• NaibofTabr
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        1 year ago

        A government adviser has called for roads in cities to be “ripped out completely” to combat air pollution.

        First paragraph.

              • NaibofTabr
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                1 year ago

                I don’t get the point of highlighting “public transport”. Maybe you’re not explaining your point very well, or not understanding mine.

                My point is that no public transport options are practical as logistics solutions, especially for last-mile delivery, and therefore ripping out the roads completely (as proposed in the article) will never be practical. There will always be a need for small, independently powered vehicles to fill the gaps.

                  • NaibofTabr
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                    1 year ago

                    This entire fucking topic is about private cars, not service vehicles.

                    No, this ‘entire fucking topic’ is about ripping city roads out completely. It’s the title of the article.

    • teuast@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      So what did we do before we had widespread cargo trucking? Did we just not deliver any cargo ever? Everyone just wandered around dropping limes all over the place 'cause they’d only figured out how to carry them with their bare hands, until Henry Ford invented gas station sushi and revolutionized transportation forever?

      Well, in the interest of not wasting everybody’s time, I’ll tell you: they organized their towns and cities around rail. This happened right here in the United States, with the stated example being in Philadelphia. Even the old West Coast cities were organized in much the same way for a long time. That was the only way they had available to them, and somehow, they still managed to have an economy.

      We have a lot of retrofitting to do to regain that ideal. But it’s possible.

      • S410@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Trucks were invented in 1890s. By 1900 the world’s population was 1.6 billion, 5 times smaller than it is now.

        But population numbers aren’t the only thing that has changed since then.

        A hundred some years ago FDA didn’t exist. You could buy eggs, meat, etc. from your local farmers and butchers. Now, you need licenses and to comply with a whole bunch of different codes. Fewer people can comply with those, so the average distance things need to be shipped has increased.

        There’s, also, a lot more things nowadays that were never possible to produce locally (or even just close by) to begin with. Semiconductors, medications, even fine fabrics for clothing require fairly complex processes and logistics. You can’t just plop a fab or a lab in every large-ish city - that is going to be even more of a nightmare to supply with resources necessary to keep it running, than shipping final product from somewhere else far away.

        • teuast@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          All of those are phenomenal arguments for heavily reinvesting in our freight rail.

          • S410@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Trains are great and they’re definitely underutilized in the modern world, but the thing they excel at is getting stuff from point A to point B (like a warehouse), not spreading it around across thousands of different destinations.

            Building a light railway to each and every walmart, target, 7eleven, etc. it’s just not practical in any way:

            My city, for example, has a relatively extensive tram system. You can get around most of the city by it and there’s quite a few stores that are right next to tracks, so, theoretically, something like that could be used to deliver goods within a city.

            However, it’s, both, way louder than cars and trucks (I used to live right next to a railway) and every time a tram or its powerline break, the entire line stops. You can’t, exactly, drive around a broken tram when you’re on rail.

          • Hyperreality@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Rail can’t realistically be connected to everyone’s house. You always need a solution for that final mile.

            For smaller stuff, a (cargo) bike is a perfect solution.

            For heavier stuff, like a mobile work place or a 40ft steel beam, you will always need something else. Right now the best option is a (small, electric) van or truck. For that you will need at least some roads. You can prevent them from being accessible to anything but professionals who absolutely need access. But you will still need a limited amount of them.

            Perfect is the enemy of good. Being a zealot about this, is self-defeating and won’t convince enough people.

      • NaibofTabr
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        1 year ago

        So what did we do before we had widespread cargo trucking?

        Agrarian society - wagons and hand carts.

        they organized their towns and cities around rail

        Towns and cities were significantly smaller and less complex. Rail does not scale. Adding new rail spurs is prohibitively time-consuming and inflexible.

        Seriously, how would you propose to handle citywide garbage/recycling collection with light rail and no motorized vehicles? (Just for instance).

        • teuast@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Your history is wrong. We had begun industrializing about 100 years before trucks were invented and more like 160 before they really became dominant.

          And are you literally arguing that building rail is more cost prohibitive, time consuming, and inflexible than building roads? Like actually? Unironically? I’m sorry, buddy, but when you start getting into numbers, that’s my territory and you’re out of your depth. https://alankandel.scienceblog.com/2014/01/11/rails-vs-roads-for-value-utilization-emissions-savings-difference-like-night-and-day/

          If only we properly invested in history education in this country. Then maybe people wouldn’t be embarrassing themselves by making arguments like yours.

          • Hyperreality@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            We had begun industrializing about 100 years before trucks were invented and more like 160 before they really became dominant.

            We enslaved, hurt, and killed millions of horses.

          • NaibofTabr
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            1 year ago

            This only addresses passenger transit and none of the logistics issues which have been my actual argument.

            This is not practical for transporting cargo around a moderately sized urban area. It never will be.

      • infreq@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Are you fucking kidding me? Have you ever had to transport anything jeavor or large in real life?

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Ah, there it is: the Shroedinger’s cyclist. Every cyclist is simultaneously broke and privileged until the car-brain decides which is more convenient for his current argument!

          • homoludens@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            TIL we never actually moved my girlfriend’s whole household by bike (and cart) when we moved in together.

            • NaibofTabr
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              1 year ago

              Why is it that you think your anecdote can be broadly applied to all cargo transit needs?

              Do you think a wind turbine could be carried by bicycle?

              • relevants@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                Ah yes, wind turbines which are famously delivered to locations in dense urban centers.

                • NaibofTabr
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                  1 year ago

                  A fair point.

                  But also, isn’t it pretty obvious that there’s a lot of large, heavy cargo that gets moved around inside cities that could not possibly be transported effectively by bicycle?

              • homoludens@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                So when people say I have obviously no experience moving heavy things, my personal experience matters. But when it turns out I have that experience, it magically stops mattering? Plus I never said that my experience is of importance, that’s something infreq and Hyperreality brought up.

                • NaibofTabr
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                  1 year ago

                  No, the point is that an individual experience is not broadly applicable.

                  One sample is bad statistics.

      • NaibofTabr
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        1 year ago

        Oh great, how many cargo bikes would we need to carry a pallet of milk cartons to the local grocery store? How many would we need to replace one truckload?

        Doesn’t matter because you also need a refrigeration system to keep the milk from spoiling. Good luck putting that on a bike.