19 ms·

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience i

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Here are some other examples of things that I think contribute to the hostile walking experience in the US: * Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that. * Cars have much higher and stronger headlights, with the high beams often left on, and drivers are generally much less mindful of them. As a pedestrian walking at night on under-lit streets, you are constantly getting blinded. * Tinted windows (even the mild level of tint that most cars in the US have). The whole experience of being a lone vulnerable pedestrian among a sea of cars is made even worse when you can't see the people in the cars (but you know they can see you). * Often the only option to get food late at night are fast food places, which become drive-thru only after a certain time. Having to go through the drive-thru on foot is obviously a terrible experience, and they will often refuse to even serve you.

cafard 3y ago
Actually, the tinted windows worry me because I don't know whether the drivers do see me. Vanishingly few drivers would deliberately run over a pedestrian, but plenty are distracted or otherwise inattentive.
IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
really? Tokyo is very oriented towards pedestrian traffic, considering shinkansen and most rail service - yet satellite suburban sites, like Saitama, etc have tiny residential rows that literally don't fit both a car and a pedestrian. And that's where most people live. Yet Japan is highly pedestrian. Now, South America. Most if not all urban centers of 1M are extremely well covered by bus networks. And they have to, since most of the population cannot afford a car. However, the moment you step off the old city centers, you are literally walking on the main road, sharing space with speeding cards and buses driving like maniacs. You will often find a major road has literally no sidewalk, only dirt, weeds and sewage. Compared to those situations, the US is a walking paradise. The problem of distance is very different from the problem of safety and confort in the US
- bichiliad 3y ago
  You can find a ton of much worse examples than the US, but the US is just vastly far behind Europe (i.e. Spain, to which OP was comparing the US to). Plus, it's worth mentioning that while Tokyo has a lot of mixed-traffic streets, the streets are small, have very low speed limits, and have strong restrictions on the size and type of car that can actually be within the city. It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    Unpopular opinion: We (US) should stop subsidizing Europe's security while they are better than us and can afford to do so. https://cvafoundation.org/does-the-us-subsidize-european-defense-nato-burden-sharing/ https://cvafoundation.org/does-the-us-subsidize-european-def...
    - laserlight 3y ago
      Did you reply to the wrong thread? Where did defense subsidies come from?
      - InertBrake 3y ago
        Without really reading the article, I think maybe the parent's point is that the US basically pays for large portions of defense and security of Europe, especially when it comes to the need for blue water navies to protect trade. That frees up a lot of time, money, and manpower for them to spend on not defense, and spend instead on infrastructure and nice things. It's also nice that another effect Pax Americana has contributed to is that the majority of Europe has stopped starting progress-destroying wars with each other every two decades. The US doesn't get that benefit as the self-employed enforcer, and I'm sure we're all aware of how insanely massive the defense budget is.
        tremon 3y ago
        So the argument is actually that the US can't have livable cities because they spend all that money defending Europe? Because of the implicit assumption that European-style cities are more expensive in upkeep than current US cities?
mm007emko 3y ago
"Often refuse to serve you" means that they sometimes do? I tried to go through a drive-thru on a bicycle in Czechia and they told me to fuck off.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Was drive-thru the only late night food option in that bit of Czechia? That felt like the pertinent part, not being able to get any in some places. (Here in Berlin I have to plan around Sunday trading rules in a way I didn't back in the UK, but we have Spätis, so there are options).
  - simfree 3y ago
    Some cities like Portland, Oregon have made it a violation of city code to refuse to serve pedestrians and bicyclists through the Drive Through window if the lobby is closed. There are still some businesses that violate this, but at least you can report it and they will be fined, and threatened with revocation of their business license.
    - klardotsh 3y ago
