what it was supposed to, will go down in history as one of the best highway projects of its era. It also proved infrastructure naysayers wrong. A lot of people insist that any highway projects always just induce demand, resulting in even more congestion, but the Big Dig did nothing of the sort. To this day, 30 years on, Boston traffic is still not as bad as it was pre-Big Dig.
Induced traffic does not mean that traffic on a specific place inevitably goes back to what it was before a new highway. It means that total traffic, including old and new infrastructure, always goes up if the total road capacity goes up.
Do you think the total car traffic in the Boston area today is greater than it would have been had the Big Dig not been built? If yes, the 'infrastructure naysayers' were correct.
Of course, this means new highways can be locally beneficial, for example when they are used to divert car traffic from a city center. But they still deepen the overall car dependency. Investing in rail-bound transportation while imposing heavy fees on car traffic into the city would likely be a better use of resources.
It's probably gone down, actually, at least in per capita terms. Boston's population is a lot bigger than it used to be, so that has to be taken into account.
Keep in mind, the Big Dig actually reduced the total number of highway ramps, which is part of why it increased traffic flow. And by reclaiming neighborhoods from elevated highways, it reconnected areas. You can easily walk places that were not possible before.
Boston is far from car dependent; it's probably one of the worst cities in America for drivers, and best for cyclists and pedestrians.
The comparison is between today and 'today but without the highway', not between today and before the highway was built. If the population increase is greater with the highway there, that's still part of the induced demand.
A city being "bad for drivers" is not a great indicator of it not being car dependant. Cities in the Netherlands are probably the most walkable and bikable on the planet, and also great to drive in because there are hardly any cars.
I think there should be some shading structures around the walkway.
Maybe some self-building ones that also act as a carbon sink.
Har har, what I meant was having a shaded overhead thing every couple of yards right along the actual walkway next to the water.
Assuming its mostly concrete having shading could help break up heat absorption and help reduce heat radiation.
Pretty sure they are referring to trees here.
The main walkways and the bike lane are actually located in the shade provided by the line of trees.
You know people drink water too right? It's not just a backdrop for your selfies lol
Not me, I'm a purist. I drink only hydrogen and oxygen.
Why the quotes? It looks much better.
I highly doubt OP knows what quotes mean here
"Sarcasm"
"your opinion"
"is shit"
Bro where did u get that username
I uh... typed it in and it was available?
The cars are still there, in massive numbers. You just can't see the tunnel they built between those two pictures. It's right beneath the feet of the pedestrians.
'emissions somewhat contained'..?
Sure that ain't 'carbon monoxide tunnel?'
Maybe it has chimneys like the London underground used to when it was steam powered
Sounds NSFW...
do we have /c/dragonsfuckingcars and /c/carsfuckingdragons yet?
That still seems better though. Less noise, safer and more usable space.
If you're there, can you hear them if you put your ear to the ground?
Lol does it matter or are you just curious?
Just curious, haha.
I'll check for you next time I pass through there on my bicycle.
Maybe it's an art installation titled "Progress"
Maybe he meant the upper picture is "progress"
Rage bait
This is actual progress. I'd love for places to have more green
I agree ! We unfortunately are cutting trees in favor or roads in india !
You don't need more roads, you need better quality ones :)
Yeah, it will probably work out if all 1.4 billion people all drive alone in a car, occupying at least 15m² each. Needs one more lane, but then traffic will be solved!
I don't care what you think, but cutting more trees in favor of streets is just never a good idea in this day and age.
Why more roads?
More trees, more happiness
Less cars, more trees, more happiness.
Why did you put the title in quotes
who hurt you?
you think it's vain to want visible nature?
I'm sure the people of Duesseldorf are so thankful to have you as their road white knight.
Define logical city planning? Is a walkable, green area more desirable than an overgrown road or not?
Is traffic the end-all-be-all to city planning?
By your own definition "logical city planning" is best done with a good and well integrated public transportation network and the spaces thus freed by having fewer cars being repurposed for uses with proven health benefits compared to roads ... which just happen to be green spaces as there are actual proven benefits for human mental and physical health, both from the greenery and the reduction in noise an particulate polution when big roads with heavy traffic are removed.
