5 ms·
It isn't going to take "someone" – it is going to take a large cultural shift. Out of the top 10 largest cities in the US only three of them are livable withou
by jweir 13y ago
It isn't going to take "someone" – it is going to take a large cultural shift.
Out of the top 10 largest cities in the US only three of them are livable without a car - NY, Philadelphia and Chicago. (San Francisco is not in the top 10 for size)
Real estate developers like to build cheap and fast. Urban planners do what the book tells them. Public transportation is politically unpopular. And American's love, just love, their cars – don't do anything to get in the way (bike lanes, dedicated bus lanes, congestion pricing).
I do think that younger American's are more urban and are looking for a change. So we shall see what the future offers.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoI live in the Chicago suburbs. The CTA ("The El" and the bus lines) and the Metra (light rail to the suburbs) are just barely adequate to be called public transportation. I'm in SF often, and would say its easier to get around SF without a car than Chicago. Just my two cents. Demo: 30, male, owns a car but hates it. EDIT: Our bike lanes are coming along very well in downtown Chicago, and almost everyone loves the new Divvy bike sharing program.
- rayiner 13y agoI lived in Chicago for three years without a car. In terms of getting around downtown, the El is fine. METRA is far better for getting in from the suburbs than CalTrain.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoI think its all relative. I compare Chicago mass transit to London, Tokyo, and New York. Hard to compete with those cities.
- rayiner 13y agoSure, but you were comparing it to San Francisco.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoI forgot to add SF to that list. I admit most of time was on the BART and not on CalTrain.
- rayiner 13y agoThere is no way SF compares with New York, London or Tokyo. This is the BART map: http://sf.metblogs.com/archives/images/2008/02/big_bart_map.gif http://sf.metblogs.com/archives/images/2008/02/big_bart_map.... This is the El map: http://sites.williams.edu/thea228/files/2011/09/Chicago-El.jpg http://sites.williams.edu/thea228/files/2011/09/Chicago-El.j.... This is the New York subway map: http://images.nycsubway.org/maps/calcagno-2010-06-28c.gif http://images.nycsubway.org/maps/calcagno-2010-06-28c.gif There is no contest.
- tptacek 13y agoI like how the labels obscure the fact that BART just cuts a line through the city of San Francisco. Also funny is how the legend at the bottom of the map blots out the parts of south bay where everything actually is. Note also that the Chicago map is just a route map, and bears little relation to the geography of Chicago.
- tptacek 13y agoWhich suburb? There are great suburbs (Evanston, Oak Park) and there are awful ones (Plainfield, Schaumburg). Virtually nobody in our (sizable) office drives to work besides me, and I really have no excuse, since I'm a short walk from the Green Line. Public transportation is spotty in the suburbs, but in terms of coverage (both in space and time) the actual city of Chicago's system is among the best in the country. Is New York's better? Yes. But New York might be the only US city that can easily make that claim. There is no comparison to be made between Chicago and San Francisco, or between Chicago Metro and SFBA.
- wglb 13y agoBarely adequate? There are on the order of 200 metra stations radiating out from two major and two minor downtown stations. On the north line, folks commute from Kenosha. Because of the line into Indiana, some folks have a very short commute. I have worked downtown for the last four years, and only drive to Montana. Unclear to me what more than adequate might look like.