Poll of the Day > Science and Tech

(+) Yeah! (+)

homophobe

slipped in terms of science

Anyone voting no, would get some very stern (and moddable) words from me, but I know better not to feed a BUMPED2002 topic.

it's still "a" leader, even if it's not "the" leader

High-speed rail/any decent public transportation at all
Nuclear energy
Healthcare

America is one of the most advanced countries, but it's not the most advanced place to live by a longshot. Our military possesses god powers, but you'll also have to go to a shady dentist that will scam you and tell you you have 8 cavities so he can charge more, not walk into the wrong neighborhood or else you'll get shot.

All that amazing government-funded medical research that's bought up privately and used to extort every penny we make. Sorry I know the technology is there it's just for some reason I'm not that excited because the neighborhood looks like a slum anyway.

I'm sorry but I have been very busy and we're totally not going to do this.

I'm sorry but I have been very busy and we're totally not going to do this.
HSR: Does not mix with America's unique combination of Conservative Rurals, NIMBY Liberals and very low population density / zoning laws.
Nuclear energy: Everyone is for Nuclear. I don't know what you are talking about.
Healthcare: You do not know what you are talking about.

HSR: Does not mix with America's unique combination of Conservative Rurals, NIMBY Liberals and very low population density / zoning laws.

Nuclear energy: Everyone is for Nuclear. I don't know what you are talking about.

Healthcare: You do not know what you are talking about.

Which is what prevents them from making any meaningful advances in the field. Also active investment from the petrochem and other car-dependent industries to stifle public transportation improvements.

US healthcare research is in a very good place, but the fundamental system hamstrings the usefulness of that research because so few people can actually benefit from it. Technology is only useful if people can use it.

Also the whole fact that many people don't want it.

Public transportation is also a huge issue outside of what? 3 metro areas?

The issue that I see is that companies see healthcare as a cost center and will get the cheapest garbage plans (the plan I now have from work is terrible) available and promote s*** like HSAs because they are cheaper on the company. I don't think my company offers non-HSA plans anymore (like an HMO or PPO). My knowledge on healthcare is just generally awful so I could be wrong. Also the deductables for these new plans are terrible.

Also the whole fact that many people don't want it. Public transportation is also a huge issue outside of what? 3 metro areas?

In European countries you can bike, take a bus, tram, trolly, high speed rail anywhere in the country and you will likely do it because it's more convenient than a car. A lot of people just don't buy cars.

Also active investment from the petrochem and other car-dependent industries to stifle public transportation improvements.

Even the best public transportation is inferior to a personal vehicle so not sure why people care so much about it

Basically it destroys the community you live in with 26-lane highways, long commute times, air and noise pollution. They're also just downright unsafe. A good example is a football stadium, why should it be surrounded by a parking lot 8 times bigger than the stadium?

I'm not very good at arguing about car-centric infrastructure, watch Adam something's videos on it if you want to hear why someone would hate cars. Before him, I had never even heard of someone complaining about them, because I never thought a community could get by without them. But America could really use a social push away from them, rn that doesn't exist.

Even the best public transportation is inferior to a personal vehicle so not sure why people care so much about it

you still aren't getting the convenience and freedom that personal transportation brings and I would hate to see a world without personal vehicles at all

I'm not entirely certain why more effort isn't put into nuclear power.

I don't have any comments on Nuclear. I love the concept. It's safe. Some of these smaller reactors you wouldn't even know that they are there. The university I went to had one on campus and I'd guess that if you weren't in the couple of classes where it was relevant then you didn't know.

Because those people understand that there's a world outside of their personal best interests.

This always comes up whenever the notion of not designing cities around cars comes up, and it's always bullshit. Nobody is suggesting the complete abolition of personal vehicles. Everybody (that actually wants to improve the situation) is just suggesting redesigning cities so that a personal vehicle isn't mandatory. Heck, these redesigns generally actually make the experience of driving better (even without considering any of the broader benefits), by virtue of having more intuitive infrastructure, fewer points of conflict, and fewer cars on the road because people routinely choose viable alternatives when they actually exist.

