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If we want a shift to walking, we need to prioritize dignity

kmarc
157 replies
1d12h

While taking a walk near downtown Austin, TX, a police car stopped next to me and the officers started asking weird questions. Including if I know where I am at, where I go, or is there someone who could help me with these apparent struggles in my life.

It took me a couple awkward minutes to realize that I'm the only one standing on my feet and not sitting in a car wherever I was looking. I apologized (???) and told them I was heading to a museum, bc I'm a visitor here and that's what we do right? I added a colleague's address and assured them that I'm not "confused", and will take an Uber now.

This was simply unbelievable in my world; for the next week I observed my colleague, whenever they took me out, or went to somewhere: we never walked outside. From the building to the parking lot, from the destination parking lot to the resto and vice versa.

Today, of course, I know that there are walkable cities too, I enjoy walking from my Chicago hotel to the office building :-) every single time I enjoy my US visits, but after a couple weeks I can't wait to get back to my 98% car free European life.

esotericsean
37 replies
1d1h

Living in Southern California, I like to go on walks with my family in the evenings or mornings, but I couldn't imagine having to take public transportation or having to walk everywhere. It seems picturesque, but it also sounds terrible in the sense that you can't just get in your car, go some place, park in a parking lot, go shopping, and then head back home, all on your own terms.

I visited London a long time ago and the public transportation is amazing and it I did want to walk to see the city, which I did. But I imagine even living there, I would want my own car to be in control of my life.

So, visiting a place is good for walking. But living in a place is not. At least that's my experience.

convolvatron
9 replies
1d1h

this is the real lie, that cars give you agency and freedom. except that you have to find a place to park, and keep the fueled, deal with minor breakdowns like punctured tires that leave you to deal with them for hours. and insurance. and a drivers license. and a place to keep them at night. the threat that they will be broken into. the constant switching back and forth between inattention and attention while driving. getting delayed by traffic. spending quite a bit of time complaining about traffic even though it is you. the inevitable collision. the abysmal process of purchasing. knowing you're are getting screwed at the repair place. having to deal with rentals when you travel. the complete loss of function when you become old or injured and cannot drive for yourself.

no thanks

dwaite
2 replies
1d

And mass transit you have to deal with line failures, the inability to transport more than you can reasonably carry, and the curfew created by the end-of-line time for the evening.

abenga
1 replies
10h36m

All issues you have listed solvable by improving bus/train service frequency and coverage, and trolleys/electric assist bikes for the last mile.

kjkjadksj
0 replies
2h20m

Which you can wait a lifetime to maybe be built in some diluted state given current pace of things, or resign and take the option the present environment favors. Hate the game, not the player.

kjkjadksj
1 replies
2h21m

For most people they don’t think about these things at all, that’s why they do it still.

l1tany11
0 replies
1h41m

As it is, people love to complain about buying gas. If someone were to add up the costs associated with driving, I’m sure it would be insane. And I mean all costs. Driving is subsidized to a level that is incomprehensible, and obfuscated away more than just about anything else.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
19h5m

not much different from a human in the grand sceme of things. Need to maintain energy, treat minor and major injuries, deal with insurance, keep an ID on me (which costs money to renew), and either avoid or accept the risk of night walks. Fights can break out, routes can get deterred, and Just keeping up with living expenses is hell.

Adding a 2nd mechanical maintenacnce isn't as bad as dealing with the flesh skin version.

wkat4242
0 replies
4h31m

If you consider night walks a risk you really don't live in a good area. I walk everywhere here in Barcelona day or night. Same in Amsterdam, Dublin etc.

jacobsenscott
0 replies
23h30m

Depends on where you live. In most of the US if you don't have a car you'll be spending hours a day on busses. You have no freedom - you are either sleeping or commuting or working. You can't sleep less, you can't work less. But you can commute fewer hours a day with a car.

Walkable/bikeable places exist in some cities, but are reserved for the rich.

As for the costs of owning a car - these are real, but the cost of not owning a car is much greater. As electric cars filter down to the used market cost of car ownership will also drop a fair amount.

amanaplanacanal
0 replies
1d

Yes! At least a third of the population can’t drive, because too young, too old, handicapped in some way, or too poor. And we have built an environment that requires driving. That’s pretty messed up.

ivan_gammel
7 replies
1d1h

But living in a place is not

I’m 40+ years old now and have never needed or wanted to have a driving license. I simply hated America when I had to visit and use taxi or someone else’s help to get anywhere. In Berlin even with a child the need of a car is so rare — sometimes it’s even more pleasant to walk an hour to a museum or a club than use public transportation.

alexawarrior3
4 replies
1d

And what's going to happen long term with exploding Berlin rents? The only affordable rents will be out in the suburbs of Berlin, where you'll either have to drive in or spend 2-3x the time on a probably crowded train possibly standing room only. As in the example of Switzerland above, mass transit is a luxury for those able to pay high rents. Previously in Berlin this was subsidized by the rest of Germany and by price controls but the right-wing courts have pretty much gutted Berlin's price protections in favor of billion-euro property developers.

I lived in Germany for years without driving as well, because I could afford to live by the city center. But over half my colleagues drove because that's all they could afford to do, and you should try stepping out of your bubble and understand the pressures that force Germans to drive. They're not all just wanting to spend more time in their Audis.

ivan_gammel
2 replies
23h31m

First, I’m not representing all Germans here, just sharing my own experience which is a good counter-example to “life without a car is impossible”. I’m of course not arguing that car is unnecessary for everyone.

Second, don’t tell me about my “bubble”: you have no idea who I am and what I have experienced in my life. I’m very well aware of many sides of it, maybe more than you are.

Third, do you seriously want to lecture a person who is both a landlord and a tenant in Berlin about local rent controls and price development? We do have some issues here, but it is nowhere close to neither London or NYC where prices are crazy nor Moscow where commuting can be truly exhausting.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
19h16m

I’m of course not arguing that car is unnecessary for everyone.

Sadly, many are. This topic often does turn into one of lifestyle judgement and it isn't very productive when arguments go from practical to personal. As if any one car-goer or bus-goer determines the fate of a city's urban planning.

ivan_gammel
0 replies
10h56m

Agree. Especially when you add bike-goers to the conversation it can get ugly very quickly. A parent with a stroller is the most neglected person in such talks.

I myself believe that personal cars are mobility edge cases and the world will settle on vendor-managed rental fleets eventually, where most people will occasionally use rental cars with autopilot.

Nevertheless this is not going to happen for the next 50-80 years, so we just need at least to stop promoting car-centric lifestyle and find a real compromise between cars, bikers and pedestrians.

watwut
0 replies
11h55m

In Switzerland, people in villages use trains to get to and from work. Quite literally, they bike to train, park bike, use train to go to work. Some ride car to train, ride train and then go to work.

It is just not true that mass transit is only for those who pay high rents. It is other way round pretty much all round world and historically - rich people were buying cars more and poor used public transport.

blobbers
1 replies
1d

That’s strange coming from someone whose country has the famous autobahn. What if you want to get out into the countryside, where busses and trains don’t go? Don’t you need a license to rent a vehicle?

ivan_gammel
0 replies
1d

What if you want to get out into the countryside, where busses and trains don’t go?

I don’t have any business in such countryside. What would I find there? A good beach on Baltic sea is 15 min walk door-to-water plus 2 hours on express train. The list of tourist attractions and vacation destinations accessible by train, plane and/or taxi within half a day or so is so big here that I cannot imagine going to such inaccessible place. Worst case I will pay a few hundred euro for taxi if such improbable situation occurs.

Moldoteck
6 replies
1d

The best public transport in us is usually worse that bad public transport in most of eu so no wonder you felt that way. Let me tell you a counter point: in Switzerland public transport and trains are so frequent and fast due to own lanes that you don't even need to check the schedule, you just go to the station which is usually nearby and wait at max 5 mins to get into something, usually a tram, for intercity between biggest cities trains are usually coming about each 15 mins. In this regard you are more independent than with a car- you don't care about fuel, about parking, about being focused all the time on the road, you just get in and get out. Even for buying tickets they have an app where you just check-uncheck it and it calculates the fare based on gps. also in many dense eu cities you'd probably have enough shops in sub 5 mins nearby so you can either walk there or go with a bike or take a taxi that would cost pennies for such a small distance - again, no worrying about traffic, fuel, parking and so on

supertrope
2 replies
1d

Swiss trains are even more punctual than Dutch ones!

wkat4242
0 replies
4h34m

Well that's pretty easy, Dutch trains are unreliable.

In fact all public transport there is pretty bad. Here in Barcelona the metros come every 3 minutes during the day on each line. In Amsterdam it's more like 15.

Moldoteck
0 replies
20h49m

Yeah and i think cheaper if you consider halbtax that swiss ppl get

secretsatan
0 replies
5h35m

It's true for city life in Switzerland.

I haven't owned a car for more than 15 years now. I have city year bus pass but I also frequently just walk to wherever I'm going, there's lots of paths and shortcuts for pedestrians, but if the weather is a bit rubbish, there's bus stop outside my flat that runs every 5-10 mins.

I'm a member of the mobility car share for the rare times hen I do need a car, usually to pick up or move something heavy, or take a bunch of stuff to the decheterie.

Maybe sometimes after a night on the town, I might grab a taxi home, but I do not miss having a car.

rangestransform
0 replies
12m

FWIW I found the critically acclaimed berlin ubahn to have significantly worse headways compared to most NYC subway lines, as well as not having air conditioning and becoming uncomfortably hot and humid

I used lime scooters considerably more than ubahn when I was in berlin

kjkjadksj
0 replies
2h27m

In the US the issue is the car is just too damn convenient. There are parts of LA where the busses or trains are every 10 mins or so and they interline, so you get a train or a bus every 5 mins or less. People still prefer the car because it can go everywhere on your schedule faster than a bus making stops along the way. Plus cars are much cheaper for Americans than they are for europeans.

lm28469
5 replies
1d1h

but I couldn't imagine having to take public transportation or having to walk everywhere

Well yes, the US transportation system is utter trash, even in California

but it also sounds terrible in the sense that you can't just get in your car, go some place, park in a parking lot, go shopping, and then head back home, all on your own terms.

In Europe I have three supermarkets in a 800m radius around my place, the closest shopping center/mall/whatever you call it is a 30min walk away (10min by public transport, 8min by bicycle). I can walk to the closest supermarket without even leaving the private ground of my block of buildings and its park, no street to cross, no cars in sight

I would want my own car to be in control of my life.

Are you working for these fine gentlemen ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_lobby

didntcheck
4 replies
1d

I'm European, spent the first 10 years of my independent adult life without a car, and have always lived in urban areas, within walking distance of supermarkets and other amenities, and with good public transport services. Yet I agree with him

When I finally did get a car, it was a massive QoL upgrade. I can go anywhere, at any time, usually considerably faster than PT, and carry an order of magnitude more than before. I didn't enjoy having to go to the supermarket multiple times a week, but I had to when I could only carry maybe 4 bags (fewer if heavy) in one trip. I still do use buses and trains where it makes sense, e.g. visiting other cities or the centre of mine

lm28469
1 replies
10h2m

Cool, too bad it isn't sustainable. If life was about doing everything you want whenever you want and carry a lot of useless junk around without having to worry about side effects we'd have won the game by now

didntcheck
0 replies
7h25m

And the goalposts move again. We were talking about the convenience, not the sustainability. If you want to argue that the inconvenience is a necessary price for environmental sustainability, sure, that's a valid position, but don't pretend that there's no convenience cost

It's interesting that I've been downvoted to -3 for factually detailing how cars are in fact useful. Shooting the messenger won't change the facts

breuleux
1 replies
2h52m

I didn't enjoy having to go to the supermarket multiple times a week, but I had to when I could only carry maybe 4 bags (fewer if heavy) in one trip.

I mean, if we're talking about convenience, I started ordering my groceries online during the pandemic and I'd argue that's an even bigger QoL upgrade. You can still go for produce (or not) and the occasional thing you need immediately, but getting stuff delivered to you is generally cheaper and more convenient than owning a car. The gratification is a bit less instant, but I value my time more than that.

As for cars being faster than public transit, sure, but making cars fast often have the side effect of making other modes of transit slower, and vice versa. Buses need reserved lanes to be reliable, bikes need reserved lanes to be safe, which means less cars can go. As a pedestrian, I would get to places significantly faster if I could just jaywalk wherever I please, but naturally this would require very low speed limits. Cars also require parking lots, which make walking less efficient. Cars are only convenient for their own drivers, they are inconvenient for everybody else (including other drivers).

didntcheck
0 replies
2h35m

Agreed on supermarket delivery. I've started using it now, and probably should have done so sooner

I also actually agree on prioritizing bus and cycle lanes over car lanes. Instead of being angry at them, which unfortunately many drivers are, I choose to appreciate them as intended - i.e. if I'm going into the town centre I usually go by bus. I'd also like to see more properly-separated bike lanes. I don't blame cyclists at all who choose to ignore the painted ones and take the lane as if they're a car

However the main reason why public transport is slower isn't usually due to traffic or physical constraints, but the longer routes you have to take. Usually the planners have done their job well, and the route is near-optimal in aggregate (and therefore often useful for myself if I'm commuting or visiting the centre), but if I want to visit a friend in another part of town, I've very often got to go in to the centre and change out again. Even if there's a direct route, it can be slow due to how many stops occur (off-board ticketing/proper BRT could help with that in major areas). If I'm visiting a business in a business park/industrial estate further out, it's often a taxi or nothing

The following doesn't change much, but just to nitpick:

As a pedestrian, I would get to places significantly faster if I could just jaywalk wherever I please, but naturally this would require very low speed limits

That's legal where I currently live (UK). Motorways are essentially the only place you're not allowed to just cross, though drivers aren't generally required to break the traffic to give you passage if you're not at a zebra crossing (or a junction, as of recent code changes). Speed limits definitely do vary based on the likelihood of pedestrians in the area, but I don't think changing the law would change much there. I mean, they'd have to fairly compensate by adding more crossings anyway, and IME those are more likely to slow down traffic due to their poorly-timed and long stops (even with sensor-assisted intelligence), whereas pedestrians making ad-hoc crossings are usually sensible enough to wait for a natural gap instead of forcing one (and those who don't would probably "jaywalk" anyway), essentially making their effect on flow near zero. Even if you do have to slow for a pedestrian, it usually is just a slight slow for under two seconds. Much quicker than a red light. Zebra crossings of course don't have lights, but you do have a hard requirement to stop as soon as a pedestrian presents themselves at the side, and remain stopped until they've completely left the road, resulting in similar interruptions rather than turn-taking in existing gaps

georgeecollins
1 replies
23h51m

No one is arguing that you would have to take public transportation or walk everywhere. They are just saying that it is good if where you live is walkable. I also live in Southern California and I would say that a lot of most expensive places to live are expensive because they are more walkable. You could live in downtown La Jolla or by the beach in Santa Monica and walk around. You could also own or rent a car and drive to Lake Tahoe. It's not either or.

kjkjadksj
0 replies
2h23m

East hollywood probably sees the some of the most foot traffic in southern california and rents are relatively affordable by LA county standards. Chances are the working class areas in sd are similar I imagine where you see a lot of people walking, biking, or taking the bus to get to work. Of course this isn’t “urbanism” in the way that upper class people consider it, but it exists.

mtalantikite
0 replies
1d

So, visiting a place is good for walking. But living in a place is not. At least that's my experience.

This is a common Internet meme -- the American tourist that goes to Europe and loves their experience of walking around nice, dense cities designed at a human scale and functioning public transit. Then they return to their life of highways and parking lots and strip malls, which, to me, is dystopia.

kmarc
0 replies
1d

That's so funny, because in my mind it's the complete opposite: I feel free because I don't have the burden of keeping a vehicle-object. However, where I leave is car unfriendly. People who always late are the two friends of mine who try to use their car

(Actually I tried both lives. I used to have a car in the past. Still prefer being car free)

kjkjadksj
0 replies
2h29m

You may not imagine how it works but plenty of people do ride transit in southern california. LA metro ridership is like 800k people a day. A lot of neighborhoods have a lot of foot traffic in LA county at least.

NorwegianDude
0 replies
10h2m

Having the option to walk doesn't mean that you can't drive. One can have both. Nice weather to walk in? Maybe I'll walk the 10 minutes to the shopping center. Raining a lot? Take the car.

cheeseomlit
28 replies
1d2h

Had a somewhat similar experience in Houston (minus police), which seems to be a city whose infrastructure is comprised of one 9000-lane monstrosity of a freeway. I was staying in a hotel right across the street from the office I was working in, maybe a 3 minute walk. A coworker offered to give me a ride each morning, and when I mentioned I could just walk they said 'the only pedestrians around here are homeless people'. So I guess that's their general attitude about walking, which might explain the attention from police.

Nicholas_C
18 replies
23h16m

When I lived in Houston I would bike to work occasionally but it’s not a pleasant thing to do 4-6 months out of the year. Even walking to the bus stop at 8am in the summer I would be sweating. People who harp on Houston for being designed around cars (notably the “Not Just Bikes” channel on YouTube) usually live somewhere like the Netherlands with moderate weather and never address just how uncomfortable it is to be outside in Houston half the year. It also rains heavily in Houston quite frequently (90 days of rain/year).

I would love more walkable infra but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to walk in Houston.

hammock
12 replies
21h2m

Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Montevideo, San Juan (PR) are all tropical cities hotter than Houston, roughly the same size, and are very walkable

mikrotikker
6 replies
15h6m

I can't even fathom how those people can survive the heat and humidity let alone walk in it.

filoleg
2 replies
14h51m

Agreed. No matter how good the biking infrastructure in major cities in Japan is (and apparently it was good enough for me to see someone biking at almost any given moment, so I assume it was pretty good), I cannot fathom how people did it. You open a door to the outside, and you feel like you got blasted with a human-sized heatgun. Just standing outside for more than a few minutes, and you pretty much gotta take a shower after. And no, I am not ultra-sensitive to it, as I managed to survive 90F summers in Seattle with no AC just fine before.

presentation
0 replies
4h47m

Don’t worry, Japanese people complain about it all summer. You’re not alone!

drekipus
1 replies
13h44m

Heat and humidity comes after the decision to not walk and turn everything into roads and parking lots

vel0city
0 replies
3h17m

I can guarantee you Houston was hot and humid well before cars existed.

GFischer
0 replies
4h31m

Humidity is the worst part, when it's hot but not so humid it's OK.

And at least here in Montevideo we're literally by the beach. I am two blocks away from being able to swim :)

I do complain a lot about the heat+humidity combination and I use A/C a lot.

Nicholas_C
2 replies
20h31m

I don't know the distinct history of those cities but Houston's population didn't hit 1 million until the 1960s, nearly all of its growth has taken place in a car-centric world. At least 3/4 four of those cities have been around for a long time pre-car and I suspect weren't designed with cars in mind.

nostrademons
0 replies
3h13m

More to the point, nearly all of that growth has taken place in an air-conditioned world. Urbanization of the U.S. South really only took off once the air-conditioner became mainstream.

Those other cities have a population that is adjusted to the heat - they grew up with it, their ancestors grew up with it, they're genetically and culturally adjusted to the climate. By contrast, the U.S. South includes a large number of immigrants who are only there because air conditioning exists. It's a mystery why anyone would want to walk around in 100 degree heat with 90% humidity, because they certainly wouldn't.

hammock
0 replies
20h6m

How about Miami, e.g Miami Beach and downtown Miami, both extremely walkable? Like Houston, Miami did not reach 1 million pop until the 60s.

Or Panama City, did not reach 1 mil until the 90s

And "designed with cars in mind" is part of the problem, is it not? Using that as a filter is like saying "there are no parking garages with good canoeing routes"

GFischer
1 replies
4h33m

I'm from Montevideo, I wouldn't call it "tropical" but yeah, compared to an US city it's absolutely a million times more walkable.

We do have humidity and heat and I don't enjoy it and I use A/C several months a year.

There's a big push for more cycling-centric and more cycling lanes, and the bus infrastructure is obviously a lot better than the US. I don't have a car by choice.

I haven't been to Houston but I have been to Dallas and it was an extremely frustrating experience and it feels like an awful soulless city to me.

Nicholas_C
0 replies
2h24m

Dallas’ big criticism from Texans (and especially Houstonians, there is a bit of a rivalry) is that it’s soulless… so you nailed it.

teetertater
3 replies
21h33m

A substantial contributor to that heat is asphalt and concrete though (absorbs heat and releases it at night). And to make it worse there's no tree cover. Winter is also more manageable if you don't have to wait 20 mins for a bus in an uncleared snowbank just because non-car mobility is second-class

Nicholas_C
1 replies
20h48m

True. Another issue with all the concrete is that it doesn't absorb rain and has made the constant flooding worse. Zero tree cover is also a shame, there are hundreds of miles of concrete bike and walking paths along the bayous that would be great for commuting but most of it has zero tree cover so you're just baking in the sun.

Kon-Peki
0 replies
4h43m

The older parts of Houston have massive oak trees that provide a lot of shade (and acorns the size of walnuts). But the older houses aren't large enough for modern Houstonians (roll your eyes here); when you tear it down to build a McMansion the trees also have to go.

The elementary school near my friend's house had a playground that was 100% shaded by just two massive trees. They tore the school down for a modern replacement. The new playground has no shade at all, not even those stretched fabric triangles you see all over the southern US.

vel0city
0 replies
3h22m

As someone who grew up playing in the bayous out in the suburbs of Houston, even away from the concrete the humidity and heat are oppressive in the summertime.

jodrellblank
0 replies
46m

NotJustBikes went to Houston, tried to walk from the hotel to a suitcase shop 1-2km away, and found it too dangerous, not too hot. He doesn't say "everyone in Houston should walk everywhere all the time" he says "Houston is designed so you can't safely walk even if the distance is short and you want to".

"I would love more walkable infra but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to walk in Houston."

But the relevant part is people who do want to, but can't.

hammock
7 replies
1d1h

I had a similar experience in Mexico City, except it wasn't a cop who stopped me, it was a friendly civilian driving by, and they asked if I was confused because they had observed two men stalking me from 3 blocks back for a while who were likely to jump me.

I don't think anyone stopping to genuinely help is a "bad" thing, or robs one of their dignity. If you do, maybe that is a comment on your internal worldview instead of on that of the person stopping.

Dense cities where passersby ignore you wantonly are decried as impersonal, lacking community, etc and now we are saying we WANT MORE of that? That it brings DIGNITY?

6177c40f
6 replies
1d

I don't understand what you're arguing. It seems like you're saying you'd rather have a city where cops and concerned citizens stop to ask if you're confused than a dense, walkable city? I also don't understand how you got that dense, walkable cities would be someplace "where passersby ignore you wantonly".

hammock
5 replies
19h35m

Cities used to be filled with tight knit communities in neighborhoods where everyone knew each other. Kids played outside and roamed around and no one cared.

