If you were near a known drug area their concern may not have been simply about you walking but where you were walking to or near.

> we never walked outside

Well, it's Texas, and there are three months where this is actually enjoyable. That being said, you're in a city, what did you expect? If you want to spend time walking outside drive to one of the many National Parks that are in Texas and beat feet all day if you like.

:-) I giggled on this one 10y ago when I first saw this difference in mindsets, and also smile at it today. I sometimes wonder if I were growing up there, would I also feel weird when I see my alterego walking around on the _streets_ of Zürich, where I don't even have a vehicle to _drive_ to one of the national parks.

Literally every single city I can think of it's better to walk than drive, so I guess it's a uniquely American perspective? Or like the other commenter said - a joke?

Many Europeans are used to "cities as Open Air Museums". (If you are not under the time constraints of appointments, and instead you have the time and want to enjoy the place and what is contained with some natural attention, you need to walk.)

The previous poster is basically saying "Most Europeans use the cities they live in as open air museums, and not to live in. They don't have time constraints, they don't have appointments, they don't work there". Living the life in Europe, as a full-time open air museum visitor, it's great!

No. For fuck's sake no.

The parent poster (parent to my original post) wrote that there is little to «expect» from a city, and recommended at least the in turn parent poster - who wrote about having been an exception as a city walker - to go to a park for walking.

So I informed the parent poster that to walk in many European cities is, opposite to that idea, an experience of architecture, monuments and art. I.e.: walking many European cities is far from unusual and with reason.

The idea of the poster above about time constraints and appointments is delirious and completely disconnected from what I wrote, literally, briefly, clearly, and exactly with the purpose of avoiding misunderstandings.

I hope the above post is at least only the consequence of rushed reading.

Just to be sure there were no misunderstandings: I wrote that "If the agenda allows, you will need to enjoy the open-museum city by walking - faster methods will decrease the ability to pay attention": that is not inconsistent with "If the agenda does not allow enjoying the open-museum city, you may want to consider walking as a more reliable way to respect the scheduling".

LOLNO. ~330 million Europeans in the EU live in cities. Or I guess you count them as museum exhibits? :-)))

Is this a joke? I hope this is a joke and I’ve misunderstood it.

Cities are not synonymous with cars. There are lots of walkable cities in the world. Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm.

There's no way for that to be true; driving to a place where you can walk is a possibility. Walking to a place where you can drive would be useless, because you wouldn't have a car there.

You could walk to a vehicle rental shop or (eg London with Zipcar) walk to where a vehicle you can rent is parked. But not a normal situation, definitely.

I never got Zipcar. They made themselves completely pointless by charging you for time when you didn't need the car, inflating what appeared to be reasonable fees into ludicrous overcharges.

If I want to visit my family 90 minutes away over the weekend, I might pay for three hours of car rental. I'm obviously not going to pay for 48 hours of car rental. Who exactly is using Zipcar? Where did the model "like long-term car rental, but we'll lie about it" come from?

Zipcar and co are generally aimed at daytrips, the kind of thing where you occasionally need a car or van for a day but no longer, not for longer distance trips where you are away for a few days.

You don't get to break down Zipcar's hourly pricing into just the hours you need to drive each way. In the interim inbetween then the Zipcar isn't at its spot and therefore unavailable for other use. Zipcar's hourly pricing includes the fact that it will be returned and immediately available for other customers.

TLDR: You may only use the Zipcar for a few hours, but it's out of its spot and unavailable for the entire trip, so that's what you're paying for.

This is how all other vehicle rental works. It's the only advantage of rental over ownership.

> In the interim inbetween then the Zipcar isn't at its spot and therefore unavailable for other use.

That's just logistical incompetence on the part of Zipcar. Why would the Zipcar be unusable when not at "its spot"? My car doesn't become unusable when it leaves my driveway. The Zipcar is usable as soon as I return it to Zipcar. Their choice to refuse my return is just their commitment to an unworkable business model.

In London, they did have the one way concept for some time - I don't know if it's still there. They experimented with dedicated spaces as well as charging by the minute with approved parking areas. I don't think any of the competitors in that space are still using that model because it didn't work out financially. (Parking was a giant issue - our competitors and us could only negotiate for parking in some places. If the user parked outside of that, we got fined, and GPS was terrible in trying to make sure they were in the right area - the buildings were too close together. And users were frustrated if the area they were allowed to park was full.)

