While taking a walk near downtown Austin, TX, a police car stopped next to me and the officers started asking weird questions. Including if I know where I am at, where I go, or is there someone who could help me with these apparent struggles in my life.
It took me a couple awkward minutes to realize that I'm the only one standing on my feet and not sitting in a car wherever I was looking. I apologized (???) and told them I was heading to a museum, bc I'm a visitor here and that's what we do right? I added a colleague's address and assured them that I'm not "confused", and will take an Uber now.
This was simply unbelievable in my world; for the next week I observed my colleague, whenever they took me out, or went to somewhere: we never walked outside. From the building to the parking lot, from the destination parking lot to the resto and vice versa.
Today, of course, I know that there are walkable cities too, I enjoy walking from my Chicago hotel to the office building :-) every single time I enjoy my US visits, but after a couple weeks I can't wait to get back to my 98% car free European life.
Had a somewhat similar experience in Houston (minus police), which seems to be a city whose infrastructure is comprised of one 9000-lane monstrosity of a freeway. I was staying in a hotel right across the street from the office I was working in, maybe a 3 minute walk. A coworker offered to give me a ride each morning, and when I mentioned I could just walk they said 'the only pedestrians around here are homeless people'. So I guess that's their general attitude about walking, which might explain the attention from police.
When I lived in Houston I would bike to work occasionally but it’s not a pleasant thing to do 4-6 months out of the year. Even walking to the bus stop at 8am in the summer I would be sweating. People who harp on Houston for being designed around cars (notably the “Not Just Bikes” channel on YouTube) usually live somewhere like the Netherlands with moderate weather and never address just how uncomfortable it is to be outside in Houston half the year. It also rains heavily in Houston quite frequently (90 days of rain/year).
I would love more walkable infra but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to walk in Houston.
A substantial contributor to that heat is asphalt and concrete though (absorbs heat and releases it at night). And to make it worse there's no tree cover. Winter is also more manageable if you don't have to wait 20 mins for a bus in an uncleared snowbank just because non-car mobility is second-class
True. Another issue with all the concrete is that it doesn't absorb rain and has made the constant flooding worse. Zero tree cover is also a shame, there are hundreds of miles of concrete bike and walking paths along the bayous that would be great for commuting but most of it has zero tree cover so you're just baking in the sun.
The older parts of Houston have massive oak trees that provide a lot of shade (and acorns the size of walnuts). But the older houses aren't large enough for modern Houstonians (roll your eyes here); when you tear it down to build a McMansion the trees also have to go.
The elementary school near my friend's house had a playground that was 100% shaded by just two massive trees. They tore the school down for a modern replacement. The new playground has no shade at all, not even those stretched fabric triangles you see all over the southern US.
Caring about nature that you can't shoot or eat is for pansy leftist tree-huggers. Especially if you work in a manly field full of manly men like construction. /s
This seems unnecessarily bait-y, but you can probably assume that the people who planted those trees in Houston weren't tree-huggers either, they were just practical. And lived in an era where "wasting money" wasn't as socially acceptable as it is now.
Before air conditioning shade from trees was one of the only ways to endure the heat. I bought a 70yo house with trees nearly on top of the house, and the old neighbors said it was intended to combat the heat.
As someone who grew up playing in the bayous out in the suburbs of Houston, even away from the concrete the humidity and heat are oppressive in the summertime.
I'm from Montevideo, I wouldn't call it "tropical" but yeah, compared to an US city it's absolutely a million times more walkable.
We do have humidity and heat and I don't enjoy it and I use A/C several months a year.
There's a big push for more cycling-centric and more cycling lanes, and the bus infrastructure is obviously a lot better than the US. I don't have a car by choice.
I haven't been to Houston but I have been to Dallas and it was an extremely frustrating experience and it feels like an awful soulless city to me.
I don't know the distinct history of those cities but Houston's population didn't hit 1 million until the 1960s, nearly all of its growth has taken place in a car-centric world. At least 3/4 four of those cities have been around for a long time pre-car and I suspect weren't designed with cars in mind.
How about Miami, e.g Miami Beach and downtown Miami, both extremely walkable? Like Houston, Miami did not reach 1 million pop until the 60s.
Or Panama City, did not reach 1 mil until the 90s
And "designed with cars in mind" is part of the problem, is it not? Using that as a filter is like saying "there are no parking garages with good canoeing routes"
More to the point, nearly all of that growth has taken place in an air-conditioned world. Urbanization of the U.S. South really only took off once the air-conditioner became mainstream.
Those other cities have a population that is adjusted to the heat - they grew up with it, their ancestors grew up with it, they're genetically and culturally adjusted to the climate. By contrast, the U.S. South includes a large number of immigrants who are only there because air conditioning exists. It's a mystery why anyone would want to walk around in 100 degree heat with 90% humidity, because they certainly wouldn't.
Singapore is no doubt developed in recent times and has one of the world’s best underground metro. It’s not for lack of cars in mind it looks the way it does. In fact the opposite, Singapore has a quota on total number of cars in the country, making other forms of transport a necessity to provide, including metro, buses, bike lanes, covered walkways.
2/4 had massive growth in the 50s/60s/70s (KL and Singapore). I'll give you Montevideo and San Juan, but let's not pretend it's just timing that made Houston the way it is. It's a matter of choices that were made, to prioritize car infrastructure over all else.
I’m from Malaysia and I can tell you barely anyone walks in the dense parts of cities. I do like walking but the smell of sewage and car exhaust is overwhelming. Much prefer the UK
Based on historical averages, none of these cities are hotter than Houston. They might have more humidity, but Houston averages are higher AND regularly experiences sustained daily highs during summer in excess of 100°F/38°C.
Agreed. No matter how good the biking infrastructure in major cities in Japan is (and apparently it was good enough for me to see someone biking at almost any given moment, so I assume it was pretty good), I cannot fathom how people did it. You open a door to the outside, and you feel like you got blasted with a human-sized heatgun. Just standing outside for more than a few minutes, and you pretty much gotta take a shower after. And no, I am not ultra-sensitive to it, as I managed to survive 90F summers in Seattle with no AC just fine before.
You are very correct about biking on the sidewalk, but I am not going to lie, I was madly impressed how it created pretty much zero disturbance for pedestrians ever. Totally despite the fact that it was happening all the time.
Meanwhile, had plenty of occasional bicycle/scooter riders in Seattle basically destroying the flow of pedestrians on sidewalks.
In Japan it wasn’t the case, it was straight up just people bicycling on the sidewalk in-between people walking. They just somehow figured out how to do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt the pedestrians, and I am still not sure how.
It does, people just don’t openly complain, much like any other problem - they either put up with it and say しょうがない or they complain in private or (often anonymously) online.
I am one of those annoyed people, I want bike lanes and I don’t understand why a place with so many riders is so anti-bike (aside from understanding the natural societal inclination to think that anything worth doing should be difficult, and made difficult if not).
I'm a biker and I want bike lanes too, so I don't need to dodge pedestrians. There is some bike infra here, but it's not nearly enough. And there's too many of those stupid painted "sharrows" that no biker with any sense uses because it's either next to too-fast traffic or blocked by parked vehicles.
I think the problem is just the politicians: they probably use cars and never bike or walk in these places.
I think the thing that makes it work the way it does is, as you say, people don't openly complain. They just get out of the way, or ignore the bikers (I prefer the latter as long as a bunch of them aren't blocking the whole sidewalk). In America, they'd be going full Karen and intentionally antagonizing the bikers, or trying to start fights with them, etc. Here, people seem to just recognize it's an imperfect situation, and put up with it instead of making a big deal out of it.
NotJustBikes went to Houston, tried to walk from the hotel to a suitcase shop 1-2km away, and found it too dangerous, not too hot. He doesn't say "everyone in Houston should walk everywhere all the time" he says "Houston is designed so you can't safely walk even if the distance is short and you want to".
> "I would love more walkable infra but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to walk in Houston."
But the relevant part is people who do want to, but can't.
A few years ago I visited a company in New Jersey, in a business park just off the 1 - a bunch of office buildings and a business hotel in a little enclave.
