DT’s and urban experiences thrive because of multi-modal transportation infrastructure that takes people of our their cars. To not care about alternative transportation or its infrastructure can be interpreted that you also don’t care about those resulting urban experiences. If so, that’s fine; that’s your perspective &/or opinion. If not, then I’d ask that you broaden your perspective to see the bigger picture here, and not just focus on your personal commute in your car to your job.
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Well there are a lot of things that I don’t care for strongly. It doesn’t mean I am against them. Maybe it’s you that needs to broaden your perspective and understand that not everybody thinks the way that you think they should. A lot of people in this area love their cars and will not be willing to give them up so easily. I drive to and from work everyday and I rarely see any bicyclists along the way. I am not ready to concede that whole lanes of downtown roads should be closed for bicyclists at this point in time. Still think the commuter rail should be the priority and would love that we put most of our available resources into getting that done first.
Have you even read all my balanced comments in many threads here about multi-modal transportation that are nuanced and understand that cars are not going away?
Also, “I care little about them” are your very words.
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A lot of people in this area love their cars and will not be willing to give them up so easily
Of course they do. They’re more comfortable in them. And the convenience of driving far outweighs the difficulty of using alternative methods of transportation, which is why people here are advocating to change that.
Maybe it’s you that needs to broaden your perspective
This is not the day and age to broaden one’s perspective in favor of car-centric environments. In the midst of all these extremely alarming reports on climate change, we need to favor a radical restructuring of the way our cities are organized and the way we live in them. Of course I don’t think this is bound to happen in Raleigh any time soon, and I too favor a thoughtful and gradual expansion of our options. But I just wanted to point out that I think John is absolutely right in critiquing the line of thinking you’ve presented. Car culture has consequences, and it’s not just about personal preference. It’s short-sighted, unsustainable, and frankly, irresponsible to prioritize car-culture just because the alternative pushes us out of our comfort zones and love for our cars.
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I think that there are a number of reasons that people don’t ride bikes. For many, the distances are too far. For others, there is a time crunch, ie time between dropping the kids off and the start of a shift. Sometimes the weather can just make it miserable. Still others have mobility issues, or fitness issues, and so on. All of this is fine. But I am about as certain as I can be that there is a large contingent out there who would be using bikes for at least some part of their practical transportation needs but for the safety issues. And the only reason that cycling is seen as unsafe is because we have basically given our roads over to cars almost entirely, and in the places where we actually have set aside some infrastructure for bikes, the infrastructure is not good enough to make the average person feel safe, mostly because of compromises made for the sake of motor vehicle traffic.
Take the recently finished Buck Jones Road for example. The bike lanes are actually not too bad- no barriers but they are pretty wide. Except near the roundabouts, where they force cyclists to merge into traffic and go through the roundabout like a car. That is fine for people who are comfortable with vehicular cycling, but it just doesn’t cut it for the average Joe or Jane. So by not including dedicated cycle infrastructure where it matters the most, these bicycle lanes serve little purpose other than to allow cars to pass bikes unimpeded - keep the bikes out of the way so cars can maintain their 40 mph.
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Do you think that Raleigh is better with a downtown area where everyone drives there to go to work, and then goes home at 5 PM or with a vibrant atmosphere not just on weekdays but weeknights and weekends?
If the latter, you should want to create an environment where people will want to and can walk/bike and use space outside of buildings for public space. There are very few examples of these environments being created where cars are the primary transportation mode.
Not to mention, the physical/public health aspects, that creating spaces for people to walk/bike can lead to tremendous savings in healthcare costs and help fight the obesity epidemic by providing spaces for people to safely exercise without being forced to get in their car and drive to a gym to run on a treadmill.
For the record - I probably make more trips via car than I do by bike/walking/transit. However, I recognize the societal impacts of making the car less important far outweigh the potential extra commute length or hassle it would be to drive. I don’t think anybody is completely saying that cars should be banned but we need to at look at transportation broadly and create equal facilities for all uses.
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I’m sorry I don’t keep beating the same dead horse and write a book about this like a few of you do. I simply think you’re wrong about a sizeable percentage of people wanting to ride bikes for basic transportation. I run for exercise and some people bike. That’s obviously different. As far as commuting to work, shopping, etc. I have no desire to get a sore ass from a bike seat, have few options for listening to music, deal with rain, heat, snow, cold, etc., get to work sweaty, have limited ability to carry the things I bought, or spend the longer time on a slow bike. Also the saftey that has been mentioned. I understand some of these items can be improved or mitigated, but overall I’d prefer my nice car over a bus or bike.
That being said, I am in favor of more bike lanes and better public transit. I like the idea of a light rail that I could drive/scoot/Uber to and then take to Chapel Hill or Durham. I like the idea of high speed rail I could take to Asheville or Charlotte. I’ve also realized I’ll be too old to care by the time any of that is a reality.