The fundamental problem is that the cars end up getting bunched up away from where people want to take them. Let's say you're driving to your parents for 90 minutes. Who is going to rent your car 90 minutes away? Are they going to go to your parents' house to use it when you don't have it? What if there's no car when you get back, because they put it somewhere else? How many places allow you to park a car for days without prior agreement?

And when I used to drink, I definitely walked to my bar rather than drove to it despite the free, often empty parking nearby and the 10 fewer minutes it took.

I honestly don't see situations where a walk is worse than a drive in my living area. At worse I take a bike? When I was alone, I managed with rentals only tbf (now it's a bit more difficult, also the windsurfs are easier to handle with a car, and are the primary reason we own one)

I live in Zürich, in my experience the city with the best public transport system(Stockholm a close second, but Switzerland has much better public transportation overall). In case I need a car in Switzerland I would simply rent one for the day using one of the many rental options.

Public transport for 95% of my trips, 3% cab, 2% rental. It’s better for me, it’s better for the environment, the people around me. Reducing cars on the road also makes it so much more pleasant and nice just to be in the city. I travel frequently to London and it’s unbelievable how big difference it makes to be in a city designed for pedestrians and not cars(and London is absolutely designed for cars first).

I travel world wide for work and my default option is always public transport, with the occasional cab ride for convenience. In some places it sadly doesn’t work out so then I end up renting a car.

Humans have had cities for thousands of years before cars.

So, yes, driving to a place so that you can walk is an inversion.

No, it's just someone who has a contrary opinion to yours, and does not mind sharing it openly, and in good faith, in this forum in order to spurn a deeper discussion.

> There are lots of walkable cities in the world.

Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history?

> Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm

The imputed European norm, perhaps, but it's obviously not the norm in America. In any case what value does this "norm" have? You would prefer to walk around a city because it's that's dense as opposed to walking around nature that's specifically set aside for this type of enjoyment?

I don't understand the complaint, here, other than "America is unlike Europe."

Oh, it's definitely intentional. Sure, pre-industrial cities had narrow streets that were poorly suited for car traffic, so you could say that walkable cities were technically the default.

But a lot of those European cities were intentionally changed towards car transportation in the middle of the 20th century, when cars became widespread and a symbol of post-WW2 wealth, widening street and turning historical squares into parking lots.

And most of those cities were turned back into walkable (or bikable) cities since the '80s onwards, by banning cars and reusing the parking lots for other purposes.

Here's [0] an article about the Netherlands's intentional policy in that regards, and here's [1] a more recent effort in Spain. A lot of Reddit's popular "then and now" posts show this off [2].

[0] https://www.distilled.earth/p/how-the-netherlands-built-a-bi...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/barcelona-laun...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1cv555r/my_hometown...

Both. And with different constraints at different time periods.

Aside, people in the past weren't stupid and they built cities purposefully. Just like cavemen weren't stupid, they just had less _stuff_, knowledge, tools, etc.

> In any case what value does this "norm" have?

Using less fuel. Enjoying a more healthy body and mind, enjoying life. Leaving a better world for its future inhabitants.

> You would prefer to walk around a city because it's that's dense as opposed to walking around nature that's specifically set aside for this type of enjoyment?

Strawman ("because it's that dense"). I like walking in cities AND nature. Both can be true.

Also, why should nature be "set aside"? What a weird notion. Why shouldn't we have more "nature" in our cities, in fact we know it's probably better to do exactly that, for a myriad of reasons that have been scientifically researched. Why should WE "set aside" nature, as if it was somehow external to us.

That way of thinking starts from a place that is not conducive to a long term ecological healthy society.

Amsterdam was re-designed for cars in the mid-20th century, it was not designed for cars and had been historically for walking. Then they realised the mistake in the 70s and started to re-design the city again prioritising walking, and biking, now we have Amsterdam as the poster child of a city designed for that.

You seem to forget that in the mid-20th century everywhere was being designed for cars, we are seeing a response to that after the failed experiment.

I've taken some very enjoyable walks in cities that I wouldn't rank either above or below some of my favorite hikes. It's just a completely different type of experience.

Rather than discovering interesting birds and plants, I can notice architecture, discover new restaurants and cafes and maybe check out their menu, window shop etc.

