15 ms·

Uber data reveals motoring slower than walking in many cities

270 points by liotier 7y ago

amelius 7y ago
Perhaps we should ban cars from cities altogether. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/madrid-spain-car-ban-city-center/561155/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/madrid-spain-...
- dTal 7y ago
  If they're not even faster than walking, what of value would be lost?
  - catherd 7y ago
    Arriving to your destination not wet/frozen/soaked in sweat? Or with your luggage... through an area dangerous for walking... to a destination you aren't familiar with... because you are old or infirm.
    - dTal 7y ago
      These are all solved problems. Cold? Wear a sweater. Raining? Carry an umbrella, or wear a raincoat. Have luggage? Wear a backpack, or pull a wheeled suitcase. Mere walking makes you sweat? Go see a doctor, that shouldn't happen - you probably ought to do more walking, not less. Too old or infirm to walk? You need a wheelchair or an electric scooter. Dangerous neighborhood? Well, I'll grant that's a trickier one, but the solution certainly isn't to usher the wealthy through it in motorized sedan chairs so they can ignore the problem. Granted there's some infrequent edge cases where you need to move a sofa. Maybe we still allow occasional delivery vans. And bonus - they'll be able to get there more efficiently, because the road won't be choked with cars.
      - gcc_programmer 7y ago
        This is one of the most self-righteous, narrow minded, inflexible, and delusional things I have read on this platform. I invite you to walk at 1am, everyday, through the dodgy parts of London with your smartphone in your pocket. Please, report your mugged or stabbed rate in a year.
        zimpenfish 7y ago
        I've done this without being mugged, stabbed, robbed, etc. many times -but- I am a relatively big fella with what has been described as "resting murder face" which really renders my anecdotal experience fairly niche.
        dTal 7y ago
        Again, the solution to "bad neighborhood" isn't "cars". Especially not in London, where it becomes "cars, for those who can afford parking fees and the congestion charge in addition to all the other expenses". (If anything, by segregating neighborhoods and exacerbating wealth inequality, cars make the problem worse.)
        jon-wood 7y ago
        I did this regularly for 2 years, with the additional factor of being in varying degrees of drunkness. The worst that happened to me, or anyone else I knew in the area, was dropping my pizza.
        dannyw 7y ago
        Try being an attractive and small 20 year old and report back. Experiences are not universal.
        Theodores 7y ago
        I did get beaten to a pulp in London but because I did not wish to have the police do anything I did not get into the papers. Once the adrenaline kicks in you would be surprised by how much blood you can lose and how knives, broken glass, boots, fists and relentless savagery just blur into one out of body experience. If you get dragged into the dirt between parked cars for some extra brutality then none of those people driving by in their cars are going to stop and intervene. You are hidden by cars and in that peculiar filth that cars bring to the street. Plus noisy car dominated roads mean that everyone in residential housing shuns the street, so there is nobody looking out. I felt sorry for the gang that picked me off but I felt a lot of anger and resentment thereafter to car drivers that expressed forthright opinions on the matter with an air of 'knowing best'. As if any of them had a clue or direct experience. If everyone hides in cars because the area they are gentrifying is 'not safe' then you only end up with vulnerable people on the street getting preyed on by the more violent members of society. Everyone ends up terrified. Streets become walled off behind rows of tin boxes and there is no community. Excessive car culture is part of this climate of cowardice. Bikes, buses, trains would work so much better in London without the tin boxes cluttering up the place. Kids could play in the street. They could know their neighbours. Regular taxis can work fine, there is no need for this gig economy Uber nonsense. Oh, so what about the disabled? Well, people would be able to visit them for a change. Delivery vans, people moving houses and all those whataboutisms? All that can be resolved easily when we drop the mentality of people having to be in their own armoured tanks for security. We have gone past 'there is no such thing as society'.
    - ryanmercer 7y ago
      >Arriving to your destination not wet/frozen/soaked in sweat? Or with your luggage So someone flew me out to San Francisco last June to meet me and have me talk to a few people. I landed during the pride parade at SFO and was staying at the Proper (that place felt decidedly John Wick - the Continental and their chicken liver mousse hnnghh), I'd literally no idea nor did my uber driver that we wouldn't be able to get to the Proper. He got me within about 2 miles before the crowds and road closures and was like "I don't know how long this will take or if I can get you there" so I got out with my suitcase, in a city I'd never been in, with throngs of people. The road immediately outside of my hotel window was the road the parade was on and was ultimately between me and the hotel. I had no idea there were subway entrances that I could get under the road with. Walking shoulder to shoulder, crotch to butt, butt to crotch, trying to protect my phone, wallet and suitcase, literally stepping over people passed out on the sidewalk (if not overdosed) that were being somewhat trampled. The heat in those dense pockets of people was insane, I had to keep craning my head up to try and get cooler air. Yeah, even if there hadn't have been so many people, wondering around with a suitcase trying to find the hotel would not have been an enjoyable experience... especially given the alarming amount of human excrement, phlegm, gum etc I kept having to dodge. I got to the hotel finally, opened the door and was hit with a wall of air con and was like "ughhh yassss" making it to the check in counter with my beard all poofy, my shirt soaked, probably looking like a vagrant and getting a weird look from the person behind the counter until I said I was checking in. First thing I did in the room was peel out of wet clothes, crank the air down and had probably the 3rd best shower of my life while I killed time waiting for the hotel restaurant to open since there was no way in hell I was going back outside into that mess to try and find fast food or a convenience store.
  - ben0x539 7y ago
    Transportation for people who can't walk for whatever reason, also sometimes you gotta transport stuff too bulky to carry.
    - kaybe 7y ago
      Do they need to bring a ton of steel too though? I've thought it might be nice if we only allowed golf carts for personal use in the cities, even better if they'd be foldable in an upright position.
  - mrob 7y ago
    Transport of heavy or bulky items. Although in many cases a bicycle with panniers would be sufficient.
    - liotier 7y ago
      With my Bakfiets Long cargo bicycle, I handle 100 kilograms payloads easily - a washing-machine sized item is perfectly movable by pedal power.
  - swarnie_ 7y ago
    I prefer to attend my meeting not dripping in sweat from hiking across the city, call me old fashioned.
    - dTal 7y ago
      You shouldn't be dripping with sweat just from walking. I walked several miles yesterday, on a warm day, just for fun - not a drop of sweat left my brow. If you're overheating, wear less clothing. This notion "I need to be ferried around from air-conditioned box to air-conditioned box in yet another air-conditioned box so that I can obey my office's dress code in the height of summer" is not an attitude we can afford to keep, in the 21st century. Not to say we should abolish all motorized transport. In any modern city there should be half a dozen ways of getting around that are all faster than cars. Light rail, buses, casual bicycles, and electric scooters spring to mind.
      - nf05papsjfVbc 7y ago
        I invite you to try different climates around the world. It is not at all unusual to be drenched in sweat from just walking outdoors for most of the year in many parts of the world. I do agree with the rest of your comment, however.
        maccard 7y ago
