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Imagine a Boston with just a fifth as many cars

Panelists talking about future transportation in Boston at MIT

Sheila Kennedy and Carlo Ratti of MIT, Wendy Landman of WalkBoston, Kent Larson of MIT Media Lab and Stacy Thompson of Livable Streets.

As one of the most walkable cities in America, Boston could be well positioned to deal with future transportation trends, experts said at an MIT Media Lab forum on the future of transportation in Boston last night.

In the fourth of a series of Boston Futures meetings, the MIT Media Lab Monday night hosted a panel on mobility and the opportunities for transport solutions for 2024 and beyond.

Carlo Ratti, an architect, engineer and director of MIT's Senseable City Lab, has done work monitoring traffic flows and measuring the potential of ride shareability – services like Uber pool, where riders can share a lift and split the fare. And after collecting millions of data points from taxi cab pickups and drop-offs in New York City, Ratti's lab found people would still be able to get to where they needed to be within a couple of minutes with 40% less cars on the road. They just need to be willing to share. If we combined car sharing and ride sharing in Boston, Ratti said, we could get by with 20% of the vehicles we have on the road today.

Mounting questions surrounding the Boston 2024 Olympic bid, as well as Mayor Walsh's announcements of planning for Boston's future have kick-started discussions about the future of Boston's public transportation.

"Urbanity and mobility are inextricably intertwined and inseparable," said Meejin Yoon, head of the MIT Department of Architecture. As the world becomes increasingly dense and urban, she said, we are also seeing a decline in car driving. Both Americans and Europeans are choosing to drive less and teens are choosing mobile phones over mobile cars, said Yoon.

Panelists said the growing decline on car ridership could help the city prepare for a possible 2024 Olympics; the panel's suggestions for a transportation overhaul included decreasing car volume, increasing ride shares, leveraging the waterfront and increasing walkability to connect neighborhoods.

Sheila Kennedy, an MIT architecture professor, discussed leveraging one of the city's defining features, the Waterfront, to innovate for future transportation. She talked about New York, San Francisco and fellow 2024 Olympic bid city Hamburg, where ferry systems have become an integral part of daily commutes and commerce. Ferries are also extremely green, emitting a third as much carbon as a rail system and about one tenth as much as cars, she said.

Michigan State professor and panel moderator Eva Kassens-Noor, who has consulted on transportation for the 2004 Athens Olympics, 2010 Vancouver Olympics and 2009 Holy Mecca Pilgrimage planning, mentioned water as well speaking to the 2024 Olympic bid specifically. The International Olympic Committee requires designated bus lanes for athletes and officials, a potential traffic nightmare for anyone around Widett Circle, the proposed site of the athlete village and stadium. "What if water could fulfill the Olympic lane role?" Kassens-Noor asked.

WalkBoston representative Wendy Landman made the case for humanity's oldest form of transportation: our feet. Boston is already extremely walkable, she said. It has the highest walk to work score in the United States, as well as one of the lowest pedestrian fatality rates. The area for opportunity, she said, is connecting walkable places like Newbury Street and Mass Ave to less walk-friendly neighborhoods like the proposed tennis venue at Harambee Park. "We need to create corridors in parts of the city that may not have corridors that feel lively and engaged," she said.

With regards to the Boston 2024 Olympics, Landman emphasized the importance of improving areas away from the venues, such as where passengers initially get on a train to go to an event. "A lot of the excitement of the venues will be because you're with other people and it's a celebratory event," she said. "What we can leave behind is what [else] is along those routes."

Stacey Thompson of Livable Streets, an organization uniting walkers, bikers and drivers, said the Boston 2024 bid could be an opportunity to use the Games as a three week pilot for expanding "bus rapid transit" beyond the Silver Line. She said whether or not Boston gets the IOC bid however, using the bid process forces the city to think about housing and transportation issues. "[The Olympics is] an opportunity to get a lot of people together who don't normally talk to each other," she said.

Ratti agreed that the plans for a transportation overhaul need to supersede the plans for an Olympic Games. He cited successes in Barcelona and Munich, who decided to reform the city first and host the Games second. "There are lots of failures if you only focus on those two weeks," he said.

With or without the Olympics, the people of Boston want solutions to their daily Orange Line and 57 Bus woes. "It doesn't matter what [mode of transportation] you're taking," said Thompson. "What remains the same is that there's a city full of people and they're all just trying to get somewhere."

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Comments

Why couldn't they get a single bike advocacy person on the panel?

