If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity • Hacker News Board

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#191

Post by gochi » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #9

If 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 don't think the tree has much to do with it. While shade is important and should be even more so going forward, the general scale of new neighbourhoods compared to old ones is dramatically different.

It's like homes used to be so much closer to the sidewalk, it was just a couple of steps to reach the sidewalk and get going, but now it's these giant football field widths separating homes from the sidewalk, and then massive 4 lane sized roads separating sidewalks on either side. I'm exaggerating of course but the point is still there, the scale is just so different planting trees won't solve it.

This difference in scale creates such a different atmosphere, where sidewalks are just for dog walkers and bored baby sitters, not for regular commute. It's like if you want to talk to your neighbour from the sidewalk you have to bring a megaphone.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#192

Post by bichiliad » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #184

degrews wrote: post #106

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Here are some other examples of things that I think contribute to the hostile walking experience in the US: * Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them…

really? Tokyo is very oriented towards pedestrian traffic, considering shinkansen and most rail service - yet satellite suburban sites, like Saitama, etc have tiny residential rows that literally don't fit both a car and a pedestrian. And that's where most people live. Yet Japan is highly pedestrian. Now, South America. Most if not all urban centers of 1M are extremely well covered by bus networks. And they have to,…

You can find a ton of much worse examples than the US, but the US is just vastly far behind Europe (i.e. Spain, to which OP was comparing the US to).

Plus, it's worth mentioning that while Tokyo has a lot of mixed-traffic streets, the streets are small, have very low speed limits, and have strong restrictions on the size and type of car that can actually be within the city. It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#193

Post by zdragnar » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #105

gruez wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” I agree with the overall point that people don't want to cycle because the experience sucks, but your description feels like an unnecessarily inflammatory way to say "people are willing to pay for a more pleasant experience". Nobody says "a lot of the anti-cheap laptop stance comes down to, "what am I, poor?".

> inflammatory way to say "people are willing to pay for a more pleasant experience" You got it all wrong! It does noy matter how the expience feels physically. The problem is social stigma attached to cycling. Like tell you mates you spent 3 weeks fixing your car, or built your own house, and it was super u pleasant and you broke your hand in the process - you are cool. But tell them you cycled to work to improvr fi…

Few companies have showers on site, and "fitness" is frequently associated with sweating.

The last thing I would want to do is show up at an office for an 8 hour shift soaked in sweat. Where I live, it is humid enough during the summer that there's really only at most 4 months of the year where "pleasant" can be described to use the weather for biking.

In fact, the weather forecast for today is 85% humidity, and is going to hit 93% twice this week.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#194

Post by roboror » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #172

whimsicalism wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cyclists in NYC are positive menace. They don’t need to be but they choose go the wrong way down one way streets, routinely ignore all traffic signals, ride on busy sidewalks and eschew bike lanes to weave in and out of heavy traffic. Well under 50% wear helmets. As a pedestrian in NYC I feel far more endangered by bikes than I do by automobiles. There is room for cyclists, but there has got to be some compliance wit…

>As a pedestrian in NYC I feel far more endangered by bikes than I do by automobiles.

This is why legislating by "feelings" is a bad idea. Automobiles are a far larger and more lethal risk.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#195

Post by lozenge » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #85

Just throwing it out there but it would be nice if there were a lot more pesestrian and bike only roads built separate from car roads. Big cities already have recreational walking trails that typically follow some sort of a drainage or sewage "river". Another thing I wondered is how under most city streets there is already wiring and tunnels and some infra. Is the cost that unreasonable to convert roads one by one so…

Milton Keynes tried separating pedestrians and cyclists, it is mostly considered a failure.

