You mean the long rows of cars queueing one constantly see outside US schools aren't representative? I'd say it takes far longer to pick someone up in a car than a bike..
Only if you live that close by. And I've never seen a long queue.
If you're in the US, it's likely that you either don't drive by schools when they're letting out, or you live in a place that has the right combination of density and poor kids to limit the driver pick-ups. None of the 5 places across 4 states where I've lived in the last 10 years have avoided the pickup line phenomenon.
> with a big enough stick and very little carrot anything is possible Yep, so all those complaining that nothing is being done or can be done about climate change are wrong. There are tools, they just need to be used. > Aren't we hearing that actual residents really don't like these "15 minute" cities? We're also hearing that Zuckerberg is a lizard and the Earth is flat, so fucking what? London is a major metropolis,…
Do you live there? In a utopian ideal it seems kind of nice having "everything you need" close by. Thinking about it critically I currently live in a 15 minute city, but there is a car involved. I'm kind of confused about how people living in mass transit even get groceries, can you take your own cart on the train?
I get my shopping delivered. Costs me $2 on average, they drive it in a refrigerated small truck and often drop off several deliveries to the same building/street in one trip. And then for stuff I want right now, I just walk to the supermarket with one bag. Since I go out for a walk every day after work, I just head to the supermarket along the way which is about 700m away.
Didn't they make it very, very expensive to drive in the City of London?
It is not any more expensive than anywhere else in central London. Electric cars can drive in the city for free at any time. For other cars, between 7am and 6pm you have to pay a £15 congestion charge to drive in the centre. You might have to pay another £12.50 ULEZ charge if you drive an older car.
You should be made to pay extra healthcare taxes for driving an ICE car in an inner city area since you are the primary contributor to a lot of extra cancer cases.
The trick is to build your towns and cities such that 15km is longer than most people would need to commute by bike, except perhaps as part of a bike->transit mixed-mode commute. There are places with wintry weather that are good for biking! Oulu comes to mind https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-64354089 And as explored in this video, if the weather is too bad to bike safely in, it's probably too bad to drive sa…
>> it's probably too bad to drive safely in. Ya, well one still has to get to work. "Safe driving" is slow but unless the roads are actually closed then most of us still have to get to work.
Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are great examples how none of those things are actual barriers. London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo at the expense of the exploited supermajority.
How much does housing cost in Tokyo?
Fairly cheap. A guy working in a convenience store can afford his own apartment.
The problem is that housing in Tokyo is very small, and most Westerners (particular Americans) simply can't fathom living in it, and it would never be allowed to be built there. Westerners need to change their expectations.
> - weather might make the ride unpleasant; As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes. I would strongly recommond a pair of water/wind proof trousers to go over your regular trousers, if you don't already have some. This has lead to a much more pleasant riding experience, especially in winter. They aren't very practical on a regular bike as they make you uncomfo…
>As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes. What kind of cycling clothes will mitigate a 40 C / 70% humidity afternoon in Memphis?
Meet Oulu, the winter cycling capital of the world. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/01/22/meet-the-bike-... https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-winter-biking-...
The fact that this is newsworthy kind of reinforces the point that cycling in extreme weather is not a particularly easy or convenient thing to do.
It's fine as long as bike paths are physically separated from cars and are maintained to the same standard as roads. My college had a network of pedestrian/bike paths that they plowed in the winter, and I and many others had no problem biking year-round.
That seems like a very limited perspective. I've been to many places in the world where taxis don't run. Being able to drive is a basic life skill, like knowing how to swim or cook a meal.
Many of the people I’ve met who cannot drive are actually some of the most traveled people I know. In fact spending short periods in lots of different countries makes it a whole lot harder to learn to drive. I didn’t learn to drive until I was in my 30s and used to spend my 20s travelling the length and breadth of the U.K. and Europe. I even had a long distance relationship at the time too. A long distance relationsh…
> In fact spending short periods in lots of different countries makes it a whole lot harder to learn to drive.
You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. Nowadays, the latter are typically those cities popular with tourists and inhabitants due to their lively and walkable city centers, while city centers of the further category are oftentimes abandoned and avoid…
> You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. I think that’s more likely “and rebuilt according to the old plan”. Very few German cities escaped with limited bombing damage. https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/ : “Of the 54 largest citi…
There is a tremendous gap between "limited damage" and "destroyed", and in most of that range you wouldn't have much opportunity to change the layout despite the damage being "significant".
Remember back in the 1970s; if you ever saw anything on the news about China, it would feature rank upon rank of cyclists pouring through Peking's great thoroughfares, with nary a motor vehicle in sight. We all laughed at how backward they were. Now we'd view a similar scene from any major city in the world as signs of a great environmental advance. Funny how times change, isn't it?
Sadly china embraced 'modernity' and they literally just used the single worst ideas from urban design and traffic engineering. They went with single use superblocks connected by highways. A terrible system in so many ways. Thankfully they protected some of the old city centers and those still have the beautiful chinese urbanism. Thankfully, leadership in China has realized that they really fucked up. Sometimes when…
Single use superblocks? Most Korean/Chinese apartment block regions feature multi-use (without industrial) and do it very well, incorporating commercial slots surrounded by a throng of greenery and apartment blocks for residents, with nearby lower-density, medium-density housing.
Got any examples of China? Because Koreans follow density principles extremely well.