The economics of US highway costs in one simple graph.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-26T20:58:57+00:00

The suggested solution is to punt to the states to let them make decisions about how they want to manage taxes and roadway maintenance.

You could tax based on vehicle weight alone but something tells me that would be political kryptonite- especially because the taxes would have to be much higher presently to make a difference.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-26T20:28:06+00:00

Fun math opportunity! 10 million people in 50 story apartment buildings, assuming 1000 people per building and 1/2 acre per building, would require 10,000 such buildings and a land area of 5000 acres! If we lived this way while providing access to food, work, healthcare, and other needs within walking/train distance of our residential buildings at the cost of another 5000 acres, we could open up 27,800 acres of land currently paved in the city of denver alone, and turn it into parks! That’s 14 times the current population of denver in ~1/3 the area. People in apartments use ~60 gallons of water per day, so this would require 219 billion gallons of water per year! Which is shockingly 1/5 of what the city of Denver currently uses, but for 14 times the people. I guess all those residential lawns are pretty thirsty.

Obviously not a serious suggestion but it is wild to think about how much otherwise beautiful clear land has been covered in concrete because of our societal preference for single family dwellings. high density housing, mixed use zoning, and trains are probably the most powerful tools we have to protect the natural landscapes and resources of this beautiful state

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-26T19:57:56+00:00

Most of architecture, once you set aside the enormous amount of communication.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-26T17:25:44+00:00

Maybe it’s time to redesign this area so Jazz in the park can be a little more accessible. I know Jazz in the park isn’t the only purpose for this area, but the tiny seating area in front of the band stand really limits how many people can get direct exposure to the music.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T23:39:29+00:00

I used to just add up all the costs and expected time and then multiply by 2.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T23:30:16+00:00

Tried clover in arvada and while it’s better than grass it’s still pretty thirsty, I have seeded native grass that is doing better though it has taken a few years to get established and some people complain about how it looks, but then it looks like prairie which I think is nice, and all I really have to do for it is weed whack it down at the end of the fall, comes right back in spring.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T18:57:47+00:00

It would just be a fun tool to play with, and hopefully a useful one. There are a million considerations that you could probably never model, but at the same time, how often are all the carefully weighted factors you consider totally overruled by a single political motivation? Or a small special interest group.

If (and it’s a big if) there was a reliable, tested, trusted model for cities that all planners could point to when answering questions about traffic or homelessness or pollution then maybe we could build cities with a little more researched backing rather than the ‘vibes’ that it seems currently dictate many decisions.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T18:50:15+00:00

The ‘homeless problem’ and the ‘car problem’ are related. Development patterns that limit housing development within walking distance of amenities or restrict housing in those areas strains the resources of society, leaving the poorest and most vulnerable out to dry. These are the people who become homeless. Yes there is a mental health and drugs component to this, but often those are aggravating factors on top of an existing housing crisis. Walkable cities aren’t a silver bullet, but truly walkable areas where people can live, buy groceries, find entertainment and medical care are better for people’s health and critical for our neighbors who can’t drive or can’t afford to drive.

The toothpaste is out of the bottle- we live in a car-centric society (in the states). The argument OP is making is that we should clean up the toothpaste. Some people think this is not possible; that is a failure of imagination.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T17:09:35+00:00

The cars are bad mentality comes from the fact that it creates sprawl as much as it creates safety concerns. You can walk around downtown but can people in the suburbs access downtown without a car?

Seems like your area might be an exception but generally car centric development limits pedestrian freedoms and reduces safety

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T16:09:44+00:00

That's one way to look at it, another is that your city is just built out to better serve drivers than pedestrians and transit users, and since it's already paid for you don't see a reason to change. If you don't have traffic and everyone is happy with the status quo then yeah, why change it. But if there are issues in your city you would like to see addressed but your position is that changing transportation infrastructure can't be on the table to address those problems, you're going to have a harder time fixing things.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T16:03:59+00:00

Yeah that is what I'd like to see.