I could see the office across the road from the hotel, but there was no easy way to get there on foot because there were no sidewalks, or indeed any other concessions to pedestrians. I had to walk through the car park, push through a hedge, climb down the grassy bank, and the do the same in reverse on the other side of the road. Reception had seriously recommended that I took a cab about 100 yards.
Even when the pedestrian infrastructure exists, it's not always good.
There's sidewalks and crosswalks between The Cupertino Hotel and One Infinite Loop, but they are terrifying to use because of how wide and busy that intervening junction is.
Walking to that hotel from San Jose was a mistake, incredibly hot even in winter and no shade, but it was possible — though I did have to switch which side of the road I was on several times because the sidewalk just stopped.
I don’t remember Not Just Bikes mentioning the sweltering heat and humidity in his video but it wouldn’t surprise me if he conveniently left it out or brushed over it.
But my point is that Houston is designed the way it is because very few people want to walk in 100 degree humid weather. It was mostly built after cars were invented so it reflects that.
>People who harp on Houston for being designed around cars (notably the “Not Just Bikes” channel on YouTube) usually live somewhere like the Netherlands with moderate weather and never address just how uncomfortable it is to be outside in Houston half the year. It also rains heavily in Houston quite frequently (90 days of rain/year).
>I would love more walkable infra but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to walk in Houston.
Here in Tokyo, it's also quite hot, and extremely humid during the summer. Rain is very common during the summer as well, and we have typhoons too. Even so, everyone walks here, and lots of people (including moms with little kids) ride bicycles too, rain or shine.
I never understood why people compare places like Houston and Tokyo... Do these people lack any form of logical reasoning? It's the reason why the saying "apples to oranges" exists.
Do you know how dumb it sounds to compare two entirely different places as if they should relate?
I haven't been to Houston. But, people living in Singapore (near the equator) take public transportation and walk. So do people in Japan where it also ridiculously hot and humid. Japan also has just as many if not more rainy days than Houston and Singapore has double.
I'm not saying I get why people would not want to walk. Only that it's common to do so anyway.
Bikes are cooling as transportation, even in Houston. I think people who never bike as transportation, only exercise, don't understand that you can pedal around at like 20% exertion which gives you constant wind.
I had a similar experience in Mexico City, except it wasn't a cop who stopped me, it was a friendly civilian driving by, and they asked if I was confused because they had observed two men stalking me from 3 blocks back for a while who were likely to jump me.
I don't think anyone stopping to genuinely help is a "bad" thing, or robs one of their dignity. If you do, maybe that is a comment on your internal worldview instead of on that of the person stopping.
Dense cities where passersby ignore you wantonly are decried as impersonal, lacking community, etc and now we are saying we WANT MORE of that? That it brings DIGNITY?
I don't understand what you're arguing. It seems like you're saying you'd rather have a city where cops and concerned citizens stop to ask if you're confused than a dense, walkable city? I also don't understand how you got that dense, walkable cities would be someplace "where passersby ignore you wantonly".
Cities used to be filled with tight knit communities in neighborhoods where everyone knew each other. Kids played outside and roamed around and no one cared.
Then mass suburbanization happened in the 60s/70s. American cities became high crime places. Everyone became anonymous. No one knew their neighbor.
Such is the paradox of modern urban life. Nowhere are you closer physically to your neighbor, but more distant socially. The 5 acre farms outside of town all know each other’s grandkids by name. Does a city dweller even know the name of the resident across the hall?
>Cities used to be filled with tight knit communities in neighborhoods where everyone knew each other. Kids played outside and roamed around and no one cared.
>Then mass suburbanization happened in the 60s/70s. American cities became high
crime places. Everyone became anonymous. No one knew their neighbor.
Here in Tokyo, it's still like this: kids play outside and roam around, taking the subway by themselves, etc. But people don't know their neighbors here either, since it's a city with tens of millions of people; it's just safe because it's built into the culture, just like petty theft almost never happens here and when you drop your wallet, it's almost certain to be turned into the nearest police box, with all the cash still inside.
> Cities used to be filled with tight knit communities in neighborhoods where everyone knew each other. Kids played outside and roamed around and no one cared
There are many neighborhoods in cities and towns in the US where this is still true. I know because I live in one, and I've visited others. There are also a ton of US suburbs and exurbs where people barely know their neighbours.
Having a friendly neighborhood has much to do with the strength of community institutions and the existence of "third places". Those can be present (or not) in a variety of community layouts and densities.
My take is that it requires a sweet spot of economic security where people aren't struggling so much that they can't/don't trust in community, but also aren't so wealthy that they don't need/rely on their community. Beyond that, it also helps to have physical layouts that enable friendly unintentional encounters between residents.
The problem is that none of these places will be cheap to live in, because all else equal, the existence of that lifestyle will drive up demand (and therefore housing prices).
Thats the narrative thats popular but I find it doesn’t pencil out. I know plenty of neighbors living in an urban area. More than when I lived in a suburban area that’s for sure. You have much higher chance of coming about someone on foot in earshot in the urban area. When your neighbor takes out the trash in the suburbs they are doing it 100 yards away from you.
Yeah it’s interesting. The kids in the upper peninsula know everyone else their age within a 150 mile radius by the time they graduate from high school (usually via sports). Many of them live on roads that share their last name. Very, extremely rural with small towns sprinkled around.
97% of Americans' daily trips are done via automobile. Walking, biking, and bus riding tend to be associated with low socioeconomic status. There is heavy policing of low SES populations. In Kaplan, Louisiana it is explicitly illegal to walk at night. https://www.klfy.com/local/vermilion-parish/kaplan-starts-pe...
Bus riding I can sort of understand, that tends to be the case everywhere outside of manor metros IME (and not without a certain amount of truth to it) - but to think of walking or cycling like that seems really sad, what a way to live, shielded from the natural environment, shuffling from one air conditioned box to the next.
> if you decide that's not a way you want to live then you also don't want to live somewhere where it's uncomfortable for you otherwise.
well, our living choices aren't necessarily choices these days. Nor comfortable. More like compromises for suvival. Already had more than a few friends priced out of California and needing to move out of the state in its entirety.
I am not a lawyer, but that does not seem like a law that could pass a constitutional test. You can say you have to be in a car to be on a freeway for safety reasons, but you can't ban people from being in a place because they are not in a car because you don't like the people who aren't in cars. From reading the article the intent seems to be that you suspect people who aren't in cars.
> I am not a lawyer, but that does not seem like a law that could pass a constitutional test.
Nor am I, but a constitutional test used to cost about $250,000 or so over a decade ago (does inflation affect these things?). For someone who can't afford a car, that's a tough bill to eat.
As someone who has litigated a ton of constitutional challenges, you can definitely do it without representation if you want. I would think pretty much anyone on HN is educated enough to figure it out. (Attorney fees being your biggest cost; costs you'd have to swallow are deposition fees and filing fees if you're not indigent).
[Usually you can make two separate attacks on these kinds of constitutional cases since most states have their own constitutions that are practically identical to the federal one, so you can sue in both state and federal court separately if you want two tries at it -- this is good if you screw it up the first time and want to use the arguments the defendant fired at you in the first case to bolster your retry]
With representation though, I have a current case I finally settled today with the government and my legal counsel ran up a bill that was north of $500K for a very simple constitutional case. His firm swallowed it because it was part of their yearly pro bono requirements.
Walking / using public transportation is associated with low status when it is done for cost savings reasons. When it’s done for convenience it doesn’t convey much.
Using a bus in a ski resort is higher status than a car in a large city.
Yeah I live in the Boston area. All the neighborhoods that have easy access to public transit or are walkable neighborhoods are very desirable and expensive.
Strange. I have been to Austin a number of times for work and I find the city to be very walkable. I also enjoy the riverfront parks and pay a visit to SRV (may he rest in peace). I stay in downtown or at UT so I don't really know what it is like beyond there. I've also used their b-cycle system with great success. In addition, I remember their public transport system to be decent for an American city. That's how I get to the airport for something like $1 from downtown.
The hire bikes are great but if you don't have a North American phone number you can't sign up in their app! (I relied on a friendly stranger who offered her phone number for the confirmation code.)