Then mass suburbanization happened in the 60s/70s. American cities became high crime places. Everyone became anonymous. No one knew their neighbor.

Such is the paradox of modern urban life. Nowhere are you closer physically to your neighbor, but more distant socially. The 5 acre farms outside of town all know each other’s grandkids by name. Does a city dweller even know the name of the resident across the hall?

danans
2 replies
5h27m

Cities used to be filled with tight knit communities in neighborhoods where everyone knew each other. Kids played outside and roamed around and no one cared

There are many neighborhoods in cities and towns in the US where this is still true. I know because I live in one, and I've visited others. There are also a ton of US suburbs and exurbs where people barely know their neighbours.

Having a friendly neighborhood has much to do with the strength of community institutions and the existence of "third places". Those can be present (or not) in a variety of community layouts and densities.

My take is that it requires a sweet spot of economic security where people aren't struggling so much that they can't/don't trust in community, but also aren't so wealthy that they don't need/rely on their community. Beyond that, it also helps to have physical layouts that enable friendly unintentional encounters between residents.

The problem is that none of these places will be cheap to live in, because all else equal, the existence of that lifestyle will drive up demand (and therefore housing prices).

kjkjadksj
0 replies
2h36m

Thats the narrative thats popular but I find it doesn’t pencil out. I know plenty of neighbors living in an urban area. More than when I lived in a suburban area that’s for sure. You have much higher chance of coming about someone on foot in earshot in the urban area. When your neighbor takes out the trash in the suburbs they are doing it 100 yards away from you.

hammock
0 replies
1h21m

What city do you live in? Which cities are you thinking of?

shiroiushi
0 replies
14h0m

Cities used to be filled with tight knit communities in neighborhoods where everyone knew each other. Kids played outside and roamed around and no one cared. >Then mass suburbanization happened in the 60s/70s. American cities became high crime places. Everyone became anonymous. No one knew their neighbor.

Here in Tokyo, it's still like this: kids play outside and roam around, taking the subway by themselves, etc. But people don't know their neighbors here either, since it's a city with tens of millions of people; it's just safe because it's built into the culture, just like petty theft almost never happens here and when you drop your wallet, it's almost certain to be turned into the nearest police box, with all the cash still inside.

reaperman
0 replies
15h45m

Yeah it’s interesting. The kids in the upper peninsula know everyone else their age within a 150 mile radius by the time they graduate from high school (usually via sports). Many of them live on roads that share their last name. Very, extremely rural with small towns sprinkled around.

mikrotikker
0 replies
15h4m

Were they trying to stay that you will get stabbed by a homeless person but in a nicer way?

psunavy03
20 replies
1d3h

This is not uniquely an American thing. Go to the Middle East in summer.

inglor_cz
13 replies
1d3h

That is why cultures in such climates tend to have a mid-day siesta when no one goes out, and a lively late night when the temperatures become bearable, the sun no longer tries to murder you with its rays, and people go outside to eat, shop and meet friends.

TylerE
12 replies
1d

Nah, as someone who lives somewhere with actual humidity “mid day” is basically “whenever the sun is up”.

85 and humid here is worse than -00 and dry in Phoenix. It’s so humid your sweat can’t evaporate because the air is already saturated. It’s beyond miserable, and actively unhealthy to many.

inglor_cz
11 replies
1d

Yeah, hot and humid areas have never been particularly friendly to human civilization. Prior to the industrial era, they were mostly covered by rainforests.

TylerE
9 replies
1d

North Carolina is hardly rainforest, nor has it ever been.

randomdata
5 replies
23h32m

The map of US rainforests shows an active rainforest along the western side of North Carolina. It is not all that hard to believe said forest could have been much larger before the human touch.

TylerE
3 replies
22h6m

Western part of the state is farther from where I am than LA is from SF, just for the record.

randomdata
2 replies
14h7m

The easternly side of the forest to the easternmost points of NC is not further than LA from SF, though. Unless you live way out in the ocean, but still consider that to be North Carolina for some reason, you are closer than said distance to the forest.

TylerE
1 replies
1h2m

I do I. Fact live almost at the Coast. Just to get to Asheville, which is hardly the westernmost point in the state, is over 6 hours.

Los Angeles to SF is 381 miles. My town to the Cherokee, which is about where the rainforest zone starts, is 383. North Carolina is a much bigger state than most people realize.

randomdata
0 replies
59m

You do live out in the Ocean? Fair enough.

Nobody has ever thought North Carolina was small, though. Where did that idea come from? In fact, it is not clear why the record needed a distance in the first place.

ffgjgf1
0 replies
4h49m

It’s not a tropical rainforest though. Temperate/subtropical rainforests aren’t as bad.

TylerE
0 replies
18h54m

Very small parts. We just have lots of water and swampland down where I am.

inglor_cz
0 replies
23h56m

I don't know much about NC, but the only parrot native to the US used to live there [0], which indicates that it must have been pretty heavily forested prior to the Colombian exchange.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_parakeet

cafard
0 replies
3h38m

Sicily? Rome? Angkor Wat?

HPsquared
5 replies
1d3h

Portable wearable air conditioning and sun protection, that's what you'd need to make it comfortable. Maybe like a robotic exoskeleton, we can't be far from making that affordable.

pshc
1 replies
23h59m

Singapore has covered walkways everywhere to beat the heat.

Also I would love to see more covered bikeways.

HPsquared
0 replies
20h46m

Air conditioned suits could be a thing for E-bikes. Onboard power source.

jpadkins
1 replies
1d1h

we can also have wheels to make it energy efficient. We can call it "the mobile" or maybe the auto-mobile.

jodrellblank
0 replies
7h24m

Wheels might make it energy efficient but engines powered by oil from deep under the Gulf of Mexico shipped to refineries, then shipped hundreds of miles to gas stations, then people driving a ton or two of steel and plastic and rubber to the gas station so they can “efficiently” get one person 4 miles to a shop isn’t so efficient.

A bicycle on flat asphalt is more efficient than a person despite person+bike moving more total mass; but still the cost of mining iron ore, making steel, making a bike for every customer, compared to just building the store and the homes close enough to walk and not doing any of that…

Energy.gov says “In 2021, 52% of all trips, including all modes of transportation, were less than three miles, with 28% of trips less than one mile”, it’s daft either way that people want to use a car for such short distances or that urban spaces are designed so that things are relatively very close but juuuust too far for convenience.

0_____0
0 replies
1d3h

cars are just suburban power armor

ysofunny
18 replies
1d2h

if there was a dictionary of "american urbanism" they would define humans as having four wheels rather than two legs

they really do act like it whenever the USA plans a city or a neighborhood. why wouldn't everybody have a car? except we actually have plenty of reasons now that we didn't before

jncfhnb
11 replies
1d2h

You’re confusing yourself with suburbs. Most American cities are highly walkable. Safety is the limiting factor.

noodlesUK
8 replies
1d1h

Having cities arranged on grids with huge wide roads is generally a recipe for non-walkable environments. If you are having to wait ages for a light to change every time you go from one block to the next, you lose much of the efficiency of walking.

autoexec
7 replies
1d1h

Having cities arranged on grids with huge wide roads is generally a recipe for non-walkable environments.

There's no problem with grids or wide roads as long as there is infrastructure in place for pedestrians. Bridges can allow people to cross over wide streets/traffic without having to wait for a light for example. Tunnels can be an option as well. Grids can really help a city be more walkable since it becomes dead simple to navigate and you aren't wasting time on long winding roads or labyrinthine paths which increase the distance between two points and make it easier to get lost.

jodrellblank
5 replies
22h15m

There's no problem with grids or wide roads as long as there is infrastructure in place for pedestrians. Bridges can allow people to cross over wide streets/traffic without having to wait for a light for example.

Infrastructure for pedestrians would be you cross as soon as you get there, cars wait. Bridges are not pedestrian infrastructure they’re “cars are the priority” infrastructure, “cars mustn’t be delayed or inconvenienced, pedestrians can be” infrastructure.

watwut
0 replies
11h59m

If you are in hurry, you will avoid those. They add more time to your trip then one would guess intuitively.

What do work for pedestrians is a network of smaller roads that you can "just" cross safely without waiting or taking detours. Basically, a few big roads you cross once in a while and the rest being smaller roads where cars are forced to go slowly.

kettlecorn
0 replies
18h15m

Those add substantial crossing time and are quite costly.

None of the world's great walking cities heavily uses bridge crossings like that.

jodrellblank
0 replies
51m

It's inconvenient to climb a set of stairs every time cross a road. What about pushchairs, wheelchairs, the elderly, people with walking sticks, shopping trolleys, arthritis, gammy knees, people carrying heavy shopping or wheeled luggage? In general if you're going to slow down anyone then slow down drivers who have engines to accelerate them back up to speed with no effort. Making people climb stairs so drivers don't have to wait is not good pedestrian infrastructure, the view (of a road full of cars who have priority over you) is hardly a great trade off. Nor is paying the extra taxes for bridge maintenance so that car drivers can have a better life at your expense.

When you consider that drivers are generally wealthier (because they own cars) and the pedestrians are breathing car exhaust and tyre dust while working their lungs harder climbing to give cars the priority, listening to car noise while drivers pass in low effort comfort, the mild unfairness of it is more starkly contrasted.

Ideally good pedestrian design would tempt people out of their cars because walking is so quick, convenient, cheap, pleasant, interesting - with shade and shops and short distances and quiet clean surroundings. Big steel bridges don't contribute to that very much. [Have you seen how often Americans comment on the price of gas? Yet what people campaign for is the government to lower the price of gas, not for the government to make life without cars so pleasant that cars are not a necessity. What sense does that make? Most living Americans have never lived in a walkable place, and have no film, tv, or cultural reference for one to use for a basis for such a campaigh - maybe Disneyland (which visitors tend to love)? 120 years ago everywhere was walkable because there wasn't much other than walking. 70 years ago places were bulldozed for cars. Now multiple generations have grown up and lived their adult lives with car dependent urban design].

Moldoteck
0 replies
8h27m

" without slowing anyone down. " - but the very first image you provided will slow down pedestrians, it's harder to cross compared to a simple direct crosswalk and it's less friendly to ppl with mobility problems. Such bridges are relatively ok to implement outside cities where you have highways/roads with cars driving high speeds but these are bad solutions inside cities where the priority belongs to pedestrians and cars must drive slower

Moldoteck
0 replies
1d

Grids are better than culdesac but worse than randomness for a human brain so that it would be interesting to walk there. Wide roads aren't good for walkability in any sense: even if we ignore huge noise and pollution created by lots of cars, wide roads are more dangerous to cross and since it's wide you as a pedestrian need to walk more on non pedestrian infra to get to points of interest. Walkability isn't just about being able to walk

kettlecorn
0 replies
18h13m

"Highly walkable" means many people would choose to walk even if able to take a car.

To be walkable a city needs to be quick to walk between destinations and pleasant to do so.

Most US cities are too spaced out, require waiting at each block, or are not all that pleasant for walking.

Moldoteck
0 replies
1d

The fact safety is a limiting factor means those places don't have social control, meaning these are not places ppl tend to hang out in so probably not that walkable. P.s. walkable in this context doesn't mean it's just possible to walk, it means it's a nice experience to walk with nice environment/shops/othwr points of interest

philip1209
5 replies
1d1h

I own the domain AmericanUrbanism[.]org - I've been thinking of setting up some kind of advocacy group (501c4) or even political party there focused on changing this reality.

Cars made more sense in the industrial age, when people needed to commute to a factory for work. But, in the age of knowledge work and especially remote work, we aren't commuting as much. So, walkable neighborhoods become far more important and impactful.

weweweoo
4 replies
1d

I think there should be just many types of neighborhoods. Those who need a car for longer distance travel should accept living further away from city center, where there's enough space for parking slots, while the rest can enjoy pedestrian-first neighbourhoods closer to services. Public transport should of course reach all areas, so that the car owners have no real need to use their car much to reach the denser areas.

chiggsy
2 replies
15h16m

Those who need a car for longer distance travel should accept living further away from city center

Strongly feel this acceptance will be difficult to actualize sans coercion.

XMPPwocky
0 replies
12h19m

How so? We've built huge amounts of infrastructure (parking being the obvious one) to explicitly enable people to have cars in city centers- stop doing that and my gut (scientific, I know!) says that'll get you most of the way there.

NoGravitas
0 replies
6h18m

The least coercive way to do it is probably by making areas closer to the city center worse for driving — narrow roads, no parking, etc — and better for walking and biking. Then people will naturally sort themselves based on their preferences. The problem being that establishing the needed urban environment is itself a political struggle.

supertrope
12 replies
1d

97% of Americans' daily trips are done via automobile. Walking, biking, and bus riding tend to be associated with low socioeconomic status. There is heavy policing of low SES populations. In Kaplan, Louisiana it is explicitly illegal to walk at night. https://www.klfy.com/local/vermilion-parish/kaplan-starts-pe...

OJFord
4 replies
23h47m

Bus riding I can sort of understand, that tends to be the case everywhere outside of manor metros IME (and not without a certain amount of truth to it) - but to think of walking or cycling like that seems really sad, what a way to live, shielded from the natural environment, shuffling from one air conditioned box to the next.

zamadatix
3 replies
23h40m

I'm not going to blame anyone in Houston for wanting to move from one air conditioned box to the next :p.

OJFord
2 replies
21h43m

Sure but if you decide that's not a way you want to live then you also don't want to live somewhere where it's uncomfortable for you otherwise.

(And while I'm here 'manor' in GP was a typo for 'major', in case that's not clear to anyone.)

johnnyanmac
1 replies
19h20m

if you decide that's not a way you want to live then you also don't want to live somewhere where it's uncomfortable for you otherwise.

well, our living choices aren't necessarily choices these days. Nor comfortable. More like compromises for suvival. Already had more than a few friends priced out of California and needing to move out of the state in its entirety.

OJFord
0 replies
18h45m

Of course; it's for that reason that I said 'you don't want to live' rather than 'you don't live'.

georgeecollins
3 replies
23h57m

I am not a lawyer, but that does not seem like a law that could pass a constitutional test. You can say you have to be in a car to be on a freeway for safety reasons, but you can't ban people from being in a place because they are not in a car because you don't like the people who aren't in cars. From reading the article the intent seems to be that you suspect people who aren't in cars.

NoMoreNicksLeft
1 replies
23h31m

I am not a lawyer, but that does not seem like a law that could pass a constitutional test.

Nor am I, but a constitutional test used to cost about $250,000 or so over a decade ago (does inflation affect these things?). For someone who can't afford a car, that's a tough bill to eat.

qingcharles
0 replies
22h44m

As someone who has litigated a ton of constitutional challenges, you can definitely do it without representation if you want. I would think pretty much anyone on HN is educated enough to figure it out. (Attorney fees being your biggest cost; costs you'd have to swallow are deposition fees and filing fees if you're not indigent).

[Usually you can make two separate attacks on these kinds of constitutional cases since most states have their own constitutions that are practically identical to the federal one, so you can sue in both state and federal court separately if you want two tries at it -- this is good if you screw it up the first time and want to use the arguments the defendant fired at you in the first case to bolster your retry]

With representation though, I have a current case I finally settled today with the government and my legal counsel ran up a bill that was north of $500K for a very simple constitutional case. His firm swallowed it because it was part of their yearly pro bono requirements.

TomK32
0 replies
9h59m

Right, and you couldn't carry dozens of illegal weapons or 1000 pounds of cocaine by foot. It's car drivers that should be the suspects here.

qazxcvbnmlp
1 replies
20h30m

Walking / using public transportation is associated with low status when it is done for cost savings reasons. When it’s done for convenience it doesn’t convey much.

Using a bus in a ski resort is higher status than a car in a large city.

azemetre
0 replies
17h23m

Yeah I live in the Boston area. All the neighborhoods that have easy access to public transit or are walkable neighborhoods are very desirable and expensive.

eweise
0 replies
13h55m

That law sounds illegal.

mtalantikite
9 replies
1d2h

I had something similar happen to me in Miami about a decade ago. As a New Yorker I'm just used to walking and taking public transit everywhere. I was down there for some data center work I needed to do out of the NAP of the Americas, and one night I decided to go to see a friend of a friend DJ at some bar in downtown Miami. So I took the free Miami elevated train to a stop near the club (The Vagabond) and started walking over. I get a block into the walk and someone pulls up on a bike and is like "wtf are you doing? are you lost? you should not be walking right now, do you need help?". It was a totally fine walk, maybe 5 minutes at NYC walking speeds, if maybe a bit desolate. The guy proceeded to slowly ride next to me while I walked to make sure I was ok. Ended up buying him a beer in the club and chatting for a while, he just thought it was dangerous to be walking.

SoftTalker
8 replies
1d2h

Maybe it was a dangerous (i.e. high-crime) area? A lot of areas can look OK but are not someplace you want to be at night especially alone. And if you're from out of town you might not know.

ryandrake
5 replies
1d1h

Similar happened to me. I was at The Oaks Card Club on the border of Emeryville and West Oakland. I needed to get to BART, and it was just a few blocks on one street, so I thought I'd just walk. About half way down, a taxi driver actually pulled up without me hailing him and said "Man, what the fuck are you doing walking here? Get in and I'll drive you wherever you need to go!" It was either a great sales pitch or I was actually in danger and didn't know it.

LorenPechtel
2 replies
1d

My SF story: Chinatown, near the convention center. My wife wanted me to pick some stuff up while I was there. I had been there by day, seemed perfectly reasonable. I get done with the trade show, head over there near closing time to get what she wanted (perishable, so I left it to the last minute) and coming back I realized the character had changed considerably and it was a place I didn't want to be. I hadn't gotten a car because the hassles of parking made it a negative to me.

alexawarrior3
1 replies
1d

We solved that problem for you by closing everything at 9pm now, or earlier.

LorenPechtel
0 replies
2h0m

I think this was a bit before 7pm. It surprised me because I didn't expect the character to change that much while the stores were still open. The undesirable elements usually only show up once the legitimate people leave.

fred909
0 replies
19h48m

I only have one friend who's been mugged - and it was in Emeryville.

alephnerd
0 replies
1d1h

If you were walking to the West Oakland station, he's absolutely right.

You'd be crossing a couple highway on-ramps which aren't the most pedestrian friendly.

mtalantikite
1 replies
1d

Yeah, that's what he was saying. I mean it didn't look the safest, but that's never something that has bothered me. A large part of my 20s were spent being places I probably shouldn't have been all around Brooklyn in the early 2000s. As soon as I got on the Miami metromover and noticed I was the only one not strung out I knew what I was getting myself into. The palm trees were maybe throwing me off -- as a New Yorker palm trees meant vacation.

rangestransform
0 replies
14m

I dunno about metromover but I took metrorail in miami every day during ultra music festival and the clientele seemed about on par with the clientele on the nyc subway

julienchastang
3 replies
1d2h

Strange. I have been to Austin a number of times for work and I find the city to be very walkable. I also enjoy the riverfront parks and pay a visit to SRV (may he rest in peace). I stay in downtown or at UT so I don't really know what it is like beyond there. I've also used their b-cycle system with great success. In addition, I remember their public transport system to be decent for an American city. That's how I get to the airport for something like $1 from downtown.

tialaramex
0 replies
1d2h

I was in Austin for work in the 1990s and there was a mall, which I could see from my hotel so I figured I'll just walk to the mall. Nope.

I think either an older colleague (I was not old enough to rent a car, this is a long time ago) ferried me across or maybe the hotel took pity and sent me in their minibus ? There was no practical way to walk that short distance, the infrastructure is designed only for cars.

I mainly remember that mall because I found a (possibly mislabelled) copy of the version of Tori Amos' "Under The Pink" which is actually 2CDs, so "More Pink" is inside the case too but it was the same price as the regular album, and that was an amazing bargain for teenage me. But yeah, it was staggering to me that these Americans just expected to drive everywhere. I have grown up in an English village where I walked everywhere, to school, to the shops. to a friend's house, everywhere. I guess I was old enough to realise that most English villages aren't also served by the London Underground, but the choice to build only car infrastructure seemed very strange indeed.

shermozle
0 replies
12h46m

The hire bikes are great but if you don't have a North American phone number you can't sign up in their app! (I relied on a friendly stranger who offered her phone number for the confirmation code.)

Great city to ride around! Surprisingly good facilities.

maerF0x0
0 replies
21h52m

There are places in Austin where you can go for pleasure/scenic walks. (eg think the green belts). But it's hard to use walking for utility in Austin. Not to mention socially you'll consistently be invited to places >5 miles away and the presumption is you have a car and you'll all drive separate.

UncleOxidant
3 replies
1d1h

An old roommate moved from the Bay Area to Dallas years ago and on a nice day in the park he decided to lay down on the grass, as he would normally do in the Bay Area. Pretty soon cops arrived.

alexawarrior3
1 replies
1d

They're just trying to save your from the fire ants.

ted_dunning
0 replies
21h39m

and the chiggers.

hackeraccount
0 replies
18h41m

"normally do in the Bay Area" i.e. he was naked as the day he was born. Yeah, that's not gonna fly in Texas.

mikrotikker
2 replies
15h2m

I heard the same from a Scot who visited Texas and decided to go for a 45 minute stroll to his destination. In summer. He regretted it 15mins in and luckily a local stopped and gave him a ride, saying that he could die in this heat (not sure if that was a joke)

wkat4242
0 replies
4h29m

For a Scot it would be a bit of an extreme change. For a Spaniard it wouldn't.

It's important to pace and hydrate oneself and people from hot climates know that because they deal with it all the time.

extraduder_ire
0 replies
7h53m

Probably not a joke. Heatstroke is very real. Many underestimate hot weather and don't drink nearly enough water.

maerF0x0
2 replies
21h54m

People living in Austin will drive > 10 miles to go for a 3 mile run.

cafard
1 replies
3h2m

I have known people in Washington, DC, who lived with a quarter mile of a hiker/biker path in Rock Creek Park, and would drive ~7 miles to Fletcher's Boathouse (or 10 to Carderock) to run on the C&O Canal towpath.

I confess that I have been one of those people (I didn't live quite there)--but when meeting with friends for a run. My preference was always to lace on the sneakers, walk to the end of the block, and run.

maerF0x0
0 replies
2h44m

I guess my own biases excuse the idea of driving a good distance for a hike or trail run that are "one offs" (though in aggregate are regular), but the idea of going for a weekly (or multiple times a week) social run seems to be wasteful. In terms of the atmosphere they're equivalent.

fudged71
2 replies
1d1h

It's pretty wild. I'm in a very car-centric city in Canada, and there have been days where I drive across the city and not seen a single pedestrian (across multiple types of areas). Usually in the winter, but still a very weird thing to not see people in a city.

blobbers
1 replies
1d1h

What city?

fudged71
0 replies
20h48m

Calgary

mdnahas
1 replies
5h45m

I’m a transportation activist in Austin. Where did this happen?

kmarc
0 replies
5h22m

I think it was around Waterloo park and capitol; I was on my way to the Texas State History Museum.

