That's context dependent. Where I live it's not a problem that a car takes up space (my car is parked in my home's basement).
Where I typically go to it's a relatively minor problem - most places I go to only need 4 to 5 places to park cars.
Work is in the middle of nowhere, again not an issue except that the government employees have reserved the lot by the building for themselves despite it being large enough to house the contractors as well (the govt. employees want to ensure they get the spots nearest the building).
Should the city of Rome have cars? No. But we don't (nor can we!) all live in a small European city
It also doesn’t illustrate the real scale of space required to operate each vehicle. A car needs several car-lengths of space between them. Bikes can be operated more closely together. At speed all of these vehicles scale up to more space differently.
"A car needs several car-lengths of space between them."
The distance between bumpers actually cancels out (actually it comes out in the car's favor). First notice that in the picture the cars are almost touching, so clearly you mean in fast moving traffic.
In fast moving traffic the carrying capacity of a lane is equal of the inverse reaction time (typically engineers use a large margin of safety and 2 seconds is used -> 1800 cars/(lane hour)).
For bikes, since they travel more slowly, you have to add the time it takes to travel their own length. So the carrying capacity of a lane is 1/(reaction time + length of bike / speed of bike).
The "several car lengths between them" is literally space that exists only because cars have generated themselves by virtue of going very fast (since fast moving vehicles get to where they want to be quicker and therefore get off the road to make space for someone else).
This doesn't mean that cars make sense in dense cities. They don't.
This doesn't means cars don't take more space by virtue of being longer in slow traffic. They do
But it does mean that, if there are "several car lengths between them", they are in fact operating in a more space efficient regime.
In the US road engineers go to strategy for safety is to just make the roads wider. When drivers feel safe they start driving faster than the speed limit. Those roads were designed to be "safe", not fast, meaning high speeds are more likely to lead to worse accidents.
wpm|4 years ago
Still not enough compared to how much space and how many resources they consume, let alone the externalities.
donjoe|4 years ago
Cars do not just take up space driving. They also take up a huge amount of space when not in use.
amrcnimgrnt|4 years ago
Where I typically go to it's a relatively minor problem - most places I go to only need 4 to 5 places to park cars.
Work is in the middle of nowhere, again not an issue except that the government employees have reserved the lot by the building for themselves despite it being large enough to house the contractors as well (the govt. employees want to ensure they get the spots nearest the building).
Should the city of Rome have cars? No. But we don't (nor can we!) all live in a small European city
eloisius|4 years ago
amrcnimgrnt|4 years ago
The distance between bumpers actually cancels out (actually it comes out in the car's favor). First notice that in the picture the cars are almost touching, so clearly you mean in fast moving traffic.
In fast moving traffic the carrying capacity of a lane is equal of the inverse reaction time (typically engineers use a large margin of safety and 2 seconds is used -> 1800 cars/(lane hour)).
For bikes, since they travel more slowly, you have to add the time it takes to travel their own length. So the carrying capacity of a lane is 1/(reaction time + length of bike / speed of bike).
The "several car lengths between them" is literally space that exists only because cars have generated themselves by virtue of going very fast (since fast moving vehicles get to where they want to be quicker and therefore get off the road to make space for someone else).
This doesn't mean that cars make sense in dense cities. They don't.
This doesn't means cars don't take more space by virtue of being longer in slow traffic. They do
But it does mean that, if there are "several car lengths between them", they are in fact operating in a more space efficient regime.
imtringued|4 years ago