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

streets.mn

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

#341

Post by brightlancer »

whimsicalism wrote: post #224
inamberclad wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out in the (poorer) suburbs, the only adults who bike are those who can't afford a car, or have had their license revoked.

Perhaps. I think suburbs with high density of poor people used to be less common in the past so I am less familiar with the dynamics there.

Moving the poor to the suburbs was one of the intended consequences of cleaning up the cities where now only affluent white people own bikes.

I'm not joking. Cities tore down their tenement housing "projects" because of the rampant amounts of crime, and the residents went to the suburbs to live in Section 8 private housing. It's one of the reasons (there were many) that violent crime decreased so sharply beginning in the 1990s: the criminals were more spread out, diffusing much of the network effect.

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

#342

Post by variadix »

brightlancer wrote: post #326
DangitBobby wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 9 or 10 PM that's exactly how it is here in TN, USA. Dine in is closed and the drive through won't take you on foot or on a bike. I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People.

> I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People. Bicyclists?

The homeless, I imagine

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

#343

Post by nemomarx »

brightlancer wrote: post #326
DangitBobby wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 9 or 10 PM that's exactly how it is here in TN, USA. Dine in is closed and the drive through won't take you on foot or on a bike. I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People.

> I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People. Bicyclists?

I would assume the homeless, certain income ranges, etc. That's the real reason to close the lobby but keep the drive through right, so people aren't hanging around in it and resting at night?

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

#344

Post by unholythree »

DangitBobby wrote: post #265
ben_w wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was drive-thru the only late night food option in that bit of Czechia? That felt like the pertinent part, not being able to get any in some places. (Here in Berlin I have to plan around Sunday trading rules in a way I didn't back in the UK, but we have Spätis, so there are options).

After 9 or 10 PM that's exactly how it is here in TN, USA. Dine in is closed and the drive through won't take you on foot or on a bike. I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People.

But why? They would have to allow these same “Certain People” in their lobby from 7am until 9pm when their most affluent patrons are probably coming in for lunch, after soccer practice, etc. At the drive through there is barely any interaction between staff and customer much less between customers.

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

#345

Post by inferiorhuman »

brightlancer wrote: post #330
elric wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably not supposed to stop a car in those places, and when you do, you're supposed to stop on the road, never on the sidewalk. Steep fines for that in Belgium at least, though the odds of getting caught are slim.

It's illegal in the US to block the sidewalk with a car and it's one of the few things cities will actually enforce aggressively -- if they don't, they can be sued for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

At least in San Francsico this is very rarely enforced. What I've seen professionally and personally is that cities will ticket the easy stuff. Street cleaning is at the top of that list followed by time-based red zones.

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

#346

Post by InertBrake »

Sharlin wrote: post #328
tremon wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think the assumption is more that us Europeans can afford such decadent , livable cities because we don’t need to spend as much money on defense (?!) So car-oriented hellscapes are somehow the default, "normal" situation, because of course what you have accustomed to feels subjectively normal to you! Then Europe is some sort of a fairy-tale Disneyland that doesn’t need to face the Realities thanks to the US. Anyway…

It can be both that in America we value sprawl and car-centered culture at great cost to ourselves, and that maybe it'd be nice if we pulled back on being world police a bit and invested more financially back at home. Maybe we could use all that money being spent on destroyers and forward bases to tear down all the stroads in the country and replace them with walkable mixed-use developments connected by rail.

In real life though, it's never that simple. Those destroyers and bases are being used for something even if it's stupid, and if they are no longer there, then things may change in unexpected ways.

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

#347

Post by rcme »

Maybe dignity is part of it, but the main issue (in the U.S.) is that everything is very spread out and very few places have the requisite density to support walking. I don't care if it's the most dignified experience ever. I'm not walking 30 blocks to go to a coffee shop.

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

#348

Post by vegetablepotpie »

ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote: post #286
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…

Tinted windows are such a pet peeve of mine. I get it in the tropics but in most of America the individual benefits of dark tint seem like they’d be outweighed by the collective good of better visibility through cars, enabling eye contact with drivers, etc. The SUV craze is really to blame - in general many US states don’t allow dark tint on traditional cars but do on SUVs. And since rear windows on vans and light tr…

I was surprised by SUVs being able to have more window tint, and I looked it up, and you’re right [1]. For windshield and drive side windows it’s the same as a sedan, but for rear windows it can be darker for passenger comfort.

Apparently in Alabama at least, the manufacturer determines the designation [2]. So you might be able to call Subaru about the Impreza and have them call it “an SUV” to get that sweet rear window tint.

[1] https://www.suvradar.com/can-suvs-have-tinted-windows/

[2] https://www.alea.gov/dps/highway-patrol/alabama-tinting-regu...

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

#349

Post by mxkopy »

whimsicalism wrote: post #151
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…

> 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

I think it depends; biking because you need to and biking for fun look very different. IME of Phoenix you could have the cyclist doing training routes in their kit and the crackhead strapped with bags of their stuff pass by on the same street.

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

#350

Post by [deleted] »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #279
bichiliad wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unpopular opinion: We (US) should stop subsidizing Europe's security while they are better than us and can afford to do so. https://cvafoundation.org/does-the-us-subsidize-european-def...

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