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I think this is a cute ideal for a world in which we all live in dense cities and have no business going anywhere but other places in the city. But in reality,
by astrea 6y ago
I think this is a cute ideal for a world in which we all live in dense cities and have no business going anywhere but other places in the city. But in reality, I have business in other cities, even states. Work-related travel as well as visiting family. The former could surely be adjusted, but not the latter.
- adrianN 6y agoA very large fraction of all car trips are shorter than 10km. Those can be replaced with bicycles in most climates most of the time.
- vertex-four 6y agoOk... so drive when you drive to another city. Or even better, take a train.
- the_gastropod 6y agoHow many pedestrians do you typically see on the highways between cities? I'm talking strictly about streets inside cities. Cars are great tools for traveling great distances. They're a ridiculous tool for traveling inside cities. They should be looked at with a similar level of absurdity as taking a cruise ship out on the lake for a weekend fishing trip. It's a very American attitude that this is "cute" or "idealistic". In cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, bicycles dominate intra-city transportation. And what's funny about these cities is that they have worse cycling weather than most US cities.
- astrea 6y agoBut if you remove streets from within the cities, where people also live, how would you propose having a car?
- the_gastropod 6y agoA couple things: 1. Nobody's proposing an elimination of streets. What is being suggested is that streets become more open to cycling and even pedestrian use without an implicit serious threat of death. 2. Re-thinking cities, where we design not around personal car ownership and convenience is possible. There are countless solutions that still allow for automobile use. For example, a number of parking garages throughout—or on the edges of—the city. Think about amusement parks, for example. You can't drive your car right up to Space Mountain when you go to Disney World. You park your car in a massive lot, and a shuttle (glorified golf-cart) takes you into the park where there are miraculously no cars, and no threat of being killed as you cross the "street" to get a cotton candy. As I said in my previous post—there are working examples here. There's no need to pretend these are unsolvable problems—or even difficult-to-solve problems. Would we need to re-shuffle some things in most US cities? Absolutely... but that's exactly what we're talking about doing.
- Scarblac 6y agoPark the car a bit further from your house?