6 ms·

I personally love being in highly 'walkable' areas, and I confess I don't spend much time thinking about the climate. The peace of mind I get from roaming aroun

I personally love being in highly 'walkable' areas, and I confess I don't spend much time thinking about the climate. The peace of mind I get from roaming around freely by foot, without worrying about cars or hearing traffic, is bliss.

sandworm101 6y ago
>> highly 'walkable' areas An area does not become walkable because there are no cars. First you have to ensure that journey distances are within walking range. That means having stores, work locations, and living locations all within a kilometer or two at most (not everyone is capable of riding a bike at race speeds every day). Paris, at least some parts of Paris, might have that in place. So too maybe NYC or SF. But a great many places are not setup that way and don't have mass transit infrastructure to convert quickly.
- KMnO4 6y ago
  Not to mention the climate. There are many places that aren't walkable simply because they are frozen for most of the year. Cars are a tool to overcome that in the same way that air conditioning allows businesses to operate in Arizona summers.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > Not to mention the climate. There are many places that aren't walkable simply because they are frozen for most of the year. Which places are you thinking about? I'm from a place that's quite cold during the winter (-15C some days) plus can have quite a bit of snow. I don't find cold places to be as unwalkable as hot ones. You get used to the cold, the snow/ice are generally cleared after a few days. If anything, walkability is frequently about how a place looks and winter time can look quite nice with all the snow.
    - apocalyptic0n3 6y ago
      For a while, I was living in Marquette, MI and that got to -10 to -20F (-23C to -29C) many days during the winter, even during the day, and that was before factoring in the wind chill and the 3 feet of snow around you. They'd frequently cancel classes because it was dangerous to go outside if you had any skin exposed. And Marquette is a relatively small town that I'd classify as mostly "walkable". But on those days, walking 2 miles to the grocery story was not something anyone should have been doing nor were the roads or sidewalks clear enough to ride any kind of bike (if you even can at those temperatures). I now live on the other extreme in Phoenix, AZ and during the summer, you'll see 115F (46C) or higher for ~2 months a year with no cloud cover. That's hot enough that you don't even really sweat while walking; it evaporates so quickly that it can't do its job. We've had people at my office go for walks during lunch and collapse after 15 minutes due to it. And Phoenix is one of the most unwalkable places to live imaginable from a layout/distance standpoint to boot. But I will admit both of those are in the extremes and most of the country isn't like that, although many areas will have quite a few days that go subzero (-17C) and over 100F (38C) each year. I think a big thing the US needs to do is start rezoning areas and rely less on everyone living on a half acre of land 2 miles from the nearest non-residential building. Unless that happens, much of the US won't be able to realistically implement policies like Paris is.
      - coryrc 6y ago
        If the city was built like those in deserts, with narrow walking paths between 2-3+ story buildings, with awnings over the walkway, it would be no problem.
    - vkou 6y ago
      > I don't find cold places to be as unwalkable as hot ones. You get used to the cold, the snow/ice are generally cleared after a few days. > If anything, walkability is frequently about how a place looks and winter time can look quite nice with all the snow. Why do you walk? Is it to go for a purposeless, leisurely afternoon stroll? Or to on a daily basis, go to your job, the grocery, to the dentist, the hairdresser? In order for a place to be walkable, you should be able to safely, and predictably, with 99% confidence, be able to purposefully walk to that job, that grocery, that dentist, and that hairdresser, at any time of day - not just on a sunny weekend afternoon, after all the snow has been shoveled. Any place with snow on the ground for 4-5 months out of the year is a misery of walkability. Maybe your job starts at 7 am, and walking to it sucks, because the snow hasn't been shoveled yet. Sometimes, you need to avoid patches of black ice (Good luck when you're carrying heavy bags of groceries). For weeks, at the start, and the end of the season, you are dealing with absolutely atrocious slush, that has a habit of freezing over-night. I don't really care about the cold - I can solve that problem by putting on more clothes. I do care about all the other problems of walking in snow. I now live in a mild climate, where snow isn't an issue. I can, with full confidence, walk anywhere I want on any day of the year, any time of day, and predictably get there at a good pace. I couldn't say the same for when I lived in a cold climate.
  - ska 6y ago
