in transportation we study the urban form through the lense of transit. i'm used to thinking of space and distance in terms of inches, feet, miles and kilometers. but in transportation we measure it in time. although cities have grown larger in size over the years, they occupy the same space in time: a 45 minute radius around in the center of the city. as our transportation increases in speed - from foot to horse to streetcar to automobile to high speed rail - our cities increase in spatial distance.
there's also a universal travel-time constant: 90 minutes. from an ancient chinese villager on foot to the modern angeleno in her car, we all spend about about an hour and a half each day getting where we need to go...which suggests that there is some limit within ourselves that contains not only our travel time, but also shapes the physical space in which we live.
fascinating, no?
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2 comments:
that's totally and utterly crazy. where did you heard interesting things?
how is this "universal time-constant" calculated? is it an average? allowing my discipline to rear its head, I would have to offer that I am skeptical of universal notions of space and time.
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