There are quite a few city planning advocacy youtube channels out there, so you can delve into those if you want more details, but this video in particular does a pretty good job of explaining how focusing on alternative transportation infrastructure in the Netherlands has also resulted in fantastic driving infrastructure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k

Thinking about it as a zero-sum game is incorrect. Everybody stands to benefit from designing cities that make it easier to get around, even the people that just want to keep using their personal car for most purposes.

I think my main problem is probably the cost. It would cost a lot.

As for the bike garage, Id literally lose my bike every time. Haha. I can barely find my car in those parking garages, even knowing the section I was in

There's a front-end investment, but there are tons of savings and additional revenue opportunities to be had once it's implemented. Remember that roads and parking lots generate little to no tax revenue except what they indirectly enable by letting people get to stores and whatnot (and that benefit can be obtained without cars if things are designed properly). Replace parking space with pretty much anything else, and you'll see more money for the city. Fewer people driving means less road maintenance, fewer costs associated with the dangers of driving (both direct costs and costs in the form of lost tax revenue from those that are disabled/killed), and people that are generally more productive because they don't carry nearly as much commuting stress into their work.

The fact of the matter is that suburban sprawl is expensive. Property taxes on large single-family lots don't come anywhere close to covering the cost of maintaining the infrastructure that's necessary for people to drive to/from them, which means suburbs end up subsidized by tax revenue generated by urban centres (who, in turn, have their potential tax revenue hamstrung by the need to devote huge tracts of land to transporting suburbanites in to spend their money). It's just not a sustainable model, so as much as switching gears is expensive, it stands a very high chance of saving quite a lot of money in the long run.

Not being Dutch, I can't speak for exactly how they work, but I imagine you'd either rent an assigned spot or be given some sort of ticket that told you where you were parked. Either way, you wouldn't simply be left to remember where you parked with no assistance, since obviously that's not a very practical idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k

The high front-end is what Im worried about. Chances are I wont get to see the savings on the back-end

That said, we dont have many parking spaces here. Barely enough as it is

As he mentions in that video, Amsterdam went from being as car-dependent as any modern North American city in the 70's to being the closest thing around to urban planning porn. On the flip side, another one of his videos talks about a $2.2 billion highway widening project in Houston that has resulted in travel times on that highway steadily increasing since it was completed in 2011 (because induced demand). You'll probably be around for at least another 30-40 years, so even if you don't see everything become perfected (really, it won't ever be truly perfected, because needs are constantly evolving), you could at least see some considerable improvements and opportunities to not piss away billions of dollars on a strategy that's been proven time and time again to not work.

Beyond that, "why should I want an improvement I won't see myself?" is generally a pretty terrible way to look at policies like this. Most policy changes aren't going to personally benefit you, but stand to benefit society as a whole. That's just the price you pay to not be a hermit.

You don't have many *empty* parking spaces. I can pretty much guarantee enormous amounts of real estate in your city's downtown core is dedicated to parking spots that are filled by regulars who use them for their everyday commutes (whether renting them monthly or just occupying them early enough that they aren't available for more sporadic parking). Most or all single-family residential lots will include enough driveway space for at least two cars (or driveway space for one and a garage), which increases how large they need to be, and multi-unit buildings almost invariably include their own parking (because street parking just isn't adequate for them, even if not every resident has a car). I may be mistaken in this assumption if you happen to live and work in a part of the US that's significantly less dependent on cars than is typical, but I think it's more likely that you just don't notice how much space parking takes up because you've been surrounded by it your whole life and never thought to consider how wasteful it is.

The reality of car ownership is that most private cars spend the vast majority of the time not being used. They have to go somewhere during that time, and that's space that could have been housing or something with commercial value.