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> I have no interest in car centric 15-min cities. A car centric 15 minute city is literally impossible. There will always be too much congestion to get anywh

> I have no interest in car centric 15-min cities. A car centric 15 minute city is literally impossible. There will always be too much congestion to get anywhere in 15 minutes since cars take up too much space.

SkeuomorphicBee 4y ago
It is possible, just not scalable. It is ready for a small city to be a car centric 15 minute city, but once population reaches the 6 digits problems start to arise, and ~500k is the rough upper limit where it becomes impossible.
sien 4y ago
I live in a car centric 15 minute city. My work is ~13 minutes away. There is a Primary and Secondary School within 5 and 20 minutes walk. A supermarket is a 10 minute bike ride away. A hospital is 10 minutes drive away. A top 50 ranked University is 25 minutes drive away. There is a good question from w-j-w that has been deleted here. Yes - it's a 15 minute car city at 8:30 AM. My commute goes to about 14 minutes... This is on the days when I'm not WFH - which should also be factored in.
- w-j-w 4y ago
  Is your city a 15 minute city at 8:30 AM?
- imachine1980_ 4y ago
  where?, sound interesting to research.
  - sien 4y ago
    Canberra.
    - HeyItsMatt 4y ago
      Walter Burley Griffin designed Canberra with space allotted for highly efficient tramways that still haven't been built. The guy has been dead for nearly one hundred years and the city still hasn't assigned a replacement urban planner...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Smoosh 4y ago
  And I also live and work in Canberra (Hi Sien). Some commutes are more like 30 minutes (by car) or 40 at a bad time. But this is where someone has chosen to live at the opposite end of the city to their workplace, which is largely unnecessary. I myself walk to and from work (when not WFH) and it takes around 20 minutes.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  Lived in Canberra for a long time but no longer. Can confirm it is a 20 minute city with your own car/motorbike/bicycle-enthusiasm (year round in 35 degree heat or -7 degree cold). The arterial roads are good and the bicycle pathways are pretty good in any area established before self government. The new suburbs suck, and if you need public transport it is a tram line that services a single area and buses everywhere else. Live in a new suburb and have to rely on public transport? Sucks to be you... Pretty good if you have a car/motorbike/bicycle-enthusiasm though. s/ Just choose not to be disabled or too old to drive.../s
rayiner 4y ago
I live outside of Annapolis, in a metro area of about 150,000 people, and everything is within 15 minutes even with traffic.
munk-a 4y ago
I think car oriented cities come with a lot of issues, but I don't think this is really a fair statement. Small towns can easily exist with <15min commutes and the city scalable version of this (which I hate, but does work) is basically a continuous field of suburbs dotted with occasional clumps of box stores stretching out into the horizon.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I live in an exurban town near a couple of small cities. I work remotely but am within 30 minutes of my office by car. And I'm within a 10-15 minute drive of grocery stores, (some) restaurants, and various big box stores like Walmart. It's not like I have quick access to big city amenities but I'm a reasonable pretty uncongested drive from most of the things I need day-to-day. (And I can walk but just for a fairly lengthy walk in the woods.)
  - brewdad 4y ago
    The trouble comes when sprawl catches up to your exurban city. Now, one of two things happens: either your 15 minute city becomes a 30 minute city due to traffic congestion or zoning laws limit new construction and the cost of living there increases dramatically. If you managed to buy a home there, you'll be fine but renters soon have to seek either the next exurban spot or an older, decaying area closer to the central city.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      We're talking an almost 500 year old farm town near a 80,000 person (twin) city so there isn't really a "central city" in the sense you're thinking of. They're old mill cities but there hasn't been a whole lot of sprawl over the past decades. It's pretty far out from the nearest major city.
pavon 4y ago
It's not clear what you mean by that. It is easy to build a city where you can reach everything you need within 15 minutes by car. What is hard is to build a city like that where you can also reach everything you need by foot within 15 minutes. I don't think it is as impossible as some urbanists make it though. The downtown in my city is by far the most dense and walkable area of town while still being far more accommodating for car drivers than any of the areas that have been newly revitalized for walkability. The main difference is the existence of ample parking shelters where the main (st)roads hit downtown, unlike the new areas that insist on only having street parking to intentionally limit the number of cars. Both approaches allow the area to be designed for walkability first. But the former does a better job at accommodating people who don't live within 15-minutes by walking or public transit, and does a better job at keeping cars from being a nuisance. Because the motorists have a convenient place to park and walk they do so, while street parking only forces the cars into the walkable streets(and surrounding neighborhoods) to circle endlessly looking for a place to park and increasing congestion. I really like the strong-towns framing of delineating roads vs streets which are designed for cars and pedestrians respectively. I think too many people are quick to jump on the assumption that roads==bad and streets==good, when having good roads and parking structures can relieve the pressure and allow your streets to be streets. At least in the short-term, and in the long-term you are going to want to keeps some sort of arterial land strips for public transit use (in all but the most dense areas which can support subways). So making them roads now with a mix of buses and cars that gradually becomes more buses, and then possibly dedicated public transit makes for a good growth plan.
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > It is easy to build a city where you can reach everything you need within 15 minutes by car. I think getting to places by car is often not the hardest part. Instead, the hard part (at least from a user's perspective!) is storing all the cars for all the inhabitants of the city, both at their origin and their destination. This creates ballooning space requirements, including duplication of space (much residential parking will remain largely unused during the day, and much business parking will remain largely unused at night). Then, even after devoting as much space to cars as US cities do, one winds up unable to plan simply to drive to one's destination, but having also to devote significant planning to parking.
replygirl 4y ago
tell me you live in a busier part of a global city without telling me you live in a busier part of a global city
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kuldeep_kap 4y ago
100% agree. If anyone is interested here is great video on [Autoluw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXNVnftaNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXNVnftaNs). This is what US needs, but I dont see this happening due america's car-centric culture.
jcranmer 4y ago
A car-centric 15-minute city is actually quite possible. Something like Urbana-Champaign could well qualify. It's basically a stretch of suburbia centered around a university, which ends up being inherently pretty walkable to boot too.
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
Depends on the size of the city, I suppose. A 15 minute car city like New York or London is almost certainly impossible. In a comparatively-suburban "city", it's absolutely possible and probably fairly common. Of course, you'll likely have to leave the city far more frequently, and those trips may take longer than 15 minutes. By contrast, you could easily spend your entire life in New York without ever leaving city limits.
eru 4y ago
Just do congestion charging.