Yet....we have someone from the Media Lab with no background mentioned, a few architects, someone from Walk Boston, and Liveable Streets(Liveable Streets isn't a bike advocacy group...and in fact, they're harming cycling advocacy because they present themselves as such, blocking out actual cycling advocates.)

They couldn't find anyone from Boston Bikes? Boston Cyclists Union? MassBike?

More like: they didn't bother...

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I go to a lot of these kind of events and there is, thankfully, no shortage of bike advocacy. Who knows why they weren't represented on the panel but bikes and bike infrastructure get plenty of love and attention in Boston--no harm in an event focused on pedestrians. And I disagree completely re Livable Streets--they are a great inclusive group.

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I see that as part of the problem, frankly.

Yes, it is important to challenge the notion that a car has more rights than people do, and that the only solution to everything involves more cars. That has failed completely.

However, we need to keep our focus on the notion that expenditure of space and resources must ultimately be predicated on getting people around, through, and from point to point. Moreover, this needs to be done in a safe, healthy and reliable way. Bikes do that, but so do feet and cars (over longer distances) and public transit.

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.

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LivableStreets Alliance advocates for better walking, biking and transit. It all goes together. I can't think of a project where LivableStreets has advocated against cycling. Can you? Selection of projects where LivableStreets has advocated for better biking: McGrath Highway, Longfellow Bridge, BU Bridge, Western Ave bridge, River Street Bridge, Casey Arborway, Comm Ave Phase1,2A&2B, Greenway Links project, I-90 Allston, Mass Ave in South End, Mass Ave in Arlington, Gateway East in Brookline, Riverway path crossing Rt 9, Casino developments, Beacon St Somerville, Cambridge St in Allston, Causeway St.

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Boston is very walkable but compared to aforementioned cities like Barcelona and Munich there are very, very few pedestrian only areas. We have Faneuil Hall and thats it(unless you count Yawkey Way on game days). There are car free squares all over those European cities. Why don't we also have lovely areas where one can enjoy the scenery and have a meal without worrying about being killed by a car, inhaling gas fumes or hearing constant car horns? Faneuil Hall is the most visited area in Boston so obviously there is a demand for it.

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Every time I'm in Harvard Square (I know that's not Boston, but still...), I don't understand why anyone would even bother with driving through it. Just divert traffic around it and let pedestrians do their thing. Would also be nice around Union Square in Somerville, expand pedestrian-only access in Downtown Crossing, etc. Some places (Central Square and Davis Square) might not work, but I see a lot of places where it would make sense to divert traffic and make it pedestrian-only.

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It has a much more realistic chance of happening before people start sharing vehicles en masse.

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Some are doing without cars. Boston had a large drop in the number of cars registered in the city while at the same time going in population. I got to think part of that is the increase in car sharing.

(reference on number of cars and people)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/07/04/boston-limiting-new-park...

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Its the people who live outside the city. They are the ones primarily responsible for the number of cars in Boston. Boston and Cambridge are easily navigable without a car. But not if you live outside those cities which is the vast majority of people.

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The new "Gantry Tolls" on the Tobin Bridge work great. Now, put them everywhere.

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But will end up giving government more money for nothing.

Everybody pays to enter Manhattan but they have traffic problems worse that us.

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not if you take the 3rd avenue bridge! (if coming from the Bronx/Westchester/CT)

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east river crossings are all toll free

major part of their problem is caused by brooklyn and queens drivers flooding manhattan

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When the costs of commuter rail ballooned a couple of years ago, the cost to park in the mudlots went up 50-60% within a couple of months.

That's because more people started driving into the city.

When the MBTA failed last winter, in a way that Baker would like to see it fail overall, those lots were at capacity by 8:30 in the morning because people lacked alternatives.

Something to think about.

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Its is one of the handful of US cities where driving has shown decline. Statistics are distorted in recent years by an extended recession, slow recovery, and only recent fuel price correction. So, Boston is not the reality for the country or the world.

Newsflash, millennials do now drive!
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/12/these-numbers-challenge-the-notio...

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First, Boston is not an outlier: http://www.ssti.us/2014/02/vmt-drops-ninth-year-dots-taking-notice/

Second, even if it is, we're not talking federal policy here. We're talking planning for Boston's future. If we're an outlier, then time to plan for an outlier future.

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Anything newer? Like after gas prices dropped?

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In this area, gas prices don't drive the cost of driving for those living in central city areas. Most city dwellers simply don't drive far enough or often enough for it to matter nearly as much as parking costs, insurance costs, and the cost of replacing bits ripped off by road hazards.