        If climates are different in places, solutions should be different in places too. Yes it might not be feasible to force everyone to cycle in Texas, but that doesn't mean that everyone in the US should drive everywhere.
      - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
        Good for you. The temperature you generate while walking and the amount you sweat is not dependent on fitness level.
      - saiya-jin 7y ago
        I presume you don't do family shopping (easily 30kg), or +-gazillion of other use cases that your 'solutions' don't cover and would make people's lives measurably worse and more stressful. If I have to carry all my load for weekend adventures to car that is parked 300-500m away I end up properly sweaty even in coldest winter day, and sometimes its just not possible. And I work out hard on average 6-7 times per week. I love walking, sometimes spend hours on long walks since I live in a very pretty place but forcing everybody to adhere to your own vision of car-less cities without offering a proper alternative (not those you mention in this thread, they are far from enough)... sucks.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  There are certain reasons cars are needed: goods transport and people with disabilities for example. I wonder if you could do a general ban with enough exceptions to be okay. There's be a fraud problem though, and it could make it difficult for disabled people in practice (they may not be able to easily get the right badge, or be believed when they do, they wouldn't be able to benefit from car infrastructure…)
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    > There's be a fraud problem though That's a non-argument. You could say that about any regulation. I assume regulating transport for disabled people isn't that hard cause we already have system in place that deals with disabilities.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bunderbunder 7y ago
    I'm really fond of the areas I've been where the only cars allowed on many streets are things like delivery and service vehicles. I would expect that that kind of environment is actually a net improvement to accessibility for people with disabilities. It's probably quite annoying for people who use wheelchairs to get around a lot of places without a car, simply because the sidewalks are so frequently blocked off by people who've parked their cars across the sidewalk. There's one man in my neighborhood who frequently has to go out in the street to get around those sorts of obstructions, and is then stuck out in the middle of the road until he can get to the next wheelchair ramp in order to get back on the sidewalk. Limiting private car usage would admittedly only remove a portion of the sources of obstruction, but it would get rid of essentially all of the safety hazard that he has to take on in order to get around them. And, especially now that cars are going electric and getting quieter and quieter, I would guess that restricting unnecessary car usage could be a big boon for blind people who want to be able to leave the house without a chaperone. I had one acquaintance who would essentially Uber everywhere - at great expense to herself - because she just didn't feel safe even trying to cross the street. (Heck, I'm sighted, and sometimes _I_ don't feel safe trying to cross the street, especially later in the evening when a sizable portion of drivers are intoxicated and really are not watching for pedestrians.)
- zeristor 7y ago
  Don’t forget how much space is taken up by car parks
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    As someone that will only have taken his car away from him by prying the keys out of his cold dead hands, car parks really are a sad sad thing, all of that acreage wasted on tarmac that could be community gardens or even just pleasing green grass and local wildflowers.
    - smileysteve 7y ago
      Or even more housing, which would in turn often reduce pricing and then commutes. This even applies to the "some of us want a yard" rebuke of suburbanites. Houses nearer cities can have more land if there isn't an 8 lane highway.
      - zeristor 7y ago
        Increased urban density helps areas reach a criticality, denser accomodation cheaper to service, the trick is as ever to find the optimum balancing point. Green spaces aren't to be sniffed at though, even for hayfever suffers.
      - ryanmercer 7y ago
        > "some of us want a yard" I was more speaking to the, every acre of land we pave over is one less acre sequestering carbon and ensuring biodiversity... "Green spaces" also have psychological and physiological benefits.
- reallydontask 7y ago
  I might have this wrong but I think it's not a ban but a restriction on driving and only in the centre of the city. IIRC, so called zero emission vehicles can still drive around unrestricted, to give, but one example.
- vetinari 7y ago
  I would love to see proponents of such bans trying to explain to a random plumber, gas-fitter, electrician, floor tiler, carpenter or other craftsmen, that they cannot use a car to bring in the material and tools they need to do a work with, that the customer is ordering. Ideally, when the customer and the person doing the explaining is the same person. Same for gods delivery. You bought a new freezer, washer or other heavy gods? You can pick it in the store in the fringes. No deliveries into the city, you need cars for that.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - imtringued 7y ago
    Generally a ban on cars only applies to cars owned by private citizens. Often the ban also only applies to parking. Your comment is pretty shallow.
    - vetinari 7y ago
      Craftsmen are private citizens too, their vehicles are their personal property. Many delivery drivers are also owners of their vehicles, and do delivery on contract. Not everyone is employed by huge corporations who got exceptions. We (me and my wife) were just renovating an apartment in a city center, where the traffic limits apply. The problems the craftsmen had are real, and I speak from my own experience. Many times the solution was be bold and hope cops will be sympathetic. They were, though we got the recommendation to sell everything and move somewhere else, where there are no such problems.
    - andy_boot 7y ago
      That gets tricky though, Can tradespeople can use their vans to do their food shopping? Can private citizens become a painter/decorator so they are then allowed a vehicle? Can a private citizen have a vehicle if their sister is disabled?
      - amelius 7y ago
dTal 7y ago
>Uber’s Speeds dataset also shows that exceeding the speed limit on some roads is endemic, but the company says its data is anonymized and cannot be used to track–and sanction–individual speeding drivers. Yeah, bullshit. Maybe that's true of this particular "anonymized" dataset, but Uber did the anonymizing. They absolutely have the data to track and sanction speeding drivers. They just don't care to. Why would they?
- kaicianflone 7y ago
  I believe it could open their business to legal subpoenas. Perhaps obfuscating this data in the first place would protect them, as then they can't be forced to program it in. Or it gets passengers to their destination faster and they can charge less. Lol
- jon-wood 7y ago
  Their driver app shows your current speed, and pops up a warning when you exceed the posted limit for the road you're on. Are they seriously trying to tell us they couldn't fire off an API call to report the driver is over the limit at the same time?
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    There is a difference between can and should. Would you want your car to do so completely insensitive to current contexts? Especially if the road data winds up inaccurate in areas. I have had several GPSes tell me that I was "speeding" by going the 45 MPH because it thought it was a 25 road. There is an expectation of servicing the user - if they did that they would be called Orwellian and lose drivers enmasse. It would also fail to address speeding in general as they would speed without tracking then.
2T1Qka0rEiPr 7y ago
My (completely anecdotal) experience of London, was that having a car anywhere near the city center was close to pointless, as you could easily outpace it on a bike. It's also nice to see a gradual shift towards making the city public-transport- and bike- friendly (e.g. super-highways, but also ultra-low emission zones), but there's a lot more to be done!
