A good observation from previous threads: "Whenever utility cycling is discussed on the internet, suddenly everyone has to move their fridge 100 miles in the rain"
Suddenly, all the north Canadians who live with snow storms 24/7 appear to comment how all the world infrastructure has to adapt to their specific needs.
All Canadiens live in the permafrost
The only thing you need to say back is "Oslo"
As someone who doesn’t have a license or a car, but does bike a lot - there will be solutions.
I order my groceries delivered. When I needed to get my old bed recycled, I asked the second hand store and they came and picked it up. They weren’t interested in the broken mattress for it (obviously), so I contacted a moving company and they had it recycled for $40.
Now I get that that cost might be hard to swallow for some, but keep in mind that I don’t pay for my car, its insurance, the fuel, or maintenance, and it took less than five minutes for me to be done with the entire thing. All I had to do was open my front door and two burly men came and picked it up for me. I didn’t even have to wait at the recycling station.
Those $40 paid for themselves.
It’s also worth noting that I do live in the frozen north (not Canada, further north), where we don’t see the sun for half the year. I see people biking year round.
The psychology behind prices surrounding cars is outright evil. You don't even notice how much you spend on them because everything is auto-deducted from your accounts (insurance, registration, etc.), gas is death by a thousand cuts, and repairs are seen as a necessity because it's your transportation.
I'm well aware I'm saving money by not having a car. However, spending $40 on bike maintenance every few months feels so much more expensive than $400 on a car, even though the bike is my transportation.
Yeah, it depends on the context. Is the thread saying "we need to build out far more cycling infrastructure"? If so, no argument.
Or is the thread one of the naiive ones trying to argue about how we can completely eliminate cars? Then people start bringing up the edge cases that still require cars.
You'd typically hear this in the context of Dutch-style city planning, where direct routes through cities are only available to cycles and buses, and only indirect routes are available to cars.
So cars and other vehicles such as ambulances, furniture-removal vans etc. can still drive to every house from the ring-road, but it is no longer convenient to get from one place to another within the same city by car (which is obviously the design, as it promotes cycling and bus use)
People who drive within the city and would be inconvenienced then suddenly discover a newfound interest in the rights of, for example, disabled people, as they search for counter-arguments.
Can't agree more.
Fact is that we can't get rid of cars completely in our current society without billions in infrastructure changes, displacement and forced developments and regulations. Which unfortunately also means most roads are here to stay.
Can the number of trips and lanes come down- absolutely. New developments take mass transit and alternative travel into consideration- I hope so. Eliminate- no.
...and they'd have a much better time of it if there were less car traffic.
Those who depend on cars would benefit too when they are the only ones in cars
See, this is why I'm convinced that Americans secretly love traffic congestion. Why else would they do vehemently oppose anything that takes cars off of the streets and highways, and out of their way?
I'm not even sure that I'm joking, anymore. It's important for humans to have rituals that symbolically bind us to a larger community, like eating a big meal (usually turkey) on Thanksgiving Day, right? It feels like drivers want everybody stuck in traffic jams, so that they can feel that their own frustrating commute has some greater meaning, like this is how it is, and we're all in it together. (Like the weather.) Those of us who escape the matrix just enrage them by proving that their effort is meaningless and dumb.
Anyway, just a random musing.
Our local newspaper is a write in section. Each week about 30-40% of the space is dedicated to complaining about cars, roads, traffic, idiot drivers, parking, car theft, cost of fuel, or injuries/danger to pedestrians. Yet, when anyone suggests maybe building a bike lane or tram in this city there's a massive groundswell against it (funded by realtors and trucking companies).
Fuck cars.
Yup. I love traffic. As an owner of a car I seek out traffic jams daily!
I always think to myself "what if I could be in a bus, and be subject to a restrictive schedule other than my own?" Naturally, I like to seat myself next to the gentleman eating the cat food.
Say this to anybody who will listen, please! I've been using it on my car guy friends, and they're receiving it loud and clear. They love the idea of having the roads all to themselves, many of the actual enthusiast types do anyways.