    >here are many places that aren't walkable simply because they are frozen for most of the year. You have to be a lot below freezing before mere temperature makes a city unwalkable. Very few places actually get that cold with any regularity. If sidewalks are maintained and it isn't crazy windy, you really don't need to change your walking behaviour much at all. Heat is in practice often worse for walkability, especially when combined with humidity.
- SamuelAdams 6y ago
  Also consider the climate / weather. Paris might be OK during the winter, but some place like Michigan might have very terrible winters - walking around outside is possible but not terribly fun, cycling on icy sidewalks is also generally not a good experience. In almost all cases in the winter it's easier to be in a climate controlled method of transportation, which for most people is a private vehicle. During the summer months it's great though.
  - nemetroid 6y ago
    Walking and cycling in winter in Stockholm (or, for that matter, Umeå) is fine.
  - fpoling 6y ago
    In Oslo snow and ice can lasts up to 5 months. Yet it does not prevent people from going outside as city does reasonable job in general to keep pavements walkable. Surely that can be improved, but I do not see how one can blame climate and not local city government for snow heaps with ice on the pavements.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      >> In Oslo snow and ice can lasts up to 5 months. According to wikipedia, average lows in Oslo are about -5. That's pretty warm. Salt still melts snow at those temperatures. Even sunlight will melt snow on pavement at -5. But below around -10/-15 salt stops melting ice, vastly increasing the manpower needed to clear roads/sidewalks. Clearing ice at proper winter temperatures requires mechanical means, hammers, if not propane torches.
      - joshspankit 6y ago
        Where I grew up (Edmonton, Alberta), the winter is a force to be reckoned with as not only does the sun not melt the snow away once it’s settled in October, but “warm” days bring 6+inches of slush that can then freeze solid to the roads and sidewalks if it’s not cleared before nightfall. Biking was practically impossible (and very dangerous), and sometimes even walking a few blocks was a challenge. That being said, I’d still advocate for places like Edmonton being “15-min” cities, and in-fact it would make it much easier in the winter when transportation is more limited.
- 0xB31B1B 6y ago
  “Not everyone can go at bike race speeds” With eBikes the number of folks who can go at bike race speeds is incredible. I also know a lot of disable folks who can use eBikes but cannot drive. It’s an incredible technology.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    If we are going down that road, slap a large enough battery/motor on it and you have an electric motorcycle capable of any speed you want. Slap on a couple extra wheels and you are getting close to a Tesla. "Walkable" means not having high speed vehicles sharing space with pedestrians.
    - zilian 6y ago
      Yeah just a few extra tons of components, materials extracted around the world per car. Nothing to see here, good luck to your kids.
  - angry_octet 6y ago
    People on electric scooters travel at frightening speeds in Paris, often without helmets. Even without cars it looks extremely dangerous. I am curious to know the injury (quadriplegia?) rate. I think people seriously underrate the safety benefits of micro cars, and the necessity of car like vehicles for older people.
    - mc32 6y ago
      I once saw a couple of scooters collide (same direction), one of the riders fell and looked like they did somersaults -fortunately they were wearing helmets. Pony is yes even at lower speeds collisions can be dangerous.
    - Triv888 6y ago
      In florida too, but on any motorcycle the helmet isnt needed... But yeah motorcycles are probably an order of magnitude more dangerous then cars... Specially with cars around.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  Id say any american town over 15k people has a little spit of downtown or some other commercial corridor built before 1950s suburbanization that is in varying states of boom or bust. These corridors are all zoned to be perfectly walkable.
- Zarel 6y ago
  > That means having stores, work locations, and living locations all within a kilometer or two at most (not everyone is capable of riding a bike at race speeds every day). I've heard that this is already true of everywhere except the US, and the main reason it's not true of the US is zoning laws.
8bitsrule 6y ago
I moved into a walkable Seattle downtown-fringe area in 2005. Most needed stuff was sold within a few blocks. Thanks to great nearby transit connects to anywhere in the region, sold my vehicle after a year. Lived there 12 years ... 120k miles less gas & maintenance. Miss it a lot now (one bus, nearest stores 2 miles, nearest transit station is a 15 min ride away. Perfect for Covid I guess.)

sandworm101 6y ago

>> highly 'walkable' areas An area does not become walkable because there are no cars. First you have to ensure that journey distances are within walking range. That means having stores, work locations, and living locations all within a kilometer or two at most (not everyone is capable of riding a bike at race speeds every day). Paris, at least some parts of Paris, might have that in place. So too maybe NYC or SF. But a great many places are not setup that way and don't have mass transit infrastructure to convert quickly.

