If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

Plus, it's worth mentioning that while Tokyo has a lot of mixed-traffic streets, the streets are small, have very low speed limits, and have strong restrictions on the size and type of car that can actually be within the city. It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.

I also think Japan is generally a lot more pleasant to walk in than the US

Japan’s cars are mostly small, civilized and without tinted windows.

Sidewalks next to large roads generally have a barrier that clearly separates the bike/pedestrian traffic from the cars.

If there’s roads where there is no separation between cars and pedestrians the speed for the cars is generally limited to 30km/h.

Streets also have natural speedbumps in the form of lantern and electricity poles essentially standing on the street, instead of the sidewalk.

I certainly feel safer walking here than anywhere in the US.

(Here in Berlin I have to plan around Sunday trading rules in a way I didn't back in the UK, but we have Spätis, so there are options).

They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.

Why the accent? Is it not the one in California?

The (insane) cost of housing in LA doesn't exactly lead to people having bigger houses (or often affording any house).

Apparently in Alabama at least, the manufacturer determines the designation [2]. So you might be able to call Subaru about the Impreza and have them call it “an SUV” to get that sweet rear window tint.

[1] https://www.suvradar.com/can-suvs-have-tinted-windows/

[2] https://www.alea.gov/dps/highway-patrol/alabama-tinting-regu...

Oh I wish. On the contrary, it feels most everything closes around 9pm here and it hurts as a night owl. Heck, so many cafes seem to close around 6-7pm.

Did you just make this whole post up? This is obviously wrong.

The closest is "people aren't willing to pay to improve an unpleasant experience" which isn't related to purchasing a laptop in anyway.

Literally, the whole framing is that walking sucks and is embarrassing :(

You got it all wrong! It does noy matter how the expience feels physically.

The problem is social stigma attached to cycling.

Like tell you mates you spent 3 weeks fixing your car, or built your own house, and it was super u pleasant and you broke your hand in the process - you are cool.

But tell them you cycled to work to improvr fitness, and you are a weirdo.

https://grist.org/cities/black-chicago-biking-disparities-in...

In reality, only rich (and white) folks can afford to live in areas that are not car-dependent.

https://granfondodailynews.com/2020/01/17/is-north-american-... > From 2001 to 2017 the number of people cycling increased the fastest among high income, highly educated, employed, white men between the ages 25 and 44.

    We should improve society somewhat. 
    Yet you participate in society.

We see this often with urbanist topics. New multifamily construction is gentrification and colonization if you lean left, full of crime and a threat to our schools if you lean right. The only widespread agreement is that it represents the Other. The stranglehold of postwar suburban car culture on the American psyche is self-reinforcing at this point.

https://lede-admin.usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/si...

The chart of income vs percent who commute by bike is u-shaped but with a higher left side. Rich people bike more than middle class people but poor people bike more than either the rich or middle class. People who are on the right half of the distribution think biking is affluent-coded because they only see the right tail where it curves up and they don't know anyone on the left side of the distribution where the gradient goes the other way.

(I am in favor of improving cycling infrastructure for everyone regardless of income level.)

e: Actually, not going to get into it but c'mon - cars kill pedestrians in a way that bikes rarely do and removing the cars from your NY neighborhood would have an obviously better impact on pedestrians compared to the bikes.

A car driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian walk into a café and order ten cream cakes. When the waitress places them on their table the car driver grabs nine of them and scoffs them in his face, then he leans over to the pedestrian and whispers: “don’t let the cyclist take your one”.

[0] NYC's toxic ebike culture almost killed 4 people; let's talk about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrtLWilSoNI

I will tell you who is entitled, driver of a 20 ton construction truck that drove over pedestrian area, where children play, to beat traffic. This was on pavement, few meters from the front door of my house.

Sometimes I suspect that there is signaling going on that helps the traffic signals to favor the light rail train here. Then, sometimes, I suspect that there is not.

Some even manage to enjoy it. I did not believe anyone actually wanted, let alone enjoyed the misery of modernity until I experienced one such person firsthand. It blowed my mind, I was in shock for a straight day. The guy genuinely "liked" the new Transformers movie (which was beyond awful), "enjoyed" fast food, and "liked" the big car-honk-filled city center and CO2-infested loud mall. I'm yet to see a more oversocialized person. When I think of words 'deranged' and 'insane', no criminal but this guy appears in my mind's eye.

