General statistics
List of Youtube channels
Youtube commenter search
Distinguished comments
About

Colorme Dubious
City Beautiful
comments

Comments by "Colorme Dubious" (@colormedubious4747) on "City Beautiful" channel.

I realize that your video is time-constrained, but a key element of the death of the LOMEX project was Moses' big-picture plan to build THREE elevated expressways across Manhattan, at least one of which would have placed noisy, fume-spewing traffic jams right outside the windows of some of the city's most valuable commercial office buildings. This led to many powerful real estate barons turning against Bob the Builder, their former ally. It wasn't just a "grass roots" freeway revolt. He also pissed off the REAL powers that make New York City the center of the known universe. As Caro explains, the final nail in shadow emperor Moses' coffin wasn't his behind-the-scenes monkey business, his destruction of poor but functional neighborhoods, his displacement of at least 300,000 (possibly half a million) citizens, his deliberate financial sabotage of the NYC subway system, the financial failures of the 1939 and 1964 world's fairs, his ultimate bankrupting of the entire city, or any of his other famously notorious actions. It was the simple act of removing a beloved tree from Central Park and pissing off a bunch of moms.
171
Amtrak screwed our intercity rail service back in the 1990s. DFW is the top rail transit metro in Texas, with the second-longest light rail system in North America, two streetcar systems, and three commuter rail systems. They used to have a dedicated busway network (although not nearly as big as Houston's), but it's now just an ordinary HOV/HOT lane network. EDIT: second-longest.
101
Two plans are in development: Amtrak's and Texas Central's.
63
Instead of Mandalay Bay, the monorail should be extended south to the airport and north to Fremont. A streetcar line should be built along The Strip and connect to those two stations, enhancing both lines' utility and overall ridership.
52
@DanNikon Defeatism is NOT the answer.
46
@DanNikon If you aren't willing to help, could you at least get out of the way of those who are? Why are you even watching an urbanism video?
41
@heribertoruizjr.5296 It's actually about 3 hours.
30
@luis_zuniga Yes. Houston also has more seats in its Theatre District than any city except New York. Galveston is a very popular tourist destination, as is DFW. Austin is a popular location for music and comedy festivals. Palo Duro Canyon is second only to the Grand Canyon for tourists who love enormous holes in the ground. America's second-largest state is an incredibly popular tourist destination ("it's like a whole 'nother country") so I suspect that Reddy was sarcastically implying that the Paseo del Rio was HIS top attraction. I can respect his opinion. It's a great place to be.
27
It sounds like you had terrible representation. Instead of the ADA, they should have sued under the Fair Housing Act, which includes phrasing loose enough to encompass the unfair actions of an HOA.
26
@DanNikon Perhaps you should work on your reading comprehension? I never once TOLD you what to do or what to say. I asked you QUESTIONS, as indicated by the QUESTION MARKS at the end of the sentences.
18
@theoccasionalvideo Which country was founded by Native Americans? Tawantinsuyu? It no longer exists because it tore itself apart with a civil war just as the Spaniards arrived on the scene, allowing a few hundred dudes on horses to conquer an empire of millions. Most North American tribes occupied limited territories that only a tendon-ripping stretch of the facts would justify terming a "country" and constantly warred with and conquered each other for ALL the centuries after the Siberians crossed Beringia to populate the two American continents. Most slaves in the New World were unwilling agricultural workers and built nothing permanent, unless you're referring to Irish stonemasons (slave labor was used to assist builders in many cases, notably the Capitol building, but skilled work was not performed by them). Your revisionist history does not hold up under even the most cursory scrutiny.
17
@Cr3stfa113n "slum [sləm] NOUN a squalid and overcrowded urban street or district inhabited by very poor people" -- Doesn't seem to include all those qualifiers you added. Just saying - for a friend.
15
@justSTUMBLEDupon It's been a while since I read the book but, IIRC, he arranged some cooking of the books to transfer certain debt limits/obligations to the NYC Subway in order to allow his bridge & tunnel authority to issue more debt instruments to build a toll bridge (maybe the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge or the Throgs Neck?). He did THAT one with malice aforethought. He did NOT intend to bankrupt the city as a whole, but a number of people who know things posit that the insane weight of all the debt obligations associated with his road, parks, housing, and other projects (two failed World's Fairs, attracting the U.N. headquarters, etc) put the city's collective ass in a very deep crack. The city eventually solved part of its problem by doing something Moses absolutely despised -- combining the transit authority with his bridge & tunnel authority to create the MTA.
14
One generally unstated objection to UGBs is that it looks a bit like typical political kicking of the can down the road (but what isn't?). I've long maintained that there is a massive amount of unrealized affordable housing that can be unlocked by implementing a single federal law: Allowing owner-occupied single-family homes to offer garage apartments, mother-in-law suites, or casitas for rental no matter what outdated zoning ordinances and HOAs say about it. Making owner occupancy of the primary residential space a requirement should allay the most common objections. The rental spaces would have to be up to code. There's already a surplus of parking in most suburban neighborhoods. It's not a magic bullet, but it would help.
13
@justSTUMBLEDupon Oh, about that tree. Moses was City Parks Commissioner for a long time and deserves credit for dramatically increasing the number of neighborhood parks and swimming pools throughout the city. He turned some truly nasty trash and coal ash dumps into magnificent parks. He's also the reason there are sportsball fields in Central Park. He evicted the sheep from Sheep Meadow in 1934 and the building that had housed them became the world-famous Tavern on the Green. In 1956, he wanted to convert a pleasantly wooded part of the park into a parking lot for the restaurant. One night, while the park was closed, he had demolition work commence and a tree was knocked down, but further demolition was stopped by threat of legal action.
12
@TaylorMcChaney Not being from here, you may have overlooked Austin's Project Connect vote last year, which passed a 7.1 billion dollar transit expansion plan. It will expand existing commuter rail service, add a second commuter rail line, add two new light rail lines, add several new BRT lines, build a pricy downtown transit tunnel, and enhance frequency systemwide. Several mobility bond issues since 2010 have already built over 50 miles of protected bikeways and there are additional neighborhood-level networks of designated "quiet streets" which provide traffic calming measures and safer bike lanes. But, sure, let's just ignore all of that and focus on a particularly contentious 8-mile segment of the one-and-only Interstate Highway in Austin!
9
@Khanfuzed1 I am so pleased that we found the One True Spokesman for Every Last Single-Family Homeowner in America. Thank you for blessing us with your most august presence and ineffable wisdom.
