8 ms·

Walkability isn't uniform across Europe, Scandinavia or even within a single country: other people have mentioned Stockholm - which is still a walkable town, ev

Walkability isn't uniform across Europe, Scandinavia or even within a single country: other people have mentioned Stockholm - which is still a walkable town, even though car-traffic is prioritized over cycles and pedestrians[0] - but other towns in Sweden are definitely not modelled for pedestrians. Nyköping is a town I need to visit regularly, and there pretty much all of the grocery and larger stores have been placed in out-of-town complexes, which means that everyone takes the car for almost all activities: I was there at the weekend and sat in a car-queue myself (I was part of the problem) for about ten minutes just to get past one of the roundabouts that accesses one of these shopping areas (which are vast car-parks and ugly buildings effectively cut-off from the town and inaccessible to anyone without a car). So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit. [0] I've received (Swedish?) downvotes for this contention before - Swedish-speaking readers can see https://www.cyklistbloggen.se https://www.cyklistbloggen.se for good documentation.

marginalia_nu 5y ago
I do think there is an ambition to be pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly, but at the same time it seems very appealing to build sprawling American-style suburbs with big-metal-box-style commercial districts that are only accessible by car. In smaller cities, you often have the same people setting lofty ambitions to become the bicycle capital of united federation of planets while at the same time greenlighting yet another massive mall at the edge of town because "oh my god $BIG_CHAIN_STORE wants to come here, we're gonna be like a big city now!", usually at the expense of the stores that are accessible by foot or by bicycle.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  The problem is that to go from not needing a car every day to not needing a car at all is a huge leap that has a lot less to do with the geography of daily tasks and more to do with the geography of everywhere you'll go, as well as things like crime and pleasantness of local spaces, etc. That's why 85% of German households own a car, even though many of their cities are more walkable. Being more walkable doesn't get you to being car free, it gets you to fewer miles driven. But if your goal is to be car free then you need to focus on a lot more than getting groceries. But as long as a large majority have cars, you are going to have a car focused city, which is exactly what most European cities are once you get out of the touristy downtown areas. So at best the walkability metric will give you a small downtown area that is not car-focused. That downtown area will be populated primarily by tourists, and most locals will live outside it, in a more car accessible part of the city.
aixi 5y ago
I agree that it is idealised, but the point of comparison is the US which is an extremely car centric society, which makes Europe shine by default
sandos 5y ago
I live in Västerås which is sometimes touted as one of the, at least, top 10 cycling cities in Sweden with 390 kilometers of cycle/walking paths. And still we have expansive shopping malls outside of town which is heavily in favor or cars. We still have the downtown shopping but it can barely hang by, and parking is very expensive. It would not really have been possible to build all this shopping in the city center, so there is the physical limitations. I think this is the main problem, that the cities outgrow themselves, and it is just so much cheaper and economical to build mega-malls instead of smaller centres for shopping and amenities. They do exist here, but are very small. So you can often get by with walking of bicycling but the "big" shopping is done using a car, the local shops are 99% food-related or restaurants.
- jseban 5y ago
  Yeah it's just transport and travel that naturally outgrows the pace of walking and cycling, it's just technological progress.
  - yarky 5y ago
    > just technological progress. Despite the social consequences.
    - Nasrudith 5y ago
      What on earth does that even mean? Ir seems to imply that it is a demand that technology not change things socially or if they will be bad. Both are flat out impossible as the inventor(s) don't even know what will change ahead of time. It is neither reasonable nor actionable. If it doesn't imply that it is meaningless as the dumb luddite line "Science never sacrifices, it always murders." How the fuck is a process of discovery supposed to sacrifice anything when it isn't even an entity! Attributing responsibility of murders to it is similiarly daft - why not blame murders on violence instead? Sure scientests should come out with ethical codes of "what not to do" after infamous incidents like say Harry Harlowe's gratitutousness monkey torture or human experimentation on the vulnerable but moral culpability is on the men responsible, not those who engage in a common different process. It would nonsensic like trying to declare eaters responsible for some depraved cannibal eating an infant!
fsloth 5y ago
"any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit" Ouch, a bit harsh, that. I did not intend to claim Europe does not have unwalkable areas, but that walkable areas are not considered as such novelties. I should have used a more cautious tone. Never the less, using Helsinki as an example, you can plan to purchase an apartment within one hours of commute from the Helsinki center and never get a car, as there are sufficient amount of neigbourhoods that facilitate that, even though every possible combination of housing and employment does not support not owning a car.
