10 ms·

You've just nearly described my exact working environment. Only, on one side I have a highway. I have a friend who works across the road from me. If we met u

by bbarn 11y ago

You've just nearly described my exact working environment. Only, on one side I have a highway. I have a friend who works across the road from me. If we met up for lunch on foot one of us is taking a 30 minute walk because it's impassible on foot. I'm stuck driving for the bulk of the winter because it's just unsafe (after biking to work year round in Chicago for the last ten years, this commute broke me). Fortunately (for them and me) the company is moving downtown this spring, or I wouldn't have taken an otherwise great job.

DrJokepu 11y ago
Every time I visit America I'm surprised by how unwalkable most of metropolitan America is. I always wondered if roads are unwalkable because most Americans wouldn't walk anyway or if Americans don't walk, because roads are unwalkable. Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; even if the roads were walkable with proper sidewalks and pedestrian crossings installed, it would take half an hour just to walk to the nearest corner store.
- serge2k 11y ago
  > Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; oh ya think? I think you should just continue to assume it's just because Americans are too lazy to walk.
  - DrJokepu 11y ago
    Why are you so hostile? I did not imply in any way that "Americans are too lazy to walk".
    - Johnny555 11y ago
      Indeed, it's not so much that americans are too lazy to walk, but they've been conditioned to not walk. When I was a child, I road a big yellow school bus to my elementary school, at the time it seemed very far away, when my parents had to go to the school for any reason, they drove their car. But now, looking at a map, I see that it was literally only a half mile from my house, but I never walked because it meant walking along some streets with heavy car traffic and no sidewalks, just an ungraded shoulder with no curb or other separation from the roadway. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco that I realized that walking (or biking) is a far nicer way to get around.
      - dalke 11y ago
        A couple of weeks ago we returned a rental car to San Diego, after a one way trip. We checked into the hotel, then were going to go to the airport for the return. We asked the clerk how to get back from the rental car return. "Taxi or Uber is your best bet, though I think there's a bus." We looked on the map. The rental return was a mile away from the hotel, with sidewalks the whole way. We walked.
        zaroth 11y ago
        Pretty bad clerk you had there, I can't believe the suggestion to take taxi from a rental car return to a terminal. But the comparison that the average traveler is ready to walk a mile from their parking spot to the terminal with all their luggage is a bit far-out.
        dalke 11y ago
        Sorry, I didn't explain that right. We drove from San Francisco to San Diego, with several stops on the way. We were tourists in San Diego for a couple of days. Our hotel was walking distance from nearly everywhere we wanted go, so we figured to not pay for a car for those extra couple of days. We checked into the hotel, moved our bags into the room, dropped off the car at the San Diego airport, the returned to the hotel for the rest of our visit. So the walk was from the rental car return to the hotel, not the rental car return to the terminal.
    - serge2k 11y ago
      > most Americans wouldn't walk anyway I'm hostile because the whole "look how shitty america is" narrative gets old after a while.
      - Johnny555 11y ago
        The USA has enough land to (still) let the car be king, even in many cities, and has enough wealth to let even the "poor" to own a car, and you think that's a case of "look how shitty america is"? There are many people in the world who would literally kill for such a lifestyle, and you think it's a symbol of how "shitty" America is? Why do you think that America's car culture could be perceived as a bad thing? And if you can understand why others think it's bad, why do you take such offense when they point it out?
- l1ambda 11y ago