SkeuomorphicBee 4y ago

It is possible, just not scalable. It is ready for a small city to be a car centric 15 minute city, but once population reaches the 6 digits problems start to arise, and ~500k is the rough upper limit where it becomes impossible.

sien 4y ago

I live in a car centric 15 minute city. My work is ~13 minutes away. There is a Primary and Secondary School within 5 and 20 minutes walk. A supermarket is a 10 minute bike ride away. A hospital is 10 minutes drive away. A top 50 ranked University is 25 minutes drive away. There is a good question from w-j-w that has been deleted here. Yes - it's a 15 minute car city at 8:30 AM. My commute goes to about 14 minutes... This is on the days when I'm not WFH - which should also be factored in.

w-j-w 4y ago
Is your city a 15 minute city at 8:30 AM?
imachine1980_ 4y ago
where?, sound interesting to research.
- sien 4y ago
  Canberra.
  - HeyItsMatt 4y ago
    Walter Burley Griffin designed Canberra with space allotted for highly efficient tramways that still haven't been built. The guy has been dead for nearly one hundred years and the city still hasn't assigned a replacement urban planner...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Smoosh 4y ago
And I also live and work in Canberra (Hi Sien). Some commutes are more like 30 minutes (by car) or 40 at a bad time. But this is where someone has chosen to live at the opposite end of the city to their workplace, which is largely unnecessary. I myself walk to and from work (when not WFH) and it takes around 20 minutes.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
Lived in Canberra for a long time but no longer. Can confirm it is a 20 minute city with your own car/motorbike/bicycle-enthusiasm (year round in 35 degree heat or -7 degree cold). The arterial roads are good and the bicycle pathways are pretty good in any area established before self government. The new suburbs suck, and if you need public transport it is a tram line that services a single area and buses everywhere else. Live in a new suburb and have to rely on public transport? Sucks to be you... Pretty good if you have a car/motorbike/bicycle-enthusiasm though. s/ Just choose not to be disabled or too old to drive.../s

rayiner 4y ago

I live outside of Annapolis, in a metro area of about 150,000 people, and everything is within 15 minutes even with traffic.