It wasn't like that in The Netherlands. Urban spaces where the LRVs operate have few cars and fewer traffic lights. The train moves like it means business and anything in its way scatters. As a passenger, it feels like you & your journey matter. On Muni it's like you're in a DMV waiting room.

For reference, In the Netherlands you only strictly need to be at the stop 30 seconds before departure, as that is when the doors close in preparation for departure.

> Now, other motorists see a train stopped at a station and they think one thing. They see a train stopped and waiting for a red light and they know that it will proceed through on green.

Why in the hell would drivers need to know that? Leave the train with the doors open at the station to allow any late comers to board. When the track clears start the traffic light cycle to stop car traffic, close the train doors and depart. The drivers see a red light and hopefully know to stop, whether or not they can see a train waiting.

How is "cycling" defined? For pleasure or for day-to-day travel? How was the data collected? How did they include/ account for the unemployed 20-somethings in poor suburbs who aren't biking to work, aren't "cycling" in events, aren't carrying the family groceries home in a basket, but are on bikes constantly going between houses (and maybe a gas station food mart)?

It’s just artificial scarcity, like fine art.

Then I came back to Los Angeles. For reference, one time while taking the metro I had to evacuate because one of the cars caught on fire and had smoke billowing out the windows. I wound up trapped near the Walk of Fame in Hollywood at roughly 11PM, because when I tried to catch a bus out of there, a bunch of idiots were parked directly in front of the bus stop and the bus driver was forced to just drive right past me because they couldn't pull over and stop. So then I hailed an Uber and had to wait nearly half an hour for it to arrive and pick me up because of how utterly packed the streets were with bumper-to-bumper cars.

I used to semi-jokingly tell my friends and family I wanted to move to Europe. Then I went to Amsterdam. Now I am dead serious when I tell my friends and family I want to move to Europe. Although, I'll probably go somewhere with slightly warmer weather than the Netherlands — Portugal and Spain are both high on my list of candidates currently.

Indeed. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc. are all among the countries with the highest vehicles per capita in the world (it's not as much as in the US, but then in the US people can drive starting at 16 years old, so it messes the stats quite a bit).

You don’t know that. You would have to run the experiment - spend equal amount of money on infrastructure for bikes and for cars. Then see.

Most British cities are tiny, you can cross most of them on an e-bike in like 15 to 30 minutes. Except London of course. But there is usually no safe way to cross them.

When I ask people in London, why are your not cycling, 95% say they are afraid of getting hit by a car. They are wrong - they will be killed by a truck. Most cyclists in London due to 4 axle construction trucks. I have seen one of the bastards illegally drive into a cycle lane, then onto a pavement where women walk with kids, and drive on that pavement to get around traffic. I have seen a BMW stuck on a bend in a segregated cycle way at Tower of London. I’ve seen a wolksvagen in a cycle lane upside down.

Go to a rich and cycling safe are of London like hackney, there are plenty of bikes. Go to an area with dangerous roads, like Surrey, no bikes

We spend insane amount of money on car infra. We just built a new tonnes in east London, the only way to cross the river for miles, and you can only cross in a car.

> It is only when people cannot afford to drive or driving is too inconvenient (traffic, or narrow streets/lack of parking in Europe, or outright restrictions ), they will use alternative modes of transportation.

This is literally a tautology. "People find driving more convenient, except when driving is less convenient".

> But don't argue that people want to live in urban paradise and some contrived system is simply not giving them what they want. Most people everywhere, when they can, want to drive and live in houses.

Price signals are real. The fact that millions of people choose to pay large amounts of money to live in big cities and not drive instead of moving out to the sticks is proof that it is an extremely desirable lifestyle for a large fraction of the population.

I would rather the drunk driver hit the tree and deal with his/her consequences, than hit my house or my neighbors during our sleep.

Could have easily hit a person, a traffic pole, another car on sideways.

I don’t understand the argument why trees are at fault here.

