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It is actually possible to be able to travel point to point on your own schedule in the same small amount of time without all those externalities. See Dutch cit

It is actually possible to be able to travel point to point on your own schedule in the same small amount of time without all those externalities. See Dutch cities like Utrecht and Amsterdam. Where everything is a bike ride away.

throwawaysea 5y ago
As someone who has spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, this is simply not true. “Everything” is not a bike ride away. You’re equating a severely limited life to one with a lot more access and freedom to chose from more than what is just immediately nearby. It’s simply not the same thing. I’m glad for the people who are content with such a set up, but it’s not for everyone. For me, I found Amsterdam tremendously boring after a short time because of the relatively limited choice of activities compared to a car-centric US cities where intraday travel over longer distances is trivial. I would also say that the claim that you can travel in the “same small amount of time” is factually incorrect for other reasons. A one mile bike ride is simply not going to be faster than a 1 mile drive unless you’re in a city where they have overbuilt or have tremendously lagging driving infrastructure. I can only see the two being approximately the same for very short trips.
- saberience 5y ago
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    You’re constructing a straw man and arguing against it. I didn’t find Amsterdam boring because I couldn’t drive around. I found it boring because there was a limited set of repetitive things I could conveniently access. I found it pleasant, but also homogeneous and plain. There is greater variety to be had in most American cities, simply because you can access more neighborhoods, businesses, amenities, whatever in a short amount of time on your own terms. If you have to deal with public transit (slower speeds, wait times, changing lines, etc) then any such activity simply requires more time and makes it less likely you’ll do it. You end up living a less rich life as a result. All that said, I appreciated the intercity trains.
    - llampx 5y ago
      There is absolutely no way I can agree with this comment or sentiment, as someone who has lived in both the US and in Europe. The US invented and perfected homogeneous city landscapes. Everywhere you go, the same buildings and the same chains dot the landscape. Great if you want to go to McDonald's and Walmart, but very very homogeneous. Europe is not like that at all. I think it has to do with your familiarity with the place if you think everywhere in Europe is the same.
  - llampx 5y ago
    Not only that, but using the subway to move across the city is objectively faster than a car, and the balance only starts shifting to the car when your destination is outside the city and requires more than 3-4 changes.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      I often find public transit still pretty bad. It seems to be mostly designed on hub-spoke model. Which means that very often when you want to travel circularly you might need to spend hour to travel to hub and then hour back. While with car you could go directly...
      - sofixa 5y ago
        That varies a lot depending on the city and system. Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Lyon aren't a hub and spoke system. They have hubs, but you don't have to go out of your way to go through them in most cases.
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    Anecdotally, ~every American person who I know in Tokyo considered walking more than 5 minutes a chore when they first arrived, and then most eventually learned that gasp you can actually walk for longer than that and it is perfectly fine. It's honestly quite amusing just how disconnected the average American's conception of city travel is from how things work in Tokyo and other walkable / public transport-focused cities. Europeans have it easier; I was already used to using public transport to get around even long-ish distances on a daily basis in Spain, and Tokyo is basically public transport paradise. Want to go from point A to point B? Here's 5 different routes - you get to pick bus, train, metro, or a combination. Some are faster, some are nicer, some you might just personally like better, and they all arrive on time. Every 5 minutes or so. I still resort to taxis in Tokyo sometimes, but only when I'm in a rush (= already late to something), and even then that rarely saves more than 10 minutes, and if traffic is bad, can end up worse; it's only faster when there isn't already a fully direct train route wherever you're going. I consider it a tax on bad scheduling on my part; I'd much rather take public transport and not be in a rush.
    - anthk 5y ago
      Yeah, cercanías in Spain sucks. If you live/work outside a town, you are fucked by 10PM having on train available no work days.
- adrianN 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure a 1 mile bike ride is always faster than a 1 mile car ride unless you have empty roads and parking spaces right in front of the entrance. You can very easily cycle a mile in traffic in around five minutes (some people can run it in 4 minutes!). A car in very light traffic takes maybe two minutes for the same distance if there are no traffic lights at all. That doesn't leave much time for parking and walking from the parking spot to where you actually want to be. Anecdotally, I'm faster on my bike on almost all trips that are shorter than about 7km, and a majority of the trips of up to 10km. Only then does a car really start to save time. And then you realize that many 10km trips could be 7km trips if the city hadn't used so much space for car infrastructure.
- lbreakjai 5y ago
  > after a short time because of the relatively limited choice of activities compared to a car-centric US cities where intraday travel over longer distances is trivial Within an hour, you could have been in Utrecht, The Hague, Rotterdam, Haarlem, by public transport. Let's put it this way: you could be in front of Rembrandt's Night watch at the Rijksmuseum, and within 1h15 minutes, be in front of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring in an entirely different city 60 km south, without breaking a sweat. Two of the greatest pieces of art. Hell you could be in Brussels within two hours. London or Paris in four hours. You could have your breakfast by a canal in Amsterdam, your lunch in front of the Eiffel tower, and dinner by Big Ben. But somehow, that's boring because it doesn't involve a car?
chongli 5y ago
The Netherlands is the flattest country in the world. Of course bicycles are convenient there. Try biking around San Francisco where there are ski-jump sized hills everywhere.
- adrianN 5y ago
  The Netherlands are quite windy, but both wind and hills are negated by electric bicycles.

