9 ms·
Oh man, am I glad to be European. Walk to the bar, cycle to work, take the tram if it rains. American cities built for cars are just so sad.
by teloli 6y ago
Oh man, am I glad to be European. Walk to the bar, cycle to work, take the tram if it rains. American cities built for cars are just so sad.
- RandallBrown 6y agoI can do that in my American city too.
- dijit 6y agoOh! Which one? I can only think of NYC but that’s really inhospitable to cyclists too. :/
- RandallBrown 6y agoSeattle. I have 3 major grocery stores (Safeway, QFC, Target) within 15 minutes walking from me. And at least 20 bars and restaurants within the same distance. Public transportation to downtown takes about 35 minutes, which isn't great, but it's okay. Uber works well if you need to be faster.
- owowow 6y agoBallard is pretty isolated, constrained by the Ballard Bridge or going over to Fremont to get to Downtown. Bike access is poor, either risking death on the sidewalks of the Ballard Bridge, taking the lane on the bridge or doing a large detour to Fremont. Wedgewood, Fremont, Queen Anne & Freelard all successfully resisted the mass redevelopment that Ballard has seen, compared to 15 years ago Ballard looks completely different while the aforementioned neighborhoods have not seen that same level of mass demolition.
- RandallBrown 6y agoNot too surprising you guessed it was Ballard. Depending on where you live and where you're going, crossing the locks is a great way to bike downtown. Also sometimes the Fremont bridge route is going to be shorter. I hate riding my bike over the Ballard bridge, but I'm not sure I'd call riding on it "risking death". Bike access within Ballard is pretty great since the hills are a bit more manageable than in other parts of the city. All that aside, it's pretty easy to live in Seattle and not have a car, being able to walk to groceries, bars, restaurants, parks, etc.
- loeg 6y agoThe Locks aren't great because cyclists must dismount for the entire length of the federal facility. This is a nuisance for platform pedals and conventional shoes and obnoxious for clipless pedals and cleated shoes. I would highly encourage avoiding the Ballard Bridge. IMO it's very dangerous. Walkability in Ballard is pretty good. We're within 15 minutes walking distance of QFC and the bar/restaurant area south of Market. That said, I prefer to drive to the grocery store so I can go infrequently and buy more at once.
- loeg 6y agoI'm also in Ballard and tend to agree about it being isolated. Also, there are a lot of Ballard drivers that hate cyclists — that first/last mile to access the Burke is by far the most dangerous. I get some anti-cyclist vitriol, honking, or aggressive passing almost every time I ride. And I am fast enough to keep up with the speed of traffic! Some drivers just see bikes and think "I should be in front." I really don't mind the short jaunt to the Fremont bridge, but it does add some extra travel time. Never ride on the Ballard bridge; it just doesn't have anywhere for bikes to be. The sidewalks are too narrow and unprotected from traffic, and the primary traffic lanes are going 40+ mph. That whole thing needs to be replaced for the 21st century, although there may be some resistance as it's a nationally registered "historic place."
- biztos 6y agoTotally doable in San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Downtown Los Angeles, just to name three I know well enough in California to know that about them.
- teloli 6y agoI’m only familiar with San Francisco, but every time I’m there I see that most people use Uber and Lyft instead of the bus.
- curryst 6y agoBuses are under-utilized, but walking and various forms of wheeled transportation (motorized longboards, those one wheel things, bikes, scooters, etc) are popular. San Francisco is only about 7 miles wide. You can walk from one side of the city to the other in about 2 hours. When I lived there, I walked almost everywhere. The only times I did otherwise was when it was a really long walk (over 45 minutes), or I needed to be somewhere fast. The bus will not get you anywhere fast, it's only about twice as fast as walking. I think that's why a lot of people use Lyft. The buses are actually quite nice inside imo, they're just slow. Plus the stigma that only poor people ride the bus.
- Jommi 6y agoYou're lucky if you are able to live and work in SM or DTLA. Majority of people do not.
- porknubbins 6y agoWhat is bad about NYC in particular? I’ve rented bikes in lots of European and US cities and have been thousands of miles in NYC and haven’t found it that much more dangerous than somewhere like Paris or London, except for certain large Avenues.
- megablast 6y agoChicago, San Francisco. Even la has a decent bus system.
- teloli 6y agoYou cannot compare San Francisco with Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, etc. SF is so unsafe that most people avoid public transportation and use Uber instead.
- bjelkeman-again 6y agoI don’t think unsafe is my main issue, with saying SF is comparable. Having lived in SF, Stockholm, London and worked for years in Amsterdam, SF just doesn’t have the density of public transport. Let’s us Stockholm as an example: 100 metro stations and 170+ suburban rail stations, 60 light rail stops, on 2.3 million people in 6,519.3 km2 (2,517.1 sq mi). San Francisco (Nine county, Bay Area), 33 metro stations, plus 87 additional metro stops about 200 station (ACE, Amtrak, BART, Caltrain, SMART, and VTA), on 7.75 million people, In 6,966 sq mi (18,040 km2). The station density is nearly 2.5 times higher and on less than half the population. Data from Wikipedia.
