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  #4041  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2016, 7:09 PM
whatnext whatnext is offline
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Originally Posted by Aroundtheworld View Post
Flavour of the month? Really?

Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transportation human beings have ever invented. It is clean, it is affordable and it doesn't take up much space.

In my opinion, it's about time we started building our societies around this form of transportation. In fact, if we are talking about passing fads, I'm thinking with the advent of self-driving cars, we may be seeing the end of the private automobile fairly soon.
And bikes were big in the 1890's until something better came along. Self-driving cars undoubtedly will be a game change, but it will be to encourage more people to use cars (owned or shared) not less.
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  #4042  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2016, 7:24 PM
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Cambie bridge northbound now consistently backs up to the Pacific Blvd exit in the morning rush hour. It takes about 3-4 cycles for traffic to get through the lights at Expo now. All the idling cars definitely must be great for the #greenestcity.

Apparently the backup on Nelson going to the Cambie bridge is pretty horrendous in the afternoon. Haven't experienced it myself yet, but my wife said it took her 17 minutes to get from Thurlow & Nelson to the Cambie last Thursday.
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  #4043  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 2:09 AM
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Originally Posted by WarrenC12 View Post
Owning a car is already slowing. Car shares allow a more efficient, cheaper, and easier (maintenance free) way of driving when you need to. Cars are huge assets that do nothing but sit and depreciate for 98% of the time.

If the car can drive itself, then I can order one to my house whenever I need it. No point in owning whatsoever.

And your "fad" statement... so summer is a fad now?
there may be less people buying cars, but with 1,000,000, (1 million), new people, and lets assume only 10% get cars, that is still an extra 100,000 cars more then there are today. and more then 10% of people get a car.

cars are huge assets, they cost a lot to buy and maintain. but when going all electric, the maintenance costs are almost non-existent. this makes them more affordable, as mentioned in the post you quoted but ignored that part. the costs of buying cars are also going down. as more cars become all electric, the technology will get cheaper and the costs to buy will be lower. so this means less capital outlay, almost no maintenance costs, and no fuel costs.

now with self-driving cars, you talk about being able to order a car. now what if people would rather do that then take transit? you can't assume the people abandoning cars are the ones who will be going to this "ordering cars" method. you have to account for there being at least the same, if not MORE cars because more people would rather the convenience of ordering a car compared to transit. everyone assumes "well duh car drivers will give up cars!" well that's a bad assumption to make because odds are you will get SOME giving them up, just like SOME will give up transit.

now, if everyone has the same mentality of you, well then a lot of cars will be needed due to commuting patterns. i guess you could assume more people working from home due to internet connectivity, but remember, Vancouver is very much a service industry which requires someone to commute to a location to work. this network of "ordering cars" will need to be pretty big.

and if you didn't just read word-for-word and were able to pick up on context, you would realize when i said "fad," i was being consistent with the post i was quoting. you would have realized that "fad" in this case meant that summer is only around for 3 or 4 months a year. so only 1/4 or 1/3 of the entire year. NOT the majority of the year. the city of Vancouver's own bike data also proves this. biking in this city is very much seasonal.
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  #4044  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 3:54 AM
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Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture View Post
now with self-driving cars, you talk about being able to order a car. now what if people would rather do that then take transit?
Don't forget that the same technology that makes autonomous cars possible also makes autonomous buses possible. That will drastically cut the cost to run buses, which makes lower fares and higher frequencies possible. That will make transit more attractive. So IMHO it's not at all certain that transit mode share is going to drop.

The technology is going to shake things up, but I don't think anyone can really predict with any certainty what the outcomes are going to be.
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  #4045  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 4:16 PM
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Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture View Post
i think cycling is more of a fad, and the bike data that the city has proves it. its a summer fad; ie. not many people commute by bike in the winter. it is seasonal in this city, and it hasn't changed even with many of the bike lanes being around for years now. there is a huge drop off of biking once the weather turns.
The word you're looking for is "seasonal".