      Good. Let's make this federal law. These restrictions are ridiculous and we stand no chance of eliminating car culture without eliminating them. I wish I was kidding, and I wish it were just a trollish joke to say "you should be able to bike through Taco Bell at 2am", but if we're gonna eliminate car culture in the US, we can't just do it in the downtown cores of Chicago, NYC, Seattle, SF, etc. We gotta do it everywhere, and a lot of "everywhere" in the US is drive-thru this and drive-thru that, especially once you get out into the boonies (which of course need more infrastructure work to become bike friendly in their current states, but also, rural bike trails can and should exist, but there'll be little reason to use them if you can't stop anywhere along the way to take a break - and the rabbit hole continues from here)
  - DangitBobby 3y ago
    After 9 or 10 PM that's exactly how it is here in TN, USA. Dine in is closed and the drive through won't take you on foot or on a bike. I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People.
cstejerean 3y ago
The first one doesn't seem unique to the US. I just spent the last 2 months i Europe and on many side streets there is no place to safely stop a car which means pulling into the sidewalk is the only option. So I frequently had to step into the street to walk around a stopped delivery van or similar.
- elric 3y ago
  You're probably not supposed to stop a car in those places, and when you do, you're supposed to stop on the road, never on the sidewalk. Steep fines for that in Belgium at least, though the odds of getting caught are slim.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    It's illegal in the US to block the sidewalk with a car and it's one of the few things cities will actually enforce aggressively -- if they don't, they can be sued for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
    - inferiorhuman 3y ago
      At least in San Francsico this is very rarely enforced. What I've seen professionally and personally is that cities will ticket the easy stuff. Street cleaning is at the top of that list followed by time-based red zones.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- lrem 3y ago
  In most places that's illegal and they'd be risking a likely-too-low fine.
Mordisquitos 3y ago
> The whole experience of being a lone vulnerable pedestrian among a sea of cars is made even worse when you can't see the people in the cars (but you know they can see you). It's even worse than that. You don't know they can see you, you know they could see you but you cannot know if they do see you. That's terrible for pedestrian safety.
tvaughan 3y ago
> I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Same. I’ve lived in Los Ángeles and Amsterdam, and it is impossible to explain to my friends and family just how awful the quality of life is in LA precisely because of the difference in attitudes and priorities over cars. Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam, but once they leave their front door everything is objectively worse
- grecy 3y ago
  Every time a politician anywhere in the world suggests adding more freeways or more lanes to freeways, I think they should be forced to live in LA for a year and do a ~1 hour commute each way in traffic. They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.
  - fnimick 3y ago
    I had a conversation recently with someone lamenting that we didn't have roads like LA here in Boston. Saying their ideal road was 3 lanes, plus a bike lane, plus a bus lane in each direction. Imagine being a pedestrian trying to cross that! I really don't understand someone who looks at that traffic disaster and wants to build the same thing here at home.
    - Gibbon1 3y ago
      I feel like the more modes of transportation you mix together the worse the cognitive load on people. And it get rapidly worse the higher the density. Inside of a mall where there are only pedestrians is very safe. Freeways are fairly safe. Protected bike lanes are safe. Light rail is safe. Mix all of those on a strode, rail, buses, trucks, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, not safe.
      - atchoo 3y ago
        > the worse the cognitive load Or maybe better the cognitive load? There are various studies that show removing white lines and navigation furniture to make junctions more of a puzzle, decreases speeds and increases attention and safety.
ytdytvhxgydvhh 3y ago
Tinted windows are such a pet peeve of mine. I get it in the tropics but in most of America the individual benefits of dark tint seem like they’d be outweighed by the collective good of better visibility through cars, enabling eye contact with drivers, etc. The SUV craze is really to blame - in general many US states don’t allow dark tint on traditional cars but do on SUVs. And since rear windows on vans and light trucks (aka SUVs) are exempted from window tint restrictions, pull up to a typical intersection in the US and look around and you can’t see worth a damn. Somehow it’s ok for a Subaru Crosstrek to have dark tint but not an Impreza that is the same car but lower? There are even more weird situations like the Mercedes Benz GLA compact CUV which typically has tinted windows, but not the top-of-the-line AMG trim because that one has a lowered suspension, making it a “car” instead of a “light truck”.
- dymk 3y ago
