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

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

#311

Post by whimsicalism »

kiratp wrote: post #304
sdeframond wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flipping off the drivers if they honked Honking within urban areas is forbidden unless used to prevent immediate danger (well, in France anyway). Honking for "educational purpose", ie to yell at someone, is a major nuisance. Every honk annoys dozens of people around the driver, wakes up babies and so on. Friends, don't let friends honk inconsiderately.

This is not true in the US, at least in Washington state for example. Honking = speech https://law.justia.com/cases/washington/supreme-court/2011/8...

> The woman at the center of that case, Helen D. Immelt, had been raising chickens in Snohomish County, Wash., apparently in violation of her local homeowners association covenants. A neighbor complained, and Ms. Immelt, according to court documents, drove over at 6 a.m. and applied some free-speech payback.

The Pacific Northwest has always had a libertarian streak, I doubt this would be ruled permissible in other states.

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

#312

Post by lotsoweiners »

fnimick wrote: post #255
pdonis wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many living in suburbs like to pretend they are in a rural area Suburbs are not rural, but they're not urban either. The population density in most suburbs is too low to support the kind of walk-everywhere infrastructure that a true high density urban area can (and should) provide. The real issue is that many people fail to realize that there is no problem with that . Having different areas for people to live with…

How does mandatory single family zoning and parking minimums factor into your "feature?" When people want to live somewhere dense, and that's illegal to build, they're forced into suburban living even though that is not their preference.

People who want to live somewhere “dense” can go live there. The dense parts of most cities don’t have mandatory single zoning or parking minimums as far as I know. I’m not going to stop you from living in or near downtown and neither is anyone else in the suburbs. You do you and let the rest of us do us.

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

#313

Post by lotsoweiners »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #69
paulcole wrote: post #4

The thing is we (as an American society) really don’t want a shift to walking. We like the idea of walking more but won’t actually do it. Instead we’ll make up a million excuses about why we just can’t walk. I say this as someone who at 40 years old has never learned to drive and who has walked/bicycled/taken the bus virtually everywhere I’ve needed to go. And I’ve lived in very rural and very suburban areas, as well…

> We like the idea of walking more but won’t actually do it. Wrong. The reason people don't walk is simply because walking mostly really sucks in like 95% of urban or suburban contexts in the states. Even crossing the street once can be a huge pain in the ass sometimes (e.g. strip mall to strip mall across two giant parking lots and an enormous stroad). It is astoundingly rare to find an actual nice, not-tiny area to…

I like walking and walk almost everyday (not right now since it’s summer). Why would I want to walk 15-20 minutes each way though to go pick something up when a 2 minute car ride would get me there. Sure sometimes I’ll take a leisurely walk to the store on a Saturday afternoon but usually I just need something quickly.

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

#314

Post by fnimick »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #312
fnimick wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does mandatory single family zoning and parking minimums factor into your "feature?" When people want to live somewhere dense, and that's illegal to build, they're forced into suburban living even though that is not their preference.

People who want to live somewhere “dense” can go live there. The dense parts of most cities don’t have mandatory single zoning or parking minimums as far as I know. I’m not going to stop you from living in or near downtown and neither is anyone else in the suburbs. You do you and let the rest of us do us.

Except for price, because a lot of people want to live in dense areas.

Why exactly do you think you should have a say over how other people live? That's what you claim to oppose, but your support of zoning in order to prevent other people from building density on their own property is exactly that.

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

#315

Post by ska »

bichiliad wrote: post #192
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

> It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.

As far as I can see, this is essential to ant attempt a truly "walkable" city (assuming that is your goal). City streets designed & optimized around car usage are basically inconsistent with pedestrian spaces that really work well.

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

#316

Post by tremon »

InertBrake wrote: post #306
laserlight wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you reply to the wrong thread? Where did defense subsidies come from?

Without really reading the article, I think maybe the parent's point is that the US basically pays for large portions of defense and security of Europe, especially when it comes to the need for blue water navies to protect trade. That frees up a lot of time, money, and manpower for them to spend on not defense, and spend instead on infrastructure and nice things. It's also nice that another effect Pax Americana has c…

So the argument is actually that the US can't have livable cities because they spend all that money defending Europe? Because of the implicit assumption that European-style cities are more expensive in upkeep than current US cities?

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

#317

Post by nologic01 »

Bipetalism is a homo sapiens superpower. We are healthly and happy when we walk serious distances. A lot of people discovered that during the pandemic.

The plot twist is that another homo sapiens superpower is inventiveness and adaptability. So we have invented powered mobility and changed our world to take advantage of it.

We have more or less adapted to that new mobility-on-steroids reality but our legs are still made for walking. And fossil fuel based mobility is in any case unsustainable.

The final act is when we realise that we must adjust the intensity of usage of our various inventions to achieve optimal quality of life for the long term.

Walkable cities is a major piece in solving that puzzle. Less pollution, more space, more natural, more fun. Life need not be overengineered in all its aspects.

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

#318

Post by fnimick »

grecy wrote: post #310
tvaughan wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Same. I’ve lived in Los Ángeles and Amsterdam, and it is impossible to explain to my friends and family just how awful the quality of life is in LA precisely because of the difference in attitudes and priorities over cars. Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they…

Every time a politician anywhere in the world suggests adding more freeways or more lanes to freeways, I think they should be forced to live in LA for a year and do a ~1 hour commute each way in traffic. They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.

I had a conversation recently with someone lamenting that we didn't have roads like LA here in Boston. Saying their ideal road was 3 lanes, plus a bike lane, plus a bus lane in each direction. Imagine being a pedestrian trying to cross that!

I really don't understand someone who looks at that traffic disaster and wants to build the same thing here at home.

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

#319

Post by Guvante »

vorpalhex wrote: post #274
eddd-ddde wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nice thing is there's an even better way of decreasing crash fatalities. Just decrease the amount of driving.

Sure and we can fix computer security by confiscating all computers. Not much of a realistic fix, is it?

Not comparable.

Driving isn't intrinsic. Transportation is important but has multiple solutions.

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

#320

Post by eredengrin »

grecy wrote: post #310
tvaughan wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here. Same. I’ve lived in Los Ángeles and Amsterdam, and it is impossible to explain to my friends and family just how awful the quality of life is in LA precisely because of the difference in attitudes and priorities over cars. Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they…

Every time a politician anywhere in the world suggests adding more freeways or more lanes to freeways, I think they should be forced to live in LA for a year and do a ~1 hour commute each way in traffic. They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.

I'd say split it half and half, 6 months LA to learn the pain of the wrong way, then 6 months in a place with proper transit like Amsterdam or Seoul, then they come back with a vision of what could be.
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