WFFaithful
Well-known member
They were talking about some downtown development on the local show that's on NPR. The callers were all olds and talking about how nobody wants to live downtown and it is a waste of money.
Facepalm
They were talking about some downtown development on the local show that's on NPR. The callers were all olds and talking about how nobody wants to live downtown and it is a waste of money.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/
Great article. The math on the amount of subsidies taxpayers pay to underwrite our automobile culture is astounding.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/
Great article. The math on the amount of subsidies taxpayers pay to underwrite our automobile culture is astounding.
"it’s roughly $100 million or more for a mile of urban freeway"
In Manhattan? Over what time frame for maintenance? This can't be true unless the seven DMV guys doing fuck all are getting paid like the three guy actually doing anything productive.
I imagine that means a mile going both ways. That's a lot of road, a lot of machinery, and a lot of man hours.
That article is absurdly stupid. Those taxpayer "subsidies" come out of income taxes, which shockingly are taxes on income (whether personal or corporate). The vast, vast majority of those individuals and corporations depend on roads to generate said income, whether directly or indirectly. The more income you make, the more you pay in income taxes, more of which goes back to pay for the roads. That is a pretty direct correlation. It is actually one of the few aspects of our tax structure that makes a lot of rational sense.
it's not talking about maintaining a street in Manhattan. Manhattan's streets, actually, are probably some of the most cost-effective in the entire world as they have been in place for 100 years and provide service to trillions of dollars in concentrated real estate value. It's talking about "urban freeways" i.e. 2&2's beloved Charlotte urban loop. And it appears the $100,000,000 is pretty accurate - here's a fact sheet showing that it cost $540,000,000 to build the last five miles of I-485 plus an interchange.
it's not talking about maintaining a street in Manhattan. Manhattan's streets, actually, are probably some of the most cost-effective in the entire world as they have been in place for 100 years and provide service to trillions of dollars in concentrated real estate value. It's talking about "urban freeways" i.e. 2&2's beloved Charlotte urban loop. And it appears the $100,000,000 is pretty accurate - here's a fact sheet showing that it cost $540,000,000 to build the last five miles of I-485 plus an interchange.
Here's another one about the ridiculousness of parking minimums. http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/11/3/does-that-parking-space-come-with-fries?utm_content=buffer2878a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Is all the parking due to gov. requirements? Seems like if you try and run a business that wants walk in customers and you do not provide parking, you will be out of business in about two weeks.
Many zoning codes include parking minimums based on housing units in resi and sq footage in commercial/office areas.
If indeed a business would go under without parking, we can expect the market to provide the right number of spaces without government intervention. Perhaps a small business owner knows something about her clients that a bureaucrat does not.