> I don't understand the complaint, here, other than "America is unlike Europe."

Even though America and Europe have developed differently, what's wrong with reevaluating some of the results of these developments in American cities, in particular with regards to whether they're meeting the needs of the people living there?

Can is a strong word here.

I am an avid walker with around 13 thousand steps daily on average (counted over last three years), but in my daily life, I generally take some form of transport if the expected walking time exceeds some 25 minutes. A tram or a bus, but I don't regularly walk 7 km to the centre of my city and back, even though I certainly can. It would simply take too long.

I've lived in big cities most of my life and I take the car maybe 10 times per year, including cabs. And that's mostly to get away from the city, where I can't go by bus.

I never had a big city job. Mostly office buildings in office parks. So I guess me and my co-workers' lifestyles were very similar to Americans.

I myself do not own a car, and besides some very rare moments (like bringing large trash to the junkyard or something, in which case I can ask friends to quickly borrow their car), I do not have any hindrance from it.

Texas has two National Parks, and they're nowhere near Austin. Literally on the complete other side of the state.

A bicycle on flat asphalt is more efficient than a person despite person+bike moving more total mass; but still the cost of mining iron ore, making steel, making a bike for every customer, compared to just building the store and the homes close enough to walk and not doing any of that…

Energy.gov says “In 2021, 52% of all trips, including all modes of transportation, were less than three miles, with 28% of trips less than one mile”, it’s daft either way that people want to use a car for such short distances or that urban spaces are designed so that things are relatively very close but juuuust too far for convenience.

Also I would love to see more covered bikeways.

85 and humid here is worse than -00 and dry in Phoenix. It’s so humid your sweat can’t evaporate because the air is already saturated. It’s beyond miserable, and actively unhealthy to many.

Los Angeles to SF is 381 miles. My town to the Cherokee, which is about where the rainforest zone starts, is 383. North Carolina is a much bigger state than most people realize.

Nobody has ever thought North Carolina was small, though. Where did that idea come from? In fact, it is not clear why the record needed a distance in the first place.

I assure you, as life long resident, I have blown the minds of many non-natives by stating I can drive for 8 hours west and still not quite be in Tennessee. In most places east of the Mississippi that gets you through 3-4 states.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_parakeet

Except for the very hottest of summer days, I see a lot of pedestrians in downtown Austin.

I don't know if this is true of Austin, but trying to convince people to get off the street in the afternoon can be part of the city's heat management plan in some parts of Texas.

I think either an older colleague (I was not old enough to rent a car, this is a long time ago) ferried me across or maybe the hotel took pity and sent me in their minibus ? There was no practical way to walk that short distance, the infrastructure is designed only for cars.

I mainly remember that mall because I found a (possibly mislabelled) copy of the version of Tori Amos' "Under The Pink" which is actually 2CDs, so "More Pink" is inside the case too but it was the same price as the regular album, and that was an amazing bargain for teenage me. But yeah, it was staggering to me that these Americans just expected to drive everywhere. I have grown up in an English village where I walked everywhere, to school, to the shops. to a friend's house, everywhere. I guess I was old enough to realise that most English villages aren't also served by the London Underground, but the choice to build only car infrastructure seemed very strange indeed.

Great city to ride around! Surprisingly good facilities.

they really do act like it whenever the USA plans a city or a neighborhood. why wouldn't everybody have a car? except we actually have plenty of reasons now that we didn't before

There's no problem with grids or wide roads as long as there is infrastructure in place for pedestrians. Bridges can allow people to cross over wide streets/traffic without having to wait for a light for example. Tunnels can be an option as well. Grids can really help a city be more walkable since it becomes dead simple to navigate and you aren't wasting time on long winding roads or labyrinthine paths which increase the distance between two points and make it easier to get lost.

Infrastructure for pedestrians would be you cross as soon as you get there, cars wait. Bridges are not pedestrian infrastructure they’re “cars are the priority” infrastructure, “cars mustn’t be delayed or inconvenienced, pedestrians can be” infrastructure.

None of the world's great walking cities heavily uses bridge crossings like that.

What do work for pedestrians is a network of smaller roads that you can "just" cross safely without waiting or taking detours. Basically, a few big roads you cross once in a while and the rest being smaller roads where cars are forced to go slowly.