Favoring individual cars in a urban environment is actually worse in pretty much every metric: not just mental and physical health but even timewise as better public transportation means way less time wasted in traffic jams, because of all the cars removed from the road and because paradoxically more roads incentivise more cars, so new/bigger roads solve traffic jam problem for a while and then eventualyl it get as bad or worse than before only now there are even more cars, hence more people, stuck in traffic, so more public transportation means shorter commuting times even when you reduce the number/size of roads.
I get the impression that your logic in thinking of more roads for cars as "logical city planning" comes from never having experienced living in an urban setting with a proper well integrated public transport network or widespread use of cycling for short commutes, which is a critical blindspot in knowledge when claiming to understand urban planning.
lol... jesus.
"Logical city planning" for you does not include planning a city that people enjoy living and breathing in. Just one that cars dominate more every year.
Yep, you're American alright.
Yawn. We get that you love fascism
because the cars are still there just OutofSight
c/unnecessaryquotes
No quotes needed this is literally progress
Ah yeah they should’ve just done the American thing instead and bulldozed the whole strip of town to put in a 20 lane wide interstate with a Bucees and Walmart/s
Should have bulldozed the whole Rhine
They basically did that.
What people call „Rhine“ is a heavily straightened and channelized artificial water road.
Especially in the 19th century they cut off many loops and bends to make it more accessible for ships, to make the land useable and to get rid of flooding (narrator: „it didn’t work“):
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinbegradigung
(don’t have an english article, just look at the pictures)
The road is still in the same place, but it's a tunnel nowadays.
Stop it! I can only get so hard
America has done almost the exact same thing as in this photo: https://images.app.goo.gl/i6UN6uCZWBjUqNL57
I think this is my first time seeing the “/s” on lemmy. And I really hope it doesn’t follow users here. We fully understood the sarcasm without it. It was honestly so much more a statement with ironic wording than it was even sarcasm.
I feel like we’re better than this. We can’t complain about Hollywood and advertising dumbing everything down to the level they think we need and then turn around and spoon feed each other the most basic forms of speech.
You might be able to easily spot sarcasm, but not everyone is blessed with that ability. Many autistic people, for instance, struggle to detect sarcasm. And comments being text only makes it harder. "/s" is an accessibility tool and implying that using these tools is "dumbing down" communication is honestly a very shitty move.
Beyond autism, that /s has become all the more necessary these days in the wake of this huge wave of anti-intellectualism. Outside of private circles, it's so hard now to tell the difference between absurd sarcasm and the genuinely ignorant takes some people proudly share, there's too much of an overlap between the two lol
Autistic person here, yeah I can’t read tone for shit through text sometimes, and especially online you never can tell if and when someone’s being serious.
Don't worry, he didn't mean it, he was obviously being sarcastic because no reasonable person actually dislikes the /s.
Yeah, right. /s
I’d argue that jokes not being written for everyone to understand/enjoy isn’t a matter of being wrong. It’s part of the entire subjectivity of comedy.
Idk. That was very obviously sarcastic. I wouldn't care about the opinions of those who took it seriously.
It's sometimes impossible to detect sarcasm from just text, that's why Poe's law exists. You may be good at understanding sarcasm and satire, but some people aren't and putting /s is making sure that everyone understands instead of just you.
I feel you on the dumbing down part though, but I think sarcastic comments are not a form of media that must be left only to be enjoyed by the people who are "better than this".
I mean... They don't have to be left to anyone. Is it really that hard to ask for or wait for more context before popping off? If I misunderstand sarcasm I just say oh oops I misunderstood my bad and move on with my day. It's such a non-issue.
I think it'd be cool if Lemmy had an option to select tone the same way you can select language, and an option to hide tone by default
You forgot the /s
I agree with you but its sorta funny given peoples reaction to the quotes which im like pretty sure was not intended to invert the words meaning.