Even the inner ring cities aren't far enough out for that fuel price to matter, especially with a newer, higher mpg vehicle. The difference between peak fuel prices and lower fuel prices may only amount to a dollar a day.

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Elon Musk has more than enough on his plate and considering he has an ego as big as the sun, angry investors and a public clamoring for the more feasible high speed rail, the hyperloop will probably not happen in our lifetime.

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Its a project that is moving forward. Musk never claimed he was going to build it himself. It was his idea and he made it open-source. For others to continue.

http://www.popsci.com/hyped-up-startups-race-hyperloop-life

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how is open source working for Tesla? Still waiting for your Model X?

And Musk may say that he's out, but as a consummate egotist, if it even comes close to reality he will jump back in.

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About Tesla motors?

I never mentioned a thing about them.

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By about 15% in Cambridge from 2012 to 2014, which the city tries to blame on construction as if there has never been any before.
http://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/CDD/Transportation/Bike/Data%20...
Portland bicycling has been stagnant for years. San Francisco bicycling is down on a per capita basis, and NYC bicycling is down slightly - all despite added bicycling infrastructure and bike share systems. Build it and people still rather drive!

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After rising almost continuously since World War II, driving by U.S. households has declined nearly 10 percent since 2004, with a start before the Great Recession suggesting economics is not the only cause.

The average American household now owns fewer than two cars, returning to the levels of the early 1990s.

More teens and 20-somethings are waiting to get a license. Less than 70 percent of 19-year-olds now have one, down from 87 percent two decades ago.

Build it and people still aren't driving!

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They include underemployment for millennials coupled with higher gas prices and decreasing miles traveled by baby boomers. Oh, but US decline is countered by great increases in India and China! Since you don't cite any sources, I'll supply one:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116993/millennials-are-abandoning-car...

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Stop cherry picking data and grasping at stats from the other side of the globe.

http://fortune.com/2014/08/15/america-driving-cars/

First off, the claim that gas prices are higher now than they’ve been in the past is just not true. Here’s a chart from economist Ed Dolan, which shows that fuel prices per hour worked is far lower than in the mid-1990s, when miles driven figures were still on an upward trajectory:

It’s unlikely that miles driven is a lagging indicator that will eventually return to its prior trend. There is ample evidence that a 60-year trend of increased per capita driving has ended

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You can't look at two data points and say "bicycling is in decline!" The overall trend is up. You'd need a few more years of data (or at least annual data) to make a claim about any sort of downward trend.

Not to mention these aren't complete ridership counts - they only represent riders at specific areas in the city. If there's major construction/delays/traffic, many bicyclists are smart enough to seek alternate, faster routes and so would not be counted. (My guess is vehicle traffic counts would be down at those same intersections.) This is a really incomplete way to measure city-wide ridership. It would be better suited to comparing ridership, rather than giving a total.

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Bicycling on the Longfellow Bridge, despite construction, is up 25% per year.

http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2014/11/i-counted-bikes-again.html

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I see it's per year- for all of 1 year

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All it took was shutting down lanes!

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Year over year changes look disappointing - quite flat, so Boston Bikes has taken to reference latest values to those seven years ago (2007). In 2013, tabular data was provided so all the location counts could be tallied for a year over year change. That looks bad for 2014, so they stopped.
http://www.bostonbikes.org/2014/12/2014-boston-bike-counts/
http://www.bostonbikes.org/2014/01/2013-boston-bike-counts/

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over the past 3 years. There are still major missing links in the city and region, and if the city and surrounding municipalities were far more aggressive in strategic locations, we'd see more riding. For example, My spouse would ride if they felt safe riding in Rozzie, and I would ride more if there was a good way to get between the SW corridor and southie. Most people aren't comfortable riding on busy streets even if there are bike lanes. If we had a good network of physically separated paths and low speed side streets, I think we'd see far more ridership in the city

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The official visual bike count #s are way off to the point Cambridge is installing bike counting sensors to get more accurate numbers.

Do you really think the increasing # of bike shops in the greater Boston area could stay open if there wasn't an increasing customer base?

Hubway would be out of business if it wasn't profitable from ridership.

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if not for Massachusetts and US taxpayers support buying Hubway stations and bikes from Bixi (which did go bankrupt). Hubway might have gone bankrupt too if its parent company Alta bikeshre wasn't bought out by REQX (backed by Related Companies that got lucrative real estate deals from NYC) because CitiBike was in deep debt. NYC was trying to do bikeshare without taxpayer subsidy, which is clearly unsustainable.

