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>Do we want 100-people in a neighborhood driving 100x cars to a store? Or would we rather have 1x large truck deliver a (heavier) package to 100x different peop

• beedeebeedee 3y ago
  > Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck? Single-use zoning. Most people in the US live in areas where you can't walk to a store.
  • doubled112 3y ago
    The nearest store is a 45 minute walk (one way) from my townhouse. I'm not in the US, but Canada. Driving drops that to 8 minutes. The sprawl is real and I just don't always have 1.5 hours to dedicate to grabbing bread.
    • mzmzmzm 3y ago
      This kind of gets at the root of the problem. Take away cars, and the whole North American built environment is just not worth as much as the pyramid scheme of real estate we have in place of social safety nets.
    • ryukafalz 3y ago
      > The nearest store is a 45 minute walk (one way) from my townhouse. I'm not in the US, but Canada. Driving drops that to 8 minutes. Assuming an average adult walking speed of 3 mph, I'm guessing that's somewhere in the ballpark of 2.25 miles? So something like 11 minutes at an average cycling speed of 12 mph, yeah? The distances here don't feel insurmountable.
      • doubled112 3y ago
        It isn't the distance that is insurmountable by bike, no. Alone it would be fine, I know what I'm doing. If I add my children to the mix, it is a little sketchy due to what I'd consider tricky spots. There are no sidewalks, no bike lanes, no curbs, a squeeze over a bridge where two cars won't fit around the corner simultaneously, and a couple of roundabouts that drivers just don't understand (one normal, one mini). I can't quite trust them to do the right things. The drivers or my children in this instance.
        • ryukafalz 3y ago
          Sure, I don't doubt that the infrastructure is terrible for cycling. It is where I live in the US too. But I think it's worth calling out that the distances involved often are well-suited for cycling, even if the streets today aren't. Where the distances are okay but the streets aren't, safer streets can make cycling feasible. Where the distances are too far for cycling, you need both safer streets and a shift in land use to get people out of their cars. Both are doable in the long term, but the former is much more tractable in the short- and medium-term.
  • undersuit 3y ago
    Yes now, but I have assume to were talking about improvements and the future of "walking, biking and public transportation" since adunw started this thread with that sentiment.
    • slackwaredragon 3y ago
      A lot of people can't look beyond their own generation and if it's something that takes 20-30 years to realize they just simply think it's too difficult. I see this with my generation (Gen-X), newer generations and even older generations.
  • seanp2k2 3y ago
    For example, San Jose: https://youtu.be/SWtb3GsLrTI https://youtu.be/SWtb3GsLrTI
• dataflow 3y ago
  How far do you think people should be willing to walk to a store?
  • undersuit 3y ago
    People should walk as far as they are willing to walk.
    • CableNinja 3y ago
      As i mentioned in my other post. Thats not far for most people. More than 1/4 mile and people will not hesitate to get the car
      • swores 3y ago
        I'm sure there are many people for whom that is true, but there are also many people who would laugh at the idea of driving two miles instead of walking, or laugh at the idea of driving six miles instead of cycling (even with a bag or two of shopping). I think a lot of the difference between people comes down to their childhood - what they learned as default behaviour. Though obviously people can change as they grow up too, either personality wise or having health/physical reasons they either can't walk far or can't drive at all. But my point is that just because some people feel that 3 minutes is the maximum time for walking before a car should be used instead it doesn't mean that short distance is an immutable fact, and many people could get used to walking slightly further distances and discover that no only is it not the end of the world, but it's even a good way to stay or become a bit fitter and healthier!
      • Animatronio 3y ago
        I was just thinking - why don't they make electrified coin-operated shopping carts that you can take home and return when you're done with them? That would greatly extend the carrying capacity of a single person and maybe make car trips redundant.
        • desas 3y ago
• jayd16 3y ago
  I wouldn't mind walking to the store now and then but usually I make fewer trips for more than I could carry.
  • undersuit 3y ago
    So you're going to drive a multi-ton vehicle instead of bringing a folding cart?
    • lazide 3y ago
      When it’s easier and (value of time) cheaper, why not?
      • undersuit 3y ago
        You seem to have different issues than the person I'm replying to. Maybe your situation is different. If you nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away by walking maybe your situation requires a different solution than someone who has expressed interest to walk but stated that they might buy too many groceries to walk that home.