I also think it’s idiotic and absurdly naive to try to socially engineer people away from using their cars downtown with suggestions like eliminating street parking, driving rations on certain days, messing up synched traffic lights to slow down traffic on major downtown streets, etc. I’m sure for the very vocal half dozen people here who won’t shut up about it, they think it’s gonna happen if they talk about it enough. And that it’s a good idea. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s about the same as dreaming about 50 story skyscrapers or whining about every old building getting torn down. It makes little difference to reality.
There, hope I look like less of a troll now.
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Thanks. You said it much better than I did apparently. And being crucified for personally “caring little about them” and apparently I should worry more about the alarming climate change. I am merely presenting the view that probably most people have. I was also a runner before my hip injury and now I enjoy riding my bike on the greenway trails, but I will still never ride a bike or take a bus to work. So my priorities are different as I live about 12 miles away from DTR and as I said I rather enjoy my car ride to and from work. Do I think that things need to change? Yes. But again I am okay with the slow inevitable change. By the way, at lunch today I saw a Bird rider run straight into the Jimmy John’s and hit it face first. It was both funny and sad at the same time.
“Social engineering” comes up a lot whenever these discussions are happening. It really has nothing to do with that, it’s about getting the most bang for your buck and the most efficient and safe use of the public space that is available, which is what government is supposed to be doing (contrary to what it’s actually doing in most spheres of influence). Speeding is a major problem and studies show that your chances of dying when being hit by a car going at 45 mph vs 25 mph is 2-3 times greater. On street parking is extremely inefficient and parking would be better served being off-street in garages and that space being dedicated to transit/bike lanes instead that don’t have the ability to be stacked vertically.
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Some interesting information. North Carolina has 13 bike friendly communities with three total in Wake County (Raleigh, Cary, and Wake Forest). All are Bronze ratings with the exception of Carrboro has a Silver rating. Here is the report card on Raleigh: https://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/bfareportcards/BFC_Fall_2015_ReportCard_Raleigh_NC.pdf
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Yep - Raleigh’s stated that it’s next goal is to get to the Silver level, which requires significantly more bike infrastructure, better ridership numbers, and better safety numbers (ouch 8.4 fatalities per 10,000 cyclists…compared to 1.4 for silver level cities). The next report card cycle should be next year I believe (when Raleigh can reapply to be reassessed).
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"I also think it’s idiotic and absurdly naive to try to socially engineer people away from using their cars downtown with suggestions like eliminating street parking, driving rations on certain days, messing up synched traffic lights to slow down traffic on major downtown streets, etc. I’m sure for the very vocal half dozen people here who won’t shut up about it, they think it’s gonna happen if they talk about it enough. And that it’s a good idea. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s about the same as dreaming about 50 story skyscrapers or whining about every old building getting torn down. It makes little difference to reality."
Just so that we are clear, we have a car oriented society today because we actually socially engineered it that way.
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Yeah, the way we plan transportation networks and allocate road space is not market driven, instead driven by political priorities, so it definitely is a form of social engineering, there really is no way around it.
I personally think that we have socially engineered our way to a point where we are completely dependent on cars for everything and no other form of transportation is relevant at all, which to me honestly just seems insane - we live in a society where we are almost as trapped and immobile without our 4000 pound steel boxes as we would be if we all weighed 1000 pounds and were too fat to fit through a door frame. People are entitled to their opinions but it makes me sad for the future of humanity to see so many people unapologetically defending this status quo as the normal, natural way of things.
Given that I have actually accepted your premise that this is a matter of social engineering, if said social engineering is conducted solely with regards to distribution and allocation of public resources (such as streets) and by a body duly elected and representative of the citizens, and responsible for those resources (council) then I am pretty much okay with that.
Zoning, in my opinion, is rather more problematic, due to its impact on private property. I own a house zoned R6 which I could tear down and build four townhomes, turn a profit while netting three additional units of housing, but for the social engineering concept pervasive in zoning codes across the country that single family is somehow More Virtuous than other forms of development and that the need for the neighborhood to maintain its Integrity and Character trump my property rights and the need to find space for more housing close to town.
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Ouch.
No offense, but I won’t be too old to care about these multimodal improvements to our city, that is if I continue to choose Raleigh as home over the next 30 years. And 30 years from now, should I still be alive god willing, I won’t be too old to ride a bike for leisure or transportation. Your opinion works for you, but you have to understand my generation outnumbers the generation that built and runs Raleigh. Our opinions are qualitatively different, and we are asking for a more urban, European-esque city. The state (meaning gov’mt, not NC) provides infrastructure in exchange for taxes. They don’t provide 50 story towers for armchair developers and amateur photographers. Should my generation continue to choose Raleigh as home, the culture will change in favor of less auto trips, more urban living, more public transit investment, etc.
