3 ms·

Novelty brings value to things that would otherwise be junk. We don't actually want narrow streets, lack of parking, and pedestrians looking in our windows. Th

• enoch_r 10y ago
  You may be right for most people! I'm sure you're right for yourself. As someone who lives in such a neighborhood (and lived for two years attempting to survive biking and walking among the plentiful parking, wide streets, and zero pedestrians of suburban Los Angeles) you are very wrong for me. Regardless, I just wish that the US government (and the vast majority of state and local governments) would stop making the choice for all of us with massive explicit and implicit subsidies for motor-vehicle-optimized travel.
• krisdol 10y ago
  As a resident of near-downtown Boston, I want cars out of my neighborhood, ideally the entire downtown. I love the wide sidewalks and want bigger ones. Mostly I'm jealous that we can achieve neither the efficiency nor the beauty of transportation in Central European cities like Zürich because the suburbanites, their remote matchboxes, and their eyesore parking garages are obstacles to every proposal to improve (or even maintain) public transportation. To choke those folks out of the area with narrow streets and zero-car zones would be a blessing. Although a more effective solution would be to scrap zoning laws and actually make the suburban blight towns convenient for workers and pedestrian residents.
  • tropo 10y ago
    If you got narrow streets, they'd be bumper-to-bumper spewing exhaust. You would be unhappy. If you excluded cars, the place would turn into a downtown version of a strip mall. (expensive tourist trap) There would be no jobs other than things like waiter, retail clerk, manicurist, etc. -- is that how you wish to be employed? You are focusing on the bad of cars, and ignoring all the benefit they bring. They even bring benefit to people without cars. Heck, you can rent one. I bet you've done it.
    • trgn 10y ago
      Consider Delft and Leuven. Two small vibrant cities, near Rotterdam and Brussels respectively. Both don't have a lot of cars in their center, are completely walkable, both are wealthy cities, both are not tourist traps, both offer employment for all ages from retail clerk to PhD computer chip researcher, they are most certainly not outdoor strip malls. Those are just two examples that I know personally, but there are hundreds more the world over. Cars indeed have benefits, but they are noxious to cities. In my experience, the fewer cars there are in the city, the more pleasant that city is. And as the above examples demonstrate, that doesn't mean you are suddenly killing the economy or your job prospects.
• eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  As a resident of Somerville, I definitely want narrow streets and a lack of parking. I'm really tired of drivers almost running me over on the way to work on my bike because they think they have exclusive rights and high speed limits on any road with at least two lanes. Pedestrians looking in the first-floor windows can be solved by putting shops on the first floor. I'm also strongly in favor of the forever-proposed Green Line Extension into Somerville and Medford. I know it will increase rents while I'm still a renter, and I know it's gentrifying some neighborhoods at the moment, but by God it has to happen! It's downright shameful the way a Somerville resident has to walk or drive to Davis, Porter, or Charlestown to get to a T stop, and those will only travel through selected arteries that don't necessarily include most of our workplaces. Heck, we could redraw the bus-lines too, so maybe I could get a bus from Somerville through to the main artery roads of Cambridge. When the weather sucks too much to bike, at the moment, my commute doubles, because instead of a 15-minute bike ride, I have to walk 10 minutes to the Red Line at Porter, take the train for five minutes to Central, and then walk another 10 minutes to work from there -- a circuitous route that just happens to go through the Mass Ave-focused Red Line we actually have transit for.
  • tropo 10y ago
    You hate being almost run over. (oddly, you think narrow streets will... give you more space???) You hate the weather enough to spend 20 minutes in it (10 plus 10 is 20) rather than just 15 minutes in it. Pardon the suggestion, but it seems you'd rather be in a car.
    • dzdt 10y ago
      Narrow streets are safer for cyclists. Cars tend to drive as fast as feels safe regardless of posted speed limits, which makes wide streets into dangerous speedways.
      • mikeash 10y ago
        Also, wider streets tempt drivers to pass unsafely, while narrow streets make it clear that you simply can't pass and are stuck behind the cyclist.
• eru 10y ago
  > We don't actually want narrow streets, lack of parking, and pedestrians looking in our windows. The novelty makes it cute though. I don't know. We had that kind of stuff in Europe for a long time. We don't value it for novelties sake there.