- cbzoiav 7y ago
  Rain, luggage, bike theft, having a driver so you can work from the back etc. Also depends on time of day. In the early hours a car is definitely faster than a bike in 95% of the city.
garethrees 7y ago
This is a well-known principle of urban transport. If driving is faster than the alternative transport mode (whether that's public transport, if any, or walking), then at the margins people will switch to driving, but that means more traffic on the road, more congestion, and slower driving speeds. Conversely, if driving is slower than the alternative, then at the margins people will switch away from driving, reducing traffic and increasing driving speeds. So in places where road space is the bottleneck, we expect driving speed to be similar to the speed of the alternative mode. In central London, for example, travel speed has been roughly the same whether you drive or take the Underground, for more than a century. Update since some commenters seem to be having trouble: this process depends on the travellers "at the margin", that is, the people who are most willing to switch modes to reduce their journey time. Thinking in terms of the average or typical traveller is misleading.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  jevons paradox ?
- neaanopri 7y ago
  This doesn't mean driving is useless. Cars are generally air conditioned, and have a greater capacity to carry luggage than walking. ...so cars should this be _slower_ than cars, given these benefits
  - dannyw 7y ago
    On the other hand, there’s no need to find and pay for parking, and you can be drunk and take public transport.
    - Shivetya 7y ago
      we are discussing uber here, parking is not generally a consideration here. as pointed out, the reason that cars being shown to be slower than walking in many cases is moot because cars provide benefits which more than offset. 1. Weather protection 2. Cargo transportation 3. Ease of movement for the disabled 4. Additional safety for those toting along small children 5. Some level of protection/isolation from others The argument in favor of bicycling in lieu of cars falls prey to the same reasons. There are pro and cons so we must always fairly assess them before standing up and declaring one method worse than another. In fact none ever are all the time
magwa101 7y ago
Duh
jpalomaki 7y ago
I would love Uber to use this data to propose me options for taking a short walk to cut total travel time. In some places walking a few hundred meters puts you in a much better position for pick-up. Same thing in destination, propose a location that minimizes total travel time.
- blairbeckwith 7y ago
  Uber sort of does this in some cities with their Express Pool option, where they tack a short walk on to either end of a ride to pick up/drop off you and the other Pool passengers at the same spot.
- cbzoiav 7y ago
  The number of tourists in London getting the underground distances that are less than the distance down to the train and back up...
  - megablast 7y ago
    Sure, the underground is an experience in itself. And walking around a foreign city can be very confusing for a lot of people.
  - jasonkester 7y ago
    It’s all part of the experience. I once got off a night bus in Asyut, hailed a cab, hopped in and asked to be taken to the train station. The driver pointed out the window to the giant sign on the building across the street reading “Asyut Railway Station”. Travel wouldn’t be the same without making silly mistakes like this. It’s where our stories come from.
- jasonkester 7y ago
  My entry point to Uber is usually google maps, which does show walking time alongside driving, public transport and ride hailing times. In cities like London, it’s often half an hour for every option, so the decision comes down to whether it’s raining and how well the tube entrances line up.
- 7y ago
lqet 7y ago
We live in a town in Germany with roughly 250.000 inhabitants, but I grew up in a small village. I always get weird looks from relatives when I tell them that we do not own a car. For some of them, not owning a car is literally equivalent to "cannot leave the house", because buses only serve their village every 2 hours or so, and the service stops at around 8pm. We use car sharing, but only if we have to buy something that really cannot be transported via bike or public transport, like furniture, or for trips to remote places that are very complicated to reach via public transportation. I tried driving to work a few times (~8 km across town), but it takes me roughly 35 minutes by car, compared to 25 minutes by bike, and is much, much more stressful than using my bike. If the weather is very bad, I take the tram. For groceries, we usually walk to the nearest supermarket. Truth is, at least in Europe, I cannot think of any reason why you should own a car in a town with an average public transportation network and some form of car sharing.
- thomasz 7y ago
  Getting anywhere outside the immediate vicinity of your home with small children is incredibly exhausting without a car, even in cities with somewhat decent public transit systems
  - lqet 7y ago
    This is true, I forgot to mention that above, and I do not understand why you are being downvoted for this. We have a small daughter and are planning a 300 km trip next month. Long-distance trains here have special apartments for families with small children, but even with that option we decided to use car sharing.
  - eythian 7y ago
    Get a bakfiets.
    - thomasz 7y ago
      Unfortunately, that’s not really a remotely safe option here.
- 7y ago
agumonkey 7y ago
It's obvious with the new trend of electric scooters. Cars, due to traffic and intersections.. are sluggish in cities.
kijin 7y ago
It would be a waste of time and money to take an Uber to get from one end of Trafalgar Square to the other. But if your destination is several miles away and your route just happens to take you through a busy block, driving will still be faster than walking because the car can reach higher speeds in less congested parts of the route. Many people who drive around in urban centers aren't really trying to get from one part of the urban center to another; they just happen to be in the same car they just drove in from the suburbs. That trip as a whole tends to be much faster than walking, and it takes quite a bit of time to park somewhere other than your destination. So if you're optimizing for speed, it can still be rational to drive all the way to your destination.
- ghaff 7y ago
  That’s true in a lot of places. Do I get in a car to go 5 blocks if I’m already in a city? Of course not barring special circumstances (injury, heavy packages, etc.) But if I’m driving in from where I live for dinner and theater in the evening, yes I drive, including through congested areas.
Theodores 7y ago
The example of Trafalgar Square is quite comical. On a bicycle you have options when the traffic is slow, including getting off to walk. But the place would be that densely packed with buses, motorbikes, taxis and actual cars that this was neigh on impossible. If you did walk then you would be waiting for lights, at least by bicycle you have the Highway Code on your side. Before the top bit of Trafalgar Square was pedestrianised it took 27 lane changes to go from the Whitehall side to the Charing Cross road exit, by bicycle using the bus lane shortcuts. Even though you could see where you were heading you could emerge from the hell of Trafalgar Square to make it onto easier roads to then see a clock, e.g. Big Ben. Only then would you realise that navigating the square had taken twenty minutes as half an hour had gone by since leaving work. The other vehicles would take considerably longer. But that is motoring, there is no expectation of forward movement, sitting in traffic spewing fumes and blaming the world for the predicament is par for the course. If you are on a bus you can just dibble with your phone so it doesn't matter. People put up with it.
Wheaties466 7y ago
I can tell you i've taken ubers when I could have easily walked. But there are several reasons why my wife and I did not. Weather/tempature. We live in FL and sometimes walking more than 5 min outside brings you to a full sweat. Conversely you may want it to take an uber because it is way too cold. clothes - if you're in high heels or a dress you may not want to walk as far.
bartread 7y ago
