18 ms·

We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

380 points by mrzool 8y ago

CASHforGOLD 8y ago
A walkable urban utopia sounds wonderful, for those of us that work, shop, and eat within miles of our homes. But where is exactly that feasible? To what percentage of people? "Affordable housing would be far more attainable if our infrastructure encouraged walking and alternative forms of transportation." The problem you see in Seattle and San Francisco, there's no room. I don't know if removing parking lots is the answer to this, in areas I've seen, again, partially due to zoning restrictions and space. Just as easy to say we should be building cities for instantaneous teleportation, and not driving, but that's not the reality we live in. Curious what other people think.
Someone1234 8y ago
I agree, but "people" should mean all people, not just the able bodied. Cities keep on inexplicably designing these cool pedestrian only areas for the able bodied and young. There are people who can only travel limited distances, so if you set the beach front back half a mile, you've now cut it off from many older and disabled people. What I am saying is: For the physically young and able, vehicle-less areas as great, for the elderly and or disabled, vehicles are an absolute lifeline to be able to gain access to things. For a specific example, where I grew up the shops were pedestrianized (think outdoor mall), my mom had a stroke and struggles to walk, but can drive. The distance from a car door to a shop is a good ten minutes, so she simply doesn't go there. She goes to out-of-town supermarkets with disabled bays right near the entrance. If the utopia this article wants comes to pass you have to design it with disabled access in mind. "Walk ten+ minutes" is a non-starter.
- jdavis703 8y ago
  Making cities walkable is not ableist, or at least doesn't have to be. In Copenhagen you see motorized wheelchairs using the bike lanes, here in the Bay Area I see motorized wheelchairs forced to operate in dangerous roads because the sidewalks are too narrow or damaged for their scooters. Further not everyone with a disability can't walk or bike. What about legally blind people? Auto-centric infrastructure is terrible for anyone who is legally barred from driving. Lastly, every able bodied young person (and that's the majority of the population) that you get out of a car means that road infrastructure get's better for those who genuinely need to use it.
  - kenjackson 8y ago
    I don't think the person you're replying to is saying that you should build exclusively for one class of people. You need to look more broadly when you design cities.
    - jschwartzi 8y ago
      The point of the article is that what is being done in places like San Francisco is what looking more broadly looks like. It's not ableist to allow people who'd prefer not to drive to bike or walk instead, and it's also not ableist to build our cities to allow these different modes of transport in addition to cars. Framing it like it's ableist ignores the near century of subsidies and prioitization of the automobile in the US. The fact is that us able-bodied people need spaces that we can enjoy too. We need to find a way to inhabit the same space without inhibiting each other.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - Someone1234 8y ago
        You're taking away a mode of transport some disabled people depend upon, you have to take their needs into account while doing so. Simply adding ramps and slapping ADA stickers onto everything isn't an actual answer, just a convenient way to simplify the problem. If you go from heavily vehicled areas to large pedestrian areas where vehicles are banned, you've gone from one extreme to the other. In both cases disabled people are left behind. > The fact is that us able-bodied people need spaces that we can enjoy too. I thought that was everywhere, including nature.
        jschwartzi 8y ago
        I agree. The thing I'm concerned about is that reintroducing cars into these areas is a trickle opening onto a floodgate in terms of causing us to backslide into car-centrism. And by your argument ADA compliance becomes a good excuse to erase all the pedestrian- and cyclist-only areas and replace them with "good old" city streets again. It effectively becomes an argument for people who want car-centric infrastructure only to disguise their desire and hide behind the disabled to accomplish their goals. What I'm wondering is if there's a way to accommodate without using cars? In a market we could provide some scooters or other motorized transport that's more compatible with the market's layout.
- yongjik 8y ago
  > The distance from a car door to a shop is a good ten minutes, so she simply doesn't go there. She goes to out-of-town supermarkets with disabled bays right near the entrance. ...which is rather ironic, considering "ten-minute walk from parking lot to shop entrance" is an almost unique American suburban problem: we need huge parking lots because everybody's driving. Construct a city so that 95% of the people take public transportation, and you can keep parking space for the rest 5% who really need it, and they will be practically at the front door when they get off.
  - trothamel 8y ago
    Short of things like taxis and ubers and so on, is there any form of public transportation that is so dense, when it comes to stopping locations?
    - yongjik 8y ago
      Sorry I wasn't clear: I meant "at the front door" for those 5% who have to drive. The rest can walk. It's good for health, and usually still faster than being stuck in the sea of single occupancy vehicles! :)
      - rootusrootus 8y ago
        I feel like this only makes sense if you build cities of any size, even when they have 50 people, as if they are ultra-dense. The reality is that public transit takes a certain size city before it reaches critical mass and becomes superior to individual transit. Even where I live (Portland, Oregon) which is considered to have decent public transit, I would have to walk a lot and plan on 2-3 times as long if I wanted to stick with public transit. The density just isn't there yet.
        bluGill 8y ago
        It isn't lack of density, that is a symptom. We don't allows stores, jobs and houses to be within walking distance of each other. As a result you have to drive everywhere. As a result you have to have a car. As a result we need space for lots of cars, as a result things are spread out. If you had stores and jobs within walking distance of your house you would not need a car. As a result you wouldn't find a car worth having. As a result you wouldn't need all the space dedicated to the car. Also as a result you would take public transportation. It also hurts that our focus on not allowing change means that even when someone is willing to spend their own money to tear down a smaller house/apartment to replace it with something larger we won't allow it. Thus areas that "want" to grow denser cannot do that. The only option is to grow outwards. That means people need to be farther out, which implies more time in a car, which implies more roads and parking spaces, which in turn means less density is possible. Note that the above is simplistic. I ignored many other factors. It is a complex problem and no one change can solve it.
- dleslie 8y ago
  Most sidewalks are accessible to mobility aids; like walkers, scooters, canes, wheelchairs and so forth. _All_ can be designed to be accessible to such. Moreover, the choice isn't between only pedestrians or only cars; there exists combinations of the two that are more favourable to pedestrians but allow access by vehicle for those that need it.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    > Most sidewalks are accessible to mobility aids; like walkers, scooters, canes, wheelchairs and so forth. If people cannot traverse the distance required, it doesn't really help. For example someone with bad osteoporosis, and who doesn't have a $10K+ wheelchair and a $75K minivan to carry it, won't really gain much by theoretical ADA sidewalks if the distance is too far. Claiming stuff is "disabled accessible" without really considering the people we're talking about is just a lie society tell itself to feel less guilty.
    - redial 8y ago
      Maybe the solution is to share those wheelchairs. Not everyone needs one all the time.
    - jimmaswell 8y ago
      Then maybe these pedestrianized areas should have small fleets of scooters that people who need them can use, like large grocery stores tend to have.
    - p49k 8y ago
      You’re right: such city designs should be accompanied by good universal healthcare and accessible public transportation, like most other wealthy countries, so that neither of these would be an issue.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > someone with bad osteoporosis, and who doesn't have a $10K+ wheelchair and a $75K minivan to carry it, won't really gain much by theoretical ADA sidewalks if the distance is too far One solution to this is this person should move closer.
- Karrot_Kream 8y ago
  A lot of big-box retail chains (like Walmart) have mobility scooters to help folks like your mother. Mandating that open, pedestrian friendly spaces have some of these available should be pretty easy. There are also disabilities that are exacerbated by driving rather than aiding. Legally blind folks can walk but have a much harder time driving.
- trumped 8y ago
  sidewalks are usually wheelchair accessible...
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  But when you are really old or disabled you can't drive either and then you are totally screwed. And your electric wheelchair is not usable in a typical US town.
- drblast 8y ago
  Oh yes. I just had surgery that requires me to be on crutches for a few months, so I'm temporarily disabled. If you're young and able-bodied (like me pre-surgery) and want to understand what it's like to not be young and able-bodied (which you almost definitely won't be at some point) you should put your right leg in a brace, and try not to let your foot hit the ground for a day or two and try to live that way. The ground is lava for one leg. "Walking distance" means about a block or two before you get sore from crutches or your arms get tired or your hands fall asleep. Disabled access is a godsend, everywhere. And while I can't cook a meal in my own kitchen because I can't move around and hold a plate of things at the same time, I can drive to get takeout and carry the bag inside. The world changes when you can't easily walk. Edit: Those electric scooters at Costco aren't as fast or fun as they look.
  - the_gastropod 8y ago