That said, I biked more last winter than ever, so what you're saying is irrelevant to me.
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  #4046  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 5:57 PM
WarrenC12 WarrenC12 is offline
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Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture View Post
there may be less people buying cars, but with 1,000,000, (1 million), new people, and lets assume only 10% get cars, that is still an extra 100,000 cars more then there are today. and more then 10% of people get a car.
Assuming everybody else continues to buy cars at the same rate.


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Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture View Post
cars are huge assets, they cost a lot to buy and maintain. but when going all electric, the maintenance costs are almost non-existent. this makes them more affordable, as mentioned in the post you quoted but ignored that part. the costs of buying cars are also going down. as more cars become all electric, the technology will get cheaper and the costs to buy will be lower. so this means less capital outlay, almost no maintenance costs, and no fuel costs.
Are you living in a world with free electricity? We have some of the cheapest electricity in North America (and expensive gas). But as the demand shifts from fuel to electricity, new sources like Site C have much higher costs to produce power. Governments will also need to replace the tax base generated by fuel taxes. Other energy sources will likely absorb at least some of that taxation.

But all of that aside, anything that makes cars cheaper for individuals to own, makes them cheaper for sharing organizations. The major manufacturers all recognize this. Ford, GM, and of course Daimler-Benz are all investing heavily in car sharing and technologies like Uber. Why? Because this is their future customer base.

We're talking about utilization of an expensive asset. If you can increase that from 3% to only 9%, that's tripling the value. It's easy to see car sharing cars (in particular autonomous ones) having 50% or greater utilization.


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Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture View Post
now with self-driving cars, you talk about being able to order a car. now what if people would rather do that then take transit? you can't assume the people abandoning cars are the ones who will be going to this "ordering cars" method. you have to account for there being at least the same, if not MORE cars because more people would rather the convenience of ordering a car compared to transit. everyone assumes "well duh car drivers will give up cars!" well that's a bad assumption to make because odds are you will get SOME giving them up, just like SOME will give up transit.

now, if everyone has the same mentality of you, well then a lot of cars will be needed due to commuting patterns. i guess you could assume more people working from home due to internet connectivity, but remember, Vancouver is very much a service industry which requires someone to commute to a location to work. this network of "ordering cars" will need to be pretty big.
I think you need to spend some time working on grammar and sentence structure if you want your ideas to be communicated successfully.

What I think you are talking about is commuting times of day when there is a potential for high usage of shared vehicles towards specific destinations, leading to congestion.

I think we are talking far into the future here, but consider a scenario where there is very little private car ownership. We can probably get rid of street parking entirely, people can share rides to work in the same car (for a discount of course), and others will simply take these cars to the closest skytrain or WCE station. The reason many people drive downtown today is because they don't live close to a train station, don't want to take a bus, and there's no park and ride reasonably close to them.


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Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture View Post
and if you didn't just read word-for-word and were able to pick up on context, you would realize when i said "fad," i was being consistent with the post i was quoting. you would have realized that "fad" in this case meant that summer is only around for 3 or 4 months a year. so only 1/4 or 1/3 of the entire year. NOT the majority of the year. the city of Vancouver's own bike data also proves this. biking in this city is very much seasonal.
Hey, it's not my fault if you're using the wrong word, that's on you.

The City's traffic data shows massive double digit increases in cycling every year, and flat to declining car usage. If you take that data seriously, why wouldn't you increase cycling capacity and infrastructure?
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  #4047  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 6:11 PM
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Originally Posted by WarrenC12 View Post
...
The City's traffic data shows massive double digit increases in cycling every year, and flat to declining car usage. If you take that data seriously, why wouldn't you increase cycling capacity and infrastructure?
Because the total mode share is still miniscule. And in Metro its even lower. The city can't sits its thumbs while runaway house prices drive working people out of the city, and then turnaround and not give them practical ways to commute into the city. Biking from Cloverdale or Maple Ridge to downtown isn't practical, though I'm sure some SJW warrior will pop up here in a minute or two to tell me they do it.
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  #4048  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 6:20 PM
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Originally Posted by whatnext View Post
Because the total mode share is still miniscule. And in Metro its even lower. The city can't sits its thumbs while runaway house prices drive working people out of the city, and then turnaround and not give them practical ways to commute into the city. Biking from Cloverdale or Maple Ridge to downtown isn't practical, though I'm sure some SJW warrior will pop up here in a minute or two to tell me they do it.
Maybe they can bike ride to a Skytrain or WCE station?