- BlargMcLarg 5y ago
  Yes, Helsinki. A capital city. Which is where most of these comparisons end. In most European countries, people have trouble even affording a place close to a larger or capital city unless they inherited money or already live there, at which point the quality of transport rapidly diminishes (same goes for a place in that city with good connections). That includes young professionals working in tech. When you have to go home by midnight as a student / young professional living outside the city because public transport service ends (or even before that because you don't want to get stranded), or you live somewhere off the beaten path, or even the other party lives off the beaten path a little, getting a car to drive at least a part of that becomes more and more enticing. I say this knowing that improving public transport to reduce the number of roads and cars on the road has been a topic for a few decades now, and even the most obvious national lines aren't being funded in my country, whereas there is money to create more roads and maintain older roads. I don't doubt The Netherlands is far better than the US, but while possible, there are still tons of hurdles to overcome in going car-less. Japan is another example, where the cities do it much better than we do, but the outskirts arguably do it worse.
  - uberswe 5y ago
    I live in a smaller city called Västerås in Sweden and although you will always find problems if you look hard enough. Don’t compare Europe vs US. Compare cities instead and see what they do differently. In Västerås i lived in the rural outskirts when I was younger and missing the 2am bus meant I had to wait until 6am but I think it only happened once to me. I also lived in Houston, Texas. I never took the bus because it would take 45 min to walk to the nearest stop. Biking was fun though because I lived near a large reserve but there was always the fear of getting hit by a boar or bit by something poisonous. In Västerås walking or biking was always easy and felt integrated to the planning of the city. In Houston you had to seek out special areas where it would be nice to walk or ride your bike.
Gravityloss 5y ago
It varies a lot! Some places in Finland are almost exactly like some places in America. Huge windowless stores next to a big road. You are supposed to drive from one big parking lot to the next. There are also inside playgrounds for kids and gyms in some of these big box buildings. https://www.google.fi/maps/@60.2791313,24.9709347,3a,75y,66.41h,85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBvVXECP1CDkNIF2zsZQFBw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.fi/maps/@60.2791313,24.9709347,3a,75y,66.... There is usually a bike and pedestrian way also, and there are buses going there too. But it's not human scale. The inside is divorced from the outside. In the winter it's a pretty noir experience as you visit these places after you get out of work, when you need to buy some lumber etc. It's dark and it rains, it's +1 C, there's a highway close by and the orange light from street lights and the car head and tail lights are lighting up the place. Salty water and brown sleet is splashing there from the large mass of cars driving around, and the constant noise from the studded tires. There is no cover, no trees, nothing living really except some barely struggling grass on some traffic dividers. These are built outside city centers, near the outer ring roads. Land is cheap. It used to be a field 30 years ago. And vice versa, some places in America are just like some nice places in Europe, like a lot of Boston.
globular-toast 5y ago
Motorised traffic, and cars in particular, are prioritised over non-motorised traffic everywhere I've been in the world, including Stockholm. The problem is cultural. You see, motorised traffic wins by default, unless there are strict rules to stop that happening. If you think about a street full of pedestrians, some will be quicker and stronger than others, but it's not OK for them to use their might to take priority and get in front. In fact, we tend to do the opposite and prioritise people who are less able when we can. But that's not true on the roads. We teach children to literally fear for their lives around cars. Right now a child is being taught to give way to cars because if they don't the car will kill them. Vehicles with enclosed cabs like cars are the worst because the drivers are completely removed from the road. Their experience is not human. They can't express themselves, which leads to anger and road rage. They can't feel the speed they are travelling at or the effort it is taking. And we just let them assume priority. They've taken the roads for themselves and they are not going to give them back.
- jseban 5y ago
  > The problem is cultural. You see, motorised traffic wins by default, unless there are strict rules to stop that happening. It's not cultural, motorized traffic wins because it's more powerful. > Right now a child is being taught to give way to cars because if they don't the car will kill them. Vehicles with enclosed cabs like cars are the worst because the drivers are completely removed from the road. Their experience is not human. Subways, trams and buses will also kill them, that's just as dangerous.
  - bretthoerner 5y ago
    Subways, trams and buses are not just as dangerous as cars.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - epidemian 5y ago