    Cars are not the only solution here. Transporting a single disabled person does not require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.
    - thereisnospork 8y ago
      But doing it fast, cheap, and flexibly does. Cars cost 50 cents a mile, go anywhere at as fast as anything that doesn't fly, and require negligible physical exertion or special skills to operate. When there is adequate infrastructure that's pretty optimal.
      - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
        The point is, in a walkable city, nobody needs the speed. What's the point of driving at 40mph in a 10x10mi city vs using a scooter at 15mph? You'll probably hit a stoplight after hitting 20mph, and then waste braking to stop again. Electric mobility scooters are, per-mile, much much cheaper than cars, and cost much less to purchase.
        thereisnospork 8y ago
- Finnucane 8y ago
  Accesibility is important, but for decades, urban centers were sacrificed to benefit suburban, car-dependent sprawl. Even now, much urban development is burdened by mandated parking requirements. But where space is at a premium and traffic congestion is already a nightmare, why encourage more cars? Private cars don't have to be the only option (here in Boston, the MBTA has services for the disables, and apparently Uber and Lyft are making a little progress in this area).
- drewr 8y ago
  If you can get the able-bodied out of their cars, then there's more room for those that really need a car. I only take my car when it's not practical to walk or ride my bicycle. And probably 80% of the time I'm in my car, I could easily be on my bicycle but there's no safe way to get where I'm going. It's also a myth that disability automatically equals driving. I have a friend with impaired vision who can't drive but can ride a bicycle. I would like for him to be able to do that as safely as possible.
- jhbadger 8y ago
  On the other hand, not depending on cars helps a lot of disabled people. Busses and subways are generally made taking into account wheelchair use, plus visually impaired people can use transit systems where the stops are called out.
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  From my observations, walkable neighbourhoods can be great for disabled people. I live in a very walkable neighbourhood where there are many homes, businesses, schools, and more in walking distance, as well as bus lines and a subway station. Everything within 10 minutes at a normal pace. There is a home for people in wheelchairs (not sure of the correct term) down the street from me, and the people that live there are always out and about. Same with a man in a wheelchair that lives one street over. Same with the slow, tiny, 90-something-year-old lady that lives across the street from me. Same with the blind man who lives down the street. None of these people have to drive, and I believe none of them even own cars, but they are able to get around with little issue because they have the option to just jaunt down the sidewalk 10 minutes for most things, or use accessible transit connections for longer trips.
  - jpernst 8y ago
    As a disabled person who's spent his entire life dependent on others for transportation basically anywhere, I'll confirm how badly I'd love to live in a place like that. (I understand if you don't want to say where you live, but any hints to narrow it down or other places like that you know of?) It can't be overstated how confining it is when anything you'd like to do or see involves logistical wrangling to work out when exactly you need to be there, how long you'll be there, when you need to be picked up, etc. I've lost count of the number of times I've just decided to not bother with all that and just stay home, which makes for a pretty depressing existence after a while. Things like uber can help, but you're still placing your trust in someone you've never met to be able to get you there, and more importantly, to be able to get you back home. Not to mention having to do an upfront value analysis to determine if the trip is worth it, and for disabled people this can be a tough call given the difficulties with employment and income in general.
    - oftenwrong 8y ago
      I live in Boston, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, it is an expensive place to live (probably because actually walkable areas like this are so rare in the US), and I may not stay much longer with the rate of rental increases. If you do live in an area that is more car friendly than anything, a van might be the better option: https://nicolagriffith.com/2018/05/26/new-car-an-accessible-minivan/ https://nicolagriffith.com/2018/05/26/new-car-an-accessible-...
- spraak 8y ago
  From the_gastropod below: > Cars are not the only solution here. Transporting a single disabled person does not require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.
  - jimmaswell 8y ago
    Rendering a webpage does not require an 800+ watt 50-pound computer setup. A balanced diet does not require flavor. Clothes do not require coloring. We can't just throw out having nice things because they aren't "required."
    - spraak 8y ago
      Your first analogy (50lb computer) is nonsense because that's exactly the point I'm saying: computers that fit on your pocket and are just a few grams can easily render a webpage. Who thinks that a 50lb computer is nice unless it's sophisticated hardware that can't be condensed? Cars are nice yes but there are plenty of other smaller and more nimble transportation devices. So weren't not throwing away nice things here.
      - jimmaswell 8y ago
        The desktop computer will likely be a lot more responsive, let you do a lot more, have a higher resolution and screen size, let you have more tabs running at once, etc. Using nothing but a smartphone for all my home computer usage would be a major setback.
        spraak 8y ago
        > Using nothing but a smartphone for all my home computer usage would be a major setback. But that's not the analogy here. This is for the "last mile". Perhaps a more appropriate analogy is using a lightweight laptop (rather than a phone)
    - vilmosi 8y ago
      >>> We can't just throw out having nice things because they aren't "required." I wouldn't assume driving for 30 min in traffic is "nicer" than a 30min train ride.
dbatten 8y ago
Rather than trying to force some particular vision of "the good life" on people, what if we tried to price transportation and other things appropriately? For example, get rid of the gas tax. Toll all state and federally funded roads. Scale the toll according to the amount of wear and tear the vehicle causes for the road. Price something in to account for emissions. Make sure the tolls are high enough to pay for the road and its ongoing maintenance. Cameras capturing license plates at intersections can keep track of everything (tolled highways near me already work this way). Bonus points if you get municipalities on board and reduce property taxes being spent on transportation. If you started doing stuff like this, I think people's choices will start to change. When it costs $5 to drive 30 minutes in to work every day, people are going to choose to live in big houses with big lots in suburbia and drive everywhere. When they have to pay the full cost of making that drive, their preferences may start to change. Yes, a lot of stuff would have to change to get people to agree to this sort of thing and make it work. But the author is already talking about re-making cities, so we might as well do it in a way that maximizes freedom and consumer choice... right?
- epistasis 8y ago
  A bigger impediment to building walkable spaces is that zoning and codes usually prevent it from being built. From parking minimums, to very low maximum heights, to limiting the number of units that are allowed to be built on a plot of land. All the regulations put a cap on density, to prevent it from ever happening. Instead, some cities should try putting a floor on density: maximum number of parking spots (perhaps only enough for those with limited mobility), minimum building heights, and minimum number of units per parcel. Or, just let people build what they want. That would also result in getting more walkable neighborhoods, which are super valuable, both to the residents and cities. Legalize density.
  - lgregg 8y ago
    > Or, just let people build what they want. Uh, no. I wouldn't want something seedy or some industrial manufacturing plant next to my kid's school. There is a purpose behind codes and zoning that is good. It's just as you mentioned when they are used to push an agenda that hurts everyone.
WhompingWindows 8y ago
We definitely need to transition from a car-centric to a person-centric urban landscape. Free public storage (parking) of personal property is a blight, and it's reprehensible that polluting and environmentally damaging personal vehicles are given primary consideration in hundreds of cities. I do agree that it's ethically questionable that many of the wonderful commercial districts give up 10-20% of their land to park cars for a handful of citizens. Let's get solutions in the here and now to these car-centric nightmares. However, let's also build for technology coming down the pipeline. Urban planners today need to think about the coming tsunami of driverless vehicles, as well as the steadily increasing trends of cycling, scootering, e-bikes, and other electric last-mile solutions. These technologies may not make a huge impact like the car, but if they do, our policy-makers should be planning for these potential game-changers. For instance, with self driving cars, we must ask what will be their effects on institutions like city buses? Does it make sense to have massive often under-utilized buses which don't drop you at your desired location, or does it make better sense to have smaller, 5-10 person self driving vans which can dynamically adjust routes, dropping off riders at much more desirable locations? What about cycling, scooters, and such - will these become increasingly popular as self driving vehicles start to penetrate? I know I'd bike a lot more places if I didn't have to deal with very unskilled and inattentive drivers all over my narrow-streeted city. Does this mean, somewhat paradoxically, that self driving vehicles will actually reduce the number of vehicle trips in a city, while increasing other modes of transit? Will self driving vehicles in non-urban settings actually increase vehicle miles traveled, as couples in expensive metropolis areas realize they can commute twice as far if they get to kick back and relax during the journey? The implications of these technologies, and others we haven't seen yet, are potentially massive. We need to bring these transport modalities into the discussion whenever we talk about reshaping our urban landscapes.
