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Suburbs are essentially designed for automobile owners; the utopia which central planners seek by creating 'walkable' communities are nonsense simply because you cannot build enough retail establishments, starting with a 40,000+ square foot grocery store for any community to be totally walkable and for folks to give up their cars.
Survey after survey has shown irrefutable proof that folks who return to the city from the suburbs will NOT get rid of their automobiles under any circumstances.
'New urbanism' is yet another concept which sounds wonderful but fails in spectacular fashion in the real world.
Good luck trying to buy a week's worth of groceries without the use of your own car; it's unworkable, and especially if the nearest grocery store is several miles away, which is almost always the case.
In my district in suburban Albany, ALL kindergartners were transported, regardless of how close they lived to the school. I will say that area is not planned much for pedestrians; when we lived there, few sidewalks existed in residential neighborhoods, and I doubt it has changed much since then. Most school districts will make exception to the one-mile (or whatever distance) for safety purposes, e.g. having to cross a major road, etc.
I think sidewalks should be required except on extremely rural roads with very low traffic counts.
I should have clarified in the previous post; I was thinking of older kids. The one mile rule is for high schoolers and maybe middle schoolers (might be off a bit). On residential streets with low traffic, I don't see really any need for sidewalks. My parent's street doesn't have them, and I don't think it should. The busier streets with more through traffic should always have them; they usually do in that area of Long Island, but I noticed plenty of gaps as well.
Suburbs are essentially designed for automobile owners; the utopia which central planners seek by creating 'walkable' communities are nonsense simply because you cannot build enough retail establishments, starting with a 40,000+ square foot grocery store for any community to be totally walkable and for folks to give up their cars.
You can find grocery stores near the center of older towns, similar to what new urbanism tries to emulate. Both near train stops.
Alternative fuel parking spots take up less space than a gas station and do not involve needing giant containers of gasoline stored on site.
Huh? Cars do not need to be filled up with gas every time they park - there is a marvelous invention called a gas tank, which enables you to travel at least 100 miles without having to fill up again. When cars do need to fill up their drivers can easily do so at an independent gas station, which as of yesterday were quite numerous. If you don't have enough space for a gas station why not put in ordinary parking spots?
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I agree that suburbs should be more bikeable, the issue with that is that bikes often times follow the same model as making a place walkable. If we put biking first, we might as well put walking first too. When you do that, you have better designed areas that accommodate multiple forms of transportation. It also makes it easier to plan bus routes and regional rail routes.
I'm not talking about putting bikes first, I'm talking about making a place bikeable. Unless your city is really cramped and there's no room to expand, it doesn't have to be an either/or choice - you can have excellent accommodations for both drivers and cyclists. My point is that in light of the long distances between destinations it's much easier to make a car-dependent place bikeable than it is to make it walkable. An important consideration is that oftentimes bicycling can fit within the current configuration of an area, whereas to make the same area walkable you'd have to destroy it and rebuild it.
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Originally Posted by urbanlife78
If you live in an area that puts cars first and designs accordingly, people do not have the option to demand anything else because a car dependent suburb is all that is available.
They could always move to another area, like they or their parents did when they moved to that car-dependent area in the first place . I certainly support the building of new multimodal suburbs, but that doesn't mean that car-dependent development must be wiped out. Choice is good when it comes to places to live - having a nice assortment of car-dependent areas, multimodal areas, and car-free areas is bound to satisfy anyone.
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Now if you have noticed, a number of cities in the US have seen lots of new growth in their inner city neighborhoods and downtown areas that have been in favor of options for transportation.
Eh, it's not quite as rosy as you put it. If you take a look at population growth by county in the 2000's suburban counties experienced more growth than inner-city counties. Although growth is still lagging behind in inner cities, a number of cities are doing much better now than they were in previous decades, which I think is what you were referring to.
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When people choose to live out in the suburb doesn't mean that our urban areas should be seas of parking because the suburbs only have one option.
Who said anything about urban areas? I was mostly referring to the suburbs. For urban areas parking is good, but disrupting the urban fabric with parking lots is bad. In most downtowns I've seen the norm is street parking coupled with occasional parking lots, which like most things in urban planning sorta-kinda works. In most places parking is scarce and people circle around like vultures looking for spaces, which helps to increase the amount of traffic on urban roadways (though in most places not by that much). If there is a critical shortage of parking in a dense urban core, you could always build some underground parking garages.
And yes, accommodating parking is a good thing for an urban area. Even when you have great public transportation, you will still have hordes of people in cars looking for a place to park. When it's convenient for people to get around and park in the city, that encourages people from outside (most of whom would not want to live in downtown even if cars were banned) to visit the city core and to patronize more businesses there, which helps the local economy.