If you're suggesting that a few bike lanes are the reason SFHs in Vancouver are over $1.5M, I'd love to hear more details.
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  #4049  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 7:59 PM
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Originally Posted by WarrenC12 View Post
Assuming everybody else continues to buy cars at the same rate.




Are you living in a world with free electricity? We have some of the cheapest electricity in North America (and expensive gas). But as the demand shifts from fuel to electricity, new sources like Site C have much higher costs to produce power. Governments will also need to replace the tax base generated by fuel taxes. Other energy sources will likely absorb at least some of that taxation.

But all of that aside, anything that makes cars cheaper for individuals to own, makes them cheaper for sharing organizations. The major manufacturers all recognize this. Ford, GM, and of course Daimler-Benz are all investing heavily in car sharing and technologies like Uber. Why? Because this is their future customer base.

We're talking about utilization of an expensive asset. If you can increase that from 3% to only 9%, that's tripling the value. It's easy to see car sharing cars (in particular autonomous ones) having 50% or greater utilization.




I think you need to spend some time working on grammar and sentence structure if you want your ideas to be communicated successfully.

What I think you are talking about is commuting times of day when there is a potential for high usage of shared vehicles towards specific destinations, leading to congestion.

I think we are talking far into the future here, but consider a scenario where there is very little private car ownership. We can probably get rid of street parking entirely, people can share rides to work in the same car (for a discount of course), and others will simply take these cars to the closest skytrain or WCE station. The reason many people drive downtown today is because they don't live close to a train station, don't want to take a bus, and there's no park and ride reasonably close to them.




Hey, it's not my fault if you're using the wrong word, that's on you.

The City's traffic data shows massive double digit increases in cycling every year, and flat to declining car usage. If you take that data seriously, why wouldn't you increase cycling capacity and infrastructure?
Even if cars as a service (CAAS) becomes a thing (fuck that though, I would lose so many pairs of sunglasses and phone chargers), that just means there would be MORE congestion.

If automated cars were used on demand, the only thing that would happen is that there would be fewer parking spots needed. But for every person driving around today, would STILL be a person driving around tomorrow. An SOV is an SOV whether or not a computer is driving it. There might be fewer cars in existence, but at a specific hour of the day there would be the same number of cars on the road as today.

In fact, it would drastically increase congestion and road use. Instead of cars spending time being idle in parking spots under buildings waiting for their masters to return, they would be out and about driving around (EMPTY) waiting for someone else to summon them. They would need to drive to that pick up (EMPTY).

So at the AM Rush, instead of cars mostly entering downtown and staying there all day, the same volume of cars would enter downtown, THEN LEAVE, to pick up more people, then return, and on and on. That just means that the lights need to now be timed to allow a reverse commute of empty cars. We are going to need like double the road capacity in downtown to accommodate automated ride shares.
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  #4050  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2016, 8:12 PM
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In fact, it would drastically increase congestion and road use. Instead of cars spending time being idle in parking spots under buildings waiting for their masters to return, they would be out and about driving around (EMPTY) waiting for someone else to summon them. They would need to drive to that pick up (EMPTY).

So at the AM Rush, instead of cars mostly entering downtown and staying there all day, the same volume of cars would enter downtown, THEN LEAVE, to pick up more people, then return, and on and on. That just means that the lights need to now be timed to allow a reverse commute of empty cars. We are going to need like double the road capacity in downtown to accommodate automated ride shares.
You make a lot of assumptions in your post. I don't claim to have all of the answers, but look at what happens when Uber is in high demand. Prices spike.

