Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

governing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 370 posts

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#341

Post by sofixa »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #314
aix1 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Biking and public transit moves most commuters off of the streets Help me understand this. Where do cyclists and ground-level public transportation go if they're not on the streets? > Then I quarantined in Tokyo for 2 weeks and everything was a convenient 5-minute walk away. Wait a minute, quarantined and walked around?

>>>Where do cyclists and ground-level public transportation go if they're not on the streets? Cyclists are on the sidewalk, and use little ringer bells to signal to pedestrians to move outta the way. For public transit "off the streets" I was mostly referring to the subway system. Buses and taxis are still "on" the street but the users are out of privately-owned vehicles. I wasn't clear on that. >>>Wait a minute, qua…

> Cyclists are on the sidewalk, and use little ringer bells to signal to pedestrians to move outta the way.

No, cyclists are on the bike lanes or, if they aren't there, with the cars. The sidewalk is for people on foot only, who are the most vulnerable and should be separated from other faster modes of transport.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#342

Post by Leherenn »

maccard wrote: post #284
OJFord wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And now let's say you want to get out of the city for the weekend. Do you rent a car? That's way more expensive in the long run compared to owning. Are you doing it every weekend? Renting a car for just the odd weekend away would be way cheaper than owning. The initial cost / capital depreciation aside even. I live in London and don't have a car, a £50+ train out to my parents' seems a bit absurd next to the cost o…

Cars are unfortunately too cheap. My last car was a basic VW polo, and the insurance was £350/year, road tax £99 and probably £200 a year amortized over the 5 years on servicing/wear and year, with a 400 mile range on ~£50 worth of fuel. The break even point on that is ~5-6 trips per year, and much lower if you use the car for basically anything else. I can fly to eastern Europe for £15, but the transit to the airpor…

And it's even worse when you consider you can add people for almost no extra costs, whereas with public transportation it mostly multiplies.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#343

Post by reportingsjr »

Rapzid wrote: post #213
reportingsjr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a hard choice when suburbs have been subsidized like hell for about 70 years while money has been drained out of cities to pay for said suburbs. Here in Ohio there is this garbage designation for "rural farming areas" called townships that get huge infrastructures subsidies/grants, even though they are all just suburbs/exurbs. Look at any of the areas around Cincinnati, Columbus, or Cleveland and check out h…

Drained out of the cities? Nearly all of Texas is what most people would consider "suburb". Even the "urban" areas are mostly sprawl. Very little of Texas is walkable by any stretch.

Yes, a significant amount of tax dollars come from cities and are funneled to suburbs/exurba via "grants" and other subsidized funding methods, which urban areas don't get the benefit of receiving.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#344

Post by msla »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #327
ganzuul wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European cities are overrun by electric scooters. It's not a big step. heh

Usually provided by American companies supported by venture capital. As a resident of a very walkable European city I can assure you that most of us didn't ask for those pests.

> Usually provided by American companies supported by venture capital.

And bought by Europeans with European money. What's your point, beyond nationalist bickering?

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#345

Post by NumberWangMan »

omaranto wrote: post #283
nerdponx wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that American cities also generally don't have functioning mass transit systems. And even in those that do (New York), they don't always go where you need them to go, so mass transit trips can be 2-3x longer than a car trip. Want to do a big shopping trip? Have more than 1 child you need to move around the city? Want to do more than 1 specific errand in the same afternoon? Without a car, all of this be…

I lived in the Boston area for five years and it was a great experience overall, it's quite walkable. The one thing I could never quite get used to was public transit taking longer than walking! You often had a choice of walking for 20 minutes or waiting 15 minutes for a 6 minute bus ride. (Tip: in winter, walking isn't just faster, it feels much warmer too.) This really confused my Mexico City brain. Here in Mexico…

Apparently 12 minutes of waiting is the critical point where you start to lose riders of public transit. If you want people to really use your system, you need to keep wait times consistently under that.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#346

Post by elygre »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #327
ganzuul wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European cities are overrun by electric scooters. It's not a big step. heh

Usually provided by American companies supported by venture capital. As a resident of a very walkable European city I can assure you that most of us didn't ask for those pests.

Actually, it seems that European companies have the larger market share in Europe, with Tier (Germany) as #1, Voi (Sweden) as #2, and Bolt (Estonia) as #5.

https://mindthezag.com/trends/european-update-360000-e-scoot...