This is basically how I like to put it:
I'm a car enthusiast. I own half a dozen cars. I genuinely enjoy driving.
You know what I don't like? Traffic. And that's why, when I'm doing mundane stuff like commuting or errands, I leave all my cars parked and get on my bike instead.
This right here is a big part of why I wholeheartedly support the message of this community. There are way too many people behind the wheel who have no business there, are frightfully inept as drivers, but they’ll tell you that they need a car. And they’re probably right. But with more walkable and bikeable cities and better transit, that excuse evaporates, and a drivers licence can be a privilege, and not a necessity.
For what it’s worth, I like my car. I like driving my car. I also drive a truck for a living. But god damn, I’d drive my car a whole lot less if I had better alternatives. My commute is 15 minutes by car or 1.5 hours by bus. The bridge I have to cross on my way to work is car only, no bikes or pedestrians. Working days that can push 14 hours, another three hours of commute by transit is a no go, and I literally can’t bike to work. I like driving, but I don’t want to have to drive.
Yes please, I love cars, I do orientation rallies, I don't like to have to drive anywhere. Motorways are boring.
I drive trains. I need to use a car, I don't like to sit in traffic after my shift, I want to get to the hotel/home asap.
I could survive without a car for my short commute but insanely enough having a shit econobox makes more sense financially than a cargo bike until it finally dies, I deduct loads from taxable income, can't with a bike. I get to sit in a warm box and all my shit is behind me. A hefty cargo bike (enough for two pieces of cabin luggage, I leave for two days and take food with me) would be more than I paid for the car. Oh and I'm not scared of much but Friday/Saturday 3 AM on a bike on dark roads? Bleh.
(I live in France, not like the US but some of the urban planning bullshit is similar)
My sister can't move her feet at the ankle. She'll never drive unless we can afford a custom 50k car. She has a 3,000 dollar mobility scooter. We had to spend about a month mapping the city to figure out WHERE THE FUCK SHE COULD GET ON AND OFF THE SIDEWALK.
Edit: Let me elaborate further:
It was so bad, that if we didn't think ahead, we would have to go back a half a mile. I'm not joking. You ever seen those roads between neighborhoods with no turn offs? Better make sure that side walk ends with a ramp, otherwise, you have to go ALL the way back. You also can't lift the scooter, it's over 100lb. If you're reading this, please petition your town to add more ramps to the sidewalk.
My sister has to have every bone from her pelvis to her ankle broken, REGULARLY. They have to cut all of her muscles, stretch them, reconnect them, and then inject them with botox. They then set them in a cast. This is just so she can properly grow, due to cerebral paulsy. And then, just to rub dirt in the wound, we can't even use the sidewalk properly. We're surrounded by beautiful nature and trails. She doesn't get to experience that. Please petition your towns to add more ramps to the sidewalk. I'll get off my soap box.
We had to spend about a month mapping the city to figure out WHERE THE FUCK SHE COULD GET ON AND OFF THE SIDEWALK.
Wow. It even worse than my shithole.
For a second, I thought you had quoted a different paragraph.
That's the logical result of decades of car-centric policies.
Sidewalks with ramps on them are a technology that has existed for a very long time. The only reason they aren't there, is because somebody didn't want to pay for them. I'm not blaming cars. I'm blaming politicians that are lazy as fuck about actually helping their people. And to an extent, many of those people, for not recognizing this as an obvious issue and pushing for it to be fixed.
It never ceases to amaze me, as a child and care giver of a parent with physical disabilities, how much this world is designed with no regard for people. It's incredible. Fuck city planners.
My mom had a similar issue in our town, though no where near as bad. Her wheelchair is quite a bit heavier, but we got a small folding ramp that we bungee to the back of her chair and take with us everywhere. Whenever we find somewhere that she can't go because of a step of less than 12 inches/30cm we can use that. It it's more than that, we just have to figure something else out or not go there. It's not okay the way everything is designed. And it doesn't make sense. Everyone, regardless of mobility, can use a ramp, not everyone can use a step. Why is it so hard to get the fucking ramp?