Speed isn't necessarily the reason you take an Uber though. I used to use them a lot more when I worked for a client in London and would have to head back to the railway station after a few days with my suitcase. It wasn't fast, but it did mean I didn't have to drag a suitcase through the London Underground at rush hour (not fun). If you want to get places fast in London, as the article suggests, you want to be on two wheels. Cycling is probably the best option, but motorcycle or scooter also works well.
bunderbunder 7y ago
Random anecdotes: When I'm traveling, if I ask the hotel staff to recommend any restaurants "within walking distance", they'll grimace and say there aren't really any, even while Yelp informs me that there are six within a kilometer. Yesterday I ended up spending about 15 minutes waiting for a bus that was late. Someone else spent about the same amount of time as me waiting on that normal street corner, and then got back off the bus about 5 blocks later. So, that makes ~15 minutes standing around waiting for the bus and $2.25 spent on a fare, in order to save a 5 minute walk. I assume they're at least as able-bodied as I am, because, unlike me, they didn't opt to sit on the bench during the wait. I just don't think the US has a culture that considers feet to be a valid mode of transportation.
- bognition 7y ago
  > I just don't think the US has a culture that considers feet to be a valid mode of transportation. it almost as if we've had decades of social and political lobbying to get people to walk less and use cars
- freehunter 7y ago
  I travel a lot for work and hardly ever rent a car, and I'm always appalled by the state of walking in areas around hotels. There may be plenty of restaurants within half a mile, but it's almost impossible to walk to them from your hotel. No sidewalks, no crosswalks, parking lots separated by huge ditches. I've actually ordered Uber Eats from a place less than half a mile away because there was no safe way to walk there. And right now we're fighting a battle in my hometown (small town) where the city and a developer wants a hotel downtown and a group of citizens are fighting that it should be 5 miles away out by the freeway where there is nothing to do and you would have to drive everywhere. For some reason people actively and loudly enjoy not being able to walk from store to store.
- dwild 7y ago
  > So, that makes ~15 minutes standing around waiting for the bus and $2.25 spent on a fare, in order to save a 5 minute walk. I did something similar the other day, and it wasn't because I was lazy. There's 2 key points that you miss, the existence of monthly bus pass and the fact that the bus was late. If you are close to a bus stop, and the bus is going to be there on time, you could save some time. Let say it takes 5 minutes in bus and 10 to walk, if he is in time, you saved 5 minutes, if he is 5 minutes late, you lost nothing, but if he is 10 minutes late, well, you just lost 5 minutes. The thing is, that's always true at any given point. After waiting 5 minutes, the same rules apply because you still have the 10 minutes walk. In the end, I started walking about nearly 10 minutes later. I should have done it before because there was others stop on the way (and could have taken the bus at theses stops instead) but I neglected that. I did the right choice by about 30 seconds though, because I reached my final stop just before the bus. It was a 7 minutes walk.
tyfon 7y ago
I was at Isla Mujeres (island outside of Cancun, Mexico) a couple years ago and I was walking from the dock to the hotel with my baggage when an American stopped on a golf cart of sorts (they were all over the place) and asked if I wanted a ride. I said "thank you, but I'm Norwegian, we walk". The man looked at me for a few seconds then barked "Well I'm American!", then drove off and we both laughed. The feet are superior everywhere except highways, especially if you are not known in the area and need to get familiar. I also enjoy walking, when I am at home I take 1-2 hour walking trips in the forest by the house while listening to audio books almost every day. Since I currently live in the countryside I need a car for large item transportation and things like that, but I have never owned one when living in a city.
- radcon 7y ago
  > I said "thank you, but I'm Norwegian, we walk". The man looked at me for a few seconds then barked "Well I'm American!", then drove off and we both laughed. What a clever, considerate American, making use of energy-efficient transportation and stopping to offer rides to strangers along the way! > The feet are superior everywhere except highways Try walking to work in business attire on a few 100 degree (38C) days and then tell me how you feel about that...
  - tyfon 7y ago
    > What a clever, considerate American, making use of energy-efficient transportation and stopping to offer rides to strangers along the way! Yes, he was really nice. Americans usually are from my experience :) > Try walking to work in business attire on a few 100 degree (38C) days and then tell me how you feel about that... I'll concede to this point. I don't have to wear that kind of outfit very often and the temperatures here rarely reach that high luckily.
    - radcon 7y ago
      > I don't have to wear that kind of outfit very often and the temperatures here rarely reach that high luckily. I usually grin and bear it but I know plenty of older people who don't tolerate heat well. Men especially seem to suffer since they run hotter and they're not allowed to wear skirts and sleeveless shirts to work (or, if they are allowed, it's still not quite culturally acceptable enough yet...). A lot of "professional" workplaces don't even allow men to wear short sleeves, and they definitely don't allow shorts.
S_A_P 7y ago
Context here matters. I would uber if I were in work clothes, and its Houston in August in the afternoon. Im not trying to walk 15 minutes and arrive drenched in sweat to a work meeting.
ativzzz 7y ago
This should say "many European cities". This is certainly not true anywhere in Texas, and probably not anywhere else in the U.S.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- asdff 7y ago
  I beat cars all the time on my bike and I'm in the midwest; I go 12-15mph while traffic goes maybe half that averaging for the lights. Splitting lanes means you go the same speed regardless of traffic and therefore I'm always at the front of the intersection at a red and the first to move on green, while that car I passed 200 yards ago has to sit through another light cycle.
  - ativzzz 7y ago
    Title says walking, not biking. In addition, cycling and walking are becoming less safe in the U.S.[1]. Also, enjoy your 20+ mile bike commute in the summers down here in Texas. [1] https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/03/us-cities-are-becoming-more-dangerous-for-cyclists-and-pedestrians/ https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/03/us-cities-are-becoming-mor...
andy_ppp 7y ago
* On very specific routes in high congestion parts of the city. The article and headline reads as if the data says walking is faster - for 99% of journeys this isn't true! We really need better journalism than using statistics to make up lies to get clicks...
dwild 7y ago
There's a subway station 20 minutes away from my work that I take from time to time when I want to go to a specific movie theater. There's a bus that go pretty directly, without much stop, but during rush hour, it takes at least 5 minutes less to walk.
sneak 7y ago
Less sweaty, though.
korethr 7y ago
When I click on the link, I get a 404. That's not the usual response to the hug of death. Anyone have an alternate link?
Asmod4n 7y ago
I know I shouldn’t post this here, but the only reason I got a car and stopped using public transport are ppl who don’t stay home when they have the flu. I’ve been sick 2 months each winter because of it, with flu shots. Aren’t their ACs which can filter that out?
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  It's a good point, and one of my bugbears of getting on a crowded rush hour Sydney bus or train. Geez the amount of sneezing. That said Sydney generally has journeys that are way to expensive by car (you need to park) so public transport is the only option and conversely journeys that are epic by public transport but quite quick by car. There rarely feels like there is a "hmm what do I fancy today" kind of choice.