    > Subways, trams and buses will also kill them, that's just as dangerous. Do you have any source for this? AFAIK it's not true. Trams and subways specifically kill way less people than cars, even though in many places they transport more people than cars do. For buses, IDK, but i would be surprised if a single bus was twice as likely or more to kill a person than a car. And a single bus transports way more people than a car.
542354234235 5y ago
> So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit. Or that is just a strawman of what is clearly true, but not literally universal in every single individual location. Biking/walking is utilized at least twice as much in Western European countries as in the US, and often 3 times or more [1]. European cities are, in general, more walkable and bikeable than US cities. If you want to read an in depth article about the many factors that led to US urban sprawl vs European cities, I’d recommend [2]. [1] http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/trnews/trnews280westerneurope.pdf http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/trnews/trnews280western... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-europes-cities-better/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-europes-cities-better...
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Biking/walking is utilized at least twice as much in Western European countries as in the US, What's it look like when you include eastern Europe in that comparison? I'm sure the rich half of the US bikes a heck of a lot more than the poor half too.
  - metalliqaz 5y ago
    only for recreation, not for getting around... at least that is my anecdotal experience.
  - Quanttek 5y ago
    It's likely the other way around: most Soviet block cities have not only historic centers equally centered around walking/biking but Soviet city design focused strongly on public transport and walkable neighborhoods because cars were unaffordable to most people.
    - Cd00d 5y ago
      My experience in ex-Soviet bloc countries is the opposite. Unmaintained sidewalks, parked cars blocking safe walking access, unsafe driving behavior/routing near pedestrians. I often think of a time in Sofia, Bulgaria where I saw an elderly woman trying to get around a car parked on the sidewalk, up against a wall, by walking on the car bumper with her groceries. It was terrifying and precarious.
jollybean 5y ago
"So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit." This is actually bullshit. Europe is fundamentally more walkable, it's not even an argument.
jbjbjbjb 5y ago
In Europe walkability is great in cities but you usually pay a premium on housing because land is scarce. You can walk in the suburbs but there’s often no where local to go because the shops, schools, and workplaces need a level of scale to be efficient.
- trutannus 5y ago
  You'd be surprised. Housing in Berlin is cheaper by far than housing in the least walkable cities in Canada.
  - jbjbjbjb 5y ago
    I meant a premium for being central compared to 20km outside the city centre for a similar property.
DennisP 5y ago
I haven't been to Sweden but I lived in Germany for three years and never felt the need for a car. Partly it's walkability, partly it's great public transport. I toured a lot of Europe by train and bus and trolley, and could get anywhere I wanted as long as I was willing to walk a mile or two.
hnarn 5y ago
> So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit. What’s “bullshit” is using the example of satellite malls, a global phenomenon due to obvious reasons (land and real estate pricing) as somehow proof that Sweden or similar countries aren’t walkable, without mentioning the huge divide in the feasibility of using public transport. It’s not equal if a mall is kilometers away from the city center, but in one case you have public transport available and in the other it’s for all practical purposes impossible to get there without a car. In addition to that, even locations outside the city center are often safely walkable, if you would want to. This comes down to a difference in city planning and the assumed value of pedestrian traffic. I seriously don’t understand how that can be a contentious point, it’s well known that city planning in the US is more car-centric than that in Europe, and that consistent public transport is almost unheard of in the US outside of large cities. That doesn’t mean all of the US is impossible to access without a car, nor does it mean all of Europe is possible without one, but the difference in planning is completely obvious.
PaulHoule 5y ago
So often I read a German engineer lament that one pedestrian is causing hundreds of motorists to stop. I listen to French people in documentaries and podcasts who can't go five minutes without using an analogy about cars and garages.
dang 5y ago
I appreciate your sharing your personal experience, and counterintuitive points are always welcome - but please don't point the threads flameward like this: > So any [...] as some sort of [sarcastic overstatement] is really just idealized bullshit. You made the pH of this discussion noticeably more acidic with this swipe, and the parent did not deserve it. It's not hard to make comments in a swipe-free way—for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29105572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29105572 is making a similar point to yours in a conversational style, as opposed to a cross-examining one. That's what we're going for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

