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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

#111

Post by stonemetal »

alex-g wrote: post #58
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, e…

>One of the problems with the street layouts described here is that pedestrians have to follow the same winding routes that the cars do.

Why do they have to? I don't see why you couldn't build a more natural walking path away from the street traffic that would be less objectionable to homeowners since there wouldn't be the automotive noise and danger to children.

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

#112

Post by chc »

maxerickson wrote: post #102
chc wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you think it is reasonable to ignore the other costs involved with owning a vehicle? I figure gas is ~1/3 or less of my overall costs (and I've had good luck with maintenance on an older car that I don't carry collision insurance on)

In terms of costs that directly arise from miles driven, I can't think of any that add up to 200% of my gas expenses. Like, even if you're replacing a $200 part every single month (which should not be happening), that still doesn't work out to the numbers you're citing, and the numbers you're citing are still less than the numbers I was objecting to.

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

#113

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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.

Going into a mall hardly qualifies as "being part of a community".

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

#114

Post by coldtea »

chc wrote: post #105
Kluny wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to factor insurance, wear and tear on the car, and the cost of your own time that you spend in traffic - you are never getting those minutes back.

This is about the marginal cost of commuting farther versus differences in rent, so fixed costs like insurance and intangibles like time do not factor into the equation. I agree that long commutes suck, but that's not the question here.

Time is not a fixed cost in both cases. It exists in commuting but not in living closer.

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

#115

Post by chc »

coldtea wrote: post #114
chc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about the marginal cost of commuting farther versus differences in rent, so fixed costs like insurance and intangibles like time do not factor into the equation. I agree that long commutes suck, but that's not the question here.

Time is not a fixed cost in both cases. It exists in commuting but not in living closer.

I think you must have replied to the wrong comment.

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

#116

Post by maxerickson »

chc wrote: post #112
maxerickson wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is reasonable to ignore the other costs involved with owning a vehicle? I figure gas is ~1/3 or less of my overall costs (and I've had good luck with maintenance on an older car that I don't carry collision insurance on)

In terms of costs that directly arise from miles driven, I can't think of any that add up to 200% of my gas expenses. Like, even if you're replacing a $200 part every single month (which should not be happening), that still doesn't work out to the numbers you're citing, and the numbers you're citing are still less than the numbers I was objecting to.

The IRS includes the amortization of the purchase price in their numbers.

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

#117

Post by beat »

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?

Who the hell spends 2 hours a day walking?

Healthy people.

My Fitbit defaults to wanting to see 10k steps a day, and 5 miles a day, which is more than 10k steps for my stride. My daily average steps is a bit over 8400 (including jogging for a bit less than 5k twice a week or so), and my average mileage is 3.8. I typically take one walk a day during work, for maybe 1000 steps.

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

#118

Post by Kluny »

chc wrote: post #105
Kluny wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to factor insurance, wear and tear on the car, and the cost of your own time that you spend in traffic - you are never getting those minutes back.

This is about the marginal cost of commuting farther versus differences in rent, so fixed costs like insurance and intangibles like time do not factor into the equation. I agree that long commutes suck, but that's not the question here.

Where I'm from, insurance cost goes up if you use it for commuting. Pleasure use means you use it less than 10 days a month and less than 6 for getting to work and back. So that's not fixed. Time is not intangible - you can count the difference in minutes. You don't need to convert minutes to dollar value because they have intrinsic value on their own.

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

#119

Post by chc »

Kluny wrote: post #118
chc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about the marginal cost of commuting farther versus differences in rent, so fixed costs like insurance and intangibles like time do not factor into the equation. I agree that long commutes suck, but that's not the question here.

Where I'm from, insurance cost goes up if you use it for commuting. Pleasure use means you use it less than 10 days a month and less than 6 for getting to work and back. So that's not fixed. Time is not intangible - you can count the difference in minutes. You don't need to convert minutes to dollar value because they have intrinsic value on their own.

> You don't need to convert minutes to dollar value

You do if you want to pay your rent with them, which is what we're talking about here.

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

#120

Post by wtbob »

chc wrote: post #107
alttag wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your insurance costs are higher when you have a longer commute. Your oil needs to be changed more frequently. Wear-and-tear on your car is almost certainly correlated with miles driven, meaning maintenance, repairs, and replacement occur more frequently. Cars ownership is about more than just the cost of fuel (which is cheap in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world). Sure, maybe the IRS rate is a bit high, but i…

My insurance costs haven't changed much based on my commute. Oil changes can be amortized to about $12 a month. We're still not anywhere on the same planet as the $700 figure. If wear and tear are adding up to $600 a month when you're only driving 45 miles a day, it sounds like your car is effectively dead and needs to be replaced.

How much did your car cost, including financing? How long will you have it? What will you sell it or trade it in for? You can't forget those costs.
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