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Public transport isn't the panacea that everyone always makes it out to be. It makes sense when you have heavily trafficked metro areas, but when you get outsid

Public transport isn't the panacea that everyone always makes it out to be. It makes sense when you have heavily trafficked metro areas, but when you get outside of those (like most of the USA is) it's more efficient to use cars rather than empty buses and trains. As for bikability, I can agree with that, but again when you have the vast suburban sprawl that the USA has it's not safe to bike and even if it was everything is so spread out in places that biking isn't a good option.

usr1106 4y ago
It doesn't work with >80% owning a car and using it. There is just too much traffic, biking gets difficult and public transport runs half-empty (if even existing) It would very well work in most places with <20% own a car and using it. And in some rare case renting one. Gyms would go bankrupt because nobody needed to go there anymore because they bike every day. But that would be an acceptable downside IMHO. (I know what I am talking off. I work from home, but I bike to some shop, not even the closest one, every day to get my motion.) How to get there I don't know. Europeans are not willing to do it. And Americans are decades behind with the development going into the completely wrong direction.
ryukafalz 4y ago
> when you have the vast suburban sprawl that the USA has it's not safe to bike Sprawl does not make it unsafe to bike; it's a lack of safe cycling infrastructure that does that. It would take a small fraction of the space given to cars to make it perfectly safe to bike. Now as you also mention, sprawl may make it impractical to bike. That said... the distances between things in suburbia are often artificially inflated as well. This 21-minute walk to a grocery store near where I used to live could be cut down to maybe two minutes if you were to take down the fence blocking it off: https://goo.gl/maps/iujAxMRRMCRs4YzW9 https://goo.gl/maps/iujAxMRRMCRs4YzW9

usr1106 4y ago

It doesn't work with >80% owning a car and using it. There is just too much traffic, biking gets difficult and public transport runs half-empty (if even existing) It would very well work in most places with <20% own a car and using it. And in some rare case renting one. Gyms would go bankrupt because nobody needed to go there anymore because they bike every day. But that would be an acceptable downside IMHO. (I know what I am talking off. I work from home, but I bike to some shop, not even the closest one, every day to get my motion.) How to get there I don't know. Europeans are not willing to do it. And Americans are decades behind with the development going into the completely wrong direction.

ryukafalz 4y ago

> when you have the vast suburban sprawl that the USA has it's not safe to bike Sprawl does not make it unsafe to bike; it's a lack of safe cycling infrastructure that does that. It would take a small fraction of the space given to cars to make it perfectly safe to bike. Now as you also mention, sprawl may make it impractical to bike. That said... the distances between things in suburbia are often artificially inflated as well. This 21-minute walk to a grocery store near where I used to live could be cut down to maybe two minutes if you were to take down the fence blocking it off: https://goo.gl/maps/iujAxMRRMCRs4YzW9 https://goo.gl/maps/iujAxMRRMCRs4YzW9