I looked around now on Google Street View, but can't recognize the slight hill I was walking on (it happened around 10y ago). Funnily enough, also street view shows streets with no pedestrians anywhere :-)

i_am_proteus
1 replies
1d3h

How close were you to downtown Austin? Were you walking on the side of a freeway?

Except for the very hottest of summer days, I see a lot of pedestrians in downtown Austin.

giaour
0 replies
1d

Except for the very hottest of summer days, I see a lot of pedestrians in downtown Austin.

I don't know if this is true of Austin, but trying to convince people to get off the street in the afternoon can be part of the city's heat management plan in some parts of Texas.

PsylentKnight
1 replies
1d1h

FWIW, I live near downtown Austin, haven't owned a car in over a year, walk/bus everywhere, and have never been questioned by police. I typically see quite a few pedestrians out. As far as Texan cities go it's the most walkable, though it's still not very good.

coyotespike
0 replies
17h3m

Yes, I've lived here 17 years and see pedestrians most places I go - although to be fair there are many roads where pedestrians don't go (say, the service road alongside 71). Perhaps OP was in such a place.

I also did not own a car for years, commuting only by bicycle, and never had a problem.

Indeed, Austin's core is only about 5 square miles (the entirety of the East Side to the Greenbelt, Hyde Park down to far South Congress, say). Fairly compact.

It is no New York or London but it is walkable and bikeable.

wkat4242
0 replies
5h37m

Yeah this is so weird for us. I'm so glad i didn't need to own a car in the last 7 years and I haven't even driven any car in the last 6.

It's perfect that way. I hate driving.

I wouldn't let the cops bully me into taking an Uber though. Afaik it's still legal to walk in the US?

splwjs
0 replies
1h8m

What month was it? Because if it's summer in austin and you're standing around downtown then you probably are struggling in one way or another.

Also downtown austin is disgusting; maybe they were just stunned someone would be there on purpose before the sun goes down.

Hope you enjoyed the museum/trip though

imd
0 replies
1h22m

Almost this exact situation happened to author Ray Bradbury in Los Angeles, where he lived without a car. He wrote several short stories memorializing the incident, including a scene in Fahrenheit 451.

AtlasBarfed
0 replies
6h10m

Texas is ground zero for the car centric mass psychology.

South Florida and the north suburbs of Detroit are #2 and #3 in my direct experience.

The south is very well suited to the e-bike. It will probably take the total die off of the boomers before anything really changed though

noodlesUK
103 replies
1d1h

I think one of the key points that is often not understood widely is that car-centric infrastructure causes things to be spaced so much farther apart (with unpleasant empty tarmac) than necessary. If every building is surrounded by a border of 15 meters of roads, that significantly expands the distances that a person needs to travel to get anywhere. This further prioritises cars and drives demand and cultural norms.

I don't think we should be trying to get away from cars altogether by any means, but I think we should seriously consider banning them almost entirely from city centres. There's still a need for emergency vehicles and goods to be transported within the city, so we would still need some roads, but we could eliminate a considerable number of lanes.

kettlecorn
38 replies
1d

I have a very loose mental framework for thinking about cars that I think is helpful:

If you look at space taken up length-wise in a lane the length of the average car in the US is 14.7 ft. For a person standing on a sidewalk the average person's foot size is ~10 inches. Let's hand wave the math and say cars are 10x longer.

Very loosely our built environment scales 10x to match that new scale. Roads need to be 10x bigger, parking lots take up even more space.

The ultimate result is not that there are far more unique destinations available to the average person, but that they are further away, bigger, and costs are far higher.

Before car usage approached 100% it would have been a tremendous gain to be one of the early car owners. The environment would have been built for a smaller scale and you would have been able to traverse it rapidly. For day to day life in well-populated areas that advantage has substantially eroded.

It's a clear example of the tragedy of the commons.

alexawarrior3
20 replies
1d

"Before car usage approached 100% it would have been a tremendous gain to be one of the early car owners. The environment would have been built for a smaller scale and you would have been able to traverse it rapidly. For day to day life in well-populated areas that advantage has substantially eroded."

Actually, no. The early car owners had it terrible, not only were they expensive and broke down often, the roads were often little more than mud-drenched dirt tracks, with impassable bridges and cities choked with animal and pedestrian traffic. No stoplights or traffic laws, extreme chaos and very slow going. You can read some of the early coast-to-coast stories for how challenging it was.

The excellent vehicular infrastructure we have in the USA today is due precisely to the car usage being 80%+. With the mass adoption came freeways, stoplights, graded roads, drainage, bridges, all of it.

kettlecorn
16 replies
22h28m

The problem with your argument is why would people buy cars if they were so terrible? While the infrastructure was obviously worse than today clearly they afforded tremendous advantages which motivated their adoption!

In the early days that advantage was the ability to rapidly traverse relatively developed areas with more convenience. Over time infrastructure and adoption chased each other, but now the most populated parts of the US are developed to the point that there's little way to ease congestion with more road infrastructure. The only way to grow is to sprawl into new cities.

For a long time in population centers the pattern was new car infra. -> more driving convenience -> more cars -> repeat. In cities that's running into bottlenecks.

Today people primarily buy cars out of necessity, but in areas where most people live congestion and a more sprawling environment has diminished much of the time saving advantage.

AnimalMuppet
15 replies
22h9m

It was terrible. People bought cars anyway because it was still better than walking.

In 1919, the US Army ran a truck convoy from Washington DC to San Francisco. It took them 56 (!) travel days, driving 10 1/4 hours per day. The roads were lousy in 1919. But even then, it was better than a mule train.

kettlecorn
12 replies
21h25m

People bought into cars early because they could get around quickly to more destinations, not because walking was uniquely awful.

In Philadelphia's paper in the early 1900s there was a daily column about "pleasure drive" routes and constant advertisements appealing to new drivers with destinations near the city.

That advantage of being able to "get out of the city" is still there, but it's further and further away. For day to day life the experience of walking / transit / biking in a pre-car US city or a modern US city is somewhat comparable in terms of time and enjoyment.

However US cities and suburbs, due to car-centric scale, allow more people to live on larger plots of land.

AnimalMuppet
11 replies
20h27m

Walking was uniquely awful in many situations as soon as the alternative of cars were available. Peoples' options were "get a car", "suffer what you now realize is awful", or "don't do those things". Unsurprisingly, many people chose the first option.

You think they - we - chose wrong. To put it charitably, we who disagree with you do not feel the need of your opinion on what we should want and should choose.

If you have a better way, show us the better way, and make us want it. Don't tell us the advantages we experience from having cars don't exist. We live them. Don't tell us the parts we enjoy don't exist. We experience them. Don't lecture us, entice us with something we perceive as more valuable.

rglullis
7 replies
19h30m

Cars were better than horses, not walking, and you conveniently forgot the "use the streetcar/bus" option. Why is that?

I lived in the suburbs from West Mass, I lived in downtown Boston, I lived in Manhattan. Guess where I was the most miserable?

Don't tell us the advantages we experience from having cars don't exist.

The point is less about "cars vs no cars", but car-centric suburbia development vs higher density urban planning. Do you live in the suburbs? Have you ever considered how much your lifestyle is subsidized by those who live downtown? Would you be willing to keep your car if it meant having to pay for all its externalities and extra infrastructure costs?

entice us with something we perceive as more valuable.

Ask anyone in Amsterdam (which was in the 70s on its way to become as car centric as most North American cities) if they would like to go back to their ways.

throwaway22032
6 replies
19h10m

Would you be willing to keep your car if it meant having to pay for all its externalities and extra infrastructure costs?

This is such a weird line of inquiry.

Yes! It is the largest single QoL improvement I have after my house.

Almost everyone who can afford it buys a car as soon as they can. Yes, even in the UK, even in Europe. It is such a huge boon.

If cars were made more expensive I would sooner work harder to keep the car than give it up.

I don't know what sort of answer you're expecting? Why would I possibly not want a car? The only reason I can think of is if it became so expensive that just paying a personal driver was cheaper.

rglullis
5 replies
18h45m

First, kind of weird of you to associate the idea of having no car to losing your penis. I'd joke about it, but I learned to avoid making jokes about potential psychological issues.

Second, I don't think you are aware of how much of cities' financial troubles in North America are related to the budget imbalance between suburbs and downtowns.

Third, I'm talking about all the externalities. It's not just gas or street parking. It's also the cost of all those parking lots doing nothing productive. It's the health cost of having an overweight and sedentary population who can't even walk to get groceries. It's the cost of increased air pollution that brings hundreds of thousands of people to the hospital with respiratory issues. It's the cost to a city's economy that wastes a sizeable portion of its GDP to car traffic. Car owners pay only a tiny fraction of that.

throwaway22032
4 replies
18h43m

It's not weird at all. Both vastly improve my quality of life. I could get by without either, but I'd rather not. I'll edit it out of my reply since you seem averse to analogy.

Cars are everywhere. American choices to have huge multi lane streets everywhere and parking lots the size of cities are optional.

It's a false dichotomy. Across Europe we have cars, even in London, a public transport mecca with tiny roads, >50% of households have cars.

They are great. Properly super useful. I think that people who deny that utility are ideological zealots to be honest.

rglullis
2 replies
18h30m

No one is denying the utility of cars. The argument is against (a) car dependency and (b) the fact that its total cost is not fully born by their owners.

Also, you can re-read my original comment. Notice the "the point is less about cars vs no cars, but car-centric suburbia development vs higher density urban planning" part, and please realize that talking about London has nothing to do with the original point.

throwaway22032
1 replies
18h27m

Sure.

I simply gave my 2c on your question.

Would you be willing to keep your car if it meant having to pay for all its externalities and extra infrastructure costs?

Yes. I would. And honestly there really isn't much in it. In the US, basically everyone drives. In the UK, pretty much everyone who pays taxes drives.

At least in my situation, I think that if the costs were moved from general taxation to directly falling on car owners, I'd end up net positive!

rglullis
0 replies
18h17m

Holy shit, talk about reading things out of context.

You, dear sir, have absolutely nothing in common with the average North American who lives in the suburbs. The question was not directed at you.

If you want to at least try to understand the context before jumping to give your opinion and share with us your psycho issues, try watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVUeqxXwCA0

breuleux
0 replies
1h52m

Your car improves your quality of life. Every other car reduces your quality of life by a small delta: they reduce walkability and bikability, they are deadly, they cause traffic and slow down public transit, they reduce visibility, they are noisy, smelly and hot, they occupy space that is ugly, radiates heat and could be used for other purposes, and so on.

Let me put it this way: if I decide to walk to a restaurant, I would get there faster if there were no cars, and I would enjoy the terrace more if it wasn't for their noise or the ugliness of the parking lot. You can have your convenience, or I can have mine, but it isn't really possible to have both, at least not to the fullest extent.

And that's the problem we have to come to grips with: all the cars you don't drive make your life less pleasant. What is the balance? If the balance is that global quality of life is optimal when 10% of the population of a city has cars, who gets to be in that 10%?

kettlecorn
2 replies
18h30m

I am making the case that the advantages once enjoyed by cars have been substantially reduced, for day to day life where most people live, as most people need a car.

The irony of your argument is that very few people who want more car-light or car-free cities are "forcing" anything on anyone, but the inverse is absolutely not the case.

A tremendous amount of taxes are allocated only for highways or car-centric revenue. Federal and state politics prevents cities from putting that money elsewhere. Highways were plowed through US cities and are maintained there over the objection of city residents. States intervene to prevent cities from running bus priority lanes. Cars purchases are subsidized where bikes and transit passes are not. Federal road standards, which are applied in cities, are designed for cars and not pedestrians / bikes.

A prominent example is NYC being forced by NY State to cancel congestion pricing.

The list of ways car-centric decision making is forced on dense cities is very long. Very few people are trying to "ban cars" but are instead trying to let cities too dense for cars guide their fate.

kjkjadksj
1 replies
2h17m

The biggest advantage for cars is that they lack any fixed schedule, route, or stops.

mlavrent
0 replies
24m

Other common modes of transport that lack fixed schedule, route, or stops: - biking - micromobility (scooter-share, etc.) - walking - dial-a-ride transit options

ndileas
0 replies
13m

On first read, I was wondering why on earth did they not use a train? I looked it up and found this from a primary source:

The principal objectives of the expedition were to servicetest the special-purpose vehicles developed for use in the first World War, not all gf which were available in time for §uch U§e; and to determine by actual experience the possibility and the problems involved in moving an army across the continent, assuming that railroad facilities, bridges, tunnels, etc. had been damaged or destroyed by agents of an Asiatic enemy.

which makes a lot of sense. great reading: https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/resear...

Kon-Peki
0 replies
4h16m

In 1919, the US Army ran a truck convoy from Washington DC to San Francisco. It took them 56 (!) travel days, driving 10 1/4 hours per day.

They used the Lincoln Highway, which wasn't fully paved until the 1930s. In 1919, it was a (bad) dirt road except in cities. In 1919 there was an awful lot of space between cities, especially once you got west of Chicago (that not too far from the truth today, except you might say Omaha instead of Chicago). You can't really compare the convoy experience to walking-vs-driving in cities :)

ajb
0 replies
19h51m

I always found it amusing how, in Bertha Benz's first trip in the prototype car, she had to go to a pharmacy for petrol.

acchow
0 replies
46m

The implication is that car ownership rose slowly from 0% to 80% despite the experience being terrible.

How can this be true?

Gravityloss
0 replies
2h0m

Many early cars were large terrifying beasts. Huge wheels, engines and very noisy. Extremely expensive too. I totally understand with mud roads and low power densities of the time that is a logical design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mL4jA59ibU

pandaman
11 replies
21h41m

Before the very first car has been made people in the West and Asia had been using horse-drawn carriages for centuries and built cities to accommodate those. If your logic is sound then adoption of cars has shrunk the cities as a horse-drawn carriage had been longer than a motor-driven car.

kettlecorn
9 replies
21h33m

Horse-drawn carriages were typically used for moving goods or for shared transit, not for most individuals in single horse drawn carriages going to all sorts of day-to-day trips.

The point is that the default mode of transportation requires vastly more space than it used to.

pandaman
8 replies
21h2m

How does it matter how they were used? It's not like they shrunk when used for "noble" causes from your PoV and required narrower roads (and from my reading of classics, horse-drawn carriages were used by city dwellers for individual transportation just like cars nowadays).

kettlecorn
7 replies
20h42m

It matters because there are far fewer delivery of goods than people getting around for day to day trips.

If you look at the average amount of space taken up by a person traveling around if they walk, or take transit, for most trips then they'll on average take significantly less space than using a car.

pandaman
6 replies
20h30m

And a car takes significantly less space than a carriage with a horse so I don't see what are you trying to say here. You compared length of a car to the length of a foot and made far reaching conclusions but when offered to compare a horse carriage with a car and make the same conclusions you seem to compare cars and feet again.

kettlecorn
5 replies
18h37m

My point is about the average space taken up on a trip.

In the far past some trips were taken via horse + carriage but tons more were taken via walking and transit. Our built world has scaled to account for that increase in space used on trips.

pandaman
4 replies
18h2m

I am sorry, you are still making little sense. The space taken by a car is the same no matter how many people walk, crawl or stay at home and don't go anywhere. It's more than a man but less than a horse carriage. And since you still refuse to compare the space taken by the horse carriage to the space take by a car, I figure you understand now that your logic is not sound, which is good enough result of this thread.

kettlecorn
3 replies
17h33m

A horse carriage takes up similar space to a car, yes.

But if 80% of day-to-day trips are walked and 20% are horse-carriages that's much more efficient in terms of space than a world where 80% of trips are via car and 20% are walked.

That additional space manifests in more wider roads to reduce bottlenecks and more large parking lots to store cars at different destinations.

I've phrased this multiple different ways. The concept isn't complex: a car (or horse carriage!) is much bigger than a person walking so if we design a world that encourages more travel via car (or horse carriage!) that world will be less spatially efficient.

But, as I've pointed out repeatedly, in the past far more people walked to take trips than take a horse carriage.

pandaman
2 replies
14h49m

that's much more efficient in terms of space than a world where 80% of trips are via car and 20% are walked.

I feel like you are trying to say that it will require less space? Like roads can be made narrower or shorter? Why though? The road width is defined by the vehicle size and the number of lanes, and you don't want to cut the number of lanes below 1 but realistically you want 2 so a broken vehicle won't block traffic for everyone. And there are already not many 3 lanes in each direction roads so you are not saving much. Also most 3+ lanes roads I see are arterials and interstates, people driving those routes usually cannot walk them physically as they are tens if not hundreds of miles.

kettlecorn
0 replies
4h6m

I'm talking about parking lots and roads.

If every destination needs parking for nearly its peak capacity then that creates substantial sprawl.

Similarly if an area gets a high volume of peak car traffic then over time it will tend to get more arterials and interstates connected to it.

As sprawl and road networks increase it becomes more difficult to get around without a car, incentivizing more cars, which requires more large parking lots / roads.

TheCoelacanth
0 replies
4h36m

In the low traffic volume world of carriages, one lane in each direction is ample or even excessive for most roads. Many pre-car roads aren't wide enough to even accommodate one carriage in each direction at the same time.

lmm
0 replies
20h43m

Carriages were extremely rare and cities were not built to accommodate them until the rise of the coach in the 16th century.

Carriages are not much longer than cars, and they're significantly narrower and articulated in the middle. The simplistic model of "length" breaks down when you want to compare two things of similar size, but it's good enough when we're comparing two things where one is 10x the size of the other.

If you visit old cities in Europe and the Middle East you'll definitely see a difference in size and layout between cities that were built for horses (not even necessarily for carriages, just pack-horses) and cities that weren't. And then you'll see another big shift if you go to e.g. South Africa where all the cities were built in the post-coach era.

throwaway22032
1 replies
19h59m

This isn't really true outside of some very tarmaccy American cities.

I live in London, UK. I can use my car to get to places, it just costs more, through congestion charges, parking, and time.

The car hugely, hugely increases my exploration radius vs. walking and public transport.

There is also a value in things being bigger. I remember going to a random grungy arcade bar in LA that had fifty pinball machines. We don't have the space for that, at least, not unless it's an Experience(tm) with a corporate backer .

kettlecorn
0 replies
18h25m

Those very "tarmaccy" US cities are what you get when you "stretch" cities to accommodate the scale of cars.

Other US cities are gradually moving towards that design by adding incrementally more parking and highways, but it's a slow process.

I have no opposition to cars, but designing cities where nearly all trips require a car is an extreme that most people in the US live in. If you own a car you use here and there that's absolutely fine, but if there's nowhere for someone to live where they can comfortably get by without a car that's a bad place to be.

And as I argued in my initial point when everyone needs to drive the congestion and distance between things substantially reduces the advantage of driving in the first place.

AnimalMuppet
1 replies
22h16m

I don't think your logic works. Cars are 10x longer, but (for example) my house is not 10x longer in all 3 dimensions.

The streets in downtown Salt Lake City were famously designed to be able to turn a horse-drawn wagon around. That width turned out to be pretty good for cars when they came - no additional scaling needed.

kettlecorn
0 replies
21h30m

Salt Lake City has a huge volume of parking lots, highways, and many roads.

While individual streets may not have scaled up there were other parts of the built environment that did to accommodate cars.

ajuc
0 replies
1d

It's even worse if you don't limit the velocity to sth like 30km/h - because then you need more space for turning and acceleration/breaking; and also noise increases with speed - which tends to make people put their houses further away from the streets - which makes everything even less dense, which requires people to speed up and use cars more.

So in practice it's worse than 10x.

konschubert
9 replies
1d

What I absolutely don't understand: Why are there no parking garages, why only surface parking lots? Isn't that prime real estate?

Why is there no incentive to stack the cars can stack in 10 layers on one lot instead of taking up 10 lots with surface parking?

rd
6 replies
1d

Can’t say for certain but intuitive guess is it’s dirt (literally dirt in some cases) cheap to do a ground level parking slot?

Slap some paint on the ground, put up a booth and a sign, and you’re good?

Whereas an elevated garage is probably a years-long project?

I also think most of these parking lots are probably owned by small time chumps, not consolidated mega parking companies.

konschubert
4 replies
1d

How come no investors are buying that real estate and building skyscrapers or parking garages?

Is there really no demand for new downtown developments?

throwway120385
3 replies
1d

They've already done so. They're just waiting for the economics to make sense before they convert the land. The parking lot is just how they're paying taxes and the mortgage on the land.

konschubert
2 replies
23h26m

Land Value Tax would fix this.

But even without, it’s crazy that you can afford the mortgage with the parking fees.

vel0city
0 replies
20h33m

Say you've got a lot with like 420 spaces a few blocks away from Minute Maid Field in Houston. You charge $25 for parking during the event and you're guaranteed to fill it up every game. 81 home baseball games a season. That's $850k in revenue a year, practically guaranteed, and just for the baseball games. How many other events will they host there?

Let's say on an average workday your lot is like 60% full. You charge like $8/day for normal workdays or something. 252 spaces * 8/day ~$10k/wk. Lets say 50 of these normal weeks in a year, that's $504k in parking for the normal workdays.

Normal workday and baseball games gives you ~$1.35M in revenue for something you need to repave every decade and paint every couple of years.

AlchemistCamp
0 replies
23h9m

I'm definitely on board with a land-value tax. It would be a significant boon to productivity, economic mobility and even growth.

throwway120385
0 replies
1d

Yeah people I know in the parking industry have a saying that if you want to print money build a parking lot or garage. They're stupidly easy and result in tons of recurring revenue if they're in a good location. Even the little lots can produce thousands per month of revenue.

vel0city
0 replies
20h41m

Why are there no parking garages

As someone who lived in Houston for a long time, there are lots of parking garages.

https://downtownhouston.org/navigate/parking/garages

But there are still lots of incentives to have a surface level parking lot. $$ per spot, it is stupid cheap for a surface lot in construction costs. Why pay $25 to park in a garage for the day when the surface lot around the corner costs $5?

stonogo
0 replies
1d

This is why: https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/docs_pdfs/par...

Developers effectively can't 'outsource' parking. If you want to build anything, you get to build parking. For a long time, building a parking garage cost more than just buying a bigger plot to develop. Now that's not the case, but the rules haven't changed, so it would take a developer with deep pockets to build a parking garage, and it would have to be associated with a massive development project.

