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Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

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Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#51

Post by biondim »

b3b0p wrote: post #33
redthrowaway wrote: post #12

>Why do most people fail to walk even the 10,000 daily steps needed to stay healthy? Where does that figure come from? A lazy guestimate of 1m/stride puts that at 10km/day. That's 2 hours of walking a day. Who the hell spends 2 hours a day walking?

From my experience, walking for 45-60 minutes in addition to my daily routine (the items mentioned by other posters already) add up to about the 10,000 step goal. I try to bike to work every day and/or walk about 5km in addition to anything else I do (work, lifting weights, etc). I don't measure (anymore). I just try to move my body as much as I can when I can.

I have a fit bit. I agree, the more you do it, the easier it gets. It's just one of those things. I try to walk to work every day if possible - it's about 3 mi each way. Walking is a much nicer way to start the day compared to mass transit.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#52

Post by mason240 »

dasil003 wrote: post #43
sliverstorm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything other than a perfect grid in neighborhood design is due to classism? Sounds like bullshit to me. Mildly meandering side-streets: - Block some of the noise from nearby major streets - Obscure the view of traffic - Give the neighborhood a less "uniform" feel (think of how you feel in a neighborhood with 20 identical houses in a row. Arrow-straight roads contribute to that feeling) - Reduce through-traffic- not…

> Anything other than a perfect grid in neighborhood design is due to classism? Wow, talk about putting words in his mouth. He's referring to the status quo for American suburbs where those meandering side streets don't connect the arterials except at just a few choke points and there is no walking connectivity either. Fix those things does not imply "perfect grid".

>Wow, talk about putting words in his mouth.

You're right, he should have said "racism" and tackled potatolicious's bullshit head on and not been so polite.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#53

Post by dllthomas »

wwweston wrote: post #44
ynniv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the catchy title, but the article is really about density and transportation by car. There's a nice diagram describing how living in the suburbs reduces the number of places in walking distance, but in that diagram the house isn't even on a cul-de-sac. The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations. This makes…

>The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations. The correlation seems credible, but not the causitive. That is, you probably could build developments where cul-de-sacs are common for streets and where mixed use properties are connected by walking paths.

Which sounds like a pretty nice environment, really!

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#54

Post by VLM »

redthrowaway wrote: post #12

>Why do most people fail to walk even the 10,000 daily steps needed to stay healthy? Where does that figure come from? A lazy guestimate of 1m/stride puts that at 10km/day. That's 2 hours of walking a day. Who the hell spends 2 hours a day walking?

Extensive personal experience with a fitbit indicates that:

1) Its downright difficult to get thru even the laziest day without 4000 or so steps

2) 10K means you "exercised" perhaps an hour. I'm not talking about sprint training but went out for a walk, hiking, etc. Half hour at lunchtime won't quite do it (maybe if you speedwalk?)

3) Its really easy to leave the GD thing in your pocket and wash it. Although running thru a dryer cycle immediately will fix it.

4) low power BT is kind of like NFC. There's apple products, and a couple android devices claim to half A support it but in reality it doesn't work. So in real world practice its apple or nothing for NFC and low power BT aka BT 4.0. And its been that way for some years.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#55

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

I did some research on cul-de-sacs using my own neighborhood using Google satellite images: It's gotten so out of control that you have to drive upwards of 4 miles just to see your neighbors when they're only a few yards away on a neighboring street: http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/10/the-great-cul-de-sac-pr...

I can understand the allure of cul-de-sacs but perhaps a regular "street grid" system with "pipe sprouts" would be better for everyone. Overall, our American lifestyle is the culprit here. Just compare any small American town with a small Italian town: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fedesk8/7880293850/ and you'll notice what the cause of bad public transit and over-use of cars is. We seem to have a passion for living far apart and having our space.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#58

Post by alex-g »

nilsbunger wrote: post #38

If each cul-de-sac just had a walking path cut out of it, I think you'd have the ideal. That's what it's like in small-town Holland. Cul-de-sacs do have other benefits like a quiet street and keeping your little kids "corralled".

I agree. There are good reasons to want to live on a street that doesn't have a lot of traffic. (That doesn't equate to a cul-de-sac, although they trivially fit the pattern because there is only one end.) One of the problems with the street layouts described here is that pedestrians have to follow the same winding routes that the cars do. Another is that the larger, heavier-traffic roads aren't nice to walk along, even if they have sidewalks.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#60

Post by jowiar »

ynniv wrote: post #10

The article mentions that Atlantic Station sits on a large parking deck, but doesn't explore how its 7,200 parking spaces can make an otherwise small outdoor mall very busy at popular times. Cars remove you from your immediate surroundings, but they also enable you to temporarily be part of a community physically distant from where you live. The answer to why Atlantans drive so much is not that they are lazy, but tha…

> can afford high rent.

In other words, demand for walkable housing / mixed-use development is high. Supply is low. And we should build more.

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