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The best method of transit is walking. A lot of the problems with traffic and public transport are solved when we invest in walk-able cities. Cities where you c
by dkopi 11y ago
The best method of transit is walking.
A lot of the problems with traffic and public transport are solved when we invest in walk-able cities. Cities where you can live close enough to work to walk there, close enough to your friends, close enough to the grocery store, your neighborhood bar or your kid's school.
No discussion of Mass transit or "giving up your car" is completely without discussing the walk-ability of cities.
- api 11y agoTangent but: I live in SoCal, and I can't get my head around the car culture mentality. Of all the places that should be walkable, one that is 80 degrees and sunny 90% of the entire year should rank very high on the list. But nooo.... the walkable cities are in places that get run over by a glacier every six months. Go figure.
- supergeek133 11y agoLive in downtown Minneapolis, can confirm walk-ability and presence of seasonal glacier.
- sologoub 11y agoCoastal areas are becoming more and more walkable... Minus the lack of density - Santa Monica is the prime example, ask people about walkability and everyone is excited, then talk about making it happen for more people and you get crucified. In the valleys, walkability runs into the heat problems in the summer. Walking in 100F+ is no fun and can be dangerous to some.
- maxxxxx 11y agoEven in inland CA you have perfect walking weather for around 9 months a year. It's more of a cultural thing in my opnion.
- sologoub 11y agoI think you are right. There definitely is a very strong desire still for wider spaces, bigger yards, etc. As the result, walking in most of inland sprawl take a lot more time and effort.
- greggman 11y agoBecause it's large? I'm all for public transportation and LA used to have the best in the world 80 years ago. But, a large city as large as LA is never really going to be completely walkable unless everyone always moves close to their job. That would mean moving away from friends and family because of a job change rather than just commuting a little further. I suspect most people would chose to stay near their friends and family rather than move closer to their job. You can compare Tokyo which is large like LA but which has excellent mass transit and yet the average commute is 80 minutes each way. Why? People can't or won't uproot their families for new jobs. Also housing close to a job is probably also often either too expensive (downtown) or undesirable (industrial area).
- justizin 11y agoI grew up in South Texas. Ain't nobody got time for walkin' more than a block in 100+F heat and people end up spending more than their mortgage payment on electricity and A/C repair because the heat will literally kill you.
- logfromblammo 11y agoA winter ice blanket makes driving less desirable. Pleasant weather makes walking more desirable. This implies that walking has a hard limit on desirability, which is easily topped by driving, even with the worst traffic. You have to make driving worse to tip the preference toward walking, even if the conditions simultaneously make walking less desirable. If driving 5 miles is likely to put your car in a ditch, you may opt for a 200m walk, which may only plant your ass on the concrete once or twice. If you have to shovel snow for 20 minutes to drive anywhere at all, you may prefer to just pull on some wellies and hoof it through the drifts. If every mile you drive is rusting away your vehicle's underbody due to road salt, you may prefer to wear away your boot soles instead. If you could wave a magic wand to install a roof over ever road and highway, the residents would squeal with glee, toss out their tire chains, shovels, and boots, and get right back into their cars.
- dsfyu404ed 11y agoIn places where there's actual winter people adjust to it. Snow in Atlanta is something people perceive as a PITA whereas in Augusta (Maine) it's perceived as no more inconvenient than rain.
- logfromblammo 11y agoNever did I ever adjust enough to stop bitching about shoveling driveways or scraping windshields or hitting patches of black ice or having the plow throw snow back onto your driveway so you have to shovel it again. Snow always has been, and always will be, more inconvenient than rain. Except freezing rain. That stuff is the worst.
- douche 11y agoIn Maine, people bitch when it isn't cold and snowy enough. This winter was brutal for the ice fishers, snowmobilers, and skiers.
- auntienomen 11y ago"In Maine, people bitch when it isn't cold and snowy enough." That's Stockholm Syndrome, is what that is.
- mooreds 11y agoBecause it is new. Maybe not new in age, but new in being a big city. Founded in 1800s, became second biggest city in 1980, third biggest in 1960, fourth in 1950: http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/blog/historical-timeline-los-angeles http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/blog/historical-timeline-l... Big cities on the east coast are older, so didn't develop in the age of the automobile and have to conform to its needs. Except cities in the SE, which again, grew due to modern appliances like the air conditioner.
- cylinder 11y agoLA was built by people who were escaping the stressful dense urban life of the east coast. Not hard to understand why, when they arrived at empty land by the ocean with perfect weather, they didn't resolve to build a bunch of apartment towers.