AlchemistCamp
2 replies
23h11m

Given that Apple is the most successful company in the world perhaps it's not a waste and there's something in your model that doesn't capture reality.

Along a similar vein, I'd be interested in the correlation between car use and economic growth is between similarly developed territories is. I know that the US and EU were roughly equal in economic size when I was in school and now it's more like a 3:2 ratio. China has also aggressively adopted cars over the past 3 decades while passing many other countries in per capita GDP.

jessekv
1 replies
20h45m

What portion of the GDP does the vehicle manufacturing industry account for?

AlchemistCamp
0 replies
6h35m

A relatively low portion in the US the past 25 years and almost none in China until this decade.

btgeekboy
0 replies
23h53m

Another way to think about it is cars allow people who live further from the campus along routes not served by transit (either at all or in a timely and convenient manner) to still work for the company. A multi-story parking structure would also have reduced the amount of surface area dedicated to vehicles.

8organicbits
14 replies
1d1h

Another thing I've noticed is that people drive even when there are nearby options. I live in a suburb of DC, right where a residential area meets a commercial area. There is a large Korean grocery store less than a block away, fully accessible by shaded sidewalks. My neighbors always drive 10-20 minutes to different stores. I go to the nearby one because it has cheaper and fresher produce, although I still make bulk purchases by car.

nkrisc
12 replies
1d

I mean, I sort of get it. There was a time when I stopped driving to the grocery store all together but it was only because there was a great independent grocer right on my walk home from public transit. The fact that I couldn’t really make big bulk purchases didn’t matter because I could just stop in each evening on my way home to get what we needed, and I wasn’t even going out of my way to do so. It was fantastic, I loved it. Maybe once a month we drove somewhere to get anything we needed that they didn’t carry, or for a big pantry restock.

If I had a grocery store I could walk to now, I don’t know that I would because it would be an extra trip all on its own. So unless I’m making that walk each day on principle, it’s inconvenient and I don’t know I would.

And yes, that is absolutely because of the car-centric suburb I now live in. When circumstances allow it, I look forward to moving back to some walkable, urban neighborhood again.

NoMoreNicksLeft
8 replies
23h37m

The fact that I couldn’t really make big bulk purchases didn’t matter because I could just stop in each evening on my way home to get what

Once someone's gone full r/fuckcars it's sort of difficult to talk sense to them, but have you maybe considered that some people don't want to make the tradeoff of free-time-for-transportation-storage-capacity? Like, for another 2 hours time per week, I'd be willing to buy an SUV so large that statistically 3 kindergarteners would die of smog-related early deaths, with a curb weight of 1.9 million pounds.

Symbiote
7 replies
23h22m

Supermarkets in dense cities with most people walking tend to be much smaller (no clothes etc) so it's easy to go round in a few minutes — less if you know exactly what you want.

NoMoreNicksLeft
3 replies
20h44m

so it's easy to go round in a few minutes

x7 days a week. But it's not just the time in the store, it's also whatever detour there is to get to it. At walking speed. Whatever the wait time is at checkout.

less if you know exactly what you want.

So now, I also increase my mental load because I need to know what I'm cooking tonight an hour or even two hours before I do so? I have to have my meal planned out hours in advance.

And if there is another pandemic like event, I'm also constrained to the one day's supply of food that I have in my house at any given moment (maybe less than that, realistically). And it's still a fucking pain if I'm anything other than single. There was a point in my life not so many years ago, when we were going through about 4 gallons of milk per week. Hell, some of the things that we like to eat, that we should be eating for health reasons... you can't even buy those in single meal sizes. We'll probably have 3 (plastic) bags of vegetables home for salad.

Symbiote
1 replies
11h14m

The detour is small. I think it's also more common to go every second or third day, rather than every day.

Search "supermarket" in Copenhagen — not the city centre — and see how many results there are: https://www.google.com/maps/search/supermarket/@55.703748,12... . You may well need to zoom in and refresh the search to see everything.

I need to know what I'm cooking tonight an hour or even two hours before I do so?

Rather than knowing a week in advance? Come on.

Pandemic

You can easily build up some reserves.

Milk

You clearly have a large family, so you might consider that your situation is not universal. I think many Danes with a large family would mix the two options — shopping by car (or online for delivery) every week or two, and supplementing it with additional trips for fresh food.

Two adults is also two people to share the shopping.

NoMoreNicksLeft
0 replies
4h31m

The detour is small.

For you. That one time. Honestly, I always seem to be on the wrong end of the curve when it comes to salaries... betcha I end up in the ghetto apartment in the food desert.

Rather than knowing a week in advance? Come on.

Nah. You just get the things you usually get, and you make whatever of that you feel like that evening. No need to plan, you figure it out when you open the fridge.

You clearly have a large family, s

Just the two children. Even with just two children, this quickly becomes absurdly impossible. For any more than that, the walkable city people just sound like stooges. Well, they sound like that long before we start talking about large families.

nkrisc
0 replies
15h35m

So now, I also increase my mental load because I need to know what I'm cooking tonight an hour or even two hours before I do so? I have to have my meal planned out hours in advance.

Oh, the horror. Usually I would just go in an see what looks good and decide then what I wanted for dinner.

pandaman
2 replies
21h7m

There is a fixed time in every supermarket trip no matter how big or small it is. Multiple trips accrue these costs. For example, I live next to a supermarket, a big one. It's a 3 minute walk door to door, 6 min round trip. Inside it takes about 5 min to find what I am looking for and another 2-10 minutes to checkout depending on the size of the line. So, at the very best I am spending 13 minutes per trip. If I shopped for groceries there every day I would be spending at least 1.5 hours per week shopping. Instead, I drive my car to Costco every two weeks and spend less than 1.5 hours on that (20 min drive x2, 30 min picking groceries and checking out, 5 min parking, 5 min loading and unloading), saving more than 1.5 hours of my life every other week.

8organicbits
1 replies
15h13m

I also use Costco for bulk purchases too, but buying in advance requires careful planning. Unless you have a repetitive diet, supplement with a quick grocery run mid-week, only purchase frozen/shelf stable food, or throw out a bunch of expired food each week it's hard to predict what you need two weeks in advance.

pandaman
0 replies
14h34m

I usually eat out so my diet is quite varied, which is another problem for walking advocates because they are limited only to the restaurants in their walking distance, or cold soggy deliveries, or, ultimately, have to spend a lot of time cooking themselves (or making large batches and eating the same leftovers for days in a row). This is besides the point, which was the time spent with daily shopping by foot. It's incredible waste of time and I know that because I used to do just that.

8organicbits
2 replies
23h19m

Carrying capacity is a challenge, but I'm still surprised a 5 minute walk always loses to a 40 minute round trip by car. I struggle to get enough exercise as it is.

vel0city
0 replies
20h25m

Because for a lot of people it isn't a 40-minute round trip by car. It is a five minute each way trip by car for multiple grocery stores for me personally.

nkrisc
0 replies
15h38m

In my case, reverse those times.

georgeecollins
0 replies
1d

There is also a lot of times when you could walk to a place but you may be motivated to drive because other drivers are more accommodating to a car. It may sound crazy, but in Los Angeles (my home) drives are often more patient and behave in a safer manner toward cars then they do bicyclists or pedestrians.

A nice thing about electric bikes is that it seems to be making bikes more common. It really needs to be normalized that a person doesn't have to be in a car to use or cross the road.

eweise
12 replies
1d1h

More people live in the suburbs than city centers. That's where the real problem is. I don't have any problem walking around the streets of SF.

noodlesUK
4 replies
1d1h

If people live their lives in the suburbs and that's what appeals to them, I am not going to say they shouldn't (so long as their suburban town is economically viable), but as a city dweller, I think they should have to pay (not just parking) for coming into the city with their cars.

alexawarrior3
2 replies
1d

You're essentially just raising taxes on the poor. Why? Let's take SF above as an example. The median salary in SF according to Gusto is $104,000 annually, which at the 30% maximum federal recommended housing payment would be $2,600 monthly all-inclusive. Using Zillow to see what I could afford with zero down at this monthly payment (VA loan), I find nothing in SF, and virtually nothing in the Bay Area, except some shacks which are essentially land in Richmond:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1964-Van-Ness-Ave-San-Pab...

Perhaps I could erect a tent and live homeless on my own land, but with Newsom's new alt-right homeless policy, probably not. The closest I could find which was (barely) habitable in Concord, a true fixer-upper but something anyone can do with enough time and effort and watching home repair tutorials:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/168-Norman-Ave-Concord-CA...

This is about one to one and a half hours each way, depending on traffic, to my old office in downtown SF (before I was offshored). Currently, the house above is what I could afford and what I would most likely buy if I received a job again and had to go into the office a few days a week (or six days a week as some startups want now). Driving, although long, is the only viable option. Even when mass transit routes can be found, they add 1-2 hours to the already long commute (each way).

People in this thread within the technobubble generally miss what driving is for most Americans: a necessity. It's not an option because we prefer SUVs and huge houses, that's true for some people, but most people don't have many options of where to live or how to live, they are wage and price takers, and we go where we can afford. And that's somewhere we need to drive, nice walkable areas served well by mass transit are luxury items in the USA only for the rich. The rest of us must drive, and hindering that only makes those of us already struggling on the edge of middle class even poorer.

adrianN
0 replies
23h57m

The usual counter argument is that you can take the money raised by making cars expensive and give it to the poor. That’s fairer than subsidizing cars, since rich people tend to have more cars and use them more than poor people.

Daishiman
0 replies
22h37m

The only reason everything you mention is a problem is because SF's zoning policy is a disaster that doesn't actually reflect true demand for housing.

A properly zoned SF would look like New York, with 5x more transit options than it currently has.

eweise
0 replies
18h12m

Not sure what this has to to with the article. Kind of wondering why there are so many off-topic comments attached to mine. Maybe the word suburbia sets people off?

novok
2 replies
1d1h

There are parts of SF that have another "dignity" problem unfortunately. I know too many who refuse to walk in many areas there due to feeling unsafe and the smell issues. I know another one who refuses public transit now due to similar issues. They tend to be small women and it's super sad and it really limits a lot of their transport options in life.

j-wags
0 replies
1d

I agree this is the current situation, but I think the concentration of homelessness in urban areas is largely a consequence of policies that favor suburbia:

- Requiring a car for daily life drives up cost of living, pricing the bottom tier of earners into the streets

- Restricting housing unit supply by mandating single family zoning makes whole regions unaffordable

- Blocking effective public transit into the suburbs effectively geofences homelessness into urban centers

- Concentrating the overwhelming majority of homeless services downtown is a policy choice, not a natural outcome

I think a lot of people look at urban areas in the US and think "that looks awful, my area should make the opposite of those policy choices", and it leads us to subconsciously hold some weird beliefs. Tall buildings and public transit don't make people homeless. They do the opposite. But something about the American lifestyle (my own upbringing included) plants these negative associations with urban centers, and it wasn't until I saw other cities around the world that I realized it didn't make any sense at all.

eweise
0 replies
18h13m

Yes, that's a different problem than the article is referring to.

tocs3
1 replies
1d

When I am driving through suburbs in central Texas I think it is interesting to note that there are rarely people outside the houses. Mostly the the people I see are mowing.

eweise
0 replies
18h11m

I think the article points out one of the reasons.

eweise
0 replies
18h6m

Weird. Many downvotes to my comment and then a bunch of random complaints having nothing to do with the article.

Moldoteck
0 replies
1d1h

A lot of times it isn't by choice, but as a consequence of zoning and parking minimums that are affecting housing stock and it's prices (both in the city and in suburbs). You may not have problems walking in sf(debatable but doesn't matter), but could you say the same about detroit/huston?

hn_user82179
5 replies
1d1h

car-centric infrastructure causes things to be spaced so much farther apart (with unpleasant empty tarmac)

Good example here is Salt Lake City - the streets were designed intentionally to be very wide everywhere.

randomdata
2 replies
1d

Are you sure that's a good example of car centricity? The streets in my town are wide enough for a six lane highway, yet the streets were built before the car was even a glimmer in someone's imagination.

recursive
1 replies
23h52m

If it wasn't car-centric then, it sure is now.

randomdata
0 replies
23h49m

Nah. If it were car-centric it would be much more friendly to cars. It has come to try to be everything-centric, which results in it being awful for everyone.

treis
1 replies
1d1h

But not for cars. They were made wide enough for an ox wagon to turn around.

recursive
0 replies
1d1h

Ok, let's reduce ox wagons too then.

Moldoteck
5 replies
1d1h

Ban in the center is not enough, at least for us. Zoning and parking minimums should be ditched too. This would gradually densify the area

fsckboy
4 replies
23h44m

if you want densification and you're willing to using zoning changes to achieve it, adopt the solution favored by truly dense cities: force more skyscrapers

Hugsun
1 replies
5h41m

I was under the impression that skyscrapers weren't good for dense walkable areas. 4-7 story tall mixed use buildings are supposed to be the best.

I'm afraid I don't have a source for this. The Youtube channel Not Just Bikes might have said this.

Moldoteck
0 replies
4h53m

it's a mixed bag. Some argue that sporadic skyscrapers might be a good thing since those would act as a point of easier orientation in space + providing housing/work area for ppl that want to live/work high. The problem appears when there are too many of them or public transport infra is not adapted to handle such an inflow of people towards a single point

presentation
0 replies
4h44m

Tokyo is truly dense and is not skyscraper heavy. They just have tiny roads and tightly packed buildings, mostly low-rise and single family homes.

Moldoteck
0 replies
22h38m

Densification is good up until a point. Ideally you would want mixed use and mixed style development

johnnyanmac
2 replies
19h46m

exactly, especially in the suburbs. My closest places to talk to

- ~half a mile to a local taco stand. Could be closer but railroads are in the way and they run on the hour (and a big ditch also discourages that). kinda bad, but still on the verge of "walkable".

- now, the other direction about a mile away is a wal mart. But, half a mile of this walk is a vertical 200 foot climb. You'll be exhausted at worst and sweaty at best before you even get halfway there. But if you make the walk you got a plaza of whatever you need.

- And that's really all the "walkable" areas. The next closest plaza is 3 miles from the taco shack, a bit outside of "walkable" if you just need to grab some tools from Home Depot or wait for an order at In n Out (inside isn't much better than the drive-through). Buses do run here, but only every hour (and is next to the taco shack. so half a mile walk)

Those in EU places can find it hard to understand. But there's just so much dang land between everything if you're not downtown.

I don't think we should be trying to get away from cars altogether by any means, but I think we should seriously consider banning them almost entirely from city centres.

If we had a better bus schedule, I wouldn't mind that. even if we just have to drive to a bus stop, it could be the start of this walkable city concept in downtown areas. But there's a lot of powers opposing that.

throwaway22032
1 replies
19h4m

It honestly isn't _that_ different in the UK.

Outskirts of a smaller city, you are 0.5-1 mile from everything. A corner shop, a takeaway, anything.

Some Americans think that everywhere is like central London or Berlin or whatever. Most of it is like an American suburb but with poorer condition smaller houses.

About the only difference is that if you are poor and in a suburb you can probably take a slow bus that is infrequent. But no-one actually wants to do that if they can afford otherwise.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
18h20m

I sure hope y'all don't have to climb 200 ft hills in those areas. If it wasn't for that I'd say it's a walkable enough area for my needs.

I understand that not everything will be packed in all of EU, but better public transportation makes up for that. The other annoying aspect of non-urban us cities tends to be geography. It's very hilly in the western US with little fertile land, and blazing hot and humid and the deep south. We'd absolutely need better bussing to overcome that.

mrcartmeneses
1 replies
9h9m

It’s worth remembering that a lot of car centric design has political roots. For example many of Berlin’s wide roads were built so that Nazi tanks could traverse them. Likewise Paris’s wide streets were built so that cavalry army’s could pass. And a big part of America’s single family home suburb design (which necessitates cars) is born out of a desire keeping white and black people separate (as well as regulatory capture by the auto industry).

My favourite places in the world tend to be much older and basically built at random by the people who lived there, like London’s Soho and Clerkenwell or Barcelona’s old town.

DiggyJohnson
0 replies
3h44m

Very subjective question I know, but how significant do you think racist intentions are compared to the many other factors? I wasn't under the impression it was one of the top two factors that pushed us towards a car centered built environment.

underlipton
0 replies
23h37m

Even in suburbs, it does seem that the potential of in-fill development and mixed-use repurposing is undervalued. For example, I've lived in many low-rise apartment complexes; they always had one or two ground-floor units that were unpopular and frequently vacant because of their proximity to a road or something, and it never made any sense to me that they couldn't be converted into a small commercial space for the neighborhood. Something like a small cafe or corner store. With a higher commercial rent, residential rents in the area could be lower, and car trips to similar spaces would be reduced.

These complexes also were always roughly 50% parking by land-area. Converting some amount of it to new units would be so helpful. Or even something as simple as converting a one or two reserved parking spaces to one of these (https://i.pinimg.com/736x/56/42/1b/56421b53bcffe6b0c92369c44...) so that cyclists wouldn't have to lug their bicycles up 2 or 3 flights of stairs after every ride.

The "logic" of anti-pedestrian thinking is just a desire not to see anything at all change.

presentation
0 replies
4h42m

I always think when walking around the USA that one could literally insert a narrow block into the middle of even a 2-lane-each-way road and end up with similar spacing as a typical Tokyo neighborhood. Imagine how much density that would create.

ajuc
0 replies
1d

Detached houses and tenament houses also space things out compared to commie blocks which is why I have unpopular opionion that low-height (+- 4-story) commieblock neighbourhoods designed before cars were widespread are the best form of walkable cities.

When they are well designed and well-maintained they allow for more green spaces than any alternative AND everything is closer together AND they aren't dehumanising like the 10+ story commieblock districts. All that without causing "concrete canyons" like medieval parts of cities or UK-style rows of detached houses with token lawns.

I mean sth like this - from before commie blocks were adapted to cars: https://maps.app.goo.gl/uGFKGntsHU85qwpu8

its_ethan
35 replies
1d2h

These posts always feel like people are fetishizing some "utopia" where everyone should want to live in an imaginary fully walkable, meticulously maintained, pristine city. The comparisons of like a 2 square mile section of the nicest parts of a European city to areas of the rural US that have land areas larger than many European countries feels... at best, idealism run afoul.

its_ethan
10 replies
1d2h

I'm quite familiar with Minneapolis, and you're right it is fairly suburban - but suburbs are a phenomenon of the world after the invention of the car. Car ownership rates in suburbs are incredibly high, like 90%+ in most suburban areas (https://newgeography.com/files/job-access_03.png). Minneapolis has a ~98% rate of car ownership, and places like Hopkins and Northfield were designed knowing that most of their citizens live far enough away from places like schools/grocery stores/movie theaters/offices/etc that they will need a car anyway.

And this isn't like a chicken or egg thing where people aren't walking because it's not nice to walk. The car came first, and then the suburb (as we know them) came second. These places were designed for cars. We're talking about 20-30+ min walks each way to get from most homes to the nearest "commercial area". Even if it was the walkable utopian dream of tree lined sidewalks and pedestrian-centric intersections, it won't change the fact that the vast majority of people would not choose to walk, and so it makes sense that these places are optimized for the way people actually get around.

hibikir
3 replies
1d2h

There are many parts of the world where suburbs are shapes very differently, and while they support cars, they don't need them. The 0.3 acre plot, the street with no commercial activity... those aren't requirements for suburbs. Madrid has many a suburb that is far denser, grows upwards, and is centered around a train station.

its_ethan
2 replies
1d2h

And that's great for those places. But why do people feel compelled to make relatively new US suburbs more similar to old suburbs in Madrid? No one is trying to make suburbs in Madrid more like suburbs in Iowa - I'm voicing frustration that the reciprocal is not true.

This is part of a larger frustration where it feels like a very common thing that people in cities want to enforce their expectations and cultures onto rural places that already have their own way of being.

pchristensen
0 replies
1d1h

Forcing places to be a certain way by law is like writing an essay without the letters 'D' and 'O'. Possible, but it's really tying your hands behind your back.

oblio
0 replies
23h15m

"Their own of being" = putting a fist in everyone's mouth by <<forcing>> housing to be exactly the same type (single family detached house) and <<banning>> any other type of activity, even compatible ones like light commercial.

A sign of confidence, you know, the typical American fashion, would be to allow mixed zoning for compatible uses and see what happens, "invisible hand" and all.

dixie_land
2 replies
1d2h

I'm a car person but 20/30 mins of walk to get some coffee with my dogs sounds very pleasant (iff the pedestrian crossings are safer as the article proposed)

Just because the majority are fat doesn't mean it's healthy

its_ethan
1 replies
1d1h

Sure, and you can do that 20/30 minute walk if you want, there are many parts of minnesotan suburbs that are, in fact, very walkable already. On a weekend, that is a nice thing to do - but the day-to-day life that the majority of people live shouldn't be optimized for that.

I'm not sure why you're shoe horning body weight into this - that's a whole separate can of worms that tenuously related, but not relevant to the fact that these places are so spread out in such a way that walking isn't feasible for a myriad of other very practical and immediately relevant reasons (weather, ability to organize child care/education, ability to run errands before/after work, time spent "commuting", etc.)

oblio
0 replies
23h12m

You don't get it, it's not "optimizing" anything.

In a lot of places it's close to impossible to do what you're saying. There are no side walks. Many suburban streets and especially those bigger roads (stroads) are horrible. No shade because no trees because HUGE ADS SHALL BE VISIBLE FROM CARS, lots of dangerous driveway exists every 5 minutes that you can't even walk in peace lest you are run over by a huge truck, etc.

Streets are dangerous for cyclists (and I mean the regular cyclists, commuter/grocery shopping style, not the lycra-clad racers).

There are modern ways to design infrastructure, it isn't even a lot more expensive than the old fashioned way, and it makes for a lot more pleasant environment for everyone. Even drivers get to enjoy it because... people start walking (under 1km) and cycling (under about 5-7km), so a lot of car traffic just vanishes. So the remaining car drivers get to vroom-vroom a lot more :-)

pchristensen
0 replies
1d1h

Suburbs (especially newer ones) were indeed designed for cars, but it is also illegal to change them, because of road requirements, parking minimums, zoning restrictions, separation of uses, etc. The qualities of a good suburb are desirable, but let's not pretend like they're a natural outcome of choices.

alkonaut
0 replies
1d1h

What does car ownership rate have to do with anything? Even in a suburb with 100% car ownership, I want to walk - not drive - to buy milk, when possible. Walking the dog should ideally be possible from every single home without even having to walk or cross a road. Walkability is as important in a suburb where everyone can drive as it is anywhere else.

abeppu
0 replies
23h27m

And the examples given here can make the walking experience better, for a similar amount of total expenditure, without meaningfully changing the situation for drivers. Some things the author never suggests in this post:

- removing lanes of traffic to make more space for pedestrians

- reducing speed limits

- increasing gas taxes

You're reacting like advocating for a better pedestrian experience is somehow an attack on drivers, but that's totally not what this post is. Instead, the author points out places where they're already creating affordances for pedestrians (sidewalks, crossings with refuge medians, new curb ramps) but are doing it in a way that is not impactful.