I say this because Raleigh really has an opportunity to attract and connect with the future generation, by continuing to transform into a true 21st century city. If they fail to do so, we will see less and less people choosing Raleigh as home.
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No joke, I see what Durham is doing and how they are strategically growing with respect to transit, affordable housing, inclusive neighborhoods, city branding, etc. and I consider relocating there one day.
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To be clear, I am not a fan of cars or driving. I think of it as my personal cell everyday on my way to and from work… BUT as an advanced society we are completely dependent on fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, etc). Not just in our mode of personal transportation, but in EVERY SINGLE WAY we get goods and services. Everything built today is fueled by fossil fuels. All of the buildings, clothes, wares, gadgets, goods, FOOD, etc is a product of petroleum. Do we go to property and magically find all of the building materials already there waiting to be erected? Do you think farmers would want to go back to horse and buggies? No, it won’t happen. How much food would spoil getting it from the fields to market in the cities if we didn’t have refrigerated trucks to get it there? What about all those fancy electronics? They were produced in factories almost assuredly powered by coal or natural gas. And then they had to be shipped halfway around the globe to get to you. We as Americans have a very high quality of life, and (unfortunately) it is completely dependent on petroleum, coal, and natural gas to sustain the luxuries we have all come to expect. Want to go back to simpler times? Think about it… no AC, no lights, no iPhones, no cars, limited variety of food to what grows locally and only what is in season at the time, no trips to exotic locales… Again, I don’t like driving everywhere, but I know that our entire way of life (as of now) is completely dependent on fossil fuels. Somehow our forefathers managed to survive for many, many, many years before the industrial revolution without mass consumption of fossil fuels. What are we (communally/societally (sp?)) willing to give up to get back to that point? I will just say, try to pry my phone out of my hands. Let’s lose some of idealism and get back to reality and discuss what is actually practical for our city. Ok, end of rant.
My goodness . . . we don’t have to completely abandon fossil fuels for everything in our lives. That’s not remotely feasible. While much our way of life depends on fossil fuels, not everything has to, and to make a switch away from petroleum reliance does not at all mean regressing into the past.
I don’t think anyone on this boards wants to completely remove cars from the city. We just recognize that there is a significant population that doesn’t want to drive everywhere if they don’t have to, and the goal is to give them the option of ditching the car when they can. The automobile is not going to just go away, but it can’t remain the only viable choice for travel, especially in the centre city. We have to give ourselves alternatives such as transit, walking, and biking, and the only way to do that is to shift our priorities partially away from cars.
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I will just say, try to pry my phone out of my hands. Let’s lose some of idealism and get back to reality and discuss what is actually practical for our city.
No one’s going after your phone. Or your car, for that matter.
I really don’t think anything that’s been proposed here is idealistic. We all know cars aren’t going away, people aren’t going to abandon them, and our city will be reliant on them for the foreseeable future. But people are discussing practical measures to expand other methods of transportation at the (minor) expense of a car-dominated landscape, within an urban core. This really shouldn’t be seen as controversial or idealistic.
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I should point out that I’m in my 30s. I don’t plan to be dead from old age before we have light rail, but all of this stuff takes so long to actually happen. If we have commuter and light rail in 20 years I’m not really holding my breath for that.
I agree that it is probably best to stay as grounded in reality as possible. My first step would be to shift priorities to make non motorized transportation (or light motorized transportation, like e-scooters and e-bikes) relevant for more people than today. The lowest hanging fruit for this is downtown and in downtown-adjacent areas. To do this I would slightly shuffle priorities to make it easier for people living and working in and near downtown to get around without a car, at the slight expense of people driving to downtown, by turning some street parking into bike and bus lanes. I am not talking about a sea change right away. I think there are enough parking decks distributed evenly throughout downtown to cut some part of the on street parking (10%? 20%?) with few impacts other than some peoples’ feelings getting hurt that their favorite parking space is no longer there. The city is already moving in this direction with th BRT and things like the West Street cycle track.
Honestly I think having to use a parking deck instead of street parking will affect people closer to downtown more than those farther away since the 3 extra minutes to find a space and walk to the final destination might represent a 50% increase in trip time, whereas an extra 3 minutes for somebody coming from Holly Springs is only a 5% increase. Given better infrastructure, some of those people will choose to ride bikes, scooters, or walk where they would drive today. You’d be astonished how many people live a mile or less from downtown and go downtown all the time, but only ever do so in their car.
I have never said we need to get immediately away from fossil fuels for everything. I chuckle when I see things about silly things like people moving from house to house by cargo bike. There is no way to do this without winners and losers but I think the first step at least won’t cause anybody to lose big time and we should just take that step, give it some time for things to adjust and people to get used to it, and then evaluate when to move forward.
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