Why This Channel Exists (and why I hate Houston) on HackerTube: recommended by 11 Hacker News commenters across 10 separate months, 2021–2025.
commentary · evergreen
Not Just Bikes explains why the channel exists, through the creator's walk in suburban Houston. It shows how car-dependent design makes cities hostile to pedestrians.
Strongly recommended as the entry point to a channel on urban planning and car dependency in North America.
“I watched an excellent video about Houston”
19 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
For those interested in urban planning, including contrasts between the US and places that do it well, I highly recommend the Not Just Bikes youtube channel. The intro video details a short walk in Houston, which is pretty alarming: ▶ this video
in “U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high” · View on HN
> The reality is the western world is falling behind in essential infrastructure in every capacity. Could you expand on this? What do you mean? > Its hard to build roads, highways, sewers these days without some pushback. We need to start changing our views and start seeing constriction as an essential human need and return to the old view of infrastructure as something we take pride in For me, it's not "construction" by itself, but I suspect it's pushback against urban sprawl and poor urban design. I watched an excellent video about Houston: ▶ this video It takes awhile to get to the point, so you might want to skip to 3:42.
in “Construction is life” · View on HN
For anyone who has trouble understanding this perspective because they've lived in car-dependent hell their entire lives, I recommend the Not Just Bikes channel. He does extremely detailed comparisons of US cities vs Netherlands and other places. Here is a recent one [1]. For me, I always felt that something was wrong about American cities / suburbs but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then, I spent a few months in Tokyo and something "clicked". It's an entirely different paradigm that forced me to reevaluate what I thought was possible. When I returned to the US, on the ride from the airport my first thought was: Everyone in this traffic jam is going the same direction, and would fit in a handful of train cars. Why are we OK with this?? People say trains are expensive, but they don't realize how much money we spend on cars. Americans spent $1.1 TRILLION on personal vehicles in 2017 [2], not including the hundreds of billions spent yearly on road maintenance. Redirecting a fraction of that money would more than pay for high-speed rail. Let's do a crude estimate. Using the chart here [3], we can expect to pay somewhere between $3-163 million USD per mile of high-speed rail. The distance from NY to LA is 2789.9 miles. At $100M/mile, which is excessive, it would still only cost $279 billion. We could build THREE transcontinental high-speed rail lines every year with the money we spend on personal automobiles. If we're as cost-effective as Japan at $2.6 M / mile, we could af
in “Twike” · View on HN
It also has a lot with the car-centric nature of urban planning. Can't recommend this guys entire channel of videos enough: [link] He delves into a movement known as "Strong Towns" that look to undo a lot of the mistakes city planners have been making for the last half century. Edit: Here's a link to another of his videos where he shows why it is dangerous to walk in many North American cities: ▶ this video
in “Pedestrian fatalities are rising in the US” · View on HN
There are several talking points mentioned in this thread that are explored more on the NotJustBikes YouTube Channel. - When Canada built a relatively recent urban rail to Toronto, they built it so you have to drive to the train station , and used the high value land right around the station for ... surface car parking. This is absurdly wasteful of valuable real estate and makes the expensive train add much less value to the people. Also the train only runs around rush hours, making it useless for almost anyone who isn't driving to the train for a commute to work. "The Trains that Subsidize Suburbia - GO Transit Commuter Rail" - [link] - "Why city design is import (and why I hate Houston)" [it's not walkable] - ▶ this video - How American urban transit is built misunderstanding the way transit needs to work to be successful, notably trying to build transit as a bandaid over car problems, but not making it regular, frequent, reliable, fast, convenient, instead plonking an isolated transit connection from nowhere to nowhere which runs once every couple of hours and then pointing to it as an example of how transit doesn't work in America - "America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit)" - [link] - Addressing the "America is too big and spread out for rail" arguments, notably that USA and Canada were built by trains, and streetcar suburbs, and that most journes Americans take every day are less than 5 miles. - "The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities" - [link]
