Kind-of similar to what they did in Utrecht. In the 1960s, they built a stub for a highway in part of the Utrecht canal. Then in the 2010s they turned it back into the canal it once was. And it led to a MUCH better atmosphere.
I myself come from a background in network security which maybe colors my thinking, but there is a sort of quirk/feature that nobody ever argues for less security, only more. Basically this means you are always at the intersection of usability and and security. It is, however, usually clear what “usability” means in a given context.
So the question that lingers in my mind is this: how do you find the sweet spot for roads? The video says, and I agree, that people putting their convenience above the safety of others is an asshole. But how do you avoid the reducto ad absurdum that is mentioned AND THEN TOSSED OUT WITHOUT COMMENT where further decreasing speed always increases safety by some margin?
Where is the Pareto optimal point and how do you find it? If everyone goes 5kph, one guy a year is going to die. Are we really just trying to find maximum throughput per person per unit space? Is it maximal throughout with minimal infrastructure? What is the actual problem (generally) to solve here? There’s discussion AROUND the topic (about 2/3 through the video) but it’s all special case. Would be easier if there was a theme besides “hey go slower asshole”.
I don’t think he tossed it out completely without comment. He simply pointed to the graph and said (or at least implied) “yeah you can keep decreasing it if you drop speed further, but this is the point at which it seems the return on investment starts significantly decreasing”.
I get the impression from your comment that this is the first NJB video you’ve come across. It might seem strange in that context. But this is one piece in a large history of discussing what makes good road safety, urban infrastructure, and city planning. For example, one thing that he didn’t really discuss in this video but has mentioned many times before is how the most effective way to slow down drivers is actually not just lowering the speed limit, but changing the design of the road to make drivers feel unsafe driving at higher speeds. Things like objects near the side of the road, narrowing the road, making it less straight, making corners at intersections sharp right angles rather than smooth curves, etc. And this video doesn’t talk at all about the importance of infrastructure that encourages cycling outside of merely lower speed cars.
The “goal” is…complicated. Because there are a whole bunch of different factors that reinforce each other in a virtuous way. Safety, happiness, health, economics. Good urban design is good for all of them and more. Even just lowering the speed limit increases the safety for cyclists, which increases the rate of cycling, which is good for health, environment, government budget, and small businesses’ bottom lines.
Freedom of movement is not just freedom to drive a car, in fact, car ownership is extremely expensive and you have to sit in traffic a lot. Rather, it’s about going where you want to, when and how you want to. About walkable cities and affordable or free and abundant options for public transit. Therefore, the suburbs in America are less ‘free’ than the 15-minute city (source: The Netherlands has a LOT of 15-minute cities, and they’re really nice to live in, even without a car!
What’s with the down votes? I liked the video, it was very extensive and I think showed a more fair representation of Montreal than apparently many other videos.
I think it’s from anti-njb people because he is admittedly very pro-dutch and seems a bit simpy sometimes. His comment on NA being unrepairable and how people should just move to the EU was also controversial I think.
I think this video is really good, but he is also one of the most entry-level urbanism YTers, so I think some people judge him for that.
but he is also one of the most entry-level urbanism YTers
Is he? He’s certainly very common entry-point into urbanism, but I don’t think that’s the same as being entry-level. I actually think he’s the best of the big urbanists.
Oh the Urbanity often seems to excuse some poor urbanism, and even when they aren’t doing that I find them far too neoliberal for my tastes.
CityNerd is brilliant, and he has a bunch of excellent videos. I particularly like the ones where he shows his gravity model for high speed rail. But he also does a hell of a lot of listicles which I can’t say are the greatest of high-quality content.
RMTransit does some good videos on fundamental topics, but his scope is very narrow—almost exclusively public transport, rather than other urbanist topics like cycling, walkability, different kinds of density & zoning, etc. I find them to be frequently very dry and not really focused as much on urbanism as it is on technical considerations. Interesting, but often more for the same reason I watch Wendover, rather than the same reason I watch NJB.
City Beautiful is probably my second-favourite of the urbanists. He covers a great diversity of topics in great quality. There’s just something that for me at least means I less often feel the calling to rewatch his videos to double-check a point then I do with Jason Slaughter’s videos.
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