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How long did it take them? Did they go further than Chicago?
Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the guy was Japanese and spoke minimal English. He had a pretty cool Japanese Iphone and showed pics of what he said was his house in Tokyo. I thought to myself why would he bike across the U.S. Anyways, I'm guessing he had the camera take pictures every semi second from the front of the bike, almost like a video. The guy had on sweats and you could tell he didn't just fly to Chicago lol. The people from Montreal drove to Utah, there was some biking event there I think.
+ They have no choice (no carfree alternative anywhere near them, that they can afford), or
+ They do not know any better, because they never properly experienced a GREAT urban environment.
I don't want to be snobbish about it, but many of my friends from HK or London have warned me about moving back to the Car-Happy and Sports-Happy USA.
"You will be bored to tears," they say. I don't think that's right, but neither do I think I can be very happy if 50% of my daily conversations turn out to be about sports teams. Can I really escape from that in the USA?
People have plenty of options, they know about "great" (in your opinion) high-density, urban places...and they choose to live the lifestyle that they greatly prefer. If they really didn't want to live there, they can move. It's their life, nobody else is making these choices for them unless they are underage in which case this is part of life...they ought to deal with it like everyone has to, and if it matters so much to them, work towards relocating to an urban area once you have the means.
I also don't see what sports has to do with any of this. I personally don't care for them myself, and choose not to converse about them with anyone, ever...however a lot of people worldwide love playing, watching and/or talking about a variety of sports. I fail to see how this has any meaning to this conversation, if you don't like sports, don't talk about them with people. If they like sports and are talking about them, deal with it and talk to someone else.
???
Chirack,
I think you need to admit (or accept?) that this will depend completely on WHERE you live, and what your public transport choices may be.
For decades I have chosen to live places where walking and public transport are more convenient that it would be traveling by car.
If you have never experienced the Freedom (yes; FREEDOM) of a Carfree life, then how can you judge it?
Only the most crowded of places on earth like parts of NYC will have that. Even Chicago's loop is only bad to drive to during rush, outside of rush I would beat the EL from my house to the loop. I live within range of a lot of public transit and no bus making stops down the street will beat a car when it comes to time. The EL can only out pace a car durring rush hour and use of public transit pretty much doubles how long it would take to get anywhere in town.
People have plenty of options, they know about "great" (in your opinion) high-density, urban places...and they choose to live the lifestyle that they greatly prefer. If they really didn't want to live there, they can move. It's their life, nobody else is making these choices for them ...
THE POINT IS...
There are not enough Walkable Carfree areas in the USA to accomodate the pent-up demand that will materialise with the next jump in Oil Prices.
SPORTS:
Many people who travel a great deal lose an affiliation with any particular sports team, and are soon bored by such conversations. If you knew more people outside the US, you would find they are not so interested in "your" sports teams, and my prefer to talk of "theirs" (cf European Football Clubs). But the real internationalists move beyond trivial sports chatter. That's what I have found anyway.
Do you know what the most popular sports teams in the world are?
THE POINT IS...
There are not enough Walkable Carfree areas in the USA to accomodate the pent-up demand that will materialise with the next jump in Oil Prices.
They tried the whole pedestrian mall thing on state street in the 80ies...didn't work. The stores lost sales. I can see the value of walkable but walkable does not mean car free.
Only the most crowded of places on earth like parts of NYC will have that. Even Chicago's loop is only bad to drive to during rush, outside of rush I would beat the EL from my house to the loop. I live within range of a lot of public transit and no bus making stops down the street will beat a car when it comes to time. The EL can only out pace a car durring rush hour and use of public transit pretty much doubles how long it would take to get anywhere in town.
Have you forgotten the Parking at both ends?
And unpredictable traffic jams are another factor
They tried the whole pedestrian mall thing on state street in the 80ies...didn't work. The stores lost sales. I can see the value of walkable but walkable does not mean car free.
That's because they did it WRONG.
Urbanists in the USA are now learning (slowly) how to make these things work.
All they every really need to do was to study carefully hoe it worked in the rest of the world, but Americans by nature seem to think that no one know how to solve problems except for them...
Have you forgotten the Parking at both ends?
And unpredictable traffic jams are another factor
The only Chicago expressway where unpredictable traffic jams are common is the Kennedy. Parking in Chicago would only cost on the loop end of the trip, it is free in about 95% of the town. If I just wanted a night on the town downtown parking wouldn't be that big a problem.
It would be a problem if you were to work downtown because you would pay it every day. Hence why so many downtown workers use public transit but if I needed to stop downtown and then go elsewhere and I were doing both things after rush, public transit makes less sense in that senerio.
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the guy was Japanese and spoke minimal English. He had a pretty cool Japanese Iphone and showed pics of what he said was his house in Tokyo. I thought to myself why would he bike across the U.S.
Anyways, I'm guessing he had the camera take pictures every semi second from the front of the bike, almost like a video. The guy had on sweats and you could tell he didn't just fly to Chicago lol. The people from Montreal drove to Utah, there was some biking event there I think.