in “Texas could get a bullet train between Houston and Dallas” · View on HN
Deadliest road for pedestrians(in the US). This vid has a good take on the problem of car dependent city designs that is very predominant in the US and Canada. Why City Design is Important (and Why I Hate Houston) ▶ this video
in “The Deadliest Road in America” · View on HN
Do you have a source for this claim? All the urbanists will tell you that small grocery stores are a joy to use in Europe due to transit oriented development that makes quick trips by bike to grab groceries fast and easy. But in North America we’ve built out larger and larger car-centric developments which have become so hostile to anyone not in a car that people are forced to drive to the grocery store. This makes the experience way less enjoyable than a quick trip by bike to a small store, the urbanists will say. So your claim is that small stores were essentially selected out of existence by customers, but it may in fact be the case that city planners destroyed walkability in a way that left big box stores as the only viable option. Those two things are not the same, as the theoretical “we could have more smaller stores accessible by bike and foot traffic” would be true in the latter case. For a detailed argument see the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes: ▶ this video
in “KittyHawk air taxi startup is winding down” · View on HN
Watch some videos from this channel and you'll be able to see how the US definitely does not do enough in terms of creating safe road infrastructure for all: [link] ▶ this video [link]
in “Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes” · View on HN
Oh, the rabbit hole goes much much deeper. American infrastructure is actively hostile to people walking/biking/doing anything else than driving and even then not very safe. I'd recommend the NotJustBikes youtube channel that really drives the point home, e.g. ▶ this video
in “Can American Cars Be Made Safer for Pedestrians?” · View on HN
People in the US have developed an aversion to walking because our built environment makes it terrible. For example, watch this video from about 4:25 on showing a typical urban pedestrian journey the US: ▶ this video (One thing the narrator mentions is shade: Keep in mind that Houston is a hot city, with temperatures often above 30c during the summer.) But that's not unusual at all. In fact, where I grew up in Pennsylvania many roads had literally no sidewalk. Let's say I want to walk into town where my parents live. I'd be going down this road (you can follow along on street view): [link] That's a narrow road, but don't let it fool you. People there drive fast and they're in a hurry. They certainly do not expect to see someone trudging along the berm of the road. Or more likely in a muddy ditch beside the road, because Pennsylvania is wet and that's the safest way to not get hit by a car. If you walk along into North Wales, PA, pay attention to the pedestrian infrastructure. Where are there sidewalks? Are there crossing signals? How would you know when it's safe to cross? Now imagine doing this in the evening (note: there are no streetlights).
in “Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP” · View on HN
I'm not going to argue with you about the different definitions of public transportation, but for sure "taxi" isn't what comes to mind when someone mentions public transportation. The point you're making is exactly the problem. The reason bus lines aren't used more is because they suck in a lot of cities. Improving the public transportation infrastucture (and no, not taxis), would solve this problem - as demonstrated in many European cities. Here's a good video that compares the city planning of Houston to other cities, and explains why it sucks. It focuses more on cars vs. bikes, but the same basic point also applies to public transportation: ▶ this video
in “Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus” · View on HN
> well-designed human-oriented city like Houston Said no urban planner in the history of urban planning. Or NJB ( ▶ this video ) > FASTER commutes than ANY similar-sized city in Europe. Houston ranks 7th worst traffic in the US. The internet tells me you’re boasting of 30mn for an “average 6 miles commute”. That’s bicycle distance and speed that you need to drive due to a broken city.
in “Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year” · View on HN
> Said no urban planner in the history of urban planning. Or NJB ( ▶ this video ) Wrong. Houston is a great example for planners who care about housing availability and the quality of life for the people. And not bike lanes and road diets. > Houston ranks 7th worst traffic in the US. Yes. And the 7th worst traffic in the US is STILL BETTER than any large European city's oh-so-great transit. Tells you volumes, doesn't it?