9
Rails-to-Trails rights of way ARE "rail banks" and CAN be converted back to railways when deemed necessary. As most rail rights of way are roughly 100 feet wide, there'd be adequate room to incorporate two tracks and a hike-and-bike trail within them.
8
Six reservoirs.
8
@richardthrust1126 It's a 2.2 mile starter line. Give it time to develop more ridership and service frequency will be increased. When the starter segment of the Red Line opened in 1976, it had merely 5 stations, frequency was a joke, and you'd toss two quarters into a barrel when you entered a station. It's a "little" different now.
7
Arlington is quite literally the most touted example of coordinated TOD in the entire country. It's been a featured "best practice" at every transit and urban planning conference I've attended over the last 20 years. You might say that people are familiar with it.
6
🤣🤣🤣
6
1) I feel like I've seen this before... oh, right, it's basically a video version of the 1995 Newsweek article "How to Fix the Suburbs." 2) A better example of mall redevelopment is The Crossings in Mountain View CA because it used recycled materials from the mall structure, has been completed for two decades, has an integrated CalTrain station, and will eventually also be served by the CAHSR. 3) I think you underestimate the sheer mass of people who despise their HOA.
6
It depends how you define "pedestrian space." If you limit your definition to parks and plazas, sure. However, there are many U.S. cities that have equipped certain streets with ultra-wide sidewalks in order to provide generous space for outdoor dining and leisurely strolling. I count those as pedestrian spaces, as well as downtown pedestrian malls/promenades (Denver, Santa Monica) and semi-enclosed downtown malls (Sacramento, San Diego). The downtowns of most American cities predate the car-crazy 20th century and are quite pedestrian-oriented. It's the developers of postwar suburbs and exurban "major activity centers" who forgot that every journey begins and ends on foot.
5
@jamalgibson8139 That isn't exactly what happened in Boston. I'm fairly certain that the Big Dig was a self-contained example of egregious runaway cost overruns. It was managed by the Mass Turnpike Authority. There was supposed to be a rail link included in one of the expressway tunnels but that was killed because of the increased cost of ventilation systems due to MBTA's use of diesel locomotives. The north-south link between the two main train stations was killed due to taxpayer exhaustion, near as I can figure. A number of those originally planned rail rights of way are still available for transit expansion, once the good people of "Taxachusetts" have caught their breath and recovered from the 190% budget overrun of the Big Dig. To be fair, the city is FAR better off with the hideous Green Monster gone. There's a linear park where it used to be, and the surrounding area is eminently walkable again. The Silver Line, at least, got its new tunnel. The new bridge is much more appealing than the nasty piece of crap it replaced. Over the VERY long term, it will probably turn out to have been a somewhat reasonable investment. Like the Asia song says, only time will tell.
5
Absolutely incorrect. Where in the video did he say this was a NEW idea? Every neighborhood (in many different states) I've lived in during the past 60 years has had them.
5
Quite a few American 'burbs DO have pedestrian paths short-cutting through the chaos, especially those close to schools.
5
@ If you're referring to the Bradbury novel, I think you mean Celsius 232.78
5
@NotJustBikes Joe's post was factually incomplete. It wasn't really a "boulevard," it was formerly U.S. Highway 81. When US-81 was upgraded to a limited access highway (prior to its redesignation to I-35), it didn't go THROUGH the East Austin neighborhood -- and it never had. It was simply the road that bordered East Austin and downtown. As in many cases around the USA, when the freeway was widened and interchanges added or reconfigured, this ultimately resulted in fewer paths through the freeway alignment into downtown. I've never before heard that anyone was "forced" from the western side of US-81 into East Austin. Considering that the neighborhoods immediately west of US-81 in the 40s/50s were heavily commercial and top-heavy with state offices, car dealerships, and crummy motels I have some doubts about Joe's interpretation of events. As Robert Moses repeatedly demonstrated, it's not about race. It's about WEALTH. Those with wealth push highways elsewhere, which explains every senseless zig-zag on the Northern State Parkway.
5
@danieldaniels7571 I hope I'm right, too! Given how they fell for Musk's idiotic sewer pipe, though, I reserve a bit of doubt. I'm old enough to remember 90s Vegas, when hopping between half a dozen different hotel peoplemovers was the only way to move up and down The Strip without enriching cabs or wearing out your shoes.
4
Weird, since EVERY car trip begins and ends with walking.
4
@MephistoDerPudel Most people work during the day. With other people. I'm not saying that excuses the poor design.
4
And yet, oddly, Texas already has more of this and is planning even more.
4
@laurie7689 A number of studies have shown that busier through streets help DETER crime because there are more eyes scanning the environment. More property crimes tend to occur in cul-de-sacs, on dead-end streets, and (counterintuitively) in gated communities (where you are FAR more likely to be burgled or vandalized by your neighbor's bored kids than by a random stranger -- and police patrols are virtually nonexistent). You can still have traffic calming measures in place on busy streets. It's not as if these are mutually exclusive design choices.
4
@joe_runs International airports never really close.
4
What do you think you mean by "Tokyo style" and why on Earth would you want it built on the surface? Does the heavy rail subway D line extension that they're building right NOW beneath Wilshire fail to meet your exacting standards? The first new segment is supposed to open next year, so it might be a little late to change their plan.
4
The Seattle Monorail Project didn't merely "flame out." Seattle's citizens voted in favor of it FOUR TIMES over the years. City politicians hated the whole idea and did nothing to fulfill the desire of their citizens, ultimately killing the project. The SMP/ETC board and officers also did little to help their case by changing their plans several times, failing to keep the public engaged throughout the process, and mismanaging just about everything that could possibly be mismanaged. In the final analysis, the death blow, as usual, was administered by elected officials with their "screw you ignorant plebs" institutional attitude.
3
Two thoughts: 1) The railyard absolutely CAN accommodate new development! Simply deck over parts of it and build a compact mixed-use neighborhood atop the deck. 2) Those park-and-ride garages can be beneficial to their neighborhoods. Design street level retail and office spaces. The parking structure then becomes both a barrier to freeway noise AND a profitable transitional element between the freeway and the mixed-use development at the station, in addition to becoming a mixed-use structure itself. You're welcome.
3
That's a very narrow and shallow view of the topic. Suburbs date back at least as far as Roman times, where they were generally quite close to the city's walls and gates. Even in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, streetcar suburbs were located close to central business districts. Sprawling suburban and exurban development patterns began to emerge in the 1920s when privately owned automobiles became affordable. Wealth flight became a broader middle class phenomenon after World War II, as rates of violent crime increased in urban neighborhoods.
