It depends where you are. Most cities in the Northeast you are correct. But coastal areas, big swaths of New Jersey and Long Island IIRC are definitely dependent on power. Towns with water towers usually pump it from the ground.
Alot of suburbs that can't or won't hook into city supplies will sometimes need more active measures to filter their water as well.
I know what a rebuilt city looks like, because I come from one. Hurricane Katrina was 2005. Christchurch Earthquake was 2011. In my opinion, my home town has recovered better and faster from destruction than New Orleans has.
I also live within a floodzone. There is a high probability I will learn how we deal with flooding in the future (different flooding - shallower and lacking the winds and hopefully better pre-planning for avoiding harm).
> everything looked brand new
Absolutely not, to me.
And the conversation is regarding infrastructure. A bunch of Christchurch infrastructure is brand new.
Convincing naive people that you're building AI because you love people is the fastest route to power. You have it backwards. There was never any "arc".
Instead of assuming bad faith and resorting to insults, simply make the point. EVs can cause road damage too, yes.
I would reply that pound for pound EVs create far fewer issues in other categories than its weight-equivalent ICE vehicle, and that to an extent that weight is justified for the urban environment far more than a 2025 Chevy Duramax.
So the city can't afford to comply with its own regulations, and instead of fixing the regulation, they find loopholes. I wonder if there's a lesson to be learned, here.
The article says the city claims the biggest issue is federal regulations (the ADA) not city regulations.
My neighborhood in NJ just got those fancy ADA compliant curb ramps last year, along with a repaving. It did take them much longer to install the curb ramps (like a week or two?) than it did to pave (one day) so I can imagine there is a significant cost, even if it's a smaller amount of materials.
I don't think there's a way to do this without casting something to connect the pre-fab to the surrounding concrete sidewalk. Like how do you precisely cut out the existing curb so the prefab just fits (including elevation/slope) without excessive gaps or something? And if you're pouring concrete anyway, might as well pour the curb itself.
With prefabs you first dig up both road and sidewalk, set up pre-cut granite curbs (kerbs?) on a mild concrete foundation (negates sinking completely), then repour and repave sidewalk and road. Lasts many years in -20C winters +35C summers climate.
I looked up kerb cutting machines and it's interesting how much of the process is cutting through cast-in-place kerbs with special saws.
There are hardly any of these in the UK, for example, and kerbs are nearly always made of kerbstones that are sunk into the ground. They have their own problems with sinking when driven on, and I imagine frost heave in areas where the ground freezes seasonally. But it does mean that a dropped kerb installation is quite quick. Most dropped kerbs are simple tarmac ramps rather than concrete castings here.
The ones I saw didn't actually cut the curb - they had arms that held out the form and "built" them in place. I was surprised, as the still-recent but earlier curb cuts had very obvious examples of actual cuts. It was similar to this, perhaps https://www.curbmachines.com
Damn. I've been curious what the deal is with the rubber lego knob coverings on sidewalk ramps and here it is. I mostly notice because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing as I assume they're equally hard to navigate in a wheelchair, but apparently the idea is to provide a tactile warning that the street is nearby for people with vision impairments.
> because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing as I assume they're equally hard to navigate in a wheelchair
Why do you think so? Even the front wheels of wheelchairs are much larger than those of skateboards, and their main wheels typically are pneumatic (front ones, too, probably, but cheaper ones might skimp on that)
>I mostly notice because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing
"Be hell for skateboarding" wasn't likely considered a bonus by the disability people because it would rally "those sort of people" to their (otherwise legitimate) cause.
Ok, but curb cuts also positively impact wheelchair users, people with canes or walkers, people with injuries that require crutches or a knee scooter, parents with strollers, people with rolling bags, cyclists, delivery workers and more. They are widely understood to benefit many many people beyond just people with disabilities (so much so that their benefit has given a name to the "curb cut effect").
Also, $60k/year is a) not nearly enough to pay a contractor full time living wage and b) not enough to cover the greater than full time necessary to assist someone. Blind people need to navigate the world at all hours on all days...
Typically taxes need to go up 2x to cover the costs. Most infra projects get done with Fed money because cities can't afford it. Also why home developers build the road and then hand it over to the city for upkeep. Its too expensive.
I do wonder if a little part of this is, they talk a big game, get into office and then see the details of full picture and realise they over promised.
It is a nice theory but then they bring out the same rhetoric when seeking re-election. So yeah, corruption may be abound.
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