281–290 of 389 posts
Strong Towns has called a good amount of attention to the mandatory parking requirements in many cities (and shockingly, many downtowns). Thankfully, it seems a fair number of cities are removing such restrictions, but hopefully it becomes more widespread. In general I hope the US can urbanize, the older I get the more I realize it’s not really enjoyable living in this country. I don’t think I want hyper dense, but h…
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Practically none of those sources of noise pollution apply to modern urban areas. How many blacksmiths do you have working on your street today? We've driven out nature, we don't have livestock or any animals other than rats and a few birds, we don't transport cargo on carts with wood & metal wheels, we don't live in industrial areas that produce noise pollution, we have laws governing loud music and such. Above all,…
I stayed in a hotel in a city recently. I wish the cars were the loudest thing. There was an ice-skating rink blasting music until after midnight and then a jackhammer at 6am. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well.
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> In a walkable city you go by a store every time you go outside I'm all for designing for walkability, but this is a case study in failing to understand audiences. If you make this not just a possibility but a requirement of walkable cities, many people won't want to live in your "walkable" cities at all . There are much better arguments possible here. For instance, you could promote CSAs for regularly delivered far…
If you don't want to live in a walkable area boy have I got great news for you. Close your eyes and point at the map!
1. What to plant is important as not all places/soils are the same.
2. Are you also thinking about maintenance (watering and pruning included)?
3. Are you also thinking about environmental compatibility with existing fauna and flora?
Planting trees is not trivial!
Planting trees is not trivial. Nor a green-ish solution. 1. What to plant is important as not all places/soils are the same. 2. Are you also thinking about maintenance (watering and pruning included)? 3. Are you also thinking about environmental compatibility with existing fauna and flora? Planting trees is not trivial!
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I bet no one in major European cities requires to bike like ten miles each way. The point is the size of American cities is vastly different to European ones, so what works that side of Atlantic rarely translates "as-is" here. (I am disappointed about this oft thrown around comparison, since my city reduced one lane on several major roads and created bike paths. Sadly, we now have major traffic jams and hardly any ut…
> I bet no one in major European cities requires to bike like ten miles each way. I am in Amsterdam, and lots of people bike 15km each way, including many students at the high schools my children attend.
I think winter makes a huge difference in how bikeable a city can really be. Western Europe tends to be mild on that front.
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That would be one of the least efficient ways to move people at scale around a city, which just enforces the original point.
It's more efficient than requiring parking. And define "efficient"? People's time and effort have value, as well, and saving time and effort is a win. If a proposed solution is "it takes longer to get from place to place, and additionally requires walking or biking", many people will rightfully consider that proposal worse .
Capacity, cost per passenger, environmental impact, space efficiency.
How does a hailed EV scale to every person in a city that needs to move around without the massive congestion problems we already see in car dominant cities?
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Because I don't want to go to store every two days, and the prices in local small stores are higher than in a larger, discount store. I buy a pack of milk, and I'm good for a month.
In a walkable city you go by a store every time you go outside - you come back from work, you pass by a store or two where you can buy fresh groceries. This has also an impact on healthy diet, giving access to fresh goods which wouldn't possibly last a month and thus wouldn't get eaten if people drive shopping every few weeks.
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It's more efficient than requiring parking. And define "efficient"? People's time and effort have value, as well, and saving time and effort is a win. If a proposed solution is "it takes longer to get from place to place, and additionally requires walking or biking", many people will rightfully consider that proposal worse .
> And define "efficient"? Capacity, cost per passenger, environmental impact, space efficiency. How does a hailed EV scale to every person in a city that needs to move around without the massive congestion problems we already see in car dominant cities?
Those things certainly have value. (Environmental impact most of all, that one is actually urgent to solve.) People's time and effort also has value. We have different values for the tradeoffs between them. I care about environmental impact; let's have EVs powered by clean power, and let's have them be repairable and upgradeable so that they don't regularly become obsolete waste. I do not care about capacity or space efficiency except insofar as they indirectly cause problems like congestion and sprawl, and both of those may be possible to address in other ways (e.g. eliminating parking, which is why I didn't claim that everyone owning their own EV and most of them sitting unused most of the time is an ideal solution); neither of those is as important as people's time and effort.
There are other possible utopias, and other potential ways to handle transit. But I'm always going to start from a premise of "how can we achieve the same or better on human time and effort", rather than telling people they have to accept transportation that takes longer and doesn't actually get them directly to where they're going.