johngalt 8y ago
This is one of those scaling vs. switching cost problems. If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a large metropolis, transit is better. The problem is that as a city scales up, each individual step results in continually adding infrastructure for cars without ever making the active decision to switch, and redesign the entire city. When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense to add car infrastructure rather than rebuild everything. Again when you grow from medium to large it remains cheaper to add that new interchange rather than change the fundamental structure of the city. Growing from large city to metropolis often means incorporating other cities and their car based infrastructure, and making a coordinated move to anything else is extremely difficult/expensive. Edit: I doubt we could properly identify the "next big metropolis" early enough to put the proper infrastructure in place. Even if we could, the politics surrounding who gets the infrastructure spending would cloud the process. Neither do I think we could simply set up a new metropolis some where and "build it correctly from the start". The best bet is to find a means of bootstrapping the conversion of existing metropolises to walkable/dense/transit oriented methods. How do we mortgage the immense future benefits to apply pressure to make changes now? Is there an achievable half step toward the goal that provides enough benefit to drive the rest of the conversion? When I'm confronted with a switching cost vs scaling cost problem in operations, I would be putting in dual use infrastructure. Maintain compatibility while removing dependency.
- davidw 8y ago
  My wife is from a small town in Italy. It doesn't have transit, but it's quite possible to get around it on foot or by bike, because it's compact.
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    I'd bet anything that your wife's small town in Italy was mostly settled and developed before cars, in a time when being able to get around town by foot (or by horse, at the fastest) was important.
    - jaredklewis 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kylec 8y ago
If walkable cities are so great, why did we ever invent cars?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Imagine having this debate in 1818. People would be complaining about horses crapping everywhere, how hitching posts waste land, how roads designed for getting ox-carts full of goods to market aren't pedestrian friendly, etc. etc.
- the_gastropod 8y ago
  This is a straw man. Nobody's suggesting cars are "bad" or "evil". What is being suggested, is that operating cars (especially at high speeds) should be done away from where we live. Supporting the use of cars within our towns and cities is: dangerous, expensive, and wasteful (of time and natural resources). Cars are great for traveling great distances (20+ miles) quickly. Using them for day-to-day travel within your own city is akin to taking a cruise ship out on the lake for a weekend fishing trip.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Clearly, we must have invented cars to get around in cities.
whitepoplar 8y ago
For anyone who wants to see a pragmatic way to build cities and communities, I'd highly recommend Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199 https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Constructi...
- spraak 8y ago
  This book is really amazing in its level of detail and specificity and incredible how it's still relevant.
- carapace 8y ago
  And his "Build Living Neighborhoods" site: http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm
earlz 8y ago
I do a lot of traveling for business and staying in a city like Dallas, St. Louis, or some suburbia part of the bay area is absolutely my least ideal place to stay almost always. I love that uber exists, but my favorite part about traveling is walking around and doing photography so that I'm not just sitting in a depressing hotel. If everything interesting is at least 2 miles apart, it's hard to enjoy a city. And especially in Texas cities, many times there are no sidewalks so that walking even short distances is a big pain
- pm90 8y ago
  Texan cities are all very car friendly and pedestrian unfriendly. It is just not possible to get anywhere without a car, and people will look at you strangely even if you walk down to the grocery store a mile away or so. One fine Houston morning, my friends and I decided to walk down to the strip mall for lunch after a night out; the sidewalks were unmaintained and cracking, but also... we were the only ones walking! It was quite a shock to me to see that, especially since the roads were chock full of traffic.
  - lgregg 8y ago
    The suburb (south Houston suburban city) my mom lives in has a token sidewalk for people to run or walk their dogs. That's literally 90-95% of the type of uses I see there minus one guy I see every once and awhile who looks like he's going to or coming from work. It's pretty sad. I do get one thing, it is really hot in Houston, so I think that plays a lot into the mentality of cars vs walking, at least there.
  - post_break 8y ago
    It doesn't help that it's 100F with 100% humidity.
  - jimmaswell 8y ago
    You say a mile like it's nothing. That's 20 minutes at an average walking speed vs 2-3 minutes at most by car.
paulddraper 8y ago
> Websites like Zillow and Apartments.com offer calculations for commute length and walkability to everyday destinations like grocery stores If I'm walking to the store, do I (a) try to carry 20+ grocery bags home for my family of five or (b) make a grocery trip twice a week? I don't love either of those. And that's only groceries, not shopping in general. My wife got a 50lb bag of fertilizer from Tractor Supply yesterday morning. How close does that store need to be for walking to make sense? At the end of my driveway? Basically....if you have a crowded city of apartments, sure, don't do much for cars. If you have a city of single-family residences (and three quarters of Americans do live in single-family residences), it's really hard to not build for cars.
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  To give you an idea: I have a 3 grocers within walking distance, and I will usually just go buy what I need for whatever I am going to make the same day. One bag is usually fine. I have never purchased that much fertilizer, but I have purchased a 50lb bag of sand at the hardware store on the corner. It is so close, I would be surprised if my walk home was not shorter than your wife's walk back to her car. Living in the dense city requires many sacrifices, but one of the best upsides is being able to walk places.
  - LgWoodenBadger 8y ago
    Well, how many people can physically live as close to those things as you do without having a 1-hardware-store-per-100-feet or 3-grocers-per-square-mile density?
    - oftenwrong 8y ago
      I don't really know, but I would say that, in areas where people largely walk and bike, businesses tend to have a smaller area that they draw regular customers from, and it is easy for a few businesses of the same type to coexist relatively close to one another. There are duplicates of many types of businesses in my neighbourhood. Walking is the most distance-sensitive major form of transportation. People who mainly walk tend to shop at the closest possible place. Nothing in walking distance will match the selection of a big store like Tractor Supply or Home Depot. I use Zip Car when necessary, but it is pretty rare, especially now that everything can be ordered online.
joshuaheard 8y ago
Visiting the Leonardo Da Vinci museum, I saw an exhibit where Leonardo did an urban design plan. In it, he made the street level pedestrian only. Under the street was another level for horses and wagons (cars and busses today), where each building had an underground entrance to this level through an underground garage. This seems like an elegant solution in an urban area from the man who invented the helicopter, parachute, and painted the Mona Lisa.
- pm90 8y ago
  Except that it would also be ridiculously expensive. If construction costs reduce in the future due to automation though, might be workable.
  - lgregg 8y ago
    It depends where you are, construction costs vary. Sure, if you're building in NYC. They built a tunnel for 2.4 billion. You can build that same tunnel elsewhere for a fraction.
  - wahern 8y ago
    Tunneling costs will come down, almost certainly through automated tunneling. Not because of the demands of urban transit, but because suburbia is fundamentally not economically viable unless the cost of running utilities and paving roads drops dramatically. American society is too wedded to suburban culture to move away from it to any significant extent, so sheer necessity will drive technological innovation. It helps that the costs of suburbia are largely hidden, so either the technology emerges or America continues to descend into a paved-over hellscape. Like many things America will end up paying 10x to solve problems with sophisticated, overwrought technology that could have been solved through simple social and cultural shifts, but at least we'll get fancy new tools out it.
  - eeZah7Ux 8y ago
    Le Corbusier proposed the very same idea and it's working very well in many asian cities. It's actually cheaper than alternatives and no, you don't need digging.
Zaskoda 8y ago
I'm one of those folks who would love to drop everything I have going to wander off into the desert/forest/underwater/whatever with the intention of bootstrapping a new city from scratch. The more I talk about it, I've found that there are a lot of people who would love such an adventure - if we could all just find some effort worth getting behind. It's sort of like starting a hippy commune, only with high-tech intentions. I'd rather embrace the world and one-up it than to hide away from it. I meet a lot of people who agree so I'm surprised there aren't more projects of this nature getting traction.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Need a kickstarter like system. Get 10,000 people to deposit $10,000 and you have got $100,000,000 to acquire a nice plot of land, set up planning and governance, and incorporate a new town. I'd be interested in seeing plans for such towns and would be interested in living in one. Or one billionaire with similar ambitions.
  - lgregg 8y ago
