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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

#91

Post by learc83 »

Stronico wrote: post #50

Two observations: 1. There are far, far more differences between Midtown and Mabelton than urban planning (Midtown is a young, liberal, much higher than average percentage of gay residents, close proximity to Georgia Tech) and Mabelton is pretty much in the opposite direction in every way possible. It is an apples to oranges comparison. 2. A huge advantage of cul-de sacs is that people don't speed down them like they…

He also took the example of young white males from Mableton and midtown.

There aren't a lot of young white men living in Mableton. It's mostly younger black and hispanic people, and older white people.

My parents are from Mableton,and I live about 10 minutes away.

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

#92

Post by rietta »

This strikes me as an interesting read. I live in an Atlanta suburb.

The closest shopping center is more than half a mile away and the one I go to most, and where I go to check my company's mail, is 2.5 miles away. The distances themselves are not so bad, but the main road is a 4 lane highway with a posted speed limit of 55 - but people drive faster. Frankly, the thought of walking or biking along that road is scary from a safety point of view, so yes, in general I drive everywhere. Ironically, if I want to go run laps at the closest city park, I have to drive to that too.

The area that the author is describing is 25 miles away and takes at least 45 minutes to an hour each way by car, so I go there as infrequently as possible.

Frankly the situation is not too bad, because telecommuting is the best work situation ever. The internet beats commuting - be it by bus, train, or automobile - any day!

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

#93

Post by mrcactu5 »

rayiner wrote: post #62
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…

I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. It's a place where you can live in the city proper right next to retail and still have to trek across a giant parking lot in order to go to the store. The giant parking lots everywhere in the city utterly destroy the street life. As the article notes, Atlantic Station is actually much better in that regard.…

  I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. 
  People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster.
San Juan Puerto Rico -- it is the same. I live 8 miles from my job, 15 minutes by car, 1.5 hours by bus due to poor public transportation.

Biking would be faster than cars which get stuck in sever traffic and that buses which don't run very often.

https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C...

It is not possible to commute by bicycle since it is illegal to bike along the expressway - the only way to get between Carolina (where I live) and Isla Verde (the next town over).

It has its origins in the 1950's when the expressway was brand new and led to job creation. Nobody dreamed bicycles could be taken seriously as a means to get to work.

I once biked it... about 10 miles in about a 1 hour.

https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C...

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

#94

Post by a_c_s »

mason240 wrote: post #56
jstalin wrote: post #40

Some people like dead-end streets and large yards. Some people want to prevent people from having such an option.

It really is amazing how much urbanites hate the happiness of others.

It is really amazing how much suburbanites like to let other people pay the price for their choices.

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

#95

Post by michael_h »

VLM wrote: post #54
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…

I dramatically increased the number of steps that I take per day by drinking more water and tea. I hit 8K before I go home easily everyday.

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

#96

Post by chc »

enoch_r wrote: post #77
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…

> Walking everywhere is nice as long as you know exactly where you want to live, you don't care about space, and can afford high rent. Taking this piece by piece: > can afford high rent From the article: "The average working adult in Atlanta’s suburbs now drives 44 miles a day." The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month. That…

> The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month.

That doesn't really reflect my experience unless we're talking about really inefficient vehicles. I drive 45 miles a day. It costs me about $140 a month in gas.

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

#97

Post by mason240 »

a_c_s wrote: post #94
mason240 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is amazing how much urbanites hate the happiness of others.

It is really amazing how much suburbanites like to let other people pay the price for their choices.

I don't know if this common around the country, but Minneapolis/St Paul are propped pretty heavily by suburban taxpayers.

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

#98

Post by Jakob »

ynniv wrote: post #73
Jakob wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”Atlanta, like all cities, used to be walkable and people actually lived IN the city instead of commuting 50 miles every day.“ This article highlights the parts of the city which are 100% dedicated to parking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6883589 tl;dr: Cars take up too much space, inflating a city artificially.

(Originally https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=lNCOH0M1fh7uhr9viMZvek ) Yes, there are a lot of parking lots in Atlanta. As I commented on the original submission, they aren't there because of the market for parking, but because it's an easy use for commercially zoned land while you wait for someone to build a highrise on it. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514352 )

Meta: I was sure, it was on HN before, yet I didn’t find it anymore and submitting it created a new entry even though the URL is the same. Your first link gives me ”Unknown or expired link.“, in the second I can travel up to the original submission. Strange, anyone knows why that is happening?

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

#99

Post by genwin »

potatolicious wrote: post #86
genwin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with light rail in Bellevue is that it isn't very useful unless you live within walking distance of a station. I consider it to be mostly a boondoggle.

I disagree, though I see where you're coming from. The trick with mass transit - particularly permanent infrastructure like rail transit, is that you're not really building it for right now , you're building it to shape the future. My go-to example for this is Toronto, Canada. They built the subway in the 50s and put stations in extremely low-density neighborhoods. Nonsensical at the time naturally, but if you take a…

> Rail transit is always betting on the future rather than today.

Agree! But it's too late for Bellevue. Its low-end houses are already $500K. It'll take $billions (including plenty for lawsuits) and decades to get stations within walking distance of most people. Better to install next year a more flexible "subway" consisting of buses (Rapid Ride as it should've been).

The plan is for Bel-Red Road to become an artsy light-rail corridor, with densely packed restaurants and condos. When that becomes reality my kids will have mostly only 2 choices: a tiny condo for $500K in today's dollars, or a junky 1950s house for $1 million+. And the city will be a lot more crowded than it is today. I don't think Bellevue will be livable at that point. That's not all the city planners' fault of course.

My go-to example is Montreal's Metro system. I like how they use long buses so there's no loud squealing of metal wheels on rails.

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

#100

Post by libria »

possibilistic wrote: post #82
Stronico wrote: post #50

Two observations: 1. There are far, far more differences between Midtown and Mabelton than urban planning (Midtown is a young, liberal, much higher than average percentage of gay residents, close proximity to Georgia Tech) and Mabelton is pretty much in the opposite direction in every way possible. It is an apples to oranges comparison. 2. A huge advantage of cul-de sacs is that people don't speed down them like they…

Speaking as an Atlantan, you've nailed it. People living OTP ( outside the perimeter of I-285) are largely conservative, whereas those ITP are much more liberal. You wouldn't imagine that such a finely delineated categorical segmentation would occur, but it's very visible. Take, for instance, the fighting between Fulton County and the metro/MSA: last year's SPLOST vote [1], the Braves Stadium move [2], etc. all serve…

> the Braves Stadium move

Wow, first I'd heard of it. I mean Turner Field is all of 16 years old; probably time for a new one. At least that should alleviate the summer downtown congestion, though I don't believe 285/75 really needs it. There's a section there that I thought I counted 9 lanes. Using City-of-Atlanta logic, I guess it's time for a 10th one, eh?

More on topic, will Cobb now allow MARTA to extend up there now that a stadium is coming?

(from article) > Reed concluded his statement by saying he is “excited” about potential future uses of “the land that is now Turner Field.”

Really. Can't wait to see what he's planning, b/c damned if I'd ever call that section of town exciting.

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