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> But is it actually more efficient for others to access that market? The market needs a massive parking lot to accommodate those cars.... See my point about t

> But is it actually more efficient for others to access that market? The market needs a massive parking lot to accommodate those cars.... See my point about the train. Sure people who could formerly just walk across the street or tracks lose but those pieces of infrastructure make the destination far more accessible. You turn one person's 1min trip into a 15min trip but you also turn hours long trips into 15-25min trips. Obviously rail is higher density (and much higher cost) but it's farcical to pretend like the road has no net benefit when clearly it allows more access to the attractive destination (market in this case) even if a few people's access is degraded. >Elsewhere in this discussion someone pointed out that shops owners often resist attempts to turn their street into a pedestrian-only area, because they fear it will drive away their customers, but every time it turns out to be a boost to those shops. Perhaps because the changes only ever get implemented where they actually make sense. Where I live people raised the walk-ability issue twice in recent memory. It got implemented where it obviously made sense (near downtown) and didn't where it didn't (a strip mall area farther away). > I've seen a comparison of two commercial blocks close together; one was old, had a row of old shops along the street and hadn't really been changed much since the 1920s or so. The other was new, modern, had a parking lot serving a single fast-food restaurant. But that meant it had only a single restaurant, and that single restaurant just didn't make anywhere near as much money as that row of old shops. This means nothing without knowing the underlying economic circumstances, Buffalo NY vs NYC and all that.

mcv 5y ago
Of course the road has a benefit, as does the train. But this gets to the central issue: the train doesn't stop at every shop; it stops only at the station. It gets you very efficiently to the station, and from there you walk to the shop, and there are generally multiple shops at easy walking distance near that station. The road could do that too, but instead, it stops independently at every shop, while simultaneously also trying to be the thoroughfare that gets people from far away. And it's that combination that makes it a lot more complicated and more dangerous. And inefficient. Centralise the stops, and put the stops closer together so you can walk there.

mcv 5y ago

Of course the road has a benefit, as does the train. But this gets to the central issue: the train doesn't stop at every shop; it stops only at the station. It gets you very efficiently to the station, and from there you walk to the shop, and there are generally multiple shops at easy walking distance near that station. The road could do that too, but instead, it stops independently at every shop, while simultaneously also trying to be the thoroughfare that gets people from far away. And it's that combination that makes it a lot more complicated and more dangerous. And inefficient. Centralise the stops, and put the stops closer together so you can walk there.