What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?
A recent YouGov survey asked Americans what they think they should be able to get to within a 15-minute walk of their house.
Of these choices, I can currently walk to all of them from my apartment, aside from a university (no biggie, I’m not currently studying, although there is a Tafe within walking distance), a hospital, and a sports arena.
How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?
#fuckcars #walkability #urbanism #UrbanPlanning @fuck_cars #walking
@ajsadauskas @urlyman @fuck_cars Why on earth would anyone answer ‘should not’ to a bus stop being within 15 mins? How are they thinking you get to the bus stop, by driving?!
Also, as a Dutchie, the amount of ‘should nots’ for a bar within 15 mins is killing me. I understand it, but it points to such a lack of imagination about what a city can look like. I have at least 20 bars within 15 mins walk of home and I’m not in the city centre 😄
@Brendanjones @urlyman @fuck_cars You need to keep in mind we are talking about a country here where a not insignificant proportion of the population thinks walkable neighbourhoods are a deep state conspiracy…
No, it’s an insignificant portion.
Prolly ~30%
Not the majority, buy enough to e significant
You pulled that number straight outta your ass.
30% is pretty consistently the number of right-wing fascists in the US (people who actually want Trump in office)
@ajsadauskas
I am reminded of Bill Bryson, writing in a different century (just), on why no-one walks https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/bryson-s-america-why-would-you-walk-1079183.html
@Brendanjones @fuck_cars
That article is worthy of its own post.
Edit: Be the change and all that… I created a post and thanked you. Cheers
Good read.
Bill Bryson is British though, so he grew up with a generation accustomed to not seeing public transport as a dirty word.~ Edit: Nope, he just has a good british accent. nvm,When I visited LA, I was amazed at how good the public transit system there is. A bus driver would literally wave people through if they didn’t have the right fare, and would literally wrangle wheelchair users into their seat at the cost of their own backs. Yet, there was always this feeling that the people who used the bus were less than scum…
… no other country has this stigma when it comes to using public services.
I lived in LA for a few years…without a car!
The transit system was great for me because I worked at a Uni and got direct service door-to-door. It worked just all right for my wife. It was convenient for her, but she worked downtown in a professional office. The kind where people wore suits and the senior people still wore ties (in LA!).
Buses were clean in the morning and full of people headed to work, but on her return trip they would be be…fragrant with a different clientele. This isn’t meant to be classist, but she didn’t feel safe and was worried about cleanliness. Our drycleaning bills were high.
We were told we could manage for a couple years because we didn’t know anyone and so we didn’t get invited anywhere. It was true. All of our trips were to popular, well serviced destinations.
That was prescient advice because eventually we did meet people and started getting invited to dinner parties etc. where buses simply didn’t run. And a car was purchased.
I think safety is a huge thing. As a woman, I can imagine feeling less than secure in such a setting. As a man, it seems okay though
@tetris11 @DrBob Women make up the majority of US public transit users whether or not they feel less safe using it than men do so maybe instead of trying to get rid of transit the society should try to be less misogynistic?
I had no idea, I assumed men used transit more, but you’re right:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/715212/public-transit-use-gender-transit-mode-united-states/
Getting soceity to be less misogynistic seems like it might be the right way forward indeed (or in any case)
@tetris11 One of the many reasons our transit systems suffer from disinvestment while our roads suffer from overinvestment is that transportation planning decision makers are disproportionately white, male, and abled and all of them make enough money that driving is at least an option for them if not a job requirement.
@Brendanjones @ajsadauskas @urlyman @fuck_cars Indeed. Bars should *only* be in a 15 minute walk. You should never need to drive to a bar!
@CurtAdams what about sailing? ;)
https://www.hampshire-history.com/point-portsmouth/
@Brendanjones @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars
Honestly 15 minutes is way too much for a bus stop. If it’s more than 10 minutes walk away it might as well not exist, and the target should always be under 5 minutes.
@Zagorath @Brendanjones In the UK one of the magic numbers planners used for bus stops (or did a few years ago when I was in the loop) was 400m
Yeah 400 m is the goal here in my city of Brisbane, Australia, too. That’s where I was aiming when I said 5 minutes, since a walking pace of about 10 minutes/kilometre is pretty reasonable and 5 minutes gives you a little bit of buffer on that.
Some people think the “wrong sort of people” will come to a neighborhood if there’s a bus stop. Like they’re going to get on the bus, break into your house, and get back on the bus holding your tv.
Yes, an architect in NYC intentionally designed bridges to be too low for busses to pass under them to keep busses out of some neighborhoods.
Because fuck the poor.
You’re probably talking about Robert Moses? Park commissioner, city planner, huge asshole. There’s a huge book called The Power Broker that’s a fascinating history of him and the city.
It also mentions a part where one of his lead engineers came to him and was like “if we build it like this, it’ll cost basically the same and if we want to put train tracks in the future it will be easy. If we build it your way , it’ll be impossible to put a train here without a ton of expensive work”.
Moses went the anti-train way on purpose.
Yes thats him
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@otfrom @Brendanjones @ajsadauskas @urlyman @fuck_cars TBH probably no one should ever involve a park and ride in their trip to the fucking bar 🍻
@otfrom @ajsadauskas @urlyman @fuck_cars c’mon man, this is the wrong type of pedantry. Of course park and ride exists, and is sometimes a useful option for connecting people to public transport. But it is absolutely not the correct choice if it’s *in place of* being able to walk 15 mins or less to a bus stop, for anyone living in an urban area. Requiring everyone to drive 10 mins and then park to catch the bus every day is ridiculous urban design.
@Brendanjones @otfrom @ajsadauskas @urlyman @fuck_cars I’d also mention that, at least in Denver, the Park&Rides actually interfere with walking to our stations. The large garages and/or surface lots are often situated smack in the middle of pedestrian and bike routes. And, they use land that could be used for transit-accessible housing.
@Brendanjones @otfrom @ajsadauskas @urlyman @fuck_cars
People I know that have used Park&Rides, often tell me, after abandoning them, “It’s just easier to drive in once I’m in the car. And I hate paying to park and then the light rail fare.”
@MarvinFreeman @otfrom @ajsadauskas @urlyman @fuck_cars Regarding the money, that’s annoying because it should be solvable. For example Amsterdam has park n rides on its outskirts because they don’t want cars in the city. The P+R parking is far cheaper than parking in the city (literally 10x cheaper), so the cost of the tram is a non-issue.
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