KMnO4 6y ago
Not to mention the climate. There are many places that aren't walkable simply because they are frozen for most of the year. Cars are a tool to overcome that in the same way that air conditioning allows businesses to operate in Arizona summers.
- oblio 6y ago
  > Not to mention the climate. There are many places that aren't walkable simply because they are frozen for most of the year. Which places are you thinking about? I'm from a place that's quite cold during the winter (-15C some days) plus can have quite a bit of snow. I don't find cold places to be as unwalkable as hot ones. You get used to the cold, the snow/ice are generally cleared after a few days. If anything, walkability is frequently about how a place looks and winter time can look quite nice with all the snow.
  - apocalyptic0n3 6y ago
    For a while, I was living in Marquette, MI and that got to -10 to -20F (-23C to -29C) many days during the winter, even during the day, and that was before factoring in the wind chill and the 3 feet of snow around you. They'd frequently cancel classes because it was dangerous to go outside if you had any skin exposed. And Marquette is a relatively small town that I'd classify as mostly "walkable". But on those days, walking 2 miles to the grocery story was not something anyone should have been doing nor were the roads or sidewalks clear enough to ride any kind of bike (if you even can at those temperatures). I now live on the other extreme in Phoenix, AZ and during the summer, you'll see 115F (46C) or higher for ~2 months a year with no cloud cover. That's hot enough that you don't even really sweat while walking; it evaporates so quickly that it can't do its job. We've had people at my office go for walks during lunch and collapse after 15 minutes due to it. And Phoenix is one of the most unwalkable places to live imaginable from a layout/distance standpoint to boot. But I will admit both of those are in the extremes and most of the country isn't like that, although many areas will have quite a few days that go subzero (-17C) and over 100F (38C) each year. I think a big thing the US needs to do is start rezoning areas and rely less on everyone living on a half acre of land 2 miles from the nearest non-residential building. Unless that happens, much of the US won't be able to realistically implement policies like Paris is.
    - coryrc 6y ago
      If the city was built like those in deserts, with narrow walking paths between 2-3+ story buildings, with awnings over the walkway, it would be no problem.
  - vkou 6y ago
    > I don't find cold places to be as unwalkable as hot ones. You get used to the cold, the snow/ice are generally cleared after a few days. > If anything, walkability is frequently about how a place looks and winter time can look quite nice with all the snow. Why do you walk? Is it to go for a purposeless, leisurely afternoon stroll? Or to on a daily basis, go to your job, the grocery, to the dentist, the hairdresser? In order for a place to be walkable, you should be able to safely, and predictably, with 99% confidence, be able to purposefully walk to that job, that grocery, that dentist, and that hairdresser, at any time of day - not just on a sunny weekend afternoon, after all the snow has been shoveled. Any place with snow on the ground for 4-5 months out of the year is a misery of walkability. Maybe your job starts at 7 am, and walking to it sucks, because the snow hasn't been shoveled yet. Sometimes, you need to avoid patches of black ice (Good luck when you're carrying heavy bags of groceries). For weeks, at the start, and the end of the season, you are dealing with absolutely atrocious slush, that has a habit of freezing over-night. I don't really care about the cold - I can solve that problem by putting on more clothes. I do care about all the other problems of walking in snow. I now live in a mild climate, where snow isn't an issue. I can, with full confidence, walk anywhere I want on any day of the year, any time of day, and predictably get there at a good pace. I couldn't say the same for when I lived in a cold climate.
- ska 6y ago
  >here are many places that aren't walkable simply because they are frozen for most of the year. You have to be a lot below freezing before mere temperature makes a city unwalkable. Very few places actually get that cold with any regularity. If sidewalks are maintained and it isn't crazy windy, you really don't need to change your walking behaviour much at all. Heat is in practice often worse for walkability, especially when combined with humidity.