You can make it a more comfortable for people to walk on the sidewalks that they're actually paying for, so the option of walking 20 min to the grocery store is more feasible, normal, appealing, without expecting that people in car-dependent neighborhoods are going to give up on car ownership.

so it makes sense that these places are optimized for the way people actually get around

This is a misleading framing for two reasons:

- high car ownership does not imply that people don't want to also feel comfortable walking in their own neighborhoods. You can own a car, but walking your dog or walking with your family to a park or walking to the nearest store can still be a welcome option. People can get around in multiple ways, choosing different options at different times for different purposes.

- to the extent that a high proportion of trips are in a car, part of that is because the other options are crappy because of the argument you're making

We can have pleasant walkable neighborhoods and cars, and your kids can walk home from school and you can drive them to costco on the weekends. End this nonsensical pretend conflict between the two.

rsync
0 replies
1d2h

Northfield is not, by any definition, a Minneapolis suburb.

Further, much of Northfield is very rural, big corn fields, etc.

Could there be improvements in transit and workability? Certainly… especially between the historic downtown and the two colleges…

… but Northfield is actually a good example of a town where car (truck ?) oriented transit and stroads, etc., are well suited.

hibikir
4 replies
1d2h

Should we look at rural areas in Europe? I spent 3 weeks this summer in a small town in Spain. I could smell manure if the wind came from the right direction. And yet, I didn't need to get into a car, because the town center of this rural town, population 5 thousand, lives next to each other. The farmers go to the fields further away by car if they need to, but the kids walk 5 minutes to the high school.

The total land area is also irrelevant: Spain has a pretty low total population density, but that's because most of it is empty. The people live close to each other anyway. You can have a house 20 minutes by car anyway, and thus live 20 minutes away from the hospital instead of 3 minutes if you really like yards that much, but barely anyone does, because the car life is expensive and a hassle

buildfocus
0 replies
19h38m

Barcelona is also a very walkable city (across the entire area of 2 million people, not just the very center) and is definitely the upper end of Spanish income.

A big part of this is long term cultural: medieval towns (and even much older) were all clustered very tightly into blocks with city walls against attacks, those slowly evolved into the vast majority of the towns & villages in Spain today, and have left a culture where flats and dense city centers are the expected norm and the primary model, even for towns surrounded by empty space. You can easily find small towns of apartment blocks and tight wall to wall houses in windy city centers, of just 1000 people, surrounded by fields for miles.

The Spanish would argue that surburanism is generally less enjoyable (walkability, community, socialability) and less secure (houses are easier to rob than non-ground floor flats) while dense apartment/etc living is better value (less land cost, shared maintainence in apartment blocks) and provides better airflow/heat management & opportunity for balcony views (attic flats etc).

silvestrov
0 replies
1d1h

Example of small town from "flyover state" in Denmark: i.e. area with very few jobs, very low house prices, everybody moving away, houses on the market forever. We call this for "the rotten banana" as the area is shaped as a banana and the economy is rotten.

Still very walkable and nice for kids.

Price for these houses is ca. $100_000 (some little over, some little less).

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=&layer=c&cbll=55.7224384,8.533...

johnnyanmac
0 replies
18h39m

my rural area had twice the population but probably 10x the size. There was nowhere to "walk" to. We are talking about a 2-3 mile drive to the only "supermarket" in the town center, which was probably smaller than many modern corner stores. everything of interest was 2-3 miles away: the schools, the church, the liquor store, and that's really all there is (they did build a 99 cent store there, so that's neat).

It's not like the land was wasted with parking lots. It's just as generic a desert setting as you can expect. Hot, tumbleweeds everywhere, Sand as far as the eye can see in any direction, etc. It's all single home housing so it could be denser, but that's pretty much the only benefit of living there; I grew up with a half acre yard (full of sand and an awkward tree in the middle, but actual land) and it gave my grandparents some piece of mind when we went out to play.

igammarays
3 replies
1d2h

Curious, have you ever lived for an extensive amount of time in a walkable European city? As a person who was born and raised in suburban East Coast car-hell and then moved to Europe, I would never want to go back. I still want a luxury car for rare drives to the countryside, but I hate it every time I have to go back to North American car-dependent cities, except for the nicer walkable downtowns.

its_ethan
0 replies
22h16m

I've given up on "arguing" with people on this thread, but FWIW, I have lived in Berlin and Frankfurt both for extended periods of time (2.5years total). I'll leave it up to you to decide if those are walkable cities or not. I also currently live in NYC, which is, if not walkable, anti-car.

betaby
0 replies
1d1h

Are you living alone or with wife/kids? That changes a lot. Larger apartments are getting pricy very quickly.

acuozzo
0 replies
3h12m

How is the soundproofing where you live?

My boys (one with ASD and the other with ADHD) are often extremely loud. When they are, you can hear them clearly from a surprising distance away from my suburban USA home even when they're still in the house.

alkonaut
3 replies
1d1h

The US is not large and not sparse compared to the rest of the world in general or compared to Europe in particular. This argument pops up every time but it just has no basis in reality. There are sparse (rural) and dense (city) areas everywhere. The ratio between this type of area is different in Finland compared to the UK, just as it differs between Alaska and New Jersey. The density of the US is roughly the same as Europe. (Around 100/sq km)

But walkable cities can be both 1M population or 10k population. What applies to a footpath in a city of 1M applies to a footpath in a city of 10k too.

Truly rural areas usually aren’t the topic of these discussions nor sites like strongtowns. For obvious reasons.

keybored
2 replies
1d1h

The density of the US is roughly the same as Europe. (Around 100/sq km)

The population density of America is 33.6/square km according to Wikipedia. For comparison: Sweden up to the north is 25/square km.

There is a large difference in this regard.

EDIT: I added the part I was replying to out of concern of the downvoter’s who didn’t manage to catch that.

alkonaut
1 replies
1d1h

Oh sorry Google fooled me, when asking for US pop density it answered per sq. mi (96) and for EU it answered per sq km (106). The numbers are less similar with the same units then…. Some sparse countries like Ukraine aren’t counted in EU however.

But I think the point you make about Sweden also applies to anywhere. How much land a country has that isn’t a city isn’t very relevant to how its cities look. If the US had 10 more alaskas or the EU had 10 more Swedens wouldn’t matter for how cities are built.

In the debate about Covid there was a trope about Sweden being so sparsely populated that no lessons could be drawn from there. Yet looking more closely it’s obvious that this is merely because most areas of Sweden have almost no people, and it’s rather Urbanized. I.e it’s actually locally dense but mostly empty.

“Mean distance between humans” is a much better measure of population density, both for city design and epedemics. Australia is a prime example where on average, 3ppl per square kilometer live. A figure that says nothing about actual population density.

keybored
0 replies
21h17m

The fact check nerd snipe besides I agree with your argument. :)

jltsiren
1 replies
1d1h

It's not about everyone. It's just about building enough nice walkable cities for people who want to live in them.

It's not a utopia. It's about prioritizing people over traffic. Prioritizing the experience of being in the city over the convenience of getting there or driving through.

And it doesn't even have to be a city. The same idea also applies to suburbs. You can have good transit connections to the city, apartment buildings and local services in the core, single-family homes a bit further away, and large parks and forests within walking distance. Suburbs like this are typically more sparsely built but more densely populated than American suburbs. They also tend to be nicer once you leave your home.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
18h36m

*For people who can afford to live in them. I imagine most people (like me) aren't out in the boonies due to claustrophobia. We could use more walk able cities, but those we do have in the US tend to be the most expensive neighborhoods.

amw-zero
1 replies
1d2h

I also don't understand the obsession

bradboimler
0 replies
1d1h

Personally, I only appreciated the value of a walkable neighborhood after I moved to one. Now I _never_ want to go back.

Cars and driving are awful

mitthrowaway2
0 replies
1d1h

There's no reason that small towns and rural areas can't have bicycle paths, shade trees, and safe crosswalks. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg

betaby
0 replies
1d1h

I want to live in an imaginary fully walkable city. Now I live in Montreal, for the context see video https://youtu.be/_yDtLv-7xZ4 It's very good overview of what is wrong with the best* city in North America. Not covered in this video: high rent/cost of owning compared to the local relatively low salaries (most of Montrealers agree) and in general low quality of hosing (many Montrealers got very irritated if I bring that).

So yeah, I understand your argument.

abeppu
0 replies
23h46m

... but what are "these posts"? Because this post compares good and bad examples within the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area. This isn't a comparison of some cherry-picked European city with the rural US. It's a comparison of good and bad points within a mid-sized US city.

Further, a bunch of these examples seem like cases where the resources for the better design would not have been out of reach. The case where there are only crosswalks on 3 sides of an intersection so pedestrians need to walk the long way around (and wait for the light to change multiple times) would be straight-forward to have done right. The example in the "convenience" section where the path forces pedestrians to take a longer path, would have taken only a modest amount of additional concrete to address. Examples where there's too little demarcation between the sidewalk and street often have a green strip on the other side of the sidewalk. The same amount of space could have been used with the sidewalk shifted over and a green strip with trees placed between the street and sidewalk. None of these are "idealism run afoul".

TomK32
0 replies
1d2h

Don't overdo with by adding "meticulously maintained, pristine city", I mean okay this might be a side-effect once people start walking more and have the time to look at their environment close up and maybe even thrown their single-use coffee cup into a bin instead of out the car window. European cities were in most of their cores built before the car or didn't allow highways to cut them up, followed by more demolishment for parking space. Add zoning laws that only allow single homes with no business in their center and you get suburbian where you can only escape with a car.

Tade0
0 replies
23h33m

As an outsider (as in: not American) I notice that a lot of the details, especially downsides, are left out.

I grew up in a commie block in a region of Europe where cities are fairly sparsely populated (approximately half the density of Amsterdam and close to 1/8th that of Paris proper).

I see it as a good middle ground that while still walkable, doesn't have the aforementioned downsides of dense city living, like:

-Noise, or actually the contortions you have to go through to keep it at acceptable levels. The inverse square law really does a number on people who live in a densely populated area with a night life or renovations going on (there's always renovations going on).

-Garbage disposal. I remember spending a mostly sleepless night in Bilbao because guess when is the only time a garbage truck can actually pass and collect refuse in a timely manner? Modern humans produce way more garbage than their 19th century counterparts.

-General tidyness. I want to see Tokyo one day because it appears to be the only large, densely populated area in the world which isn't filthy. I'm not even talking about trash. It's the puddles of animal (and human) urine scattered here and there.

-Lack of green spaces. Land is precious in densely populated cities, so you can't have this sort of stuff. Meanwhile when a dog has to go, they have to go, hence the previously mentioned puddles.

-Cost. Did I mention land is precious? The other day my friend showed me the sort of palace he can buy by selling his two bedroom in a commie block. Especially in recent years cost alone has pushed many people out of cities.

-Cost (of living). My car-oriented hellhole of a suburban mall where I sometimes do shopping has more stuff and at prices 30% lower than all those neat corner shops. The reason is that everything, from rent to logistics is expensive in a densely-populated area.

I could go on, but this is the gist. You couldn't pay me to live in a place with more than 5000 inhabitants per square kilometre.

TomK32
35 replies
1d12h

GCN, a cycling channel, just released a video on the car-centric thinking that we all have been forced into over the past century https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_4GZnGl55c It took me years go get into a thinking that mobility should be the priority, not cars. Once you do this mental step you can think about who needs mobility but for whatever reason cannot use a car (too young, too old, drunk, etc) and how streets and cities need to be redesigned to slow down cars to make them safer for what many call an indicator for a good cycling infrastructure: women (with kids) on bicycles.

akira2501
31 replies
1d11h

Once you do this mental step you can think about who needs mobility but for whatever reason cannot use a car (too young, too old, drunk, etc)

Then you need to take the mental step of thinking about all the people who require a car for mobility. People with small babies, anyone with urgent medical needs, and the handicapped.

cities need to be redesigned to slow down cars

A mode of accident that sometimes occurs is a car rolls down a hill then causes a fatality. We'll have to redesign cities to remove any elevation changes, and we should seriously consider just banning driving at night, as that's when the overwhelming majority of pedestrian fatalities occur.

Meanwhile, instead of punishing cars for simply existing and providing good utility to the city, why not just build better pedestrian infrastructure that's actually separate and protected from the road?

piva00
6 replies
1d9h

A mode of accident that sometimes occurs is a car rolls down a hill then causes a fatality. We'll have to redesign cities to remove any elevation changes, and we should seriously consider just banning driving at night, as that's when the overwhelming majority of pedestrian fatalities occur.

That's a rather odd edge case, and seems to be much more prevalent in the USA than in other developed countries, and probably exactly because everyone depends on a car that you end up having old shitboxes barely functioning because someone is 100% dependent on that shitbox to live their lives. A car rolling down a hill is probably less than 1% of all car-related accidents in your country.

Meanwhile, instead of punishing cars for simply existing and providing good utility to the city, why not just build better pedestrian infrastructure that's actually separate and protected from the road?

Why do cars need to have fast lanes inside a city? Separate that traffic, get the cars out of the way from pedestrian streets, design streets sharing different transport modals so cars slow down. It works everywhere else, why is the USA so special that it won't work in American cities?

No one is talking about removing cars altogether, the discussion centers around making streets in cities safer for everyone, no driver wants to kill people, no one on a bike or on foot wants to be killed.

There's absolutely no need for cars to go over 30-40km/h in city streets, any need for higher speeds demand infrastructure separating transport modals.

Please, spend some time in a nice walkable city (some time = weeks to months). The difference is absurd. I'm originally from São Paulo, a city that follows the exact playbook from American cities, it's fucking hell with traffic, moving to Europe and experiencing how nice cities can be made me a hard advocate for changing, I like cars but they shouldn't have priority over everyone else inside a city...

JoshTriplett
5 replies
1d2h

The post you're responding to talks about having "better pedestrian infrastructure that's actually separate and protected from the road", and your response is saying "Separate that traffic, get the cars out of the way from pedestrian streets" and "infrastructure separating transport modals". Both of those are making the same case.

Why do cars need to have fast lanes inside a city?

To get from point A in a city to point B in a city in a timely fashion. That doesn't mean that needs to happen on streets shared with pedestrians, but it needs to exist, and it needs to have some way of reaching the same destinations.

Moldoteck
4 replies
1d

To get fast from point a to point b you need public transport not cars. With cars you'll get more traffic and the fast road will become slow. Also fast cars are a problem when you need to make a pedestrian crossing that will act promptly to the button press to switch to green for pedestrians.

JoshTriplett
3 replies
23h13m

Also fast cars are a problem when you need to make a pedestrian crossing

The three things I quoted in the post you're replying to were "better pedestrian infrastructure that's actually separate and protected from the road", "Separate that traffic, get the cars out of the way from pedestrian streets", and "infrastructure separating transport modals".

You don't need a pedestrian crossing if you have separated infrastructure. For instance, interstates don't have pedestrian crossings. (Some have raised paths where pedestrians can walk from one side to the other without intersecting with traffic.)

To get fast from point a to point b you need public transport

That's a lot less fast when the path from A to B involves walking to C, taking transport to D, walking to E, taking transport to F, then walking to B, and taking twice as much time doing so. Even if transportation were instantly available with no waiting when you arrive at each of those points, that's still substantially more inconvenient. And it's a largely fundamental property of public transport that getting from an arbitrary point to an arbitrary point typically involves multiple transits plus walking. (And unfortunately, often the responses to that are some flavor of "we should make cars slower and less convenient" rather than "we should make public transport faster and more convenient and point-to-point".)

It's hard to beat direct door-to-door transportation. It's possible, and we can and should get to a point of having that via public transport, but in the meantime let's not pretend that it's always a win rather than a tradeoff.

Moldoteck
2 replies
22h52m

Separated crosswalks aka raised paths inside cities are terrible for pedestrians, that's why many cities in eu are either closing them or doubling them with classic crosswalk and finding out that raised/under paths aren't used anymore since it's much more convenient to just directly cross the road

Again, properly designed public transport is faster than cars. You are thinking about public transport in current car designed setting. Imagine each bus/tram has own lane and semaphore priority meaning it'll get close to max speed, imagine thereare lot's of pub transports, imagine the paths for pub transport are shorter compared to car paths again to make pub transport more efficient, imagine parking is limited since land is expensive and youll spend lot of time searching for a spot and it wouldn't be cheap since again land is expensive, imagine in either situation you'll end up spending time in traffic, imagine most of pub transport stations would have bike parking so that you could cover last mile on a bike really fast if you need it

You can say that it'll cost a lot of money and time to implement this but in reality it's just a matter of political will. Separate bus lanes and priority semaphores and bike lanes and parking is relatively cheap and easy to implement, just like dynamic parking price. The most expensive part is buying more pub transport units.

JoshTriplett
1 replies
22h25m

Separated crosswalks aka raised paths inside cities are terrible for pedestrians

I agree, which is why I personally prefer the solution of burying the roads and keeping the pedestrian walkways at what is currently "street" level. That's a major challenge for existing infrastructure, but I've seen more than a few public transportation proposals that have similar "much easier when one from scratch" problems, and I think it's worth designing the ideal before settling for something worse.

Again, properly designed public transport is faster than cars. You are thinking about public transport in current car designed setting.

No, I'm thinking about ideal public transport versus ideal car transportation. It's not reasonable to compare the best case of public transport to deliberately worsened car transportation and declare public transport the victor. I would love to have public transport that's actually better than the common case of car transportation, but proposals like what you're describing don't go far enough to get there.

I would love to have a world where we have 300km/s trains between every city (major or minor), and automated point-to-point no-transfer underground transportation within cities. And I'd love to see incremental steps in a direction like that.

What I don't want to see is "if we make cars much worse, we can have public transit that sucks less but is still worse than cars used to be".

Moldoteck
0 replies
20h50m

Best case of car transport would be if few ppl use it which is achieved by giving priority to public transport and bike paths. If this (car) mode is prioritized, car transport by definition will be a worse experience than an ideal bus because you don't get traffic with the bus. Burying cars under is a good idea in theory but not that great in practice. It's extremely expensive to do it(and also build all the underground destination infra) and in the end you still will end up with traffic, the difference being that all the drivers will be trapped with their fumes/microplastic tire wear underground.

You don't need to make cars much worse, just make pub transport and bike/pedestrian infra as good as possible and give what's left to cars

bobbylarrybobby
5 replies
1d

Cars are not alive, let alone sentient, so it is no more possible to punish them than it is a rock or a pane of glass.

Perhaps you do believe cars are sentient and capable of receiving punishment. But if not, you might have been using “cars” as a de-personifying shorthand for “drivers”. In which case, yes, drivers should be punished — not for merely existing, no, but for the harm they have caused to non-drivers. From traffic fatalities to car-only infrastructure, drivers and their insistence on cars have been to the detriment of the rest of us.

johnnyanmac
4 replies
18h57m

you want to punish all drivers because some were dumb and reckless? Seems excessive.

I'd start with making sure tests are actually tests and not formalities. Then I'd also expand that to needing to re-test every X years, so old people who can barely see or have poor motor control aren't still driving.

bobbylarrybobby
2 replies
18h40m

That's the thing — a driver doesn't have to be dumb or reckless to harm those around them. Merely insisting that society provide space for you to drive and park your car, not to mention all the harms that driving itself causes (CO2, particulate matter, other pollution, noise, ...), is a serious harm inflicted by all drivers on those around them.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
18h17m

This makes an assumption that everyone is strapped for space. It depends on the geography at the end of the day.

not to mention all the harms that driving itself causes (CO2, particulate matter, other pollution, noise, ...),

I fail to see how humans don't do any of these harms on foot. The move towards electric cars should put each other on rough parity.

TomK32
0 replies
10h19m

Electric cars are still cars that need a lot of space in our cities and run over pedestrians. It's rather sad that the move to electric cars wasn't taken as an opportunity towards smaller cars.

TomK32
0 replies
10h21m

Did you know that of the car drivers & passengers killed each year, about 25% (and the difference between the US, UK or EU is pretty small here) didn't put on a seat-belt before their last drive? Of course this number will eventually go down, but it seems there's a lot of dumb drivers out there.

lxgr
3 replies
1d3h

Meanwhile, instead of punishing cars for simply existing and providing good utility to the city, why not just build better pedestrian infrastructure that's actually separate and protected from the road?

Cars and their supporting infrastructure often take up a vast amount of space, which makes walking less attractive as all distances are greater as a result.

dublinben
2 replies
21h10m

Another way of saying this is that because physical space in the city is a scarce resource, the allocation of infrastructure for cars and infrastructure for people is a zero sum game.

lxgr
0 replies
2h38m

A zero sum in terms of space, but definitely not in terms of efficient utilization, capacity etc.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
18h59m

yeah, the US solved this by expanding out to suburbia. Because we just have so much damn space and cars let us utilize more of that space.

Of course, the other thing people in this community may look over is that suburbs are often a fallback when you can't afford a dense urban area. I'm in an LA suburb and renting in LA would be over twice as expensive if I moved down there. Even if downtown LA became walkable, most of the LA county wouldn't be able to afford that living.

TomK32
3 replies
1d2h

You probably wouldn't believe it: But we managed to raise our daughter without having a car. She's now a happy cyclist herself. And in regards to handicaps, a few years ago I broke my hip, nothing a few plates and screws couldn't fix but I wasn't allow to step on the right leg for months. But I was allowed to borrow a recumbent trike, moving the bad leg was fine. and I was able to ride it with just the good leg. Needless to say I didn't loose much musclemass in the bad leg as it was constantly in motion.

It's not about punishing cars for their existence: It's about the massive amount of space they take up. Did you actually watch the GCN video? Have a look again at the bit about the corners that allow cars to go faster but take away space from pedestrians.

frabbit
1 replies
17h34m

We also raised a child without a car -- in North America. It is much more possible than most people claim.

I have some sympathy towards people that are arguing about different cost/benefit calculations applying to poorer people in the most motonormative parts of the USA. I don't buy all of it ( I have been poor in the USA and found that a bicycle was the key to freedom ), but I can believe there may be job situations where it just is more practical.

The people whose testimony I completely write off are upper-middleclass who could live closer to work with a smaller living space (or other tradeoff) -- we are all going to be burning in their self-justifying moralistic hell in the near future.