Great city to ride around! Surprisingly good facilities.
There are places in Austin where you can go for pleasure/scenic walks. (eg think the green belts). But it's hard to use walking for utility in Austin. Not to mention socially you'll consistently be invited to places >5 miles away and the presumption is you have a car and you'll all drive separate.
I was in Austin for work in the 1990s and there was a mall, which I could see from my hotel so I figured I'll just walk to the mall. Nope.
I think either an older colleague (I was not old enough to rent a car, this is a long time ago) ferried me across or maybe the hotel took pity and sent me in their minibus ? There was no practical way to walk that short distance, the infrastructure is designed only for cars.
I mainly remember that mall because I found a (possibly mislabelled) copy of the version of Tori Amos' "Under The Pink" which is actually 2CDs, so "More Pink" is inside the case too but it was the same price as the regular album, and that was an amazing bargain for teenage me. But yeah, it was staggering to me that these Americans just expected to drive everywhere. I have grown up in an English village where I walked everywhere, to school, to the shops. to a friend's house, everywhere. I guess I was old enough to realise that most English villages aren't also served by the London Underground, but the choice to build only car infrastructure seemed very strange indeed.
FWIW, I live near downtown Austin, haven't owned a car in over a year, walk/bus everywhere, and have never been questioned by police. I typically see quite a few pedestrians out. As far as Texan cities go it's the most walkable, though it's still not very good.
Yes, I've lived here 17 years and see pedestrians most places I go - although to be fair there are many roads where pedestrians don't go (say, the service road alongside 71). Perhaps OP was in such a place.
I also did not own a car for years, commuting only by bicycle, and never had a problem.
Indeed, Austin's core is only about 5 square miles (the entirety of the East Side to the Greenbelt, Hyde Park down to far South Congress, say). Fairly compact.
It is no New York or London but it is walkable and bikeable.
Your European life might be car free but, I was surprised when a friend who lives in Brussels, where I've been 4 times now and walked all over, told me he loved his time in Japan because it was the first time he could live car free. I was like WAT? You live in Brussels! It seems to have reasonably good public transportation. He was like, I live in the suburbs and have to drive to/from work every day.
I certainly love living in a walkable city, but I also realize that can be somewhat rare, even in Europe. Friends live in Solingen (home to Henckels knives and Haribo Gummies). AFAICT it's not walkable. Düsseldorf is though.
I work for a Belgian company and have been to Brussels a few times for work... not only is the central city all very walkable, they have amazingly good public transport (if a bit confusing at times... Citymapper is brilliant for this).
But yes most people I work with seem to drive into work for their commute with only the occasional person getting the train. The office in central Brussels even has a load of free parking spaces they can book on their day in the office (company is hybrid one day/week in the office).
And the idea of commuting more than 30 minutes is utterly horrifying to them, which as a Londoner I found an interesting perspective - a 30 minute commute to the financial district in London would still put me in an inner London suburb with incredibly high housing costs so my commute is way longer than that.
Haribo is from Bonn, not Solingen! The name states as much, in its quintessentially german Consonant-and-vowel aliteration technique: (Ha)ns (Ri)egel (Bo)nn. Much like Rimowa (Ri)chard (Mo)rszeck (Wa)hrenzeichen, or Leica (Lei)tz (Ca)mera.
> Except for the very hottest of summer days, I see a lot of pedestrians in downtown Austin.
I don't know if this is true of Austin, but trying to convince people to get off the street in the afternoon can be part of the city's heat management plan in some parts of Texas.
if there was a dictionary of "american urbanism" they would define humans as having four wheels rather than two legs
they really do act like it whenever the USA plans a city or a neighborhood. why wouldn't everybody have a car? except we actually have plenty of reasons now that we didn't before
I own the domain AmericanUrbanism[.]org - I've been thinking of setting up some kind of advocacy group (501c4) or even political party there focused on changing this reality.
Cars made more sense in the industrial age, when people needed to commute to a factory for work. But, in the age of knowledge work and especially remote work, we aren't commuting as much. So, walkable neighborhoods become far more important and impactful.
I think there should be just many types of neighborhoods. Those who need a car for longer distance travel should accept living further away from city center, where there's enough space for parking slots, while the rest can enjoy pedestrian-first neighbourhoods closer to services. Public transport should of course reach all areas, so that the car owners have no real need to use their car much to reach the denser areas.
The least coercive way to do it is probably by making areas closer to the city center worse for driving — narrow roads, no parking, etc — and better for walking and biking. Then people will naturally sort themselves based on their preferences. The problem being that establishing the needed urban environment is itself a political struggle.
I never drive to London because a train will get me there faster, and I can rely public transport to get me to almost anywhere I want to get to. It can definitely be useful to have a car in the suburbs but not enough to be worth the trouble of driving one there.
The difficulty of parking and driving around the city centre is a deterrent, but to me it is secondary to the positive factors.
I do like pedestrianised areas, because they feel safe and clean. The main danger remaining is the cyclists of the "get out of my say" type, especially couriers and the like.
How so? We've built huge amounts of infrastructure (parking being the obvious one) to explicitly enable people to have cars in city centers- stop doing that and my gut (scientific, I know!) says that'll get you most of the way there.
Having cities arranged on grids with huge wide roads is generally a recipe for non-walkable environments. If you are having to wait ages for a light to change every time you go from one block to the next, you lose much of the efficiency of walking.
> Having cities arranged on grids with huge wide roads is generally a recipe for non-walkable environments.
There's no problem with grids or wide roads as long as there is infrastructure in place for pedestrians. Bridges can allow people to cross over wide streets/traffic without having to wait for a light for example. Tunnels can be an option as well. Grids can really help a city be more walkable since it becomes dead simple to navigate and you aren't wasting time on long winding roads or labyrinthine paths which increase the distance between two points and make it easier to get lost.
> There's no problem with grids or wide roads as long as there is infrastructure in place for pedestrians. Bridges can allow people to cross over wide streets/traffic without having to wait for a light for example.
Infrastructure for pedestrians would be you cross as soon as you get there, cars wait. Bridges are not pedestrian infrastructure they’re “cars are the priority” infrastructure, “cars mustn’t be delayed or inconvenienced, pedestrians can be” infrastructure.
" without slowing anyone down. " - but the very first image you provided will slow down pedestrians, it's harder to cross compared to a simple direct crosswalk and it's less friendly to ppl with mobility problems. Such bridges are relatively ok to implement outside cities where you have highways/roads with cars driving high speeds but these are bad solutions inside cities where the priority belongs to pedestrians and cars must drive slower
It's inconvenient to climb a set of stairs every time cross a road. What about pushchairs, wheelchairs, the elderly, people with walking sticks, shopping trolleys, arthritis, gammy knees, people carrying heavy shopping or wheeled luggage? In general if you're going to slow down anyone then slow down drivers who have engines to accelerate them back up to speed with no effort. Making people climb stairs so drivers don't have to wait is not good pedestrian infrastructure, the view (of a road full of cars who have priority over you) is hardly a great trade off. Nor is paying the extra taxes for bridge maintenance so that car drivers can have a better life at your expense.
When you consider that drivers are generally wealthier (because they own cars) and the pedestrians are breathing car exhaust and tyre dust while working their lungs harder climbing to give cars the priority, listening to car noise while drivers pass in low effort comfort, the mild unfairness of it is more starkly contrasted.
Ideally good pedestrian design would tempt people out of their cars because walking is so quick, convenient, cheap, pleasant, interesting - with shade and shops and short distances and quiet clean surroundings. Big steel bridges don't contribute to that very much. [Have you seen how often Americans comment on the price of gas? Yet what people campaign for is the government to lower the price of gas, not for the government to make life without cars so pleasant that cars are not a necessity. What sense does that make? Most living Americans have never lived in a walkable place, and have no film, tv, or cultural reference for one to use for a basis for such a campaigh - maybe Disneyland (which visitors tend to love)? 120 years ago everywhere was walkable because there wasn't much other than walking. 70 years ago places were bulldozed for cars. Now multiple generations have grown up and lived their adult lives with car dependent urban design].