    I'd be down. I would be curious of how the governance would work for a situation like city-funding(?). Would funders get some special say, or are they simply along for the ride? What if a corporation started a city instead of a billionaire? "Hello, welcome to Amazon!"
  - zumu 8y ago
    > Or one billionaire with similar ambitions. I was with you until this part. I'd rather not live in a city with an 'owner'.
    - sobani 8y ago
      A benevolent dictator does have its advantages. For example being able to determine a culture until it's proven and critical mass makes it unlikely to change. It's comparable to the eternal September problem. Say some 'hippies' try to bootstrap a city that's very walkable and people flock to it because they want to live in such a city. But it takes a while to get used to a new situation and during that time it's very easy to say "I like to walk to the shops, but I'm used to doing my groceries once a week, so allow me to use my car for that." Before you know the 'short-sighted yuppies' overwhelm the 'stubborn hippies' and cars are allowed everywhere one exception at a time. The biggest disadvantages of a dictator are overcome by being able to move easily and the city being part of the larger legal framework of the country it's in.
njarboe 8y ago
What I would like is an electric bike and a legal structure where I can take one on the freeway(goes at least 60mph) and in bike lanes(go slow there). Range 30mi.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  Something that is safe at 60mph is not really a bike anymore.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    When is something with two wheels not a bike anymore? I imagine you would use a mass cutoff right? Or visual size? Bikes on the Tour de France get over 80mph on down hill sections so making one "safe" at 60mph seems not impossible on first principles. Safe is usually judged by just a feeling and I would like to check out my feeling on such a machine. I'm sure this space of vehicle has not been worked on much and would love to see some active invention going on.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      If it can go 60mph, it needs a motor. Usually something like that is called a motorcycle.
Bromskloss 8y ago
Just so what we are on the same page: There are people in the cars.
jimmaswell 8y ago
I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a generation comes along that can more easily afford them again. The area I live in is pretty dense (a mixed commercial-suburbanish area in the most densely-populated state) and also very car-enabled, and it works out fine. The stores I go to are within minutes of driving for me, and work is 10-15 minutes away. I don't know the official term for such a thing, but near my apartment is what's like a micro-city that you can easily walk/bike around while car use isn't very hampered. The major grocery store's plaza gets a large parking lot and otherwise there are street parking areas. In the other direction are major high-traffic roads that connect to interstates. There are also major businesses around here with tech jobs, and they use large complexes with their own large parking lots. There's a lot I don't like about New Jersey but this kind of mixed area seems to work out really well and makes me question the necessity of block-style cities where it's just depressing concrete towers in a grid as far as the eye can see. Maybe there are more solutions that just take some imagination to support both cars and others in increasingly-dense areas. More car bridges, extra lanes by replacing some sidewalks with sky bridges, underground tunnels, parking lots on the roofs, more reversible lanes, allow motorcycles to use shoulders. Just brainstorming here but I don't like the idea of throwing out the baby with the bathwater with cars - nothing else provides the same freedom to spontaneously go wherever you want on your own terms instead of being beholden to transit schedules or only being able to go as far as you can walk or bike.
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  > I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a generation comes along that can more easily afford them again. In the UK you could afford a car on minimum wage. I have a car. I still don't think cities should be designed for cars. How can anyone look at one of those pictures of American five-lane highways of bumper-to-bumper traffic and think that is in any way sane?
  - jimmaswell 8y ago
    I'm saying there are probably unexplored good solutions to that kind of congestion. Another I just thought of is the city motivating companies to make shifts not so centered around 9-5. Spread the rush with shifts of 8-4, 10-6, etc.
AcerbicZero 8y ago
It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft. For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but the buses are un-ridable most of the time due to the rampant homeless issue(and all that comes with a large homeless population) while the light rail is usually better about being a semi-safe, semi-clean environment, that just happens to be so overloaded between between 7am-9am, and 3pm-6pm, that there is almost any price I'd pay to avoid it. The sad part is that no matter how excessive the taxes or how limited the parking the ones to suffer first, and worst, will be the low-income families and workers. The homeless will continue to do whatever they can get away with, and those of us with higher incomes will grumble a bit and pay the taxes. The only solution I've seen that has a chance to change this is to come down hard on poor public transit behavior, perhaps by putting actual people on the buses with the specific job of cracking down on the drunk/high/piss soaked/etc types, in an effort to improve the quality of the service to the point that the middle-upper income groups uses it again.
- drb91 8y ago
  > bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft. How can this be true? Public transit allows your attention to wander and typically is much, much faster than traffic. Adding uber/lyft will get two of the worst attributes: traffic and high cost, although you’ll be able to do something else simultaneously. Furthermore, it’s not clear how parking fees affect low income families: for my commute (between east bay and SF), public transit is an order of magnitude less expensive than driving, especially if you consider parking. Finally, it’s not clear what homeless people have to do with this. The cost of affordable transit is interacting with your neighbors. If you don’t like your neighbors, please don’t screw them over by investing in car-oriented transit.
  - epicureanideal 8y ago
billsmithaustin 8y ago
A more transparent slogan would be, "Let's build cities for walking and bicycles rather than cars." Or maybe "Let's build cities for walking and subways and electric scooters." Or whatever. But whatever means of transportation you optimize for today may be inappropriate a century from now. It was horses in the not-too-distant past, and as much as I like bicycles, I can imagine a figure in which bicycles and bike lanes are obsolete too.
gremlinsinc 8y ago
I'd just like one small change to cities. Sidewalk escalators/treadmill of varying speeds. It would make commutes so much easier, plus people could actually get some modicum of a workout while commuting. I mean, it worked on the Jetson's, right?
- brandonmenc 8y ago
  They could at least try it! They never try anything!
massysett 8y ago
The very title is as ridiculous on its face as is the underlying idea. It suggests that the car is a being of its own that the city was built for. It doesn't occur to the author that each car has at least one person in it. Almost always that person is driving so she may interact with other people, work with other people, or transact business with other people, or he is himself driving for a business that is doing work for other people. The city was built so people can get around and interact with others. The means by which people are doing this is cars and trucks. The city is indeed built for people, which is precisely why the city accommodates cars: they are immensely useful means of transportation. It's ridiculous to suggest the city is "built for cars" as though the car is some sort of being with wants and demands. The car is serving the people of the city.
- jesperlang 8y ago
  I see this point coming up a lot. But if you consider the car a medium of transport for the individual and how it affects the collective it makes more sense. Think of it as "build cities for people, not individuals"
ravenstine 8y ago
Is productivity actually going to be increased by reducing the number of cars on the road? If not, then I wouldn't count on ever seeing a serious effort towards making cities less car-centric. A politician may help bring in some bike lanes here and there, but their interest is almost entirely in keeping their job.
techsin101 8y ago
I'd share my perspective... old cities were the best. i visited some european cities and some middle eastern cities. there are main roads where traffic is, and then there are streets. Streets are NOT made of cement, softer the material the easier to walk on ... Dirt? the best. Streets can sprawl 4 blocks in US city size. Streets don't have any traffic, but cars can be parked here and there randomly. (car ownership is less) What it did was that grocery, laundry, hardware store, restaurants, and pretty much everything was in walking distance... you didn't need a car. and there were no cars to get in your way. But with 5 minutes of walking you could easily be next to highway and hail a taxi. All that time I was there, I was like OOOMG this make soooo much sense, I dont need to drive 4 miles to some mega shopping mall to do shopping then come back find parking for 30 minutes. Oh and nobody was fat. Since everyone did light walking daily. people were less stressed as there was culture and less stress. I don't get why every street needs to have a freaking car in it. from nyc btw.
nojvek 8y ago
We don’t want cars, horses, trains, buses and things. They are all means to an end. The means of being able to move from place A to B quickly and in relative comfort. People select whatever gets that means satisfied at the price they can afford. It’s a demand supply curve. I take a bus to Seattle everyday even though it slower, but it’s way more confortable than driving. I always get a seat and I can read a book / get work done. I wouldn’t take a crowded bus though. 545 is so crowded you can smell people’s sweat. I’d go back to driving. I love driving and bobbing my head to good music. But most of the days, we don’t give a shit. We just want to get to work in morning and get back home in evening. We chose whatever means gets the job done!