I am a healthy adult and I'm also continually enraged at the state of sidewalks in my area. When I walk my dog there are some routes I simply cannot take because the sidewalk just... ends. I think some lots extend all of the way to the street and it's up to the property owner to put in sidewalks and many simply don't. If I walk across their lawn to get to the next private sidewalk I get yelled at for messing up the grass that they spend "so much time and money" maintaining; fine, it's your property and I'll stay off, but what a waste of resources. Unless it's a particularly quiet road, I shouldn't have to walk in the street. The city-maintained sidewalks that do exist are a travesty: no curb cuts as you noted, tree roots that create huge steps, holes, and some have no curbs so people just drive on the sidewalk. The city doesn't want to do anything about it because these are either privately "maintained" and they can't, or it costs money and they don't want to.
I do think that mobility scooters should come in off-road versions because I've never seen one. I don't see why $3000 can't buy something closer to an electric ATV with knobbly tires, full suspension, and a torquey motor that can mount curbs like a boss, but it's a chair format and is limited to fast-walking speeds so that it isn't a car. It's probably a low-volume issue.
Probably don't see any off road chairs because people often only have 1 chair and it has to stay tiny enough to get through a doorway.
damn lisa really needs to shorten those slides for her presentation and start doing the talking herself
Stonetoss edits manage to be funnier than the original comic even when they’re still mocking the left, that guy really has a talent for being obnoxious.
0 cars bad idea. Need less car, need more everything else.
Serious death by PowerPoint vibes
I know right. What are they teaching children at Springfield elementary?
A walkable city means everything is closer for everyone, so if you have mobility issues you can just use a slower, safer, more efficient vehicle like a scooter or a cart that still suits your needs since you don't have to go as far as to need a car.
I think the part that is often lost on people who don't live in large cities but have to visit them for doctors appointments and specialized shopping and whatnot is that in such a walkable city would involve parking once in a municipal lot then walking a shorter distance to what they'd currently have to walk when parking in every business's private lot and move between parking lots
That's why I always have a cart in my pocket for my handicapped wife. Just in case we have to go to the city to access resources not available elsewhere. /s
I am all for walkable, bikeable cities with good public transport. The next city, though, is just gutting accessability by car without doing the necessary changes to make it more accessible by other means.
People can only think in 100%s. They think it's either 100% car, 100% transit, or 100% bike. So you have to tell them you want them all. Currently we have cars, we need to add transit and bikes.
I've heard it said that Houston's annual transportation cost for total car-dependency is close to 20% of their budget.
NYC, which has the entire MTA plus a huge number of highways and still shocking amount of car dependency, is 10%.
Amsterdam with all of its trams and bike paths is closest to 4%.
Yet any resident of NYC or Houston will tell you it is fucking TERRIBLE driving in either of those cities. Meanwhile, Amsterdam is ranked one of the best cities for people who love to drive because its roads are maintained, safe, and aren't congested.
It's actually not possible to be 100% transit or 100% bike, outside of some weird Swiss vacation communities or Canadian island neighborhoods. But the more you invest in transit and bikeped, the more you address the actual cause of congestion and the more drivable your city gets. Even if you truly love and prefer driving, multimodal cities are still better. Downs-Thompson is inviolable.
Downs-Thompson is inviolable.
The simple truth that a lot of people don't understand. Cars simply require too much space that you can never possibly meet all the latent demand for car trips within a city, as doing so would mean bulldozing the entire city in the process. The only way to meet latent demand for transit is via an array of vastly more space-efficient means, e.g., public transit, walking, and biking.
It’s actually not possible to be 100% transit or 100% bike, outside of some weird Swiss vacation communities or Canadian island neighborhoods.
You don't even need the caveat. Even in weird Swiss vacation communities and Canadian island neighborhoods, the mode share of pedestrians is >0%.
Heck yeah! Me and my GF I feel like are a good example of this.
I use an escooter because I work from home, and my favorite grocery stores and dr office are within a mile. I'm also about 3 miles from a train station that goes up and down utah valley, so I see no reason for a car. I uber once every other month like when I needed to get something large to the post office.
