4 ms·

Walkable/bikeable urban and suburban planning. Living closer to work. Delivery services. Scooters, motorcycles, cargo bikes, light rail, buses, cars for hire

by gamache 13y ago

Walkable/bikeable urban and suburban planning. Living closer to work. Delivery services. Scooters, motorcycles, cargo bikes, light rail, buses, cars for hire.

pyre 13y ago
> Living closer to work You better fix the housing situation first in some areas (cough Bay Area cough).
- rtpg 13y ago
  Isn't a big problem in the Bay Area is that a lot of people living in SF don't work there? In that case, if everyone in google lived next to the googleplex that would free up their appartments for the guy working at the deli downtown.
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    The daytime population of San Francisco is much higher than the actual number of residents, so no, this isn't the problem. If the daytime population was lower then you'd be on to something. Google has repeatedly tried to stimulate residential construction in Mountain View but the city of Mountain View just doesn't want it. We're all waiting for windshield perspective baby boomers to just hurry up and die so we can have proper urban forms on the peninsula. And I'm not talking about high rise, I'm talking about 3-5 stories over street level retail. Mountain View currently has lots of single-story and surface parking lots, even in their "downtown" which I reckon to be at Castro and Villa.
- saraid216 13y ago
  The Bay Area is basically the epitome is car-based planning gone horribly, horribly wrong. I am told you have similar circumstances in Atlanta and Houston, but I haven't seen them first hand.
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    I think it varies, actually. Nearly everything on the peninsula, and everything in the East Bay south of Oakland is pure car dependence. But SF, Oakland, and Berkeley grew up in the streetcar era and are still walkable with decent rail and bus service that can be readily improved when the cheap oil interval finally ends. The string of little towns from Concord to Walnut Creek to Alamo and Danville have walkable nuggets at the core of their sprawls and these can easily be connected by streetcar on the old Santa Fe rights of way if anyone wants to. Livermore also has a proper downtown and even mainline rail service to San Jose. Plus Livermore is dead level and you can bike all over it in no time. When driving becomes too expensive there is definitely going to be a lot of abandoned sprawl but there's also plenty of decent places to live. By definition, few people live in the sprawl. It's a shame that they wasted so much of their and your money building out those subdivisions in the middle of nowhere, but that's a sunk cost now.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    SF is not a car-based planning problem. SF is a NIMBY-ism gone the way it always goes.
    - _delirium 13y ago
      The Valley sort of is a transit problem, more than SF. Although SF's lack of a crosstown subway doesn't help: the N-Judah streetcar plus the Geary bus, between them add up to a pretty poor crosstown transit situation. But the Valley explicitly opted out of BART and used the money to build county expressways instead (San Tomas, etc.), which is one of several reasons that it's a sprawling mess. NIMBY-ism is also a problem in the few places of the Valley that do have decent transport, though I think it's the secondary problem. One place it's noticeable is Palo Alto: why isn't there high density housing near the Palo Alto Caltrain station (which is also conveniently near Stanford and a number of tech companies)? Because Palo Alto homeowners don't want anyone with less than a $1m house to live there. However afaik this is a minority situation in the Valley, and most of it just doesn't have decent transit that could attract high-density housing in the first place. San Jose has also been more development-friendly, although it's too bad there that the VTA light rail is so near-useless, or that area could plausibly have a more urban feel.
VLM 13y ago
Other than the car4hire thing which if required by over 90% of the population amounts to just inserting an intermediary along with all the costs, whats the solution above 80F and below 50F? Icy roads and 10F this morning, no big deal for my car, but everything on your list is a non-starter. Also no kids or elderly or handicapped or... It might be that what works perfectly for 20-somethings in socal doesn't work anywhere else for anyone else. Finally I already live as close to work as financially possible, and its about 20 minutes. And I'm a very well compensated senior developer-type person. I can't live any closer and I'm fairly wealthy, the median income dude is going to have to live much further away.
- gamache 13y ago
  You're asking the wrong guy about weather -- I bike year-round in Boston. There are other people doing it on other vehicles I mentioned. And I assure you, children and the elderly manage to survive carfree in cities, towns, and villages all over the world. Quite comfortably, in many cases. I don't consider a twenty-minute car commute very far at all, certainly not out of bicycle range.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    I don't consider a twenty-minute car commute very far at all, certainly not out of bicycle range. In many cases, what takes twenty minutes in a motorcage takes less time on a bicycle!
- smileysteve 13y ago
  the elderly and the handicapped are most likely to need public transportation or a walkable community. Both of these situations inhibit income (especially blue collar). A car that can pick up a wheel chair is not cheap.
ars 13y ago
I guess you don't have children.
- smileysteve 13y ago
  your comment is highly degrading to the significant portion of the population that can't afford cars and do have children. studies also show that children who venture on their own (walking and biking) establish greater independence and a better happiness index. (and more than likely fewer asthma /allergies if not in a car centric area )

by gamache 13y ago

Walkable/bikeable urban and suburban planning. Living closer to work. Delivery services. Scooters, motorcycles, cargo bikes, light rail, buses, cars for hire.

