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A city designed around cars is still a miserable place to be, no matter the type of drivetrain. Needing 4000 lbs of steel and batteries to get a bag of groceri

A city designed around cars is still a miserable place to be, no matter the type of drivetrain. Needing 4000 lbs of steel and batteries to get a bag of groceries is a horribly inefficient way of life. Cities should be designed so that walking/biking/buses provide 90% of your transit needs with SOVs as the exception, not the rule.

core-questions 8y ago
So what, my wife is supposed to push a shopping cart in one hand and a baby carriage in the other a kilometer or two in order to go shopping? Spending two hours in the process instead of 20 minutes? I really question whether the average HN poster considers the normal person's use case. Nobody _wants_ to drive all over the damned place, we do it because it's the only thing that makes sense for a dynamic lifestyle.
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  Baby carriages usually have some cargo space. Put the groceries there. Also, we don't have to completely design cities around cars to support the single digit percentage of population that has infants at any given time. Some people can still drive even in pedestrian focused cities.
  - nwah1 8y ago
    Also, if the environment is not soul-crushing and polluted, then it might actually be pleasant to go for a short walk. If you have to push a baby carriage 2 kilometers just to go to the store, then that is, by definition, not a very walkable neighborhood. Neighborhoods with the highest walkability scores have good stores within a couple blocks radius. Or, in other words, about the same distance that it takes to traverse a Wal-Mart parking lot.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      I have never lived in a city--and that includes Manhattan and Cambridge--that had a "good" grocery store within a couple of blocks. I've had small markets but that's not a grocery store. Though, yes, you can get grocery delivery these days.
      - quadrangle 8y ago
        Within a couple of blocks?? Traveling up to a mile to grocery stores is totally reasonable, it doesn't need to be a couple blocks. I've lived in multiple places in the U.S. that had real grocery stores reasonably walkable to a large portion of residents. Stuff like Trader Joes, Safeway, Kroger… I'm not talking small markets.
        ghaff 8y ago
        I was responding to the parent. >If you have to push a baby carriage 2 kilometers just to go to the store, then that is, by definition, not a very walkable neighborhood. >Neighborhoods with the highest walkability scores have good stores within a couple blocks radius. Or, in other words, about the same distance that it takes to traverse a Wal-Mart parking lot.
        quadrangle 8y ago
        I see Well, that parent is just totally misguided. The idea that walkable means no more walking than you'd do when you drive to a Walmart… real nonsense. People who actually live in walkable neighborhoods walk all the time with babies and groceries and can go 1-2km easily. As others mentioned, lots of baby carriages exist that have extra room for stuff like groceries. I tended to wear the baby in a sling while pushing a larger shopping cart in order to get groceries at the multiple places in around a 1.5 mile radius from my home at the time that I had an infant. Americans way overuse strollers and carriages. What makes for walkability is quiet-enough streets that were safe as opposed to having to walk by overly-fast heavy traffic or cross at dangerous intersections.
        nwah1 8y ago
    - core-questions 8y ago
      > if the environment is not soul-crushing and polluted It's not. It's very nice. But you're asking for a lot of time out of the day, to do something unrealistic, when a quick car ride will sort it all out in a much simpler fashion. I'll buy an electric car when I can. But here I am, another privileged HN poster. I don't think most people are going to be able to do that.
  - core-questions 8y ago
    You're clearly not a parent if you think for a second that the tiny cargo space available at the bottom of a carriage is going to work for shopping for a family. C'mon now. Unless she's going to literally go to the store every day, which is a logistical nightmare - we live in a world where big-box Costco shopping is the only cost effective method. > we don't have to completely design cities around cars to support the single digit percentage of population that has infants at any given time Natalistic policies are going to be needed if we want to keep our birth rate high enough to replace ourselves.

core-questions 8y ago

So what, my wife is supposed to push a shopping cart in one hand and a baby carriage in the other a kilometer or two in order to go shopping? Spending two hours in the process instead of 20 minutes? I really question whether the average HN poster considers the normal person's use case. Nobody _wants_ to drive all over the damned place, we do it because it's the only thing that makes sense for a dynamic lifestyle.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago
Baby carriages usually have some cargo space. Put the groceries there. Also, we don't have to completely design cities around cars to support the single digit percentage of population that has infants at any given time. Some people can still drive even in pedestrian focused cities.
- nwah1 8y ago
  Also, if the environment is not soul-crushing and polluted, then it might actually be pleasant to go for a short walk. If you have to push a baby carriage 2 kilometers just to go to the store, then that is, by definition, not a very walkable neighborhood. Neighborhoods with the highest walkability scores have good stores within a couple blocks radius. Or, in other words, about the same distance that it takes to traverse a Wal-Mart parking lot.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I have never lived in a city--and that includes Manhattan and Cambridge--that had a "good" grocery store within a couple of blocks. I've had small markets but that's not a grocery store. Though, yes, you can get grocery delivery these days.
    - quadrangle 8y ago
      Within a couple of blocks?? Traveling up to a mile to grocery stores is totally reasonable, it doesn't need to be a couple blocks. I've lived in multiple places in the U.S. that had real grocery stores reasonably walkable to a large portion of residents. Stuff like Trader Joes, Safeway, Kroger… I'm not talking small markets.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        I was responding to the parent. >If you have to push a baby carriage 2 kilometers just to go to the store, then that is, by definition, not a very walkable neighborhood. >Neighborhoods with the highest walkability scores have good stores within a couple blocks radius. Or, in other words, about the same distance that it takes to traverse a Wal-Mart parking lot.
        quadrangle 8y ago
        I see Well, that parent is just totally misguided. The idea that walkable means no more walking than you'd do when you drive to a Walmart… real nonsense. People who actually live in walkable neighborhoods walk all the time with babies and groceries and can go 1-2km easily. As others mentioned, lots of baby carriages exist that have extra room for stuff like groceries. I tended to wear the baby in a sling while pushing a larger shopping cart in order to get groceries at the multiple places in around a 1.5 mile radius from my home at the time that I had an infant. Americans way overuse strollers and carriages. What makes for walkability is quiet-enough streets that were safe as opposed to having to walk by overly-fast heavy traffic or cross at dangerous intersections.
        nwah1 8y ago
  - core-questions 8y ago
    > if the environment is not soul-crushing and polluted It's not. It's very nice. But you're asking for a lot of time out of the day, to do something unrealistic, when a quick car ride will sort it all out in a much simpler fashion. I'll buy an electric car when I can. But here I am, another privileged HN poster. I don't think most people are going to be able to do that.
- core-questions 8y ago
  You're clearly not a parent if you think for a second that the tiny cargo space available at the bottom of a carriage is going to work for shopping for a family. C'mon now. Unless she's going to literally go to the store every day, which is a logistical nightmare - we live in a world where big-box Costco shopping is the only cost effective method. > we don't have to completely design cities around cars to support the single digit percentage of population that has infants at any given time Natalistic policies are going to be needed if we want to keep our birth rate high enough to replace ourselves.