marginalia_nu 5y ago

I do think there is an ambition to be pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly, but at the same time it seems very appealing to build sprawling American-style suburbs with big-metal-box-style commercial districts that are only accessible by car. In smaller cities, you often have the same people setting lofty ambitions to become the bicycle capital of united federation of planets while at the same time greenlighting yet another massive mall at the edge of town because "oh my god $BIG_CHAIN_STORE wants to come here, we're gonna be like a big city now!", usually at the expense of the stores that are accessible by foot or by bicycle.

rsj_hn 5y ago
The problem is that to go from not needing a car every day to not needing a car at all is a huge leap that has a lot less to do with the geography of daily tasks and more to do with the geography of everywhere you'll go, as well as things like crime and pleasantness of local spaces, etc. That's why 85% of German households own a car, even though many of their cities are more walkable. Being more walkable doesn't get you to being car free, it gets you to fewer miles driven. But if your goal is to be car free then you need to focus on a lot more than getting groceries. But as long as a large majority have cars, you are going to have a car focused city, which is exactly what most European cities are once you get out of the touristy downtown areas. So at best the walkability metric will give you a small downtown area that is not car-focused. That downtown area will be populated primarily by tourists, and most locals will live outside it, in a more car accessible part of the city.

aixi 5y ago

I agree that it is idealised, but the point of comparison is the US which is an extremely car centric society, which makes Europe shine by default

sandos 5y ago

I live in Västerås which is sometimes touted as one of the, at least, top 10 cycling cities in Sweden with 390 kilometers of cycle/walking paths. And still we have expansive shopping malls outside of town which is heavily in favor or cars. We still have the downtown shopping but it can barely hang by, and parking is very expensive. It would not really have been possible to build all this shopping in the city center, so there is the physical limitations. I think this is the main problem, that the cities outgrow themselves, and it is just so much cheaper and economical to build mega-malls instead of smaller centres for shopping and amenities. They do exist here, but are very small. So you can often get by with walking of bicycling but the "big" shopping is done using a car, the local shops are 99% food-related or restaurants.

jseban 5y ago
Yeah it's just transport and travel that naturally outgrows the pace of walking and cycling, it's just technological progress.
- yarky 5y ago
  > just technological progress. Despite the social consequences.
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    What on earth does that even mean? Ir seems to imply that it is a demand that technology not change things socially or if they will be bad. Both are flat out impossible as the inventor(s) don't even know what will change ahead of time. It is neither reasonable nor actionable. If it doesn't imply that it is meaningless as the dumb luddite line "Science never sacrifices, it always murders." How the fuck is a process of discovery supposed to sacrifice anything when it isn't even an entity! Attributing responsibility of murders to it is similiarly daft - why not blame murders on violence instead? Sure scientests should come out with ethical codes of "what not to do" after infamous incidents like say Harry Harlowe's gratitutousness monkey torture or human experimentation on the vulnerable but moral culpability is on the men responsible, not those who engage in a common different process. It would nonsensic like trying to declare eaters responsible for some depraved cannibal eating an infant!

fsloth 5y ago

"any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit" Ouch, a bit harsh, that. I did not intend to claim Europe does not have unwalkable areas, but that walkable areas are not considered as such novelties. I should have used a more cautious tone. Never the less, using Helsinki as an example, you can plan to purchase an apartment within one hours of commute from the Helsinki center and never get a car, as there are sufficient amount of neigbourhoods that facilitate that, even though every possible combination of housing and employment does not support not owning a car.