When you consider that drivers are generally wealthier (because they own cars) and the pedestrians are breathing car exhaust and tyre dust while working their lungs harder climbing to give cars the priority, listening to car noise while drivers pass in low effort comfort, the mild unfairness of it is more starkly contrasted.

Ideally good pedestrian design would tempt people out of their cars because walking is so quick, convenient, cheap, pleasant, interesting - with shade and shops and short distances and quiet clean surroundings. Big steel bridges don't contribute to that very much. [Have you seen how often Americans comment on the price of gas? Yet what people campaign for is the government to lower the price of gas, not for the government to make life without cars so pleasant that cars are not a necessity. What sense does that make? Most living Americans have never lived in a walkable place, and have no film, tv, or cultural reference for one to use for a basis for such a campaigh - maybe Disneyland (which visitors tend to love)? 120 years ago everywhere was walkable because there wasn't much other than walking. 70 years ago places were bulldozed for cars. Now multiple generations have grown up and lived their adult lives with car dependent urban design].

There were severe injuries or deaths every single year when students would cross the road late at night and a car would be speeding at 60+ mph. They eventually installed a puffin-style crossing, which was much better.

The solution, especially in built up areas, is to keep cars from causing problems for pedestrians rather than trying to stop pedestrians from causing problems for cars. Perhaps the cars should be relegated to a tunnel so people don't have to be near them instead.

To be walkable a city needs to be quick to walk between destinations and pleasant to do so.

Most US cities are too spaced out, require waiting at each block, or are not all that pleasant for walking.

Cars made more sense in the industrial age, when people needed to commute to a factory for work. But, in the age of knowledge work and especially remote work, we aren't commuting as much. So, walkable neighborhoods become far more important and impactful.

Strongly feel this acceptance will be difficult to actualize sans coercion.

I never drive to London because a train will get me there faster, and I can rely public transport to get me to almost anywhere I want to get to. It can definitely be useful to have a car in the suburbs but not enough to be worth the trouble of driving one there.

The difficulty of parking and driving around the city centre is a deterrent, but to me it is secondary to the positive factors.

I do like pedestrianised areas, because they feel safe and clean. The main danger remaining is the cyclists of the "get out of my say" type, especially couriers and the like.

I don't think anyone stopping to genuinely help is a "bad" thing, or robs one of their dignity. If you do, maybe that is a comment on your internal worldview instead of on that of the person stopping.

Dense cities where passersby ignore you wantonly are decried as impersonal, lacking community, etc and now we are saying we WANT MORE of that? That it brings DIGNITY?

Then mass suburbanization happened in the 60s/70s. American cities became high crime places. Everyone became anonymous. No one knew their neighbor.

Such is the paradox of modern urban life. Nowhere are you closer physically to your neighbor, but more distant socially. The 5 acre farms outside of town all know each other’s grandkids by name. Does a city dweller even know the name of the resident across the hall?

Here in Tokyo, it's still like this: kids play outside and roam around, taking the subway by themselves, etc. But people don't know their neighbors here either, since it's a city with tens of millions of people; it's just safe because it's built into the culture, just like petty theft almost never happens here and when you drop your wallet, it's almost certain to be turned into the nearest police box, with all the cash still inside.

There are many neighborhoods in cities and towns in the US where this is still true. I know because I live in one, and I've visited others. There are also a ton of US suburbs and exurbs where people barely know their neighbours.

Having a friendly neighborhood has much to do with the strength of community institutions and the existence of "third places". Those can be present (or not) in a variety of community layouts and densities.

My take is that it requires a sweet spot of economic security where people aren't struggling so much that they can't/don't trust in community, but also aren't so wealthy that they don't need/rely on their community. Beyond that, it also helps to have physical layouts that enable friendly unintentional encounters between residents.

The problem is that none of these places will be cheap to live in, because all else equal, the existence of that lifestyle will drive up demand (and therefore housing prices).

I didn't say that urban areas are less neighbourly.

I meant that the range of densities that are conducive to neighbourliness is a necessary, but insufficient condition.

People on average need to feel both economically secure enough and at the same time so wealthy as to not rely on anyone else.

They also need a third-place in which to congregate

This is why American suburbs outside the north east are so soul crushing - the "third place" is typically a church instead of a a pub.

Other places that come to mind include Ann Arbor MI, Burlington VT, Boulder CO.