380 points by mrzool 8y ago

A walkable urban utopia sounds wonderful, for those of us that work, shop, and eat within miles of our homes. But where is exactly that feasible? To what percentage of people? "Affordable housing would be far more attainable if our infrastructure encouraged walking and alternative forms of transportation." The problem you see in Seattle and San Francisco, there's no room. I don't know if removing parking lots is the answer to this, in areas I've seen, again, partially due to zoning restrictions and space. Just as easy to say we should be building cities for instantaneous teleportation, and not driving, but that's not the reality we live in. Curious what other people think.

Someone1234 8y ago

I agree, but "people" should mean all people, not just the able bodied. Cities keep on inexplicably designing these cool pedestrian only areas for the able bodied and young. There are people who can only travel limited distances, so if you set the beach front back half a mile, you've now cut it off from many older and disabled people. What I am saying is: For the physically young and able, vehicle-less areas as great, for the elderly and or disabled, vehicles are an absolute lifeline to be able to gain access to things. For a specific example, where I grew up the shops were pedestrianized (think outdoor mall), my mom had a stroke and struggles to walk, but can drive. The distance from a car door to a shop is a good ten minutes, so she simply doesn't go there. She goes to out-of-town supermarkets with disabled bays right near the entrance. If the utopia this article wants comes to pass you have to design it with disabled access in mind. "Walk ten+ minutes" is a non-starter.

jdavis703 8y ago
Making cities walkable is not ableist, or at least doesn't have to be. In Copenhagen you see motorized wheelchairs using the bike lanes, here in the Bay Area I see motorized wheelchairs forced to operate in dangerous roads because the sidewalks are too narrow or damaged for their scooters. Further not everyone with a disability can't walk or bike. What about legally blind people? Auto-centric infrastructure is terrible for anyone who is legally barred from driving. Lastly, every able bodied young person (and that's the majority of the population) that you get out of a car means that road infrastructure get's better for those who genuinely need to use it.
- kenjackson 8y ago
  I don't think the person you're replying to is saying that you should build exclusively for one class of people. You need to look more broadly when you design cities.
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    The point of the article is that what is being done in places like San Francisco is what looking more broadly looks like. It's not ableist to allow people who'd prefer not to drive to bike or walk instead, and it's also not ableist to build our cities to allow these different modes of transport in addition to cars. Framing it like it's ableist ignores the near century of subsidies and prioitization of the automobile in the US. The fact is that us able-bodied people need spaces that we can enjoy too. We need to find a way to inhabit the same space without inhibiting each other.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      You're taking away a mode of transport some disabled people depend upon, you have to take their needs into account while doing so. Simply adding ramps and slapping ADA stickers onto everything isn't an actual answer, just a convenient way to simplify the problem. If you go from heavily vehicled areas to large pedestrian areas where vehicles are banned, you've gone from one extreme to the other. In both cases disabled people are left behind. > The fact is that us able-bodied people need spaces that we can enjoy too. I thought that was everywhere, including nature.
      - jschwartzi 8y ago
        I agree. The thing I'm concerned about is that reintroducing cars into these areas is a trickle opening onto a floodgate in terms of causing us to backslide into car-centrism. And by your argument ADA compliance becomes a good excuse to erase all the pedestrian- and cyclist-only areas and replace them with "good old" city streets again. It effectively becomes an argument for people who want car-centric infrastructure only to disguise their desire and hide behind the disabled to accomplish their goals. What I'm wondering is if there's a way to accommodate without using cars? In a market we could provide some scooters or other motorized transport that's more compatible with the market's layout.
yongjik 8y ago
> The distance from a car door to a shop is a good ten minutes, so she simply doesn't go there. She goes to out-of-town supermarkets with disabled bays right near the entrance. ...which is rather ironic, considering "ten-minute walk from parking lot to shop entrance" is an almost unique American suburban problem: we need huge parking lots because everybody's driving. Construct a city so that 95% of the people take public transportation, and you can keep parking space for the rest 5% who really need it, and they will be practically at the front door when they get off.
- trothamel 8y ago
  Short of things like taxis and ubers and so on, is there any form of public transportation that is so dense, when it comes to stopping locations?
  - yongjik 8y ago
    Sorry I wasn't clear: I meant "at the front door" for those 5% who have to drive. The rest can walk. It's good for health, and usually still faster than being stuck in the sea of single occupancy vehicles! :)
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      I feel like this only makes sense if you build cities of any size, even when they have 50 people, as if they are ultra-dense. The reality is that public transit takes a certain size city before it reaches critical mass and becomes superior to individual transit. Even where I live (Portland, Oregon) which is considered to have decent public transit, I would have to walk a lot and plan on 2-3 times as long if I wanted to stick with public transit. The density just isn't there yet.
      - bluGill 8y ago
        It isn't lack of density, that is a symptom. We don't allows stores, jobs and houses to be within walking distance of each other. As a result you have to drive everywhere. As a result you have to have a car. As a result we need space for lots of cars, as a result things are spread out. If you had stores and jobs within walking distance of your house you would not need a car. As a result you wouldn't find a car worth having. As a result you wouldn't need all the space dedicated to the car. Also as a result you would take public transportation. It also hurts that our focus on not allowing change means that even when someone is willing to spend their own money to tear down a smaller house/apartment to replace it with something larger we won't allow it. Thus areas that "want" to grow denser cannot do that. The only option is to grow outwards. That means people need to be farther out, which implies more time in a car, which implies more roads and parking spaces, which in turn means less density is possible. Note that the above is simplistic. I ignored many other factors. It is a complex problem and no one change can solve it.
dleslie 8y ago
Most sidewalks are accessible to mobility aids; like walkers, scooters, canes, wheelchairs and so forth. _All_ can be designed to be accessible to such. Moreover, the choice isn't between only pedestrians or only cars; there exists combinations of the two that are more favourable to pedestrians but allow access by vehicle for those that need it.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > Most sidewalks are accessible to mobility aids; like walkers, scooters, canes, wheelchairs and so forth. If people cannot traverse the distance required, it doesn't really help. For example someone with bad osteoporosis, and who doesn't have a $10K+ wheelchair and a $75K minivan to carry it, won't really gain much by theoretical ADA sidewalks if the distance is too far. Claiming stuff is "disabled accessible" without really considering the people we're talking about is just a lie society tell itself to feel less guilty.
  - redial 8y ago
    Maybe the solution is to share those wheelchairs. Not everyone needs one all the time.
  - jimmaswell 8y ago
    Then maybe these pedestrianized areas should have small fleets of scooters that people who need them can use, like large grocery stores tend to have.
  - p49k 8y ago
    You’re right: such city designs should be accompanied by good universal healthcare and accessible public transportation, like most other wealthy countries, so that neither of these would be an issue.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > someone with bad osteoporosis, and who doesn't have a $10K+ wheelchair and a $75K minivan to carry it, won't really gain much by theoretical ADA sidewalks if the distance is too far One solution to this is this person should move closer.
Karrot_Kream 8y ago
A lot of big-box retail chains (like Walmart) have mobility scooters to help folks like your mother. Mandating that open, pedestrian friendly spaces have some of these available should be pretty easy. There are also disabilities that are exacerbated by driving rather than aiding. Legally blind folks can walk but have a much harder time driving.
trumped 8y ago
sidewalks are usually wheelchair accessible...
maxxxxx 8y ago
But when you are really old or disabled you can't drive either and then you are totally screwed. And your electric wheelchair is not usable in a typical US town.
drblast 8y ago
Oh yes. I just had surgery that requires me to be on crutches for a few months, so I'm temporarily disabled. If you're young and able-bodied (like me pre-surgery) and want to understand what it's like to not be young and able-bodied (which you almost definitely won't be at some point) you should put your right leg in a brace, and try not to let your foot hit the ground for a day or two and try to live that way. The ground is lava for one leg. "Walking distance" means about a block or two before you get sore from crutches or your arms get tired or your hands fall asleep. Disabled access is a godsend, everywhere. And while I can't cook a meal in my own kitchen because I can't move around and hold a plate of things at the same time, I can drive to get takeout and carry the bag inside. The world changes when you can't easily walk. Edit: Those electric scooters at Costco aren't as fast or fun as they look.
- the_gastropod 8y ago
  Cars are not the only solution here. Transporting a single disabled person does not require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.
  - thereisnospork 8y ago
    But doing it fast, cheap, and flexibly does. Cars cost 50 cents a mile, go anywhere at as fast as anything that doesn't fly, and require negligible physical exertion or special skills to operate. When there is adequate infrastructure that's pretty optimal.
    - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
      The point is, in a walkable city, nobody needs the speed. What's the point of driving at 40mph in a 10x10mi city vs using a scooter at 15mph? You'll probably hit a stoplight after hitting 20mph, and then waste braking to stop again. Electric mobility scooters are, per-mile, much much cheaper than cars, and cost much less to purchase.
      - thereisnospork 8y ago
Finnucane 8y ago
Accesibility is important, but for decades, urban centers were sacrificed to benefit suburban, car-dependent sprawl. Even now, much urban development is burdened by mandated parking requirements. But where space is at a premium and traffic congestion is already a nightmare, why encourage more cars? Private cars don't have to be the only option (here in Boston, the MBTA has services for the disables, and apparently Uber and Lyft are making a little progress in this area).
drewr 8y ago
If you can get the able-bodied out of their cars, then there's more room for those that really need a car. I only take my car when it's not practical to walk or ride my bicycle. And probably 80% of the time I'm in my car, I could easily be on my bicycle but there's no safe way to get where I'm going. It's also a myth that disability automatically equals driving. I have a friend with impaired vision who can't drive but can ride a bicycle. I would like for him to be able to do that as safely as possible.
jhbadger 8y ago
On the other hand, not depending on cars helps a lot of disabled people. Busses and subways are generally made taking into account wheelchair use, plus visually impaired people can use transit systems where the stops are called out.
oftenwrong 8y ago
From my observations, walkable neighbourhoods can be great for disabled people. I live in a very walkable neighbourhood where there are many homes, businesses, schools, and more in walking distance, as well as bus lines and a subway station. Everything within 10 minutes at a normal pace. There is a home for people in wheelchairs (not sure of the correct term) down the street from me, and the people that live there are always out and about. Same with a man in a wheelchair that lives one street over. Same with the slow, tiny, 90-something-year-old lady that lives across the street from me. Same with the blind man who lives down the street. None of these people have to drive, and I believe none of them even own cars, but they are able to get around with little issue because they have the option to just jaunt down the sidewalk 10 minutes for most things, or use accessible transit connections for longer trips.
- jpernst 8y ago
  As a disabled person who's spent his entire life dependent on others for transportation basically anywhere, I'll confirm how badly I'd love to live in a place like that. (I understand if you don't want to say where you live, but any hints to narrow it down or other places like that you know of?) It can't be overstated how confining it is when anything you'd like to do or see involves logistical wrangling to work out when exactly you need to be there, how long you'll be there, when you need to be picked up, etc. I've lost count of the number of times I've just decided to not bother with all that and just stay home, which makes for a pretty depressing existence after a while. Things like uber can help, but you're still placing your trust in someone you've never met to be able to get you there, and more importantly, to be able to get you back home. Not to mention having to do an upfront value analysis to determine if the trip is worth it, and for disabled people this can be a tough call given the difficulties with employment and income in general.
  - oftenwrong 8y ago
    I live in Boston, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, it is an expensive place to live (probably because actually walkable areas like this are so rare in the US), and I may not stay much longer with the rate of rental increases. If you do live in an area that is more car friendly than anything, a van might be the better option: https://nicolagriffith.com/2018/05/26/new-car-an-accessible-minivan/ https://nicolagriffith.com/2018/05/26/new-car-an-accessible-...
spraak 8y ago
From the_gastropod below: > Cars are not the only solution here. Transporting a single disabled person does not require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  Rendering a webpage does not require an 800+ watt 50-pound computer setup. A balanced diet does not require flavor. Clothes do not require coloring. We can't just throw out having nice things because they aren't "required."
  - spraak 8y ago
    Your first analogy (50lb computer) is nonsense because that's exactly the point I'm saying: computers that fit on your pocket and are just a few grams can easily render a webpage. Who thinks that a 50lb computer is nice unless it's sophisticated hardware that can't be condensed? Cars are nice yes but there are plenty of other smaller and more nimble transportation devices. So weren't not throwing away nice things here.
    - jimmaswell 8y ago
      The desktop computer will likely be a lot more responsive, let you do a lot more, have a higher resolution and screen size, let you have more tabs running at once, etc. Using nothing but a smartphone for all my home computer usage would be a major setback.
      - spraak 8y ago
        > Using nothing but a smartphone for all my home computer usage would be a major setback. But that's not the analogy here. This is for the "last mile". Perhaps a more appropriate analogy is using a lightweight laptop (rather than a phone)
  - vilmosi 8y ago
    >>> We can't just throw out having nice things because they aren't "required." I wouldn't assume driving for 30 min in traffic is "nicer" than a 30min train ride.