pyre 13y ago

> Living closer to work You better fix the housing situation first in some areas (cough Bay Area cough).

rtpg 13y ago
Isn't a big problem in the Bay Area is that a lot of people living in SF don't work there? In that case, if everyone in google lived next to the googleplex that would free up their appartments for the guy working at the deli downtown.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  The daytime population of San Francisco is much higher than the actual number of residents, so no, this isn't the problem. If the daytime population was lower then you'd be on to something. Google has repeatedly tried to stimulate residential construction in Mountain View but the city of Mountain View just doesn't want it. We're all waiting for windshield perspective baby boomers to just hurry up and die so we can have proper urban forms on the peninsula. And I'm not talking about high rise, I'm talking about 3-5 stories over street level retail. Mountain View currently has lots of single-story and surface parking lots, even in their "downtown" which I reckon to be at Castro and Villa.
saraid216 13y ago
The Bay Area is basically the epitome is car-based planning gone horribly, horribly wrong. I am told you have similar circumstances in Atlanta and Houston, but I haven't seen them first hand.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  I think it varies, actually. Nearly everything on the peninsula, and everything in the East Bay south of Oakland is pure car dependence. But SF, Oakland, and Berkeley grew up in the streetcar era and are still walkable with decent rail and bus service that can be readily improved when the cheap oil interval finally ends. The string of little towns from Concord to Walnut Creek to Alamo and Danville have walkable nuggets at the core of their sprawls and these can easily be connected by streetcar on the old Santa Fe rights of way if anyone wants to. Livermore also has a proper downtown and even mainline rail service to San Jose. Plus Livermore is dead level and you can bike all over it in no time. When driving becomes too expensive there is definitely going to be a lot of abandoned sprawl but there's also plenty of decent places to live. By definition, few people live in the sprawl. It's a shame that they wasted so much of their and your money building out those subdivisions in the middle of nowhere, but that's a sunk cost now.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  SF is not a car-based planning problem. SF is a NIMBY-ism gone the way it always goes.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    The Valley sort of is a transit problem, more than SF. Although SF's lack of a crosstown subway doesn't help: the N-Judah streetcar plus the Geary bus, between them add up to a pretty poor crosstown transit situation. But the Valley explicitly opted out of BART and used the money to build county expressways instead (San Tomas, etc.), which is one of several reasons that it's a sprawling mess. NIMBY-ism is also a problem in the few places of the Valley that do have decent transport, though I think it's the secondary problem. One place it's noticeable is Palo Alto: why isn't there high density housing near the Palo Alto Caltrain station (which is also conveniently near Stanford and a number of tech companies)? Because Palo Alto homeowners don't want anyone with less than a $1m house to live there. However afaik this is a minority situation in the Valley, and most of it just doesn't have decent transit that could attract high-density housing in the first place. San Jose has also been more development-friendly, although it's too bad there that the VTA light rail is so near-useless, or that area could plausibly have a more urban feel.

VLM 13y ago

Other than the car4hire thing which if required by over 90% of the population amounts to just inserting an intermediary along with all the costs, whats the solution above 80F and below 50F? Icy roads and 10F this morning, no big deal for my car, but everything on your list is a non-starter. Also no kids or elderly or handicapped or... It might be that what works perfectly for 20-somethings in socal doesn't work anywhere else for anyone else. Finally I already live as close to work as financially possible, and its about 20 minutes. And I'm a very well compensated senior developer-type person. I can't live any closer and I'm fairly wealthy, the median income dude is going to have to live much further away.

gamache 13y ago
You're asking the wrong guy about weather -- I bike year-round in Boston. There are other people doing it on other vehicles I mentioned. And I assure you, children and the elderly manage to survive carfree in cities, towns, and villages all over the world. Quite comfortably, in many cases. I don't consider a twenty-minute car commute very far at all, certainly not out of bicycle range.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  I don't consider a twenty-minute car commute very far at all, certainly not out of bicycle range. In many cases, what takes twenty minutes in a motorcage takes less time on a bicycle!
smileysteve 13y ago
the elderly and the handicapped are most likely to need public transportation or a walkable community. Both of these situations inhibit income (especially blue collar). A car that can pick up a wheel chair is not cheap.

ars 13y ago

I guess you don't have children.

smileysteve 13y ago
your comment is highly degrading to the significant portion of the population that can't afford cars and do have children. studies also show that children who venture on their own (walking and biking) establish greater independence and a better happiness index. (and more than likely fewer asthma /allergies if not in a car centric area )