My GF is a CNA that does free lancing. So it's not unusual for her to have to drive an hour to the middle of nowhere with a shift that ends/starts in the middle of the night. A car just makes sense for her.
But people like me using micromobility/public transit means there are less cars on the road, less cars taking up parking, and even reducing the price of cars.
A lot of people think of themselves as too good for public transportation.
Cause they live somewhere where public transit is treated as a last thought thing for "the poors". When public transit is designed as a method of moving people, rather than a last thought, it gets much wider adoption. Because it's freaking great to not have to drive.
In my first job i used to work for a property management company. The owner had her office in the lavish flat of her parents in an upper class area of the city. When the mother of her asked, how i make it to work and i answered by subway. Her answer was something like "I couldn't do that. It is always so dirty."
Fuck rich people.
Maybe mentioned subway does have cleaning issues? Because for example Moscow subway has issues cleaning entrances.
In some areas, public transit can also be dangerous, with robberies, assaults, stabbings, sexual harassment and sexual assaults frequently making the news. As someone who used to live in Chicago, I wouldn't recommend anyone taking public transit at night there unless you absolutely have to.
Even in Butovo public transport isn't as dangerous as you describe. But you describe USSA.
I tried making it more a part of my routine, because I had a bus stop in my neighborhood and the buses stopped charging a fare. I figure it was a good way to travel around town for free. The times weren't great, but I was using it for little trips. One time a neighbor saw me waiting for the bus and called to make sure I was okay, that there wasn't some weird emergency that meant I couldn't drive... Yeah, no, just wanted to take public transit.
A few months later, they removed the bus stop by me. It's 3/4 mile of steep hill away now, so I'm back in my car full time. Oh well, I tried.
It costs me about 25 minutes of parking to catch a bus to the city while reading, have my meeting and take my time, then pay for the bus back home with a grand total of around 7 minutes walking.
Nearly door to door chauffeur that is cheaper than driving myself. Who's too good for that?
It's not that I think I'm too good for public transport, I just absolutely hate being near other people, especially ones I don't know. It's enough to endure 8 hours of office work, I'd rather be a hobo than commute.
I do own a e-bike as well as an EV, but I can only cycle to work pretty much half of the year, because snow/slush/ice, and even during summer and autumn, I take the car on days I'm going somewhere else than home straight from work (shop, gf, friends).
Public transport with closed separate sitting "boxes" is what it would take for me.
There's a little old lady near where I used to live who drives up and down the country roads in her government-provided electric wheelchair every day. Everyone knows her.
On the one hand I think, "you go, girl!" but on the other hand, I feel like her life would be a lot easier if this town were more walkable/bikeable. She can't walk to ride a bike but what a great benefit it would be for her to live in a place like that.
You literally need a license to drive and be over legal age. Compared to that, everyone can cycle or use public transport.
So what you are saying is that we'll still need car infrastructure?
I don't see how it could ever go away completely unless we develop some kind of teleportation device. People will always need a way to haul cargo around. It could certainly be reduced though with better city planning for those commuting to work and appointments and such that only need what they can hold on their person.
I've long been saying that a
handicappeddisabled person placard[1] should be your permission to drive within city limits, and other than that, you stay out of downtown areas of any city in your car.There are various degrees at which we can service private cars. Massive parking structures ain't it, taking over all public spaces with roads ain't it. But a path for disabled people to reach their destination directly in a car or van seems reasonable and doable, and will still allow us to reclaim most of the public space and money we spend servicing cars now.
[1] This is the correct name for it. Honestly, my bad.
I agree with your point as a disabled person - and here in the UK we kinda have this system. My car is registered disabled and therefore I can drive into LEZ, ULEZ and CC areas for free automatically. It’s a literal life saver when I survive off benefits, physically cannot use public transport, but I’m treated at hospitals in the very centre of London.
But the term “handicapped” is outdated and is considered offensive by some. Perhaps stick to “disabled people” instead.