If you are in hurry, you will avoid those. They add more time to your trip then one would guess intuitively.
What do work for pedestrians is a network of smaller roads that you can "just" cross safely without waiting or taking detours. Basically, a few big roads you cross once in a while and the rest being smaller roads where cars are forced to go slowly.
Grids are better than culdesac but worse than randomness for a human brain so that it would be interesting to walk there. Wide roads aren't good for walkability in any sense: even if we ignore huge noise and pollution created by lots of cars, wide roads are more dangerous to cross and since it's wide you as a pedestrian need to walk more on non pedestrian infra to get to points of interest. Walkability isn't just about being able to walk
Outside my university there was a fairly fast "A" road (two lanes, high speed limit, actually much narrower than a typical American street). Rather than stop traffic, there was a bridge that crossed the road. To use the bridge you needed to climb a set of stairs. Of course, people didn't use the bridge because it was inconvenient and tiring to have to take a longer route (including stairs) rather than just walk 8-10 meters across the road.
There were severe injuries or deaths every single year when students would cross the road late at night and a car would be speeding at 60+ mph. They eventually installed a puffin-style crossing, which was much better.
The solution, especially in built up areas, is to keep cars from causing problems for pedestrians rather than trying to stop pedestrians from causing problems for cars. Perhaps the cars should be relegated to a tunnel so people don't have to be near them instead.
The fact safety is a limiting factor means those places don't have social control, meaning these are not places ppl tend to hang out in so probably not that walkable. P.s. walkable in this context doesn't mean it's just possible to walk, it means it's a nice experience to walk with nice environment/shops/othwr points of interest
This is definitely not my experience in Austin. I was only there for a week but I stayed downtown and walked just about everywhere and there were always lots of other people that I could see walking also. They have a lot of walking paths (eg near the river) so it never felt strange and I had no encounters with law enforcement. I would say the downtown area of Austin is more walkable than some other US cities in my experience.
But I note that you're saying "Near" downtown Austin so I guess it depends where you were maybe?
However, I do remember a night, when we went out with colleagues, and from one place we were to switch to another, it was less than a mile away. We stepped outside, and one of the colleagues were looking for a taxi / checking Lyft already; we, the visitors, didn't understand; are we really gonna wait and then squeeze in a car, instead of walking 10 minutes?!
We eventually walked, and it was perfectly safe (and lively) at that time of the night.
I had something similar happen to me in Miami about a decade ago. As a New Yorker I'm just used to walking and taking public transit everywhere. I was down there for some data center work I needed to do out of the NAP of the Americas, and one night I decided to go to see a friend of a friend DJ at some bar in downtown Miami. So I took the free Miami elevated train to a stop near the club (The Vagabond) and started walking over. I get a block into the walk and someone pulls up on a bike and is like "wtf are you doing? are you lost? you should not be walking right now, do you need help?". It was a totally fine walk, maybe 5 minutes at NYC walking speeds, if maybe a bit desolate. The guy proceeded to slowly ride next to me while I walked to make sure I was ok. Ended up buying him a beer in the club and chatting for a while, he just thought it was dangerous to be walking.
Maybe it was a dangerous (i.e. high-crime) area? A lot of areas can look OK but are not someplace you want to be at night especially alone. And if you're from out of town you might not know.
Similar happened to me. I was at The Oaks Card Club on the border of Emeryville and West Oakland. I needed to get to BART, and it was just a few blocks on one street, so I thought I'd just walk. About half way down, a taxi driver actually pulled up without me hailing him and said "Man, what the fuck are you doing walking here? Get in and I'll drive you wherever you need to go!" It was either a great sales pitch or I was actually in danger and didn't know it.
My SF story: Chinatown, near the convention center. My wife wanted me to pick some stuff up while I was there. I had been there by day, seemed perfectly reasonable. I get done with the trade show, head over there near closing time to get what she wanted (perishable, so I left it to the last minute) and coming back I realized the character had changed considerably and it was a place I didn't want to be. I hadn't gotten a car because the hassles of parking made it a negative to me.
I think this was a bit before 7pm. It surprised me because I didn't expect the character to change that much while the stores were still open. The undesirable elements usually only show up once the legitimate people leave.
Eh. I've been mugged once. When I started college in a big city, we were given a talking-to by our RA about never going off-campus alone, being careful walking at night, their own close-call story, etc. I, being a reckless dumbass, ignored their warnings. Walked all around, at all hours, basically never buddied-up. Of course, my luck couldn't last forever.
...It just waited to run out until after I got home to my "safe", car-centric suburb for the summer, and decided to walk to a nearby gym. "A lot of areas can look OK," for certain.
Yeah, that's what he was saying. I mean it didn't look the safest, but that's never something that has bothered me. A large part of my 20s were spent being places I probably shouldn't have been all around Brooklyn in the early 2000s. As soon as I got on the Miami metromover and noticed I was the only one not strung out I knew what I was getting myself into. The palm trees were maybe throwing me off -- as a New Yorker palm trees meant vacation.
I know the area well since we had a family business around there. It's a few blocks away from a sketchy neighborhood; rapidly gentrifying today, though.
At one point it was the intersection of 3 sketchy neighborhoods, but it's been a while.
I dunno about metromover but I took metrorail in miami every day during ultra music festival and the clientele seemed about on par with the clientele on the nyc subway
I'd say there's a selection bias during big international events. You feel it more than say, NYC or Chicago, because baseline ridership is low in Miami. So when Ultra comes to town there's a larger effect size, IMO.
It's pretty wild. I'm in a very car-centric city in Canada, and there have been days where I drive across the city and not seen a single pedestrian (across multiple types of areas). Usually in the winter, but still a very weird thing to not see people in a city.
I walked 35mins to work everyday of the 2 years I lived in Calgary, which got me excited to bike 20 mins to work everyday for 4 years in Whitehorse.
Biking in -40 is a lot of fun when you attack big snow drifts in the pitch black at 10am!
I heard the same from a Scot who visited Texas and decided to go for a 45 minute stroll to his destination. In summer. He regretted it 15mins in and luckily a local stopped and gave him a ride, saying that he could die in this heat (not sure if that was a joke)
Almost this exact situation happened to author Ray Bradbury in Los Angeles, where he lived without a car. He wrote several short stories memorializing the incident, including a scene in Fahrenheit 451.
I have known people in Washington, DC, who lived with a quarter mile of a hiker/biker path in Rock Creek Park, and would drive ~7 miles to Fletcher's Boathouse (or 10 to Carderock) to run on the C&O Canal towpath.
I confess that I have been one of those people (I didn't live quite there)--but when meeting with friends for a run. My preference was always to lace on the sneakers, walk to the end of the block, and run.
I guess my own biases excuse the idea of driving a good distance for a hike or trail run that are "one offs" (though in aggregate are regular), but the idea of going for a weekly (or multiple times a week) social run seems to be wasteful. In terms of the atmosphere they're equivalent.
I've been seeing this top comment for days now as this thread seems to never die and I can't help but finally say something because this and associated similar comments are utterly bizarre to me. I've lived in Texas about 15 years now, first at Fort Hood, spending quite a bit of time in Austin, and I've lived in Dallas for the past decade. I live very near downtown, so there's that, but I walk all over the place and always have. I didn't even have a car for about 6 years and only finally bought one because I was going through foster care licensing and you needed to have the ability to drive a kid somewhere without relying on external assistance.
Even at 3 AM, I'm not the only person out walking. I have never once been stopped by police. I go through "dangerous" neighborhood, through places near homeless encampments. I tweaked my groin while running a few weeks ago when I was 8 miles from my house and walked all the way back from Highland Park, though Uptown, Downtown, and the Cedars to get back to my house.
To be clear, walking in Dallas sucks. Sidewalks randomly end. There is construction everywhere. Oak Lawn this morning had both sidewalks closed, each with a sign saying to use the other sidewalk. Drivers pay absolutely no attention and never look for pedestrians. But it is nonetheless possible and feasible to walk around and no one has ever looked at me funny for doing it. Yes, it is also often triple digit fahrenheit heat in the afternoons, but that is well within the human survivable zone, and as long as you aren't going somewhere that you can't be covered in sweat, you'll be fine.