  In most states (all?) it's illegal to have a tinted front window, yet people still have them, because it's not enforced. IMO cops should be citing people left and right for tinted windows and tinted license plate covers. You'd think they'd already be taking advantage of such an easy revenue source.
  - Kye 3y ago
    I doubt cops like pulling people they can't see over. They could be shot dead and never see the gun.
    - vivalasvega 3y ago
      Perhaps, then, those officers could get safer jobs doing something else, if they are unable to perform their duties. Or perhaps it could be harder to drive around freely with and conceal a deadly weapon. We have a lot of options other than "just let people break the law, I guess".
      - sndknd 3y ago
        Nope. “Let people break the law” is the new standard.
inferiorhuman 3y ago
just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here I ended up talking to some woman yesterday who mentioned she loved to come back to Oakland because of how walkable it is compared where she is now in the central valley. I was amused at the whole exchange because while Oakland and San Francisco do a decent job, they're by no means great. Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that. One of the big things I noticed when comparing the pedestrian experience in Manhattan (and to a lesser extent the outer boroughs) to San Francisco is that New York lacks the curb cuts that encourage this kind of behavior. You spend a lot less time walking around parked cars or having to keep an eye out for someone who's in a hurry to exit "their" driveway. In San Francisco, at least, there's a big tug of war about where your driveway ends and the curb begins. Suffice to say blocking the curb is one of those things that's almost never enforced. Also this: https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/155z0eo/friendly_reminder_that_our_sidewalks_used_to_be/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/155z0eo/frien...
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Damn, that’s some damning contrast. The city looks so much better without all the cars.
toddmorey 3y ago
Adding even MORE to the insult is this part from the article: "many agencies will simply remove pedestrian facilities to reduce the cost of compliance". I see that so often: having to cross the damn intersection three times just to continue across, and all the light timings favor cars. It's a big middle finger.
- rconti 3y ago
  I see this all the time. It makes me SO angry. They do the same thing for construction. "Oh, sorry, the bike lane is closed for the next 2 years. Sorry, sidewalk closed. Walk 10 more minutes for the next 2 years."
chrismcb 3y ago
It is illegal in most places to park a car on the sidewalk. I don't know of anyone, at least the big chains, that will serve a pedestrian in a drive thru. If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner. Oh I wish. On the contrary, it feels most everything closes around 9pm here and it hurts as a night owl. Heck, so many cafes seem to close around 6-7pm.
bit_logic 3y ago
People in this thread are really talking past each other. I've been to the nice Asian mega cities with great and clean subways and buses. And I've lived in the American suburbs. You can't make the American suburbs like the mega cities by just making them walkable. Everything in a mega city works together to make transit work. Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations. Also, the walk itself is so much more interesting, random stores to stop at and places to eat and go to. Density makes transit work. You can't just put random stores in a suburb and make it "walkable" and expect the same thing. Just as everything in a mega city works together to make transit work, everything in a suburb works together to make cars work. We need to give up on the mass transit solutions that work for dense cities (subways and buses) for suburbs. It's a waste of money and completely the wrong solution. It hasn't worked for decades and never will. Shut down bus systems for suburbs and use the government funds to give out ride sharing (either Uber or government run) credits for everyone to use (low income can get more credits). That's what a suburb is designed for, point-to-point travel such as cars. And invest massively in real protected, useful bike lanes and stop trying to kill e-bikes with regulations (which a lot of cities are trying to do). e-bikes are finally a real alternative to cars in suburbs, it has just the right amount of travel speed and ease to challenge the car, but it's already under attack. Ride sharing credits and e-bikes, these are the solutions for suburbs. Stop trying to fit a square peg (buses and subways) into a round hole.
- 113 3y ago
  >Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations. Did you just make this whole post up? This is obviously wrong.
asm0dey 3y ago
Well, TBH in Europe you usually don't have an option to get food late at night :)
Forgeties79 3y ago
I’ve never heard the experience described as “humiliating,” which is incredibly surprising because just seeing that written out (and your thoughtful elaboration) made a lot of things click into place for me.

