Url changed from https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/28/if-we-want-a-s..., which points to this.
If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
161–170 of 713 posts
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#162I think what's being noticed here, as in many urbanist conversations, is that our urban conditions are primarily reflective of the vastly unequal socio-economic structure we have at large. In places where the working poor are the most disadvantaged, there also tends to be the highest auto dependency. (Think American South, Panama City, Panama etc) To Soap box for a moment, almost all of our problems are reflective of…
The problem is that the shining example of low-inequality urbanism (Western Europe) achieved this by having effectively the most exclusionary immigration policy in the West for two centuries.
Europe may have great biking culture and equality, but they have effectively sacrificed pluralism.
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is this story that nobody takes the bus in L.A. but when I go there and ride the bus the bus is always full. It is not bad at all to ride the bus from Beverly Hills to Hollywood but the bus does not stop at Rodeo Drive, you have to pick it up on the next street over.
Surprised to hear the bus is always full. I took the Metrolink train from Union Station to San Bernardino recently, during an hour when people ought to be going home from work, and it was spookily empty. The one single other passenger in sight told me it was usually so empty. I thought of how crazy it was to offer this huge rail infrastructure - which really did seem cheap and convenient - for so few people to use.
That line had over 10k daily riders in 2019, before people stopped commuting to office jobs and it dropped to about 1500.
https://metrolinktrains.com/globalassets/about/agency/facts-...
It's still less than half its previous average at 4700 daily riders now. https://metrolinktrains.com/globalassets/about/agency/facts-...
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't agree with this at all. On one hand, it's kind of a tautology - sure, if you're in a city that is very car-dependent, it's a disadvantage to the working poor because owning a car costs money. But in the US there are also (usually older) cities with relatively great public transportation that are more walkable that also have enormous amounts of wealth inequality. Doesn't really have anything to do with inequalit…
Poor people can’t live in the places you’re describing so they’re going out of the public transit coverage
You absolutely don't know what you're talking about. There are poor people living in urban Boston and NYC and every city on the eastern seaboard.
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, and they suck there too. In Munich, there's a lot of protected bike lanes, but also some painted ones (especially closer to the city center) and the painted ones sucked. No way would I ever bike with a six year old on those, like I did on the protected lanes. Would a child or elderly person feel comfortable on such a lane? Generally, no. They're not accessible, and generally a waste of space. It's largely munic…
We are talking about two separate things. You are thinking of urban cycling where elderly and children commonly move about. I am talking about US rural roads, where a guaranteed paved shoulder and some lane marking now offers a respite from what bicycle tourers have historically considered a downside of cycling in the USA: sharing a lane with rural drivers. As I said, even in most of the EU one can't expect completel…
Even for rural areas, it should be separated paths. The US actually has some of those (way more than it has protected bike lanes, anyway).
Fair though, a painted bike lane is probably better than nothing.
> even in most of the EU
Why are you saying this like the EU is some kind of exemplar? Most of the EU sucks for biking. It's better on average than the US, but most countries there aren't like the Netherlands, which is probably the only country there where biking is treated with similar seriousness to driving in terms of investment.
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't agree with this at all. On one hand, it's kind of a tautology - sure, if you're in a city that is very car-dependent, it's a disadvantage to the working poor because owning a car costs money. But in the US there are also (usually older) cities with relatively great public transportation that are more walkable that also have enormous amounts of wealth inequality. Doesn't really have anything to do with inequalit…
Poor people can’t live in the places you’re describing so they’re going out of the public transit coverage
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Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#167If we want a shift to walking, we need cities to plant around 100x the number of trees they have. Ever walk through an old, mature neighbourhood? Usually there are tons of people on the sidewalks, and a primary reason is that there are mature trees providing plenty of shade. Then try walking in a new neighbourhood with barely any shade. It is awful.
I spend lots of time walking through old, mature neighbourhoods with mature trees. Usually the sidewalks are empty, because stuff is too spread out to be walkable, and there just aren't enough people for sidewalks to be full. Yes, mostly in the US, but I've also observed this outside the US. Leafy+dense enough to be vibrant areas are really nice, but the exception. The thing that really makes new neighborhoods awful for walking isn't lack of shade, it's everything else about the new neighborhood, typically built in an extremely car-centric manner.
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone else who is not normal, I have to say I'm a little tired of having my taxes subsidize the roads and sewers for someone who lives in the middle of nowhere and commutes 40 miles each way by car. "But my kids NEED a backyard!" Fair enough, but afford it on your own without a handout from the government.
Too bad. You got outvoted in a democracy. Because most people do not hold this view.
No, most people don't even realize that urban areas tend to subsidize less dense areas.
Usually when they're initially presented with this info, they immediately go into an obvious denial mode where they try to find some logic to explain why it isn't true.
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes. The balance of walking, subways, busses, taxis and delivery trucks had worked pretty well. Bicyclists introduced the concept of failing to yield, then acting indignant and entitled.
Failing to yield to pedestrians where? e: Actually, not going to get into it but c'mon - cars kill pedestrians in a way that bikes rarely do and removing the cars from your NY neighborhood would have an obviously better impact on pedestrians compared to the bikes.
As a New Yorker, with cars on the road I have a reasonable expectation of where they might be coming from or what direction they're headed (ie, they're following traffic laws). With bikes, they can (and do!) come from any direction, on the sidewalk, riding the wrong way on the road, wrong way in the bike lanes, etc. These bikes could be considered as motorcycles (ebike designation is a legal one), they often go 20mph or faster by delivery drivers with little consideration of pedestrian safety, and you really don't know where or how you might encounter one so your head needs to be on swivel as pedestrian in NYC.
That said, I'm still pro-bike and acknowledge that cars are much more dangerous for pedestrians, just I'd like to see the delivery bike / ebike problems fixed.
Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity
#170This lens is underutilized in the discourse, but people feel it acutely. Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” When you are using transportation infrastructure that’s designed with contempt for you, you know, and you don’t want to be there. See also: rail slow zones, buses that shimmy and rattle violently on imperfect pavement, how Muni trains close their doors and pull one foot out…
> Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” When you are using transportation infrastructure that’s designed with contempt for you, you know, and you don’t want to be there. I grew up in close contact with a large urban poor population and I think the view of bikes was the exact opposite of this. Biking in the city is considered the purview of affluent white people
In some way it makes sense. The poor are driven by high property prices to live far away. The more affluent can choose to buy property in the heart of the city and use bikes in the city.