dbatten 8y ago

Rather than trying to force some particular vision of "the good life" on people, what if we tried to price transportation and other things appropriately? For example, get rid of the gas tax. Toll all state and federally funded roads. Scale the toll according to the amount of wear and tear the vehicle causes for the road. Price something in to account for emissions. Make sure the tolls are high enough to pay for the road and its ongoing maintenance. Cameras capturing license plates at intersections can keep track of everything (tolled highways near me already work this way). Bonus points if you get municipalities on board and reduce property taxes being spent on transportation. If you started doing stuff like this, I think people's choices will start to change. When it costs $5 to drive 30 minutes in to work every day, people are going to choose to live in big houses with big lots in suburbia and drive everywhere. When they have to pay the full cost of making that drive, their preferences may start to change. Yes, a lot of stuff would have to change to get people to agree to this sort of thing and make it work. But the author is already talking about re-making cities, so we might as well do it in a way that maximizes freedom and consumer choice... right?

epistasis 8y ago
A bigger impediment to building walkable spaces is that zoning and codes usually prevent it from being built. From parking minimums, to very low maximum heights, to limiting the number of units that are allowed to be built on a plot of land. All the regulations put a cap on density, to prevent it from ever happening. Instead, some cities should try putting a floor on density: maximum number of parking spots (perhaps only enough for those with limited mobility), minimum building heights, and minimum number of units per parcel. Or, just let people build what they want. That would also result in getting more walkable neighborhoods, which are super valuable, both to the residents and cities. Legalize density.
- lgregg 8y ago
  > Or, just let people build what they want. Uh, no. I wouldn't want something seedy or some industrial manufacturing plant next to my kid's school. There is a purpose behind codes and zoning that is good. It's just as you mentioned when they are used to push an agenda that hurts everyone.

WhompingWindows 8y ago

We definitely need to transition from a car-centric to a person-centric urban landscape. Free public storage (parking) of personal property is a blight, and it's reprehensible that polluting and environmentally damaging personal vehicles are given primary consideration in hundreds of cities. I do agree that it's ethically questionable that many of the wonderful commercial districts give up 10-20% of their land to park cars for a handful of citizens. Let's get solutions in the here and now to these car-centric nightmares. However, let's also build for technology coming down the pipeline. Urban planners today need to think about the coming tsunami of driverless vehicles, as well as the steadily increasing trends of cycling, scootering, e-bikes, and other electric last-mile solutions. These technologies may not make a huge impact like the car, but if they do, our policy-makers should be planning for these potential game-changers. For instance, with self driving cars, we must ask what will be their effects on institutions like city buses? Does it make sense to have massive often under-utilized buses which don't drop you at your desired location, or does it make better sense to have smaller, 5-10 person self driving vans which can dynamically adjust routes, dropping off riders at much more desirable locations? What about cycling, scooters, and such - will these become increasingly popular as self driving vehicles start to penetrate? I know I'd bike a lot more places if I didn't have to deal with very unskilled and inattentive drivers all over my narrow-streeted city. Does this mean, somewhat paradoxically, that self driving vehicles will actually reduce the number of vehicle trips in a city, while increasing other modes of transit? Will self driving vehicles in non-urban settings actually increase vehicle miles traveled, as couples in expensive metropolis areas realize they can commute twice as far if they get to kick back and relax during the journey? The implications of these technologies, and others we haven't seen yet, are potentially massive. We need to bring these transport modalities into the discussion whenever we talk about reshaping our urban landscapes.