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On which roads should the next round of tollbooths be installed?

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All the highways tax-dodgers use to commute in from New Hampshire to the city, please!!! :)

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for parking their stations and riders to pedal on roadways. Drivers would have to pay parking meters at many of the same places that Hubway gets free parking makes an additional subsidy Hubway gets over drivers, but I let that slide. All in all, Hubway still gets way more things subsidized.

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Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

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We'll talk.

MA is actually one of the better states, but drivers still pay only about 60% of the cost of their driving. The rest? General fund, which includes the sales tax that I paid on my bike and on bike supplies and parts.

Meanwhile, people without cars subsidized plowing of streets, but not of sidewalks, during this last winter. Now they are subsidizing repair of streets, but rarely for sidewalks.

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and we'll talk. Talk about subsidies.

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Under what theory of government, or of economics, or of public policy, should the cost of mass transit be borne by the people actually riding on the trains or buses? The beneficiaries of mass transit are the people who enjoy less crowded streets, cleaner air, a more robust local economy, less real estate devoted to automobile infrastructure, etc. Aren't they (we!) the ones who ought to be paying for mass transit?

Even though I don't ride the T very often, I'd be entirely happy to see my property taxes go up by the amount of a monthly T pass if we could get rid of fare collection altogether.

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If you ignore the debt and interest payments, the T actually brings in more revenue on a yearly basis than it spends on operating costs. Usually about 10mil a year. Capital improvements are a different bucket of money, and come from different sources (for all modes). For roads, user fees dont cover basic upkeep, and heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear.

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It does not take into account the cost of the vast amounts of real estate required for storage of autos at places like shopping centers, residential buildings and other associated subsidies (such as the cost of providing services to outlying populated areas that are now more easily inhabitable due to demand induced by the aforementioned government subsidies), which are borne by consumers, ratepayers, etc.

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Boston may be a temporary exception.
http://nbda.com/articles/industry-overview-2014-pg34.htm

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The number of bike shops is totally irrelevant to the discussion. Yes, the industry has consolidated as the bike biz is a tough biz. There's just no money.
The pertinent stats are those related to bike usage, and any way you look at it, bike usage is up.

And yes, Hubway is subsidized, that's not exactly a secret. So what? It's minimal money for a service that gets a lot of use.

This comment was made by an avid cyclist who lives in the sticks, who never rides in the city, nor does he use Hubway, yet sees something good when it comes to bikes being used in the city.

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You're not very good at examining data and coming to conclusions based on that data.

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Why would you choose such a wierd two-year window like 2012-2014 to talk about biking being in decline....{opens link}

Ah...I see... because the 10+ year window going back to 2002 shows biking to be in a 400% increase over those 10 years.

{reads further on the link}

Ah...and the whole point of the data was to show that the decline is largely artificial due to the fact that there is nearby construction on-going and that other intersections throughout the city are still seeing year-on-year *increases* in cyclists. So, you cherry-picked the smallest possible frame of reference on a single point of data in order to generalize that biking has declined "about 15% in Cambridge".

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They don't provide the data without their pollution and excuses. In previous years Cambridge would issue a press release that bicycling is up in the new counts. Somehow there was no such release this year. I am not the one cherry picking and distorting data, its the City of Cambridge doing a spin on data and not posting the raw numbers from its collection points over the years.

If you look at other cities, and other data sources like bicycle sales, its clear that the most recent bike boom is now on the downward slope. Crude oil prices dropping in half just cemented it.

That isn't to say some trends won't continue like on-line sales growth and brick and mortar sales stagnation, resulting in more UPS/USPS/FED-EX miles and less driving/bicycling/public transit shopping miles.

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They don't provide the data without their pollution and excuses.

Oh the irony.

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So much for all the crap about bicycling would only be popular if roads made more bike friendly. Bicycling would be more popular if bikes came with motors and riders still didn't have to obey laws, get insurance, or wear helmets. That would make riding more popular.

http://massbike.org/blog/2015/05/18/cambridge-tops-list-as-americas-best...

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Like a true fool, you double down on the cherry picking stupid.

Oh, and Alewife Brook Parkway is still not a two-lane country road.

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Single occupancy non-commercial vehicles should not be allowed into the city during rush hour. They don't make any sense. They take up room, cause congestion, slow vital economic activity, pollute unnecessarily, and convey only a single person.

Obviously public transport and bike routes would have to improve immensely for this to be realistic, but these are worthwhile investments that should happen regardless of my above statement. (Quincy, Newton, and Malden residents are easily within a bikeable distance given a safe route).