Trees are the ultimate carbon capture, they produce oxygen and humidity, they provide shade, something beautiful to look at. They bring in birds and tree dwelling animals like squirrels.

Trees are a magical invention by nature.

That’s why we feel amazing walking in a neighborhood with trees.

I agree with what you are saying generally but my point stands even for urban cores, which tend to have little to no trees (or many trees but not mature enough for any real shade) and tons of concrete. Awful walking experience despite lots of things to do and see.

Animals understand this stuff just fine, yet certain modern humans somehow have trouble with the concept.

I do. I lived 25+ years in Atlanta and I walked all over downtown, midtown, Buckhead, Little 5, Westside, etc. and a lack of trees means you BAKE walking more than a block.

There are lots of really nice, shaded neighborhoods in Atlanta. But anywhere there's a business that you'd walk to, you BAKE.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/upshot/transportation-eme...

I'm afraid this mindset needs context. If you find yourself living in a place where everything is located tens of km away, and short drives are assessed in how many hours you spend in a car, and this is further compounded by the utter lack of a public transportation infrastructure, then gaining access to a car is a basic necessary condition for autonomy.

Contrast this with some European urban centers such as the Netherlands' Randstad, where a two hour train ride from your doorstep can get you anywhere everywhere, and can actually be an international trip.

US is a huge country, but people aren’t travelling across it on a regular basis.

Source: a normal 38 year old that never had a license

They can convince themselves it’s infeasible, but it is very feasible. It’s just a matter of wanting it. I wanted it enough to make it work. They don’t.

That’s 100% fine — I lie to myself about plenty of stuff to get through my day. Everybody does.

But even if you live 5-10 minutes from the supermarket many people will still drive because everything is designed around people driving. For example, it's very common to lack sidewalks and even when there are sidewalks, protected crossings can be sparse.

So a 10 minute walk to the store can involve you having to walk in the street or in the mud and grass, cutting across the street where there's no crossing signal, and having to walk through a busy parking lot to actually get to the building.

And even once you're in the store things are designed around cars. The size of packaging and the quantities that people normally buy in are based on the idea that Americans take their car to the grocery store once a week and fill their trunk space with groceries.

Specifically: In the parts of W. Europe I have visited I observed mostly small grocery stores (esp in towns and cities) that folks visit daily or nearly so for food. People may stop on thei walk home to get dinner items each night! Contrast that with the U.S., where you are more likely to encounter a large grocery store- except perhaps in the densest inner city (but then maybe no grocery store at all, which is another story)- where people visit once a week or so. When people go to the grocery store, they stock up. Stores are optimized for buying multiple (more than you can carry at once) bags of groceries, which you then necessarily would load into your car and drive home.

Most folks would not willingly opt to take a long risky walk through unpleasant surroundings, traverse a giant parking lot not designed for walkers, then have to march through a large grocery store for many minutes to leave with just what one could carry. Sure, folks could bring a personal hand trolley or something but this really does not address other underlying problem.

So, in the case of grocery stores the basic culture of shopping at a very large center less frequently would also have to shift for people to leave their cars. And, I would argue, so it goes with many things. Shifts to a more pedestrian-oriented culture and environment may happen with time or in certain areas, but I don't think it would be simple, quick, or widespread any time soon in the U.S. for reasons that go beyond sidewalks.

The latter is the perfect illustration of the problem. The mall was designed with a nice cut-through for pedestrians, but it got bricked up because teenagers used to hang out there and smoke.

Yes. Many Americans would absolutely choose a 5 minute drive over a 5 minute walk.

“I have too much stuff to carry. I have to take the kids. It’s too hot/cold/windy. I’ll be late to… I have to…”

A developer purchases large plots of agricultural land, and colludes with government to put a sprawling system of widely-separated four- to six- lane roads through it (often by widening and paving country roads until they are unrecognizable). Then, to hide this ugliness and block the resulting noise, they ring their newly-acquired fields with large earthen berms, which they cover with evergreen shrubs and chemically-treated wood-chips. At gaps in the berms they put gatehouses, with unarmed guards. Within these fortifications, they then build fanciful, curvilinear, branching systems of slower roads, like the endoplasmic reticulum of a cell, and around these fractal structures they put large, cheaply-constructed houses and driveways, which sell for $800k and above. Compared to the cities nearby, this is affordable.