johngalt 8y ago

This is one of those scaling vs. switching cost problems. If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a large metropolis, transit is better. The problem is that as a city scales up, each individual step results in continually adding infrastructure for cars without ever making the active decision to switch, and redesign the entire city. When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense to add car infrastructure rather than rebuild everything. Again when you grow from medium to large it remains cheaper to add that new interchange rather than change the fundamental structure of the city. Growing from large city to metropolis often means incorporating other cities and their car based infrastructure, and making a coordinated move to anything else is extremely difficult/expensive. Edit: I doubt we could properly identify the "next big metropolis" early enough to put the proper infrastructure in place. Even if we could, the politics surrounding who gets the infrastructure spending would cloud the process. Neither do I think we could simply set up a new metropolis some where and "build it correctly from the start". The best bet is to find a means of bootstrapping the conversion of existing metropolises to walkable/dense/transit oriented methods. How do we mortgage the immense future benefits to apply pressure to make changes now? Is there an achievable half step toward the goal that provides enough benefit to drive the rest of the conversion? When I'm confronted with a switching cost vs scaling cost problem in operations, I would be putting in dual use infrastructure. Maintain compatibility while removing dependency.

davidw 8y ago
My wife is from a small town in Italy. It doesn't have transit, but it's quite possible to get around it on foot or by bike, because it's compact.
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  I'd bet anything that your wife's small town in Italy was mostly settled and developed before cars, in a time when being able to get around town by foot (or by horse, at the fastest) was important.
  - jaredklewis 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kylec 8y ago

If walkable cities are so great, why did we ever invent cars?

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Imagine having this debate in 1818. People would be complaining about horses crapping everywhere, how hitching posts waste land, how roads designed for getting ox-carts full of goods to market aren't pedestrian friendly, etc. etc.
the_gastropod 8y ago
This is a straw man. Nobody's suggesting cars are "bad" or "evil". What is being suggested, is that operating cars (especially at high speeds) should be done away from where we live. Supporting the use of cars within our towns and cities is: dangerous, expensive, and wasteful (of time and natural resources). Cars are great for traveling great distances (20+ miles) quickly. Using them for day-to-day travel within your own city is akin to taking a cruise ship out on the lake for a weekend fishing trip.
peterwwillis 8y ago
Clearly, we must have invented cars to get around in cities.

whitepoplar 8y ago

For anyone who wants to see a pragmatic way to build cities and communities, I'd highly recommend Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199 https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Constructi...

spraak 8y ago
This book is really amazing in its level of detail and specificity and incredible how it's still relevant.
carapace 8y ago
And his "Build Living Neighborhoods" site: http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm

earlz 8y ago

I do a lot of traveling for business and staying in a city like Dallas, St. Louis, or some suburbia part of the bay area is absolutely my least ideal place to stay almost always. I love that uber exists, but my favorite part about traveling is walking around and doing photography so that I'm not just sitting in a depressing hotel. If everything interesting is at least 2 miles apart, it's hard to enjoy a city. And especially in Texas cities, many times there are no sidewalks so that walking even short distances is a big pain

pm90 8y ago
Texan cities are all very car friendly and pedestrian unfriendly. It is just not possible to get anywhere without a car, and people will look at you strangely even if you walk down to the grocery store a mile away or so. One fine Houston morning, my friends and I decided to walk down to the strip mall for lunch after a night out; the sidewalks were unmaintained and cracking, but also... we were the only ones walking! It was quite a shock to me to see that, especially since the roads were chock full of traffic.
- lgregg 8y ago
  The suburb (south Houston suburban city) my mom lives in has a token sidewalk for people to run or walk their dogs. That's literally 90-95% of the type of uses I see there minus one guy I see every once and awhile who looks like he's going to or coming from work. It's pretty sad. I do get one thing, it is really hot in Houston, so I think that plays a lot into the mentality of cars vs walking, at least there.
- post_break 8y ago
  It doesn't help that it's 100F with 100% humidity.
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  You say a mile like it's nothing. That's 20 minutes at an average walking speed vs 2-3 minutes at most by car.

paulddraper 8y ago

> Websites like Zillow and Apartments.com offer calculations for commute length and walkability to everyday destinations like grocery stores If I'm walking to the store, do I (a) try to carry 20+ grocery bags home for my family of five or (b) make a grocery trip twice a week? I don't love either of those. And that's only groceries, not shopping in general. My wife got a 50lb bag of fertilizer from Tractor Supply yesterday morning. How close does that store need to be for walking to make sense? At the end of my driveway? Basically....if you have a crowded city of apartments, sure, don't do much for cars. If you have a city of single-family residences (and three quarters of Americans do live in single-family residences), it's really hard to not build for cars.

oftenwrong 8y ago
To give you an idea: I have a 3 grocers within walking distance, and I will usually just go buy what I need for whatever I am going to make the same day. One bag is usually fine. I have never purchased that much fertilizer, but I have purchased a 50lb bag of sand at the hardware store on the corner. It is so close, I would be surprised if my walk home was not shorter than your wife's walk back to her car. Living in the dense city requires many sacrifices, but one of the best upsides is being able to walk places.
- LgWoodenBadger 8y ago
  Well, how many people can physically live as close to those things as you do without having a 1-hardware-store-per-100-feet or 3-grocers-per-square-mile density?
  - oftenwrong 8y ago
    I don't really know, but I would say that, in areas where people largely walk and bike, businesses tend to have a smaller area that they draw regular customers from, and it is easy for a few businesses of the same type to coexist relatively close to one another. There are duplicates of many types of businesses in my neighbourhood. Walking is the most distance-sensitive major form of transportation. People who mainly walk tend to shop at the closest possible place. Nothing in walking distance will match the selection of a big store like Tractor Supply or Home Depot. I use Zip Car when necessary, but it is pretty rare, especially now that everything can be ordered online.

joshuaheard 8y ago

Visiting the Leonardo Da Vinci museum, I saw an exhibit where Leonardo did an urban design plan. In it, he made the street level pedestrian only. Under the street was another level for horses and wagons (cars and busses today), where each building had an underground entrance to this level through an underground garage. This seems like an elegant solution in an urban area from the man who invented the helicopter, parachute, and painted the Mona Lisa.

pm90 8y ago
Except that it would also be ridiculously expensive. If construction costs reduce in the future due to automation though, might be workable.
- lgregg 8y ago
  It depends where you are, construction costs vary. Sure, if you're building in NYC. They built a tunnel for 2.4 billion. You can build that same tunnel elsewhere for a fraction.
- wahern 8y ago
  Tunneling costs will come down, almost certainly through automated tunneling. Not because of the demands of urban transit, but because suburbia is fundamentally not economically viable unless the cost of running utilities and paving roads drops dramatically. American society is too wedded to suburban culture to move away from it to any significant extent, so sheer necessity will drive technological innovation. It helps that the costs of suburbia are largely hidden, so either the technology emerges or America continues to descend into a paved-over hellscape. Like many things America will end up paying 10x to solve problems with sophisticated, overwrought technology that could have been solved through simple social and cultural shifts, but at least we'll get fancy new tools out it.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  Le Corbusier proposed the very same idea and it's working very well in many asian cities. It's actually cheaper than alternatives and no, you don't need digging.