270 points by liotier 7y ago

Perhaps we should ban cars from cities altogether. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/madrid-spain-car-ban-city-center/561155/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/madrid-spain-...

dTal 7y ago
If they're not even faster than walking, what of value would be lost?
- catherd 7y ago
  Arriving to your destination not wet/frozen/soaked in sweat? Or with your luggage... through an area dangerous for walking... to a destination you aren't familiar with... because you are old or infirm.
  - dTal 7y ago
    These are all solved problems. Cold? Wear a sweater. Raining? Carry an umbrella, or wear a raincoat. Have luggage? Wear a backpack, or pull a wheeled suitcase. Mere walking makes you sweat? Go see a doctor, that shouldn't happen - you probably ought to do more walking, not less. Too old or infirm to walk? You need a wheelchair or an electric scooter. Dangerous neighborhood? Well, I'll grant that's a trickier one, but the solution certainly isn't to usher the wealthy through it in motorized sedan chairs so they can ignore the problem. Granted there's some infrequent edge cases where you need to move a sofa. Maybe we still allow occasional delivery vans. And bonus - they'll be able to get there more efficiently, because the road won't be choked with cars.
    - gcc_programmer 7y ago
      This is one of the most self-righteous, narrow minded, inflexible, and delusional things I have read on this platform. I invite you to walk at 1am, everyday, through the dodgy parts of London with your smartphone in your pocket. Please, report your mugged or stabbed rate in a year.
      - zimpenfish 7y ago
        I've done this without being mugged, stabbed, robbed, etc. many times -but- I am a relatively big fella with what has been described as "resting murder face" which really renders my anecdotal experience fairly niche.
      - dTal 7y ago
        Again, the solution to "bad neighborhood" isn't "cars". Especially not in London, where it becomes "cars, for those who can afford parking fees and the congestion charge in addition to all the other expenses". (If anything, by segregating neighborhoods and exacerbating wealth inequality, cars make the problem worse.)
      - jon-wood 7y ago
        I did this regularly for 2 years, with the additional factor of being in varying degrees of drunkness. The worst that happened to me, or anyone else I knew in the area, was dropping my pizza.
        dannyw 7y ago
        Try being an attractive and small 20 year old and report back. Experiences are not universal.
      - Theodores 7y ago
        I did get beaten to a pulp in London but because I did not wish to have the police do anything I did not get into the papers. Once the adrenaline kicks in you would be surprised by how much blood you can lose and how knives, broken glass, boots, fists and relentless savagery just blur into one out of body experience. If you get dragged into the dirt between parked cars for some extra brutality then none of those people driving by in their cars are going to stop and intervene. You are hidden by cars and in that peculiar filth that cars bring to the street. Plus noisy car dominated roads mean that everyone in residential housing shuns the street, so there is nobody looking out. I felt sorry for the gang that picked me off but I felt a lot of anger and resentment thereafter to car drivers that expressed forthright opinions on the matter with an air of 'knowing best'. As if any of them had a clue or direct experience. If everyone hides in cars because the area they are gentrifying is 'not safe' then you only end up with vulnerable people on the street getting preyed on by the more violent members of society. Everyone ends up terrified. Streets become walled off behind rows of tin boxes and there is no community. Excessive car culture is part of this climate of cowardice. Bikes, buses, trains would work so much better in London without the tin boxes cluttering up the place. Kids could play in the street. They could know their neighbours. Regular taxis can work fine, there is no need for this gig economy Uber nonsense. Oh, so what about the disabled? Well, people would be able to visit them for a change. Delivery vans, people moving houses and all those whataboutisms? All that can be resolved easily when we drop the mentality of people having to be in their own armoured tanks for security. We have gone past 'there is no such thing as society'.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    >Arriving to your destination not wet/frozen/soaked in sweat? Or with your luggage So someone flew me out to San Francisco last June to meet me and have me talk to a few people. I landed during the pride parade at SFO and was staying at the Proper (that place felt decidedly John Wick - the Continental and their chicken liver mousse hnnghh), I'd literally no idea nor did my uber driver that we wouldn't be able to get to the Proper. He got me within about 2 miles before the crowds and road closures and was like "I don't know how long this will take or if I can get you there" so I got out with my suitcase, in a city I'd never been in, with throngs of people. The road immediately outside of my hotel window was the road the parade was on and was ultimately between me and the hotel. I had no idea there were subway entrances that I could get under the road with. Walking shoulder to shoulder, crotch to butt, butt to crotch, trying to protect my phone, wallet and suitcase, literally stepping over people passed out on the sidewalk (if not overdosed) that were being somewhat trampled. The heat in those dense pockets of people was insane, I had to keep craning my head up to try and get cooler air. Yeah, even if there hadn't have been so many people, wondering around with a suitcase trying to find the hotel would not have been an enjoyable experience... especially given the alarming amount of human excrement, phlegm, gum etc I kept having to dodge. I got to the hotel finally, opened the door and was hit with a wall of air con and was like "ughhh yassss" making it to the check in counter with my beard all poofy, my shirt soaked, probably looking like a vagrant and getting a weird look from the person behind the counter until I said I was checking in. First thing I did in the room was peel out of wet clothes, crank the air down and had probably the 3rd best shower of my life while I killed time waiting for the hotel restaurant to open since there was no way in hell I was going back outside into that mess to try and find fast food or a convenience store.
- ben0x539 7y ago
  Transportation for people who can't walk for whatever reason, also sometimes you gotta transport stuff too bulky to carry.
  - kaybe 7y ago
    Do they need to bring a ton of steel too though? I've thought it might be nice if we only allowed golf carts for personal use in the cities, even better if they'd be foldable in an upright position.
- mrob 7y ago
  Transport of heavy or bulky items. Although in many cases a bicycle with panniers would be sufficient.
  - liotier 7y ago
    With my Bakfiets Long cargo bicycle, I handle 100 kilograms payloads easily - a washing-machine sized item is perfectly movable by pedal power.
- swarnie_ 7y ago
  I prefer to attend my meeting not dripping in sweat from hiking across the city, call me old fashioned.
  - dTal 7y ago
