Nobody actually lives anywhere near the places they need to work and shop so driving is the only option. Because everything’s so spread out public transport is terrible because it’s not possible to provide a decent service.
You have as a much denser population in Europe than the US by land area, so everything’s closer together and it’s easier to build public transport infrastructure in that scenario, because every stop serves a greater number of people. Plus there isn’t such a great distance between the suburban areas and the urban areas. Personally I can get from suburbia to urban the area with a 1-minute walk. I don’t understand why Americans have to be 10 miles away from their cities.
The suburban sprawl makes building transit a lot harder but to fix that we need to increase density but then it’s hard to increase density when you need space for cars because you have no usable transit
Infrastructure alone to Bungalow jungle is never cost-effective: as Detroit learned, it never pays for itself with property tax.
I say we jack the property tax on low-dense residential to properly reflect a 20-year amortization and all the operating expenses of the infrastructure used, all the way back to City Hall, so that it does pay for itself (and the farther out, the more expensive to fix, the more expensive the tax).
At the same time, the city will
wreck a park (wait for it)
put up 40 storeys of mixed use
offer to buy the shitty bungalows around the building, with an option to buy into ready condo space
same for businesses, because #mixed-use
use adjacent bungalow space for central square. Start with transit station underneath
build 7 more towers
offer same buy-up to adjacent bungalows
surround with greenspace and one really ineffective laneway to connect garages under building with roadway out there
begin offering more incentives for bungalow people to give up their home for agri space and move into mixed-use
repeat until city is transformed to efficient walkable oases linked by transit
People think they can’t do apartments, but I’m sure a spacious 1200sqft place planned with an eye to sight-lines isn’t what they’re thinking. We love our (smaller) apartment near the mixed-use block that sprung up , and everything we need is within that block. From daycares and pet stores to restaurants and coffee-shops and take-out, and gyms (plural) and insurers and a market and a chemist and an insurer and a physio… it’s endless, and they’re still building out more commercial space.
But you have to build the new space, properly configured with GOOD (rail) transit, before you can get people out of their cars.
If you want useful public transit then it needs to connect population centers where people are. People are lazy and don’t want to walk more than 1/2 mile to a bus stop so if you have a population density of 1000/ sq mi that means any one bus stop is only going to be able to provide adequate coverage to 250 people. With so few people per stop it needs to make a lot of stops to be useful which then makes it slow which further lowers use. At that density it also doesn’t make logical sense to have designated bus lanes so they are stuck going slow in traffic as well. So now you have an expensive system that nobody uses because it sucks
If you have higher density then you can justify more lines which makes them actually useful and can add things like light rails which really make a difference
Bike transit is usually easier in those lower density areas but due to the low density getting between places is usually a bit further away so there are usually higher speed limit roads that aren’t as good for cyclists so more expensive barriers need to be constructed or they have to follow less direct paths which causes cycling to be slow
Most suburbs have plenty of density to support transit as proved in other countries that provide good transit to their areas of similar density. However most suburbs have such bad transit you can’t use it for anything and to people start believing the idea that it is impossible to get them good transit and so they won’t agree to get it.
I live in the suburbs. The older kids can bike to the local Walmart (save it) as there is a pedestrian tunnel that crosses under the main road, providing a complete pedestrian/bike path from one end of the town to the other.
I’d prefer if we had more of those, but it’s something.
That’s amazing you guys have actual transit infrastructure, near me you can find that in towns and cities but as soon as you get to the cookie cutter suburban developments you need to take 45mph roads with little to no shoulder to get to any stores
Most suburbs a store is not that far. you will often drive more than that for a store you like but something is closer.
american suburb covers a lot of variation. If you have a horse as some of the least dense support that is different from ones where you get a postage stamp lot. Streetcar suburbs designed before cars are ess dense than the new developments they are putting is around me today.
Chicken and egg situation, Americans drive because that’s how their cities and suburbs are laid out (excluding NYC, for the most part).
They don’t rely on alternatives because they are slow, inconvenient or non-existent; alternatives can’t be built up as the costs can’t be justified based on existing patronage levels.
It’s not so much about being built on a grid, but rather being built with a particularly high population density in mind - and further supported by a robust public transit network.
No, the problem is the network matters. When you can’t get anywhere on transit you don’t use it and in turn won’t help improve it. I’ve many times looked at the transit options available to me and found I was unable to get my errand done on transit so I was forced to drive. One place I lived I checked and transit could do the job so I sold my car (but my wife still had hers because there were still many things we couldn’t do on transit)
What about transit? Why do Americans always have to drive. We need real alternatives to cars.