Zaskoda 8y ago

I'm one of those folks who would love to drop everything I have going to wander off into the desert/forest/underwater/whatever with the intention of bootstrapping a new city from scratch. The more I talk about it, I've found that there are a lot of people who would love such an adventure - if we could all just find some effort worth getting behind. It's sort of like starting a hippy commune, only with high-tech intentions. I'd rather embrace the world and one-up it than to hide away from it. I meet a lot of people who agree so I'm surprised there aren't more projects of this nature getting traction.

njarboe 8y ago
Need a kickstarter like system. Get 10,000 people to deposit $10,000 and you have got $100,000,000 to acquire a nice plot of land, set up planning and governance, and incorporate a new town. I'd be interested in seeing plans for such towns and would be interested in living in one. Or one billionaire with similar ambitions.
- lgregg 8y ago
  I'd be down. I would be curious of how the governance would work for a situation like city-funding(?). Would funders get some special say, or are they simply along for the ride? What if a corporation started a city instead of a billionaire? "Hello, welcome to Amazon!"
- zumu 8y ago
  > Or one billionaire with similar ambitions. I was with you until this part. I'd rather not live in a city with an 'owner'.
  - sobani 8y ago
    A benevolent dictator does have its advantages. For example being able to determine a culture until it's proven and critical mass makes it unlikely to change. It's comparable to the eternal September problem. Say some 'hippies' try to bootstrap a city that's very walkable and people flock to it because they want to live in such a city. But it takes a while to get used to a new situation and during that time it's very easy to say "I like to walk to the shops, but I'm used to doing my groceries once a week, so allow me to use my car for that." Before you know the 'short-sighted yuppies' overwhelm the 'stubborn hippies' and cars are allowed everywhere one exception at a time. The biggest disadvantages of a dictator are overcome by being able to move easily and the city being part of the larger legal framework of the country it's in.

njarboe 8y ago

What I would like is an electric bike and a legal structure where I can take one on the freeway(goes at least 60mph) and in bike lanes(go slow there). Range 30mi.

toasterlovin 8y ago
Something that is safe at 60mph is not really a bike anymore.
- njarboe 8y ago
  When is something with two wheels not a bike anymore? I imagine you would use a mass cutoff right? Or visual size? Bikes on the Tour de France get over 80mph on down hill sections so making one "safe" at 60mph seems not impossible on first principles. Safe is usually judged by just a feeling and I would like to check out my feeling on such a machine. I'm sure this space of vehicle has not been worked on much and would love to see some active invention going on.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    If it can go 60mph, it needs a motor. Usually something like that is called a motorcycle.

Bromskloss 8y ago

Just so what we are on the same page: There are people in the cars.

jimmaswell 8y ago

I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a generation comes along that can more easily afford them again. The area I live in is pretty dense (a mixed commercial-suburbanish area in the most densely-populated state) and also very car-enabled, and it works out fine. The stores I go to are within minutes of driving for me, and work is 10-15 minutes away. I don't know the official term for such a thing, but near my apartment is what's like a micro-city that you can easily walk/bike around while car use isn't very hampered. The major grocery store's plaza gets a large parking lot and otherwise there are street parking areas. In the other direction are major high-traffic roads that connect to interstates. There are also major businesses around here with tech jobs, and they use large complexes with their own large parking lots. There's a lot I don't like about New Jersey but this kind of mixed area seems to work out really well and makes me question the necessity of block-style cities where it's just depressing concrete towers in a grid as far as the eye can see. Maybe there are more solutions that just take some imagination to support both cars and others in increasingly-dense areas. More car bridges, extra lanes by replacing some sidewalks with sky bridges, underground tunnels, parking lots on the roofs, more reversible lanes, allow motorcycles to use shoulders. Just brainstorming here but I don't like the idea of throwing out the baby with the bathwater with cars - nothing else provides the same freedom to spontaneously go wherever you want on your own terms instead of being beholden to transit schedules or only being able to go as far as you can walk or bike.

cup-of-tea 8y ago
> I wonder if all these sour grapes about cars will simmer down if a generation comes along that can more easily afford them again. In the UK you could afford a car on minimum wage. I have a car. I still don't think cities should be designed for cars. How can anyone look at one of those pictures of American five-lane highways of bumper-to-bumper traffic and think that is in any way sane?
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  I'm saying there are probably unexplored good solutions to that kind of congestion. Another I just thought of is the city motivating companies to make shifts not so centered around 9-5. Spread the rush with shifts of 8-4, 10-6, etc.

AcerbicZero 8y ago

It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft. For example I live in a very public transit friendly city, but the buses are un-ridable most of the time due to the rampant homeless issue(and all that comes with a large homeless population) while the light rail is usually better about being a semi-safe, semi-clean environment, that just happens to be so overloaded between between 7am-9am, and 3pm-6pm, that there is almost any price I'd pay to avoid it. The sad part is that no matter how excessive the taxes or how limited the parking the ones to suffer first, and worst, will be the low-income families and workers. The homeless will continue to do whatever they can get away with, and those of us with higher incomes will grumble a bit and pay the taxes. The only solution I've seen that has a chance to change this is to come down hard on poor public transit behavior, perhaps by putting actual people on the buses with the specific job of cracking down on the drunk/high/piss soaked/etc types, in an effort to improve the quality of the service to the point that the middle-upper income groups uses it again.

drb91 8y ago
> bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft. How can this be true? Public transit allows your attention to wander and typically is much, much faster than traffic. Adding uber/lyft will get two of the worst attributes: traffic and high cost, although you’ll be able to do something else simultaneously. Furthermore, it’s not clear how parking fees affect low income families: for my commute (between east bay and SF), public transit is an order of magnitude less expensive than driving, especially if you consider parking. Finally, it’s not clear what homeless people have to do with this. The cost of affordable transit is interacting with your neighbors. If you don’t like your neighbors, please don’t screw them over by investing in car-oriented transit.
- epicureanideal 8y ago

billsmithaustin 8y ago

A more transparent slogan would be, "Let's build cities for walking and bicycles rather than cars." Or maybe "Let's build cities for walking and subways and electric scooters." Or whatever. But whatever means of transportation you optimize for today may be inappropriate a century from now. It was horses in the not-too-distant past, and as much as I like bicycles, I can imagine a figure in which bicycles and bike lanes are obsolete too.

gremlinsinc 8y ago

I'd just like one small change to cities. Sidewalk escalators/treadmill of varying speeds. It would make commutes so much easier, plus people could actually get some modicum of a workout while commuting. I mean, it worked on the Jetson's, right?

brandonmenc 8y ago
They could at least try it! They never try anything!

massysett 8y ago

The very title is as ridiculous on its face as is the underlying idea. It suggests that the car is a being of its own that the city was built for. It doesn't occur to the author that each car has at least one person in it. Almost always that person is driving so she may interact with other people, work with other people, or transact business with other people, or he is himself driving for a business that is doing work for other people. The city was built so people can get around and interact with others. The means by which people are doing this is cars and trucks. The city is indeed built for people, which is precisely why the city accommodates cars: they are immensely useful means of transportation. It's ridiculous to suggest the city is "built for cars" as though the car is some sort of being with wants and demands. The car is serving the people of the city.

jesperlang 8y ago
I see this point coming up a lot. But if you consider the car a medium of transport for the individual and how it affects the collective it makes more sense. Think of it as "build cities for people, not individuals"

ravenstine 8y ago

Is productivity actually going to be increased by reducing the number of cars on the road? If not, then I wouldn't count on ever seeing a serious effort towards making cities less car-centric. A politician may help bring in some bike lanes here and there, but their interest is almost entirely in keeping their job.

techsin101 8y ago

I'd share my perspective... old cities were the best. i visited some european cities and some middle eastern cities. there are main roads where traffic is, and then there are streets. Streets are NOT made of cement, softer the material the easier to walk on ... Dirt? the best. Streets can sprawl 4 blocks in US city size. Streets don't have any traffic, but cars can be parked here and there randomly. (car ownership is less) What it did was that grocery, laundry, hardware store, restaurants, and pretty much everything was in walking distance... you didn't need a car. and there were no cars to get in your way. But with 5 minutes of walking you could easily be next to highway and hail a taxi. All that time I was there, I was like OOOMG this make soooo much sense, I dont need to drive 4 miles to some mega shopping mall to do shopping then come back find parking for 30 minutes. Oh and nobody was fat. Since everyone did light walking daily. people were less stressed as there was culture and less stress. I don't get why every street needs to have a freaking car in it. from nyc btw.

nojvek 8y ago

We don’t want cars, horses, trains, buses and things. They are all means to an end. The means of being able to move from place A to B quickly and in relative comfort. People select whatever gets that means satisfied at the price they can afford. It’s a demand supply curve. I take a bus to Seattle everyday even though it slower, but it’s way more confortable than driving. I always get a seat and I can read a book / get work done. I wouldn’t take a crowded bus though. 545 is so crowded you can smell people’s sweat. I’d go back to driving. I love driving and bobbing my head to good music. But most of the days, we don’t give a shit. We just want to get to work in morning and get back home in evening. We chose whatever means gets the job done!