SamuelAdams 6y ago
Also consider the climate / weather. Paris might be OK during the winter, but some place like Michigan might have very terrible winters - walking around outside is possible but not terribly fun, cycling on icy sidewalks is also generally not a good experience. In almost all cases in the winter it's easier to be in a climate controlled method of transportation, which for most people is a private vehicle. During the summer months it's great though.
- nemetroid 6y ago
  Walking and cycling in winter in Stockholm (or, for that matter, Umeå) is fine.
- fpoling 6y ago
  In Oslo snow and ice can lasts up to 5 months. Yet it does not prevent people from going outside as city does reasonable job in general to keep pavements walkable. Surely that can be improved, but I do not see how one can blame climate and not local city government for snow heaps with ice on the pavements.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    >> In Oslo snow and ice can lasts up to 5 months. According to wikipedia, average lows in Oslo are about -5. That's pretty warm. Salt still melts snow at those temperatures. Even sunlight will melt snow on pavement at -5. But below around -10/-15 salt stops melting ice, vastly increasing the manpower needed to clear roads/sidewalks. Clearing ice at proper winter temperatures requires mechanical means, hammers, if not propane torches.
    - joshspankit 6y ago
      Where I grew up (Edmonton, Alberta), the winter is a force to be reckoned with as not only does the sun not melt the snow away once it’s settled in October, but “warm” days bring 6+inches of slush that can then freeze solid to the roads and sidewalks if it’s not cleared before nightfall. Biking was practically impossible (and very dangerous), and sometimes even walking a few blocks was a challenge. That being said, I’d still advocate for places like Edmonton being “15-min” cities, and in-fact it would make it much easier in the winter when transportation is more limited.
0xB31B1B 6y ago
“Not everyone can go at bike race speeds” With eBikes the number of folks who can go at bike race speeds is incredible. I also know a lot of disable folks who can use eBikes but cannot drive. It’s an incredible technology.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  If we are going down that road, slap a large enough battery/motor on it and you have an electric motorcycle capable of any speed you want. Slap on a couple extra wheels and you are getting close to a Tesla. "Walkable" means not having high speed vehicles sharing space with pedestrians.
  - zilian 6y ago
    Yeah just a few extra tons of components, materials extracted around the world per car. Nothing to see here, good luck to your kids.
- angry_octet 6y ago
  People on electric scooters travel at frightening speeds in Paris, often without helmets. Even without cars it looks extremely dangerous. I am curious to know the injury (quadriplegia?) rate. I think people seriously underrate the safety benefits of micro cars, and the necessity of car like vehicles for older people.
  - mc32 6y ago
    I once saw a couple of scooters collide (same direction), one of the riders fell and looked like they did somersaults -fortunately they were wearing helmets. Pony is yes even at lower speeds collisions can be dangerous.
  - Triv888 6y ago
    In florida too, but on any motorcycle the helmet isnt needed... But yeah motorcycles are probably an order of magnitude more dangerous then cars... Specially with cars around.
wasdfff 6y ago
Id say any american town over 15k people has a little spit of downtown or some other commercial corridor built before 1950s suburbanization that is in varying states of boom or bust. These corridors are all zoned to be perfectly walkable.
Zarel 6y ago
> That means having stores, work locations, and living locations all within a kilometer or two at most (not everyone is capable of riding a bike at race speeds every day). I've heard that this is already true of everywhere except the US, and the main reason it's not true of the US is zoning laws.

8bitsrule 6y ago

I moved into a walkable Seattle downtown-fringe area in 2005. Most needed stuff was sold within a few blocks. Thanks to great nearby transit connects to anywhere in the region, sold my vehicle after a year. Lived there 12 years ... 120k miles less gas & maintenance. Miss it a lot now (one bus, nearest stores 2 miles, nearest transit station is a 15 min ride away. Perfect for Covid I guess.)