3
Let's not overlook the other underlying issues with high-rise housing projects: It wasn't JUST the concentration of poverty, it was ALSO the massive employment deserts surrounding them, the lack of mixed uses, and the streets with no street-level windows. Rather than look to government to "fix" this issue, let's pursue ACTUAL solutions in the context of public/private partnerships. Eminent domain: No. Just NO. Eminent domain brought us to the most corrupt slum clearance/redevelopment scandals of the 40s and 50s, displaced at least 300,000 people under Moses' rule, and created the hellscape of urban freeways that has devastated our cities. No! NIMBYs: Also known as productive people living and working in functioning neighborhoods who keep the local economy going, pay the taxes that pay the public servants' salaries, and have EVERY right to push back when they hear the most frightening words ever to be uttered outside of a horror film: "We're from the government and we're here to help you." Doing housing right: Take lessons from various HOPE VI projects and focus investment on scattered-site, mixed-use, mixed-income development with a majority of market rate units. Take lessons from Montgomery County MD and other jurisdictions that reward(ed) developers with increased density permitting for inclusion of ADUs above and beyond the basic code requirements. Allow any owner-occupied single-family home to add a garage apartment, casita, or mother-in-law suite regardless of local ordinances or HOA rules. That alone could introduce hundreds of thousands of ADUs while the owner occupancy requirement satisfies the NIMBYs.
3
@travcollier I thought I was the only nerd who tried to "arco" the SimTower. The limitations on escalators always ruined my plans for the levels between the lobby and the metro station. Good times!
3
That is a REMARKABLE assertion, given that a common critique of suburban streets is their insane width (typically 50 feet wide) that can easily accommodate the most ridiculous unnecessarily huge firefighting equipment. They also encourage dangerous speeds, which is why traffic calming measures are becoming more widespread.
3
@barryrobbins7694 Sure. Duany, et al addressed the incoherence of winding roads and unnecessary cul-de-sacs in "Suburban Nation." They also addressed the problems caused by inappropriately wide streets serving low density single-use neighborhoods. "Strong Towns" addressed this issue from an economic perspective (calling it a "Ponzi scheme" with justifiable malice aforethought). The maze and bottlenecks, in and of their shape, do not cost us ridiculous sums of money to maintain over the decades. The streets' WIDTH does. Every foot of unnecessary width is another slice of land that cannot accommodate dwelling units (or anything else), adds undesirable impervious cover, forces the construction of additional costly utility infrastructure (which costs money to maintain), does not generate tax revenue, and costs a king's ransom to maintain over its lifetime. I stand by my assertion.
3
@barryrobbins7694 The authors favor skinny streets in grid patterns and explain that cul-de-sacs should only exist where topography dictates (to conform a neighborhood to shorelines and foothills, primarily).
3
@tann_man You misspelled "wealthy." Where did YOU go to school? 🤣
3
It was not racism. It was classism. He accommodated the desires of the wealthy who could help him gain and maintain power, and he mowed down poor neighborhoods regardless of race because they couldn't do anything for him.
3
No contest: 16th Street Mall in Denver. There's a huge bus station at one end, Union Station and another huge bus station at the other, LRT stops in between, and the Free MallRide connecting all of it. Not to mention a plethora of decent restaurants, bistros, and coffee shops. The state Capitol, monuments, and several parks are a quick stroll away. I live more than 900 miles away, yet Denver is one of my all-time favorite and frequent destinations, partly because of their downtown.
3
@ghost mall There are at least 222 new urban communities listed in the USA alone. Very few of them are JUST "outdoor malls" like those shown, although most do offer appropriately-scaled retail space. In which "more places" do you wish to see new urbanism, specifically? Tell me which region you call home and I can probably find several examples within an easy day trip for you to go check out for yourself.
2
Cul de sacs were originally valuable tools to enable a neighborhood's edge to conform to its terrain, such as following shorelines and hugging foothills. Developers bastardized them into tools for jamming as many lots as possible into their subdivisions. They are now the second-best choice for those who want their neighbors' bored kids to rob and vandalize their homes (gated communities remain the VERY best choice for that).
2
Blaming racism for everything that went wrong is a cute way to avoid a nuanced discussion of disastrous "progressive" housing policies, but let us not shift blame away from those who deserve the lion's share thereof: Corrupt city leaders who allowed massive swaths of housing AND businesses to be razed to the ground, then offered their donors/cronies lucrative contracts to build hi-rise warehouses in which to stack and store low-income families with nary a nearby trace of shops, services, or gainful employment. Let's house 5,000 poor people in a four block area without a single job in sight - what could possibly go wrong?
2
It's just SO great that China has all these brand-spanking new metro systems. I wonder how they paid for them. I wonder why the USA is having such a difficult time funding more of them here. Hmmm, there's no chance that these issues are even a tiny bit related, is there? There's certainly NO chance that exporting such a massive amount of our manufacturing base and wealth to a hostile nation has enhanced their infrastructure while our own stagnates! By all means, let us praise China's transit systems while ridiculing America's and not even acknowledge part of the reason why this disparity came to be.
2
A lot of commenters have been arguing about the term "PeopleMover," as some note the existence of different urban and airport PeopleMover systems. Let's clear that up. "PeopleMover" is commonly a generic term for smaller-scale AGT (Automated Guideway Transit) systems of varying design. Disney's PeopleMover is just one of MANY such designs, specifically known as the "WEDway PeopleMover." There were three of these built in the USA: two in Disney parks and one at IAH in Houston TX. The tracks do NOT "move," as was incorrectly stated in the video. Instead, the WEDway design uses LIM (Linear Induction Motor) technology to propel the trains magnetically. The Detroit PeopleMover is a rail-based design that also uses LIM tech. The Miami MetroMover is a PeopleMover that is basically an elevated electric bus network. The Jacksonville Skyway uses conventional small-scale monorail tech.
2
Gated communities are GREAT - especially if you're tired of your home being broken into, vandalized, and burgled by strangers and would rather be victimized by your neighbors' waterhead children.
2
We already HAVE the word "Megalopolis." We don't need another word to describe the same thing, especially a word that sounds like Elon Musk coined it in yet another attempt to drive up his stock price by over-promising and under-delivering something that already existed decades before he took credit for it.
2
@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 In most of our cities, office or residential above retail is perfectly legal. In New Urban communities, it is the default. In typical postwar suburbs, not so much.
2
@scarpfish Most were originally built for joint use in the 19th century. Reactivating them in conjunction with brownfields redevelopment makes ALL the sense.
2
@thedapperdolphin1590 *tracts
2
Spoiler alert: Yes. Yes, it can.