I remember getting into this with my wife. She is into buses and those were black magic, I liked the subways. Took a few bus rides with her and she converted me. Both are great options with pros and cons.
tiny electric cars you can drive onto trains and boats
A much better idea than some teslas in a short tunnel.
That’s basically what the new scooters and unicycles are, though sometimes I worry about their safety compared to bikes.
My ebike was basically a mobility aid for me and I didn't even realise fully at the time.
I have a congenial hip deformity that made walking as a kid challenging, it was worsened by an autoimmune condition and in my late teens I slowly lost the ability to walk. By 22 I was a full time forearm crutches user, and at 23 a part time wheelchair user.
I was 100% reliant on accessible public transport to do anything. I could occasionally afford a taxi, but it was a rare occasion. It made finding work really difficult. When I was 24 I had surgery to remove a bunch of adhesions and scar tissue among some other things, and afterwards started an intensive two year physical therapy rehab program.
It got to the point where I could walk about 500m without any aid, and I could cycle about 1km on a standard bike. It was a huge increase to me previous range of zero, and it included the local shops and a second bus stop with additional routes so I was wrapped.
But then I got an ebike, and suddenly my range went from 1.5km to 21.5km, I could lazily pedal 20km and let the motor take me, though in reality I can turn the motor down and lazily ride 30-40km.
Over time, this lazy riding in addition to my PT meant I was working harder without feeling like I was, my walking range was growing too because my leg strength and my endurance was growing from lazily cycling so much. Suddenly I was doing 20,000 steps a day in addition to a casual 15km ride to work. Last year I set a goal to jog for 10 minutes, and nailed it before June, setting myself the goal of a 5km by Christmas, I went over, but ran my first ever 5km on January 4th. Having never ran before, not even as a child.
All thanks to my ebike.
Which I could only use because I have semi decent bike infrastructure in my area, and ebikes are legal.
Make me a climate controlled hyper-efficient one seat vehicle thats safe and I’d be so there.
Where I live, only the enthusiasts and the ones who live really close to work only have like 40 non-contiguous days a year that they can reasonably commute in anything but a car without showing up soaked with rain, sweat, or frozen boogers.
I’d love to give up my car. I work from home. I legit only need it two days a week to pick up my kid from preschool. Even when I commuted I hated that I had to take 4 empty seats and 3000 pounds with me.
Even to take the train (whose schedule is now completely incompatible with anybody’s work schedule unless they work within walking distance of a train stop thanks to a wildly underfunded subway/bus/streetcar infrastructure), I still have to drive that pile of metal to the train station, and that’s too far to reasonably walk, and too dark to safely bike thanks to poorly lit winding roads and non-existent bike lanes.
The whole system is fucked, but even scooters and unicycles aren’t filling that niche. And they won’t until they can at least protect you from the elements in some capacity, and provide some modicum of safety against every idiot with a drivers license and a pavement princess they can’t see past the hood on.
Maybe the real one-size-fits-all solution is the car-dependent city planning we made along the way
/s
"Not everyone can walk or cycle"
The only response needed for that statement is the following video.
Nothing in that video matches your claim. It shows disabled and elderly people can benefit from walkable cities and non-car-centric road planning, just like everyone else can. But I, like many others, CANNOT walk, cycle or use public transport, no matter how inviting the infrastructure or how much I dislike cars.
Could I use a mobility scooter? Sure! But not in the cold and wet and not when I can’t afford one. I could use it in addition to my car to get out on nice days or for short journeys to my local town but not instead of. And what am I meant to do when I get to the shops or cafe or whatever? Mobility scooters don’t fit in shops/cafes/restaurants unless they’re new buildings, which in the UK they’re invariably not.
Insisting that everyone can just use alternative means of transportation is untrue and unhelpful to the cause. A small percentage of people will always need cars, just like we’ll always need ambulances. Let’s focus on the abled bodied people who don’t actually need to be driving instead of blindly insisting that everyone is the same and one solution fits all.
Nothing in that video matches your claim.
What is my claim? I sure as heck responded to a claim. But what is my claim? Take your time and think about it please.