        • lazide 3y ago
          Nope. A car is convenient (the comment I was replying too) in both situations! Weird, eh?
          • undersuit 3y ago
            I find it convenient to walk to my grocery store. It's inconvenient to have too many groceries regardless of my conveyance home.
            • lazide 3y ago
              Too many groceries to conveniently carry by hand in one go != too many. For some of us, anyway.
• dragontamer 3y ago
  My overall point is that the "last mile" we're just screwed unless we fundamentally redesign our neighborhoods and shape of our cities. Its pretty damn obvious that as the USA is laid out right now, we don't have any good last-mile solutions outside of 100x different people driving to the same store and picking up what they want. And its not like houses are going to pick themselves up and move to a store, and given zoning laws no one is going to move a store into a neighborhood either. (People won't like the crime that comes with it). So whatever, that's that. I don't see this issue changing. But I do think that the truck/rail situation can change. Fewer people are in the decision-making process for train vs truck, and factories can be designed (and/or redesigned) to fit trains. I'd assume that its easier to convince one or two factory owners to switch from truck-based to train-based logistics... rather than convincing 100x homehowners to vote at the next HOA meeting to start a city-campaign legal change to change the local zoning laws and possibly lower everyone's housing values by increasing crime in the neighborhood during this rise in shoplifting going on right now...
  • bobthepanda 3y ago
    IIRC there is a push in some areas to switch to e-bikes; while they carry less, you also don’t need a CDL to ride a bicycle and there is a chronic shortage of CDL drivers.
    • nerdponx 3y ago
      There's no shortage of anything except training and wages/benefits. At some point, companies are going to have to bite the bullet and start training their own employees. The horror!
      • bobthepanda 3y ago
        There is a legitimate lack, partially because the federal guidelines for holding a CDL rule out anyone who uses marijuana.
        • nerdponx 3y ago
• CableNinja 3y ago
  Housing density, and radius of "walkable" to the average human. I live in a neighborhood full of small apartments, single level duplexes, and single family homes. What stores are walkable? The liquor store, and gas station, and if i really feel like it, dominos and 7-11, both of which are at least 1/4 mile one way. Most others in this area, dont get those even. Past that its about a mile one way to the actual grocery store. And then after all the shopping, i have to walk back, now with 50+lbs of groceries. Honestly, all this we need more walkable cities stuff, i get it, yes, you should be able to get places by walking, but really, its just not even feasible most times if youre going to be buying something. Im not gonna walk home from best buy 4+ miles away heaving a huge TV on my back, no one will. We invented transportation that didnt involve humans using their legs because we are slow, and easily over encumbered when carrying things. Theres a reason we saw an explosion of carriages way back. Its easier to haul more, and much faster, than if a person, or even many people at once, were to do it. Housing density is a huge factor in a lot of this, but having swaths of tall purely apartment buildings is also not the answer. People want single family homes and other styles for many reasons. They wont be going away anytime soon. And even if they did, the only answer is very mixed use zoning. One of my favorite examples, in downtown Denver, there is a tall apartment building, stacked on top of a large chain grocery store, it includes parking for the store, and spots for the building, under the building too. This is what i would consider peak use, and what people complain about walkable cities really need to focus on. Having a city you can walk anywhere is great, but you need to be able to get to the societal needs without having to walk far. Of course the grocery store also serves for a large part of that neighborhood, and distance to the store is a variable, but this mainly serves multiple buildings in a small area. The big problem is all the space we waste dedicating to parking. It might be more expensive, but you can gain a lot more use if you force parking lots to have shops above/below them, and that reclaimed flat land can then be used for the mixed use building. Parking is also not going away, like i said, we invented carriages for a reason. Howwwweeeeevvvveeerrr all of this comes with a number of caveats, like the ridiculous price to lease a storefront, build the building, etc, and of course its just a feedback loop that gets worse as we waste more space, space becomes premium. All of this is to sum up my point, walkability is variable by person, and changes greatly depending on if youre going to have to be carrying things, and theres never going to be good "walkable" cities, short of nuking a city and starting over, you wont make it vastly better, especially with the politicians and government we have now.
• deleted 3y ago
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