cafard 3y ago

Actually, the tinted windows worry me because I don't know whether the drivers do see me. Vanishingly few drivers would deliberately run over a pedestrian, but plenty are distracted or otherwise inattentive.

IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago

really? Tokyo is very oriented towards pedestrian traffic, considering shinkansen and most rail service - yet satellite suburban sites, like Saitama, etc have tiny residential rows that literally don't fit both a car and a pedestrian. And that's where most people live. Yet Japan is highly pedestrian. Now, South America. Most if not all urban centers of 1M are extremely well covered by bus networks. And they have to, since most of the population cannot afford a car. However, the moment you step off the old city centers, you are literally walking on the main road, sharing space with speeding cards and buses driving like maniacs. You will often find a major road has literally no sidewalk, only dirt, weeds and sewage. Compared to those situations, the US is a walking paradise. The problem of distance is very different from the problem of safety and confort in the US

bichiliad 3y ago
You can find a ton of much worse examples than the US, but the US is just vastly far behind Europe (i.e. Spain, to which OP was comparing the US to). Plus, it's worth mentioning that while Tokyo has a lot of mixed-traffic streets, the streets are small, have very low speed limits, and have strong restrictions on the size and type of car that can actually be within the city. It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  Unpopular opinion: We (US) should stop subsidizing Europe's security while they are better than us and can afford to do so. https://cvafoundation.org/does-the-us-subsidize-european-defense-nato-burden-sharing/ https://cvafoundation.org/does-the-us-subsidize-european-def...
  - laserlight 3y ago
    Did you reply to the wrong thread? Where did defense subsidies come from?
    - InertBrake 3y ago
      Without really reading the article, I think maybe the parent's point is that the US basically pays for large portions of defense and security of Europe, especially when it comes to the need for blue water navies to protect trade. That frees up a lot of time, money, and manpower for them to spend on not defense, and spend instead on infrastructure and nice things. It's also nice that another effect Pax Americana has contributed to is that the majority of Europe has stopped starting progress-destroying wars with each other every two decades. The US doesn't get that benefit as the self-employed enforcer, and I'm sure we're all aware of how insanely massive the defense budget is.
      - tremon 3y ago
        So the argument is actually that the US can't have livable cities because they spend all that money defending Europe? Because of the implicit assumption that European-style cities are more expensive in upkeep than current US cities?

mm007emko 3y ago

"Often refuse to serve you" means that they sometimes do? I tried to go through a drive-thru on a bicycle in Czechia and they told me to fuck off.

ben_w 3y ago
Was drive-thru the only late night food option in that bit of Czechia? That felt like the pertinent part, not being able to get any in some places. (Here in Berlin I have to plan around Sunday trading rules in a way I didn't back in the UK, but we have Spätis, so there are options).
- simfree 3y ago
  Some cities like Portland, Oregon have made it a violation of city code to refuse to serve pedestrians and bicyclists through the Drive Through window if the lobby is closed. There are still some businesses that violate this, but at least you can report it and they will be fined, and threatened with revocation of their business license.
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    Good. Let's make this federal law. These restrictions are ridiculous and we stand no chance of eliminating car culture without eliminating them. I wish I was kidding, and I wish it were just a trollish joke to say "you should be able to bike through Taco Bell at 2am", but if we're gonna eliminate car culture in the US, we can't just do it in the downtown cores of Chicago, NYC, Seattle, SF, etc. We gotta do it everywhere, and a lot of "everywhere" in the US is drive-thru this and drive-thru that, especially once you get out into the boonies (which of course need more infrastructure work to become bike friendly in their current states, but also, rural bike trails can and should exist, but there'll be little reason to use them if you can't stop anywhere along the way to take a break - and the rabbit hole continues from here)
- DangitBobby 3y ago
  After 9 or 10 PM that's exactly how it is here in TN, USA. Dine in is closed and the drive through won't take you on foot or on a bike. I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People.