  Basically in the 50's, we started building cities at automobile scale, instead of at human scale like we used to, and the design goal for roads was simply to move as many cars through as quickly as possible. Things like 12' wide travel lanes instead of 10', ridiculously huge building setbacks, right turn arcs, 140' wide lots instead of 70', wide neighborhood roads (encourages speeding), no street parking (drivers slow down on roads with parked cars and on roads with no marked centerline), etc. Also, everybody wants to live in a cul-de-sac, which greatly limits how far you can walk (https://www.walkscore.com/walkable-neighborhoods.shtml https://www.walkscore.com/walkable-neighborhoods.shtml) versus a standard grid layout. (But if you look at real estate pricing, the data show people want to live in walkable areas; a home in a walkable area will often command a 1.5x to 2x price premium over a similar home in a typical car-centric suburb.) All those details add up to create a poor and dangerous pedestrian experience. Now, most towns in America have realized that was extremely bone-headed, possibly unsustainable (it costs a lot of money to run all those electrical wires, plumbing, and roads), and we are trying to undo the past 70 years of engineering. Oh, and this was all mandated by building codes (law) so even if one wanted to build a walkable suburban business park, it was not possible. There is a entertaining talk about all this by James Kuntsler at https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia?language=en#t-43078 https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_sub...
  - learc83 11y ago
    >a home in a walkable area will often command a 1.5x to 2x price premium over a similar home in a typical car-centric suburb. I suspect this has more to do with fact that walkable areas are much more likely to be located in city centers with higher overall real estate prices than with the desirability of walkable neighborhoods.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      I suspect this has more to do with fact that walkable areas are much more likely to be located in city centers with higher overall real estate prices than with the desirability of walkable neighborhoods. One also has to consider that new families with young children are high on the list of demographics looking for suburban homes, and are likely to have less money, so suburban homes are cheaper by necessity. Cul-de-sacs wouldn't be so bad if they had well-maintained pedestrian lanes that cut between them and neighborhood shops instead of big box stores.
- bkjelden 11y ago
  I think it's simply that most American cities are relatively young, and a good portion of the growth occurred after cars became abundant. Older cities aren't as car-centric, because cars didn't exist when they were built.
- revelation 11y ago
  I guess it started with "roads are unwalkable" and then slowly morphed into "Americans wouldn't walk anyway", and you can see it in the comments here. Most people can't even come up with a sane rationalization of their environmentally hazardous laziness. Instead it's "America is such a big place", which is like saying you can't bike because Russia is the biggest country on earth while you live in Moscow.
- alistairSH 11y ago
  A bit of both. The history of suburban sprawl is pretty well documented elsewhere, but at this point, it's hard to undo. People have committed to a car-based, suburban lifestyle. Heck, I don't much care of the suburbs, but being a software developer outside DC means the best job prospects are along the Dulles corridor (Tyson's Corner through Dulles Airport) or other suburban areas. So, like many others, I bought a house in the 'burbs, where the public schools are good, jobs are bountiful, and traffic makes me feel like kicking puppies. Now that I'm here, I'm pretty ambivalent about it. I'd move downtown, but I'm not convinced the pay would be high enough to offset the increased cost of real-estate ($400k for a 3-bed row houe in the outer 'burbs, $700k+ for the same downtown).
  - eru 11y ago
    They don't have large apartments downtown?
    - ghaff 11y ago
      The real estate is much more expensive downtown in most cases and, like many urban cores for a variety of historical reasons, you're probably stuck paying for expensive private schools if you have kids and want them to have a good education.
      - Spooky23 11y ago
        I live in the city, pay outrageous taxes (ie. taxes are about equal to my mortgage), and now my son is 4. So I'm faced with sending him to a school district with lousy outcomes and no budget, sending him to Catholic school, or moving to the burbs where they have sponsored robot teams and some of the best schools in the state.
        eru 11y ago
        You can't send your son to school in the 'burbs without moving there?