Get a bike losers -- and use it.

TomK32
0 replies
10h25m

Awesome. On the bikes. There's plenty of variants, not just the regular city bikes or cargo bikes, but also push bikes for adults, here's one German pensioner who actually made a startup out of this and his bikes are also useful to people with certain disabilities https://www.laufrad-fuer-erwachsene.de/

johnnyanmac
0 replies
19h1m

It's not about punishing cars for their existence: It's about the massive amount of space they take up.

I'm in California. We have a massive amount of space. If civilization collapsed, we could make a walkable state that can probably suit billions if need be. Being more compact isn't a huge priority here. On the contrary, we're trying to develop other suburbs out in the desertous regions.

Moldoteck
3 replies
1d

" People with small babies, anyone with urgent medical needs, and the handicapped."- yes, usually all of them will have a more comfortable life in a city that gives priority to pedestrian and bike infra. We are all pedestrians, but not all of us have cars. Disabled ppl in us are living worse than disabled ppl in nl again due to car oriented infra. Having a baby doesn't necessarily means you need to have a car, in a dense area like in NL ppl get by with a backfiets or cargo bike or just are using public transport or taking a taxi/day rental when really needed.

Related to car speed- at some point you have intersections of pedestrian and car infra and if the priority is to have a safer area, cars must drive slower, that's why lots of cities are implementing 30km areas+traffic calming like curbs, bollards and bumps and it works and heavily reduces the accidenta while avg speed remains paradoxically almost unchanged because less accidens/dangerous driving means less road blocks. Also, not all areas are wide enough to have everything separated, that's why the shared road concept exists- cars drive super slow and pedestrians and bikes have priority there, ppl can walk in the middle just like cars and cars will need to wait

frabbit
2 replies
17h25m

Disabled ppl in us are living worse

than disabled ppl in nl again due to

car oriented infra.

Car-centered road and sidewalk design is hostile to wheelchair users, people with sight impairments, children, old people on so many fronts:

- noise from vehicular traffic

- the right to progess impeded at every block by having to wait until someone drives their horseless carriage

- the danger of crossing because the licensing process for the self-propelled horseless buggies does not select only for the reasonable and sane

Motonormativity is a loss for everyone except car manufacturers and oil companies.

Even the suckers driving them are cheating themselves out of exercise and experiencing the world.

Moldoteck
1 replies
13h16m

It's much much more than that. For example in nl ppl in electric wheelchairs/microcars can use bike paths to drive slowly and safely to their destination. Also due to higher density they aren't far from either shops, cafes, other stuff they may need, everything is close-basically they can live relatively normal lives without relying too heavily on others

Hugsun
0 replies
5h6m

The Netherlands truly are the promised land of urban design.

mjmsmith
1 replies
1d1h

People who require a car for mobility should be in favor of less traffic on the roads. If more people use other forms of transport, that makes it easier for the pregnant soccer mom on crutches to drop off her 9 kids at practice before driving all of the elderly dementia patients in the neighborhood to the hospital.

TomK32
0 replies
10h17m

One thing I like to tell car fans: Unless you LOVE traffic jams and searching for parking spaces (because they refuse to got straight for a parking garage of which we have plenty in my city) you should convince other motorists to give up their car and use a bicycle or public transport. The logic is sound yet a bit too much for most people ;-)

stonogo
0 replies
23h59m

"Anyone with urgent medical needs and the handicapped" probably already have access to paratransit, since municipal mass transit systems are required by ADA to provide it.

lm28469
0 replies
1d1h

People with small babies, anyone with urgent medical needs, and the handicapped

99% of cars I see are occupied by a single person. If you get them out of the road (or car sharing at least) you can easily accommodate for the rest with a much smaller footprint

LeChuck
0 replies
1d10h

A city designed for other modes of transport is also better for drivers because only those who need (or really want) to drive need to do so. Result, less congestion and more relaxed driving.

If you have 15 minutes to spare, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k

globular-toast
2 replies
1d11h

It's a great video and better than the article imo.

Any talk about walking or cycling that doesn't talk about cars is completely missing the main reason people don't want to do those things. The video talks about "motonormativity", a phenomenon where even people who don't drive will defend and justify car usage.

Cars need to get out of town centres. Roads need to be redesigned to put pedestrians first and motorists last. Unfortunately you can't just make big changes these days so any attempts use the boiling the frog approach. Tiny changes that will take decades to get anywhere. For example, in the UK now pedestrians have priority at T junctions. This is the law. Good luck exercising that priority, though. It would be much easier without the type of junction shown in that video.

TomK32
0 replies
1d2h

It is a long process, it was in the Netherlands (where it started with campaigns about the number of children killed by drivers (others might say cars, but there's a person driving the car) but will be faster for every other city. I envy Paris for the massive change in a quick time, here in Austria is a fight street after street with cars still cutting through the old town.

Hugsun
0 replies
5h0m

I don't think it's fair to compare the article to the GCN video. Strongtowns has been advocating against all the issues mentioned in the GCN video for years.

This article is just making one argument that aligns with the broader idea of urbanism. It's not meant as a general introduction to the movement like the video.

whatindaheck
25 replies
1d12h

Tangentially related but I saw some similar comments in the original thread [0] so hopefully this is alright.

How does one move to Europe? Or how does one begin the process? I’m an average engineer and only speak English. Clearly I’m not the type of immigrant counties would love to welcome in. Where does one start?

For clarity, countries like Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Estonia highly appeal to me.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36920622

dataflow
3 replies
1d12h

Might help to clarify what you mean by "Europe", it includes everything from London to Moscow...

usrnm
2 replies
1d11h

And all of those places are very walkable compared to the US

dataflow
0 replies
1d4h

Yes, and you think they wouldn't care which one they move to?

bloak
0 replies
1d8h

I don't disagree but interestingly Europe may have one city that is less walkable that anywhere in the USA because I saw one list of the world's least walkable cities that started like this: Johannesburg, Patra (Greece), Dallas, Houston, ... and I think the next European city in the list was also in Greece. On the other hand I've heard it claimed that Britain has the least walkable cities in Europe so I don't know.

devoutsalsa
2 replies
1d11h

I'm an American living in Amsterdam. I moved here last year on a highly skilled migrant visa as a software engineer. [1] Unlike the USA, immigrating to many countries is easier. The company's onboarding team handled all the immigration paperwork. Feel free to contact me if you have some questions.

estebank
1 replies
1d2h

I would add that the paperwork is easier in countries other than the US, but the cultural aspects of immigration are hard everywhere. Small things like the food, the sense of humor, the cultural expectations, having friends and family far away, all weigh down on one regardless of where you are. The first half a year you're in a honeymoon period where it won't be a problem, the second half is where nostalgia hits hard. After that you either have adapted to the situation/feeling, or you're gone back. I highly recommend people live in different countries, it's enriching and eye opening. But it's not what I'd call easy.

devoutsalsa
0 replies
22h5m

Fair enough. I was focusing more on the procedural aspects of immigrating as come with a special skill. I haven’t really had a truly Dutch living experience yet. All of my coworkers are expats and the center of Amsterdam is largely English speaking. I’ve not yet been exposed to living in a Dutch community.

duggan
1 replies
1d12h

Europe has a lot of countries and cultures, might make sense to visit first, see if there’s anywhere in particular you like?

English is the primary language in Ireland, and I think as a developer you’d qualify for a “critical skills” visa. Can read more here https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving-country/working...

I imagine most countries have similarly helpful “moving to x” websites.

Amsterdam has way better infrastructure, more bike and pedestrian friendly (by a long, long way) and you can get by with just English to start.

But first maybe visit some places!

beardyw
0 replies
1d2h

I found that in most of the Netherlands, certainly south of Amsterdam, you could get away with English. But it isn't the everyday business language.

_huayra_
1 replies
1d11h

Please read up on the tax implications if you are a US citizen. Unless you move to some place in Europe with low taxes (e.g. certain cantons in Switzerland, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a more difficult country to get a work visa for outside of getting EU citizenship by ancestry), you likely won't end up owing the tax difference as income, but it can be difficult to navigate retirement savings, especially for mandatory systems that don't have a bilateral treaty with the US, wherein the US IRS recognizes the special tax-deferred status of a pension or IRA equivalent.

You will likely be limited to working only with the largest banks, as they're the only ones that are usually willing to file the FinCEN reports back to the US.

I still recommend doing it. Yes, you'll likely take a hit financially (lower salaries, certain consumer items being a lot pricier, a big PITA tax situation), but I think it's worth it to see how it is to live in a place that is much better designed. It's also great to be able to experience how it is to trade off the "grindset mentality" in the US for much better WLB. I literally had colleagues whose OOF messages that said "I'm bikepacking through Norway and will be offline for all of August" meanwhile back in the US, I've had colleagues join conference calls on their phone while recovering from surgery (not because of a lack of PTO, but because unfortunately industry research labs are highly competitive).

Also, it's a good idea to make great efforts to learn the local language or you'll end up in an Anglo bubble and you'll end up feeling like an alien on a foreign planet.

sersi
0 replies
1d2h

As an alternative, I'd recommend trying to live in places in Asia like Hong Kong or Japan. Walkable cities, relatively low tax rate (but not sure how it works with US citizens tax system), higher salaries than Europe (in the case of Hong Kong, Japan really depends although CS salaries have increased quite a bit lately).

You can also be a digital nomad while living in those places. Japan has a special visa IIRC, with HK you can just use the 3 months tourist visa and do hops to other countries (I know quite a few people who have done that for years)

TomK32
1 replies
1d12h

You will be very welcome as an engineer. We do have english speaking countries in the EU: Ireland and Malta have it as their official language but others like The Netherlands will give you not much problem and then there's plenty of cities to look at like Berlin, Vienna, ... Even in the rather small Austrian city of 200k pop where I live I know a South African woman who gets along just fine as English teacher. European cities are becoming the melting pots again they had been before the world wars. Just learn the local language and don't fall into English too often, the natives will do switch to English but I finally got into the habit of having bi-lingual conversations which is great fun.

999900000999
0 replies
1d3h

It’s 10x harder to get a job in a foreign country.

It’s a ton of paperwork for employers. If you have EU citizenship I guess it’s easy.

I’d be open to taking a 50% pay cut to get a job in Europe. I really wanted to do this in my 20s.

piva00
0 replies
1d9h

I'm a Brazilian living in Sweden for 10+ years.

The easiest way is finding a job, moving here wasn't hard at all with a job, the bureaucracy was taken care by the company, when I moved you'd get a 2 years work visa attached to the job you got, the visa renewal after 2 years frees you to move jobs without the new company having to sponsor you. After 4 years I got a permanent residency and after 5 I got my citizenship.

not_your_vase
0 replies
1d12h

If you have no other idea (like reversing the EU->US immigration steps), just born there. It worked for me.

ncarroll
0 replies
1d11h

Germany offers an "Opportunity Card" which gives successful applicants a year to live here while looking for a job. This is a new program that just launched in June, 2024 and I have no personal experience with it but, for a country that needs qualified workers, I thought it was a good idea.

https://www.simplegermany.com/opportunity-card-germany/

Good luck!

mpreda
0 replies
1d12h

While still abroad, interview and get a job in a big company in a developed country. Afterwards the company will help with relocation, visa, and other paperwork.

lozenge
0 replies
1d11h

I'm surprised nobody mentioned intra company transfer.

You start on the foreign country's website and supplement with community groups eg on Facebook. Average engineer might be fine but you need above average drive to navigate the process.

lawn
0 replies
1d3h

How does one move to Europe? Or how does one begin the process? I’m an average engineer and only speak English.

In Sweden at least practically everyone speaks English and it should be common among engineers to mainly speak English (at least that's the case for software engineers).

lars512
0 replies
1d12h

The easiest way to move anywhere is to apply for a job there, and if successful, let them guide you through the visa process.

That gives you a visa linked to your job. But keep unbroken employment in that country for 4-5 years and you will get permanent residence (pre citizenship), which frees you up immensely but requires you to not spent more than 1-2 years at a time outside that country.

If you get that far, you’ve done the hard work and citizenship is yours if you want it just by settling there longer.

huimang
0 replies
1d12h

Many places have digital nomad visas, like Estonia for example. https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/nomadvisa/

right now you only speak english, but you can surely allocate some time to start learning the local language. it's long-term marathon, not a sprint.

hashmush
0 replies
1d11h

Only English is not a problem in Sweden (especially Stockholm), and we hire foreign engineers all the time. Some companies have a majority of foreign born engineers, with a wide range of backgrounds (Brazilian, Russian, Spanish, American, etc.)

Ofc, salary comparisons are hard to make vs. the US, but you can live comfortably on an engineer's salary in Sweden.

Some of the biggest "modern" companies include DICE, Klarna and Spotify. More traditional ones are Ericsson, Scania and Volvo.

Hiring is a bit slow right now though, so that has to be kept in mind.

buildfocus
0 replies
19h24m

A few countries now have remote work visas (Spain definitely, Portugal too I think). As long as you make good money (any software engineer salary is fine) and it comes from abroad, that'll work to get you in the door. Alternatively you can find an big international company (who will often work in English) with a local office.

In Western Europe at least, English-only in day to day life will be a moderate challenge but not a critical one (many people speak at least basic English, you get good at pointing effectively, you learn essentials much faster than you think), you'll find people & services targeted at expats to solve exactly this problem, you meet many many other foreigners in the same situation, and with a little time you really can learn a language even if you've never done it before (and doing so is genuinely an interesting and meaningful project that many people enjoy).

I moved to Spain with no Spanish. First year or so is tricky but manageable and definitely not boring, and then from there on it's relatively smooth sailing. Quite a few years later now, worked out great, best decision I ever made.

Moldoteck
0 replies
1d

Engineer and English should be enough to start applying to jobs in countries you like except maybe southern-eastern ones where English is spoken less

GardenLetter27
0 replies
1d12h

Same as moving anywhere - apply to jobs that sponsor visas. It's easier if you can move within your current company too.

I’m an average engineer and only speak English. Clearly I’m not the type of immigrant counties would love to welcome in.

This helps way less than one would hope. Bureaucracy trumps common sense unfortunately.

blackeyeblitzar
15 replies
1d11h

Why would I want a shift to walking? Cars give me fast transportation on my own schedule and let me have far more access to things than just walking or walking plus public transit.

cbeach
7 replies
1d11h

Exactly. And cars are essential for many journeys, and for normal family life in many out-of-town regions.

Yet so many people on forums like this live in metropolitan bubbles and have no idea why cars might be necessary. There’s a lot of ideological opposition to motorists at the moment and it needs to stop, because the proposed “solutions” to motoring are zero-sum and in some cases downright hostile

sagarm
3 replies
1d10h

Cities have a limited amount of space, and a disproportionate amount of it is allocated to drivers. It's fine to choose to live in a car dependent suburbs; but don't be surprised when urbanites want to prevent fast through traffic just like suburbanites do. They're not obligated to design their neighborhood for your convenience.

trgn
2 replies
1d3h

This is my biggest gripe in the US. it's not the cars per se. it's that sub/ex-urbanites want to change the city to conform to their values. keep your car, i don't care, drive everywhere, but don't trash up the city just for your convenience. Let a thousand flowers bloom. cars for the fur trappers, but beautiful, calm pedestrian environments for the urbanites.

tech_ken
1 replies
1d

it's that sub/ex-urbanites want to change the city to conform to their values. keep your car, i don't care, drive everywhere, but don't trash up the city just for your convenience.

Agree with the sentiment but IMO suburbs and car-centric cities are basically mutually defining. Suburbanites didn't change the city to suit their preferences, the city changing is what enables the existance of the suburbs.

Suburbs can't sustain themselves alone, they lack the density and zoning to allow their citizens to productively work. The whole design concept is to give you place to live outside the city (away from the poor or minorities) while simultaneously making it as convenient as possible for you to commute into it with your personal vehicle. The end result is a system which generates wealth in a diverse urban area, and then exports much of it to the wealthy and exclusive suburbs. To make a city difficult to commute into by car breaks the whole system, since it deprives the outer suburbs of their revenue source; the people who live there (which typically includes the elite political class in charge of planning) will fight tooth and nail to prevent that.

trgn
0 replies
21h10m

thx, good way of summarizing it, and I think I understand this state of affairs the same way you do.

To make a city difficult to commute into by car breaks ...

I think 90% of this is a mental fear. What we are really talking about in most US cities is just measures to overall calm car traffic; bike lanes, bump outs, some bollards, ... Small fiddly things which make city life meaningfully more agreeable for pedestrians, but the effect on drivers is all in all pretty marginal. Some slower top-speeds in the core, maybe parking a little further, ... It's incredibly frustrating to me that these small changes cannot even happen because suburbanites - at least, where I am - will not tolerate even the smallest material intervention. It's all gut feel. If miraculously one of these traffic calming measures does go through, it barely registers as a nuisance.

striking
0 replies
1d3h

I lived where cars are essential. I don't think those places need to immediately get rid of cars.

I do think that that same infrastructure doesn't need to be mirrored inside my high density "metropolitan bubble".

oblio
0 replies
1d2h

That's super funny.

Do you realize that the current car infrastructure is zero-sum and not "downright hostile" but "literally hostile" to walking and biking?

We need a BALANCE.

This should be seared on the forehead of every driver, especially SUV and truck drivers.

francisofascii
0 replies
1d3h

Why does it need to stop exactly? To me America skews to heavily to being car centric, and simply needs to be more pedestrian friendly, especially in cities. But it doesn’t have to ban cars everywhere. More balance is needed.

crummy
1 replies
1d11h

I'm visiting Berlin at the moment, and one thing that's really nice is never having to figure out how to get home after a few drinks (or planning who will drive or how to pick up the car in the morning etc).

betaby
0 replies
1d1h

Interestingly enough that km traveled by car per person in Germany isn't that different from Canada. Of course Berlin is nice, doesn't show the whole picture though.

bradboimler
1 replies
1d1h

You get exercise living your life

Something I've realized after moving to a walkable neighborhood is that you interact with your neighbors more because you run into them as you go about. Cars are isolating. Walking about builds community.

No car maintenance. No insurance. No gas.

You don't have to deal with traffic or parking

I still keep a car because it's the status quo but if I had to replace it I wouldn't

lotsoweiners
0 replies
19h35m

Cars are isolating.

That’s what I want when I am trying to go somewhere.

Walking about builds community.

I sure hope not. I walk my dog once or twice a day and avoid anyone who tries to talk to me. I’ve got enough community in other aspects of my life.

ryukoposting
0 replies
1d11h

Cars offer maximum versatility at the cost of low accessibility, high inconvenience, and high unit cost.

Plenty of people can't drive for medical reasons. My wife, for example. If she needs to be driven somewhere, I have to do it. That's a pain in the ass for both of us.

It might take longer to get somewhere by bus/train/etc in the absolute sense, but you know what I'm not doing while riding the bus? Driving! I can read a book, take a nap, daydream, catch up on work or social matters, watch a movie, or countless other things that you simply can't do while driving.

As a result, I actually have more time in the day to go about my life because I opt out of driving when possible. And I live in a mid-sized midwestern city with the middling public transit options you'd expect of such a place.

Then there's money. Insurance, gas, tires, brakes, oil, and routine maintenance add up to several thousands of dollars in yearly expenses if you drive regularly. Public transit is flat-out cheaper, even if you don't have a monthly car payment.

The point of all of this is that car ownership should be thought of as optional. The versatility is nice, and that's why I own a car. But, I don't use it much, because it's cheaper and more pleasant to walk or use public transit.

Moldoteck
0 replies
1d

Because with proper city design you'd get even faster where you want, also on your own schedule and in very rare occasions this doesn't work out you'd get a taxi or rent a car several hours. Or maybe an ebike

LeChuck
0 replies
1d10h

Because walking is good for you and good for the environment. Additionally, if everyone walked/biked when possible the roads would be more pleasant for you to drive on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPUlgSRn6e0

ars
15 replies
1d11h

"Have you ever had a friend return from a vacation and gush about how great it was to walk in the place they’d visited? “You can walk everywhere! To a café, to the store. It was amazing!”"

What is amazing about walking I have no idea. That sounds utterly horrible - to be in a place where everything is so close together that you can walk to everything?

Space, humans need space.

Ugh, I'm getting nauseated just thinking about it. And yes, I've been in places like that, I've tried them out, and they were as unpleasant as I expected.

I tested it, I went to NY using only public transportation, and it was the most horrible time I've ever had being away from home. Never again! Never!

My feet hurt, my back hurt, without a car I had nowhere to leave my stuff, so I had to carry everything with me, or make the long trek to my hotel (NY banned AirBNB, so hotels are far away from where I wanted to be).

It was truly an absolutely miserable experience, and sitting in traffic, or hunting for a parking space is a billion times better.

I've tried NY with a car before then, but I was told you don't need a car in NY - so I tried it! And they are wrong. Public transport is ALWAYS worse than a car, it's slower, much slower, it's less convenient because they only run during popular hours, it's more expensive than renting a car because you have to supplement with Uber.

I don't know why I keep trying this no-car stuff, but I did, I tried Washington DC with and without a car. (I went for 2 days, one without a car, the second day with.) A car is better. MUCH MUCH better, and cheaper too, even paying for parking.

oblio
5 replies
1d2h

LOL.

Isn't America the land of the free? Free market, land of opportunity, options galore?

Just remove enforced single family zoning for 70%+ of your built up areas and let the free market decide, right?

In most of the US right now you can decide to:

1. live in a single family home

2. live in a single family home

3. live in a single family home

...

98. live in a single family home

99. rent/buy a condo (if there are any in the area and you can afford it, because those areas are super expensive)

100. rent/buy a townhouse (if there are any in the area and you can afford it, because those areas are super expensive)

pchristensen
4 replies
1d1h

Lol I always say I'm fine with people advocating for zoning restrictions, as long as they also acknowledge that land use planning is the most communist and regulated industry in America, in a way that would make the healthcare industry blush.

EliRivers
3 replies
1d

Land use planning is the most communist? Doesn't really seem to be run under priciples of common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. How would one even have common ownership of land use planning?

As for making the healthcare industry blush; the healthcare industry in the US is brutally uncommunist.

Did you really mean communist? If so, in what way is land planning in the US operated under principles of common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.

oblio
2 replies
23h8m

I think he meant communist in the everyday perception, more like authoritarian (so not communist in the dictionary sense).

Super regulated, super indoctrinated, no freedom, basically.

pchristensen
1 replies
17h48m

Exactly.