munk-a 4y ago

I think car oriented cities come with a lot of issues, but I don't think this is really a fair statement. Small towns can easily exist with <15min commutes and the city scalable version of this (which I hate, but does work) is basically a continuous field of suburbs dotted with occasional clumps of box stores stretching out into the horizon.

ghaff 4y ago
I live in an exurban town near a couple of small cities. I work remotely but am within 30 minutes of my office by car. And I'm within a 10-15 minute drive of grocery stores, (some) restaurants, and various big box stores like Walmart. It's not like I have quick access to big city amenities but I'm a reasonable pretty uncongested drive from most of the things I need day-to-day. (And I can walk but just for a fairly lengthy walk in the woods.)
- brewdad 4y ago
  The trouble comes when sprawl catches up to your exurban city. Now, one of two things happens: either your 15 minute city becomes a 30 minute city due to traffic congestion or zoning laws limit new construction and the cost of living there increases dramatically. If you managed to buy a home there, you'll be fine but renters soon have to seek either the next exurban spot or an older, decaying area closer to the central city.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    We're talking an almost 500 year old farm town near a 80,000 person (twin) city so there isn't really a "central city" in the sense you're thinking of. They're old mill cities but there hasn't been a whole lot of sprawl over the past decades. It's pretty far out from the nearest major city.

pavon 4y ago

It's not clear what you mean by that. It is easy to build a city where you can reach everything you need within 15 minutes by car. What is hard is to build a city like that where you can also reach everything you need by foot within 15 minutes. I don't think it is as impossible as some urbanists make it though. The downtown in my city is by far the most dense and walkable area of town while still being far more accommodating for car drivers than any of the areas that have been newly revitalized for walkability. The main difference is the existence of ample parking shelters where the main (st)roads hit downtown, unlike the new areas that insist on only having street parking to intentionally limit the number of cars. Both approaches allow the area to be designed for walkability first. But the former does a better job at accommodating people who don't live within 15-minutes by walking or public transit, and does a better job at keeping cars from being a nuisance. Because the motorists have a convenient place to park and walk they do so, while street parking only forces the cars into the walkable streets(and surrounding neighborhoods) to circle endlessly looking for a place to park and increasing congestion. I really like the strong-towns framing of delineating roads vs streets which are designed for cars and pedestrians respectively. I think too many people are quick to jump on the assumption that roads==bad and streets==good, when having good roads and parking structures can relieve the pressure and allow your streets to be streets. At least in the short-term, and in the long-term you are going to want to keeps some sort of arterial land strips for public transit use (in all but the most dense areas which can support subways). So making them roads now with a mix of buses and cars that gradually becomes more buses, and then possibly dedicated public transit makes for a good growth plan.

JadeNB 4y ago
> It is easy to build a city where you can reach everything you need within 15 minutes by car. I think getting to places by car is often not the hardest part. Instead, the hard part (at least from a user's perspective!) is storing all the cars for all the inhabitants of the city, both at their origin and their destination. This creates ballooning space requirements, including duplication of space (much residential parking will remain largely unused during the day, and much business parking will remain largely unused at night). Then, even after devoting as much space to cars as US cities do, one winds up unable to plan simply to drive to one's destination, but having also to devote significant planning to parking.

replygirl 4y ago

tell me you live in a busier part of a global city without telling me you live in a busier part of a global city

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kuldeep_kap 4y ago

100% agree. If anyone is interested here is great video on [Autoluw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXNVnftaNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXNVnftaNs). This is what US needs, but I dont see this happening due america's car-centric culture.

jcranmer 4y ago

A car-centric 15-minute city is actually quite possible. Something like Urbana-Champaign could well qualify. It's basically a stretch of suburbia centered around a university, which ends up being inherently pretty walkable to boot too.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

Depends on the size of the city, I suppose. A 15 minute car city like New York or London is almost certainly impossible. In a comparatively-suburban "city", it's absolutely possible and probably fairly common. Of course, you'll likely have to leave the city far more frequently, and those trips may take longer than 15 minutes. By contrast, you could easily spend your entire life in New York without ever leaving city limits.

eru 4y ago

Just do congestion charging.