[HN Gopher] Show HN: Transform Your City
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Show HN: Transform Your City
Hey HN, As noted in a previous comment posted on the "Paris Will
Become '100% Cyclable'" thread [0], I've been contributing to a
project (as a volunteer backend developer) to try to accelerate
urban change around pedestrian/cyclable/car-free streets. It's
"change.org for urban transformation". It started with a Twitter
account posting Dall-E-ified versions of streets [1] which picked
up steam in the press [2]. And now, we're live with our own site!
Happy to answers questions, and other folks from the project might
chime in as well. [0]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33047412 [1]
https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai [2]
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/07/28/this-artificial-intel...
Author : gregsadetsky
Score : 56 points
Date : 2022-10-20 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (transformyour.city)
(TXT) w3m dump (transformyour.city)
| [deleted]
| mastercheif wrote:
| I recently discovered the "Remix" urban design tool that lets
| users redesign existing streets and intersections like an IRL
| Cities Skylines. It's brilliant.
|
| https://www.remix.com
|
| I came across it when someone on a local subreddit shared a
| redesign of an intersection, I was blown away with the results.
|
| Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/qorZWwg
|
| Remix share link(desktop recommended):
| https://platform.remix.com/streets/plan/a367ea4b/scenario/f8...
|
| Unfortunately, it appears to be enterprise only at the moment.
| I'm genuinely shocked they don't have a hobbyist-level free /
| cheap tier--I'd wager that there are thousands of urban design
| enthusiasts who would love to use this thing.
|
| OP, you should reach out and see if you can collaborate with
| them.
| clairity wrote:
| this is neat, but seems to be focused primarily on the
| configurations of thoroughfare lanes? i'd love something that
| lets you change with setbacks, parkways, sidewalks, building
| heights/shadows as well, then render that reasonably (but not
| necessarily perfectly photorealistically) for sharing and
| discussion.
| jclem wrote:
| It's hard to get a sense from the site or from the actual idea
| pages what the goal is. Removing the BQE
| (https://transformyour.city/vision/new-york-city/the-bqe ) would
| affect millions of people and businesses, and simply saying
| "transform it into a linear park" comes across as incredibly
| naive. I would feel foolish signing this petition
| because...what's the actual plan?
|
| Sure, maybe there is some way to do it with a multi-decade
| effort, an enormous cost, and a fundamental shift in NYC's layout
| and even economy, but something about how MASSIVELY
| oversimplified the statement "Remove the BQE" is makes it hard to
| take this seriously.
|
| I applaud the sentiment, though! And I hate the BQE.
|
| Edit: Also just to be even clearer for anyone not familiar with
| NYC geography: the BQE is a stretch of interstate highway 278
| that connects Brooklyn and Queens.
|
| This isn't the High Line, built from a disused rail line. It's
| proposing removing a stretch of interstate and putting a park in
| its place.
|
| Edit 2: Ok, apparently the goal is to gather signatures and then
| show elected officials. The minimum bar appears to be 100
| signatures. I have a hard time understanding what outcome is
| expected when an elected official in NYC is shown a petition in
| which 100 people say we should rip out part of the interstate
| (and one of NYC's most important stretches of road) and put in a
| park.
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| If we got 8 million signatures they couldn't move the BQE.
| Closing streets is like banning alcohol or abortions. If you
| choke off supply it just makes the price go up. The solution is
| to throttle _demand_. Like making our subway stations less
| dank. Curing America's car addiction is not going to be easy.
| clairity wrote:
| put the BQE underground and you get the best of both worlds.
| scrub all the pollution (not CO2) out of the exhaust and it's
| environmentally positive too. sure, it's expensive, but we're
| the richest country in the world. boston did it and everyone
| loves the result now despite the grousing about cost and
| inconvenience during construction.
| MisterTea wrote:
| There is a ton of underground infrastructure this idea would
| run afoul of.
| clairity wrote:
| pretty sure the contractors and engineers would consider
| that before they started digging. do you think boston
| didn't have underground infrastructure already?
| anamexis wrote:
| Boston's Big Dig was a 1.5 mile (2.4 km) tunnel under the
| harbor, that cost 22 billion dollars and took 15 years to
| build.