Outside the berms, on the other side of the stroads, often without sidewalks, are, at best, strip malls, and, at least as often, are instead big-box stores surrounded literally by acres of blacktop parking lot. An "acre", you may recall, used to mean that which a man could farm in a day. Not this.

Now suppose you find yourself inside one of those houses inside the berms, and that you want to buy a vegetable. As the crow flies, it's possible that you are only a mile and a half from the nearest supermarket (not a very short distance, but achievable). But to get there by walking along the roads, you must first get to the gatehouse along the berm (which may or may not be in the direction of the store), and, to get there, you must traverse this fractal system of roads. The arclength may exceed the Euclidean distance from A to B by a factor of three or more. Either that, or you must violate peoples' sacred property, by cutting across yards and next to houses (which are not very far apart), and then finally scramble over the berm, amidst a shower of wood-chips.

Having achieved your escape from the "community", you must then find a way to cross four lanes of 45 MPH traffic (on a slow day). If you are lucky, there is a sidewalk, so you can walk half a mile to the nearest crosswalk. You do this separated from the whizzing death-machines by about the eight inches of grass that separates the sidewalk from the road. Do not let your mind wander. Keep your arms and legs inside the pathway at all times.

Upon finally crossing the street, you finally enter the shopping complex. It is surrounded by parking lots. Sweating and relieved that you have gotten this far with your life intact, you step into the air conditioning.

Then you buy that one vegetable you wanted for your supper, steel yourself, and conduct your return expedition.

Which, of course, is why you don't just buy what you need for today's supper. No, you didn't walk there at all. You drove there in a car, loaded the trunk with food for at least a week, and drove it home, to be preserved in your oversized fridge. Because venturing out in all that is a chore.

Back within your "community", there may be a nice, parklike atmosphere, full of what look like walking paths. But you may find that this is actually a golf course around which the houses have been built, and that -- ostensibly for safety from golf balls, or perhaps from golf carts -- these paths are often closed, in principle, to the "little people" who merely live there without additionally paying to whack a ball around. There are then petty conflicts between the golfers who have purchased special rights, and the simple pedestrians, who have the unseemly desire to locomote with their God-given feet.

An overwhelming proportion of the American landscape is like this. It can hardly be described as a culture or a way of life. It's just what people do when they have no identity and no ambition to create a worthwhile future. These people are deskilled, demoralized, and incapable of anything but consuming garbage.

A friend from Europe used to complain that, in America, the cows just stand there, whereas in Poland, the cows were mischievous and frisky. The process of domestication is further along in the US, and it degrades the people as much as it does the cows.

The good news is that these people will not have grandchildren and their houses will decay within 100 years. The bad news is that a shithole mess is going to be left behind.

Anyway, that's why they don't walk to the grocery store.

How much food do you keep at home? In the US many people have room for quite a bit of food at home and on most grocery runs they are filling the trunk or at least buying enough that carrying it home would be difficult.

Walking might require them to go to the store 10+ times a month whereas driving might only require 4 trips so even if walking is as fast as driving they can spend much less total time traveling to and from the store if they drive.

But also the car culture makes it so that a car is a big part of your identity and also a sort of adjunct living space; a personal safe shelter and place where you can keep your stuff. It's pretty common for people during their breaks at work to go sit in their car and eat.

People used to having cars get very anxious without it, even for a few minutes. They'll drive around in circles in a parking lot for half an hour waiting for a closer parking space to open up so they can save 2 minutes of walking, but also so that their car won't be scarily far away.

If you're not a car person, other people think you're that weird oddball who actually walks to the store and maybe there's something wrong with you.

Then I visited the US and quickly realised that this is a terrible idea in pretty much any American city.

Nope, we just walk, or take the bus, or tube, or take an Uber if necessary. Really isn't as needed as most people think if you live in an urban area.

The grocery store is a 4 minute walk, my hairdresser is a 1 minute walk, CVS is a 3 minute walk.

I also have an amazing park with play structures, basketball courts, tennis courts, large gracy field, a creek, picnic areas, and such about a 1 minute walk away.

I can bike to work in 20 minutes.