Also, I live about two miles from the main museum district in Dallas, and I walk whenever I go to a museum, and the streets there are completely filled with pedestrians. Even if you drive from out of the area, you're still not gonna park right next to the entrance. Some have their own parking lots. Some don't. The parks in the area do not. Plenty of drivers still park pretty far away. So it's particularly weird that someone would stop you on your way to a museum.
That is why cultures in such climates tend to have a mid-day siesta when no one goes out, and a lively late night when the temperatures become bearable, the sun no longer tries to murder you with its rays, and people go outside to eat, shop and meet friends.
Nah, as someone who lives somewhere with actual humidity “mid day” is basically “whenever the sun is up”.
85 and humid here is worse than -00 and dry in Phoenix. It’s so humid your sweat can’t evaporate because the air is already saturated. It’s beyond miserable, and actively unhealthy to many.
Yeah, hot and humid areas have never been particularly friendly to human civilization. Prior to the industrial era, they were mostly covered by rainforests.
The map of US rainforests shows an active rainforest along the western side of North Carolina. It is not all that hard to believe said forest could have been much larger before the human touch.
The easternly side of the forest to the easternmost points of NC is not further than LA from SF, though. Unless you live way out in the ocean, but still consider that to be North Carolina for some reason, you are closer than said distance to the forest.
I do I. Fact live almost at the Coast. Just to get to Asheville, which is hardly the westernmost point in the state, is over 6 hours.
Los Angeles to SF is 381 miles.
My town to the Cherokee, which is about where the rainforest zone starts, is 383. North Carolina is a much bigger state than most people realize.
Nobody has ever thought North Carolina was small, though. Where did that idea come from? In fact, it is not clear why the record needed a distance in the first place.
I assure you, as life long resident, I have blown the minds of many non-natives by stating I can drive for 8 hours west and still not quite be in Tennessee. In most places east of the Mississippi that gets you through 3-4 states.
It's all relative, I guess. I'm looking at 20 hours of driving to get the western extent of the province. And seven hours the other way to get to the easternmost side. 8 hours is but a leisurely afternoon cruise.
I don't know much about NC, but the only parrot native to the US used to live there [0], which indicates that it must have been pretty heavily forested prior to the Colombian exchange.
Portable wearable air conditioning and sun protection, that's what you'd need to make it comfortable. Maybe like a robotic exoskeleton, we can't be far from making that affordable.
Wheels might make it energy efficient but engines powered by oil from deep under the Gulf of Mexico shipped to refineries, then shipped hundreds of miles to gas stations, then people driving a ton or two of steel and plastic and rubber to the gas station so they can “efficiently” get one person 4 miles to a shop isn’t so efficient.
A bicycle on flat asphalt is more efficient than a person despite person+bike moving more total mass; but still the cost of mining iron ore, making steel, making a bike for every customer, compared to just building the store and the homes close enough to walk and not doing any of that…
Energy.gov says “In 2021, 52% of all trips, including all modes of transportation, were less than three miles, with 28% of trips less than one mile”, it’s daft either way that people want to use a car for such short distances or that urban spaces are designed so that things are relatively very close but juuuust too far for convenience.
Living in Southern California, I like to go on walks with my family in the evenings or mornings, but I couldn't imagine having to take public transportation or having to walk everywhere. It seems picturesque, but it also sounds terrible in the sense that you can't just get in your car, go some place, park in a parking lot, go shopping, and then head back home, all on your own terms.
I visited London a long time ago and the public transportation is amazing and it I did want to walk to see the city, which I did. But I imagine even living there, I would want my own car to be in control of my life.
So, visiting a place is good for walking. But living in a place is not. At least that's my experience.
The best public transport in us is usually worse that bad public transport in most of eu so no wonder you felt that way. Let me tell you a counter point: in Switzerland public transport and trains are so frequent and fast due to own lanes that you don't even need to check the schedule, you just go to the station which is usually nearby and wait at max 5 mins to get into something, usually a tram, for intercity between biggest cities trains are usually coming about each 15 mins. In this regard you are more independent than with a car- you don't care about fuel, about parking, about being focused all the time on the road, you just get in and get out. Even for buying tickets they have an app where you just check-uncheck it and it calculates the fare based on gps.
also in many dense eu cities you'd probably have enough shops in sub 5 mins nearby so you can either walk there or go with a bike or take a taxi that would cost pennies for such a small distance - again, no worrying about traffic, fuel, parking and so on
I haven't owned a car for more than 15 years now. I have city year bus pass but I also frequently just walk to wherever I'm going, there's lots of paths and shortcuts for pedestrians, but if the weather is a bit rubbish, there's bus stop outside my flat that runs every 5-10 mins.
I'm a member of the mobility car share for the rare times hen I do need a car, usually to pick up or move something heavy, or take a bunch of stuff to the decheterie.
Maybe sometimes after a night on the town, I might grab a taxi home, but I do not miss having a car.
In the US the issue is the car is just too damn convenient. There are parts of LA where the busses or trains are every 10 mins or so and they interline, so you get a train or a bus every 5 mins or less. People still prefer the car because it can go everywhere on your schedule faster than a bus making stops along the way. Plus cars are much cheaper for Americans than they are for europeans.
It's made to be convenient (as long as it gets, because you get traffic and you get low density areas which are bad for walkability/pedestrians which all ppl are the moment they leave the car) while pub transport is made to be bad.
Idk about the situation in LA but if you want good ridership, 5-10 min isn't an enough condition. You need these times at all the routes in the city and those should be extensive, you need reserved lanes, priority semaphores, single ticket policy, same lvl boarding, easy connections between multiple routes and at last- you also need a mid dense walkable city, because if it's not, the moment you'll get off the transport you'll have a sh** life needing to walk a lot in unpleasant environment to reach the destination.
The cheap thing usually isn't a factor, cars are mostly more expensive than pub transport using unless pub transport is nuked by authorities. Ppl don't use cars because these are cheap(these aren't even for many americans considering insurance, leasing, repairing and so on), they use cars because pub transport doesn't exist or because it's inconvenient to use it. Ppl always use the most convenient path. In lots of eu cities, unless you come from suburbs, pub transport will be more convenient- it'll have own lanes so no traffic, priority semaphores so almost always green, shorter paths towards destination compared to car lanes, again- saves time, easy transfers(multiple routes have stations close to each other), single ticket policy, in some cases like NL you also got bike parking nearby to cover las mile distance. This makes them easier and faster to use than cars especially considering parking space is limited and it'll take time to find a spot+traffic
If LA had Tokyo's train system (they used too), I could get from LAX to Glendale in ~45 minutes. Like an express train to DTLA and then another to Glendale. Instead, at 5pm, that same commute in a car can be 2.5hrs. Sure, it's nicer at 3am (30mins) but that's not the norm for most waking hours. Further, I could drink at my destination, like say
FWIW I found the critically acclaimed berlin ubahn to have significantly worse headways compared to most NYC subway lines, as well as not having air conditioning and becoming uncomfortably hot and humid
I used lime scooters considerably more than ubahn when I was in berlin
U-bahn is old, but new trains are slowly arriving on some lines. Anyway it is not the best part of its public transport system - I personally enjoy trams.
Well that's pretty easy, Dutch trains are unreliable.
In fact all public transport there is pretty bad. Here in Barcelona the metros come every 3 minutes during the day on each line. In Amsterdam it's more like 15.
I’m 40+ years old now and have never needed or wanted to have a driving license. I simply hated America when I had to visit and use taxi or someone else’s help to get anywhere.
In Berlin even with a child the need of a car is so rare — sometimes it’s even more pleasant to walk an hour to a museum or a club than use public transportation.
That’s strange coming from someone whose country has the famous autobahn. What if you want to get out into the countryside, where busses and trains don’t go? Don’t you need a license to rent a vehicle?
> What if you want to get out into the countryside, where busses and trains don’t go?
I don’t have any business in such countryside. What would I find there? A good beach on Baltic sea is 15 min walk door-to-water plus 2 hours on express train. The list of tourist attractions and vacation destinations accessible by train, plane and/or taxi within half a day or so is so big here that I cannot imagine going to such inaccessible place. Worst case I will pay a few hundred euro for taxi if such improbable situation occurs.