Reasons include- they built the place so well for cars that everybody owns a car- poorly lit underpasses- confusing layout- crime and the feeling of being alone if somebody were to attack, due to no cars passing by and no shop windows.

https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/blog/2012/04/27/they-buil...

https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=46081

"You have to cycle quite a long way to get anywhere useful - Signage is appalling. If I hadn’t had the map I would have got quite lost. [the cycle paths don't follow the grid system]"

Tunnels are quite dangerous, having cars at high speed for long distances is extra dangerous. Having them leave the tunnel is either a highway junction or a stroad. There is one in Boston though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5pPKfzzL54

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#196

Post by pclmulqdq » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #185

pclmulqdq wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you've been to NYC in the last 5 years or so if you think that bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians. The worst and most dangerous culprits are the people whizzing around on e-bikes with a complete disregard for pedestrian safety or traffic laws. The drivers in NYC are comparatively safe. They drive relatively slowly (compared to other parts of the country), pay attention to pedestrian…

Even per capita of bike riding vs. car riding, the deaths from drivers are disproportionate. > bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians I didn't say that, I think it is true. That said, I also think pedestrians sometimes have an expectation that a biker would yield in a place where they wouldn't even try with a car (ie. crossing the road between two vehicles into the bike lane).

> Failing to yield to pedestrians where?

This is what you said, and what I am responding to.

Also, I would suggest that deaths from drivers are probably only higher because the probability of a collision being fatal is a lot higher when one party in the collision is 2 tons, and that the fatality rate is not a good proxy for the rate of total accidents (even the rate of total accidents where someone ends up in a hospital). I have not seen a credible measurement for that, but I would expect from what I have seen in my 6 years living in Manhattan that the accident rate with bikes is a lot higher than it is with cars, and that so is the rate of injuries. As a pedestrian, my chance of getting killed in a traffic accident are so astronomically low that I actually care a lot more about my probability of being injured than my probability of being killed.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#197

Post by causality0 » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #3

This 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…

It's so strange because it isn't that people are flooding into cities and bringing their car fixation with them. As a rural/suburban person, nobody I know from here drives when they're traveling in a city because the driving experience is so miserably bad compared to driving in the country. It's the city people who think moving five feet every thirty seconds and bathing in an ocean of car horn noises is somehow compatible with human life.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#198

Post by lozenge » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #190

danny_codes wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt... There is a huge problem with that. It turns out that offering urban-level services at suburban density isn't sustainable. It turns out urban areas are subsidizing suburbs quite extensively. Now, if suburbanite were willing to pay their own way, perhaps we could discuss that. But another issue is that car-dependent suburbanites demand access to urban area…

> It turns out that offering urban-level services at suburban density isn't sustainable. What do you mean by "urban-level services"? If you mean urban-style mass transit, then yes, I agree--and I don't want such services in the suburbs. If I'm going to live in the suburbs, I'm going to own a car and that's how I'm going to expect to get around in the suburbs. If I wanted to live in a place where I could walk or use m…

They mean water, sewage, roads, pavements, street lighting. See link.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#199

Post by jghn » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #185

pclmulqdq wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you've been to NYC in the last 5 years or so if you think that bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians. The worst and most dangerous culprits are the people whizzing around on e-bikes with a complete disregard for pedestrian safety or traffic laws. The drivers in NYC are comparatively safe. They drive relatively slowly (compared to other parts of the country), pay attention to pedestrian…

Even per capita of bike riding vs. car riding, the deaths from drivers are disproportionate. > bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians I didn't say that, I think it is true. That said, I also think pedestrians sometimes have an expectation that a biker would yield in a place where they wouldn't even try with a car (ie. crossing the road between two vehicles into the bike lane).

I expect people to yield when I have the right of way. Regardless of their mode of transport.

Re: If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

#200

Post by uoaei » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:54 PM UTC

inconceivable wrote: post #143

xtracto wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote time. Ten years ago I (Mexican, living in Mexico, a bit "white-er" than the average Mexican skin color) worked for a Silicon Valley startup with HQs in Mountain View. One time I was visiting said HQ, I met several people, I got to talk with one of them (Chinese/Asiatic looking woman) about how I was moving while I was there, and where was I staying (she didn't know where I was from). At some point I told her…

that's about the equivalent of calling someone 'asiatic', a term used for animal species lmao. of course you probably don't give a shit, and neither do we really care about calling you names either.

There's a difference between using an inappropriate word but describing the same phenomenon, and treating an ethnicity as synonymous with "poor".