Same. Most places in the US aren't built in a way where everyday errands are walkable. I feel insanely lucky to have semi-randomly ended up in one of the few places that are. I'm in love with the format of small European cities, enough that I'm considering attempting to emigrate before trying to start a family.
Even if day to day errands are reasonably walkable/bikable/transitable, in most US cities you're adding a lot of overhead and inconvenience for carless people who want to regularly get out of the city on weekends. Very few people I know (so somewhat older folks) don't own cars even in walkable cities.
Speaking as someone who lived in the Bay Area, most of the impediment to getting out of town on the weekends was traffic on 80/101 from people commuting to and from work. Once you escaped past Sacramento most of the traffic disappeared.
Paying for parking changes the calculus of life. It makes everything significantly more expensive and really puts a damper on membership type things. Like we've got a membership to the children's museum. But parking is ~$15 a time so we go far less frequently than we otherwise would. Economic arguments about freeloading are good and something I theoretically agree with. But in practice when the other option is 2 buss…
To some extent, this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion on scarce resources by ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly and are willing to pay, in either time, money, or inconvenience.
> this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion
Yes.
>> ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly
Not necessarily. People using it could just have more money.
There isn’t a single appropriate viewpoint, I think cars are amazing and I will never be giving mine up. I support those who want to trade theirs in, but don’t force that on me.
You think that because you live in a society that's been designed around cars. if that wasn't the case, you wouldn't need your car so much.
I’ve lived in major cities and went over a decade without a car. I won’t be going back.
We’ve a massive problem here in Western Europe (UK and Ireland) with people parking on the footpath (sidewalk). They’ll put all four wheels up blocking the passage all pedestrians rather than use their driveway or a legal space. Unfortunately there is little to no enforcement.
Apparently nowhere it is as much of a problem as in Russia. Stop a Douchebag has two entire Youtube channels (with shockingly frequent releases) to film people driving (often quite recklessly) and parking on the sidewalks of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebag https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebagWorld
I’ve watched several of these now. What’s incredible is how they expose the entitlement of those illegally parking and how quickly they lie and exaggerate rather that admit fault. It’s exactly how it unfolds here when some driver nearly kills me on my bike reacts.