Like I said, none of these are cheap places to live relative to nearby areas.

I would love more walkable infra but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to walk in Houston.

The elementary school near my friend's house had a playground that was 100% shaded by just two massive trees. They tore the school down for a modern replacement. The new playground has no shade at all, not even those stretched fabric triangles you see all over the southern US.

Or Panama City, did not reach 1 mil until the 90s

And "designed with cars in mind" is part of the problem, is it not? Using that as a filter is like saying "there are no parking garages with good canoeing routes"

https://www.google.com/search?q=miami+flooding&udm=2

Those other cities have a population that is adjusted to the heat - they grew up with it, their ancestors grew up with it, they're genetically and culturally adjusted to the climate. By contrast, the U.S. South includes a large number of immigrants who are only there because air conditioning exists. It's a mystery why anyone would want to walk around in 100 degree heat with 90% humidity, because they certainly wouldn't.

The simple answer is, you adapt (homeostasis)

I am one of those annoyed people, I want bike lanes and I don’t understand why a place with so many riders is so anti-bike (aside from understanding the natural societal inclination to think that anything worth doing should be difficult, and made difficult if not).

I think the problem is just the politicians: they probably use cars and never bike or walk in these places.

I think the thing that makes it work the way it does is, as you say, people don't openly complain. They just get out of the way, or ignore the bikers (I prefer the latter as long as a bunch of them aren't blocking the whole sidewalk). In America, they'd be going full Karen and intentionally antagonizing the bikers, or trying to start fights with them, etc. Here, people seem to just recognize it's an imperfect situation, and put up with it instead of making a big deal out of it.

Meanwhile, had plenty of occasional bicycle/scooter riders in Seattle basically destroying the flow of pedestrians on sidewalks.

And at least here in Montevideo we're literally by the beach. I am two blocks away from being able to swim :)

I do complain a lot about the heat+humidity combination and I use A/C a lot.

We do have humidity and heat and I don't enjoy it and I use A/C several months a year.

There's a big push for more cycling-centric and more cycling lanes, and the bus infrastructure is obviously a lot better than the US. I don't have a car by choice.

I haven't been to Houston but I have been to Dallas and it was an extremely frustrating experience and it feels like an awful soulless city to me.

https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/9247~114655~27814~113829~...

> "I would love more walkable infra but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to walk in Houston."

But the relevant part is people who do want to, but can't.

I could see the office across the road from the hotel, but there was no easy way to get there on foot because there were no sidewalks, or indeed any other concessions to pedestrians. I had to walk through the car park, push through a hedge, climb down the grassy bank, and the do the same in reverse on the other side of the road. Reception had seriously recommended that I took a cab about 100 yards.

There's sidewalks and crosswalks between The Cupertino Hotel and One Infinite Loop, but they are terrifying to use because of how wide and busy that intervening junction is.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/3erCVaBPq49A7bgL9?g_st=ic

Walking to that hotel from San Jose was a mistake, incredibly hot even in winter and no shade, but it was possible — though I did have to switch which side of the road I was on several times because the sidewalk just stopped.

But my point is that Houston is designed the way it is because very few people want to walk in 100 degree humid weather. It was mostly built after cars were invented so it reflects that.

I'm not saying I get why people would not want to walk. Only that it's common to do so anyway.

Here in Tokyo, it's also quite hot, and extremely humid during the summer. Rain is very common during the summer as well, and we have typhoons too. Even so, everyone walks here, and lots of people (including moms with little kids) ride bicycles too, rain or shine.

Here are two weatherspark links for Tokyo and Houston:

https://weatherspark.com/y/143809/Average-Weather-in-Tokyo-J...

https://weatherspark.com/y/9247/Average-Weather-in-Houston-T...

Scroll down to the "Humidity Comfort Levels" sections of those two pages.

Those are not the same things. Tokyo is very different from Houston. Having just gotten back from south Texas, I know this.

Do you know how dumb it sounds to compare two entirely different places as if they should relate?

You'd be crossing a couple highway on-ramps which aren't the most pedestrian friendly.

At one point it was the intersection of 3 sketchy neighborhoods, but it's been a while.

...It just waited to run out until after I got home to my "safe", car-centric suburb for the summer, and decided to walk to a nearby gym. "A lot of areas can look OK," for certain.

