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The automotive industry has put a ton of work into pedestrian safety with frontal impacts. The car is required in a developing country like the US. There is so

by winrid 4y ago

The automotive industry has put a ton of work into pedestrian safety with frontal impacts. The car is required in a developing country like the US. There is so much space between things still. Our grandparents wanted to get to work and travel. Hard to blame them. Also, so far, MAD has greatly reduced the number of big wars. It's hard to predict the future, but nuclear weapons so far have provided a lot of peace.

Doxin 4y ago
The car is only a hard requirement in the US because the country is designed for it to be a hard requirement. It's not some intrinsic fact of reality.
tyihde 4y ago
Idk... It's part of the culture in the US and seems to be getting worse lately. As an example, I love the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, but after the pandemic they instituted this policy that pedestrians were no longer allowed to walk on the 3 Mile Drive. This is a service-type road throughout a park that people routinely walked on for decades. Not in a minor way either: it's a major pathway through the park that the park is designed around in many ways. It's difficult to not walk on the drive. People also like to drive on it to look at the landscaping, and use it to get to locations in the arboretum. It really seemed to me that some wealthy benefactor complained to the arboretum about pedestrians as they were driving around, and the park in the process banned the pedestrians. In the process they immediately made the place much more pedestrian hostile. It's difficult to describe how absurd this is if you haven't been there, given the layout and history. They also used to routinely have fundraiser 5ks on it and no longer do, etc. It's like they're literally moving to prioritize cars in the landscape in a park for landscaping. This is after also limiting the density of visitors as well by requiring reservations. Anyway, this is a place I love and I am really disappointed in in the last couple of years (I could go on about a couple of other things). It's partially a personal rant, but it's also to me a very good example of how cultural norms in the US are very car-centric and that trend seems to be increasing lately.
- winrid 4y ago
  That sounds like a lobbying problem more than a car problem. Fix the broken lobbying system in this country and that solves your issue.
Night_Thastus 4y ago
That car is not inherently required. It's required because US cities are designed around cars. There's a great channel called "Not just bikes" that demonstrates what cities look like that don't follow this pattern. Denser buildings, narrower and fewer lanes, less space wasted on parking, better pedestrian crossings and islands, better signaling/timing for pedestrians, etc. Those cities have lower noise, lower pollution, better economics (road maintenance is a massive cost) and are way safer.
- winrid 4y ago
  Everyone on HN keeps saying cities. Cities this, cities that. Sure, maybe it's an ideal from an efficiency standpoint. But guess what, a lot of people in the US don't live in cities. Most of the country consists of space that is not cities. Most of the people I know live in these places, all across the country.

by winrid 4y ago

Doxin 4y ago

The car is only a hard requirement in the US because the country is designed for it to be a hard requirement. It's not some intrinsic fact of reality.

tyihde 4y ago

Idk... It's part of the culture in the US and seems to be getting worse lately. As an example, I love the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, but after the pandemic they instituted this policy that pedestrians were no longer allowed to walk on the 3 Mile Drive. This is a service-type road throughout a park that people routinely walked on for decades. Not in a minor way either: it's a major pathway through the park that the park is designed around in many ways. It's difficult to not walk on the drive. People also like to drive on it to look at the landscaping, and use it to get to locations in the arboretum. It really seemed to me that some wealthy benefactor complained to the arboretum about pedestrians as they were driving around, and the park in the process banned the pedestrians. In the process they immediately made the place much more pedestrian hostile. It's difficult to describe how absurd this is if you haven't been there, given the layout and history. They also used to routinely have fundraiser 5ks on it and no longer do, etc. It's like they're literally moving to prioritize cars in the landscape in a park for landscaping. This is after also limiting the density of visitors as well by requiring reservations. Anyway, this is a place I love and I am really disappointed in in the last couple of years (I could go on about a couple of other things). It's partially a personal rant, but it's also to me a very good example of how cultural norms in the US are very car-centric and that trend seems to be increasing lately.

winrid 4y ago
That sounds like a lobbying problem more than a car problem. Fix the broken lobbying system in this country and that solves your issue.

Night_Thastus 4y ago

That car is not inherently required. It's required because US cities are designed around cars. There's a great channel called "Not just bikes" that demonstrates what cities look like that don't follow this pattern. Denser buildings, narrower and fewer lanes, less space wasted on parking, better pedestrian crossings and islands, better signaling/timing for pedestrians, etc. Those cities have lower noise, lower pollution, better economics (road maintenance is a massive cost) and are way safer.

winrid 4y ago
Everyone on HN keeps saying cities. Cities this, cities that. Sure, maybe it's an ideal from an efficiency standpoint. But guess what, a lot of people in the US don't live in cities. Most of the country consists of space that is not cities. Most of the people I know live in these places, all across the country.