    You shouldn't be dripping with sweat just from walking. I walked several miles yesterday, on a warm day, just for fun - not a drop of sweat left my brow. If you're overheating, wear less clothing. This notion "I need to be ferried around from air-conditioned box to air-conditioned box in yet another air-conditioned box so that I can obey my office's dress code in the height of summer" is not an attitude we can afford to keep, in the 21st century. Not to say we should abolish all motorized transport. In any modern city there should be half a dozen ways of getting around that are all faster than cars. Light rail, buses, casual bicycles, and electric scooters spring to mind.
    - nf05papsjfVbc 7y ago
      I invite you to try different climates around the world. It is not at all unusual to be drenched in sweat from just walking outdoors for most of the year in many parts of the world. I do agree with the rest of your comment, however.
      - maccard 7y ago
        If climates are different in places, solutions should be different in places too. Yes it might not be feasible to force everyone to cycle in Texas, but that doesn't mean that everyone in the US should drive everywhere.
    - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
      Good for you. The temperature you generate while walking and the amount you sweat is not dependent on fitness level.
    - saiya-jin 7y ago
      I presume you don't do family shopping (easily 30kg), or +-gazillion of other use cases that your 'solutions' don't cover and would make people's lives measurably worse and more stressful. If I have to carry all my load for weekend adventures to car that is parked 300-500m away I end up properly sweaty even in coldest winter day, and sometimes its just not possible. And I work out hard on average 6-7 times per week. I love walking, sometimes spend hours on long walks since I live in a very pretty place but forcing everybody to adhere to your own vision of car-less cities without offering a proper alternative (not those you mention in this thread, they are far from enough)... sucks.
TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
There are certain reasons cars are needed: goods transport and people with disabilities for example. I wonder if you could do a general ban with enough exceptions to be okay. There's be a fraud problem though, and it could make it difficult for disabled people in practice (they may not be able to easily get the right badge, or be believed when they do, they wouldn't be able to benefit from car infrastructure…)
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > There's be a fraud problem though That's a non-argument. You could say that about any regulation. I assume regulating transport for disabled people isn't that hard cause we already have system in place that deals with disabilities.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bunderbunder 7y ago
  I'm really fond of the areas I've been where the only cars allowed on many streets are things like delivery and service vehicles. I would expect that that kind of environment is actually a net improvement to accessibility for people with disabilities. It's probably quite annoying for people who use wheelchairs to get around a lot of places without a car, simply because the sidewalks are so frequently blocked off by people who've parked their cars across the sidewalk. There's one man in my neighborhood who frequently has to go out in the street to get around those sorts of obstructions, and is then stuck out in the middle of the road until he can get to the next wheelchair ramp in order to get back on the sidewalk. Limiting private car usage would admittedly only remove a portion of the sources of obstruction, but it would get rid of essentially all of the safety hazard that he has to take on in order to get around them. And, especially now that cars are going electric and getting quieter and quieter, I would guess that restricting unnecessary car usage could be a big boon for blind people who want to be able to leave the house without a chaperone. I had one acquaintance who would essentially Uber everywhere - at great expense to herself - because she just didn't feel safe even trying to cross the street. (Heck, I'm sighted, and sometimes _I_ don't feel safe trying to cross the street, especially later in the evening when a sizable portion of drivers are intoxicated and really are not watching for pedestrians.)
zeristor 7y ago
Don’t forget how much space is taken up by car parks
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  As someone that will only have taken his car away from him by prying the keys out of his cold dead hands, car parks really are a sad sad thing, all of that acreage wasted on tarmac that could be community gardens or even just pleasing green grass and local wildflowers.
  - smileysteve 7y ago
    Or even more housing, which would in turn often reduce pricing and then commutes. This even applies to the "some of us want a yard" rebuke of suburbanites. Houses nearer cities can have more land if there isn't an 8 lane highway.
    - zeristor 7y ago
      Increased urban density helps areas reach a criticality, denser accomodation cheaper to service, the trick is as ever to find the optimum balancing point. Green spaces aren't to be sniffed at though, even for hayfever suffers.
    - ryanmercer 7y ago
      > "some of us want a yard" I was more speaking to the, every acre of land we pave over is one less acre sequestering carbon and ensuring biodiversity... "Green spaces" also have psychological and physiological benefits.
reallydontask 7y ago
I might have this wrong but I think it's not a ban but a restriction on driving and only in the centre of the city. IIRC, so called zero emission vehicles can still drive around unrestricted, to give, but one example.
vetinari 7y ago
I would love to see proponents of such bans trying to explain to a random plumber, gas-fitter, electrician, floor tiler, carpenter or other craftsmen, that they cannot use a car to bring in the material and tools they need to do a work with, that the customer is ordering. Ideally, when the customer and the person doing the explaining is the same person. Same for gods delivery. You bought a new freezer, washer or other heavy gods? You can pick it in the store in the fringes. No deliveries into the city, you need cars for that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- imtringued 7y ago
  Generally a ban on cars only applies to cars owned by private citizens. Often the ban also only applies to parking. Your comment is pretty shallow.
  - vetinari 7y ago
    Craftsmen are private citizens too, their vehicles are their personal property. Many delivery drivers are also owners of their vehicles, and do delivery on contract. Not everyone is employed by huge corporations who got exceptions. We (me and my wife) were just renovating an apartment in a city center, where the traffic limits apply. The problems the craftsmen had are real, and I speak from my own experience. Many times the solution was be bold and hope cops will be sympathetic. They were, though we got the recommendation to sell everything and move somewhere else, where there are no such problems.
  - andy_boot 7y ago
    That gets tricky though, Can tradespeople can use their vans to do their food shopping? Can private citizens become a painter/decorator so they are then allowed a vehicle? Can a private citizen have a vehicle if their sister is disabled?
    - amelius 7y ago