Why is there open and close quotations? Isn’t this progress?
Because when the word "progress" is used, it is usually a loaded term with some specific connotations. The quotes indicate this is a reference to the word "progress", not a use of the word "progress", and it's intended to draw your attention to the fact that this change, while clearly a positive and desirable one, contrasts strongly with what is usually meant when a person says it.
Nice explanation, jerkface
...what?
What's with that?
Yes. It’s progress indeed.
The new look is sexier.
I mean look at the curves of that beach!!
I started writing a comment of confusion because I thought I was on the mildly infuriating community not the mildly interesting community.
Overall yes this is wonderful progress that more cities need to adopt
Most cities just can't really afford it
yeah, car infrastructure is expensive and they should just get rid of it entirely.
Fuck cars
Well, if you insist...
By replacing it with more expensive car infrastructure? That's what happened in this picture
No, by replacing it with public transportation and human-scaled spaces. Well, leaving one small part of it for service vehicles and people who absolutely need to go buy car if there is no better option.
Sure, I agree, but you do realize where the highway went in this picture, right? It's still there...
Edit: Cease fire! Friendly fire!!! FrieNDLY FIIIIREEEE!!!
Sure, that wehicle part might as well live underground, if the country has enough money for that.
They actually can't afford not to. Walkable cities improve the economies of cities because people are actually able to get to stores on roads that would otherwise be swamped with cars. It improves health and safety as well.
Why scare quotes? I lived in Düsseldorf back in '90 (go alts - that was the name of my school team, and yes it was sponsored by Alt bier 🍺... different times), it's always been one of Germany's more clean cut, upmarket cities, but this picture makes me want to go back and check it out again.
Then again, I'm a queer transfem and I'm in BERLIN, THE QUEER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. Düsseldorf is in the last instance just meh.
Cologne is pretty gay and not far away. Come by during CSD!
Sweetie did you read the part about being transfem? I
dodrink coke, not beer ;)Why not visit Hamburg? It's like a cool version of Berlin
I grew up next to Düsseldorf. I freaking love this city. Wouldn't it be so expensiv i would live there.
Because it is a magnet for anime fans, i early came in contact with queerness and different worldviews. Düsseldorf still has a big connection to art and due to figures like Joseph Beuys the art community is still pretty progressive. I went to university there and the campus had a progressiv Atmosphere there as well.
But on the other side the city is full of rich and conservativ people. A weird contrast. I would say Düsseldorf is educated while cologne is more open and welcoming.
Yes progress! Using the quotes there make it seem like you disagree that this is progress, which I will choose to believe you didn't mean it like that.
I have seen a few pictures like this from around the world. It's pretty encouraging
Yes. Yes it is.
Look at all the people enjoying the waterfront now. It's a beautiful sight to see.
That place found its humanity again.
Nature is healing
Not sure why the quotes exist, but this is beautiful to see.
Better late than never, and I hope we can take these examples to other car-centric places to fix.
Damn, I jealous. I hope my country start investing in non-xar centric progress soon.
For real. This gives me hope for American cities
Most americans are of the mindset that cars make us free and anything public transport bad ! I doubt if that will improve anytime soon !
Every urban environment can be improved with the construction of a vague and ominous obelisk
I see a cylinder bit an obelisk.
How can I get this for Los Angeles?
We need this here in Brisbane as well.
Ive lost hope for London
Public transit and shared autonomous car usage.
Public transit
and shared autonomous car usage.Autonomous cats are now common in a couple of cities. No reason to think it won't expand to more. Why not LA?
Dreaming
You can't
Wasn't it just moved underground?
great. put them all underground.
Then seal the ends.
I mean, leave ladders to escape. I don't want to murder people. I'd just like to bury all the cars is all.
And in effect still murder people by lowering their standard of living.
Holy crap, dude. Obviously I'm not actually literally suggesting we should just bury all cars with the people still inside them. Long term cars are actually terrible for standard of living, but there needs to be a rational transition and effective mass transit in place before we start getting rid of cars. It is stupidly, ridiculously obvious that no one in their right mind would actually want to bury people alive for doing the only things that work with our current terrible transit system.