Bottom line is we aren't building any more roads into the downtown core, so how can we make best use of what we have? SOVs aren't the answer.
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  #4051  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2016, 6:22 PM
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Mobi bikes ready for rollout:



credit: twitter
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  #4052  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2016, 11:16 PM
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Mobi bikes ready for rollout:



credit: twitter
NICE. Lol
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  #4053  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2016, 1:02 AM
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You make a lot of assumptions in your post. I don't claim to have all of the answers, but look at what happens when Uber is in high demand. Prices spike.

Bottom line is we aren't building any more roads into the downtown core, so how can we make best use of what we have? SOVs aren't the answer.
Well, my assumptions are not as big as the premise assumption that automated cars are going to be driving around the city on their own, picking up people who summon them, thus replacing individual car ownership.

My assumption is pretty baseline: if Cars as a Service is going to replace car ownership, then that most likely means people will use it at least as much as they use a car they own. Why else would most people switch ownership models? It has to be at least as useful AND cheaper.

If I drive to work now, car sharing isn't going to make me switch unless I can car share to work. Because if the only variable influencing people on how they get to work was cost, few people would drive today.

These cars would be owned by companies, which means their use would have to be priced competitively with both ownership and other means of travel. How could a business possibly make money if their product is so expensive to use that people don't want to pay? So their price points will be set to encourage customers to use them, you want to get as many people in your car as you can in a day. So there are going to be a lot of rides. Hence, there will be a lot of congestion still.

If anything, successful automated car shares will eat into transit ridership and not reduce SOV volumes. Why would people walk somewhere, wait for a bus, then share it with disgusting smelling dangerous other people, when they could push a button and have a car show up almost instantly?

Putting your faith into a new technology making life less busy and hectic is a red haring. It's never happens. It just gives us more time to do more stuff. Like look at cell phones, they've only increased the amount of things we do: we talk more, we text more, we answer work emails more.

I'm not saying cell phones are bad (I love mine), but they sure haven't made life slower. If I could just summon a car to my position instantly, I would never take another bus in my life.
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  #4054  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2016, 3:45 AM
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My assumption is pretty baseline: if Cars as a Service is going to replace car ownership, then that most likely means people will use it at least as much as they use a car they own. Why else would most people switch ownership models? It has to be at least as useful AND cheaper.
I'm not 100% sure that's going to happen. The huge difference between owning a car and renting a car is that when you rent all of the costs are made explicit. Instead of paying most of the cost as a fixed up-front amount (buying the car and paying insurance annually), you've got to pony money up for every trip. That's a pretty significant psychological shift, and the aversion of people to tolls shows that a lot of people go to lengths to avoid those kinds of explicit costs.

I was without a car for a few months and I joined Car2Go. I found that the per-minute billing caused me a lot of driving stress - suddenly every time I had to stop for a traffic light I could feel the minutes ticking away. And it was silly because I knew that for the trips I made all of those Car2Go costs end up being cheaper than owning a car. But that didn't stop me from feeling that pressure and, in the end, buying another car, mainly for the convenience but also so that I could make trips without having to feel pressured about those incremental costs.

And (to bring the thread back toward the forum topic), you can probably see a similar effect with bike shares.
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  #4055  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2016, 12:01 AM
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I'm not 100% sure that's going to happen. The huge difference between owning a car and renting a car is that when you rent all of the costs are made explicit. Instead of paying most of the cost as a fixed up-front amount (buying the car and paying insurance annually), you've got to pony money up for every trip. That's a pretty significant psychological shift, and the aversion of people to tolls shows that a lot of people go to lengths to avoid those kinds of explicit costs.

I was without a car for a few months and I joined Car2Go. I found that the per-minute billing caused me a lot of driving stress - suddenly every time I had to stop for a traffic light I could feel the minutes ticking away. And it was silly because I knew that for the trips I made all of those Car2Go costs end up being cheaper than owning a car. But that didn't stop me from feeling that pressure and, in the end, buying another car, mainly for the convenience but also so that I could make trips without having to feel pressured about those incremental costs.

