Imagine thinking this with a straight face.
How could it be harder to move civilians and a wooden plank compared to a locked SUV? Aha
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work."
"Eschew flamebait."
A lot of outdoor dining is much larger and more obstructive than a wooden plank. I see entire structures, planters, electrical power, heat lamps and fire 'pits', etc.
> Imagine thinking this with a straight face.
If we approach unfamiliar ideas curiously, we can imagine part of factual reality that is outside our conceptions: people know things we don't and have legitimate motives we haven't considered. I know almost nothing about outdoor dining; it would be interesting to hear from a restauranteur and city planner.
You might be right and there's little or no safety issues to worry about, but the data needed to assess that opinion doesn't exist yet.
They continue to evolve now, with fire deaths dropping significantly over the past 40 years despite population increases as construction methods and building materials get better [2]
I think it's fair to say that there's a legitimate safety concern in allowing structures not built to normal codes for a permanent structure to become permanent without some sort of review. Although I think that simple street dining-- absent these structures that weren't intended to be permanent-- should be much less of an issue. If a restaurant just has tables & chairs out there then I don't see much of an issue as long as they don't obstruct normal pedestrian traffic.
[0] https://www.creia.org/the-development-of-our-building-codes
[1] https://www.tenement.org/blog/lives-gone-in-a-puff-of-smoke/
[2] https://www.nahbclassic.org/generic.aspx?genericContentID=34...
This is an extremely healthy mindset, I'm glad to see it here. I only hope this way of thinking can spread.
He has a point though: treating every idea 'curiously' will kill an endevour by a thousand cuts.[0] To the point, attempting to apply these standards retrospectively would result in a very different and much worse current day. For starters most of San Francisco would still be part of the bay. I can't even imagine the horror and outrage at proposing to fill in the bay to increase the footprint of downtown? And yet considering we aren't chomping at the bit to return SF to nature I can't help feel society has decided it was the right thing to do.
[0]How does outdoor dining affect the patterns of migratory birds? Better fund a study. For each restaurant, so the individual facts. Are you a 'bird advocate' who thinks the aforementioned study was a sham? Sharpen your legal pencils because the state is very interested to hear and debate your case.
I really wish this sort of thing was hyperbole.
That is a strawperson, and not related to curiosity. Curiosity is what I described above (at least by my definition). I don't see what that has to do with your examples.
> To the point, attempting to apply these standards retrospectively would result in a very different and much worse current day. For starters most of San Francisco would still be part of the bay.
What standards are we applying retrospectively? Outdoor dining rules would cause SF to remain part of the bay?
> [0]How does outdoor dining affect the patterns of migratory birds? Better fund a study. For each restaurant, so the individual facts. Are you a 'bird advocate' who thinks the aforementioned study was a sham? Sharpen your legal pencils because the state is very interested to hear and debate your case. / I really wish this sort of thing was hyperbole.
Can you provide actual evidence of it happening in reality?
The hypocrisy[1] of the current status quo is that we live in the benefit of decisions made in a far more carefree manner that would never pass muster today (e.g. filling in the SF bay.)
>https://missionlocal.org/2018/06/the-strange-and-terrible-sa...
[0]The endemic absurdity which makes it expensive to build, and by extension live in CA and the Bay Area.
[1]Never mind anti-pragmatism.
Landromat -> apartment, except it casts shadows on a school playground after school hours.
>https://sfplanning.org/standards-bird-safe-buildings
'bird-safe building requirements
>http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/ceda/documents/webc...
Some permitting requirements including treatment for migratory birds. I expect you can find some news of delays over lawsuits from environmental groups over things easily
One is a locked SUV whose windows are designed to be broken easily and safely in case of emergencies, pop into neutral and push out of the way sort of quickly (depending on whether or not there's even enough time to do that, but I digress). This SUV has wheels whose direction you can adjust in order to to help maneuver the vehicle easily.
The other is a structure often built considerably longer than even a few SUV lengths, weighed down so that guests and weather don't move it, and made out of material that is considerably less easy to break through in an emergency situation than the aforementioned tempered/laminated safety glass. Said structures may even contain even more hazards - eg, gas-powered heat lamps - than you would find in a traditional parking space. This structure is bulky and doesn't have wheels to help change the direction you want to move it in.
>Imagine thinking this with a straight face.
The irony...
Not doable in most modern cars without the key.
[EDIT] The more I think about this the more it bothers me. Being able to shift even if the car is partially disabled—including, quite possibly, whatever's responsible for reading a modern electronic key—is really important for safety, and also for generally dealing with a disabled car after it's come to a stop, which can also be safety-related if you're trying to, say, get it off a busy highway. Especially being able to get into neutral. That there's any possible way that failures in not-strictly-necessary-for-shifting systems could block that seems crazy to me.
But playing devil's advocate, assuming that no modern car can be popped into neutral without a key, a car is still much more favorable than many parklets. You can easily break the glass to run firehouses through, or you can more easily run the hose over/under/around it because it's a smaller object than an outdoor dining space. Emergency crews can run between parked cars, but there often aren't any such opportunities in a 16-foot parklet.
a) buildings weren't made of wood, and
b) people didn't keep setting fire to them.
(Source: SF resident for a few years - someone even burnt down my hardware store! As I was going there for a screwdriver!)
I'm actually curious what the fire department itself has to say about it.
Typically, they are the ones carrying fire code inspections.