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The one thing that this seems to miss, and for me what defines the "character" of a neighborhood as "walkable" or not, is how much of the space between building
by jowiar 8y ago
The one thing that this seems to miss, and for me what defines the "character" of a neighborhood as "walkable" or not, is how much of the space between buildings is for people vs. for cars.
So many of the photos here have skinny sidewalks for people and fat roads for cars, and a space like that is never going to be full of people -- the sidewalk is a place "to get from here to there", not a place to be.
Probably the best rule of thumb I've found is "Would I jaywalk here"? If an area is people-first, you have a lot of pedestrian traffic, little car traffic (because folks drive alternate routes), and what traffic there is travels at low speed. For car-first areas, it's a losing game of Frogger.
- CydeWeys 8y agoTotally agreed. Even in Manhattan, where pedestrians vastly outnumber motorists, way more space is given over to driving and parking lanes than to sidewalk lanes. There are entire areas of the city that are known for severe sidewalk overcrowding during every single rush hour. Many European cities do a much better job of giving space to people instead of cars. We should do a better job of it here too.
- jowiar 8y agoYep — I’m a Manhattanite as well. It’s telling that when you intersect pedestrian-friendly with transit accessibility you end up with a list of the most expensive places to live in the US, even when the housing stock is mostly shit.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoAKA, you end up with one of the most desirable living locations in the world and people are willing to pay a fortune to live there.
- mikeash 8y agoI love this drawing of how the streets look from a pedestrian's point of view, to really drive home how crazy it is. https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/18/7236471/cars-pedestrians-roads https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/18/7236471/cars-pedestria...
- kazen44 8y ago> Many European cities do a much better job of giving space to people instead of cars. We should do a better job of it here too. this is mainly because many european cities are simply far older then cars, and public infrastructure was usually build around the victorian/late industrial era aswell. This results in a far more limiting option regarding "massive suburs". Also, many people seem to forget the population density of (western) europe. When the next town with its own 1000+ years history is 20km away, you cannot create urban sprawl without getting resistance from the people living in said village.
- icebraining 8y agoIt's not just about constraints. Lots of cities went full car-first in the mid 20th century, and then made a conscious decision to scale back. Just watch the people in Amsterdam in the 70s revolting against the dominance of cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY6PQAI4TZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY6PQAI4TZE
- nicoburns 8y agoIndeed, the center of Bristol was mostly road in the 70s and 80s, but has since partially pedestrianised large areas of the centre. And it's now a wonderful place to be, let alone just to walk through.
- maxxxxx 8y agoAround LA it's really extreme how wide the roads are vs. sidewalks if they even have one. Even far out roads often have four lanes or at least easily could fit four.