111–120 of 351 posts
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And the reason people often move out with kids is that it's too expensive to own a large-enough property for most people due to the high demand for walkable places.
there's a very simple solution then. build more walkable places.
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Here in Austin Texas, we have lovely signs to remind you of your imminent crash! http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Sign%201.JP...
Our equivalent in Australia is a Black Spot: https://www.snowyvalleys.nsw.gov.au/News-Media/Brungle-Road-...
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> one of the most dangerous places I am likely to be in. i dont know how widely this turn of phrase is used, but where i grew up in the US, we called the middle turn lane in a 5 lane road the suicide lane.
Sounds like a derivative from a road style which has (mostly, thankfully) been abandoned: originally, “suicide lanes” designated the center lane of a 3-lane. A 3-lane is a road design where you’ve got one lane in each direction, and a shared passing lane in the middle . These used to be quite popular as they were not much more expensive than a 2-lane but allowed better throughput, however as density and speeds increa…
I couldn’t agree more with the article. Unfortunately as for America I think people wouldn’t be very happy with turning their stroads into streets. There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry.
The cognitive dissonance is wild. The busiest and most economically vibrant areas in the US are the ones that deprioritize cars (main streets, downtowns, outdoor malls, bar districts). But if you try to change an existing area into a less car friendly area people absolutely lose their heads
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But this isn't how the world works. It's not Simcity where you lay down neat grids of zones and the dutiful citizens follow your orders. People will want to take advantage of cheap(er) land alongside your "road" so that they can own a house while still having reasonable access to the "street". And boom now you have a stroad. Attempting to use zoning to stop that runs into the problem that by and large people don't wa…
we do have roads where we prohibit driveways onto them. They're called Interstates. somehow we don't have massive issues with people illegally building driveways onto them. It kills me that US road planners don't even bother putting in medium-term solutions that would fix most of the issues, like a road with separated through lanes in the middle and a one-lane service road for the driveways.
I couldn’t agree more with the article. Unfortunately as for America I think people wouldn’t be very happy with turning their stroads into streets. There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry.
The truth is there isn't that much demand for high density housing and walkable neighborhoods. They are mostly attractive to young childless adults. Some of them stick around once they have kids, but it's rare and usually reserved for the well-off who can afford private schools and family-sized homes. In SF you've got the parents who are happy to put their kids and groceries on the back of their bike, but most look t…
Real estate prices for high density housing and walkable neighborhoods disproves this statement outright. As for why this type of housing is not built more frequently, there is a fairly simple explanation: they are illegal to build under zoning laws, which massively favour single-family homes.
> Some of them stick around once they have kids, but it's rare and usually reserved for the well-off who can afford private schools and family-sized homes. In SF you've got the parents who are happy to put their kids and groceries on the back of their bike, but most look to find something a bit closer to suburbia.
There's a simple explanation for this: cities in the U.S are unsafe in particular for children due to the massive infestation of cars and car-oriented infrastructure. Suburbs appear to be the only alternative, but they are pretty damn harmful to the development of children - basically being a prisoner inside your house until you are old enough to drive a car is quite frankly demeaning.
I couldn’t agree more with the article. Unfortunately as for America I think people wouldn’t be very happy with turning their stroads into streets. There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry.
> There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry. I have seen more comments and people talking about this toxic car culture than seen it in real life. Not everyone is young, healthy and rich enough to bike. There is a historic racial divide. White folks live in more bike friendly places. https://theconversation.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-c…
Anyway, as to your other points - firstly, changing or building cities in a way that is not car centric doesn't mean there are no cars and nobody drives - obviously people still have to and will. Actually, building cities in a way that is not car-centric is safer for people who still drive, and there's a lot less traffic, so that's good. It's just even better for people who don't or can't drive (think of people under 16 years old, who have little independence to travel living in suburbs).
It should be noted too that non car-centric cities are much better for e.g. elderly people to live in, because everything is much closer, and good cycle and walking paths are much better to ride mobility scooters on. Things being in walkable distance also helps people age better, because the exercise means you retain your mobility longer. It's pretty scary how as people age, you get to a point where if you're not staying active, you really quickly start to lose the ability to be active, which is a unfortunate spiral.
The last thing - it's not just bikes (look up the YouTube channel with the same name, by the way - it's awesome). Improving zoning laws and building good public transport is also a key part of the puzzle, and helps solve lot of the issues as well.
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> one of the most dangerous places I am likely to be in. i dont know how widely this turn of phrase is used, but where i grew up in the US, we called the middle turn lane in a 5 lane road the suicide lane.
I wonder how much that specific road design cause FedEx to discourage left hand turns in their routes?
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there's a very simple solution then. build more walkable places.
Walkable places are inherently more expensive because they lack economy of scale. It's why Dunkin Donuts can sell a dozen for $10 but it costs ~$20 for half a dozen at my local walkable place. Granted, there is a quality of ingredients difference but not 4x the cost.
I couldn’t agree more with the article. Unfortunately as for America I think people wouldn’t be very happy with turning their stroads into streets. There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry.
> There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry. I have seen more comments and people talking about this toxic car culture than seen it in real life. Not everyone is young, healthy and rich enough to bike. There is a historic racial divide. White folks live in more bike friendly places. https://theconversation.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-c…
Bikes are orders of magnitude cheaper than a car. Both in terms of the infrastructure needed as well as the individual cost of bicycles. Good bicycle infrastructure also improves accessibility for those using mobility scooters, and a bicycle culture has hugely beneficial health benefits to individuals and society - not to mention the awful health effects of cars.