I visited London a long time ago and the public transportation is amazing and it I did want to walk to see the city, which I did. But I imagine even living there, I would want my own car to be in control of my life.

So, visiting a place is good for walking. But living in a place is not. At least that's my experience.

In fact all public transport there is pretty bad. Here in Barcelona the metros come every 3 minutes during the day on each line. In Amsterdam it's more like 15.

I haven't owned a car for more than 15 years now. I have city year bus pass but I also frequently just walk to wherever I'm going, there's lots of paths and shortcuts for pedestrians, but if the weather is a bit rubbish, there's bus stop outside my flat that runs every 5-10 mins.

I'm a member of the mobility car share for the rare times hen I do need a car, usually to pick up or move something heavy, or take a bunch of stuff to the decheterie.

Maybe sometimes after a night on the town, I might grab a taxi home, but I do not miss having a car.

https://events.humanitix.com/drinking-and-dragons-september-...

And actually make it back. Can't do that if I drive.

I used lime scooters considerably more than ubahn when I was in berlin

Edit: I stand corrected. There is a published schedule, I've literally never heard of anyone using it though and I wouldn't rely on it.

I’m 40+ years old now and have never needed or wanted to have a driving license. I simply hated America when I had to visit and use taxi or someone else’s help to get anywhere. In Berlin even with a child the need of a car is so rare — sometimes it’s even more pleasant to walk an hour to a museum or a club than use public transportation.

I lived in Germany for years without driving as well, because I could afford to live by the city center. But over half my colleagues drove because that's all they could afford to do, and you should try stepping out of your bubble and understand the pressures that force Germans to drive. They're not all just wanting to spend more time in their Audis.

Second, don’t tell me about my “bubble”: you have no idea who I am and what I have experienced in my life. I’m very well aware of many sides of it, maybe more than you are.

Third, do you seriously want to lecture a person who is both a landlord and a tenant in Berlin about local rent controls and price development? We do have some issues here, but it is nowhere close to neither London or NYC where prices are crazy nor Moscow where commuting can be truly exhausting.

Sadly, many are. This topic often does turn into one of lifestyle judgement and it isn't very productive when arguments go from practical to personal. As if any one car-goer or bus-goer determines the fate of a city's urban planning.

I myself believe that personal cars are mobility edge cases and the world will settle on vendor-managed rental fleets eventually, where most people will occasionally use rental cars with autopilot.

Nevertheless this is not going to happen for the next 50-80 years, so we just need at least to stop promoting car-centric lifestyle and find a real compromise between cars, bikers and pedestrians.

It is just not true that mass transit is only for those who pay high rents. It is other way round pretty much all round world and historically - rich people were buying cars more and poor used public transport.

I don’t have any business in such countryside. What would I find there? A good beach on Baltic sea is 15 min walk door-to-water plus 2 hours on express train. The list of tourist attractions and vacation destinations accessible by train, plane and/or taxi within half a day or so is so big here that I cannot imagine going to such inaccessible place. Worst case I will pay a few hundred euro for taxi if such improbable situation occurs.

This is a common Internet meme -- the American tourist that goes to Europe and loves their experience of walking around nice, dense cities designed at a human scale and functioning public transit. Then they return to their life of highways and parking lots and strip malls, which, to me, is dystopia.

Well yes, the US transportation system is utter trash, even in California

> but it also sounds terrible in the sense that you can't just get in your car, go some place, park in a parking lot, go shopping, and then head back home, all on your own terms.

In Europe I have three supermarkets in a 800m radius around my place, the closest shopping center/mall/whatever you call it is a 30min walk away (10min by public transport, 8min by bicycle). I can walk to the closest supermarket without even leaving the private ground of my block of buildings and its park, no street to cross, no cars in sight

> I would want my own car to be in control of my life.

Are you working for these fine gentlemen ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_lobby

When I finally did get a car, it was a massive QoL upgrade. I can go anywhere, at any time, usually considerably faster than PT, and carry an order of magnitude more than before. I didn't enjoy having to go to the supermarket multiple times a week, but I had to when I could only carry maybe 4 bags (fewer if heavy) in one trip. I still do use buses and trains where it makes sense, e.g. visiting other cities or the centre of mine

It's interesting that I've been downvoted to -3 for factually detailing how cars are in fact useful. Shooting the messenger won't change the facts

It isn’t? Even with EVs? Or your point is that only poor/non-rich people shouldn’t be allowed to own cars?