EliRivers
0 replies
7h12m

So if it's not actually communist, but just authoritarian, what's the problem? And where's the authoritarianism with healthcare? In healthcare in the US, you can just go out and buy pretty much any legal healthcare you like - surely that's not at all authoritarian.

sagarm
1 replies
1d10h

If walking makes you hurt that much, you might want to talk to your doctor.

dh2022
0 replies
1d3h

Run, do not walk , to your doctor!!! Ooops, that did not come out right…. Let me fix it…. Drive, do not walk to your doctor!!!

wnolens
0 replies
1d2h

Space, humans need space.

Humans need to move, more than they need space.

My feet hurt, my back hurt

see above

I was told you don't need a car in NY - so I tried it! And they are wrong. Public transport is ALWAYS worse than a car, it's slower, much slower, it's less convenient because they only run during popular hours, it's more expensive than renting a car because you have to supplement with Uber.

Some town in NY state designed for cars? of course? In NYC everything about this sentence is provably false.

sensanaty
0 replies
5h34m

Your feet and back hurt because you don't walk anywhere and are over-reliant on cars. They shouldn't hurt for small distances, our bodies are quite literally built for walking literally all day if need be.

Also, walking doesn't need to be the only alternative. For medium distances, a bike is better in every single way, both health-wise and otherwise. It's fast, cheap, good exercise, you can store it literally anywhere and even bring it onto the trains for the long-distance travels.

senkora
0 replies
1d2h

I don't know why I keep trying this no-car stuff, but I did

It might just not be for you, and that's okay. Your actual experience is more useful to you than anything I say below.

My personal point-of-view is that I live in lower Manhattan, commute by electric bike, and regularly take the subway, buses, ferries, and commuter rail. I very rarely rent a car for trips outside the city.

I had nowhere to leave my stuff, so I had to carry everything with me

There's definitely a learning curve there. It's usually possible too get by with less then you think if you plan in advance, but I don't know your situation. I have a little mini backpack where I carry my water bottle, charger bank, sunglasses, hat, and a reusable grocery bag.

or make the long trek to my hotel

If you don't mind me asking, which neighborhood did you stay in? Was this in Manhattan? I would expect an average of a 5 minute walk to the subway, plus a 5 minute wait time for the train to arrive, and you shouldn't need to return to the hotel during the day.

I've tried NY with a car before then

I think a lot of people don't realize how well a car works in NYC, even in Manhattan. In the outer boroughs it's probably the most convenient option. The main issues are 1) parking, which you don't seem to mind, and 2) rush hour traffic. Cars work very well here late at night and early in the morning, and pretty well during the day. Robert Moses built quite a lot of highways here.

Public transport is ... slower

This is often true even in NYC, unless there is traffic. My rule of thumb is that the subway has a higher average time but a much lower variance. An electric bike is faster than both options, which is why delivery drivers here use electric bikes.

In the tourist areas, there's usually traffic, so the subway is usually the better choice for visitors.

The subway is also usually the better choice for commuters, because they commute during rush hour.

Public transport is ... less convenient because they only run during popular hours

The NYC subway and buses are 24 hours and work well even in the middle of the night, although I would not recommend taking them to the outer boroughs in the middle of the night for safety reasons.

Public transport is ... more expensive than renting a car because you have to supplement with Uber

This may be true depending on your personal tolerance for walking and the kinds of trips that you make. You really have to be okay walking up to 10 minutes on each end for public transit to make sense. This is also why New Yorkers walk so quickly!

primis
0 replies
1d2h

I used to work in Manhattan, you 100% don't need a car there. A backpack for your stuff. Subways are a bit faster than walking for short/medium distances, faster if you're going interborough. But cars are so so much slower. Trying to drive in Manhattan traffic is torture. Maybe you need better walking shoes? Manhattan isn't flat but I wouldn't call it super hilly either. It's mostly level grade, and the sidewalks are for the most part well maintained.

guitarlimeo
0 replies
1d11h

Interesting! I have the exact opposite view, hunting for a parking space or sitting in traffic is billion times worse than walking or sitting in public transport. When you are driving, you must be alert, you can't just phase out to some youtube video the same way you can do while riding public transport.

Also walking is the most natural thing to us humans, it shouldn't hurt and it won't if you do it regularly. I don't mean no offense, but have you considered that you drive too much or don't get exercise otherwise if walking hurts so bad?

Moldoteck
0 replies
1d

Pub transport is slower if you design it this way. In NL bus and trams have own lanes, priority on semaphores and the paths to dest are usually shorter compared to car paths. Combine with needing to find the parking and in 90%+ you'll get faster with pub transport there than with a car. And pub transport can transport much more ppl than a bunch of cars since cars aren't shared and aren't space efficient even if you drive them full. A single tram with 7 sections in Basel can transport up to 1k ppl. Do you imagine the traffic you'd get with 800-1k cars instead of that tram? Public transport convenience is made by design, just like bike infra, just like pedestrian infra. The difference is what you prioritize

EliRivers
0 replies
1d3h

Public transport is ALWAYS worse than a car, it's slower, much slower

Well here's something odd. Just yesterday I was in a city crossing it from one side to the other, and it was so much faster by underground train than it would have been in a car. Yet your statement suggests that that real experience couldn't be true.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say that public transport is SOMETIMES worse than a car. What do you think? Might that be more accurate?

Log_out_
12 replies
1d12h

Pedestrians are after thoughts and hsve to constsntly pull on resources to get ahead. Could have cameras or learning systens that adapt to the flow of crowds. But the world is mot designed for pedestrian peasants.

impossiblefork
8 replies
1d12h

I'm not sure it's actually the rich and powerful necessarily drive much.

Of course, there are car obsessed rich people who enjoy driving. I know some Swedish entrepreneurs who are like that, but I also know similarly successful people who never decided to get a driver's license and who lived in Gothenburg and take the tram everywhere.

I think the car is a middle class thing, but then peasants were upper middle class, but I assume that's not what you meant.

thaumasiotes
7 replies
1d11h

but then peasants were upper middle class

Maybe in a modern context. In the terminology of the time peasants were lower class. The middle class was merchants, and "middle" referred to their social status, not their economic status - it would be unsurprising for members of the middle class to be much richer than members of the upper class.

impossiblefork
6 replies
1d10h

No.

Farmers were respectable landowners who had employees themselves. They were seen as the foundation society stood on and contrasted with the landless and the rich.

defrost
5 replies
1d10h

The word used was "peasant", in English usage:

    A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: non-free slaves, semi-free serfs, and free tenants.
~ wikipedia

    a poor smallholder or agricultural labourer of low social status (chiefly in historical use or with reference to subsistence farming in poorer countries).
~ Oxford Dictionary

So .. limited land ownership (if any) and almost always a rent paying tenant.

impossiblefork
4 replies
1d9h

Ah.

Here in Sweden the peasant class was rich and influential, but I they, since they weren't rent paying, were more properly a farmer class.

defrost
2 replies
1d8h

Fair enough & interesting to know :-)

It's always worth checking for cultural differences in word usage when such things arise on internet forums.

Gud
0 replies
1d8h

That’s because the other poster is using the word “peasant” wrong. Sweden was indeed organised differently than most countries in those days, with the king having his power base from the farmers(and not aristocrats as in most other European countries).

Ekaros
0 replies
1d8h

I think most apt comparison for peasant would be Backstugusittare or torpare. At least comparing to Finnish system.

samatman
0 replies
1d1h

The word you're looking for is "yeoman", btw. Peasantry is a larger concept which also includes serfs, but the yeoman farmer was exactly what you're describing. "Rich" might be pushing it in an Anglo context, but land owning and powerful, though not in comparison to the aristocracy.

sofixa
1 replies
1d12h

But the world is mot designed for pedestrian peasants.

Fortunately, small parts of the world, mostly centralised around anglophone North America and a few other "developing/developed rapidly in an age where cars seemed like the best thing since sliced bread, so everyone else was left behind" countries. And for the latter category, countries like Sri Lanka or Taiwan, it's still usually not as egregious as in anglophone North America because sometimes there are leftovers from before when everyone used to have to walk; not everything was bulldozed like it was in US and Canada. (Probably just because they had less time at destroying everything to remake it for cars).

But in a lot of the world, pedestrians are taken into account, and often even prioritised for.

the_sleaze_
0 replies
23h17m

I believe that early on there was heavy influence to build highways and suburbs to support the burgeoning US auto industry. It really makes no sense otherwise, from a planning perspective.

The infrastructure alone to support sewer, gas and electric makes absolutely no sense with such low density residential.

shiroiushi
0 replies
1d12h

I wish I could pass a law that forbids politicians from driving or riding in personal automobiles as long as they're in office: they can walk, take public transit, ride a bicycle, or take an airplane (in coach class).

ryukoposting
9 replies
1d11h

Maybe this sounds idiotic, but I've started playing chicken with drivers. If it's a crosswalk with no pedestrian signals, as long as they've made eye contact with me, I just go.

Hit me. You won't.

vehemenz
3 replies
1d3h

This is standard protocol in most cities. It's not that novel.

roughly
1 replies
1d2h

Note that this works everywhere but Boston. I visit every once in a while for family or work and every time it takes me a day and a couple close calls to adjust.

recursive
0 replies
20h16m

I wonder if it would help if you had a wagon full of cinder blocks with you.

ryukoposting
0 replies
7h2m

When I told my wife-to-be this, she told me I'm insane! And she grew up in one of the biggest cities in the US. There's a couple other commenters expressing the same sentiment.

bigstrat2003
2 replies
1d2h

That is idiotic because you're vastly increasing your risk of injury. And for what? To make some point? I don't see how you benefit from that increased risk you are taking on.

ryukoposting
0 replies
7h3m

Another commenter replied that this is standard practice. Funny.

Because I actually make it to where I'm going in a reasonable amount of time.

Because it's the law. I have the right of way in the crosswalk [1].

Because I'm in the middle of a pleasant morning stroll and I'd rather not have it interrupted by some jackass whose day will somehow be ruined if they arrive at work 4 seconds later than they expected.

[1]: https://www.drivinglaws.org/resources/when-do-pedestrians-ha...

recursive
0 replies
1d1h

And for what? To make some point?

For me, it's more about the cumulative mental energy required to get somewhere. If I walked maximally defensively, that would put me in a certain state of mind. It would expend some of the limited focus that I have in a day. Much in the same way that I don't always read all of the EULA before clicking "I Agree". It's easy to blame someone for skipping through after it goes bad. But the amount of energy and discipline it takes to maintain that when the environment is stacked against you is impractical.

So whatever. Just hit me if you have to. I have no illusion that I'm making a noble point. I just don't have the energy.

pvaldes
0 replies
17m

As long as there aren't drivers on alcohol or coke in your city, they will not try to pass faster than you by that place. If somebody does and kills you, they will be fined, so is a... "you win". Maybe. Sort of.

alexpetralia
0 replies
1d2h

You should Google "the risk of ruin".

countWSS
9 replies
1d11h

The Elephant in the Room that author ignores: Streets smell, and smelling them by walking a few km, cars and various chemicals are far more annoying than in a closed window car. If they were serious about walkable cities, the streets should be pleasant to walk. Evidently this isn't the case even in Europe and even less likely elsewhere, where smelly diesel engines, motorcycles and garbage have a significant odor problem.

port19
2 replies
1d11h

I have no idea where you've been in europe, but speaking for southern germany specifically this is bullshit

inferiorhuman
1 replies
1d11h

Today, I drove a stretch of interstate that runs next to a sewage treatment plant. Yes, it smelled as bad as you'd imagine even inside the car.

Ekaros
0 replies
1d8h

Only times I really remember smells is driving in countryside when farmers have used more natural fertilizers... Rest of the time have not really noticed issues.

But then again I suppose being pedestrian or cyclist in those areas would not help that one...

mort96
2 replies
1d11h

Your streets may smell, but not most of the streets I've been around in most of the countries I've visited... if your streets smell, that's a solvable problem.

dbcurtis
1 replies
1d2h

Please do us all a favor and write a Very Stern Letter to the mayor of Philadelphia.

willcipriano
0 replies
1d1h

Thoughts and votes.

piva00
1 replies
1d7h

Evidently this isn't the case even in Europe and even less likely elsewhere, where smelly diesel engines, motorcycles and garbage have a significant odor problem.

I haven't experienced almost any problem with smelly streets while walking or biking in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Munich, Cologne, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Barcelona, Lisbon, Prague, and the list goes on. The worst I can think of is some smelly alley or higher traffic road in Berlin, or when I was in Milan when garbage collectors were on strike.

The worst cities I've ever smelled were São Paulo, Los Angeles, NYC, and San Francisco. Guess what these cities have lots and lots of? Cars.

SoftTalker
0 replies
1d2h

Try Chicago. Streets smell like shit. It's not the cars, or trash (Chicago is pretty clean for a big city) it's the sewers.

fleg
0 replies
1d11h

It's not streets that smell, it's the cars. And you're right - nobody enjoys having a walk near a street with heavy car traffic. That's why in Europe a lot of streets in the city centers are designed in a way to discourage driving, providing ring roads and public transport options instead.

anovikov
9 replies
1d

I think it's not happening because it's a chicken and egg problem. To have where to realistically walk, to have some stuff you want reachable on foot, you need to have a high population density. When everyone drives, people want, and get, lower population density because it gives them more personal space, lowers crime, makes kids safer, and cost of living lower. Sure it destroys the sense of community and makes everyone obese, but that comes slowly and so it's not what people consciously prioritise. Thus building good pedestrian infra in a low-density community built for driving won't give much benefit: most places people need to go to will be too far for walking anyway. And pushing people to higher density will mean pushing them to ghettos because everyone who can afford, lives in those car-centric, low-density, safer places.

Moldoteck
8 replies
1d

First steps would be ditching zoning, parking minimums and maybe favourable tax for businesses set at first floors of multistory buildings. This way you give space for development and gradually density will improve

anovikov
7 replies
1d

But you also need to find people willing to live like that vs suburbs where they feel safer and have larger plots of land.

In Europe they had no choice basically.

stonogo
5 replies
23h53m

People are willing to live like that everywhere. Even in tiny towns with one main street, that main street will have mixed-use commercial under residential.

Suburbs with large plots are the most profitable possible mode for a land developer -- construction costs are cheap, all they have to worry about is drainage. Suburbs will never go away; they happen by default. That's why the parent comment mentioned tax benefits for mixed-use development.

Moldoteck
4 replies
23h46m

You got it wrong, suburbs are the most unprofitable for both the city and land developer. I mean no, for land developer it's still profitable but the profit from building a high mixed use building would be much greater. Tax benefits would apply to businesses that are subletting the areas from already built houses to just jumpstart it

stonogo
3 replies
23h43m

Suburbs are expensive as hell for cities to govern. Population density is low, there's no commercial taxation opportunities, utilities and services have to cover more ground, and so forth. Developers love suburbs because they have a low startup cost: you buy a few acres of land, throw a few thousand bucks to a civil engineering PE to plat it, and start selling to builders. Mixed-use development requires ages of collaboration with city planners, permit denial rates are much higher, and then once you can break ground you have to invest hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and hope you make it back with rent.

Moldoteck
2 replies
23h1m

Mixed-use development requires ages of collaboration with city planners, permit denial rates are much higher, and then once you can break ground you have to invest hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and hope you make it back with rent.- didn't know it's this way in us. Here in EU developers are happy to build as high as possible with first floor reserved for businesses to a point where cities are thinking auch a high density may affect negatively the life of the other ppl since the infra/schools nr etc aren't designed for it. And ppl are buying this stuff like hot pancakes

anovikov
1 replies
13h49m

Then why is the amount of new housing built in EU so low, compared to US?

Moldoteck
0 replies
13h21m

That's not zoning. It's bureaucracy and corruption. Basically politicians are bribed to give authorisations to specific companies. On the other hand, in Germany for example they just give fewer authorisations to protect the revenues from their investments in pension system. The other reason is just lost knowledge and huge effort needed to design new areas. New housing needs proper infra like schools, public transport and ao on, all of which should be planned, takes time and costs money. Some cities learned to deal with it, others didn't

Moldoteck
0 replies
23h49m

You got it wrong. In us, because of zoning and parking mins density got wrecked and housing supply small and prices increased a lot and many ppl moved to suburbs. In us ppl had no choice because the law was designed in this way. Make no mistake, a lot of ppl want to live closer to the city if the housing supply/zoning would allow it and if prices will drop due to higher supply, basic market rules

In (most of) EU on the other hand zoning is much more relaxed and you can live either in a big dense city or a village, it's up to you

Also, safety is usually conditioned by public/social monitoring which happens in well developed areas (neighbors watching, ppl hanging out and as result ppl tend to commit less crimes since they are watched). If it doesn't exist, that area is designed poorly.

gspencley
7 replies
1d1h

Have you ever had a friend return from a vacation and gush about how great it was to walk in the place they’d visited? “You can walk everywhere! To a café, to the store. It was amazing!”

Honestly, no.

I live in a medium sized city in southern Ontario, about a 3 1/2 - 4 hour drive from Toronto. I just came back from spending a week in Toronto and although everything was walking distance, and we did walk everywhere, the week-long stay was not at all enjoyable.

There are people who love big cities. They love being able to walk everywhere, they love the "excitement" and the ability to experience a wide and diverse range of activities and food etc.

And then there are us introverts who find it extremely uncomfortable to be in places that are so crowded.

I enjoy walking as a solitary activity. I'm not lazy, I'm not averse to doing physical activity. But I really really really dislike walking anywhere that has a sizeable population density. I've heard that in the USA / Canada, the average "personal space bubble" that people find comfortable is around 1.5 feet. For me it's closer to 6 feet. I find that trying to navigate busy sidewalks is overwhelming and anxiety-inducing.

I've heard a lot of city-loving younger people talk about the pains of owning a vehicle. I didn't get my driver's license until my early to mid 20s. At the time I had a young family of 4 (my wife and I plus two small children) and, although I might be biased because I live in a built-for-cars North American city, getting our first vehicle gave us so much freedom and independence that it was life-changing in a positive way. I realize that if all amenities had been within walking distance then maybe not having a car wouldn't have been such a hindrance, but when I think back to being in downtown Toronto recently, I couldn't imagine navigating that population density nightmare while also pushing a double-stroller.

To me, and maybe this is more psychological / emotional than logical ... but a car is my personal isolation bubble that gives me much needed personal space while travelling. Though I also must admit that leaving the house is a special occasion for me. So yeah, I'm not typical and city-life is just not for me.

wakamoleguy
1 replies
1d1h

Walkability isn't just important in big cities; you can have it in smaller towns, too. I live in the suburbs of a large city, but my town has a small "main street" area with shops and restaurants that I love to walk to. I also have the anxiety around crowds (especially post-pandemic), and my town is the perfect balance of freedom to walk places and space to breathe.

When I think about walkable vacation spots, I don't only think of cities either. I think of small beach towns where even though it isn't populous, things are close enough together to explore on foot.

So I guess one question I'd pose is: if you could have that personal space without the car, would you still prefer the car and why? And given the negative externalities of the car, are there other ways those needs could be solved?

gspencley
0 replies
1d1h

So I guess one question I'd pose is: if you could have that personal space without the car, would you still prefer the car and why?

That depends on context. I would say that I would prefer to always have the ability to drive a car even if I were to choose to walk more often than not. Reasons for this: bad weather, needing to get somewhere while ill, feeling anti-social and not wanting to risk running into anyone, needing to get around with a minor injury, needing to transport a large or heavy items.

I know that we're talking about walking vs driving, but public transportation will inevitably enter the picture when it comes to physical or mobility issues. I would like to travel to Europe one day because what I hear from Europeans is that their cities are night and day compared to North American cities when it comes to not only walkability but public transport. Here in North America, I would rather walk on a crowded sidewalk than use public transportation for no other reason than being in what feels like a "tin can" full of strangers is nightmare fuel for me. At least on a crowded sidewalk I am outdoors.

And given the negative externalities of the car, are there other ways those needs could be solved?

Sure. To the extent that "negative externalities" are something that we need to care about, let's use technology to reduce those negative externalities without having to give up the things that make our lives better.

lm28469
1 replies
1d1h

There are plenty of small walkable cities in Europe, I just came back from a trip to a 300 inhabitants town, everything was walkable, albeit you had to walk 20min to the next city to get to the bigger things like banks and big stores but that was easily doable as you could use a clean hiking path through the woods or a very nicely maintained sidewalk. Get yourself a bicycle and the 20min walk becomes a 5min ride

And rest assured, you won't see much action or social interactions on the way

gspencley
0 replies
15h21m

That's really cool. Usually when discussions come up about "walkable cities" the discussion is around major urban areas and city planning.

Though you mentioned banks as something that is still pretty far away. A few years ago I was self-employed, collecting old-fashioned checks (it was slow moving to digital) and I had to frequent a bank once every week, two weeks at most since I had to deposit checks that were in USD and my bank in here Canada couldn't yet do that via an ATM. My nearest branch was walking distance but I still chose to drive because it was a 20m walk, 5 - 10m bike ride or 1 - 2m drive. Since it was such a big chore to have to go there in person, I opted for a car more often than walking or biking.

I think that at least some of what drives these discussions is congestion and parking in major cities. I can't stand driving in downtown Toronto. But in my mid-sized city I really don't mind driving 5 - 10 minutes vs having to double or triple that to walk or bike there. Add the benefit of personal space and a trunk to carry groceries in and I can't see any benefit (beyond maybe environmental impact) to a "15 minute" city in a medium-sized city where traffic congestion is not really a thing and a short car ride will halve your 20 - 30m round trip.

City advocates claim that North American suburb existence requires you to plan your grocery trips and buy lots at a time, vs the "benefit" of city life where you can run to the store to grab milk if you're out of it. The idea of going to a crowded grocery store is such a chore that I welcome any strategy that gets me going there once a month or even less if at all possible. The idea of running to a grocery store, even if it were a block away, for a single item or two is nightmare fuel given that the trip could be avoided all together with the smallest bit of planning, whether walking or driving. So how do I accomplish buying a month's worth of groceries if I have to walk there? Whereas, if I have the choice to drive or walk, I can decide how much to buy at a time and how often I want to go. Big win for cars.

Another drawback to the "15 minute city", from an extreme introvert's perspective, is that the closer things are to your home, the closer PEOPLE are to your home. It actually bothers me if I'm sitting on my couch reading a book and I can hear people walking by on the sidewalk. When everything is close by, so are people. I really like living as far away from people as I reasonably can. A vehicle becomes a necessity with remote living.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
18h49m

I've heard that in the USA / Canada, the average "personal space bubble" that people find comfortable is around 1.5 feet

"comfortable" is a stretch. But yes, I won't think much of an unassuming person 2 feet away from me. School desks are about that much spaced out when reaching behind or in front of you (close enough to tap the back of the person in front of you), so I suppose that's how we form our bubbles.

gspencley
0 replies
17h48m

"comfortable" is a stretch. But yes, I won't think much of an unassuming person 2 feet away from me

I envy you. Unless there is an obvious reason that more space is impractical / impossible, my thought in such a situation is "Why do you need to stand so close? Please get away from me."