dTal 7y ago

>Uber’s Speeds dataset also shows that exceeding the speed limit on some roads is endemic, but the company says its data is anonymized and cannot be used to track–and sanction–individual speeding drivers. Yeah, bullshit. Maybe that's true of this particular "anonymized" dataset, but Uber did the anonymizing. They absolutely have the data to track and sanction speeding drivers. They just don't care to. Why would they?

kaicianflone 7y ago
I believe it could open their business to legal subpoenas. Perhaps obfuscating this data in the first place would protect them, as then they can't be forced to program it in. Or it gets passengers to their destination faster and they can charge less. Lol
jon-wood 7y ago
Their driver app shows your current speed, and pops up a warning when you exceed the posted limit for the road you're on. Are they seriously trying to tell us they couldn't fire off an API call to report the driver is over the limit at the same time?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  There is a difference between can and should. Would you want your car to do so completely insensitive to current contexts? Especially if the road data winds up inaccurate in areas. I have had several GPSes tell me that I was "speeding" by going the 45 MPH because it thought it was a 25 road. There is an expectation of servicing the user - if they did that they would be called Orwellian and lose drivers enmasse. It would also fail to address speeding in general as they would speed without tracking then.

2T1Qka0rEiPr 7y ago

My (completely anecdotal) experience of London, was that having a car anywhere near the city center was close to pointless, as you could easily outpace it on a bike. It's also nice to see a gradual shift towards making the city public-transport- and bike- friendly (e.g. super-highways, but also ultra-low emission zones), but there's a lot more to be done!

cbzoiav 7y ago
Rain, luggage, bike theft, having a driver so you can work from the back etc. Also depends on time of day. In the early hours a car is definitely faster than a bike in 95% of the city.

garethrees 7y ago

This is a well-known principle of urban transport. If driving is faster than the alternative transport mode (whether that's public transport, if any, or walking), then at the margins people will switch to driving, but that means more traffic on the road, more congestion, and slower driving speeds. Conversely, if driving is slower than the alternative, then at the margins people will switch away from driving, reducing traffic and increasing driving speeds. So in places where road space is the bottleneck, we expect driving speed to be similar to the speed of the alternative mode. In central London, for example, travel speed has been roughly the same whether you drive or take the Underground, for more than a century. Update since some commenters seem to be having trouble: this process depends on the travellers "at the margin", that is, the people who are most willing to switch modes to reduce their journey time. Thinking in terms of the average or typical traveller is misleading.

agumonkey 7y ago
jevons paradox ?
neaanopri 7y ago
This doesn't mean driving is useless. Cars are generally air conditioned, and have a greater capacity to carry luggage than walking. ...so cars should this be _slower_ than cars, given these benefits
- dannyw 7y ago
  On the other hand, there’s no need to find and pay for parking, and you can be drunk and take public transport.
  - Shivetya 7y ago
    we are discussing uber here, parking is not generally a consideration here. as pointed out, the reason that cars being shown to be slower than walking in many cases is moot because cars provide benefits which more than offset. 1. Weather protection 2. Cargo transportation 3. Ease of movement for the disabled 4. Additional safety for those toting along small children 5. Some level of protection/isolation from others The argument in favor of bicycling in lieu of cars falls prey to the same reasons. There are pro and cons so we must always fairly assess them before standing up and declaring one method worse than another. In fact none ever are all the time

magwa101 7y ago

Duh

jpalomaki 7y ago

I would love Uber to use this data to propose me options for taking a short walk to cut total travel time. In some places walking a few hundred meters puts you in a much better position for pick-up. Same thing in destination, propose a location that minimizes total travel time.

blairbeckwith 7y ago
Uber sort of does this in some cities with their Express Pool option, where they tack a short walk on to either end of a ride to pick up/drop off you and the other Pool passengers at the same spot.
cbzoiav 7y ago
The number of tourists in London getting the underground distances that are less than the distance down to the train and back up...
- megablast 7y ago
  Sure, the underground is an experience in itself. And walking around a foreign city can be very confusing for a lot of people.
- jasonkester 7y ago
  It’s all part of the experience. I once got off a night bus in Asyut, hailed a cab, hopped in and asked to be taken to the train station. The driver pointed out the window to the giant sign on the building across the street reading “Asyut Railway Station”. Travel wouldn’t be the same without making silly mistakes like this. It’s where our stories come from.
jasonkester 7y ago
My entry point to Uber is usually google maps, which does show walking time alongside driving, public transport and ride hailing times. In cities like London, it’s often half an hour for every option, so the decision comes down to whether it’s raining and how well the tube entrances line up.
7y ago

lqet 7y ago

We live in a town in Germany with roughly 250.000 inhabitants, but I grew up in a small village. I always get weird looks from relatives when I tell them that we do not own a car. For some of them, not owning a car is literally equivalent to "cannot leave the house", because buses only serve their village every 2 hours or so, and the service stops at around 8pm. We use car sharing, but only if we have to buy something that really cannot be transported via bike or public transport, like furniture, or for trips to remote places that are very complicated to reach via public transportation. I tried driving to work a few times (~8 km across town), but it takes me roughly 35 minutes by car, compared to 25 minutes by bike, and is much, much more stressful than using my bike. If the weather is very bad, I take the tram. For groceries, we usually walk to the nearest supermarket. Truth is, at least in Europe, I cannot think of any reason why you should own a car in a town with an average public transportation network and some form of car sharing.

thomasz 7y ago
Getting anywhere outside the immediate vicinity of your home with small children is incredibly exhausting without a car, even in cities with somewhat decent public transit systems
- lqet 7y ago
  This is true, I forgot to mention that above, and I do not understand why you are being downvoted for this. We have a small daughter and are planning a 300 km trip next month. Long-distance trains here have special apartments for families with small children, but even with that option we decided to use car sharing.
- eythian 7y ago
  Get a bakfiets.
  - thomasz 7y ago
    Unfortunately, that’s not really a remotely safe option here.
7y ago

agumonkey 7y ago

It's obvious with the new trend of electric scooters. Cars, due to traffic and intersections.. are sluggish in cities.

kijin 7y ago

It would be a waste of time and money to take an Uber to get from one end of Trafalgar Square to the other. But if your destination is several miles away and your route just happens to take you through a busy block, driving will still be faster than walking because the car can reach higher speeds in less congested parts of the route. Many people who drive around in urban centers aren't really trying to get from one part of the urban center to another; they just happen to be in the same car they just drove in from the suburbs. That trip as a whole tends to be much faster than walking, and it takes quite a bit of time to park somewhere other than your destination. So if you're optimizing for speed, it can still be rational to drive all the way to your destination.

ghaff 7y ago
That’s true in a lot of places. Do I get in a car to go 5 blocks if I’m already in a city? Of course not barring special circumstances (injury, heavy packages, etc.) But if I’m driving in from where I live for dinner and theater in the evening, yes I drive, including through congested areas.

Theodores 7y ago

The example of Trafalgar Square is quite comical. On a bicycle you have options when the traffic is slow, including getting off to walk. But the place would be that densely packed with buses, motorbikes, taxis and actual cars that this was neigh on impossible. If you did walk then you would be waiting for lights, at least by bicycle you have the Highway Code on your side. Before the top bit of Trafalgar Square was pedestrianised it took 27 lane changes to go from the Whitehall side to the Charing Cross road exit, by bicycle using the bus lane shortcuts. Even though you could see where you were heading you could emerge from the hell of Trafalgar Square to make it onto easier roads to then see a clock, e.g. Big Ben. Only then would you realise that navigating the square had taken twenty minutes as half an hour had gone by since leaving work. The other vehicles would take considerably longer. But that is motoring, there is no expectation of forward movement, sitting in traffic spewing fumes and blaming the world for the predicament is par for the course. If you are on a bus you can just dibble with your phone so it doesn't matter. People put up with it.

