Comments by "Chaos Corner" (@chaos.corner) on "Not Just Bikes" channel.

  1. Well, if you're talking about taking things away, sure. It's not like they're talking about giving everyone a car with on-street parking. With that said, moving on-street parking into parking garages seems good to me. Eliminating cars (or a large segment of them) is another question entirely. As for "subsidizing drivers", they should just be paying market rates.
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  2. It looks like technically they're not really removing them but relocating them. Looks like that's giving them unintended consequences too.
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  3. Many cities are also mostly hard sound-reflecting surfaces. Adding some soft stuff (trees, grass, uneven road surfaces) can help a lot.
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  4.  @casperd2100  Yes. I'm pretty car friendly myself but I do think he has some good points, especially where car driving kinda falls apart like in big cities. Also, pedestrian density tends to indicate other solutions might be appropriate (I like pedestrianization). I think there's definitely common ground to be found but car haters tend to get in the way of their own goals sometimes, the perfect being the enemy of the good.
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  5.  @baronvonlimbourgh1716  So what? Asphalt is cheap, human living space is not. There's plenty of space for both in the US. Though it's worth pointing out that lliving spaces are also typically larger in the US than other parts of the world also. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
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  6. Flexibility is key also.
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  7.  @Canada_Dominium  Unless you're meaning that all sound is rushing air, car noise is mostly tire and engine noise. Though that's not really relevant to the sound absorbing properties of the surroundings.
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  8.  @Canada_Dominium  Yes. Cobblestones, for example (though those may increase noise directly from tires). Non-flat surfaces disperse sound. You can see this with some sound deadening tiles.
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  9.  @Canada_Dominium  Your comments are neither useful nor interesting and your attempts at snark could only be described as weak, at best, if one were being charitable. Oh, and your bid to divine anything about me at all across the internet is 100% laughable. I'd say try harder but honestly... probably best not.
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  10.  @ThunderClawShocktrix  Commutes don't tend to need to be flexible though.
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  11.  @Canada_Dominium  Yes. I don't see your point. I was commenting about options for sound deadening in city environments.
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  12.  @Canada_Dominium  Aerodynamic noise is essentially nothing at city speeds and pavement is effectively flat at the wavelengths involved. I suggest you start at the Wikipedia page for roadway noise and go from there (Watching the video we're commenting on might be an idea too).
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  13.  @Canada_Dominium  Hah, so you're rejecting the information in this video, my own personal experience and respected third party information. I think we're done here.
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  14.  @Canada_Dominium  You probably would have been better off replying directly to the video then.
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  15.  @PK-tt5kk  Right. But OP was talking about total living space vs total parking space. If we just want to talk about cities, that's another discussion. Though highly dense cities are something of an anachronism with modern communication options. NYC is suffering a huge loss in tax revenue as businesses close down or move out and the people are only likely to follow as rents are ridiculous. The reasoning behind larger living space in the US is another discussion (I think the argument you're repeating is fallacious) but, once again, I was addressing the narrow point that the OP made that there was more space for cars than people. It's a pointless comparison, there's plenty of space for both.
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  16.  @Arkiasis  That's not really very true. Urban centers lean left but there are typically still plenty of conservatives. (They're often the ones actually generating the wealth that makes cities attractive). If you look at a map of the US broken by how people vote rather than the outcome of elections, it's more purple than blue or red.
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  17. There is a ray of hope that things are getting better. The business park I used to work in definitely had more concessions to being a pleasant place to work and the new stuff that was being built even moreso with a bunch of mixed zone stuff going in too. Still heavily biased toward cars and public transport meager at best but definitely not as horrible as what you were showing. (I'll just note that I have seen almost equally awful business parks in the U.K. But there are usually buses so there's that, I suppose).
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  18. If you get smart enough, you can also do tricks like discounts for deprioritized charging or "take me to 30 miles range ASAP then just trickle".
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  19. It's not that unusual to have to pay for a scarce resource like parking (when it is scarce). Arguably nobody should expect free on-street parking either.
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  20. Very common in big cities. Once you get outside of them, a lot less common as there's plenty of space and it's cheaper to throw some tarmac down than build a structure. I'm not sure where you're getting your impressions from. Could be selection bias. Channels like this tend to focus on things like problem sprawl so are more likely to feature that kind of parking lot.