Maybe don't just go around assuming everyone who says anything you don't like is a monster in a medium famous for it's lack of a serious tone?
Well, yeah. That's why it would be nice to work on walkable infrastructure isn't it? Because then we can reduce cars without lowering anyone's quality of life. That's the whole discussion.
Lowering the standard of living in that way is murder? That sounds a bit melodramatic. You're probably even saving people since there are less traffic accidents.
Also speak for yourself. For me, not having to drive means a better quality of life.
ITT: why the quotation marks?
No stroad
are yall ever warry of france?
Bro how can you be so cucked? I'm also from an EU country but I refuse to suck France's cock
Are you French perchance? Because complaining about the French is just about the most French thing I can imagine.
Better dead than Fr*nch
It looks startlingly nice to me. I see no problem
As an American I'm just assuming that road was moved to be widened and a bunch of low income housing and many blocks worth of historic buildings were demolished in the process.
Don't worry, the historic buildings were destroyed years ago to meet minimum parking requirements
They did that in my hometown... :^)
Good old "urban renewal".
Low income housing is a far better use of space than preserving "historic" buildings that are actually just out of code, poorly designed, and slowly decaying old houses that never actually had any historical significance.
The needs of people who are alive and struggling today are infinitely more important than your nostalgia for the homes of dead rich cunts.
You totally misread what I wrote, but thanks for the pointless rant. For a minute there it felt just like being back on reddit.
Way to miss the point and go out of your way to be mean to someone who probably strongly agrees with you
No, the street is now underground.
My hometown. Looks better than the old photos ;) Come visit us!
Portland, Oregon did it first. And they just got rid of the freeway instead of burying it.
I totally puked a litre of concentrated grape juice in that hot park in 1999.
Guess whose German wasn’t nearly as awesome as they thought it was…
The before reminds me of Portland. The waterfront is wasted with i5 and roads running through it.
That's how I feel about SoCal. I noticed on Google Maps a lot of homes are taking up the sea cliffs south of LA. I always thought that all coastline in CA was public...
Always love more greenery .
Where are the roads? There could easily be a 15 lane highway right there!
Seattle did the same thing. So much better.
Scheinbar passiert doch etwas in unseren Städten. 😊
Hope Alexandria in Egypt can come to this realization some day
Reminds me of an old science fiction novel I read years ago. Teleportation had became common, so people no longer needed cars. The entire system of interstate highways was converted to long, narrow parks.
It's so weird to me that for some people the only way to escape the car dependency is to invent fucking teleportation.
What's the name of the novel? I kinda want to read that now because that sounds interesting.
You’ll be disappointed. It’s a very minor part of the plot, and the construction of the parks is only mentioned in passing. The novel was Ringworld by Larry Niven (written in 1970. Sexism ahoy!)
I think we need a middle-vote button.
This is encouraging!
I can’t wait to see Seattle’s viaduct on here when the full parks, sidewalks, and bike lanes get finished!
I like 2019 more.
Why do we keep getting rid of gray space...
At first I read the comments and was appalled, then I realized I automatically assumed the shittier picture was the new one. I'm assuming it's because I've never seen it go this direction before.
Looks amazing to me
Put some of the trees on the right to the left.
2019er Bild sieht irgendwie nach Photoshop aus.
Etwas. Is aber echt. Ist ganz hübsch dort
This guy said something photoshop related in German and I hope it is not a photoshop
He said it looks like it's photoshop and not real, but it is real, it's just the weird lighting that makes it look like it. (Hope you wanted a real answer and your comment wasn't just joking, couldn't tell)
Die Farben sehen wegen der Abendsonne und der benutzten Kamera echt ein bisschen so aus, aber die Rheinpromenade ist echt sehr schön.
It’s lovely there. Been to many a festival along the river
Am I crazy or was there a recent post that was basically these two images (different angle, I think) with the dates flipped?
Maybe you're thinking of the Egypt Coastal Highway that they expanded over a beach?