Honestly, it’s just so convenient to be able to get in the car and go (unless the destination’s parking situation is really bad).
Americans value convenience quite a lot. We even trade our personal data for it.
The design of US cities has reinforced this.
Nobody actually lives anywhere near the places they need to work and shop so driving is the only option. Because everything’s so spread out public transport is terrible because it’s not possible to provide a decent service.
You have as a much denser population in Europe than the US by land area, so everything’s closer together and it’s easier to build public transport infrastructure in that scenario, because every stop serves a greater number of people. Plus there isn’t such a great distance between the suburban areas and the urban areas. Personally I can get from suburbia to urban the area with a 1-minute walk. I don’t understand why Americans have to be 10 miles away from their cities.
The suburban sprawl makes building transit a lot harder but to fix that we need to increase density but then it’s hard to increase density when you need space for cars because you have no usable transit
Infrastructure alone to Bungalow jungle is never cost-effective: as Detroit learned, it never pays for itself with property tax.
I say we jack the property tax on low-dense residential to properly reflect a 20-year amortization and all the operating expenses of the infrastructure used, all the way back to City Hall, so that it does pay for itself (and the farther out, the more expensive to fix, the more expensive the tax).
At the same time, the city will
People think they can’t do apartments, but I’m sure a spacious 1200sqft place planned with an eye to sight-lines isn’t what they’re thinking. We love our (smaller) apartment near the mixed-use block that sprung up , and everything we need is within that block. From daycares and pet stores to restaurants and coffee-shops and take-out, and gyms (plural) and insurers and a market and a chemist and an insurer and a physio… it’s endless, and they’re still building out more commercial space.
But you have to build the new space, properly configured with GOOD (rail) transit, before you can get people out of their cars.
It’s really isn’t difficult
Our government just won’t spend the money to do it
If you want useful public transit then it needs to connect population centers where people are. People are lazy and don’t want to walk more than 1/2 mile to a bus stop so if you have a population density of 1000/ sq mi that means any one bus stop is only going to be able to provide adequate coverage to 250 people. With so few people per stop it needs to make a lot of stops to be useful which then makes it slow which further lowers use. At that density it also doesn’t make logical sense to have designated bus lanes so they are stuck going slow in traffic as well. So now you have an expensive system that nobody uses because it sucks
If you have higher density then you can justify more lines which makes them actually useful and can add things like light rails which really make a difference
Bike transit is usually easier in those lower density areas but due to the low density getting between places is usually a bit further away so there are usually higher speed limit roads that aren’t as good for cyclists so more expensive barriers need to be constructed or they have to follow less direct paths which causes cycling to be slow
Most suburbs have plenty of density to support transit as proved in other countries that provide good transit to their areas of similar density. However most suburbs have such bad transit you can’t use it for anything and to people start believing the idea that it is impossible to get them good transit and so they won’t agree to get it.
The American style suburbs where you have just single family homes and the closest stores are 5 miles away?
I live in the suburbs. The older kids can bike to the local Walmart (save it) as there is a pedestrian tunnel that crosses under the main road, providing a complete pedestrian/bike path from one end of the town to the other.
I’d prefer if we had more of those, but it’s something.
That’s amazing you guys have actual transit infrastructure, near me you can find that in towns and cities but as soon as you get to the cookie cutter suburban developments you need to take 45mph roads with little to no shoulder to get to any stores
I mean, it’s just a single path, but at least it’s something.
Most suburbs a store is not that far. you will often drive more than that for a store you like but something is closer.
american suburb covers a lot of variation. If you have a horse as some of the least dense support that is different from ones where you get a postage stamp lot. Streetcar suburbs designed before cars are ess dense than the new developments they are putting is around me today.
Chicken and egg situation, Americans drive because that’s how their cities and suburbs are laid out (excluding NYC, for the most part).
They don’t rely on alternatives because they are slow, inconvenient or non-existent; alternatives can’t be built up as the costs can’t be justified based on existing patronage levels.
Plenty of US cities are built like NY, on grids, as circles, etc. The problem is that everything is far away.
It’s not so much about being built on a grid, but rather being built with a particularly high population density in mind - and further supported by a robust public transit network.
No, the problem is the network matters. When you can’t get anywhere on transit you don’t use it and in turn won’t help improve it. I’ve many times looked at the transit options available to me and found I was unable to get my errand done on transit so I was forced to drive. One place I lived I checked and transit could do the job so I sold my car (but my wife still had hers because there were still many things we couldn’t do on transit)
“We mean electric cars, you commie! The next time you talk about that thing, you are going out that window.”
\s