2
Austin has a nice waterfront along Town Lake with a hike-and-bike trail that circumnavigates the lake. Austin is also creating a Riverwalk-like district along Waller Creek featuring a chain of parks and various development opportunities. Las Colinas Urban Center in Irving has a lovely "mini-Riverwalk" called the Mandalay Canal with a few shops and restaurants that's served by a modest 4-station APT system with a connected DART light rail station. RiverPlace in Portland contains a mix of uses along the banks of the Willamette River and is served by the streetcar. Indianapolis has a lovely urban canal flanked by office buildings, apartments, museums, and monuments. Its pathways connect to an Urban Wilderness trail providing access to the 250 acre White River State Park. It even had a station on the Clarian PeopleMover until the system was shuttered in 2019. Detroit has a roughly 3-mile Riverwalk featuring amusements, parks, and dining. There are easily dozens of other waterfront redevelopment projects throughout the USA. The above are just the ones I've most enjoyed.
2
Why the 1970s heavy rail transit boom? Every transit maven/pundit/advocate/fan knows this one, especially if they lived in one of these cities and saw the festive red, white, and blue "funding provided by the UMTA" signs festooned about their local metro construction sites. Here you go: "The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–365, USC Title 49, Chapter 53) provided $375 million for large-scale urban public or private rail projects in the form of matching funds to cities and states. The Urban Mass Transportation Administration (now the Federal Transit Administration) was created." -- from Wikipedia. Bear in mind that, in the early 60s, $375 mil went a LOT farther than it does today. You're welcome!
2
The dirty little secret of gated communities is the insanely high rate of property crime. If you don't want to be robbed or vandalized by a stranger and would prefer to be robbed or vandalized by your neighbors' bored teenagers, they're perfect for you!
2
We are not. He never said we were. There are regional imbalances in housing, just like everywhere else in the world.
2
@heribertoruizjr.5296 The OP obviously meant between Dallas and Houston. I have NO idea what you meant by your first reply thereto since you changed the subject without telling anyone.
2
@thegeekgamer8340 It would be a LOT cooler if they just built it in accordance with the 1993 "Texas Triangle" alignment.
2
San Antonio has been touting grand plans for the Westside Transportation Center for decades. I'm sure that giving it a snazzy new name will finally make things happen!
2
@davefroman4700 It's 600 KPH, which is only 370 mph and that's a big difference. Also, 70,000 miles of high-speed rail? It totals less than 40,000 KILOMETERS, or about 24,000 miles. You shills need to look up things before making up fantasy "statistics." You don't even earn a "nice try" for that nonsense. No 50 cents for you. Bad wumao is BAD!
2
Reasonable question for you: Why would or should the Constitution mention cities? It's not a blueprint for urban design, it's a blueprint for a federal government and a delineation of rights. Cities and farms have nothing to with anything in this context. That's up to state and local governments.
2
@Anti-Taxxer That's been changing since the 80s. Many jurisdictions now have TOD ordinances, mixed-use zoning designations, or parallel development codes, while others allow it on a case-by-case basis. My city has a parallel TND code that developers can opt for.
2
The name is Grand Central TERMINAL, noob! 🤣
2
Some see "wings and fuselage," but others see "Fallopian tubes and uterus" -- and now you will NEVER un-see that. You're welcome! 🤣
2
It's not that weird, pal. 🎵Strangers waitin' up and down the boulevard🎵
2
If you want to know how and why that happened, read "The Power Broker."
2
Not many malls are overbuilt enough to accommodate an entire amusement park. 🤣
2
@brmnyc He also wanted to demolish historic Castle Clinton. There was quite a fight between Moses and the Roosevelt administration over the bridge vs tunnel issue. Moses loved bridges because they were highly visible monuments to HIM. He hated tunnels because nobody could see them unless they were in them. Luckily, Roosevelt hated Moses so he made the Navy Department claim that a bridge would impair their access to port facilities. Obvious BS, but I like it!
1
I just bought a place in a town of less than 2,000 people to get away from the lunatic Lefties who are committed to the self-destruction of my once-great city. They've raised taxes, burdened small businesses with the same regulations that apply to enormous tech companies, castrated the police department, created a utopia for the homeless (who've flocked here in droves), and refuse to prosecute those who jumped the border and remain here illegally while not carrying basic liability insurance and over-burdening our school districts (and they're STILL flocking here in droves). About a decade ago, they annexed our neighborhood against our will and imposed inappropriate codes (enforced by pinheads who don't live here) that make sense downtown but make absolutely no sense out here. While I'm all for regionalism conceptually, when it's done the way they did it one might well compare it to prior examples of non-local governments imposing control over unwilling citizens who previously ruled over their own affairs. Regional and even global wars have started due to precisely that sort of behavior.
1
Twenty years ago both Andres Duany and Peter Calthorpe suggested that developers of New Urban style projects make an exception to the usual "build the retail last" approach with regard to placing a corner store near each neighborhood center (in addition to the village center) while residential construction is still in its initial phase, even suggesting that developers build them on spec and lease them as "loss leaders" because they are a valuable amenity and will help attract more home buyers. Kentlands not only has a retail-intensive village center and several streets with live-above units but a few house-like corner stores within a short walking distance of double-stacked townhome clusters and single-family houses. Orlando neighborhoods like Baldwin Park and Avalon Park have village centers featuring both Publix supermarkets and CVS drug stores as well as apartments above offices, retail, and restaurants. Sadly, none of these 3 projects is within reasonable walking distance of rail transit but they're still far superior to typical postwar suburbs.
1
@erikharaldsson2416 We're finally seeing more of that here, too.
1
It actually IS voting! Bond issues for housing are on the ballot in my city. The problem arises when the city tries to force an ill-though project into a neighborhood where it won't fit.
1
You counted the ORIGINAL purchase of 27,000 acres as the current size of WDW. It is not. The de-annexation of Celebration removed about 4,900 acres from the resort property, making its current size "merely" 22,100 acres. Even though Disney controls some entities than own property within the community and also occupies office space in Celebration, it is NOT part of WDW. It is an unincorporated community development district in Osceola County.
1
While neither new nor technically a "plaza," Bethesda Row in Maryland is a fine example of pedestrian- and bike-friendly street design that embodies many of the key concepts you discussed.
1
@bluecyclone7077 I didn't say it was popping, I said it was a destination. I also didn't say any of those other attractions received more visitors, I said they were popular attractions. Reddy implied (probably sarcastically) that there were no other worthwhile destinations in Texas and Luis questioned that, so I tossed some examples into the thread. You're right about the Riverwalk, though. It's almost impossible to NOT go there while in San Antonio, especially if you're hankerin' for fajitas at Rita's.
