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It's hard when American culture seems obsessed with houses rather than flats. You can build in straight lines, but if each 4 people dwelling takes up 400 square
by Udik 7y ago
It's hard when American culture seems obsessed with houses rather than flats. You can build in straight lines, but if each 4 people dwelling takes up 400 square metres of horizontal space, there is no way distances will ever be walkable- often not even those between two bus or tram stops.
- jdhn 7y agoI lived in an older suburb near Detroit that was a mix of single family houses and duplexes. It was fairly walkable, but that's because the houses were built on small lots with very little space between the houses. I had 2 bus lines within walking distance from my house, and I took it into work every day. In fact, I used my car so infrequently that somebody thought it was abandoned and called the city who promptly came out and issued me a move it ticket.
- bluGill 7y agoThat just limits how many people can get on in a given distance. If the transit is useful enough people will walk. There are farms in Europe with better bus service than Suburbs in the US, even though farms are much less dense. You won't be running a bus every 5 minutes through the suburbs, but you can support one 30 minutes, which is the minimum frequency to be useful, and allows 1/6th the destiny to have the same riders. There are areas of the US nearly as dense as Paris, but because the geometry is so transit hostile there will never be transit despite the density seeming to support it. Los Vagas for example has inward facing apartments that make getting to any through street from the door hard.