cstejerean 3y ago

The first one doesn't seem unique to the US. I just spent the last 2 months i Europe and on many side streets there is no place to safely stop a car which means pulling into the sidewalk is the only option. So I frequently had to step into the street to walk around a stopped delivery van or similar.

elric 3y ago
You're probably not supposed to stop a car in those places, and when you do, you're supposed to stop on the road, never on the sidewalk. Steep fines for that in Belgium at least, though the odds of getting caught are slim.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  It's illegal in the US to block the sidewalk with a car and it's one of the few things cities will actually enforce aggressively -- if they don't, they can be sued for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
  - inferiorhuman 3y ago
    At least in San Francsico this is very rarely enforced. What I've seen professionally and personally is that cities will ticket the easy stuff. Street cleaning is at the top of that list followed by time-based red zones.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
lrem 3y ago
In most places that's illegal and they'd be risking a likely-too-low fine.

Mordisquitos 3y ago

> The whole experience of being a lone vulnerable pedestrian among a sea of cars is made even worse when you can't see the people in the cars (but you know they can see you). It's even worse than that. You don't know they can see you, you know they could see you but you cannot know if they do see you. That's terrible for pedestrian safety.

tvaughan 3y ago

> I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Same. I’ve lived in Los Ángeles and Amsterdam, and it is impossible to explain to my friends and family just how awful the quality of life is in LA precisely because of the difference in attitudes and priorities over cars. Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam, but once they leave their front door everything is objectively worse

grecy 3y ago
Every time a politician anywhere in the world suggests adding more freeways or more lanes to freeways, I think they should be forced to live in LA for a year and do a ~1 hour commute each way in traffic. They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.
- fnimick 3y ago
  I had a conversation recently with someone lamenting that we didn't have roads like LA here in Boston. Saying their ideal road was 3 lanes, plus a bike lane, plus a bus lane in each direction. Imagine being a pedestrian trying to cross that! I really don't understand someone who looks at that traffic disaster and wants to build the same thing here at home.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    I feel like the more modes of transportation you mix together the worse the cognitive load on people. And it get rapidly worse the higher the density. Inside of a mall where there are only pedestrians is very safe. Freeways are fairly safe. Protected bike lanes are safe. Light rail is safe. Mix all of those on a strode, rail, buses, trucks, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, not safe.
    - atchoo 3y ago
      > the worse the cognitive load Or maybe better the cognitive load? There are various studies that show removing white lines and navigation furniture to make junctions more of a puzzle, decreases speeds and increases attention and safety.

ytdytvhxgydvhh 3y ago

Tinted windows are such a pet peeve of mine. I get it in the tropics but in most of America the individual benefits of dark tint seem like they’d be outweighed by the collective good of better visibility through cars, enabling eye contact with drivers, etc. The SUV craze is really to blame - in general many US states don’t allow dark tint on traditional cars but do on SUVs. And since rear windows on vans and light trucks (aka SUVs) are exempted from window tint restrictions, pull up to a typical intersection in the US and look around and you can’t see worth a damn. Somehow it’s ok for a Subaru Crosstrek to have dark tint but not an Impreza that is the same car but lower? There are even more weird situations like the Mercedes Benz GLA compact CUV which typically has tinted windows, but not the top-of-the-line AMG trim because that one has a lowered suspension, making it a “car” instead of a “light truck”.

