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Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

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Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#171

Post by calt »

goostavos wrote: post #162
watermelon59 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has so many intersections that are completely bonkers. They’re not only poorly walkable, they also make driving extremely stressful.

Queen Anne has a 7-way stop! The first time I encountered it I was thoroughly stumped. Actually, I'm still stumped years later every time I go through it. At some point, I just commit and hope for the best.

Sounds like it used to function as something of a roundabout, and America forgotten how to navigate yielding to traffic coming from a relative direction (i.e. people already in the roundabout from your left) instead of someone always having the right of way, or the weird turn-taking stress of an all-way stop.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#172

Post by simplyluke »

chamanbuga wrote: post #134
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #128

Do any Seattle-ites not have a car? How do you get around? Asking as a NYer who would consider living there if the car-free life wouldn't be too painful

Living the car-free life in Seattle is depressing due to gloomy weather. Life in Seattle is great if you accept the grey and live outdoors as much as possible. For that you need a car.

This is the real answer. I walk/ride a bike a ton for about 7 months of the year here. Winter months I am driving much more often than anything else. Standing around waiting for a bus, walking a mile+, etc in the pitch black when it's 40 degrees and raining is not fun and given the option of just driving I take it.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#173

Post by beoberha »

karaterobot wrote: post #125
kenperkins wrote: post #39

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension. If I was living at the base of Lower Queen Anne and the "facilities" meeting the 15m criteria was at the top, that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

Was thinking about this too. A 2D distance map doesn't do it justice, really, because it ignores the non-trivial hill in the middle of your route. The other thing about Seattle is that you can have a grocery store nearby, but still not really have access to it if you're lower income. We have a lot of premium stores, especially in walkable neighborhoods. When I was a student I lived in Wedgwood, and I had 2 grocery st…

I own a home very close to the PCC you’re talking about and only ever go there if we forgot something in the large weekly grocery run we do at the QFC. Met Market isn’t really an economical option either, but we do love their pre-made food options for when we don’t feel like eating leftovers.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#174

Post by vikingerik »

jdlyga wrote: post #143
hammock wrote: post #38

The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back. Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery with no or limited off-street parking, and which receives its deliveries on the street in the e…

I live in an apartment complex that has a full-sized grocery store in it in the US. It's actually not what you think. The grocery store and shops are on the bottom, with 5 floors of apartments on top. There's no big giant parking lot, but a parking garage that's built into the apartments. Shoppers park in the 1st floor of the garage (free for shoppers). It's a very walkable area, since it's about 500 feet from a rive…

Is this in Jersey City, across the river from Manhattan? (you don't have to dox yourself if you don't want to, but everything you say matches what I saw living there, particularly the ferry)

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#175

Post by epistasis »

hammock wrote: post #38

The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back. Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery with no or limited off-street parking, and which receives its deliveries on the street in the e…

There's nothing I hate more than a massive massive super market, offering the same variety of products as a decent sized store but with wiles filled with many feet and entire shelves with exactly the same product. So much pointless walking, hunting, and searching for so little benefit.

My favorite grocery store is about 1/4 to 1/5 of the typical supermarket like a Safeway, because it has all the same products without all the fluff. And an actual real butcher counter with plenty of on staff butchers, instead of row upon row of prepackaged cuts.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#177

Post by micromacrofoot »

logifail wrote: post #3
duxup wrote: post #2

I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things. But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reason…

> a High School (This is going to sound like we're playing Sim City 2000) but don't forget to add a hospital (a proper one, with an emergency room), a fire station, a police station... > a grocery store Are there many neighbourhoods which don't already have some kind of grocery store?

Yes, these are called food deserts, some people "grocery shop" at Walgreens, 7-11, Rite Aid, or CVS and have very limited access to fresh produce.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#178

Post by lazyasciiart »

mdorazio wrote: post #126

>Of the 89 neighborhoods considered, only nine are “15-minute neighborhoods” walkable for 90% or more of their residents. I'd love to see the median rent in those nine compared to elsewhere in the city. Can any Seattle residents here provide some insight?

Madrona probably doesn’t have anywhere to rent, it’s just enormous old houses. 6 of the 9 are downtown+surrounds, all very expensive. Ballard and Green Lake are going to be the cheapest on the list, and I would guess they’re in the most expensive quarter of neighborhoods?

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#179

Post by lazyasciiart »

Rediscover wrote: post #155
WaxProlix wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downtown (CBD): Expensive International District: Euphemism for Chinatown, not expensive Pioneer Square: It varies, but fairly expensive despite the rampant homelessness Pike Place Market: Very expensive Ballard: Expensive new buildings, more affordable older ones Capitol Hill: Expensive, generally South Lake Union: Expensive Madrona: Expensive

> Pike Place Market: Very exspensive. And also extremely on the other side - Market housing can be very low-cost. A number of my friends are paying Cf: the apartments under the Market and Stewart House.

That’s income restricted senior housing, isn’t it?

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#180

Post by lazyasciiart »

balls187 wrote: post #151
chamanbuga wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in ID is not a choice, but a necessity when other options fail.

Until it gets gentrified like previous neighborhoods. Other neighborhoods missing: Fremont Wallingford Georgetown Columbia City Rainer Beach Northgate W. Seattle Queen Anne Belltown Magnolia S. Seattle Ravenna Beacon Hill South Park Leschi Madison Park Northlake Greenwood And a bunch more places that non-transplants know about...

Missing from what? Pretty sure they were all listed in the article.
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