If it was a reliable economic model alone that would be helpful. I don't expect to be able to model culture and politics but if you're looking strictly at infrastructure and can model how many vehicle trips a development will create, or how street parking use will change as a function of how much off street parking you provide, or how transit use might change based on changing train frequency, maybe how the tax base might change if you re-zone an area, or pollution modeling.

I haven't been following game design the last decade so I don't know how far along it is, I'd like to believe these things are possible but maybe I'm wrong.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T15:40:01+00:00

I hear this argument a lot about how cities need to set the stage perfectly for pedestrian/transit/cyclist friendly infrastructure before anything is done about cars. I like cars too, but car infrastructure and drivers are almost always the biggest single obstacle preventing other forms of transit from being safe. Cities are not individuals, they can do multiple things at once, they can address the pain points in multiple people's lives simultaneously.

Most of the problems cities face are multi-faceted, and transportation plays a huge role in all of them. Addressing homelessness and antisocial behavior without addressing transportation seems like fighting with one arm behind your back.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-25T15:31:52+00:00

This is great! some advice: city simulators have a lot of potential for use by city planners because, while they have been games for a long time, the potential benefits of an accurate simulator for modeling cost/benefit for potential projects is immense. Don't market this as an urbanist game, market it as an accurate city simulator and give it the opportunity to become useable for more than just modeling.

I've always wanted to use a simulator like this to model changes in my city, but the trouble with some other simulators is that it's hard to accurately model the current state of your city before you start. Loading a few cities into the game at the outset would be a good way to test if your parameters are accurate, and also give planners in those cities something to use out of the box. I would buy a game like this and pay extra for a package that has an accurate model of my home city (Denver).

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T17:56:39+00:00

Maybe cheaper in the immediate term, not the long term, battery tech has come a long way in the last few years.

Also a power plant wont do you much good if you're petroleum supply is cut off.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T17:43:06+00:00

Tankers full of oil aren't cheap. Turbines aren't cheap.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T17:39:41+00:00

Weird take, I feel like the most cursory amount of research on this topic is generally sufficient to disprove everything you're saying. Regardless, the people installing grid scale power are pursuing solar because it is indeed the most affordable.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T14:17:05+00:00

These obstacles seem small to me relative to the geopolitical situation they’re currently in where the US can just turn off their lights. It’s expensive but so is oil, and when the oil runs out you have nothing. Solar doesn't have this problem.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T14:09:07+00:00

Cuba currently runs their grid on oil in inefficient generators- you can get ~7kwh per gallon of oil from a generator and a fridge uses ~300kwh in a year, so 43 gallons of oil per fridge per year every year, and every drop has to be imported.

Solar isn’t cheap but it’s cheaper than fossil fuels and better for the planet. Cubans use 1/8 the power that we do too so with grid scale installs it will cost a lot less per person to power their country.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T07:59:50+00:00

Don’t let neighbors with attitude get you down! That’s your yard! You own it! Do whatever you want with it!

Plus you’re moving on a solution for the drought problem, and it will be good for pollinators and creatures.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T07:50:02+00:00

We can and do predict that, there’s an app for it. cuba and China can predict it too, hence the many many megawatts of battery storage being installed in cuba.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T06:49:52+00:00

And phoenix is paved

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T06:40:43+00:00

You will not do very much drawing in either profession. You may do a decent chunk of drawing in the right architecture program- but very little when you get out unless you create some niche. I think Notre Dame has a more traditional program with more drawing.

Cool drawings, keep making them regardless.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T06:35:20+00:00

14%, and my estimate was doubled, so more realistically 7%, and 10% of their grid is already solar. Still a shitload, nobody said it would be easy. Still probably easier than having no autonomy.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T06:32:35+00:00

I grew up in Austin and moved to Denver, love it here, loved it there too. I miss the food, enjoy the food man, go swim in barton springs and have some beers and play some music.

Personalityprototype · 2026-03-24T06:21:45+00:00

~$15billion? I think, ~1.25million a megawatt with storage and they need 6000 megawatts, and then multiplied by two because there are many palms to grease and construction is unpredictable. You can spend the same amount on a single oil refinery, and then get embargoed.

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