Germany, all of Scandinavia and most of the rest of Europe think we are a bunch of lazy jokers sitting in traffic for hours of misery getting fatter and angrier while they invest in rapid mass transit and bike oriented cities.

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All European cities are much older than the cities in the United States. They are extremely walkable and very densely packed. House sizes are much much smaller in the United States. Their cities and their public transportation grew before the advent of mass car ownership.

In the United States, cities largely grew because of car ownership. The United States tore up most of its public transportation in the 50s and 60s in favor of highways. Europe did the complete opposite.

Lastly, most of the public transportation companies in Europe where started and run by the respective governments of each country. It's a hell of a lot easier to build a railroad network when you are the government and you are using taxpayer money to do so.
In the United States you were expected to make money with your railroad. In Europe is a public service.

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Comparing Europe to the U.S. as a whole is, I agree, inappropriate. While Boston isn't nearly as old as Europe's major cities, it's much more European than most other American cities, in terms of its layout. I don't think it's unreasonable for us to look at European cities to get an idea of how to improve our own.

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How much in Europe?

How much in western cities?

I can tell you this straight up: Boston, Philadelphia, and New York have a hell of a lot more in common with European cities than they do with cities like Denver, Boulder, and Portland, OR.

Boston should absolutely be looking to European cities when it comes to getting people around - the city plans share a lot more of the organic history and organization with Boston than Boston does with younger US cities that better fit your description.

I say that as somebody who has cycled in Berlin, Barcelona, Munich, Paris and its suburbs, Amboise to Tours, Basel, and various parts of Ireland (as well as LA/Pasadena, Washington DC, Denver, Boulder, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, and extensively in NYC, Seattle and my native Portland).

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Not biking. Sorry if I did not make that clear.

Having grown up in Europe, I understand how mass transit systems are run there versus here. They are simply night and day in comparison. So you cannot really compare the two.

In Europe mass transportation is expected and is part of the fabric of life. With the exception of Manhattan, that is not the case in the United States.

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I bring up cycling because it is one way to get an idea of the structure of a city from direct experience and interaction.

Regardless of mode, the city structures are fundamentally the same in Northwestern Europe as they are in Boston, and Boston once had very few cars and a far more extensive transit and rail system extending throughout the region. The failure to reinvest in this system after WW II does not change those simple facts. The extent to which it is part of life is much more a function of disinvestment and outright attacks on the system that we see with Baker et al in recent months, rather than any fundamental urban structure or underlying demand should the system become what it should.

Boston is very dependent on mass transportation, too. Check your numbers.

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In Boston and surrounding cities, they actually tore up the transportation infrastructure in favor of the automobile. Trolley lines were torn up in favor of buses. The elevated north station/South station Atlantic ave rail was torn down. The E branch was paved over Heath to Arborway. While Boston was tearing things up, cities in Europe were expanding service.

I guess we will have to just agree to disagree.

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In the United States, cities largely grew because of car ownership.

A lot of economics, historians, and policy wonks believe quite the opposite: that cities nearly died because of car ownership.

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In the name of all that is holy will you people stop calling us drivers fat? I'm in fantastic shape. I love walking. I exercise. I eat a balanced diet. I happen to use a car to transport myself from point a to point b when it makes sense. I also take the train or the bus when it makes sense. This attitude by the environmentist movement to pressure drivers to share is bullcrap if it's being viewed as the only valid way to reduce a carbon footprint.

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IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/elmer-red-blue-converse.jpg)
     Elmer's "Red Line / Blue Line Connector" (right now, it's easier to just walk)

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Adorable!

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considering the interesting story in the Herald regarding the moronic bagman Marty Walsh demanding that NoBoston2024 disclose who their donors are. If ever there was a walking definition of more balls than brains, it's this scumbag who is not even bothering to masquerade as a public servant anymore.

And why am I not surprised that a bunch of academics from the well funded dream factory that is the Media Lab would consider the Olympics beneficial? Does noted asshole ,vulture capitalist and Media Lab founder Nick Negroponte still live on Beacon Hill?

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Good lord, the language of shepherding cantankerous massholes and their motor rigs around like they are so many input/output units would be chilling if they weren't such glib idiots.

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i should not have used moron twice. I have since corrected it.

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How dare Boston 2024 ask the Nolympics folks to release the same information the Nolympics folks wanted Boston 2024 to release?