dymk 3y ago
In most states (all?) it's illegal to have a tinted front window, yet people still have them, because it's not enforced. IMO cops should be citing people left and right for tinted windows and tinted license plate covers. You'd think they'd already be taking advantage of such an easy revenue source.
- Kye 3y ago
  I doubt cops like pulling people they can't see over. They could be shot dead and never see the gun.
  - vivalasvega 3y ago
    Perhaps, then, those officers could get safer jobs doing something else, if they are unable to perform their duties. Or perhaps it could be harder to drive around freely with and conceal a deadly weapon. We have a lot of options other than "just let people break the law, I guess".
    - sndknd 3y ago
      Nope. “Let people break the law” is the new standard.

inferiorhuman 3y ago

just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here I ended up talking to some woman yesterday who mentioned she loved to come back to Oakland because of how walkable it is compared where she is now in the central valley. I was amused at the whole exchange because while Oakland and San Francisco do a decent job, they're by no means great. Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that. One of the big things I noticed when comparing the pedestrian experience in Manhattan (and to a lesser extent the outer boroughs) to San Francisco is that New York lacks the curb cuts that encourage this kind of behavior. You spend a lot less time walking around parked cars or having to keep an eye out for someone who's in a hurry to exit "their" driveway. In San Francisco, at least, there's a big tug of war about where your driveway ends and the curb begins. Suffice to say blocking the curb is one of those things that's almost never enforced. Also this: https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/155z0eo/friendly_reminder_that_our_sidewalks_used_to_be/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/155z0eo/frien...

Aeolun 3y ago
Damn, that’s some damning contrast. The city looks so much better without all the cars.

toddmorey 3y ago

Adding even MORE to the insult is this part from the article: "many agencies will simply remove pedestrian facilities to reduce the cost of compliance". I see that so often: having to cross the damn intersection three times just to continue across, and all the light timings favor cars. It's a big middle finger.

rconti 3y ago
I see this all the time. It makes me SO angry. They do the same thing for construction. "Oh, sorry, the bike lane is closed for the next 2 years. Sorry, sidewalk closed. Walk 10 more minutes for the next 2 years."

chrismcb 3y ago

It is illegal in most places to park a car on the sidewalk. I don't know of anyone, at least the big chains, that will serve a pedestrian in a drive thru. If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner. Oh I wish. On the contrary, it feels most everything closes around 9pm here and it hurts as a night owl. Heck, so many cafes seem to close around 6-7pm.

bit_logic 3y ago

People in this thread are really talking past each other. I've been to the nice Asian mega cities with great and clean subways and buses. And I've lived in the American suburbs. You can't make the American suburbs like the mega cities by just making them walkable. Everything in a mega city works together to make transit work. Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations. Also, the walk itself is so much more interesting, random stores to stop at and places to eat and go to. Density makes transit work. You can't just put random stores in a suburb and make it "walkable" and expect the same thing. Just as everything in a mega city works together to make transit work, everything in a suburb works together to make cars work. We need to give up on the mass transit solutions that work for dense cities (subways and buses) for suburbs. It's a waste of money and completely the wrong solution. It hasn't worked for decades and never will. Shut down bus systems for suburbs and use the government funds to give out ride sharing (either Uber or government run) credits for everyone to use (low income can get more credits). That's what a suburb is designed for, point-to-point travel such as cars. And invest massively in real protected, useful bike lanes and stop trying to kill e-bikes with regulations (which a lot of cities are trying to do). e-bikes are finally a real alternative to cars in suburbs, it has just the right amount of travel speed and ease to challenge the car, but it's already under attack. Ride sharing credits and e-bikes, these are the solutions for suburbs. Stop trying to fit a square peg (buses and subways) into a round hole.

113 3y ago
>Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations. Did you just make this whole post up? This is obviously wrong.

asm0dey 3y ago

Well, TBH in Europe you usually don't have an option to get food late at night :)

Forgeties79 3y ago

I’ve never heard the experience described as “humiliating,” which is incredibly surprising because just seeing that written out (and your thoughtful elaboration) made a lot of things click into place for me.