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I'd encourage everyone to guesstimate how much distance could be taken out of their commute or drive to the city by removing parking lots, huge highways and ten
by asark 8y ago
I'd encourage everyone to guesstimate how much distance could be taken out of their commute or drive to the city by removing parking lots, huge highways and tens-of-foodball-fields interchanges, large set-backs and front lawns to keep people away from unpleasant roads, and so on, then check whether they could bike that distance in what it takes to drive.
When I encountered the idea that cars being common causes them to lose all benefit for most people while also causing them to become necessary, I initially thought it overblown. Then I ran the numbers. Well. Crap.
[EDIT] and don't forget to factor in minutes or hours per day spent working to pay for car+maintenance+gas.
- Xylakant 8y agoThere’s the concept of “effective speed” that encapsulates that idea. Here’s (1) a sample calculation that someone did for himself and under his assumptions, the effective speed for him using a car is about 2km/h. That’s about half as fast as walking. On top of the distance taken out of commutes, think about the space taken up in terms of real estate. In Munich, which is a fairly dense city, the estimated share of parking space of the city area is about 12.5%. If you include space for moving vehicles, that estimate approaches 50%. That’s a substantial driver of real estate prices and rents. (1) https://www.urbanist-magazin.de/das-konzept-der-effektiven-geschwindigkeit/ https://www.urbanist-magazin.de/das-konzept-der-effektiven-g...