TerraByte
Your home for bottom-up human-centered spatial design.
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- BREAKING!
- Toxic air exposure increases with car-dependent designs. Greenhouse gases and particulate matter from vehicle brake, tire, and road wear can penetrate deep into the lungs. What are some effects? 🧵
- Children living within 0.3 miles of a major roadway are twice as likely to fail a communication skills test.
- Increased rates of heart disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory conditions, and other health issues are linked to sedentary lifestyles and *vehicle-related pollution*.
- Car-centric design fuels the urban health crisis. Stop designing for cars— start designing for people.
- 2 miles from the densest place in North America we have… a suburban style strip mall. Tell me this is equitable/good urban design.🤦♂️
- A single car parking spot has space for: 🚲 10-12 bikes 🌱 2-3 benches and multiple planters 📦 Parcel locker sand a waste/ recycling station Your city is never ‘full’.
- Your average car parking spot can accommodate 10-12 bikes! Efforts like these make active transport viable. Let’s keep this momentum strong! ✊🚲
- Also— MUCH needed competition for Citi Bike who continue to raise their prices as they please.
- A 31-second-per-mile traffic delay increase raises fast food visits by 1%, or 1.2 million more per year in Los Angeles County. U.S. urban designs are giving Americans less time and worse eating habits! Another reason to support access to diverse transport choices.
- 57% of suburban office space nationwide is functionally obsolete. Workers prefer walkable urban or mixed-use developments with amenities. Let us supply this demand.
- Financially speaking, the suburbs are the ‘trust fund babies’ of cities. Density (the parent) subsidizes sprawl (it’s dependent).
- Livable streets start with making parking *optional*.
- A infrastructure no-brainer? Infesting in transit. Compared to highways, transit has lower maintenance costs, longer-lasting vehicles, and greater long-term capacity. We deserve this.
- The biggest way we can save our government money WHILE creating new opportunities for Americans? By cutting the $1 trillion in annual direct and indirect costs the U.S. incurs due to disastrous land use policies that support urban sprawl.
- These lives are lost because of a policy choice.
- In the past decade, passenger vehicle deaths per 100 million miles were 50x higher than buses and 17x higher than trains. Providing transport options saves lives.
- ‘Work harder’— but you didn’t have to? It’s time we built the diverse housing supply to make American housing accessible again!
- Suburban sprawl imposes $400 billion annually in external costs on all residents and businesses, regardless of location. Yes sprawl continues to be subsidized by more productive, mixed-use spaces.
- I was today years old when I found out that suburban sprawl costs the U.S. economy $1 trillion annually! Sprawl is bad business for all.
- Just another day thinking about how good urban form filled with housing and transport options would solve many, many of our problems. 🥲🏘️
- The suburbs we are given vs. the suburbs we had.
- It’s recommended that buyers spend no more than 2.6 times their annual income on a home—yet this threshold has been exceeded since at least 1985. This is a policy choice.
- From 1985 to 2022, the median home price in the U.S. surged 423%, while median household income increased only 216%. Inequitable urban development has created a housing affordability crisis.
- From sugar factory syrup tanks to contextual elements of a park’s design—same place, different urban needs. You’ve got to love adaptive reuse!
- Don’t forget: A bus rapid transit lane moves 1567% more people per hour than a private vehicle lane.
- Yes, that’s about 23,500 more people per hour in a BRT lane than private vehicle lane. Save space, travel faster. Productive cities are those with viable transport options.
- Detroit’s population increased for the first time in 66 years! There's no denying: their urban policies helped.
- The 2010s saw a push to diversify Detroit's spaces using preexisting structures. The former commercial Book Tower (1926) reopened as a mixed-use space in 2022, hosting 229 apartments, offices, restaurants, retail, and a hotel. Other American cities are just now catching on to this trend.
- The Detroit Riverfront, once polluted, has undergone one of the largest U.S. reclamation projects. It now featuring parks, plazas, and promenades that draw 3 million visitors annually! Thousands of residents now have access to walkable, green, and inclusive neighborhoods.
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View full threadWhat's next for Detroit? Follow along to see if the city adopts a land value tax to spur more diverse developments. 👀🏘️
- More flexible land use on the same property will yield more affordable units. 🏘️🚀
- The zoning we need is objectively more productive and community oriented than what we have.
- ‘They’re trying to take away our cars!’ No. We deserve the liberty to choose any mode of transport.
- Americans had more viable transport options 100 years ago than we do today. This lack of choice is the result of strategic lobbying and deliberate infrastructure devastation by a small group of people who sought to limit our transportation options for personal gain. Today, this is unacceptable.
- A community with transportation choices is one that is prosperous and unbound. It’s a cause worth fighting for.
- Small independent retailers employ 52–57 people for every $10 million in sales, while e-commerce giant Amazon, like big-box stores, employs only 14 per $10 million in revenue! And what’s best for small retailers? Walkable spaces.
- Reposted by TerraByteGreat to see these smaller, nimble and more appropriate vehicles being used in dense cities for deliveries. Keeps bigger trucks and vans off local streets.