> you want and carry a lot of useless junk

Such as food and other groceries?

I mean, if we're talking about convenience, I started ordering my groceries online during the pandemic and I'd argue that's an even bigger QoL upgrade. You can still go for produce (or not) and the occasional thing you need immediately, but getting stuff delivered to you is generally cheaper and more convenient than owning a car. The gratification is a bit less instant, but I value my time more than that.

As for cars being faster than public transit, sure, but making cars fast often have the side effect of making other modes of transit slower, and vice versa. Buses need reserved lanes to be reliable, bikes need reserved lanes to be safe, which means less cars can go. As a pedestrian, I would get to places significantly faster if I could just jaywalk wherever I please, but naturally this would require very low speed limits. Cars also require parking lots, which make walking less efficient. Cars are only convenient for their own drivers, they are inconvenient for everybody else (including other drivers).

I also actually agree on prioritizing bus and cycle lanes over car lanes. Instead of being angry at them, which unfortunately many drivers are, I choose to appreciate them as intended - i.e. if I'm going into the town centre I usually go by bus. I'd also like to see more properly-separated bike lanes. I don't blame cyclists at all who choose to ignore the painted ones and take the lane as if they're a car

However the main reason why public transport is slower isn't usually due to traffic or physical constraints, but the longer routes you have to take. Usually the planners have done their job well, and the route is near-optimal in aggregate (and therefore often useful for myself if I'm commuting or visiting the centre), but if I want to visit a friend in another part of town, I've very often got to go in to the centre and change out again. Even if there's a direct route, it can be slow due to how many stops occur (off-board ticketing/proper BRT could help with that in major areas). If I'm visiting a business in a business park/industrial estate further out, it's often a taxi or nothing

The following doesn't change much, but just to nitpick:

> As a pedestrian, I would get to places significantly faster if I could just jaywalk wherever I please, but naturally this would require very low speed limits

That's legal where I currently live (UK). Motorways are essentially the only place you're not allowed to just cross, though drivers aren't generally required to break the traffic to give you passage if you're not at a zebra crossing (or a junction, as of recent code changes). Speed limits definitely do vary based on the likelihood of pedestrians in the area, but I don't think changing the law would change much there. I mean, they'd have to fairly compensate by adding more crossings anyway, and IME those are more likely to slow down traffic due to their poorly-timed and long stops (even with sensor-assisted intelligence), whereas pedestrians making ad-hoc crossings are usually sensible enough to wait for a natural gap instead of forcing one (and those who don't would probably "jaywalk" anyway), essentially making their effect on flow near zero. Even if you do have to slow for a pedestrian, it usually is just a slight slow for under two seconds. Much quicker than a red light. Zebra crossings of course don't have lights, but you do have a hard requirement to stop as soon as a pedestrian presents themselves at the side, and remain stopped until they've completely left the road, resulting in similar interruptions rather than turn-taking in existing gaps

(Actually I tried both lives. I used to have a car in the past. Still prefer being car free)

no thanks

Walkable/bikeable places exist in some cities, but are reserved for the rich.

As for the costs of owning a car - these are real, but the cost of not owning a car is much greater. As electric cars filter down to the used market cost of car ownership will also drop a fair amount.

Adding a 2nd mechanical maintenacnce isn't as bad as dealing with the flesh skin version.

They also said if I kept throwing a football in Central Park there would be trouble, and yelled at me for lying on a bench in a train station.

As a 22 year old kid I was a bit taker aback

I also did not own a car for years, commuting only by bicycle, and never had a problem.

Indeed, Austin's core is only about 5 square miles (the entirety of the East Side to the Greenbelt, Hyde Park down to far South Congress, say). Fairly compact.

It is no New York or London but it is walkable and bikeable.

Nor am I, but a constitutional test used to cost about $250,000 or so over a decade ago (does inflation affect these things?). For someone who can't afford a car, that's a tough bill to eat.

