Slashdot Mirror
Helsinki Aims To Obviate Private Cars
New submitter NBSCALIDBA writes: Eeva Haaramo reports on Helsinki's ambitious plan to transform city transportation. From on-demand buses to city bikes to Kutsuplus mini-transport vans, the Finnish capital is trying to change the whole concept of getting around in a city. "Under the plan, all these services will be accessed through a single online platform. People will be able to buy their transport in service packages that work like mobile phone tariffs: either as a complete monthly deal or pay as you go options based on individual usage. Any number of companies can use the platform to offer transport packages, and if users find their travel needs change, they'll be able to switch packages or moved to a rival with a better deal."
No links, Really? in many years of reading his site daily i'm not sure i recall when a story was posted without a single f*cking link to the source material or supporting info.
Perhaps this thing is entirely made up... i think ill start submitting stories now - or is this a Beta story?
Come on guys!!
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
count me out... this sort of stuff just makes me want to live on a remote tropical island and spend my days fishing.
Do you also insist on owning your own elevator? If socialized vertical transportation is acceptable, then why is horizontal transportation so different?
I question whether that is a real thing. If you consider our history, we didn't live in anything like this density. What is more, instinctually we have no bond with practically anyone in the city. They're just faces. They mean nothing to you. You don't know who they are and they have no lasting impact on your life. Any one of those faces could die tomorrow and you wouldn't even notice.
So tell me again about this herding instinct because it frankly sounds like bullshit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Many times, the economics of "fun" things that people enjoy only work out if there are enough people in a small geographic area. You can't have a football team without enough people to fill a stadium every week, and you don't get that many people without them living in a large-ish city where that football team plays. Any one person going to a football game certainly knows almost none of the other people going, but they're necessary to make the game happen at all. Same for music. Bands aren't going to play a show out in the sticks where they can't fill a medium-size venue. These cultural things are what draw people to live in a city instead of in the sticks, even if their job could be done from anywhere. Ditto for art galleries, parks, recreational sports leagues. Even though one of those faces could die tomorrow and you wouldn't notice, if most of them died, you certainly would because you wouldn't have enough people to do those things.
Have you ever lived in a city?
I do. I have a yard and two dogs. Once in awhile we plant a garden. I can even play music. Plus I can walk to local bakeries, breweries, restaurants, hardware stores, beaches, parks, etc.
A lot of the time, between biking and walking your legs are the only transit you need. If not, there are buses, trains, taxis, and services like Car2go and ZipCar.
I understand that kind of lifestyle is not for everybody, but the worst thing we can do is spread out more. That has lead to all kinds of problems.
You are more social in a small town. You actually know people and they actually know you.
As to distant farms... go to your grosery store and tell me where the fruit in the produce section came from. Bet its farther then 500 miles. If you're in the north east it could be well over two thousand miles. So that's just a silly statement.
As to live music at night, you can get that anywhere. Go to a rural Italian farming village. They have music every night. Its THEIR music made by THEIR people for THEIR people. You act like music didn't exist before this absurd population crush. The ancient city of Athens 2000 years ago had only about 140 thousand people. Of that only about 40 thousand were both male and not slaves. Want to bet they had music, art, plays, etc?
You don't need a big population for any of that. You just need culture.
A modern example would be Santa Fe New Mexico. They have a population of about 70 thousand... and a full Opera company, plays, music festivals, many art galleries, a big artist community, etc etc etc.
As to cities being easier on the environment, you're only saying that as an alternative to an endless suburban sprawl. I would agree that packing people in would be better then an endless Los Angeles with single story houses going on for hundreds of miles.
However that is not what I am talking about. I am instead talking about small scattered towns with lots of empty space between. You can't tell me the small town is hurting the environment more then the mega cities. That's just silly. The concentrated waste that comes out of those cities takes massive facilities to make anything less then horrifically toxic.
As to cities subsidizing the rest of the country, that is a product of our political system not a need of rural communities. Rural communities send their representatives to washington to ask for lower taxes and less regulation. If/when they cannot get that, the representatives ask for what they CAN get instead. Over the years the rural communities have gotten these compromises instead of what they actually wanted which was to be left alone.
Logistically, there is no reason they couldn't provide most of these services themselves. If anything, the cities have made efforts to stop small towns from setting up their own ISPs. We get articles about it on slashdot all the time. read one of them.
As to racists, idiots, etc... those are found everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. You can get concentrations of them in some towns and maybe a town might be run by such people. But that's just a roll of the dice. You get similar things in big cities. I will grant the big cities tend to have very bland consistent ineffectual politicians that don't especially represent or inspire anyone. Yes, they're rarely racists but they're also much more often corrupt products of machine politics. That is, they're not racists because what they really are is opportunists in it for the money.
As to ignorance, I've lived in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. I question whether you've ever stepped outside of your bubble. And that being the likely case, I question your right to call anyone else ignorant on the issue. Your arguments were mostly stereotypes perpetuated by television that drones buy into because they don't know any better.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.