And (to bring the thread back toward the forum topic), you can probably see a similar effect with bike shares.
That's also my point. If using a car share program causes stress or costs more, then people will just stick with what they have, ergo, the same level of congestion. If they do switch, it is because they can do what they were doing before, but cheaper, ergo, the same level of congestion.

So saying that car shares and automated car shares are going to get people to use cars cars less, therefore we need fewer lanes and can put in bike lanes, is 100% false. It just changes the ownership model.

A subscription model for music has only gotten me to actually spend more and listen to more music. Before subscription service I would buy on iTunes 2 albums a year maybe, now I'm paying $10 a month. I wouldn't be using a pay service if it cost MORE than buying and made me listen to music less.
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  #4056  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2016, 12:20 AM
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Just drove Nelson from Thurlow to the Cambie Bridge about 4:00pm Friday, totally noticed the difference, much, much slower, much more idling, a fair amount of confusion and total gridlock from Granville to Homer with blocked intersections. Hope this isn't the way it's gonna be, Smithe and Nelson flowed quite well previously.
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  #4057  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2016, 2:14 AM
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Just drove Nelson from Thurlow to the Cambie Bridge about 4:00pm Friday, totally noticed the difference, much, much slower, much more idling, a fair amount of confusion and total gridlock from Granville to Homer with blocked intersections. Hope this isn't the way it's gonna be, Smithe and Nelson flowed quite well previously.
Unfortunately this is the norm now. Last 2 weeks have been very very congested. The morning traffic has been compounded with the work at the new hotel project at BC Place, but the evening congestion is probably worse. Vision seems to be extremely stubborn when it comes to reversing poor decisions (case in point, the Burrard Bridge suicide fences) so I unfortunately think it will take a change in government to remove or alter these bike lanes. I maintain that Robson alone, or a combination of Robson and Helmcken are better suited for these east/west lanes.

Just signed the papers to sell my place in the Olympic Village though and will no longer be a voter, but my days dealing with the BS traffic are numbered!
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  #4058  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2016, 2:41 AM
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So saying that car shares and automated car shares are going to get people to use cars cars less, therefore we need fewer lanes and can put in bike lanes, is 100% false. It just changes the ownership model.
Yup, I agree. But we still need bike lanes, just like we need sidewalks.
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  #4059  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2016, 9:33 PM
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Yup, I agree. But we still need bike lanes, just like we need sidewalks.
I agree, but I agree with wrenegade: there are better locations for the bike lanes.

There haven't been any new car lanes added to the city, while there has been countless new underground parking spots added in the city. Yet the city seems intent on taking away lanes from the major arterial streets in favor of keeping redundant parking stalls on other side streets. If I had the choice, I would much rather cycle on Helmken or Robson than Smithe or Nelson.

Robson is a good choice as without the through road at Howe, it will decrease traffic, yet still provide a through route for bikes. Robson is also also where I imagine a lot of cyclists want to go. Nelson and Smithe have long been designated arterial, so there isn't a lot of interesting businesses located on them. Without the bike lanes, there is actually no reason you would WANT to cycle on Nelson or Smithe.

It's not pleasant walking around downtown now, and crossing Nelson at any street east of Granville with cars stopped constantly in the intersection and blocking crosswalks is horrible. It is even slowing down buses on Granville.
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  #4060  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2016, 9:55 PM
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Robson is a good choice as without the through road at Howe, it will decrease traffic, yet still provide a through route for bikes. Robson is also also where I imagine a lot of cyclists want to go. Nelson and Smithe have long been designated arterial, so there isn't a lot of interesting businesses located on them. Without the bike lanes, there is actually no reason you would WANT to cycle on Nelson or Smithe.
Nelson and Smithe were used because those are the entry points for the Cambie St. bridge.

That said, they should quickly divert to Robson. I'm not sold on Helmcken anywhere east of Homer, but the connections could be made to move the bike traffic west of Homer.
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