And what's going to happen long term with exploding Berlin rents? The only affordable rents will be out in the suburbs of Berlin, where you'll either have to drive in or spend 2-3x the time on a probably crowded train possibly standing room only. As in the example of Switzerland above, mass transit is a luxury for those able to pay high rents. Previously in Berlin this was subsidized by the rest of Germany and by price controls but the right-wing courts have pretty much gutted Berlin's price protections in favor of billion-euro property developers.
I lived in Germany for years without driving as well, because I could afford to live by the city center. But over half my colleagues drove because that's all they could afford to do, and you should try stepping out of your bubble and understand the pressures that force Germans to drive. They're not all just wanting to spend more time in their Audis.
First, I’m not representing all Germans here, just sharing my own experience which is a good counter-example to “life without a car is impossible”. I’m of course not arguing that car is unnecessary for everyone.
Second, don’t tell me about my “bubble”: you have no idea who I am and what I have experienced in my life. I’m very well aware of many sides of it, maybe more than you are.
Third, do you seriously want to lecture a person who is both a landlord and a tenant in Berlin about local rent controls and price development? We do have some issues here, but it is nowhere close to neither London or NYC where prices are crazy nor Moscow where commuting can be truly exhausting.
>I’m of course not arguing that car is unnecessary for everyone.
Sadly, many are. This topic often does turn into one of lifestyle judgement and it isn't very productive when arguments go from practical to personal. As if any one car-goer or bus-goer determines the fate of a city's urban planning.
Agree. Especially when you add bike-goers to the conversation it can get ugly very quickly. A parent with a stroller is the most neglected person in such talks.
I myself believe that personal cars are mobility edge cases and the world will settle on vendor-managed rental fleets eventually, where most people will occasionally use rental cars with autopilot.
Nevertheless this is not going to happen for the next 50-80 years, so we just need at least to stop promoting car-centric lifestyle and find a real compromise between cars, bikers and pedestrians.
In Switzerland, people in villages use trains to get to and from work. Quite literally, they bike to train, park bike, use train to go to work. Some ride car to train, ride train and then go to work.
It is just not true that mass transit is only for those who pay high rents. It is other way round pretty much all round world and historically - rich people were buying cars more and poor used public transport.
> So, visiting a place is good for walking. But living in a place is not. At least that's my experience.
This is a common Internet meme -- the American tourist that goes to Europe and loves their experience of walking around nice, dense cities designed at a human scale and functioning public transit. Then they return to their life of highways and parking lots and strip malls, which, to me, is dystopia.
> but I couldn't imagine having to take public transportation or having to walk everywhere
Well yes, the US transportation system is utter trash, even in California
> but it also sounds terrible in the sense that you can't just get in your car, go some place, park in a parking lot, go shopping, and then head back home, all on your own terms.
In Europe I have three supermarkets in a 800m radius around my place, the closest shopping center/mall/whatever you call it is a 30min walk away (10min by public transport, 8min by bicycle). I can walk to the closest supermarket without even leaving the private ground of my block of buildings and its park, no street to cross, no cars in sight
> I would want my own car to be in control of my life.
I'm European, spent the first 10 years of my independent adult life without a car, and have always lived in urban areas, within walking distance of supermarkets and other amenities, and with good public transport services. Yet I agree with him
When I finally did get a car, it was a massive QoL upgrade. I can go anywhere, at any time, usually considerably faster than PT, and carry an order of magnitude more than before. I didn't enjoy having to go to the supermarket multiple times a week, but I had to when I could only carry maybe 4 bags (fewer if heavy) in one trip. I still do use buses and trains where it makes sense, e.g. visiting other cities or the centre of mine
Cool, too bad it isn't sustainable. If life was about doing everything you want whenever you want and carry a lot of useless junk around without having to worry about side effects we'd have won the game by now
And the goalposts move again. We were talking about the convenience, not the sustainability. If you want to argue that the inconvenience is a necessary price for environmental sustainability, sure, that's a valid position, but don't pretend that there's no convenience cost
It's interesting that I've been downvoted to -3 for factually detailing how cars are in fact useful. Shooting the messenger won't change the facts
> I didn't enjoy having to go to the supermarket multiple times a week, but I had to when I could only carry maybe 4 bags (fewer if heavy) in one trip.
I mean, if we're talking about convenience, I started ordering my groceries online during the pandemic and I'd argue that's an even bigger QoL upgrade. You can still go for produce (or not) and the occasional thing you need immediately, but getting stuff delivered to you is generally cheaper and more convenient than owning a car. The gratification is a bit less instant, but I value my time more than that.
As for cars being faster than public transit, sure, but making cars fast often have the side effect of making other modes of transit slower, and vice versa. Buses need reserved lanes to be reliable, bikes need reserved lanes to be safe, which means less cars can go. As a pedestrian, I would get to places significantly faster if I could just jaywalk wherever I please, but naturally this would require very low speed limits. Cars also require parking lots, which make walking less efficient. Cars are only convenient for their own drivers, they are inconvenient for everybody else (including other drivers).
Agreed on supermarket delivery. I've started using it now, and probably should have done so sooner
I also actually agree on prioritizing bus and cycle lanes over car lanes. Instead of being angry at them, which unfortunately many drivers are, I choose to appreciate them as intended - i.e. if I'm going into the town centre I usually go by bus. I'd also like to see more properly-separated bike lanes. I don't blame cyclists at all who choose to ignore the painted ones and take the lane as if they're a car
However the main reason why public transport is slower isn't usually due to traffic or physical constraints, but the longer routes you have to take. Usually the planners have done their job well, and the route is near-optimal in aggregate (and therefore often useful for myself if I'm commuting or visiting the centre), but if I want to visit a friend in another part of town, I've very often got to go in to the centre and change out again. Even if there's a direct route, it can be slow due to how many stops occur (off-board ticketing/proper BRT could help with that in major areas). If I'm visiting a business in a business park/industrial estate further out, it's often a taxi or nothing
The following doesn't change much, but just to nitpick:
> As a pedestrian, I would get to places significantly faster if I could just jaywalk wherever I please, but naturally this would require very low speed limits
That's legal where I currently live (UK). Motorways are essentially the only place you're not allowed to just cross, though drivers aren't generally required to break the traffic to give you passage if you're not at a zebra crossing (or a junction, as of recent code changes). Speed limits definitely do vary based on the likelihood of pedestrians in the area, but I don't think changing the law would change much there. I mean, they'd have to fairly compensate by adding more crossings anyway, and IME those are more likely to slow down traffic due to their poorly-timed and long stops (even with sensor-assisted intelligence), whereas pedestrians making ad-hoc crossings are usually sensible enough to wait for a natural gap instead of forcing one (and those who don't would probably "jaywalk" anyway), essentially making their effect on flow near zero. Even if you do have to slow for a pedestrian, it usually is just a slight slow for under two seconds. Much quicker than a red light. Zebra crossings of course don't have lights, but you do have a hard requirement to stop as soon as a pedestrian presents themselves at the side, and remain stopped until they've completely left the road, resulting in similar interruptions rather than turn-taking in existing gaps
That's so funny, because in my mind it's the complete opposite: I feel free because I don't have the burden of keeping a vehicle-object. However, where I leave is car unfriendly. People who always late are the two friends of mine who try to use their car
(Actually I tried both lives. I used to have a car in the past. Still prefer being car free)
this is the real lie, that cars give you agency and freedom. except that you have to find a place to park, and keep the fueled, deal with minor breakdowns like punctured tires that leave you to deal with them for hours. and insurance. and a drivers license. and a place to keep them at night. the threat that they will be broken into. the constant switching back and forth between inattention and attention while driving. getting delayed by traffic. spending quite a bit of time complaining about traffic even though it is you. the inevitable collision. the abysmal process of purchasing. knowing you're are getting screwed at the repair place. having to deal with rentals when you travel. the complete loss of function when you become old or injured and cannot drive for yourself.