by bbarn 11y ago

DrJokepu 11y ago

Every time I visit America I'm surprised by how unwalkable most of metropolitan America is. I always wondered if roads are unwalkable because most Americans wouldn't walk anyway or if Americans don't walk, because roads are unwalkable. Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; even if the roads were walkable with proper sidewalks and pedestrian crossings installed, it would take half an hour just to walk to the nearest corner store.

serge2k 11y ago
> Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; oh ya think? I think you should just continue to assume it's just because Americans are too lazy to walk.
- DrJokepu 11y ago
  Why are you so hostile? I did not imply in any way that "Americans are too lazy to walk".
  - Johnny555 11y ago
    Indeed, it's not so much that americans are too lazy to walk, but they've been conditioned to not walk. When I was a child, I road a big yellow school bus to my elementary school, at the time it seemed very far away, when my parents had to go to the school for any reason, they drove their car. But now, looking at a map, I see that it was literally only a half mile from my house, but I never walked because it meant walking along some streets with heavy car traffic and no sidewalks, just an ungraded shoulder with no curb or other separation from the roadway. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco that I realized that walking (or biking) is a far nicer way to get around.
    - dalke 11y ago
      A couple of weeks ago we returned a rental car to San Diego, after a one way trip. We checked into the hotel, then were going to go to the airport for the return. We asked the clerk how to get back from the rental car return. "Taxi or Uber is your best bet, though I think there's a bus." We looked on the map. The rental return was a mile away from the hotel, with sidewalks the whole way. We walked.
      - zaroth 11y ago
        Pretty bad clerk you had there, I can't believe the suggestion to take taxi from a rental car return to a terminal. But the comparison that the average traveler is ready to walk a mile from their parking spot to the terminal with all their luggage is a bit far-out.
        dalke 11y ago
        Sorry, I didn't explain that right. We drove from San Francisco to San Diego, with several stops on the way. We were tourists in San Diego for a couple of days. Our hotel was walking distance from nearly everywhere we wanted go, so we figured to not pay for a car for those extra couple of days. We checked into the hotel, moved our bags into the room, dropped off the car at the San Diego airport, the returned to the hotel for the rest of our visit. So the walk was from the rental car return to the hotel, not the rental car return to the terminal.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    > most Americans wouldn't walk anyway I'm hostile because the whole "look how shitty america is" narrative gets old after a while.
    - Johnny555 11y ago
      The USA has enough land to (still) let the car be king, even in many cities, and has enough wealth to let even the "poor" to own a car, and you think that's a case of "look how shitty america is"? There are many people in the world who would literally kill for such a lifestyle, and you think it's a symbol of how "shitty" America is? Why do you think that America's car culture could be perceived as a bad thing? And if you can understand why others think it's bad, why do you take such offense when they point it out?
l1ambda 11y ago
Basically in the 50's, we started building cities at automobile scale, instead of at human scale like we used to, and the design goal for roads was simply to move as many cars through as quickly as possible. Things like 12' wide travel lanes instead of 10', ridiculously huge building setbacks, right turn arcs, 140' wide lots instead of 70', wide neighborhood roads (encourages speeding), no street parking (drivers slow down on roads with parked cars and on roads with no marked centerline), etc. Also, everybody wants to live in a cul-de-sac, which greatly limits how far you can walk (https://www.walkscore.com/walkable-neighborhoods.shtml https://www.walkscore.com/walkable-neighborhoods.shtml) versus a standard grid layout. (But if you look at real estate pricing, the data show people want to live in walkable areas; a home in a walkable area will often command a 1.5x to 2x price premium over a similar home in a typical car-centric suburb.) All those details add up to create a poor and dangerous pedestrian experience. Now, most towns in America have realized that was extremely bone-headed, possibly unsustainable (it costs a lot of money to run all those electrical wires, plumbing, and roads), and we are trying to undo the past 70 years of engineering. Oh, and this was all mandated by building codes (law) so even if one wanted to build a walkable suburban business park, it was not possible. There is a entertaining talk about all this by James Kuntsler at https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia?language=en#t-43078 https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_sub...
- learc83 11y ago
  >a home in a walkable area will often command a 1.5x to 2x price premium over a similar home in a typical car-centric suburb. I suspect this has more to do with fact that walkable areas are much more likely to be located in city centers with higher overall real estate prices than with the desirability of walkable neighborhoods.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    I suspect this has more to do with fact that walkable areas are much more likely to be located in city centers with higher overall real estate prices than with the desirability of walkable neighborhoods. One also has to consider that new families with young children are high on the list of demographics looking for suburban homes, and are likely to have less money, so suburban homes are cheaper by necessity. Cul-de-sacs wouldn't be so bad if they had well-maintained pedestrian lanes that cut between them and neighborhood shops instead of big box stores.
bkjelden 11y ago
I think it's simply that most American cities are relatively young, and a good portion of the growth occurred after cars became abundant. Older cities aren't as car-centric, because cars didn't exist when they were built.
revelation 11y ago
I guess it started with "roads are unwalkable" and then slowly morphed into "Americans wouldn't walk anyway", and you can see it in the comments here. Most people can't even come up with a sane rationalization of their environmentally hazardous laziness. Instead it's "America is such a big place", which is like saying you can't bike because Russia is the biggest country on earth while you live in Moscow.
alistairSH 11y ago
A bit of both. The history of suburban sprawl is pretty well documented elsewhere, but at this point, it's hard to undo. People have committed to a car-based, suburban lifestyle. Heck, I don't much care of the suburbs, but being a software developer outside DC means the best job prospects are along the Dulles corridor (Tyson's Corner through Dulles Airport) or other suburban areas. So, like many others, I bought a house in the 'burbs, where the public schools are good, jobs are bountiful, and traffic makes me feel like kicking puppies. Now that I'm here, I'm pretty ambivalent about it. I'd move downtown, but I'm not convinced the pay would be high enough to offset the increased cost of real-estate ($400k for a 3-bed row houe in the outer 'burbs, $700k+ for the same downtown).
- eru 11y ago
  They don't have large apartments downtown?
  - ghaff 11y ago
    The real estate is much more expensive downtown in most cases and, like many urban cores for a variety of historical reasons, you're probably stuck paying for expensive private schools if you have kids and want them to have a good education.
    - Spooky23 11y ago
      I live in the city, pay outrageous taxes (ie. taxes are about equal to my mortgage), and now my son is 4. So I'm faced with sending him to a school district with lousy outcomes and no budget, sending him to Catholic school, or moving to the burbs where they have sponsored robot teams and some of the best schools in the state.
      - eru 11y ago
        You can't send your son to school in the 'burbs without moving there?