BlargMcLarg 5y ago
Yes, Helsinki. A capital city. Which is where most of these comparisons end. In most European countries, people have trouble even affording a place close to a larger or capital city unless they inherited money or already live there, at which point the quality of transport rapidly diminishes (same goes for a place in that city with good connections). That includes young professionals working in tech. When you have to go home by midnight as a student / young professional living outside the city because public transport service ends (or even before that because you don't want to get stranded), or you live somewhere off the beaten path, or even the other party lives off the beaten path a little, getting a car to drive at least a part of that becomes more and more enticing. I say this knowing that improving public transport to reduce the number of roads and cars on the road has been a topic for a few decades now, and even the most obvious national lines aren't being funded in my country, whereas there is money to create more roads and maintain older roads. I don't doubt The Netherlands is far better than the US, but while possible, there are still tons of hurdles to overcome in going car-less. Japan is another example, where the cities do it much better than we do, but the outskirts arguably do it worse.
- uberswe 5y ago
  I live in a smaller city called Västerås in Sweden and although you will always find problems if you look hard enough. Don’t compare Europe vs US. Compare cities instead and see what they do differently. In Västerås i lived in the rural outskirts when I was younger and missing the 2am bus meant I had to wait until 6am but I think it only happened once to me. I also lived in Houston, Texas. I never took the bus because it would take 45 min to walk to the nearest stop. Biking was fun though because I lived near a large reserve but there was always the fear of getting hit by a boar or bit by something poisonous. In Västerås walking or biking was always easy and felt integrated to the planning of the city. In Houston you had to seek out special areas where it would be nice to walk or ride your bike.

Gravityloss 5y ago

It varies a lot! Some places in Finland are almost exactly like some places in America. Huge windowless stores next to a big road. You are supposed to drive from one big parking lot to the next. There are also inside playgrounds for kids and gyms in some of these big box buildings. https://www.google.fi/maps/@60.2791313,24.9709347,3a,75y,66.41h,85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBvVXECP1CDkNIF2zsZQFBw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.fi/maps/@60.2791313,24.9709347,3a,75y,66.... There is usually a bike and pedestrian way also, and there are buses going there too. But it's not human scale. The inside is divorced from the outside. In the winter it's a pretty noir experience as you visit these places after you get out of work, when you need to buy some lumber etc. It's dark and it rains, it's +1 C, there's a highway close by and the orange light from street lights and the car head and tail lights are lighting up the place. Salty water and brown sleet is splashing there from the large mass of cars driving around, and the constant noise from the studded tires. There is no cover, no trees, nothing living really except some barely struggling grass on some traffic dividers. These are built outside city centers, near the outer ring roads. Land is cheap. It used to be a field 30 years ago. And vice versa, some places in America are just like some nice places in Europe, like a lot of Boston.

globular-toast 5y ago

Motorised traffic, and cars in particular, are prioritised over non-motorised traffic everywhere I've been in the world, including Stockholm. The problem is cultural. You see, motorised traffic wins by default, unless there are strict rules to stop that happening. If you think about a street full of pedestrians, some will be quicker and stronger than others, but it's not OK for them to use their might to take priority and get in front. In fact, we tend to do the opposite and prioritise people who are less able when we can. But that's not true on the roads. We teach children to literally fear for their lives around cars. Right now a child is being taught to give way to cars because if they don't the car will kill them. Vehicles with enclosed cabs like cars are the worst because the drivers are completely removed from the road. Their experience is not human. They can't express themselves, which leads to anger and road rage. They can't feel the speed they are travelling at or the effort it is taking. And we just let them assume priority. They've taken the roads for themselves and they are not going to give them back.

jseban 5y ago
> The problem is cultural. You see, motorised traffic wins by default, unless there are strict rules to stop that happening. It's not cultural, motorized traffic wins because it's more powerful. > Right now a child is being taught to give way to cars because if they don't the car will kill them. Vehicles with enclosed cabs like cars are the worst because the drivers are completely removed from the road. Their experience is not human. Subways, trams and buses will also kill them, that's just as dangerous.
- bretthoerner 5y ago
  Subways, trams and buses are not just as dangerous as cars.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- epidemian 5y ago
  > Subways, trams and buses will also kill them, that's just as dangerous. Do you have any source for this? AFAIK it's not true. Trams and subways specifically kill way less people than cars, even though in many places they transport more people than cars do. For buses, IDK, but i would be surprised if a single bus was twice as likely or more to kill a person than a car. And a single bus transports way more people than a car.

