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A well designed city makes most errands faster on foot than in a car.

Even when cars are prioritized, traffic makes even the smallest errands a problem eventually; roads simply don't scale.

And cars are by far the loudest thing about cities at almost all times. They make the very air hostile with pollution and heat. And, worst of all:

> I simply hop in my vehicle and can be anywhere I want in 3-15 minutes

You do this at the direct expense of everyone else in your city. You make the streets unwalkable and the city unlivable. You are insulated from the sounds and dangers that you are creating around you. (I'm just using you as an example, I don't actually blame you for taking the only option you've been given.)

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IMO the default mode of transport should be scooters. They don't take all that much space than a person(unlike car) but (like car) can move far faster

The infrastructure is all here already. They pollute less (ICE) and the no pollution electric ones are far more affordable than EVs. Like 4 of them fit in one parking space. They have storage space for some small groceries too.

Sadly winter and rain sucks.. i guess at least for rain those scooters with roofs could cover that.

Yeah. Screw scooters. People riding those don’t care about pedestrians. I’ve been knocked out by one of those things. They’re more dangerous than cars. Cars at least move on designated roads while scooters just zip past pedestrians and can come from anywhere at any time.

They’re talking about Vespas not Razors.

How do you know what they’re talking about?

Context… You can fit well more than 4 kick scooters in a parking space. And kick scooters don’t have internal combustion engines. And motor scooters usually have a storage bin under the seat big enough for a helmet or two, or two bags of groceries.

Context...

I also vehemently hate those but I'm not talking about them.

I meant the bigger ones driving on roads (small motorcycles), not the small e-scooters. No mixing up passenger and scooter traffic.

My language have separate word for those types but english for some reason don't...

Are you riding a scooter for your day to day errands? How do you deal with being stuck in the 5pm traffic under 90F sun? How do you ride it when you're a bit unwell (flu, cold)? What do you do with your helmet, boots and protective gear when you go to a restaurant?

The whole point is if we prioritize transport other than cars, we don't have to sit for hours in 90 degree heat. We walk, take the bus/subway, or bike, scooter, etc.

This doesn't even require everybody to live in a city... I'm outside DC and just moment from my front door, I see plenty of opportunities to make transit better and reduce car usage... I'm 1.5 miles from a subway station, but it's impossible to walk to without crossing 1 or more 6 lane roads. There are bike lanes that lead nowhere (literally end a few blocks before the local school then start a few blocks after, then stop before the local shopping center, then start again after). They just built an expensive bike path/running trail as part of an interstate project but they put it right beside the highway - who wants to walk/run/bike 4' from trucks belching diesel fumes and with dangerous sound levels? They could have built the bike path on the other side of the sound wall, but didn't.

> Are you riding a scooter for your day to day errands?

I was driving bicycle for ~10 years and most weather. Scooter would be upgrade.

> How do you deal with being stuck in the 5pm traffic under 90F sun?

You wouldn't if you removed 3/4 of cars and replace them with scooters

> How do you ride it when you're a bit unwell (flu, cold)?

You take a bus. Do you also drive car if you feel terrible ? It's not very safe....

>What do you do with your helmet, boots and protective gear when you go to a restaurant?

I'd imagine if that much traffic moved to scooters the city businesses would accommodate. At least for helmet they often just fit under scooter's seat.

The default should be walking, the default should never be having to buy a product and drag a product around with you and needing two arms, two eyes, a sense of balance and constant concentration while using it so that you don't injure others with your product, it's as wrong-headed as designing everywhere to need stilts or designing everything to be hot so you need to wear oven gloves all the time. Places and things should serve humans as far as possible, not humans serving capitalism's need to sell things. (And 50 people in a bus fit in ~four car spaces and aren't getting wet in winter).

Walking sucks arse. Slow and sweaty. Cycling sure, cities are too small for walking.

Saying "we should arrange these two buildings far enough apart so that people have to cycle, because I don't like walking" is not compelling. Strive to arrange them close enough to walk (or wheelchair) because that maximises accessibility to the most people. If people can afford to - and want to - cycle on top of that base, no problem. But don't make cycling or driving or owning a Cessna the default.

I like scooters on an aesthetic level, but I don't know if it's true that they pollute less: my understanding is that most scooters use relatively dirty two-stroke engines, and that much of SE Asia's urban air pollution can be correlated to heavy scooter use.

They used to be 2-strokes. Probably still are in many parts Asia and Africa.

But, in the US and EU, new scooters are (almost?) all 4-stroke today due to emissions regulations. Many are fuel injected for the same reason. I'm not sure if they're required to have catalysts - but that's a fairly simple fix (for new models).

Car-centric design makes things unwalkable; other models make things undriveable. It's a competition.

Undriveable isn't bad though. We don't really get any value from driving for everyday trips over walking/biking/transit. And any decent walkable designs don't prohibit necessary driving such as delivery and emergency services, so they're not truly undriveable. It is a competition, but dying from cancer is also a form of competition. We don't always have to give both sides equal standing.

Some places are really hot/humid you know, it's nice not to have to bike and need a shower for a small errand

So prioritize e-bikes or scooters.

I live in one. I still walk when I'm able.

The point is that driving should not be required to live a full life, and in fact it's much more pleasant to live without cars everywhere.

The goal of driving is to get from point A to point B. But when point A and point B are a 5 minute walk, why drive at all? Well, in America we designed our cities and suburbs to make the distance between A and B as large as possible. But we didn't have to do that!

And it isn't. If you prioritize your life around not driving you can still live a full life.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. this is not true.

It can be but you have to make your choice of housing location priority number one. Then worry about employment, raising a family, etc. Not easy at all which is why so few do it.

You also need a minimum amount of financial comfort and stability, which, in the US, is not easy for many people. Often the poorest neighborhoods are the most car-bound.

The Netherlands begs to differ.

That’s why there’s a 5 lane highway from Utrecht to Amsterdam?

Between cities, yeah. But also trains, unlike America. And in Utrecht proper there’s multiple options for getting around that aren’t cars. The Netherlands does a great job (maybe the best) designing for multi-mode transportation, including cars.

I have to admit. The OV card is pretty cool.

You can drive Tokyo but it's just expensive to park

Residential streets in Tokyo are narrow and sometimes barely fit one car.

As for parking, well, it's market price. It's expensive because parking has been subsidized as the default in vast majority of the world.

Except driving is the only transportation option which regularly results in the death of people walking/biking outside of that car. Walking/biking/rail/bus kill virtually no one, cars kill tens of thousands annually.

Discouraging driving is a reasonable public health measure for a safer society.

Carcentric design is also against drivability if you account for inevitable traffic jams

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