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Originally Posted by Katiana
I do not think that any place was deliberately designed to "put cars first". Cars are inanimate objects, they're tools, if you will.
Exactly. It's more accurate to say that places put drivers first, which isn't too bad of a deal if you're a driver . Relatively speaking, anyway - traffic congestion in most places can be horrendous, but is typically worse in the city itself rather than suburbia .
Eh, it's not quite as rosy as you put it. If you take a look at population growth by county in the 2000's suburban counties experienced more growth than inner-city counties. Although growth is still lagging behind in inner cities, a number of cities are doing much better now than they were in previous decades, which I think is what you were referring to.
The city of Cleveland--over all--saw a significant population drop from 2000-2010. But, the fastest growing census tracts in all of Cuyahoga County were in central Cleveland. (downtown and adjacent neighborhoods)
Suburbs are essentially designed for automobile owners; the utopia which central planners seek by creating 'walkable' communities are nonsense simply because you cannot build enough retail establishments, starting with a 40,000+ square foot grocery store for any community to be totally walkable and for folks to give up their cars.
Survey after survey has shown irrefutable proof that folks who return to the city from the suburbs will NOT get rid of their automobiles under any circumstances.
'New urbanism' is yet another concept which sounds wonderful but fails in spectacular fashion in the real world.
Good luck trying to buy a week's worth of groceries without the use of your own car; it's unworkable, and especially if the nearest grocery store is several miles away, which is almost always the case.
We buy a week's worth of groceries now without a car. We either use rail or a cab to get home depending on how much we buy. That is just an excuse from people addicted to cars who think it is impossible to buy a week's worth of groceries without a car.
Also, what is wrong with someone wanting a walkable suburban community and uses their car a couple times a week to do things like grocery shopping?
You really need to let go of this idea that it is all or nothing because reality doesn't work that way.
We buy a week's worth of groceries now without a car. We either use rail or a cab to get home depending on how much we buy. That is just an excuse from people addicted to cars who think it is impossible to buy a week's worth of groceries without a car.
Also, what is wrong with someone wanting a walkable suburban community and uses their car a couple times a week to do things like grocery shopping?
You really need to let go of this idea that it is all or nothing because reality doesn't work that way.
You buy a week's worth of groceries for two people. My guess is that you each lunch out, and often dinner. Try feeding a family of four, with most meals eaten at home.
I live within a mile of my nearest grocery store, but my regular grocery store is 4.5 miles away.
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Also, what is wrong with someone wanting a walkable suburban community and uses their car a couple times a week to do things like grocery shopping?
Nothing. No one anywhere ever said it was a problem. Lots of suburbs fit that bill. White Center in West Seattle area is pretty walkable, especially if you lived near 16th. Auburn, Kent, Federal Way, Redmond, Renton, Bellevue, Tacoma, Everette, Lacey, etc, etc. You can't beat Seattle (except maybe downtown Bellevue) for being walkable. But you don't have to live in an area that really feels urban with tall buildings and lots of asphalt. You have tons of more suburban neighborhoods (they actually were suburbs) that are extremely walkable. Columbia City, Ballard (feeling more urban these days), Fremont (more urban), Greenwood, Ravena, Maple Leaf, North Seattle.
Nobody forces you to move out to Shoreline (although that's passably walkable). The problem people have is the insistence on everywhere must be walkable. Most people don't care about it and are quite happy in non-walkable areas. Why does it infuriate you that not everyone thinks the same way you do?
^^Allow me to add, I have no issue with people going "carlight". Heck, DH and I used to walk and bike to grocery stores sometimes "back in the day". Even though we lived in "the city", the closest real (non-convenience) grocery store was a couple miles away, uphill. But yeah, it was fun, when you had a lot of time and didn't have to buy much.
"...When we begin to value the land for what it is and build cities worth living in, density develops, and density makes things happen. Some of those happenings are economic, in the sense of improved productivity; others are environmental, in terms of fewer resources consumed. Density also has a lot to offer in terms of our trades of time for space."
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"Streetcars are the closest we know to the ideal motorized transportation. They roll with low resistance on steel wheels on steel rails, driven by efficient electric motors attached to the grid via overhead wires or underground cables, deploying regenerative braking for stopping. And they carry tens to a hundred passengers at a time, which gives more heads per cross-sectional area, thus dramatically dropping per-capita energy use. At full occupancy, streetcars best rival walking and biking in energy efficiency. Compared to a bus, they are more energy efficient, have more leg room, offer better views and are more genteel; they are also more fun. Who doesn’t like to ride a streetcar?"
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