This could be everywhere in the US. There's nothing special about where I live except that it's development predates the automobile.

If you want to walk and have two legs that work, don’t whine about wishing walking didn’t suck. Get out and walk.

That's not what I was suggesting, I was suggesting restructuring cities so that pedestrians and cyclist have their own road network accessible to residential streets and businesses. This road network would complement artery/busy car roads as opposed to being a sidewalk next to them.

Where I am, cycling on the sidewalk is prohibited but i see people use it all the time, even where is a bike lane because cars don't take enough care, especially if you wear a helmet. There are many "memorial" roadside spots where cyclists and pedestrians were killed by cars. Walking with someone is also hard because even smaller busy roads have loud cars that make it harder to talk. But the one time my family lived close to a walking/biking trail, everyone started taking routine recreational walks (weather permitting)

Most of the reasons you mentioned are easily solvable except the first one, it would indeed require businesses placing signages and retargeting to include foot traffic. But if you think about it, if these complementary roads are parallel to arterial car roads, food trucks and street vendors will flock there. I also see people walking their dogs next to unpleasant busy car roads when they really prefer the type of roads i spoke about, but also dog parks and other recreational human friendly spot could be exclusive to these roads. Milton keynes seems to have had an implementation/planning problem.

> Tunnels are quite dangerous, having cars at high speed for long distances is extra dangerous. Having them leave the tunnel is either a highway junction or a stroad. There is one in Boston though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5pPKfzzL54

Freeways already have cars at high speeds for long distances. What I am proposing isn't making the tunnels very fast, just slightly faster than existing roads but also actually faster because less pedestrians and stopping. A 30mph road might become 45mph not 60mph. The right lane would be slow enough to take a ramp to/from parking lots.

I was also suggesting the tunnels for artery roads, not huge highways. And unlike boston, there would be no addding lanes, above ground would be converted to pedestrian roads and/or metrorail where it makes sense. This can be done one road section at a time, roads would dip into a tunnel and then dip out. Sidewalks would be replaces with space for offramping. Places with underground parking fit even better. Another huge advantage of this is that there could be much more grass/soil/greens above ground making the city cooler and more flood resilient. Boston replaced a highway but used that to add more lanes. They had their railway add more stations according to that video but if they went my that would be done to begin with above ground where there are cars now

And that I gave it up quickly and gladly for a more car-based life once kids came.

The whole point of my post is a shift in perspective. Just curious, how many kids do you have?

After having kids , a single family house and a car is 100% better.

After reading most of the replies in this thread I'm guessing it is mostly filled with younger people without kids... notice I'm saying mostly, not all.

Got cows in the backyard and a bright light shining in my window in front. ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

At least my house protects the cows from the light...

In any case, it doesn’t matter. They are DUI. Pot may be a bit better than alcohol, but I’ve seen some … interesting … decisions made by drivers on it.

No one would drive around sipping on a can of beer, but no one thinks twice about blazing 420 behind the wheel.

Some problems is not solvable, at all. After a year taking note and consolidate notes of the public hearings, there are items that's leaving there forever. No progress. No solution. Not possible by design. And it is not something like, you can migrate from MySQL to CRDB. How to do that to a historical city?

Anyway, hope this make it more clear :-)

Do intersections that implement pedestrian scramble somehow increase dignity? I don't know.

They do increase pedestrian safety and pretty clearly give pedestrians priority over vehicles via the exclusive use of the intersection for awhile.

People who eat exotic steaks, fly private jets, and own outrageous fortunes forcing people into that derivation will always come across as abusive — no matter what social cause you dress it up in.

Create a world where people are prosperous and have lots of children… and they’ll care about the future.

Once get that mindset you can see how most proposed changes are not dignified. They might make the future much better, but the now is worse.

A friendly reminder that Gates shorts Tesla and that Washington state has the most regressive tax system in the USA.

I'm nearly at my wits end when it comes to rich people preaching nonsense they don't believe in to everyone.

https://time.com/6208632/celebrities-climate-impact-private-...

Carbon credits are the equivalent to murdering an innocent person and thinking that raping 2 women and supporting the offspring morally absolves you of the original murder and 2 rapes because you assume those 2 children will go on to save the world.