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#347

Post by throw0101a »

iammisc wrote: post #333
antb123 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After living in Europe for a while Toronto is "ok" but still very car dependent. I would point to Scandinavia (Finland, Denmark, etc) and parts of France and Germany as places that have cars but maintain walkable, bikeable cities.

Well I think there are cultural differences and that Europe is not the only acceptable model. Both america and Canada are bigger and wilder than Europe. Cars are nice and a necessity to live in both countries. The neighborhood here is a good example of a walkable neighborhood that is also uniquely north American. That's okay. We don't need to replicate Europe when we have perfectly good, culturally appropriate models…

> Both america and Canada are bigger and wilder than Europe. Cars are nice and a necessity to live in both countries.

Only in the rural parts. In Canada the population is highly concentrated very close to the US border (i.e., the southern part). While the 49th parallel is the 'meme' of the Canada-US border, 72% of the population lives below it, and 50% lives south of 45°42′ (45.7 degrees), including Toronto/GTA, Montreal, and Ottawa.

* https://brilliantmaps.com/half-canada/

The US is also quite concentrated: while there are over three thousand counties, half the population lives in just 244:

* https://www.businessinsider.com/densest-counties-in-america-...

Two-thirds of people live with-in 100 miles (160km) of the border:

* https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

Just Los Angeles county has more people than all but seven states (NY, NJ, IL, FL, TX, OH, rest of CA):

* https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/7fbx3q/states_with...

So yes, US and CA are physically quite big, but that seems irrelevant to land use policies for accommodating the human populations of each country.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#348

Post by vdqtp3 »

Retric wrote: post #323
maccard wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are unfortunately too cheap. My last car was a basic VW polo, and the insurance was £350/year, road tax £99 and probably £200 a year amortized over the 5 years on servicing/wear and year, with a 400 mile range on ~£50 worth of fuel. The break even point on that is ~5-6 trips per year, and much lower if you use the car for basically anything else. I can fly to eastern Europe for £15, but the transit to the airpor…

What about parking? In major cities that’s is frequently the biggest expense at ~£100/month it really adds up.

In major US cities, it's largely free. Whether you see that as a benefit or a negative probably depends on your side of the argument.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#349

Post by Rapzid »

whalabi wrote: post #234
Rapzid wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drained out of the cities? Nearly all of Texas is what most people would consider "suburb". Even the "urban" areas are mostly sprawl. Very little of Texas is walkable by any stretch.

Out of curiosity, is Austin an exception?

There are pockets of walkabality here and there but it's a drop in the ocean. Those locations are sparse, job and home location specific, and EXPENSIVE.

I live in San Antonio. Low COL right? Ehhh, not where I live haha. The desirable areas near town are not cheap. Alamo Heights is super expense and not walkable at all. A 1 bedroom near the Pearl is over 2k/mo now essentially. Actually, I've seen effeciencies for about that much and there are not really grocery stores around within walking distance.

Texas has a 1.9t GDP and it's almost entirely generated by people living in urban sprawl and rural areas. Austin is no exception as someone has pointed out.

Most of the people who work in the smallish Texas high density centers live in the sprawl. We have no income tax so of court that's made up with prop tax. School quality is highly dependent on quality of the neighborhoods they are located near. It's not fantastic but the idea that the sprawl is "draining" the cities is off base since the vast majority of workers producing the value live in the sprawl.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#350

Post by vdqtp3 »

spamizbad wrote: post #320
habosa wrote: post #261

Sometimes I think Americans don’t know how badly they want this. Americans will tell you how wonderful European cities are with their small streets and their public squares filled with great restaurants. They think we don’t have cities like that because we’re lacking some fundamental European-ness. No. We just put cars everywhere. Cars ruin everything. Now you have wider streets. Louder streets. More dangerous street…

Americans aren’t homogenous: those who adore European cities aren’t the same ones demanding parking minimums at their local neighborhood groups. Those people don’t give a hoot about European cities: they just want everything within a 10 mile radius of where they live to be easy to drive to and don’t want to think through or be reminded of the externalities.

I'd actually be fine with neighborhoods being made car-hostile and pedestrian friendly if I could get TO the neighborhood and park just outside it.

The unmentioned aspect of making everything "walkable" (at least in the US) is it denies access to those who are not local.

Post reply on HN