1
Here in Texas, tollways are often built under DBOM contracts so the state doesn't have to cough up the initial capital investment. The roads will ultimately (after 50 years, iirc) become state property. Chicago did it backwards.
1
Not your finest suggestion, even disregarding the inevitable swarms of indigents. Fares aren't merely for revenue generation. Peak/Off-Peak fare models meter/throttle the flow of pax. People undervalue so-called "free goods" and don't take good care of them. Even the USSR charged a token amount (no pun intended) for use of their transit systems. It's tough enough to get effective transit propositions passed in most U.S. cities - why add another hurdle to clear?
1
@TheTroyc1982 Yes we do - in part because of nations like China threatening Taiwan and their ally/client state North Korea threatening South Korea. Would you prefer that nations like China, North Korea, and Russia have NO check on their ambitions? Before you point out the obvious, I'll do it for you. Yes, the US government is "less than efficient" with military spending (intentional understatement). Yes, we could probably do just as well with more intelligent project management. Yes, we could probably safely divert a fair portion of our military spending to civil works projects. No, now is NOT the time for that due to the current Administration's policies making us look ridiculously weak and ineffectual in the geopolitical sphere. Due to their short-sighted pandering to climate alarmists, they have also completely DESTROYED our two best revenue sources for funding construction of public transit projects: severance and end-user fuel taxes. Increasing those revenue streams is politically off the table indefinitely. Also, their destruction of our economic growth means that the fuel and literally EVERYTHING else it takes to construct ANYTHING is growing more costly by the day. Their desire to pretend to be "doing something" for the environment and climate change has revealed that they do not know anything about these issues and they simply do not truly care. They don't even BELIEVE in climate change. Look at all the expensive beachfront properties owned by the loudest climate alarmists in politics: Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. That $40 billion that we sent to Ukraine to repay Burisma's investment in Biden Inc could have built about 800 miles of modern streetcar lines. They don't care about transit. They don't care about climate change. They don't care about YOU!
1
@rymcmanus You're reading things that I never wrote. I neither said nor implied such a thing as "blaming China." I said that our country (or, as you correctly pointed out, our elites) transferred great wealth to them. Your assertion that the hostility is unilateral is the only utter nonsense in this thread.
1
@rymcmanus You're exceptionally committed to inferring things that were neither stated nor implied. "transferring wealth" means exactly that and no more. We sent them dollars and, in return, they sent us poisonous toothpaste, dog food that killed dogs, children's toys contaminated with lead, CCP-approved spyware for our kids' phones, and SARS CoV-1 and -2. You know: TRADE!
1
@blackhole9961 "Euclidean zoning" -- That's a great way to phrase it! There are a number of complex historical factors that led to exclusionary zoning (some of them valid) and postwar economic factors that led to sprawl development (most of them short-sighted). The sad part is that we are fully aware of the problems and already possess ALL of the tools we need to rectify them but most politicians and bureaucrats are stuck in the 1920s-era paradigm of highly visible Moses-inspired roadway projects because they'd rather pretend that they "did something" than actually DO something.
1
It's Grand Central TERMINAL. Just sayin'. Also, this Texas HSR proposal is hauntingly reminiscent of the abject failure of the 1993 Texas HSR bids. I followed that duel between competing companies at the time (it was basically French TGV vs German ICE technology) and predicted failure when the company that claimed "no taxpayer money required" was awarded the bid. The more honest company lost and the winner never built a dang thing. Let's also not forget the 6-track rail corridor that was promised in the Trans-Texas Corridor proposal. The Texas 130 tollway has existed for roughly 15 years and not one single inch of railroad track has been installed along its right of way. I predict this plan will also fizzle for several reasons (I'd love to be wrong about that, but it already looks a little shaky): First and foremost, the line is all new-terrain construction. Why not expand or closely parallel existing rail routes? They're already fairly flat and straight between the triangle cities. Just acquire land adjacent to existing track. They'd attract fewer lawsuits AND be able to transport construction supplies by rail. Portions of those routes are already grade-separated. The company could save some loot by not having to elevate the entire thing (fences are cheaper). Second, too many of the station locations are rubbish. Dallas seems okay, but if they're going to build an elevated station anyway, it might as well be closer to Union Station, which serves several light and commuter rail lines, as well as Amtrak. Also, just ONE station for the entire Metroplex? Really? Stupid! The line should enter Dallas from the southeast (from Houston), continue northwest to DFW Airport and then curve southwest through Fort Worth before continuing south along I-35W toward Austin. The Houston station's location could hardly be worse. Who's going to choose to travel 180 miles in 45 minutes only to hop on a BUS when they get to their destination? Buses do NOT attract riders-by-choice. Trains do! Again, if they're going to elevate it anyway, they could put it closer to the UH downtown campus and light rail station on Main. There's a parking lot between that location and the Amtrak station that might be an ideal location for it. Don't get me started on the unabashed stupidity of the Brazos Valley station! They intend it to serve Bryan/College Station AND Huntsville. Those cities are FIFTY MILES APART. Pick one! I would choose College Station. Amtrak used to serve it on their Dallas-Houston route before they discontinued it. There is some land and surface parking across Wellborn Road from the main campus with room for an elevated station and parking structures, plus the population of B/CS (primarily a college town) is much greater than that of Huntsville (primarily a prison town). Austin's Amtrak station is ALREADY on the edge of a 24-hour neighborhood. Skyscrapers, including the hideous "Jenga building," have sprouted like weeds after a summer rain all over the western side of downtown. Whole Foods' flagship store is within walking distance. The redeveloped Seaholm power plant, thousands of apartments, restaurants, and offices are within spittin' distance. There are properties adjacent to the tracks that could be redeveloped without demolishing the YMCA or parklands. Alternatively, replace the YMCA property with a mixed-use high-rise that contains the station and a brand-new YMCA facility, as well as shops and offices. Third, there are too many missing stations. Granted, there's not much between Houston and San Antonio but a West Houston station near Katy and the I-10/Grand Parkway interchange would make sense and pick up a lot of business from local commuters (Katy Freeway is a 24/7 crack-addled nightmare). The eastern leg could benefit from stations at Corsicana and Conroe/The Woodlands. The most egregious gap in the plan is along the western leg (I-35 corridor). Waco, Temple/Belton, San Marcos, and New Braunfels are all cities that exist. The plan completely fails to address serving these population centers. At least the 1993 proposals had a station planned for Waco! Fourth, they don't need government funding nor guarantees to build this thing. They need that to build it RIGHT. This plan is sloppy and fails to serve our citizens' needs. By failing to plan properly, they have planned to fail spectacularly. I don't WANT to come back in a few years to say "I told you so," but I WILL. ;-) Thank you for your attention to this issue.
