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Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

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Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#301

Post by ryukafalz »

sandworm101 wrote: post #285
ryukafalz wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then this goes back to what I said initially: > you just need the infrastructure to let you do so Yes, if your city treats cycling as an afterthought, it will be less practical to cycle. If your city treated driving as an afterthought, it would be less practical to drive. You get what you build for and what you prioritize. > Even then, we drive on compact snow for 1/3 the year. Oulu has snow for half of the year and…

Lots of alternative transport things are possible in cities with 10x the population and 4x the urban density. And little farming/agra business. In a country one can drive across in a day. There is no comparison to the middle parts of North America.

We're talking about cities, so... the urban density of Oulu is 2,372/sq mi. The urban density of Indianapolis is 2,352.6/sq mi. Pretty comparable!

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#302

Post by pchristensen »

hinkley wrote: post #270
teucris wrote: post #114

Incredible analysis! As a Seattleite I can say the conclusions here are very close to accurate, with the key additional note being that distance is not the only thing that defines walkability. Seattle has some of the most confounding civil engineering I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lived in five cities and visited dozens more. Here are some things that make a pedestrian life near impossible in my neighborhood: - two high-t…

Stuck in traffic I often wondered why downtown Seattle is in the worst spot possible on the east side of Puget Sound. For a small town it's a fine spot, for a major metropolitan area it's right at the chokepoint of a narrow north-south corridor. That may be one of the reasons. If you're in Kent and you want to sell strawberries to Everett you basically have to go through Seattle. The other is that Seattle originally…

After West Seattle, the city built up around the area where the stadiums are. Capitol Hill was called that because they were going to put the Washington state capitol there, but decided not to because it was too far from "Seattle". That should give some idea of how small the city was. There were single digit thousand white people in the entire area at that time. The width of the isthmus was not a problem at that time.

The reason the city picked that spot is because it had the best deep water access on Elliott Bay.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#303

Post by bialpio »

kenperkins wrote: post #39

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension. If I was living at the base of Lower Queen Anne and the "facilities" meeting the 15m criteria was at the top, that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

> (...) that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

Why not? As long as it's truly a 15m walk? The metric should take into account that the speed is going to be reduced when walking on a steep incline, otherwise it's a bad metric...

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#304

Post by jgust »

kenperkins wrote: post #39

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension. If I was living at the base of Lower Queen Anne and the "facilities" meeting the 15m criteria was at the top, that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

What's the difference between walking and hiking, elevation gain?

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#305

Post by MobiusHorizons »

bailoon wrote: post #283
com2kid wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle doesn't have nearly enough density to have that many high schools. Given the ever falling birth rate, it likely never will. The density would need to be obscenely high. Figure high schools have 4x the number of students that elementary schools do, and we'd need 2x the elementary schools to make them all walkable, that means Seattle would have to have 8x the number of students in high school than it currently…

> Given the ever falling birth rate, it likely never will. But Seattle and Washington are attracting people from the world and the rest of the nation. Both Seattle and Washington have been experience positive population growth for decades now.

I believe the relevant factor is the ratio of school aged children to adults. This determines the relative demand for schools over other amenities such as housing. That ratio is largely dependent on the birthrate regardless of the population or density of the city. While people are moving in, it's not clear that new residents have a higher average birthrate than existing residents.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#306

Post by loeg »

dweinus wrote: post #299
loeg wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you encounter roads that lack sidewalks and are also unsafe to walk on? I've frequently experienced the former in Seattle, but usually they're very low speed residential streets that are safe to just walk on. The only real counterexample I can think of is 5th Ave NE by the golf course.

Basically anywhere in District 5, including some of Aurora: https://www.knkx.org/2015-election/2015-10-23/in-seattles-si...

"And are also unsafe to walk on," though? Most of those are residential streets with low traffic. I lived in that area and ran around somewhat regularly for several years. The street I mentioned as the worst one is in that district. :-)

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#307

Post by bears-n-beets »

goostavos wrote: post #162
watermelon59 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has so many intersections that are completely bonkers. They’re not only poorly walkable, they also make driving extremely stressful.

Queen Anne has a 7-way stop! The first time I encountered it I was thoroughly stumped. Actually, I'm still stumped years later every time I go through it. At some point, I just commit and hope for the best.

Ha, I pass through this stop on my work commute. Glad to see it getting recognition as being completely bonkers. It’s not easy to keep track of the order in which the six other cars arrived at the intersection. Most of the time someone just slowly inches forward until it seems everyone else agrees it’s that person’s turn and then they floor it the rest of the way through. I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents here. It’s on a hill, too.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#308

Post by bears-n-beets »

bialpio wrote: post #303
kenperkins wrote: post #39

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension. If I was living at the base of Lower Queen Anne and the "facilities" meeting the 15m criteria was at the top, that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

> (...) that's not something I would consider a viable walk. Why not? As long as it's truly a 15m walk? The metric should take into account that the speed is going to be reduced when walking on a steep incline, otherwise it's a bad metric...

You might change your mind if you saw how steep Queen Anne Hill is, haha

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#309

Post by [deleted] »

watermelon59 wrote: post #154
teucris wrote: post #114

Incredible analysis! As a Seattleite I can say the conclusions here are very close to accurate, with the key additional note being that distance is not the only thing that defines walkability. Seattle has some of the most confounding civil engineering I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lived in five cities and visited dozens more. Here are some things that make a pedestrian life near impossible in my neighborhood: - two high-t…

Seattle has so many intersections that are completely bonkers. They’re not only poorly walkable, they also make driving extremely stressful.

[deleted]

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#310

Post by rootusrootus »

ryukafalz wrote: post #223
sandworm101 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> ...despite living walking distance to 3 grocery stores, I still typically drive a mile away to a larger store because... A mobile consumer base, people with cars that can travel to potentially hundreds of retail options, is a backbone of American competition. Like cars or not, they empower consumers to defeat local monopolies. The next stage, pickup trucks, then empowers retailers to sell large products (appliance…

Reminder that it only takes about 6 minutes to bike a mile, or 8 if you go at a leisurely Dutch pace. You don't need cars to go far enough to have quite a few options, you just need the infrastructure to let you do so.

> it only takes about 6 minutes to bike a mile, or 8 if you go at a leisurely Dutch pace.

What's the pace in Seattle? The Dutch don't have many meaningful hills, Seattle on the other hand...

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