But I, like many others, CANNOT walk, cycle or use public transport, no matter how inviting the infrastructure or how much dislike cars.
Watch from 1:25 mark.
But I, like many others, CANNOT walk, cycle or use public transport, no matter how inviting the infrastructure or how much I dislike cars.
Not sure why you couldn't use multi-modal transport with a scooter and public transport? Not all public transport is accessible, but accessibility can and should be part of the focus of building/improving public transit.
Could I use a mobility scooter? Sure! But not in the cold and wet
I'm not sure why you couldn't use a mobility scooter in weather? I occasionally see some in Canada which are enclosed and temperature controlled. In the Netherlands, they have microcars which are an even better option for people with disabilities than a full-sized modified vehicle.
... and not when I can’t afford one.
Yet you can afford a car? Not only are mobility scooters usually cheaper than much bigger, more complex cars, but they are also subsidized (rightfully so) by medicare/health-plans.
Mobility scooters don’t fit in shops/cafes/restaurants unless they’re new buildings, which in the UK they’re invariably not.
Neither do full-sized vehicles/bikes/transit, so your point is moot. However, the smaller size of mobility scooters makes it easier to accommodate closer handicap parking than full-sized cars.
A small percentage of people will always need cars, just like we’ll always need ambulances.
Ironically, there's an argument that ambulances are public transit. They might be inefficient public transport, but they are an alternate to individuals driving dangerously to try and get medical help ASAP.
I think overall, your view of active transportation is really limited. Of course cars aren't going away but all your arguments seem to be limited by your experience of motonormativity.
Exactly. Which is why people who ate on the opposite end of the extreme, insisting that all cars of all kinds must be banished, are so annoying.
There's no one size fits all system, so stop with the "everyone should just ride the bus or train you don't need cars" rubbish. Neither extreme are correct. We live in the real world.
I don't think anyone is arguing for the complete abolishment of cars, they just don't feel the need to caveat everything anti car they say with of course we still need ambulances etc just in case someone doesn't understand that.
Let's look at the reasons car-owning motorcyclists (me) don't ride their motorcycles:
-Weather exposure. Piling on gear in the cold sucks, sweating through your clothes sucks, and riding in the rain sucks. In addition to this: tempurature changes are really annoying because your gear needs change.
-Effort. Getting ready to leave takes more effort and longer than hopping in the car. Also driving a car is effortless compared to riding a motorcycle.
-Utility. Simply hauling my boots to work is super annoying because i don't currently have my box installed.Solutions:
-Weather. Having the proper gear. Better, high-end gear will be better adaptable to wearher changes. Expensive, though.
-Effort. Preparing in advance due to not deciding at the last minute would help here. Riding will always take more effort than driving.
-Utility. If i didn't own a car i would simply have a sporty moto and a cargo moto so hauling the basics wouldn't be an issue however obviously hauling anything sizeable would still be an issue.How do these apply to cycling?
-Weather. Cycling in the cold and rain is not as bad as moto in the cold and rain howver cycling in the heat is much worse. Proper gear for cold and wet will make it suck less (it still sucks) but I would rather die than cycle in the heat.
-Effort. Cycling takes the same effort to get ready and more effort to ride (especially mentally due to the current road situation)
-Utility. Cycling and moto offer similar utility but there are less opportunities to strap boxes and bags to a random bicycle. You would probably need a large pannier or a cargo bike for most things. Hauling anything sizeable is, again, not realistic.The final problem: travel time. Cycling takes like triple the time to get anywhere in my situation and experience.
Seems most of the complaints are related to comfort.
This was a thought experiment done for my own benefit for my specific situation that i decided to share. Obviously other situations would lend similar yet different results.
I'm aware travel time in large cities is highly dependent on traffic—traffic is not something that I personally deal with.This comes from my experiences as a car driver, motorcyclist, and former cyclist.
Cycling takes longer bc the trip is not optimized for a bicycle.
Cool but I still am stuck in a car-only area for now. I wish it was better. Anything would be better.