|
| The BQE is 11.6 miles (18.7 km) long, and runs through
| Brooklyn and Queens.
| zachkatz wrote:
| So remove it. Way simpler.
| arikr wrote:
| I wasn't sure what this was at first, but it's actually a really
| cool project.
|
| It uses AI to generate images of what cities could look like if
| they were more pedestrian-friendly. The idea is to show people
| these images and get them to sign petitions or take other action
| to get local governments to make these changes.
| [deleted]
| takoid wrote:
| I would imagine these AI generated images are mostly useless
| for real world planning without some sort of feasibility study
| to go along with them.
| hughess wrote:
| This is a cool project - looking forward to following it.
|
| I've noticed a lot of pushback against ideas like this because
| they're seen as infeasible, but I have to assume that there was a
| lot of pushback when someone first proposed razing a
| neighbourhood to make way for a highway. The first step is
| deciding we want to change, so I'm excited by anything that lets
| people express that.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| Cool project. Excited to see it filled out more.
|
| Small suggestion: user-select:none was made for the sliders (they
| currently highlight the entire page on macOS Safari)
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| great suggestion, thanks a ton! just fixed & deployed
| jabo wrote:
| Totally off topic, but scrolling through the front page I first
| read the title as "Terraform your city" and for a second my mind
| was blown thinking about what that could possibly mean...
| xsmasher wrote:
| Make it habitable for human beings? Sounds about right!
| nadermx wrote:
| It is amusing watching some of the discourse over the
| implications if this project was to actually succeed in its goal
| of making cities as they where before the Eisenhower act
| demolished downtown's[0]. There is some research[1] coming out of
| the University of Colorado showing that by prioritizing bike
| lanes, all road users end up safer. It would then only logically
| conclude if you removed cars that it would only cause further
| advancements in safety.
|
| [0]https://www.archdaily.com/981425/did-a-highway-kill-the-
| city... [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwYeNz1jCkM&t=8s
| anon291 wrote:
| This is nice and all and maybe it works in Paris, but the main
| problem with American cities that prevents transit and cycling
| and being car free is that the crime is too high and the car acts
| as a natural barrier to that when you have to be in an urban
| area.
|
| It's true. I went from taking transit everywhere to my transit
| stop becoming a gang hotspot, and now I drive. Would love to take
| the train again, but my city was greatly affected by the
| environmental disaster known as defunding the police.
| paulgb wrote:
| This is pretty cool, I applaud what you're doing. I think some
| people will be fixated on the (non-)efficacy of petitions, but
| just using AI to show people what we're missing out on because of
| car-centric city design is powerful in itself.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| Say you live in a building in front of a car-free street. How are
| you going to move in/out, given that many buildings in New York
| have only one entrance? What about garbage trucks? What will
| happen to all the existing traffic and how will the "clean up"
| affect the surrounding areas?
|
| This is a nice "I wish" project, but each transformation lacks
| strategy, which is the key component of any kind of
| transformation.
| diordiderot wrote:
| Car free streets often allow traffic for public services,
| emergency vehicles, etc
| Jackim wrote:
| There are some pedestrian streets in the City I live in that
| have commercial, office, and residential buildings along it.
| Delivery trucks are permitted on the street. There are anchors
| for removeable bollards which are installed during events to
| prevent any vehicle traffic from coming in.
|
| Regarding traffic, generally traffic increases as you build
| more roads. If you build more transit, cycling, and walking
| infrastructure, the same rule applies. If you remove roads, you
| are creating more of an incentive to use alternative modes.
| It's obviously not an instant effect, but as lanes are being
| removed from cars and converted to allowed bicycles in Paris,
| vehicle traffic has reduced by 5% in 10 years.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I get that a solution does exist. But you can't simply throw
| an idea and have someone else implement it for you. First,
| you need to describe a problem. Like, why do you believe
| that, say, Court Street should be car-free. Next, propose a
| solution. Do cost and risk analysis. Have people review it
| all. Only after we can start a conversation.
|
| There are so many unknown unknowns that I don't even want to
| try to guess.
|
| The author of the project decided to go with New York as the
| first candidate for transformation. In my opinion, this is a
| mistake. New York is likely one of the most challenging
| cities in the world to transform.
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