Yes! At least a third of the population can’t drive, because too young, too old, handicapped in some way, or too poor. And we have built an environment that requires driving. That’s pretty messed up.
Depends on where you live. In most of the US if you don't have a car you'll be spending hours a day on busses. You have no freedom - you are either sleeping or commuting or working. You can't sleep less, you can't work less. But you can commute fewer hours a day with a car.
Walkable/bikeable places exist in some cities, but are reserved for the rich.
As for the costs of owning a car - these are real, but the cost of not owning a car is much greater. As electric cars filter down to the used market cost of car ownership will also drop a fair amount.
As a gig delivery driver, I'm one of the few people who (on a social level, at least) can justify owning a car. It's immensely frustrating to get into accidents with people who don't need to be on the road, to have to wait for a spot to open up at the gas station, to have to navigate the endless parking lots... But, look, even for us, it's barely worth it. The pay is so low, and cost of ownership so high, that it's less like a job and more like a loan that you pay back in vehicle upkeep, maintenance, and depreciation (and stress, and injury, if you're unlucky). Once you're desperate enough to work one of these gigs (cough) it's almost not worth it to bother with any of that stuff. Just drive the car until it stops, sell it for parts, take the proceeds and start investing in the means to live-car free.
And mass transit you have to deal with line failures, the inability to transport more than you can reasonably carry, and the curfew created by the end-of-line time for the evening.
Which you can wait a lifetime to maybe be built in some diluted state given current pace of things, or resign and take the option the present environment favors. Hate the game, not the player.
not much different from a human in the grand sceme of things. Need to maintain energy, treat minor and major injuries, deal with insurance, keep an ID on me (which costs money to renew), and either avoid or accept the risk of night walks. Fights can break out, routes can get deterred, and Just keeping up with living expenses is hell.
Adding a 2nd mechanical maintenacnce isn't as bad as dealing with the flesh skin version.
If you consider night walks a risk you really don't live in a good area. I walk everywhere here in Barcelona day or night. Same in Amsterdam, Dublin etc.
As it is, people love to complain about buying gas. If someone were to add up the costs associated with driving, I’m sure it would be insane. And I mean all costs. Driving is subsidized to a level that is incomprehensible, and obfuscated away more than just about anything else.
People complain about gas and the weather and the baseball team and everything else and they still don't make any changes about that with their life, because its hardly significant. Gas could double people pay maybe $40 extra a week on their fillup as a result. Meanwhile rent and housing take so much more out of your pocket its hardly relevant what the price of gas is.
Having the option to walk doesn't mean that you can't drive. One can have both. Nice weather to walk in? Maybe I'll walk the 10 minutes to the shopping center. Raining a lot? Take the car.
No one is arguing that you would have to take public transportation or walk everywhere. They are just saying that it is good if where you live is walkable. I also live in Southern California and I would say that a lot of most expensive places to live are expensive because they are more walkable. You could live in downtown La Jolla or by the beach in Santa Monica and walk around. You could also own or rent a car and drive to Lake Tahoe. It's not either or.
East hollywood probably sees the some of the most foot traffic in southern california and rents are relatively affordable by LA county standards. Chances are the working class areas in sd are similar I imagine where you see a lot of people walking, biking, or taking the bus to get to work. Of course this isn’t “urbanism” in the way that upper class people consider it, but it exists.
You may not imagine how it works but plenty of people do ride transit in southern california. LA metro ridership is like 800k people a day. A lot of neighborhoods have a lot of foot traffic in LA county at least.
I think it was around Waterloo park and capitol; I was on my way to the Texas State History Museum.
I looked around now on Google Street View, but can't recognize the slight hill I was walking on (it happened around 10y ago). Funnily enough, also street view shows streets with no pedestrians anywhere :-)
An old roommate moved from the Bay Area to Dallas years ago and on a nice day in the park he decided to lay down on the grass, as he would normally do in the Bay Area. Pretty soon cops arrived.
>>That being said, you're in a city, what did you expect?
Literally every single city I can think of it's better to walk than drive, so I guess it's a uniquely American perspective? Or like the other commenter said - a joke?
I wouldn't generalize this as an American perspective; at least many of my US friends envy the walkability of the European cities they visited (while recognizing the disadvantages / inconveniences about it, too)
As an American (New Englander), I would say that if it's better to drive than walk or take transit, you are not actually in a city, you're in the suburbs. So this definitely isn't a universal American perspective.
I've lived in big cities most of my life and I take the car maybe 10 times per year, including cabs. And that's mostly to get away from the city, where I can't go by bus.
I lived in the suburbs of a very large European city. I still drove to work every day. Sure I could walk to the bus stop and wait or walk KMs to the train station and wait. But my car was the most direct and easy way to get to the office.
I never had a big city job. Mostly office buildings in office parks. So I guess me and my co-workers' lifestyles were very similar to Americans.
This is the thing about tourists who come back from Europe raving about "walkability" well of course, you were staying in the heart of a major city probably, of course there is a lot of stuff you can walk to, and there's good public transit. Get a few miles away and you'll find that many more people have cars and drive.
Living in The Netherlands, and unless you live very far out in the country, everything is easily walkable or bike-able. The closest supermarkets are generally a 5-10 minutes walk, a train or bus station is almost always close by, etc.
I myself do not own a car, and besides some very rare moments (like bringing large trash to the junkyard or something, in which case I can ask friends to quickly borrow their car), I do not have any hindrance from it.
> That being said, you're in a city, what did you expect?
:-) I giggled on this one 10y ago when I first saw this difference in mindsets, and also smile at it today. I sometimes wonder if I were growing up there, would I also feel weird when I see my alterego walking around on the _streets_ of Zürich, where I don't even have a vehicle to _drive_ to one of the national parks.
> you're in a city, what did you expect? If you want to spend time walking outside drive to one of the many National Parks
Is this a joke? I hope this is a joke and I’ve misunderstood it.
Cities are not synonymous with cars. There are lots of walkable cities in the world. Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm.
" Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm."
Can is a strong word here.
I am an avid walker with around 13 thousand steps daily on average (counted over last three years), but in my daily life, I generally take some form of transport if the expected walking time exceeds some 25 minutes. A tram or a bus, but I don't regularly walk 7 km to the centre of my city and back, even though I certainly can. It would simply take too long.
> Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm.
There's no way for that to be true; driving to a place where you can walk is a possibility. Walking to a place where you can drive would be useless, because you wouldn't have a car there.
> Walking to a place where you can drive would be useless
You could walk to a vehicle rental shop or (eg London with Zipcar) walk to where a vehicle you can rent is parked. But not a normal situation, definitely.
> or (eg London with Zipcar) walk to where a vehicle you can rent is parked.
I never got Zipcar. They made themselves completely pointless by charging you for time when you didn't need the car, inflating what appeared to be reasonable fees into ludicrous overcharges.
If I want to visit my family 90 minutes away over the weekend, I might pay for three hours of car rental. I'm obviously not going to pay for 48 hours of car rental. Who exactly is using Zipcar? Where did the model "like long-term car rental, but we'll lie about it" come from?
Former Zipcar employee. Nothing here is confidential afaik.
In London, they did have the one way concept for some time - I don't know if it's still there. They experimented with dedicated spaces as well as charging by the minute with approved parking areas. I don't think any of the competitors in that space are still using that model because it didn't work out financially. (Parking was a giant issue - our competitors and us could only negotiate for parking in some places. If the user parked outside of that, we got fined, and GPS was terrible in trying to make sure they were in the right area - the buildings were too close together. And users were frustrated if the area they were allowed to park was full.)
The fundamental problem is that the cars end up getting bunched up away from where people want to take them. Let's say you're driving to your parents for 90 minutes. Who is going to rent your car 90 minutes away? Are they going to go to your parents' house to use it when you don't have it? What if there's no car when you get back, because they put it somewhere else? How many places allow you to park a car for days without prior agreement?
Zipcar is meant and priced for shopping trips or other short errands on the order of a few hours. If you want multiple days for a longer trip, that's what traditional car rental exists for. If you're "obviously" not paying that, that's your choice and nothing to do with Zipcar.