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  21. @Gormen Freeman There are other options. I live in a home in a small city. Walkable but with more grass than I like to mow. Homes with bigger lots were also available. Of course, it's an older city. I do believe people have their own preferences and should be entitled to pursue them but I think they shouldn't be subsidised. Also, I've lived in isolated suburbs and didn't like it. Mixed use is the way forward.
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  22.  @PK-tt5kk  By the way, those cell-phone towers are required anyway otherwise you have awful blind spots that make everyone's (who wouldn't be better served by a landline) phone much less useful. Speaking as someone who had a mobile phone when coverage was much more spotty, it was very frustrating. Towers are cheap anyway, relatively speaking.
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  23.  @Swansniff2  Nothing about self-driving cars requires electric. Self-driving would be hugely beneficial to electric though as you could send your car off to charge itself if you didn't have a place to charge it.
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  24.  @hekkamomo  There's a few around. Sometimes done wrongly. Definitely too many stop signs though, often in totally irrational places.
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  25.  @Tomartyr  Cycling used to be a form of transport in the UK. It's changed a lot in half a century.
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  26.  @FlushGorgon  Possibly not but a self-driving Tesla already took out a cyclist in plain view.
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  27. Sportsbikes tend to be about tone, Harleys are about the straight pipes and are really where the "loud pipes saves lives" culture lives (though there is some crossover). Personally, I'm fine with my stock pipe. Though it is an ugly piece of steel, I don't have to look at it while riding.
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  28.  @موسى_7  You missed his point. You don't typically ban a class of item just because a small percentage of people misuse them. Otherwise bicycles would be for the chop too.
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  29.  @WoodsSooperDooperShop  Properly mufflered motorcycles (as they typically come from the factory) cause no "damage" and you are advocating for their banning. The majority of noise annoyance at my residence is from cars with loud sound systems. I guess we should ban cars too. Your position is asinine and counter to common sense. You are not arguing from a position of reason but apparently biased activism. Fortunately, more rational minds will prevail.
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  30.  @NotJustBikes  People were responding to someone saying there were no corner shops or whatnot in the US. There are. That they aren't being built any more due to zoning (also not completely true - there does appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel) is important but not directly relevant to the falsehood of that statement. Things are bad enough that there is no need to resort to hyperbole.
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  31. It's not really fair without considering the costs of the alternatives though.
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  32.  @fulkske  Sadly, around here, there are people who won't even come into your store unless they can basically park at the door. There are several decently sized parking lots within a couple of blocks but people just don't want to walk. There is a lot at the back of our store and I've had people ask if they could use the back door rather than walk the one (small) building to the sidewalked road and around to the front.
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  33. A couple of years back, my locality came and put in signs to warn you that there were stop signs 10m in front of the stop signs.
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  34.  @Victor-tl4dk  💯. Speed humps are obnoxious in so many ways and actually detrimental to nearby residents. There are much better methods.
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  35.  @turnpike  It's fairly common around here. Many people too poor for a car or lost license for various reasons. Sometimes I walk just for the exercise.
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  36.  @jasonreed7522  I will say that the last few public parking lots put in around here appears to have been the local government bailing out their chums who have had land they have been unable to sell.
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  37. I kinda agree. The triangle shape is stronger but modern materials and manufacturing techniques mean it's not a big issue these days in most circumstances, especially if you're going to be riding mostly paved roads.
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  38. ​ @AmeyaVaidyaExEcutESC2 What you say is largely correct but not all American cities were built post-car so your statement is not universally true.​
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  39.  @AmeyaVaidyaExEcutESC2  Yeah. It's understandable but we need to move past it. Possibly AI will lead use to improved planning. Central planning is a lot of the problem but AI might be able to mimic organic growth.
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  40.  @matviyk3066  Could be. Though if you're buying a harley (other than the bottom of the line models), there should be something in your price range. I think the truth is, many people just want attention for their conspicuous consumption and loud pipes is a way to do it.
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  41. It's all corruption anyway. Of that $10B, a good chunk will be going into kickbacks and such. That is why it's being built.
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  42. I've been railing about this kind of zoning for a long time. I'm originally from Europe where mixed use is somewhat standard. I ended up choosing to live in a small city where mixed use was still somewhat grandfathered in and it has actually seen something of a renaissance in recent years (covid lockdowns notwithstanding). Interestingly, Dollar General has actually been taking advantage of this gap in the market and bringing groceries and essentials closer to people (albeit with questionable employment practices). I can actually walk and grab some milk in about 1/8 of a mile.