Wheaties466 7y ago

I can tell you i've taken ubers when I could have easily walked. But there are several reasons why my wife and I did not. Weather/tempature. We live in FL and sometimes walking more than 5 min outside brings you to a full sweat. Conversely you may want it to take an uber because it is way too cold. clothes - if you're in high heels or a dress you may not want to walk as far.

bartread 7y ago

Speed isn't necessarily the reason you take an Uber though. I used to use them a lot more when I worked for a client in London and would have to head back to the railway station after a few days with my suitcase. It wasn't fast, but it did mean I didn't have to drag a suitcase through the London Underground at rush hour (not fun). If you want to get places fast in London, as the article suggests, you want to be on two wheels. Cycling is probably the best option, but motorcycle or scooter also works well.

bunderbunder 7y ago

Random anecdotes: When I'm traveling, if I ask the hotel staff to recommend any restaurants "within walking distance", they'll grimace and say there aren't really any, even while Yelp informs me that there are six within a kilometer. Yesterday I ended up spending about 15 minutes waiting for a bus that was late. Someone else spent about the same amount of time as me waiting on that normal street corner, and then got back off the bus about 5 blocks later. So, that makes ~15 minutes standing around waiting for the bus and $2.25 spent on a fare, in order to save a 5 minute walk. I assume they're at least as able-bodied as I am, because, unlike me, they didn't opt to sit on the bench during the wait. I just don't think the US has a culture that considers feet to be a valid mode of transportation.

bognition 7y ago
> I just don't think the US has a culture that considers feet to be a valid mode of transportation. it almost as if we've had decades of social and political lobbying to get people to walk less and use cars
freehunter 7y ago
I travel a lot for work and hardly ever rent a car, and I'm always appalled by the state of walking in areas around hotels. There may be plenty of restaurants within half a mile, but it's almost impossible to walk to them from your hotel. No sidewalks, no crosswalks, parking lots separated by huge ditches. I've actually ordered Uber Eats from a place less than half a mile away because there was no safe way to walk there. And right now we're fighting a battle in my hometown (small town) where the city and a developer wants a hotel downtown and a group of citizens are fighting that it should be 5 miles away out by the freeway where there is nothing to do and you would have to drive everywhere. For some reason people actively and loudly enjoy not being able to walk from store to store.
dwild 7y ago
> So, that makes ~15 minutes standing around waiting for the bus and $2.25 spent on a fare, in order to save a 5 minute walk. I did something similar the other day, and it wasn't because I was lazy. There's 2 key points that you miss, the existence of monthly bus pass and the fact that the bus was late. If you are close to a bus stop, and the bus is going to be there on time, you could save some time. Let say it takes 5 minutes in bus and 10 to walk, if he is in time, you saved 5 minutes, if he is 5 minutes late, you lost nothing, but if he is 10 minutes late, well, you just lost 5 minutes. The thing is, that's always true at any given point. After waiting 5 minutes, the same rules apply because you still have the 10 minutes walk. In the end, I started walking about nearly 10 minutes later. I should have done it before because there was others stop on the way (and could have taken the bus at theses stops instead) but I neglected that. I did the right choice by about 30 seconds though, because I reached my final stop just before the bus. It was a 7 minutes walk.

tyfon 7y ago

I was at Isla Mujeres (island outside of Cancun, Mexico) a couple years ago and I was walking from the dock to the hotel with my baggage when an American stopped on a golf cart of sorts (they were all over the place) and asked if I wanted a ride. I said "thank you, but I'm Norwegian, we walk". The man looked at me for a few seconds then barked "Well I'm American!", then drove off and we both laughed. The feet are superior everywhere except highways, especially if you are not known in the area and need to get familiar. I also enjoy walking, when I am at home I take 1-2 hour walking trips in the forest by the house while listening to audio books almost every day. Since I currently live in the countryside I need a car for large item transportation and things like that, but I have never owned one when living in a city.

radcon 7y ago
> I said "thank you, but I'm Norwegian, we walk". The man looked at me for a few seconds then barked "Well I'm American!", then drove off and we both laughed. What a clever, considerate American, making use of energy-efficient transportation and stopping to offer rides to strangers along the way! > The feet are superior everywhere except highways Try walking to work in business attire on a few 100 degree (38C) days and then tell me how you feel about that...
- tyfon 7y ago
  > What a clever, considerate American, making use of energy-efficient transportation and stopping to offer rides to strangers along the way! Yes, he was really nice. Americans usually are from my experience :) > Try walking to work in business attire on a few 100 degree (38C) days and then tell me how you feel about that... I'll concede to this point. I don't have to wear that kind of outfit very often and the temperatures here rarely reach that high luckily.
  - radcon 7y ago
    > I don't have to wear that kind of outfit very often and the temperatures here rarely reach that high luckily. I usually grin and bear it but I know plenty of older people who don't tolerate heat well. Men especially seem to suffer since they run hotter and they're not allowed to wear skirts and sleeveless shirts to work (or, if they are allowed, it's still not quite culturally acceptable enough yet...). A lot of "professional" workplaces don't even allow men to wear short sleeves, and they definitely don't allow shorts.

S_A_P 7y ago

Context here matters. I would uber if I were in work clothes, and its Houston in August in the afternoon. Im not trying to walk 15 minutes and arrive drenched in sweat to a work meeting.

ativzzz 7y ago

This should say "many European cities". This is certainly not true anywhere in Texas, and probably not anywhere else in the U.S.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
asdff 7y ago
I beat cars all the time on my bike and I'm in the midwest; I go 12-15mph while traffic goes maybe half that averaging for the lights. Splitting lanes means you go the same speed regardless of traffic and therefore I'm always at the front of the intersection at a red and the first to move on green, while that car I passed 200 yards ago has to sit through another light cycle.
- ativzzz 7y ago
  Title says walking, not biking. In addition, cycling and walking are becoming less safe in the U.S.[1]. Also, enjoy your 20+ mile bike commute in the summers down here in Texas. [1] https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/03/us-cities-are-becoming-more-dangerous-for-cyclists-and-pedestrians/ https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/03/us-cities-are-becoming-mor...

andy_ppp 7y ago

* On very specific routes in high congestion parts of the city. The article and headline reads as if the data says walking is faster - for 99% of journeys this isn't true! We really need better journalism than using statistics to make up lies to get clicks...

dwild 7y ago

There's a subway station 20 minutes away from my work that I take from time to time when I want to go to a specific movie theater. There's a bus that go pretty directly, without much stop, but during rush hour, it takes at least 5 minutes less to walk.

sneak 7y ago

Less sweaty, though.

korethr 7y ago

When I click on the link, I get a 404. That's not the usual response to the hug of death. Anyone have an alternate link?

Asmod4n 7y ago

I know I shouldn’t post this here, but the only reason I got a car and stopped using public transport are ppl who don’t stay home when they have the flu. I’ve been sick 2 months each winter because of it, with flu shots. Aren’t their ACs which can filter that out?

quickthrower2 7y ago
It's a good point, and one of my bugbears of getting on a crowded rush hour Sydney bus or train. Geez the amount of sneezing. That said Sydney generally has journeys that are way to expensive by car (you need to park) so public transport is the only option and conversely journeys that are epic by public transport but quite quick by car. There rarely feels like there is a "hmm what do I fancy today" kind of choice.