in “Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year” · View on HN
> So make cars pollute less Physically impossible to have them pollute less than methods of mass transportation. Mathematically, even. Just divide the number of people carried per pollution caused by cars vs trains, bikes, or even buses. There's nothing you can do to make cars competitive. > Figure out how to filter microplastics from our food and water "Just figure it out", ok. But even then, an ounce of prevention is worth the pound of a cure. > Figure out what's causing asthma in children A little random but ok. I'm guessing grinding up rubber and metal particles into the air right next to where said children live isn't the best for their lungs. > Not sure how obesity is related. Maybe improve the food supply? 1. Wake up 2. Walk 30 feet to your car 3. Sit as you drive to work 4. Spend 8 hours at your desk 5. Walk 30 feet to your car 6. Sleep 7. Why am I fat?! Maybe improve the food supply?! > A lot of these are solved with electric cars which are increasingly more competitive. Virtually none are, an electric car is still a car, see point 1. > Why force people to regress towards a worse product rather than address these technical issues? Highly dependent on your definition of worse; I'd argue the sort of streets and environments you can find in the Netherlands [1][2][3] are way better than in the US. Not everything is a technical issue that can simply be solved by better engineering. [1]: [link] [2]: [link] [3]: ▶ this video
in “Congestion Pricing Is a Policy Miracle” · View on HN
You're comparing the cost of only self driving tech vs the cost of the entire rail infrastructure. • Underground parking for 600 cars? 35 million euro - [link] • Rebuilding a highway? Half of the transportation budget gone - [link] • Adding just one more lane bro to a freeway? $2.2 billion - ▶ this video Take into account the money saved from scaling back car infrastructure: • lower obvious direct building and maintenance costs • reduced healthcare spending - increased activity levels [1], lower local pollution [2] • lower stress thanks to reduced noise levels • less of a need to spend money on counteracting the negative effects of climate change • freeing up a significant chunk of the valuable ~30% of space in cities taken up by oversized roads and parking lots -> more housing, denser cities -> less travel needed -> lower costs Sum all that up and then tell me self-driving is cheaper than rail. [1]: "If every Londoner walked or cycled for 20 minutes a day we would prevent 1 in 6 early deaths and save the NHS 1.7bn pounds in treatment costs over the next 25 years." ( [link] ) [2]: "Each year air pollution causes thousands of Londoners to die prematurely and is associated with an increased risk of Londoners developing life-changing illnesses like cancer, lung disease, dementia and asthma. [...] So far, the ULEZ has contributed to over 1 million hospital admissions averted by 2050." ( [link] )
in “Cruise pauses driverless operations across all cities” · View on HN
> This guy makes some good points, but jeez he is so condescending and pretentious. It's really easy for a guy who makes YouTube videos and lives in a crowded European city to pass judgement on people who live lives completely different than his. He has lived in those "completely different" places. He grew up in one of those areas: he moved to a crowded European city. He grew up in London, Ontario ("fake London"), lived in Toronto, lived all over the world. He used to consult all over the world and has visited many cities around the world: see his video "Why City Design is Important (and Why I Hate Houston)" for some of the backstory: * ▶ this video After seeing all the different options, and initially trying to settle in Toronto—see his video "Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto)": * [link] he and his wife decided to move to Amsterdam to raise their kids. It wasn't random chance that he ended in Europe, but a conscious choice . He looked at the options and chose the one that he though was best. And he has been asked about the 'tone' of this videos: his answer was/is: he doesn't care about how he comes off because (in his opinion) trying to be "nice" to the dumbasses that try to justify the stupidity of car-centric society that is destroying our planet is pointless. Either you have a brain and can see how bad this way of thinking/designing is, or you don't have a brain. He's tired of pussy footing around the (in his view) stupidity.
in “Pickup Trucks: From Workhorse to Joyride” · View on HN
He was talking about the car-mandatory suburban design of the USA, which is pretty much everywhere by law outside of a few grandfathered places that were built before the car was invented and some commercial down towns. They also tend to be very expensive since they are in short supply and high demand. It has nothing to do with the people or culture per say and his experience exists everywhere! Look at pretty much an identical experience in Houston: ▶ this video . The channel also has few examples of the same thing in london, ontario, canada. In Europe, small town life is not necessarily suburban life, there are a lot of of walk-able villages connected via a train line that you could take to commute to your job in city, and they're wayyyyyyyyyy better than the sadness that is US & Canadian suburbia.
in “Marc Andreessen says he’s for new housing, but records tell a different story” · View on HN
Not just bikes: ▶ this video It's an example of what I'm referring to. Cities were designed to push for cars. People wanted cars because cities were designed to exclude people that didn't have one.
in “Congress' push to regulate Big Tech is fizzling out” · View on HN
When people say cities, they talk about them in the global context with functioning metro systems, not the sprawling monster american 'suburities' that require you to drive everywhere. If you want less suburities with their shit traffic, you'd support getting rid of zoning laws that force this form of city. I don't like US 'cities'. I do like cities elsewhere in the world. More about it: ▶ this video
in “U.S. house prices are rising exponentially faster than income” · View on HN