Moldoteck
0 replies
1d

Places are crowded because only small parts of the city are walkable and most ppl go there. When it's dense evenly, youll get hot spots in the center but the other parts would still be nice and walkable just not crowded

kazinator
5 replies
20h58m

If you want a shift to walking, you need to ensure that

- everyone lives close to their ideal, well-paid job.

- everyone lives close to an excellent school for their kids.

- everyone lives close to inexpensive, well-stocked organic produce store.

- everyone lives close to acres of green park space.

- everyone lives close to amenities for all imaginable interests.

Otherwise, some people are just gonna hop in their cars and collect their pieces of the puzzle from here and there.

npteljes
2 replies
19h49m

This is kind of on the right track, but not really. The right part is that people really do respond to incentives. In fact, this is what they are doing with cars too. Cars often seem like an obvious choice, but that's because the environment is set up in a way that cars make the most sense. In South-East Asia, for example, the incentives are such that small motorbikes make a lot of sense. They are a cheap and versatile option, and navigate the chaotic traffic well.

So yes, if we want a shift, we need to reorganize the environment. And the traffic options will follow. Returning to the article, this would mean to bring back walking, biking and mass transit as priority options. Because it's clear from the infrastructure design that everything else besides cars are an afterthought.

kazinator
1 replies
19h25m

The environment is set up the way it is because not only of the culture, not because of the politics but also mega corporations.

People will agree to reorganizing the environment only if they are not the ones you have to do anything or are negatively impacted in any way.

Also, massive reorganization of the living environment is really only an option for a totalitarian communist government, which decides where people going to live and everything else and they just have to take it.

Ghost communities in China showed that even that doesn't always work.

npteljes
0 replies
10h16m

Yes, I see how this all reinforces itself. Maybe this is why initiatives like Strong Towns begin the change with people's hearts. "If there's a will, there's a way", so they say, so if they manage to create enough "will", there ought to be ways as well.

kderbyma
0 replies
19h48m

Garden Cities.... concept is about 100 years old, maybe stop electing people who haven't even walked their constituency....

ireland352
0 replies
19h31m

I'm in Vegas. I see bike lanes. I see transit lanes. I see sidewalks.

I also see six lane roads through residential neighbourhoods.

As much as transportation experts talk about dignity, EDI, engineering safe environments, if we build it they will come. I think what's missing is land use planning.

We can provide the safest space, build the best sidewalks, bike lanes, or whatever, but if it faster to drive, and it's more comfortable. That's exactly what people are going to do.

I use to be naive, judging people, for not cycling or walking more. Heck I use to bike through industrial parks against transport trucks, rain, wind, and snow thinking I was doing the world good. And I'm doing my part to show people this way of moving around is possible. You know what I missed, I was time rich during that period in my life. Those others weren't and they want to be comfortable.

If you want people to walk, bike, or not take a car, make the travel time on parity with taking the car, and you'll probably get a better result. Dignity - EDI, ugh.

dh2022
4 replies
1d2h

Am I the only one who thinks this title is a bit click-baity? What does shade, engagement, and separation from car traffic have to do with dignity?

supertrope
1 replies
1d1h

In high status areas the local government and landlords are much more likely to plant street trees to ensure dismounted people can comfortably walk. In neglected areas there are less trees and the sidewalk is crumbling or abruptly ends.

If SUVs are speeding along at 54 MPH right next to the sidewalk, their wind hits you, their noise hits you, and some asshole drivers intentionally drive over puddles in an attempt to splash pedestrians.

dh2022
0 replies
21h10m

The wind and the noise are afront to your dignity? Thanks for the laugh!!!

8organicbits
1 replies
1d1h

When the environment a walker needs to travel is hostile, unsafe, or uncomfortable for them it lacks dignity. A more respectfully planned urban environment gives walkers safety, comfort, and enjoyment.

dh2022
0 replies
21h11m

With this logic anything impacts dignity. Making everything a micro-aggression is en-vogue these days, so go it makes sense to have click-bait titles.

Always42
4 replies
1d3h

As someone who has biked in Minnesota winters as part of a commute, it sucks. I don't want cars taken away. I run to get my exercise. My commute to work is short. I don't sit in traffic most days.

oblio
3 replies
1d3h

Isn't that a strawman? Nobody wants to take cars away, not even in the most extreme countries. What they generally do is they want people to have comparable options until some folks just give up their cars and pocket the savings, accepting the discomfort caused by the constant lack of a car.

JoshTriplett
2 replies
1d1h

Nobody wants to take cars away

In a lot of these discussions, people do often comment denigrating people who drive and acting as if they must walk/bike/etc and there's something wrong with them if they don't want to, without considering whether the tradeoffs make sense for them or not. Those kinds of comments alienate people.

Giving people options would be great. Making a balance would be great. Separating car and pedestrian infrastructure would be great. Massively reducing pedestrian fatalities is incredibly important. All of those things would be much easier to advocate for and enact without those kinds of comments.

oblio
1 replies
23h10m

In a lot of these discussions, people do often comment denigrating people who drive and acting as if they must walk/bike/etc and there's something wrong with them if they don't want to, without considering whether the tradeoffs make sense for them or not. Those kinds of comments alienate people.

The amount of in-real life hostility from the car driver community is 1000x but car drivers don't realize it. Hostility on the roads themselves, hostility to ANY proposal that would reduce the number of lanes (to dedicate to buses, cycling, sidewalks, etc).

So it's kind of understandable why there's so much pent-up anger.

JoshTriplett
0 replies
23h4m

Absolutely. I've seen the same hostility you're talking about.

These kinds of policy discussions would go far better with a lot more empathy across the board for perspectives other than ones' own.

honkycat
3 replies
1d1h

We can talk about this forever, but it's a waste of time. Nobody is listening and nobody is making any real effort to combat car culture. And the right wing, always eager to lap up whatever slop corporate american serves them, has chosen this as a culture war issue. "15 minute cities... but where will I park muh truck??"

The dumb-fucks with their emotional support trucks have won. We've paved over the whole fucking country and all of the road construction and automobile businesses are laughing their way to the bank.

Every time we try to fix something, the chuds start crying about "but muh traffic" and it gets canned. They don't want to actually pay their own fucking way, through tolls or gas taxes or taxes on their asinine vehicles. They want to take our money and use it on roads.

It's dead. The middle class is dead. The country is dead. Progress is dead. Try to enjoy yourself for the next 30 years before the Great American Desert reaches Chicago.

maerF0x0
1 replies
21h21m

People need to spend less time crying about it, and more time making what they want to happen, happen. I've said for a long time that Millenials and genz should give the middle finger to previous generations and refuse to buy their realestate for the going rate. Instead we need to build communities and cities in the middle of nowhere that embody our values (and economics). Or we can wait another 30 or so years for them to die and leave it to the next generation(s)

lotsoweiners
0 replies
19h43m

I've said for a long time that Millenials and genz should give the middle finger to previous generations and refuse to buy their realestate

Unfortunately there aren’t generational meetings where your plan can be voted on. Also, plenty of millennials and Gen z own property and would gladly buy more once prices drop from you refusing to buy.

lotsoweiners
0 replies
19h48m

Well when you are hostile towards the other side telling them how what they like needs to be “fixed” then what do you expect?

Terr_
3 replies
1d12h

At the risk of stirring a pot... Where's the boundary between "nicer for walking" versus "can't pay for it unless population/income gentrifies"?

There are certainly low-cost ways of changing things and not-doing-dumb-stuff, but the list does contain some things like extra-streetlamps and maintained sidewalk trees and buildings with natural stone exteriors etc., which adds up.

fmobus
2 replies
1d11h

Well, if you want to analyze _that_, you need to take the huge infrastructure costs of suburban sprawl too.

Every new cookie cutter suburban subdivision requires tons of asphalt, miles of pipes for water and sewage, and the cost in most cases gets [subsided by the denser parts of the city]<https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/6/stop-subsidizin...>.

Suburbia is not only unhealthy, it's also insolvent.

Terr_
1 replies
1d11h

The article asserts that the "dignity" design elements are a "bigger factor" than density.

So it sounds like the author believes those measures are practical/possible in existing areas.

fmobus
0 replies
1d10h

Sure, but your argument is "building those things will add up in cost" ignores the already huge cost of maintaining all the asphalt and car infrastructure. Planting trees is relatively cheap.

kkfx
2 replies
1d7h

The issue is not about walking vs using some transport tool, but what's needed to support people only walking.

There are many who state dense 15'-cities are eco-friendly because people move without polluting, but no considerations seems to exists about how many others pollute much to supply anything needed by the eco-friendly pedestrians and IMVHO and experience (as a former big city resident now living on mountains) the answer is WAY TOO MUCH, meaning the "eco friendly walkable cities" are not eco friendly AT ALL and they are also unsustainable since they can't evolve without rebuild witch consume much more and demand much big effort than spread areas of small buildings who can be re-built and evolved one at a time issueless for all the others.

Strong Towns should start to consider that their model is not those of the modern cities but the one of the older villages, witch due to tech changes is now the model of spread areas. There is no strong-walkable-town possible in the modern world, only polluting monsters, modern Fordlandias doomed to fails like the original, take Neom, Arkadag, Innopolis, Prospera, Telosa, ... as good examples.

Than start to ask who profit from them, and you'll see the big financial capitalism behind the (dollar/stereotypical toxic waste leaking from rusty barrels) green fog.

kdmccormick
0 replies
1d2h

the answer is WAY TOO MUCH, meaning the "eco friendly walkable cities" are not eco friendly AT ALL and they are also unsustainable since they can't evolve without rebuild witch consume much more and demand much big effort than spread areas of small buildings who can be re-built and evolved one at a time issueless for all the others.

This is absolutely inane. Destroying and rebuilding is the opposite of eco-friendly. Building to last is eco-friendly.

Those tightly-packed brick and stone buildings in dense walkable cities last longer and also tend to have less need for AC, since they were designed before that existed. And their use does evolve, from meeting places, to storefronts, to family housing, to condos... old buildings can do it all.

Cookie-cutter suburban homes are the exact opposite. Expendable, inefficient, and inflexible.

dweinus
0 replies
21h16m

Citation very much needed. For each person living rurally or suburbanly, the per-capita footprint is bigger in terms of land, roads, building materials, facilities, shipping, HVAC, and transportation. The supply problem you mention gets worse in rural environments, not better, because you need to distribute goods across large areas. Here's some data too: https://theconversation.com/suburban-living-the-worst-for-ca...

weweweoo
1 replies
1d

City centres should be built so that people naturally prefer walking/cycling/public transport over driving there. That's how many European cities are, and it works just fine. It doesn't mean anyone has to give up their car, instead people can learn to use it only where it makes sense.

I would never give up my car, but I use it only for stuff where walking is not practical (visiting countryside, buying lots of groceries from a big market located in less dense area). Suburbs that have apartments with enough parking slots AND adequate public transport / cycling roads to city centre work perfectly for me.

oooyay
0 replies
1d

Portland is designed in this way. Unforunately, busses, cycling, walking, and trains are also at competition with each other in such a way that they can encourage car travel. Safety of all of those is also another relevant subject.

nickfromseattle
1 replies
3h16m

I moved to Barcelona and living in a walkable city is such a life upgrade. My whole life is within the distance of a walk. The grocery store, gym, doctor, friends, restaurants, beach, movie theatre, shopping, everything. I can walk across the entire city in about an hour.

Barcelona takes it a step further than just being high density with wide pedestrian streets lined with trees and outdoor seating at the expense of roads used for cars/trucks. At the end of every block on a rambla is a roundabout where people sit and hang out, with more trees. It really feels like cars are 2nd class citizens here.

The mental tax of having to get into a car, navigate bad traffic and other drivers, finding parking, etc is hugely underrated. When I describe the above to people, it's easy to brush off as "not that big of a deal", but it is a big deal on general mood and wellbeing compared to what it could be if you remove those 'micro' stresses from your life.

And finally, if you need to get somewhere quick, there are taxis everywhere, and the underground metro is pretty decent.

hombre_fatal
0 replies
3h13m

I randomly moved from Houston to Guadalajara in my 20s and until then I didn't realize that all of my disillusion with life was because I had to drive everywhere and could walk nowhere.

It changed my life to realize how much better life is when you can accomplish everything within walking distance. It impacts absolutely everything.

You even lose weight when you can walk to the store to buy a can of beans and one avocado for lunch instead of having to drive to the grocer once a week and store tens of thousands of calories in your house at all times for you to graze on.

It also impacted my social life because I would run into friends while walking around. Or I'd see friends in a bar while walking home and go join them.

I refuse to settle down somewhere where I can't walk to live. Unfortunately this rules out almost all of the US.

vehemenz
0 replies
1d3h

The headline is a bit misleading compared to the article. Everybody already cares about dignity but only at the expense of everyone else. We need to prioritize dignity for pedestrians at the expense of drivers.

Everyone in Yukons and F150s are already using, at least in their minds, what they think is a dignified mode of transportation. Excluding cities for the wealthy (there's no dignity for the poor anyway), most cities in the US are not livable without a car. Affording a car, particularly a new one, earns one some degree of dignity. Furthermore, drivers living in poorly planned-cities spend lots of time in their cars and have chosen larger cars where they feel comfortable and safe.

swagasaurus-rex
0 replies
23h38m

Instead of trying to jam squishy humans along side aluminum vehicles, why not build elevated walkways above traffic?

In a city, the space between buildings can be auctioned, and the owner of that space is responsible for cleaning and policing a section of elevated plaza. The second story of each building can then be used as a storefront and events can be held in between buildings.

If even a few blocks in the center of a city can be walkable above the traffic, I think it could create a popular tourist hub where people can explore the city, see events and spend money.

Who foots the bill for construction, maintenance, and inspections which ought to be thorough and frequent, that’s another question I hope somebody who knows politics can answer.

neilv
0 replies
19h19m

Most of the things the article mentions would be lovely, but I'm more concerned with much more basic aspects of walking.

For example, a neighborhood in which most sidewalks are simply impassable for a wheelchair, even though it gets a high "walkability" score for Realtors to claim.

(And that tree cover "dignity" the article mentions? Someone tries to do that by taking a sidewalk just wide enough for two wheelchairs to pass each other, and puts in a tree well that won't even let one wheelchair scrape by. And often the roots eventually tip up the sidewalk into a tripping hazard. And extremely frequent parking-related sign posts along that stretch as additional obstacles. With overgrown landscaping on the other side, jutting into the sidewalk already too narrow. Occasionally with surprise poison ivy/oak, scraping across your hand, arm, leg, or face. And on the bigger streets, some street work gets done, and there's briefly enough space, then, bam, bike-sharing station, with garish advertising. Then winter comes, and if you walk heavily, even with traction aids and diligence, eventually you're going to get injured by a hazard that someone else managed to create beyond normal snow and ice.)

Suggestions:

1. Make the sidewalks passable. Including by wheelchairs.

2. Make traffic signals greatly increase the priority given to pedestrians. (Even consider a near-immediate Walk signal from button/sensor, with half-minute cooldown so cars can't be entirely DoS'd. If that will make traffic worse, then let traffic be worse.)

3. Eliminate dangerous noise pollution. (Like the "loud pipes save lives" modified motorcycles, one of which surprise blasted my eardrum a couple hours ago. Or a subset of the ambulance sirens, some of which I'm pretty sure are well into hearing damage decibel territory for people on the sidewalk, when the siren tries a little too hard to be heard by people sealed into cars and blasting music from their infotainment systems half a block away.)

4. Improve snow/ice management. (Don't plow streets up onto the sidewalk. If punting to property owners, actually enforce that. Also educate and enforce about not actively making surprise ice slicks on the sidewalk. Maybe, a bit like the city plows streets, also have city units go clear the numerous sidewalk stretches that property owners neglected, protecting pedestrians from crippling injury, and then later figure out the delicate politics of whether to fine/bill property owners.)

5. And only then -- after those basics of being able to move around, and not be maimed casually -- think about dignity like pleasing views, and sidewalk feng shui.

mjevans
0 replies
19h47m

Disney World is the example that comes to mind as an environment where pedestrian movement is maximized. When it works it's still better than driving, but it's extremely tiring to walk _all day_ (at least if you're not used to it, like I'm not).

Lets handwave that concern away though; if everyone walked around that much normally it wouldn't be an issue right?

There are still roads, but they're mostly divided from pedestrian movement ways. Mass transit systems connect between the pedestrian optimized blocks. In at least that respect I think Disney World DID become the 'city of the future' example. That's the logical direction to move things.

Oh can we also ban all the noisy cars to underground passages except between 10am and 10pm and emergency use?

kredd
0 replies
22h42m

One thing I really don’t get, is what do people under the age of 16 (can’t drive yet) and over the age of 75 (get a bit too old to drive) do when they wanna just hang out? Ok, well, I know what they do, but how are people ok with being trapped within a small local zone and be depended on others? I grew up in a walkable city, would take the walk, bus, or subway home since I was 10, met up with my friends at a mall or downtown to just hang out.

Now I live in a very walkable neighbourhood in Vancouver, and constantly see older people going throughout their days. And I would want the same for myself when I reach their age, rather than live in a suburban zone with no ability to see life outside of my 500m radius.

jklinger410
0 replies
1d1h

Unfortunately, dignity for the citizen is fundamentally at odds with the way the United States is structured.

hostein
0 replies
1d12h

Agreed. But this is an easy fix. Except it isn't because it's a matter of character and manpower and only then is it about money. Cities would gladly implement ideas, just create websites with & for proposals, let the neighborhoods know, get volunteers, demand social and corporate social responsibility, plan and organize potential development projects, in some cases we'd have to wait a year or or two or three for some official approval and a construction company to find a free spot but this really isn't a problem to which the solution requires more than a naive beginners mind set and consistency.

fsckboy
0 replies
22h42m

Have you ever had a friend return from a vacation and gush about how great it was to walk in the place they’d visited?

In my adult life I have always lived in dense urban centers (precisely because I like to walk for coffee, quart of milk, etc., and have a choice of restaurants)

When I return from travel after renting a car, I gush about how cool it was that I got to shop at a mall and stop at two other strip malls on my way home and load the car up with bags of supplies I never could have carried :)

if people on holiday bought mayo and all they need to go with it at Costco, they might have a different memory of their walking tour. grass. greener.

dr_dshiv
0 replies
1d2h

Moved to Amsterdam for the luxury of not having a car. After the 4th kid, my wife wanted a car for road trips. We never need it.

chiggsy
0 replies
15h32m

I live in Vancouver, and I find this discussion utterly fascinating. Thank you all for sharing.

blobbers
0 replies
1d

Does self driving cars affect how we might think of arteries and driving? I haven't seen a downtown area that only allows self drive yet. Could be narrower etc.

adamwong246
0 replies
23h15m

Everything about our world is designed for us to spend money. Walkers don't buy cars. People on bikes don't buy gas. Why would the overlords ever promote such anti-capitalism? That's not in their interest. More to that point, dignity is for the rich. Comfort is for the already comfortable. So, shut up, buy the landcruiser on credit and don't you dare consider otherwise.

Optimal_Persona
0 replies
23h9m

As an SF Bay Area resident who walks/BARTs as much as possible, IME bicyclists are at least as big a threat to my safety as motorists, who at least have a license and insurance on the line if they screw up. I can't tell you how many times I've been hit or very nearly hit by entitled cyclists who don't think that traffic laws or common courtesy apply to them. Even worse since motorized bikes/scooters hit the streets...er, sidewalks in recent years.

DoubleDerper
0 replies
1d

Fire and EMS demands have more impact on our built environment than I see in these comments.

Some of this is direct from land use regulations. Some of this is from political influence of Fire depts.

It's only recently that people are waking up to how the regulatory requirements of staircase design in multi-family buildings for the ostensible purpose of evacuation impact the look and feel of US cities.

Same for street widths. You will rarely find support from fire depts. for compact and connected streets.

CollinEMac
0 replies
1d2h

This is a real problem that's hard to describe. Walking around the US (excluding large cities) just makes you feel like a jackass.

It shouldn't matter but it does.

CodeWriter23
0 replies
23h41m

Y’all walk all you want it’s a free country. And stop interfering with my driving.

ChrisMarshallNY
0 replies
1d2h

I'm pretty sure that I've seen this before. Maybe not the same exact post, but one similar enough to be a match.

It's spot-on.

However, I submit that, as software/hardware/tech engineers, it behooves us to add User Dignity as a fairly important axis; just as important as Security and Usability. Lot more difficult to define, though.

For me, and the software that I write, it's absolutely crucial, and I will spend many hours, refining what appears to be perfectly functional UI, to enhance the Dignity of those using it; especially technophobes.

In my case, I write software for my Community, and I deal with the users of my software on a daily basis. Very few of them have the slightest inkling of what I do. It's "Some stuff with iPhones. I dunno."

To be fair, they often don't offer me, or my work, too much Dignity, but that's not their job. It is mine.

A perfect example is error handling.

Microsoft Windows is notorious for its obscure, jargonistic error messages. Many users quake in fear at triggering one of them.

I have found that the best way to give the users some Dignity, when an error occurs, is to make sure that the error doesn't occur, in the first place.

That can be a tough ask, but good affordance design, doing things like disabling UI paths that won't result in success, smoothly failing (as opposed to crashing, or triggering an error alert that isn't actually necessary to anyone but the IT HelpDesk person), and avoiding the use of jargon, in our displays, are a good way to get this.

I just went through a year and a half of wrestling with a designer, on an app that has been shipping since January. A lot of the stuff that I wanted, wrt to usability, affordances, etc., didn't make the cut.

Some of my concerns were probably overblown, but a number were not. The users are having difficulty in exactly the places I thought they would. They are also surprising me.

Help screens and whatnot, are pretty much worthless. I have a feature in the app, where, if you long-press on any element, a popover appears, with the accessibility label as the title, and the accessibility hint, as the text. You basically get focused, directly-relevant help, for any element of the screen, and it also helps us to make sure that vision-impaired accessibility is handled.

No one uses it.

Ah, well...

I actually have a great deal of love and Respect for the users of my software. I do my best to make sure that the software I write helps them to solve their problems, achieve their goals, and not impact their self-respect and Dignity.

BrandoElFollito
0 replies
1d1h

When I traveled for the first time to the US ca. 1997 (from France) I decided to go for a walk.

A police car stopped to ask me what was going on. They were surprised I went for a walk (despite the fact that there was a sidewalk, although empty).

It was a semi industrial (company buildings), semi hotel, semi mall, semi houses kind of place.

And, suddenly, the pavement stopped without any reason.