I'm stuck in Houston, but we do still very occasionally succeed in implementing walkable/bikeable/mass transit improvements here and there. Whenever we do, the economy in that corner of the city balloons.
But then the state government steps in and quashes any effort to expand or improve on these developments, and we're back to spending $10B to wiggle the I-45 a bit so trucks can travel faster.
I think the Katy freeway should be a model for all roads. Every single shop and store should be fronted and backed by a 26 lane monstrosity of a slowly moving parking lot. /s
I find it impressive how stubborn people can be about building more roads. It's a case of having only a hammer, so everything looks like a nail. Just hit it with more surface road and parking to make a place 'better' despite cars never making a city better for people, just briefly more convenient for the first cars until it blocks up the roads and makes being outside a terrible experience.
The 4 down votes are from Tesla, GM, Ford and that guy in a denim tank top at a BBQ that says that bikes are just for children.
Make this into audio file please. Not everyone can read
All transportation-modes matter! ATM
Why can't cars be the solution? What if we developed cheap, electictric vehicles? You know, like electric bikes, or scooters. This is all theoretical, but some day these could be seen all over!
Maybe with solar power, and other renewables, we can forge a future with cheap tech at the forefront!
No? Okay. I'll see myself out. Don't worry, dreamers like me can just find the nearest ditch to die in, rather than you all be wrong about "cars".
Why can’t cars be the solution
Why would they be? You entirely missed the point of the meme lol there is no one solution. Sure it would be great to have cheap electric vehicle for some usage. It should not be the default and especially not a requirement. How hard is it to understand?
Also the pre-emptive strike doesn't help to express sympathy towards your idea.
You would still have to develop good biking infrastructure.
Also, what if people aren't physically able to take the roughness that can come with riding a bike/scooter (I ride my bike as my main form of transportation and bad roads can be really aggressive) In that case you would also want to throw in a good transit system people could reliably use and get to places at a reasonable time (my local transit system is so bad that it would take an hour and a half to get to school, whereas it takes about 40 minutes by bike)
And at the end of the day, supporting a multitude of different transport methods from walking to high speed rail is beneficial for everyone regardless of thale situation we end up in.
Try living in rural areas anywhere in North America, there isnt the tax money to have proper transit in these locations, theres enough for handy dart systems for those physically unable to drive, but not enough for the entire populous, Cars are the only economic solution in most North American rural centers
Rural areas are less an applicable argument against walkable city development. I've lived in rural Tennessee for a lot of my life, I understand; however, talking about that environment in the context of city development discussions doesn't make sense.
Oh, yeah, in City environments theres no excuse not to be walkable and transitable
edit: I see I missed the word city in the paragraph that Lisa was ranting about. I thought this was a rant targetted towards ALL environments and not City Specific
Why should any of that matter for making transport better in cities where none of this applies
To be fair, if the rural area has a "downtown", it could still be made to be walkable in at least that area.
Yes, those two blocks are already walkable.
Then stop phrasing it like it is the only viable option.
Looks like you didn't read it. Multimodal transportation is literally the opposite of a single option.
i disagree, once you get your driver's license you're able to drive indefinitely
Cradle to Grave transportation.
This is true, but a policy that will favour bikes will be done at the expense of public transports.
Ah yes the Dutch don't exist
There are train cars with bike racks, Park&Ride programs catered to bikes and bike paths alongside bus/tram infrastructure. Those examples make it possible to favour both.
The fairly large Midwestern city I grew up in has bike racks on every single bus so you can ride your bike to/from any bus stop anywhere in the city. It's just the cheap little 2 bike ones on the front that add about 30 seconds of fumbling to the stop, but it still significantly extends how far one can travel without a vehicle in the city
Edit: autocarrot decided the buses need bone racks before bike racks
Ahahah yeaaahh, I'm going to block this instance. None of you guys will enact real change towards better transportation if you're this resistant to real world economic and social constraints. Enjoy your echo chamber, I'm gonna see myself out
Echo chamber is when someone disagree with me
You mean what Europe already does?
I thought america was the greatest nation on earth
