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this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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chapotraphouse
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I mean yes they are car brained, however, that is America, everything by necessity has to rely on the the car.
I will also point out that in the article mentioned responce times. Now I am not an urban planner, and while I dabble in city design theory from time to time, from their narrow lens prospective I can understand their condenser, especially with the contemporary understanding of bigger road= better traffic flow. Their statement is that these proposals are likely to increase reponse times, and if we look at it from the understanding of city design we are all taught, that would make sense, narrowing the street for any reason will increase congestion and increase response time in kind. Instead what you need to do is help aleviate their consern where it stands. Fires today burn, hotter, faster, and more toxic than ever before, and so any delay is potential lives lost, meet them at their concern, not from the "Oh you car brained goober hating street safety" because that is not what they are against.
Second the "oversized apparatus" I will agree the 3 largest vehicles on the roads today that everyone has seen in the US are the Fire Truck, the Ambulance, and the Simi Truck (no not everyone sees a bus, agian we have no public transportation infrustructure). However I push back on your insenuation that the fire equipment is "oversized" There is a reason they have gotten to this size, and there is a pressure for the smallest fire truck they can use at any given location, because it is far more manuverable, and less likely to get caught up in any trafic. The reason they have gotten bigger is because the extra size gives significantly more use to the truck, weither that be an air bottle re filler, that is essential for long fires, or a stronger pump, or just more hoses.
I am not going to say "all fire fighters are the best humans and none are individualy reactionaries" but like honestly Fire Fighters are awsome... and as a thing we do Based ... and like the meme posted is right... The amount of resources they will expend to save 1 life is awe inspiring, and if that comes at the cost that they are slower to change to narrower streats, because 1 conventional wisdom and 2 with our wider streats they have gotten engines that are more capable but bigger, and so we have to teach them why it will still help responce times, it is a cost I am willing to do
I am here to tell you that in the us, roads are designed to fit apparatuses and not vice versa. Saner sized apparatuses used in Japan and parts of Europe can actually outperform American behemoths but they’re just not as macho
Not really, we didn't make the big apparatuses then redo all our roadways to fit, we got bigger roads, then relised we could fit more in the apparatuses, then did so. We still have areas with small roadways and fire services must accommodate accordingly.
And yes they CAN outperform ours under specific conditions, ones that they where designed for, but put any one of them here and one of ours is going to clean their clock, its just a matter of how they are built and that we can fit more stuff, its not about "being macho"
Generally too they dont bring the biggest stuff out unless they need to, it is what is needed to put the fire out as fast as possible. I am sure if we had infrustructure more like Europe or Japan we would have fire trucks more like theirs, but our design pressures did not push us to small trucks,
I am asking you to please accept that 40,000+ die on US roads every year and 90+% percent of firefighter dispatches are not fire related
I did not dispute either of those claims, I was providing context to their hesitancy to support the road reform. Both that goes aganst the way we are taught how road conjestion works that narrower streets could help, and that their primary concern is getting to where they are dispatched to as fast as they can. That their hesitency is not some "Carbrain macho I want worse cities" Idea that you where implying. I was also providing contexted to the sizes of the fire trucks, they are not this large for no reason. Yes they got this big because our roads are massive, however they are not this big for the fun of it, they have been engineered to take full advantage of the space they have.
I also would like to point out 3 things with your source, agian I am not disputing that US roads are bad and need to be changed ... HECK I am not even saying that I am aganst what LA is proposing, from what I read in that Article I like it, and I think it would also decrease conjestion and increase fire responce times, I was saying that the hesitancy being displayed was rational, and the advantage needs to be explained, however first while fires are becoming less common, the ones we are having are burning faster, hotter and more toxic, and are spreading faster. 2 There is a good chance as climate change happens fire calls will go up agian, especialy with this being a story in california. 3 What is mentioned as the bulk of the calls is EMS calls instead of fire, and I do not feel like that is the gotcha you think it is, because agian, responce times are vital on emergency medical calls aswell.
Agian The main Argument the fire service had to the reform was "Hey, you are going to take away road space, so the same number of cars that are currently driving are going to have less road space, the roads are already so conjested we cannot get any where and we are worried that putting the same amount of cars into less space will only make the situation worse" the responce is not to say "But look at all the deaths on the road" because their argument was never road deaths, I do not know who runs the EMS service in LA, but there is a chance it is the fire department, and most of the time fire fighters have to be EMTs anyway and sometimes respond to calls, they know and likely already care about those deaths, and if they run the ambulance service respond to them, but that was not their argument or concern, Meet them at their concern... Also do not just insult fire trucks, yes they are large, but understand that they are that big for a reason 1) because it allows them to preform better and 2) because how the US is now, allows them to be bigger, and by doing that they can 3) fit more stuff in and more powerful pumps and engines in, that refer to 1).
Agian I accept the claim, I am a proponent of road reform, and making the US less car centric, and increasing pedestrian and bycicle friendly areas, I however find your origional comment to be missing important context, and overly narrow in scope. I merely mentioned that you should take a step back and read why the concern was levied.