1
Thank you for an excellent explanation. About those bans on gasoline-powered vehicles... When California's Governor did that, you realize that he also accidentally (I hope) banned hybrid-electric vehicles because most politicians are law school and Poli Sci graduates (in other words, idiots). As ironically hilarious as that is in and of itself, the bigger picture reveals that CA politicians are even dumber than you think. The Gov ordered the ban (starting in 2035) before EVs were ready for prime time, AFTER they tore down their nuclear and other power plants, AFTER Texas left them in the dust in wind energy generation, and AFTER they spent billions on HSR but BEFORE said HSR has earned a single penny at the farebox (they're going to erase a significant source of revenue from fuel taxes and pick the pockets of their citizens instead, prompting even more of them to take their wealth and tax revenue to states with sane, moderate policies). They've been suffering from brownouts and rolling blackouts since the turn of the century but have done NOTHING to bring more capacity online. The ban is an empty virtue-posturing gesture that panders to a microscopic minority of climate alarmists and is yet another example of that once-great state shooting itself in the proverbial foot. The big auto manufacturers have been quietly dialing back EV production because the economics just don't work without massive governmental intervention, which translates to: Each and every taxpayer who does NOT own an EV is subsidizing those who buy them. They've been robbing the poor to help the wealthy buy Teslas and other overpriced EVs. THAT is what you voted for!
1
Or just take the train.
1
I'd love to hear some examples from that "weird shit" category!
1
@nehcooahnait7827 Something tells me that you don't have eyes. This very video showed you failed housing projects that became slums.
1
Good presentation but I question some of the dates in this video. I extensively photographed the Denver Union Station and LoDo area in the summer of 2003 and much of the "recent" work to which you referred was already well under way or even completed at that time, including the light rail platforms and the visually interesting pedestrian bridge north of the building. I took some quick-and-dirty follow-up shots in 2019 and the neighborhood had definitely expanded enormously. I'm returning soon to reshoot the exact same views I shot back in 2003 for a more thorough before-and-after presentation.
1
I really enjoyed your video but perhaps you could find a better analogy than evolving Pokemon that would be more adult-appropriate AND get your message across to a broader audience.
1
@echin9372 Sure, it's downright ADORABLE - but the adults who pay taxes, vote, and actually go to City Hall to speak their minds and influence elected officials are at high risk of missing the underlying point.
1
@hihellothere9569 Sure, this video is fun but "more power?" That is HILARIOUSLY delusional! When y'all actually bother to vote, you voted for ONE really bad waitress who has earned no respect in Congress and accomplished precisely nothing. Everyone else in power is older than dirt and richer than King Midas. The wealthy tech oligarchs you worship are in their 50s and 60s now. Refusing to understand how the world works is not going to impel change for the better!
1
That may well be the most insane idea ever posted on any Urbanist's YouTube channel. You're clearly a teenager who is totally unfamiliar with 20th Century American history. Federal government policies contributed to the total destruction of dozens of functional working-class neighborhoods in every major city in the nation. They created employment vacuums, lack of retail stores, and food deserts, and stacked impoverished people like firewood in massive, Brutalist housing projects that only succeeded in concentrating violent crime into superblocks of despair. Do you WANT another Cabrini-Green? Do you WANT another Pruitt-Igoe? Governmental meddling is how you get those horror shows. Snap out of it, kid.
1
@lauriecfano Do the councils actually BUILD those properties themselves or do they bid the jobs out to construction contractors like we do in the USA? The OP is advocating for the government to BE the contractor, which is a deeply terrifying thought. It would clog the courts with lawsuits for decades!
1
@andypierce6593 They could put a trolleybus line in, super quiet.
1
@tonywalters7298 They did that in Miami.
1
@microproductions6 Consider that, if the W&OD right of way had remained a rail line instead of being converted into the longest, narrowest "park" in the USA, then perhaps the taxpayers could have saved FAR more than $6 billion when building a rail link to Dulles Airport and the line could have helped shape a much less chaotic development pattern in NoVA. The handwriting was clearly on the wall in the 1960s (some would say as early as the1950s, when the Shirley Highway was built), but our political "leaders" aren't readers.
1
@jonathanjones3126 Counterpoint: NO, it absolutely would not. Tell us you have no knowledge of basic economics or history without telling us you have no knowledge of basic economics or history.
1
@michalandrejmolnar3715 "Next term?" 🤣 HILARIOUS! 🤣 I realize that this isn't a political channel, but someone (you) needs to keep up with current events.
1
@screwstatists7324 There is no such thing as a "profitable" transit authority/agency. There are only exceptionally rare cases that require less funding via general taxpayer subsidy. Please provide authoritative citations or other evidence in support of your incredible assertion.
1
Brilliant! Exile your tax base. Who's going to pay for the housing programs?
1
@milkdrinker7 Owning and managing rental property IS work and often employs other workers. In the past two years, I've hired HVAC, electrical, remodeling, and landscaping subcontractors many times. I've gotten a LOT of shit done.
1
@milkdrinker7 Only the work I cannot do myself due to either lack of certification (HVAC) or the loss of use of one of my hands.
1
You know what kills old malls? It isn't internet retail. New malls kill old malls.
1
@danieldaniels7571 Yes, I know. But that happened when the LVM was developed and owned by private companies. Now that it's owned by the quasi-governmental LVCVA, the story can be very different.
1
@hotdogstandman I've used it a number of times since attending its grand opening in July 2004. Are you trying to invalidate my lived experience or are you the self-appointed Official Spokesman for the Entirety of Humankind?
1
@danieldaniels7571 It's behind most of the hotels it serves (MGM, Bally's, Flamingo, etc) at the southern end and in front of the LVH and LVCC at the northern end. Most of the signage guiding you to it is inside the casinos.
1
@hotdogstandman Only the Sith deal in absolutes. Here's a reasonable example: My then-girlfriend and I were staying at the LVH. She bought us tickets to a musical at the MGM. The fastest way to travel between the two resorts was the monorail. Two all-day passes cost us five bucks each at the time. That was FAR cheaper than taking taxis and we visited several resorts, had dinner, saw the show, and returned to our room without once getting harassed by barkers on The Strip, getting ripped off by cabbies, or having to hunt for parking. That would be SEVERAL reasons, which is a number greater than zero. You seem to have an irrational hatred of the LVM, which casts your credibility in question. Are you a taxi driver?
