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You are right. Many American suburbs need a comprehensive re-fit. But we need to start someplace.
And beginning around the stations is a very good place to start. At least the people who live there can get some benefit.
Why?
Also, there's no train in the majority of American suburbs, so I don't really see what the benefit of building stations to nowhere would really be. Extending BART farther into the valley is a reasonable option (say Tracy). For now, the "no-whitey" buses serve to shuttle people to BART in Dublin/Pleasanton. Bus station with a mall.
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AND: there's nothing to stop people from going on living in traditional suburbs. But I think we need a good solid CORE like this to give people and alternative, and start generating wealth again, before everything is drained out of the system.
And that's really the reason why you don't have a mass flood to cities. People living in cities aren't any happier than people living in suburbs. People have chosen the alternative that best fits what they want. Rather than declaring a Jihad on the suburbs or blaming the tax chattels in the suburbs, cities need to focus on improving themselves. Sacramento spends pretty much the extent of its political and fiscal capital not on making the city a more enjoyable place to live but in seeing how many assets it can sell off, how many parks it can unfund, how many schools it can neglect, how many libraries it can cut hours at, how many police officers it can avoid hiring so it can build a new palace for the billionaire Maloofs for the millionaires to play them some basketball in.
While I don't have the particular zeal of Ed Glaeser, he's pretty much right. More making cities good places to live and less making cities what Glenn Beck wants, an amusement park to visit for entertainment. I just look at it from the opposite direction. Instead of declaring Jihad against the suburbs because cities are too incompetently managed to compete with suburbs for most of the population growth cities should just improve themselves. Competition benefits everyone by making both the cities and suburbs more desirable places to live. http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/01/10/...-independence/
Also, it needs to be said how silly it is just using county density. We've had the discussion of why weighted densities really should be considered time and time again here. Simply looking at average density of urban areas, LA has a significantly higher density than NY. This obviously isn't most people's perception, but it is fact even if the fact mostly means the metric being used is lacking. Is Los Angeles really the densest city in the US? | The Urbanist
The bad transit design started after that, when cars were at the core of the thinking.
Let's roll back the clock in our thinking ! - If we want Strong Towns.
(CARS ARE LAST : let's put them back into their proper place.)
err not quite.
Cities before the 19th century lack public transit. The only way to get around is to walk this leads to narrow streets. It also limits how big a city can get to about the distance you can walk in 30 mins or so. This is why those cities in Europe and Asia are built like they are.
In the 19th Century public transit is invented and streets need to be wide enough to accommodate street cars (at first horse drawn). Wide streets are less pedestrian friendly than narrow ones. However public transit isn’t door to door transit, you still need to walk to your destination. It increases the distance that people can live away from work.
The advent of the car brought a new convenience. Cars go door to door and thus you no longer have as much need for sidewalk. Any street big enough to allow a street car or a bus down it is big enough to fit an automobile. This is also why meandering streets rather than grinds and cull de sacs become more popular in the burbs. Both of those are not for people who are walking and make it hard to run busses down streets like that.
Hence why in 1948 city design changes. It is also why those cities are built the way they are.
Cities before the 19th century lack public transit. The only way to get around is to walk this leads to narrow streets. It also limits how big a city can get to about the distance you can walk in 30 mins or so. This is why those cities in Europe and Asia are built like they are.
Agreed, though European cities tend to have narrower streets even post-transit.
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In the 19th Century public transit is invented and streets need to be wide enough to accommodate street cars (at first horse drawn). Wide streets are less pedestrian friendly than narrow ones. However public transit isn’t door to door transit, you still need to walk to your destination. It increases the distance that people can live away from work.
But the side streets don't need to be wide enough accomodate street cars. Historically, many of the wide streets were used by pedestrians walking in the middle of the street pre-automobile. This is about as wide of a street you need for street cars, though this is closer to modern light rail:
Agreed, though European cities tend to have narrower streets even post-transit.
But the side streets don't need to be wide enough accomodate street cars. Historically, many of the wide streets were used by pedestrians walking in the middle of the street pre-automobile. This is about as wide of a street you need for street cars, though this is closer to modern light rail:
Agree but side streets in post automobile burbs no longer need to be pedestrain friendly. In burbs they meander and end in cul de sacs. Both increase the distance you need to walk to get to the main street. Sidewalks are less an issues because you don’t have large numbers of people needing to walk to and from the street car or bus. To be pedstrian friendly you need sidewalks at least and preferably reasonably straight paths.
Agree but side streets in post automobile burbs no longer need to be pedestrain friendly. In burbs they meander and end in cul de sacs. Both increase the distance you need to walk to get to the main street. Sidewalks are less an issues because you don’t have large numbers of people needing to walk to and from the street car or bus. To be pedstrian friendly you need sidewalks at least and preferably reasonably straight paths.
This, IMHO, is a big mistake !
Cul-de-sacs are another irrItating example of the waste and inefficiency of the suburbs.
They ONLY work for those in cars.
What conceit and perfect arrogance this design is!
They force people to walk in a much longer path, and even cars wind up burning more gasoline.
I would charge the extra costs against the Pensions of the idiots who designed them.
We had a discussion on them on another thread on this forum.
Perhaps we could get back to discussing parking?
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