[Usually you can make two separate attacks on these kinds of constitutional cases since most states have their own constitutions that are practically identical to the federal one, so you can sue in both state and federal court separately if you want two tries at it -- this is good if you screw it up the first time and want to use the arguments the defendant fired at you in the first case to bolster your retry]

With representation though, I have a current case I finally settled today with the government and my legal counsel ran up a bill that was north of $500K for a very simple constitutional case. His firm swallowed it because it was part of their yearly pro bono requirements.

https://patch.com/illinois/plainfield/no-deal-yet-for-brit-c...

https://www.shawlocal.com/2019/09/04/inmate-sues-because-he-...

https://casetext.com/case/bocock-v-dart

https://isp.illinois.gov/Sor/Details/X23A0424

qingcharles = Charles Bocock

(And while I'm here 'manor' in GP was a typo for 'major', in case that's not clear to anyone.)

well, our living choices aren't necessarily choices these days. Nor comfortable. More like compromises for suvival. Already had more than a few friends priced out of California and needing to move out of the state in its entirety.

Using a bus in a ski resort is higher status than a car in a large city.

I confess that I have been one of those people (I didn't live quite there)--but when meeting with friends for a run. My preference was always to lace on the sneakers, walk to the end of the block, and run.

It's important to pace and hydrate oneself and people from hot climates know that because they deal with it all the time.

South Florida and the north suburbs of Detroit are #2 and #3 in my direct experience.

The south is very well suited to the e-bike. It will probably take the total die off of the boomers before anything really changed though

I looked around now on Google Street View, but can't recognize the slight hill I was walking on (it happened around 10y ago). Funnily enough, also street view shows streets with no pedestrians anywhere :-)

It's perfect that way. I hate driving.

I wouldn't let the cops bully me into taking an Uber though. Afaik it's still legal to walk in the US?

Also downtown austin is disgusting; maybe they were just stunned someone would be there on purpose before the sun goes down.

Hope you enjoyed the museum/trip though

But I note that you're saying "Near" downtown Austin so I guess it depends where you were maybe?

However, I do remember a night, when we went out with colleagues, and from one place we were to switch to another, it was less than a mile away. We stepped outside, and one of the colleagues were looking for a taxi / checking Lyft already; we, the visitors, didn't understand; are we really gonna wait and then squeeze in a car, instead of walking 10 minutes?!

We eventually walked, and it was perfectly safe (and lively) at that time of the night.

Your European life might be car free but, I was surprised when a friend who lives in Brussels, where I've been 4 times now and walked all over, told me he loved his time in Japan because it was the first time he could live car free. I was like WAT? You live in Brussels! It seems to have reasonably good public transportation. He was like, I live in the suburbs and have to drive to/from work every day.

I certainly love living in a walkable city, but I also realize that can be somewhat rare, even in Europe. Friends live in Solingen (home to Henckels knives and Haribo Gummies). AFAICT it's not walkable. Düsseldorf is though.

But yes most people I work with seem to drive into work for their commute with only the occasional person getting the train. The office in central Brussels even has a load of free parking spaces they can book on their day in the office (company is hybrid one day/week in the office).

And the idea of commuting more than 30 minutes is utterly horrifying to them, which as a Londoner I found an interesting perspective - a 30 minute commute to the financial district in London would still put me in an inner London suburb with incredibly high housing costs so my commute is way longer than that.

Now, back to my regressive tendencies...

Even at 3 AM, I'm not the only person out walking. I have never once been stopped by police. I go through "dangerous" neighborhood, through places near homeless encampments. I tweaked my groin while running a few weeks ago when I was 8 miles from my house and walked all the way back from Highland Park, though Uptown, Downtown, and the Cedars to get back to my house.

To be clear, walking in Dallas sucks. Sidewalks randomly end. There is construction everywhere. Oak Lawn this morning had both sidewalks closed, each with a sign saying to use the other sidewalk. Drivers pay absolutely no attention and never look for pedestrians. But it is nonetheless possible and feasible to walk around and no one has ever looked at me funny for doing it. Yes, it is also often triple digit fahrenheit heat in the afternoons, but that is well within the human survivable zone, and as long as you aren't going somewhere that you can't be covered in sweat, you'll be fine.

Also, I live about two miles from the main museum district in Dallas, and I walk whenever I go to a museum, and the streets there are completely filled with pedestrians. Even if you drive from out of the area, you're still not gonna park right next to the entrance. Some have their own parking lots. Some don't. The parks in the area do not. Plenty of drivers still park pretty far away. So it's particularly weird that someone would stop you on your way to a museum.

I've never been, but from what I understand Austin (esp downtown) is one of the more walkable cities in Texas.