542354234235 5y ago

> So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit. Or that is just a strawman of what is clearly true, but not literally universal in every single individual location. Biking/walking is utilized at least twice as much in Western European countries as in the US, and often 3 times or more [1]. European cities are, in general, more walkable and bikeable than US cities. If you want to read an in depth article about the many factors that led to US urban sprawl vs European cities, I’d recommend [2]. [1] http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/trnews/trnews280westerneurope.pdf http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/trnews/trnews280western... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-europes-cities-better/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-europes-cities-better...

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Biking/walking is utilized at least twice as much in Western European countries as in the US, What's it look like when you include eastern Europe in that comparison? I'm sure the rich half of the US bikes a heck of a lot more than the poor half too.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  only for recreation, not for getting around... at least that is my anecdotal experience.
- Quanttek 5y ago
  It's likely the other way around: most Soviet block cities have not only historic centers equally centered around walking/biking but Soviet city design focused strongly on public transport and walkable neighborhoods because cars were unaffordable to most people.
  - Cd00d 5y ago
    My experience in ex-Soviet bloc countries is the opposite. Unmaintained sidewalks, parked cars blocking safe walking access, unsafe driving behavior/routing near pedestrians. I often think of a time in Sofia, Bulgaria where I saw an elderly woman trying to get around a car parked on the sidewalk, up against a wall, by walking on the car bumper with her groceries. It was terrifying and precarious.

jollybean 5y ago

"So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit." This is actually bullshit. Europe is fundamentally more walkable, it's not even an argument.

jbjbjbjb 5y ago

In Europe walkability is great in cities but you usually pay a premium on housing because land is scarce. You can walk in the suburbs but there’s often no where local to go because the shops, schools, and workplaces need a level of scale to be efficient.

trutannus 5y ago
You'd be surprised. Housing in Berlin is cheaper by far than housing in the least walkable cities in Canada.
- jbjbjbjb 5y ago
  I meant a premium for being central compared to 20km outside the city centre for a similar property.

DennisP 5y ago

I haven't been to Sweden but I lived in Germany for three years and never felt the need for a car. Partly it's walkability, partly it's great public transport. I toured a lot of Europe by train and bus and trolley, and could get anywhere I wanted as long as I was willing to walk a mile or two.

hnarn 5y ago

> So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit. What’s “bullshit” is using the example of satellite malls, a global phenomenon due to obvious reasons (land and real estate pricing) as somehow proof that Sweden or similar countries aren’t walkable, without mentioning the huge divide in the feasibility of using public transport. It’s not equal if a mall is kilometers away from the city center, but in one case you have public transport available and in the other it’s for all practical purposes impossible to get there without a car. In addition to that, even locations outside the city center are often safely walkable, if you would want to. This comes down to a difference in city planning and the assumed value of pedestrian traffic. I seriously don’t understand how that can be a contentious point, it’s well known that city planning in the US is more car-centric than that in Europe, and that consistent public transport is almost unheard of in the US outside of large cities. That doesn’t mean all of the US is impossible to access without a car, nor does it mean all of Europe is possible without one, but the difference in planning is completely obvious.

PaulHoule 5y ago

So often I read a German engineer lament that one pedestrian is causing hundreds of motorists to stop. I listen to French people in documentaries and podcasts who can't go five minutes without using an analogy about cars and garages.

dang 5y ago

I appreciate your sharing your personal experience, and counterintuitive points are always welcome - but please don't point the threads flameward like this: > So any [...] as some sort of [sarcastic overstatement] is really just idealized bullshit. You made the pH of this discussion noticeably more acidic with this swipe, and the parent did not deserve it. It's not hard to make comments in a swipe-free way—for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29105572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29105572 is making a similar point to yours in a conversational style, as opposed to a cross-examining one. That's what we're going for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html