1
@hotdogstandman First, nobody ever claimed it was financially successful. It was built with private funding, not public, so it didn't cost YOU anything. The taxi and shuttle companies interfered and ensured that it wouldn't succeed financially. It was, however, technologically successful, being the first non-APM transit line in the US with screened platforms, full automation, AND full grade separation. It was built in record time, too. I'll tell you what, I'll keep my transportation money in in my own city and my convention business in Orlando.
1
@hotdogstandman Your debating skills are top-notch. I addressed those points earlier in this thread. I'm not from Orlando and I've been researching and writing about transit, transportation, and urban planning issues since the early 1990s. Not that any of that matters to something as aggressively hateful as you. I hope your heart full of hatred keeps you warm at night. Do humanity a solid and STAY in Vegas, handing out flyers for strip joints to people who do their best to avoid you.
1
@hotdogstandman They HAVE a commuter train. It's called SunRail. They're also getting new Brightline stations that will link them to the Atlantic coast, Miami, and (eventually) Tampa. This is very widely known in the transit & transportation community. You really don't know much about the topic, do you, Mr. Dunning-Kruger Syndrome?
1
@hotdogstandman Previously, on "Adventures with the Dunning-Kruger Effect," you implied that nonresidents of Vegas have no business suggesting ways to make the LVM more useful. Therefore, by YOUR own standards, what YOU want doesn't mean squat to Orlando. By the way, there's no widely accepted definition of a "hyperspeed train" so what, specifically, do you mean by that? Maglev? Acela? Musk's nonexistent VaporLoop? Brightline is technically a HSR implementation (especially so once they electrify it), and - as I explicitly noted - it WILL connect resort areas and MCO to the coast. It seems we're done here.
1
@garryferrington811 They're even better with a mountain of whipped cream on top.
1
"Save" might be stretching it, but they certainly add value to a neighborhood! My favorite "variety show" of paths would have to be the string of New Urbanist communities along 30A in south Walton County, Florida, which include short boardwalk style paths providing shortcuts within a community (Rosemary Beach), concrete paths extending residential blocks (Alys Beach), paths connecting adjacent villages (Seaside and its neighbors), paths bridging water features to connect divided sections of a neighborhood (Watercolor), paths/dunewalks connecting to the beaches (ALL of the 30A communities), and the paved 19-mile Timpoochee Trail that parallels 30A and connects EVERY community for bicyclists with very little interaction with motor vehicles. There are also numerous hike-and-bike paths in the nearby state park, forest, and wildlife reserve. These paths are so popular that many resorts and other businesses make serious coin by renting out bicycles.
1
Like the "elite" elderly retiree who depends on his modest rental property investment income to keep him ALIVE after he's no longer healthy enough to work 40 hours per week? That bastard! Screw him, right?
1
What happened to the ancient mound? Don't leave us hanging like that!
1
Houston has a fairly extensive one, too.
1
TJ was mostly right. Most of America is still rural. It HAS to be since it requires nearly 2 acres of arable land to feed each and every person who selfishly intends to NOT DIE.
1
Show your math, please. Yes, postwar zoning is awful, but it's not the primary driver of housing costs.
1
@Gordon_2000 I never said otherwise. Why are you making things up?
1
@orifox1629 As far as I know, there is ONE station in the system that can be bypassed: National Airport has 3 through tracks. That is probably a remnant from the early proposals which had the Blue Line branching to two different termini in Virginia and the Yellow Line terminus was to be much farther south on US-1. Adding bypass tracks or offline platforms to most of the stations would, today, be prohibitively expensive. They should do so with future infill stations, but they probably won't.
1
@ryanlargent9320 The reason trains can arrive on either platform (usually during maintenance or construction on one of the directional tracks) is that there are crossovers between most of the stations. That feature absolutely does NOT make express trains possible.
1
@ZeroGravitas187 Just... wow. The origin of zoning was to separate incompatible land uses -- Primarily, keeping housing away from smokestack industries.
1
@havenless3551 While zoning laws were certainly abused as you described in many places, that was not the ORIGIN of zoning, as the post to which I replied implied.
1
BWI
1
SFO
1
@BTman58 Not Detroit.
1
That's HEMPSTEAD, not Hampstead, you crazy Yankee! :)
1
@crash.override Is it, though? There's a beautiful tract on the edge of my neighborhood that would make a lovely park, but the city wants to build an 80% subsidized housing complex on the site, less than a hundred yards from the neighborhood elementary school and on top of one of the most congested intersections in this part of the city. They already decommissioned the water tower that serves that area and there's no room for additional power lines. There are no major employers within 5 miles and every intersection within 3 miles already has a full crew of meth-addled beggars. The people who live on the street behind the tract JUST had their property taxes go up by 94% (in ONE year) and, if this palace of concentrated poverty is built, will see their property values dwindle to tenement levels while their taxes remain sky-high. You are clearly too young to understand basic economics and have only reactionary buzzwords upon which to fall back.
1
@shanekeenaNYC VERY naive. There was NO "complete package" -- they had no shops, restaurants, grocery stores, or jobs. In several cases, access to transit was neither convenient nor useful. Learn from history. In cities like New York and Chicago, hi-rise projects were often built upon the razed bones of old and poor but functional and diverse neighborhoods (with intact amenities and opportunities) in order to enrich a scant handful of developers. Moses was the worst of the lot after he gained control of the NYCHA. He lost power in 1968 and yet the city still hasn't recovered from his "upgrades."
1
@shanekeenaNYC First, that isn't what those particular neighborhoods were like before the PJs were built. Second, if you didn't have the right connections in NYC, you couldn't build squat. Moses was NYC's Shadow Emperor for over three decades. You didn't tell HIM what to do, he told YOU.
1
@shanekeenaNYC It's 20th Century urban slang for "project." The context should have made that obvious.
1
Columbia MD? Really? It is a terrible, awful place. It's unwalkable, unbikeable, and has insanely wide roads designed to facilitate the passage of numerous old-school Soviet tank divisions. Its "town center" is a massive box-o-stores (shopping mall) floating in an ocean of asphalt that you cannot safely walk or bike to. Sure, it has a lot of nice parks and pretty little lakes but you HAVE to drive to them. There's no rail transit station anywhere close to the place. If there's a Hell on Earth for urban planners, this place is it. It is the poster child for EVERYTHING wrong with postwar suburban development. The ONLY positive factor is the nearby Merriweather Post Pavilion, where I attended a number of concerts back in the late 70s. I had to drive there, as no other transportation options existed then (or now).
1
What metric are you using to compare the light rail systems in Los Angeles and Dallas? I believe that DART still operates the longest light rail system in North America.