- refurb 11y agoThis is a great point. Why do so many people in the US live on large lots with huge houses in the suburbs? Because we can.
- Aloha 11y agoSoCal was never walkable beyond a local neighborhood - if you look at population density and where the freeways are, they all parallel former lines of the Pacific Electric Interurban system. [1][2] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric [2] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Los_Angeles_Pacific_Electric_Railways_%28Red_Cars%29.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Los_Ange...
- whorleater 11y agoThere's a fairly low ceiling in terms of walkability within cities though. Once you exceed a certain distance, no amount of walkability is going to convince people to walk, and rent/housing prices within the walking distance tend to be much higher than those outside, thus exacerbating the issue of public transportation.
- dkopi 11y agoIf you're able to walk for 95% of your needs, public transit, taxis, uber and zipcars solve the other 5%. If you're only able to walk for 5% of your needs, public transit isn't going to help you much. Rent/Housing does indeed cost more in walk-able areas. That's a great signal telling us that there's a lot of demand for walk-able neighborhoods, and urban planning should allow a lot more of them.
- thatfrenchguy 11y agoWell going to work is probably 90% of your moving needs. So if you live 45 minutes by train from where you're working and there is an actual train there, public transit helps you a lot.
- nostrebored 11y agoThat's a woefully inaccurate representation of my life and the life of my friends. Do more things.
- pc86 11y agoNot everyone wants to live downtown, though. In fact, most people don't. More often than not schools in suburbs and rural areas are head and shoulders above their urban counterparts. I used to live in a downtown area and it was nice being able to walk 6 blocks to work. But I would never want to raise a family in an apartment or with those terrible schools.
- wnevets 11y ago>More often than not schools in suburbs and rural areas are head and shoulders above their urban counterparts. a school in a rural area isn't automatically better than a school in an urban area because its rural.
- afutd 11y agoWhat you are missing is that "good schools" doesn't actually mean good schools. It's a dog whistle.
- pc86 11y agoWhen I say "good schools" I mean "good schools." If you want to call me a racist why not just come out and say it? Or better yet, say something constructive.
- mfringel 11y agoOkay. One constructive remark coming up... What's your definition of "good schools"?
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoActually teaching the kids some things. What other definition is there?
- gohrt 11y ago"Good schools" mostly means "wealthy students". If rich people move into the cities, and form little neighborhood clusters to exclude poor families, the schools will become more attractive by all standard measures. Now, the trick is that it's much easier to build out segregated wealthy communities in the suburbs, than it is in cities, since tight geography works against the informal segregation of suburban development projects.
- justizin 11y agoUnless all cities concurrently advance in this area, this simply becomes a factor that drives home purchase / rental prices up. San Francisco has neighborhoods with a WalkScore of 100, but the baristas and cooks and other laborers in those neighborhoods, including construction workers who build the homes, largely drive and transit in. IMO it basically carries that you worsen the Effective WalkScore of other people's lives, even if they live in neighborhoods that are walkable to desk-sitting professionals, because the wage-paying jobs in those areas (e.g. Oakland / East Bay) doesn't pay as well as the wage-paying jobs in neighboring cities with stronger economies (e.g. SF). This is absolutely happening right now and the reverse impact is that SF's cost of living is creeping over Oakland's and driving the folks who live in Oakland and work in SF to further reaches of the bay as people, giving up on walkable life in SF, try it out in Oakland. Bicycles help this, but I'm here to tell you that nobody has any fucking sympathy that you've chosen a car-free life and it's El Nino and why are you late because your coworker who drives an SUV 100 miles is already here and how is your life possibly harder? Anyway .. it's complex AF. Believing another world is possible is for sure a great first step.
- anexprogrammer 11y agoBeing a Brit, who walks to the corner shop, or even supermarket if I just need a few bits, I tried walking a few times while in the US. The US makes it hilariously impractical. Pavements (sidewalks) will just randomly stop. Crossing the road is sometimes a crime, depending on state! Even convenience stores are inconveniently far away. You've spread your infrastructure out so wide in some places that walking becomes more like a hike. It's little wonder that you end up driving for anything beyond going next door. :)
- liveoneggs 11y agogoing next door will probably get you shot. Just drive.
- ssully 11y agoAs a Chicago native who has had a gun flashed at me while walking my dog a block from my house, I wish you were joking.
- Tepix 11y agoSome americans even get in the car to fetch their mail from the mailbox at the road...
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y agoSome Americans have driveways 1/2 mile long. And longer...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]