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No Boston Olympics wants to know what's in that bid document. Boston 2024 and their sockpuppet, Mayor Walsh, want the protesters to name names. This is from the Herald, alas, but it's a fair point:

“We’ve had supporters say their bosses support Boston 2024 and they fear retribution if they oppose the games,” Dempsey said. “We think it’s appropriate to protect the little guy. ... This is a David vs. Goliath situation.

But anyway, I'm much more interested in finding out what specifically the fiends at Boston 2024 have promised, and to whom. I really don't care about specific names of individual donors who oppose this mess - but that's just my $0.02. (Which I haven't donated to the Nolympics people, not yet. Wink, wink.)

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Building a network of underground pedestrian tunnels downtown utilizing abandoned subway lines would go a long way in relieving traffic congestion and would be a cost effective way to connect the Blue and Red Line.

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This is silly. Plus, a walk from Bowdoin to Charles, underground, including the stairs and elevators involved, would be expensive to build and still take 7-10 minutes. And not everyone can easily walk close to half a mile.

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This is pretty funny, actually. Ferries! They're big in New York. They carry 30,000 passengers per day. Or about 0.3% (0.003 for you math nerds out there) of the total passengers in New York. Ferries also don't scale well, since you can't cram more than the stated capacity onboard. The Seabus in Vancouver—which carries 16,000 passengers a day—has turnstiles which lock up after a load of people has boarded so they don't overfill the boat. Everyone else has to wait.

As for efficiency? No. Moving through water requires overcoming much more resistance than rolling across pavement or rails. And then there's the minor issue of ice; in cold winters like this past one you might have to abandon service all together for a time.

Not sure where this is coming from, but ferries are not generally efficient transit (as long as you have bridges or tunnels).

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dont forget the incredible amount of diesel pollution that ferrys put out

theres more to being green than carbon emissions...much more... but i guess architecture professors dont think about that

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Water transportation is more efficient than rail and your citation makes a very wrong assumption (in fine print) that vehicles are full instead of using empirical load factors, which then favor high efficiency cars over heavy rail and bus vehicles which have gained poorly in efficiency compared to vast strides made by the automotive industry.

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Ferries definitely have a place.
If a short ferry ride across a bay/harbor takes 10-15 minutes, where a cyclist would take over an hour, I'd say a ferry is a good alternative. Vancouver and Seattle are excellent examples of where ferry service makes sense.

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My auto insurance rate rose $45 last year. The excuse they give is that their are a lot more accidents happening where I live, even tho I'm a step 9 safe drive. So, in other words, people like me have to pay for all the reckless drivers out there? I say bull to that!

The real reason is it's part of their plan to rid more cars off the road since Boston is now a more walkable city. So, let's keep raising the rates so people eventually won't be able to afford to have a car. Only in Boston where your car is worth less value in each and every year, yet the cost of insurance for it increases.

Once I retire, can't wait to leave this liberal run state and city!!

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So, if I'm reading you straight, every auto insurance company underwriting policies in the great Commonwealth is colluding with every other auto insurance company, as part of an insidious plot (possibly orchestrated by city planners--I'll need you to be more specific here) whose end-game is making it unaffordable for anyone to own a car. Which would then put said auto insurance companies out of business because, as we just established, no one would be buying auto insurance policies.

That's, uh... that's some kind of theory, DonnieBoston. I wish you well in your attempts to escape the godless Massachusetts liberalism that is currently stealing your precious bodily fluids.

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I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and, by gum, it put them on the map! Well, sir, there's nothin' on earth like a genuine bona-fide electrified six-car monorail!

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Lyle, get a verified account!

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And the thing that ticks me off about all of these articles is still ticking me off. Why should drivers be willing to share? I like driving alone (in my fuel efficient car) and I'm not interested in sharing. Instead of that, I think homeowners should be forced to share their homes with others to reduce their carbon footprint. I'm sick and tired of drivers being blamed for all that is wrong with the world. Your carbon footprint is as big as mine, you just add to it differently than I do.

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Consider how selfish they are and how few own and ride tandem vehicles, or mount and use secondary seats on their bicycles. Bicyclists perpetuate the selfish paradigm more than car drivers - not only do they want single occupancy, many want a straight line of travel to travel ignoring do not enter signs, stop signs, and red lights!

US Census data has consistently shown however that carpooling is more popular than bicycling with just a few isolated exceptions.

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Bicyclists also don't ride around on bikes that can hold 5 people plus luggage, but with only one person and maybe 1 bag at the most.

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     ... but they are to blame for much of what is wrong with urban Boston.

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