1
@jtlandrum That's a substantial "if." It's tricky to get the precise numbers via a Google search. The cited source for L.A. includes their heavy rail lines, which definitely puts it above DART. If we include the commuter rail lines, L.A. also easily "wins." It's not a contest, though. Both regions have a LOT of improvements to implement. Also, LAMTA got started half a decade before DART, but DART's catch-up game was on point on the 90s.
1
Some random thoughts: The Line is merely a wasteful vanity project that will never be fully realized. The true value of Arcosanti is in some of the construction techniques that have been developed or improved there, such as siltcasting. It, too, will never be fully realized. It's tough to finance the construction of a city of 7,000 residents by selling windbells and switchplates, and it's especially difficult when you refuse to allow people to buy their homes! Arcosanti does model many decent concepts for compact self-sufficient city design, though. We should never build a large-scale "city in a building." It's not human-compatible. Arcosanti is widely praised in certain circles for being a carless city but, ironically, the ONLY way you can get there is (wait for it) BY ROAD. Once you get there, it would be excruciatingly difficult to move into your apartment due to the lack of streets. I like Arcosanti, even though there's very little for a visitor to actually DO there. I've even done my part to help out. I've bought windbells, switchplates, art, and a few meals there. It's still going to take 120 years to finish the joint at this rate!
1
@YukarioMashimato Not really. Celebration is NOT part of the WDW resort property.
1
@andypierce6593 With a better plan, sure!
1
@ThatColtGuy Great! The company that is proposing that two of their three HSR stations be located in the absolute WORST places possible (they would force people to drive at least half an hour to access the proposed Houston and Brazos Valley stations) is pairing with the quasi-public entity that killed the Houston leg of the Texas Eagle in the mid 90s. What could possibly go wrong?
1
@thegeekgamer8340 Not "right now" they aren't. It's all still in the "proposal" phase.
1
@albback8176 I like it just fine, my friend. If "Dave" had simply stated his opinion as you have instead of making up numbers out of thin air, I wouldn't have called him out for disseminating blatant misinformation. That is EXACTLY the sort of thing that confuses these issues and even creates anti-transit sentiment in the voting public's collective mind.
1
@barryrobbins7694 I'm not even sure why you brought up the Zimmerman case nor the point you thought you were making, but I think you misspelled "Neighborhood Watch volunteer who was acquitted on both counts by a duly empaneled jury." Isn't suburban design the topic at hand?
1
Yes we can but SHOULD we? Probably not entirely. Arcosanti is a prototype compact city in Arizona that was designed from the start to be carless. There's a small parking lot in front of the Visitor's Center but no internal streets, just walkways. There are apartments scattered throughout the compact city. The first time I visited I wondered how one moved in to an apartment there. They told me that the truck gets as close as possible on the access road and everything is manually moved around on dollies and carts. That includes heavy kitchen appliances, HVAC hardware, furniture, etc. While I dislike quoting characters from comic book movies, I have to say "not a great plan!" Later I sketched out a "new & improved" version of the design using "skinny streets" and other New Urban precepts overlaid on the same compact footprint while retaining the integrated greenhouses and other agricultural elements in order to create a place where people could actually LIVE and do their people things.
1
Most elementary schools in US cities and suburbs are within walking distance. Some parents drive their kids to school anyway because they are idiots raising weaklings.
1
Since you didn't mention it, I guess I will. The Texas 130 tollway was built as an alternate route bypassing Austin to the east. The southern segments are famous for having the fastest posted speed limit in the USA (85mph). Most of the tollway has been open for barely 15 years and they're ALREADY widening it. Part of the rationale for building it was allegedly to relieve congestion on I-35. I knew that was BS when then-Governor Perry first proposed his Trans-Texas Corridor plan, which was a poorly-disguised scam to allow private companies to get rich by building underutilized toll roads all over the state without using much taxpayer money. The original plan proposed corridors containing toll roads, rail lines, and utility infrastructure that would connect Texas' major cities and then connect to NOTHING at the state's borders. Texas 130 is the only part of the plan that exists today. He lied like a rug and we fell for that crap. Live and learn. If congestion relief had truly been the goal, the answer was and remains obvious: Make 130 a "free" road and initiate tolling on I-35. Yeah, you aren't "supposed" to do that on an Interstate built with public funds. So what? Robert Moses did it more than half a century ago. Numerous toll roads are, today, part of the Interstate Highway System. Tolled express lanes are being added to Interstates all around the country. Even right here in Austin, the It-Will-Never-Ever-Be-An-Expressway-We-Promise-Cross-Our-Hearts-And-Swear-To-Die Mopac Expressway (Democrats lie like rugs, too) has tolled express lanes right where the UP rail corridor SHOULD have been expanded to double tracks and a commuter rail line overlaid. It's clearly possible to legislate such changes. Vote better, people!
1
We have some.
1
@CityBeautiful Back in 2002 (ish), LV was considering implementation of the Civis "self-driving" bus. It was featured at APTA 2002 at the LVCC. Needless to say, that plan fell apart.
1
@danatronics9039 Buses also attract fewer riders-by-choice.
1
@Pacotille_6529 He was widely known as "Corbu."
1
What REALLY kills malls? Malls. Malls kill malls. New malls cannibalize the living crap out of old malls.
1
@mmwpro63 Incorrect. Heavy rail subways are the most expensive urban transit mode. Monorails are less expensive than elevated heavy rail and comparable with elevated light rail.
1
@ScottAtwood Rotary switches are fast and not particularly complex.
1
I am absolutely shocked at the number of solar panels I see in these aerial views of Seattle. Either the citizens or their governments (or both) are woefully uninformed. The Puget Sound is literally among the WORST areas of the continental United States for insolation (solar irradiation). Most of Texas averages 4.5 to 6.5 KwH per square meter per day. The Seattle area averages less than 4 (if that). Source: NREL insolation maps. The local focus should be on energy efficiency and conservation, not generation of future toxic waste. Typical activist nonsense: pretend to help while actively making things worse.
1
@flashedwards3829 How often does that happen, though? A few days per week? My city averages 300 days of sunshine annually. My point is that solutions must be appropriately tailored to local conditions or one risks doing more harm than good.
1
I-375 in Detroit? I saw a plan for repurposing it last summer.
1
He was referring to the individual ITEMIZED deduction, which fewer people now benefit from due to the mortgage cap and the increased Standard Deduction. Those don't apply to rental or business mortgage interest deductions, which are usually allowed in full.
1
@clayortex Correct, due to the mortgage cap. People with smaller mortgages simply don't bother itemizing because the standard deduction is now so generous, thanks to the TCJA.
1