- Jommi 6y agoLA has a decent bus system? Are you serious? Have you ever lived in LA, and lived in a european city? LA has no unified bus system. It has multiple ones and its super confusing. Each bus makes a stop nearly every minute, making every ride impossibly long. Lack of bus lanes make for shitty traffic stuck trips as well.
- andykx 6y agoYeah, LA is probably the worst (large) city in the US when it comes to public transport.
- killtimeatwork 6y ago> Each bus makes a stop nearly every minute, making every ride impossibly long. It's the same in London. That's why for longer rides you take the tube. Buses are for shorter rider or from getting from/to tube station.
- pydry 6y agoAlso nice that corporations don't run my government mainly for their own benefit.
- Razengan 6y agoSome Japanese cities seem to be pretty good for that too. Apparently even very young children can safely take the bus, train or bike to school by themselves.
- dcolkitt 6y agoExcept, the difference is mostly a stereotype that isn't held up by the data. In France, 70% of commuters travel by car and only 3% by cycling.[1] That's less car-centric than America for sure. But Americans have a misguided notion that all Europeans live in quaint pedestrian-friendly town centers that look like Prague or Copenhagen. Mostly because we tend to spend our European tourism in the dense centers of the capital cities. [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/news/increase-paris-cycle-lanes-leads-dramatic-rise-bike-commuting https://www.transportenvironment.org/news/increase-paris-cyc...
- adrianN 6y agoPeople still commute by car in Europe because it's often much faster than public transport, but generally Europeans were more successful in preventing sprawl wastelands where you can't survive without a car. In the US there are many places where the next supermarket is twenty minutes by car away and literally impossible to reach on a bike without getting run over. In contrast, even in the smallest town I've lived in, with just 20k residents, there where three supermarkets and two specialty stores in walking distance.
- Jommi 6y agoThis is for France as a whole, not Paris. Ofc the figures will be majority car when you take a whole country into account instead of a city/metro area.
- ben_w 6y agoFrance != Paris. Considering only the cities, there is a massive difference between the majority of European cities I’ve visited and all US cities I’ve visited — the worst in Europe is about the equal of the best in America (e.g. Bay Area, NYC), to the extent that the only time I’ve owned a car was a 2-week period when my ex moved out of the country and wanted me to sell hers on her behalf. My worst pedestrian experience was Salt Lake City, where the footpaths stopped suddenly and without apparent reason in the middle of the residential area I was staying in. I had to backtrack and guess a lot. Sure, the sudden absence of footpaths can happen in Europe too (I’ve seen it in Λάρνακα, Luxembourg, and Hochstadt, though never to the same extent), but for the most part even tiny villages in Europe have better public transport and pedestrian access than the various American cities I’ve visited.
- RobRivera 6y agoI love my kansas city sprawl. It's not for everyone, but it certainty isn't sad in my eyes, or that of my friends.
- cambalache 6y agoBut it is pretty sad for the rest of the world. In Latin-America our oldest cities are European-style cities, totally walkable. The new developments (say last 50-60) are mostly American-style suburban hell.
- RobRivera 6y agoI think you are missing my point. Beauty is in the eye if the beholder
- tolbish 6y agoDid you grow up with suburban car culture? How do you know your frame of reference isn't biased?
- waterhouse 6y agoDid you grow up without it? Are you biased as a result of that? Bias is practically impossible to eliminate here. (You could try to find people who moved from one place to another, and ideally limit it to those whose reason for moving had nothing to do with their preferences... and poll them. I don't know how possible that is. It likely also makes a difference at what age they moved.)
- pdpi 6y agoI grew up in a car-centric country with fairly poor public transport, and have since moved to London. Here it’s genuinely faster to take public transport to most places than it is to drive. I occasionally wish I had a car (say for a weekend getaway) but it’s rare enough that I’m happy to live with rentals for those occasions.
- tomxor 6y agoI've never heard anyone self identify as "European" before, do you not feel a stronger personal identity to your own country? Or is it a "in the context of HN and the US affect"?
- memsom 6y agoIt's quite a common thing. I would identify as a European too. UK is about to leave the EU, but UK is still in the European continent. Some of my fellow countrymen are not so sure, but for me, I feel more European than not.
- pelliphant 6y agoOn the internet I often identify myself as "European". The reason is usually because americans seem to assume that everyone is an american, so it is to clarify that I have a non-american perspective.
- teloli 6y agoAh yeah, it's just in this context. While I'd never introduce myself by saying "hi, I'm from Europe", I feel that there are more similarities than differences between EU countries in terms of public transport, healthcare, mass shootings, education, etc. compared to the US, and I feel very privileged to be born on the right side of the Atlantic. :)