throwawaysea 5y ago

As someone who has spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, this is simply not true. “Everything” is not a bike ride away. You’re equating a severely limited life to one with a lot more access and freedom to chose from more than what is just immediately nearby. It’s simply not the same thing. I’m glad for the people who are content with such a set up, but it’s not for everyone. For me, I found Amsterdam tremendously boring after a short time because of the relatively limited choice of activities compared to a car-centric US cities where intraday travel over longer distances is trivial. I would also say that the claim that you can travel in the “same small amount of time” is factually incorrect for other reasons. A one mile bike ride is simply not going to be faster than a 1 mile drive unless you’re in a city where they have overbuilt or have tremendously lagging driving infrastructure. I can only see the two being approximately the same for very short trips.

saberience 5y ago
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  You’re constructing a straw man and arguing against it. I didn’t find Amsterdam boring because I couldn’t drive around. I found it boring because there was a limited set of repetitive things I could conveniently access. I found it pleasant, but also homogeneous and plain. There is greater variety to be had in most American cities, simply because you can access more neighborhoods, businesses, amenities, whatever in a short amount of time on your own terms. If you have to deal with public transit (slower speeds, wait times, changing lines, etc) then any such activity simply requires more time and makes it less likely you’ll do it. You end up living a less rich life as a result. All that said, I appreciated the intercity trains.
  - llampx 5y ago
    There is absolutely no way I can agree with this comment or sentiment, as someone who has lived in both the US and in Europe. The US invented and perfected homogeneous city landscapes. Everywhere you go, the same buildings and the same chains dot the landscape. Great if you want to go to McDonald's and Walmart, but very very homogeneous. Europe is not like that at all. I think it has to do with your familiarity with the place if you think everywhere in Europe is the same.
- llampx 5y ago
  Not only that, but using the subway to move across the city is objectively faster than a car, and the balance only starts shifting to the car when your destination is outside the city and requires more than 3-4 changes.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    I often find public transit still pretty bad. It seems to be mostly designed on hub-spoke model. Which means that very often when you want to travel circularly you might need to spend hour to travel to hub and then hour back. While with car you could go directly...
    - sofixa 5y ago
      That varies a lot depending on the city and system. Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Lyon aren't a hub and spoke system. They have hubs, but you don't have to go out of your way to go through them in most cases.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  Anecdotally, ~every American person who I know in Tokyo considered walking more than 5 minutes a chore when they first arrived, and then most eventually learned that gasp you can actually walk for longer than that and it is perfectly fine. It's honestly quite amusing just how disconnected the average American's conception of city travel is from how things work in Tokyo and other walkable / public transport-focused cities. Europeans have it easier; I was already used to using public transport to get around even long-ish distances on a daily basis in Spain, and Tokyo is basically public transport paradise. Want to go from point A to point B? Here's 5 different routes - you get to pick bus, train, metro, or a combination. Some are faster, some are nicer, some you might just personally like better, and they all arrive on time. Every 5 minutes or so. I still resort to taxis in Tokyo sometimes, but only when I'm in a rush (= already late to something), and even then that rarely saves more than 10 minutes, and if traffic is bad, can end up worse; it's only faster when there isn't already a fully direct train route wherever you're going. I consider it a tax on bad scheduling on my part; I'd much rather take public transport and not be in a rush.
  - anthk 5y ago
    Yeah, cercanías in Spain sucks. If you live/work outside a town, you are fucked by 10PM having on train available no work days.
adrianN 5y ago
I'm pretty sure a 1 mile bike ride is always faster than a 1 mile car ride unless you have empty roads and parking spaces right in front of the entrance. You can very easily cycle a mile in traffic in around five minutes (some people can run it in 4 minutes!). A car in very light traffic takes maybe two minutes for the same distance if there are no traffic lights at all. That doesn't leave much time for parking and walking from the parking spot to where you actually want to be. Anecdotally, I'm faster on my bike on almost all trips that are shorter than about 7km, and a majority of the trips of up to 10km. Only then does a car really start to save time. And then you realize that many 10km trips could be 7km trips if the city hadn't used so much space for car infrastructure.
lbreakjai 5y ago
> after a short time because of the relatively limited choice of activities compared to a car-centric US cities where intraday travel over longer distances is trivial Within an hour, you could have been in Utrecht, The Hague, Rotterdam, Haarlem, by public transport. Let's put it this way: you could be in front of Rembrandt's Night watch at the Rijksmuseum, and within 1h15 minutes, be in front of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring in an entirely different city 60 km south, without breaking a sweat. Two of the greatest pieces of art. Hell you could be in Brussels within two hours. London or Paris in four hours. You could have your breakfast by a canal in Amsterdam, your lunch in front of the Eiffel tower, and dinner by Big Ben. But somehow, that's boring because it doesn't involve a car?

chongli 5y ago

The Netherlands is the flattest country in the world. Of course bicycles are convenient there. Try biking around San Francisco where there are ski-jump sized hills everywhere.

adrianN 5y ago
The Netherlands are quite windy, but both wind and hills are negated by electric bicycles.