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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 famili

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'.
  - llamathrowaway 7y ago
    Arguably, when people shut themselves inside their cars for safety, they also become disconnected with the problems their society faces. They will have less incentive to fix the problems, so crime rises, and more people shut themselves in cars. A vicious circle. Yeah, crimes in London is on the rise. And at the same time, people also keep getting hit and killed by cars. The diesel exhaust is filling people’s lungs, and the constant traffic noise is certainly putting a strain on people’s mind. And instead asking Londoners to spend lots of money and get a car which they will have nowhere to park, what about reverse the police budget cut that left us with 22,000 fewer police officers?
- ajdlinux 7y ago
  > Too old or infirm to walk? You need a wheelchair or an electric scooter. The title of this article wasn't "Uber data reveals motoring slower than using a wheelchair". Even with the most progressive, pro-active/public transport systems in the world, which we should totally aim for, there will be a need for some level of taxi-like service at a minimum.
- kijin 7y ago
  > Mere walking makes you sweat? Go see a doctor, that shouldn't happen Or maybe it's 100'F and merely existing makes you sweat. Hello, large parts of the United States right now!
  - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
    Or maybe there's elevation. Either way, walking is no longer feasible if the distance is more than a couple miles.
    - asdff 7y ago
      That's when you bike
- reallydontask 7y ago
  I think you are oversimplifying things. I can tell you that merely walking in the sun when the temperature is in the high 30s (Celsius), makes me sweat, I hardly think that I should seek medical advice over this, to pick on one of your solutions.
  - amelius 7y ago
    With a good public transportation system in place, you don't need to walk further than a few blocks to reach your destination.
    - ryanmercer 7y ago
      Not everyone lives downtown in Megatropolis...
  - lm28469 7y ago
    This type of comment really make me think humanity peaked a few decades ago. When did we all became lazy snowflakes that can't handle any kind of hardships ? Humanity spent millions of year hunting shit in the woods and eating raw meat to end with what? People who can't walk in the sun or work in an office that doesn't have AC. Walking in the sun is too much effort and makes you sweat ? Buy sunscreen, bring an extra t shirt and stop making excuse. Sweat is a perfectly normal response to heat, your body knows how to deal with it. God damn it, some kids in africa run 10km to go to school every day while eating 5 time less food than you and they probably complain less. Rain is a viable excuse for burning fossil fuel and moving 2 tons of steel to transport a 80kg meat bag ? Unless you're disabled or commute 30+km a day you're better off with good gear and an electric bike. It's cheaper, better for your health, better for local and global pollution, &c. ICE vehicles have nothing to do in city centers. Good public transport + a fleet of government owned electric taxies would solve every issues.
    - reallydontask 7y ago
      I hardly think that sweating while walking in the sun in 30°+ weather is not being able to handle any kind of hardship. In fact, it is quite the opposite: My better half sweats very little and she very nearly had a heat stroke when we last visited The Living Desert in Palm Springs. As it happens I commute by bicycle but that's by the by.
- ubercow13 7y ago
  Sweating isn't just a result of physical exertion. Have you never been in a sauna?
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.

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'.
- llamathrowaway 7y ago
  Arguably, when people shut themselves inside their cars for safety, they also become disconnected with the problems their society faces. They will have less incentive to fix the problems, so crime rises, and more people shut themselves in cars. A vicious circle. Yeah, crimes in London is on the rise. And at the same time, people also keep getting hit and killed by cars. The diesel exhaust is filling people’s lungs, and the constant traffic noise is certainly putting a strain on people’s mind. And instead asking Londoners to spend lots of money and get a car which they will have nowhere to park, what about reverse the police budget cut that left us with 22,000 fewer police officers?
ajdlinux 7y ago
> Too old or infirm to walk? You need a wheelchair or an electric scooter. The title of this article wasn't "Uber data reveals motoring slower than using a wheelchair". Even with the most progressive, pro-active/public transport systems in the world, which we should totally aim for, there will be a need for some level of taxi-like service at a minimum.
kijin 7y ago
> Mere walking makes you sweat? Go see a doctor, that shouldn't happen Or maybe it's 100'F and merely existing makes you sweat. Hello, large parts of the United States right now!
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Or maybe there's elevation. Either way, walking is no longer feasible if the distance is more than a couple miles.
  - asdff 7y ago
    That's when you bike
reallydontask 7y ago
I think you are oversimplifying things. I can tell you that merely walking in the sun when the temperature is in the high 30s (Celsius), makes me sweat, I hardly think that I should seek medical advice over this, to pick on one of your solutions.
- amelius 7y ago
  With a good public transportation system in place, you don't need to walk further than a few blocks to reach your destination.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    Not everyone lives downtown in Megatropolis...
- lm28469 7y ago
  This type of comment really make me think humanity peaked a few decades ago. When did we all became lazy snowflakes that can't handle any kind of hardships ? Humanity spent millions of year hunting shit in the woods and eating raw meat to end with what? People who can't walk in the sun or work in an office that doesn't have AC. Walking in the sun is too much effort and makes you sweat ? Buy sunscreen, bring an extra t shirt and stop making excuse. Sweat is a perfectly normal response to heat, your body knows how to deal with it. God damn it, some kids in africa run 10km to go to school every day while eating 5 time less food than you and they probably complain less. Rain is a viable excuse for burning fossil fuel and moving 2 tons of steel to transport a 80kg meat bag ? Unless you're disabled or commute 30+km a day you're better off with good gear and an electric bike. It's cheaper, better for your health, better for local and global pollution, &c. ICE vehicles have nothing to do in city centers. Good public transport + a fleet of government owned electric taxies would solve every issues.
  - reallydontask 7y ago
    I hardly think that sweating while walking in the sun in 30°+ weather is not being able to handle any kind of hardship. In fact, it is quite the opposite: My better half sweats very little and she very nearly had a heat stroke when we last visited The Living Desert in Palm Springs. As it happens I commute by bicycle but that's by the by.
ubercow13 7y ago
Sweating isn't just a result of physical exertion. Have you never been in a sauna?

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.