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  43.  @Games-tx1zc  Thank you for demonstrating OP's first point.
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  44.  @Chyrosran22  I had a raleigh triumph when I was a kid. Great bike.
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  45. @Aidan Collins So would they. Unless they wanted to end up in the gulag.
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  46.  @cerebraldreams4738  That's where I live. Though it's true I'm not an American. That is where I live though.
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  47. You could reserve land for exclusive public transport use and use flexible public transport like taxis and buses. Except then the taxis and bus companies would lobby against development of the other transport when the time came.
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  48. It sounds awful. There's not much less efficient than a bus with one person in it. Even a minibus.
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  49.  @lv2draw1  Well, the point of mass transit is the mass bit. You can only build on economies of scale if there is the scale. People who live far from routes that make sense to support with larger, heavier vehicles would probably be better served by taxi if owning/using a car isn't feasible. Plus there is the inconvenience factor for other users if they have to go 15 minutes out of the way to pick people up.
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  50. Growing up in non-car-hell suburbia can also suck as a teen. Everything you needed physically to live was easily within walking distance but unless you just wanted to kill your liver drinking in a pub, a friend with a car (and later your own or in my case, a motorcycle) was a godsend.
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  51.  @Apostate_ofmind  Meanwhile, your comment is completely devoid of content. Well done.
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  52.  @Apostate_ofmind  I appreciate that you tried harder this time.
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  53.  @Apostate_ofmind  Tough luck.
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  54. I have a walkable train station where I live and what was close to a walkable station where I used to work but CSX effectively owns the track so it was car commute for me.
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  55.  @Tomartyr  You haven't been looking too hard. Such bikes are readily available.
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  56.  @bubba842  OTA TV is alive and well and added channels with the bandwidth freed up with the digital transition.
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  57. That might be an idea. I had a car that would use the horn to notify that the alarm was armed when the doors were locked. It was very cringe coming home late at night with my driveway right next to my neighbor's house. Fortunately they fixed that on later models.
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  58.  ADVENT Insider  Their use is not supposed to be as an emergency signal. They are to make other vehicles aware of your presence. They are for sure misused but they do have a valid purpose. Make them illegal and (besides the negative effects of that) people will just install their own.
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  59. When you say "most people walking or cycling miss their commutes", you seem to be including both green areas where when you say "almost no one who drives did", you seem to be only looking at the dark green area. Have to compare apples to apples. (Though in that respect, the commutes likely differed in other aspects also. If I had to walk or ride my old commute of 40 miles, I suspect I wouldn't miss it much either.) Though my commute could be pretty nice when the weather was nice in a convertible or riding a motorcycle. Not that it matters that much. All commuting is pretty much unproductive time unless you get very lucky.
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  60. I don't agree with everything you advocate but this video is pretty much spot on. I would say that I have traveled the US and have seen the occasional effort to implement some aspects of this kind of thing with stores being back on an access road separate from the main road. It's definitely overdue for a proper paradigm shift.
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  61.  @adamt195  It's getting ridiculous.
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  62. Have you ever commented specifically on "emergency lanes" (specifically on non-major highways). They always seemed wasteful to me and something not present in many other countries.
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  63. Wildly profitable -> wildly overtaxed. I've long said that cities should benefit from economies of scale when it comes to taxation. It's just that governments take advantage of the increased costs of accommodation and higher wages to strip residents of their wealth. OTOH, I do think that big cities are an anachronism.
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  64. I also travelled for a while and after hours in a plane and then driving in a car, I'd often want to walk to get some food (either restaurant or store) to eat. It's exactly as you say and it's sad.
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  65.  @AwoudeX  Absolutely correct. And some people are unhappier than others. I grew up with a view of farmland across a valley. I've lived in cities and they get too crowded after a while. I'm currently fairly happy in a small town with a small, but not tiny yard. I do miss that view though.
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  66. I think electric bikes are likely to help this as, although you might choose to not pedal at all, you could choose to pedal some and still get some benefit from exercise. Strength can be built up in small increments. I used to cycle to school and started out pushing my bike up hills but toward the end, could power up hills in a fairly high gear.
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