I feel like I remember seeing a before and after but I can only find a good after pic now: https://i.redd.it/9mx2c8bgtb4b1.jpg
Bonus sad view of the traffic that now fills the new space: https://i.redd.it/fyqnzxeuk3ab1.jpg
Ew, that looks horrible.
Oh so that's what it was! Thanks for this, I'm glad(well, technically not really lol) to see the actual thing I was thinking of.
Wow that's amazing. Green spaces are so important to our mental health and happiness. Really great to see this.
Lima absolutely needs to do this.
The Gardiner in Toronto desperately needs to be pulled down (before people die) and replaced with tunnels.
The viaduct in Vancouver is being torn down but I don't think they plan to build a tunnel. It's the fastest way into downtown from East Van.
The difference between these inevitable projects and Dusseldorf is that property value in Canadian cities is so insane that developers will likely push for the construction of biggest types yet in these cities.
I'd say riverfront land in Düsseldorf has developers drooling also. It all comes down to will, and / or corruption
I wonder why there is a second completely unused road on the right of the 1990 picture
Here is another picture. you can see the church in the background.
The right side is the road to the houses, and on the left is the speed-way with 2x2 lanes.It was (still) crazy back then.EDIT: I was corrected. Its not. It is the substitute road.
Here is a recent picture looking from the other direction. Again the church now on the left. It was a crazy project but it was well received by the Altstadt/Oldtown.
In the German Wikipedia you can find another nice picture of the Rhine-Bank (Rhein-Ufer). It shows the Steps to the Rhine in 1900 - before the asphalt rolled over all that land. Notice the church and Tower in the back. And today.
That is a good find. Those Picture are great!
Oh I see. Judging by the 'step' above the road on the first picture it looks like there might have been a dock there before the road was built?
Yes, the fact that you’re in mildlyinteresting
Wish we could do this in my town, miles of undeveloped lakefront access blocked by an 8 lane highway.. it sucks.
Düsseldorf is beautiful to visit for a weekend (now).
Progress and gentrification.
Its not gentrification if we build enough of it!
Are we going to magically assume the traffic just vanished?
People and goods still need to be moved from one part of the city to another, as well as from other parts of the country and even internationally. Way too many of these "fuck cars" people naively think you can just wave a magic wand and make the transport of goods and people just disappear. Something would need to be done to solve that. Was an underground highway built? Alien teleportation? A fleet of magic carpets were made available that run on unicorn farts that allow people to get around?
Eh, you don't need a highway through the heart of the city for that.
A lot of cities in Europe are actively discouraging people from taking the car to get to the city center. Either by requiring a permit to enter, making it very convoluted to get to your destination by implementing one-way streets and having a few big roads made to take on traffic, outright banning older cars with bad emission, or a combination of the above.
This is typically balanced with park & rides outside the city center, from where you can easily take public transport into the city.
Suppliers are still allowed in and are able to do so because less cars are driving there.
The city I live in has recently implemented such measures. Lots of people were complaining beforehand. But after a few years, there's not less people making it inside the city, no massive congestion, better air quality,...
Edit: not saying this is necessarily the case here. From other comments, it does seem they moved traffic underground. But my reply is still valid to your comment.
You can see in the top picture(1990) that there are very few cargo trucks. It looks like mostly consumer traffic. The most likely altenative is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCsseldorf_Stadtbahn massive public transport system they've built since 1988.
It's an underground highway. Out of sight, out of mind. I imagine they probably also improved the overall road design, like Seattle, Denver, and Boston have done (or are doing) with their projects to bury highways below-grade.
They built a tunnel for the traffic which is a pretty typical strategy for these kinds of projects.
Which is basically what I said at the bottom of my post. But first off tunnels don't work everywhere, are incredibly costly, and local roads would still be needed to let buildings downtown have access.
You should start !suckcardickstheytastegreat or something
Or maybe the number bus and tram lines increased, and the train systems expanded. "One person, one car" is a mentality we should all be saying "fuck that" to.