You don't get to break down Zipcar's hourly pricing into just the hours you need to drive each way. In the interim inbetween then the Zipcar isn't at its spot and therefore unavailable for other use. Zipcar's hourly pricing includes the fact that it will be returned and immediately available for other customers.
TLDR: You may only use the Zipcar for a few hours, but it's out of its spot and unavailable for the entire trip, so that's what you're paying for.
> You don't get to break down Zipcar's hourly pricing into just the hours you need to drive each way.
This is how all other vehicle rental works. It's the only advantage of rental over ownership.
> In the interim inbetween then the Zipcar isn't at its spot and therefore unavailable for other use.
That's just logistical incompetence on the part of Zipcar. Why would the Zipcar be unusable when not at "its spot"? My car doesn't become unusable when it leaves my driveway. The Zipcar is usable as soon as I return it to Zipcar. Their choice to refuse my return is just their commitment to an unworkable business model.
I think they would like to pick up the car, drive somewhere else, and then leave the car parked somewhere for a weekend without paying for it in that time. Which is difficult to make work as a business (is anyone else going to rent it in that time? Would they be happy if all the cars were to be driven away somewhere else?) Even more traditional rental companies will often charge you extra to drop off a car one of their locations which isn't the one you picked it up from.
Zipcar and co are generally aimed at daytrips, the kind of thing where you occasionally need a car or van for a day but no longer, not for longer distance trips where you are away for a few days.
I live in Zürich, in my experience the city with the best public transport system(Stockholm a close second, but Switzerland has much better public transportation overall).
In case I need a car in Switzerland I would simply rent one for the day using one of the many rental options.
Public transport for 95% of my trips, 3% cab, 2% rental.
It’s better for me, it’s better for the environment, the people around me. Reducing cars on the road also makes it so much more pleasant and nice just to be in the city.
I travel frequently to London and it’s unbelievable how big difference it makes to be in a city designed for pedestrians and not cars(and London is absolutely designed for cars first).
I travel world wide for work and my default option is always public transport, with the occasional cab ride for convenience. In some places it sadly doesn’t work out so then I end up renting a car.
I mean, walking from my home to the beach is almost as fast 70% of the time (the summer month make finding nearby parking spot really difficult and time consuming), and it's definitely better to come back walking too, as I don't like sand in my car. Going to the farmers' market by foot is faster (unless I go at 6am and find a free parking spot), and less alienating (I say 'hello' to a dozen persons on the way, another dozen on the way back, meet friends, flirt a little). The only exception is going to see my parents, It's definitely faster to drive around the small marsh than the 40 minutes it takes to cross it, but I usually cross it, and when I don't, I use my bike rather than my car.
And when I used to drink, I definitely walked to my bar rather than drove to it despite the free, often empty parking nearby and the 10 fewer minutes it took.
I honestly don't see situations where a walk is worse than a drive in my living area. At worse I take a bike? When I was alone, I managed with rentals only tbf (now it's a bit more difficult, also the windsurfs are easier to handle with a car, and are the primary reason we own one)
Yeah, but you have to find somewhere to park at both ends which is a hassle, you are limited in where you can go - couldn't stop and have a drink with friends either.
> You would prefer to walk around a city because it's that's dense as opposed to walking around nature that's specifically set aside for this type of enjoyment?
I've taken some very enjoyable walks in cities that I wouldn't rank either above or below some of my favorite hikes. It's just a completely different type of experience.
Rather than discovering interesting birds and plants, I can notice architecture, discover new restaurants and cafes and maybe check out their menu, window shop etc.
> I don't understand the complaint, here, other than "America is unlike Europe."
Even though America and Europe have developed differently, what's wrong with reevaluating some of the results of these developments in American cities, in particular with regards to whether they're meeting the needs of the people living there?
> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history?
Oh, it's definitely intentional. Sure, pre-industrial cities had narrow streets that were poorly suited for car traffic, so you could say that walkable cities were technically the default.
But a lot of those European cities were intentionally changed towards car transportation in the middle of the 20th century, when cars became widespread and a symbol of post-WW2 wealth, widening street and turning historical squares into parking lots.
And most of those cities were turned back into walkable (or bikable) cities since the '80s onwards, by banning cars and reusing the parking lots for other purposes.
Here's [0] an article about the Netherlands's intentional policy in that regards, and here's [1] a more recent effort in Spain. A lot of Reddit's popular "then and now" posts show this off [2].
> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history?
Both. And with different constraints at different time periods.
Aside, people in the past weren't stupid and they built cities purposefully. Just like cavemen weren't stupid, they just had less _stuff_, knowledge, tools, etc.
> In any case what value does this "norm" have?
Using less fuel. Enjoying a more healthy body and mind, enjoying life. Leaving a better world for its future inhabitants.
> You would prefer to walk around a city because it's that's dense as opposed to walking around nature that's specifically set aside for this type of enjoyment?
Strawman ("because it's that dense"). I like walking in cities AND nature. Both can be true.
Also, why should nature be "set aside"? What a weird notion. Why shouldn't we have more "nature" in our cities, in fact we know it's probably better to do exactly that, for a myriad of reasons that have been scientifically researched. Why should WE "set aside" nature, as if it was somehow external to us.
because, absent being set aside and reserved for nature, the land in the city is Very valuable and would be sold off to developers to be razed for buildings and parking lots.
> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history?
Amsterdam was re-designed for cars in the mid-20th century, it was not designed for cars and had been historically for walking. Then they realised the mistake in the 70s and started to re-design the city again prioritising walking, and biking, now we have Amsterdam as the poster child of a city designed for that.
You seem to forget that in the mid-20th century everywhere was being designed for cars, we are seeing a response to that after the failed experiment.
> you're in a city, what did you expect? If you want to spend time walking outside drive to one of the many National Parks
Many Europeans are used to "cities as Open Air Museums". (If you are not under the time constraints of appointments, and instead you have the time and want to enjoy the place and what is contained with some natural attention, you need to walk.)
That's a weird assumption, given that it's the exact opposite. In most European cities it's better to walk especially if you're under time constraints or have an appointment, it's going to be usually quicker and more predictable in terms of time needed than driving.
Just to be sure there were no misunderstandings: I wrote that "If the agenda allows, you will need to enjoy the open-museum city by walking - faster methods will decrease the ability to pay attention": that is not inconsistent with "If the agenda does not allow enjoying the open-museum city, you may want to consider walking as a more reliable way to respect the scheduling".
The fact that you get downvoted is mind blowing. European cities have a clear policy to make it harder for cars and easier for other transportation.
The previous poster is basically saying "Most Europeans use the cities they live in as open air museums, and not to live in. They don't have time constraints, they don't have appointments, they don't work there". Living the life in Europe, as a full-time open air museum visitor, it's great!
The parent poster (parent to my original post) wrote that there is little to «expect» from a city, and recommended at least the in turn parent poster - who wrote about having been an exception as a city walker - to go to a park for walking.
So I informed the parent poster that to walk in many European cities is, opposite to that idea, an experience of architecture, monuments and art. I.e.: walking many European cities is far from unusual and with reason.
The idea of the poster above about time constraints and appointments is delirious and completely disconnected from what I wrote, literally, briefly, clearly, and exactly with the purpose of avoiding misunderstandings.
I hope the above post is at least only the consequence of rushed reading.
I counted the subset of them living in nice cities full of remarkable architecture, art and monuments as people who could call walking the city a privilege, as opposed to the post against which I commented, that went "what do you expect if not bewilderment if you are seen walking through a city".
It took me a couple awkward minutes to realize that I'm the only one standing on my feet and not sitting in a car wherever I was looking. I apologized (???) and told them I was heading to a museum, bc I'm a visitor here and that's what we do right? I added a colleague's address and assured them that I'm not "confused", and will take an Uber now.
This was simply unbelievable in my world; for the next week I observed my colleague, whenever they took me out, or went to somewhere: we never walked outside. From the building to the parking lot, from the destination parking lot to the resto and vice versa.
Today, of course, I know that there are walkable cities too, I enjoy walking from my Chicago hotel to the office building :-) every single time I enjoy my US visits, but after a couple weeks I can't wait to get back to my 98% car free European life.