651–660 of 994 posts
Writing this on a tram in Zürich. At this hour(peak hours) they depart ever 2-3 minutes or so. Walking distance is 50 meters. It feels great. Now let me hear your objections to why public transport could never work at your location
It's a trade off, but I've never been as comfortable when living in an urban area so it is what it is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Where it exists you can see that there is tremendous demand for it. Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time, or they witness (or experience) violence, or some other anti-social behavior sours the whole thing. I spent some time in NYC during the Giuliani years, after the city did a lot of work cleaning it all up: stopping turnstile jumpers, removing graffiti, more police, etc.…
>The worst argument anybody can make is "but that's just life in the big city!" A cousin was visiting us in our nice suburb. We had a slow, not-busy road we walked on when we lived there, and we'd wave to anyone; neighbors, vehicles, etc. Our cousin was sort of uncomfortable, and asked "do you know all these people?" I explained that we knew some of them but were just being polite and friendly. She explained that tha…
It's not dangerous at all to do this. It's just considered odd & borderline impolite to do that. It's hard to explain to an outsider, but you see it brought up a ton on places like r/boston. The stereotype is that people in the northeast are "kind but not nice". By and large we don't engage in frivolity like greeting random people when walking around.
This is really amazing to see trending on HN. I spent a couple days in Pontevedra this summer while walking the Camino de Santiago. It was absolutely delightful and what I experienced aligns with the article. The old town was filled with wide streets almost exclusively for walking, cafes and restaurants that sprawled into plazas, and people young and old enjoying the car free public space. It was one of the first sto…
I was in Spain last month and what stood out is that walkability requires mom and pop stores as well as more integrated neighborhoods with small commercial shops mixed into residential. Small shops seemed to be the majority in the city centers. The only large store I saw was a Lidl. They have largeish indoor markets that are more like a mini mall of individual shops like a butcher, produce, baker, cheese, even restau…
It's very common all over Europe, they are simply called "markets".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a 4 year old and an 18 month old, and I don't own a car (nor does my partner). We rent a car ~10-20 times a year, but that's usually for vacations or trips out of the city to visit family. Regular weekly family life we use buses, the underground (metro), trains, or sometimes taxis. We are considering eventually getting a car, but we've managed for 4 years with children to not need one and it's not been an issu…
Sure, it works in your context, you live in a city with 9 million people and you sometimes rent a car - fine. I live in a city 100x smaller. I literally don't know a person that doesn't own a car, or at least has access to a car. The context actually get far more granular than it. I lived without a car for 25 years of my life, buses and trains were enough. But all it takes to require a car is having a home 3-4 km fro…
Not much of Europe ever gets that low though. Edinburgh occasionally overnight, but it's rarely below about -4c / 24f during commute hours. Berlin mostly the same, Stockholm's maybe the only big European capital that gets to "walking for an hour stands a serious chance of killing you" temperatures for days at a time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just did some very light googling - building out, repairing and developing new road infrastructure seems to have around 2:1 or 2.5:1 ROI - Public transport, active transport seems to have around 4:1 to 5:1 ROI.
Not sure what any of this means in relation to the comment I replied to. Keep in ming that public transport is built only on the busiest routes while roads are required (yes, actually required) everywhere. Edit to @loloquwowndueo below: I haven't been shown any data, not has my point been replied to. Please guys let's try to have a grown-up discussion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My daily bicycle commute takes me right through the heart of my city's homeless district, and like with many cities things have gotten a lot worse since COVID. Cars are far and away the biggest threat to my safety, and the source of all the harrassment I receive while out in public. I mean, every now and then some guttersnipe blurts out incoherencies at me, but that's not something to be afraid of. I regard driving,…
Do you have a wife? Kids? Would you let them bicycle through the homeless district? I don't get hassled either, but it's not about me. My job as a husband and father is to protect my family.
I have lived in and around more than one area known to have a high density of people experiencing homelessness. It seems a lot, lot scarier than it really is. Once you get used to just tuning them out it's fine. The vast, vast majority of the crime in that community happens amongst themselves. Are there exceptions to that? Of course. But the numbers are low, just like most crime.
Fifteen-Minute Cities and Chat Control are brought to you by the same people
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The semi rural and rural US south is, in many places, much more dangerous based on crime statistics. Stranger danger is also much less of a factor than is perceived.
Maybe. But I know that many blue cities also play games with crime metrics and what gets classified as what. Not to mention the utter lack of prosecution and consequences trains citizens to stop reporting, leading to the data changing in misleading ways.
How do you *know* this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time People love driving until they're stuck in traffic, or their kid dies in a fiery car crash after being ran into by a drunk driver, or they get a flat tire, or can't afford their monthly car payment. To your point about society needing to be better, that applies generally and has nothing to do specifically with transit, walking around ou…
It applies to public transit specifically because people have freedom of speech to be assholes on public transit. If I have an uber or a private taxi or even a private collectivo which is a private system that works like public transit in much the 3rd world, if I get sick of someone panhandling for the Nth time I can kick them the fuck out. If you look at places with nice public transit like Germany or Japan, they ha…
American society doesn't understand collectivism in any level, your country has been built upon individualism without much care for collective living, you just reap what you've sown.