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Well, my comment still applies. (I probably forgot what I was responding to, LOL!) Kids can't safely cross streets like that (mid-block, w/o a light) b/c they can't estimate speed.
@AJNEOA: Here's some stuff about the physics of baseball. I'll keep looking for that sciam article. HowStuffWorks "How the Physics of Baseball Works"
You could also look at some of the links in this article.
You see teens walking around SoHo crossing streets midblock, though you don't see little kids by themselves, they are usually with a parent or nanny like they should be.
1. Lack of parking making auto use less attractive. Esp. as high rise buildings and duplexes may have no parking at all. Both north side and South side can suffer for lack of parking but the north side rubs it in when they tear down SFH to put up apartments/condos.
2. Narrow streets again making auto use less attractive
3. High income transplants who grew up in the burbs and find dense city living with an public transit system attractive/different rather than say lower income people who must ride transit due to no money. Trust me the baby momma that has to haul her kids on transit, change the diaper on the bus, and wait in all kinds of weather while having to deal with buses that may not run at all hours is going to have a different view than suburban kid who was tired of living an auto centric burb and calls or hails a taxi when it is convenient.
4. Office type workers rather than say factory workers, home health aids, nurses. People who work 9-5 in the loop and thus have less need of the car(because you would be insane to drive downtown during rush hour).If you don't need it for work that gets rid of 60% of the reason to have a car. If you need to go to someone's home to work driving is often the best choice.
5. Chicago's abandoned vehicle law that states you must move your car every 7 days if you use on street parking(which if you don't need the car for work, don't have or don't want to pay to park it then this can cause problems.) In addition to having to move the car, the car can be ticketed if it looks inoperable(broken windshield, flat tire, and a really good one is didn't clear the snow off the car for 7 days.). In other words if you park in Chicago you should really keep an eye on your car or else ticketed for $200 and towed for $200 more.
For office worker yuppie the car can become more hassle than it is worth. For South Side blue collar worker, odd shift worker the car enables fast, safe transit rather than risking crazy people(I have run into a few on the bus) and risking being mugged(or shoved off your bike) and helps with children and grocery shopping since everyone can't pay extra for peapod or pay the higher prices at the closest stores.
So basically the type of people who are seeking out more transit friendly walkable communities. Personally I love Northside Chicago and would have no problem living there without the need of a car do to so many things being within walking distance from where one could live.
You see teens walking around SoHo crossing streets midblock, though you don't see little kids by themselves, they are usually with a parent or nanny like they should be.
According to the woonerf law in Germany, children may play in the streets unsupervised.
Yeah, I have been to Chicago, the Southside is much more different than the Northside. I have also crossed the street mid block in Chicago before, the key is to look before crossing.
As for Chicago's rail system, this has been in desperate need of expansion and has not kept up with the growth of the city and should be used as a tool to fix much of the problems of the Southside.
The trouble with expansion is both money and route. There are plans to extend the Red Line to 130th in the future(but that has been on hold for the last 40 years, this time looks a bit more likely). The Orange line exists only because a freight train viaduct was no longer needed and so a right of ways was available in the 90ies. They wanted to expand it to Ford City but that is on hold due to economy and the mall at Ford City itself is having issues. A route near the lake would be really useful but no right of way at the moment and tearing down that much property not going to happen any more than building another expressway.
The trouble with expansion is both money and route. There are plans to extend the Red Line to 130th in the future(but that has been on hold for the last 40 years, this time looks a bit more likely). The Orange line exists only because a freight train viaduct was no longer needed and so a right of ways was available in the 90ies. They wanted to expand it to Ford City but that is on hold due to economy and the mall at Ford City itself is having issues. A route near the lake would be really useful but no right of way at the moment and tearing down that much property not going to happen any more than building another expressway.
There are definitely a number of issues when it comes to expanding rail in Chicago.
According to the woonerf law in Germany, children may play in the streets unsupervised.
I did. :P
I am in the generation where mom said "go play outside....come back at noon and I'll have lunch for you. Then go back outside, and you can't come back till it is dark (or dinner time). Oh and watch your sister." I later found out not all kids had lunch time scheduled. They were supposed to be gone from basically early AM till dusk.
We were allowed to play in the street, though we mostly played in the middle of the street on the small culdesac around the corner. My street was a little too busy.
But my mom let us roam all over (starting around age 5-6) alone with some boundaries. The boundaries extended a block or 2 every year. I could bike around where ever I wanted. At first the play zone was just my block (and the adjacent one with the small culdesac.) I wasn't allowed to cross the street until I was allowed to walk to school by myself (I guess that was age 7). When I was 8, the line increased to my school, and the block behind my house. But I wasn't allowed to leave the "neighborhood" and cross the busy thoroughfare.
At grandma's house, playing in the street was encouraged. That was the play zone. (1 car an hour would have been busy on that street, and most of the cars traveling on the road were other relatives so they stopped to chat). The double line wasn't striped on that street most of the time. So we played tag in the street. Soccer in the street and whatever else we could come up with. We had a boundary set on how far we could go. But it was basically to the train tracks (which was essentially a cousins house.) And supposedly the home on the other side of the tracks was haunted and full of witches so we weren't supposed to go over there. (Gotta love the superstitious south!)
I am in the generation where mom said "go play outside....come back at noon and I'll have lunch for you. Then go back outside, and you can't come back till it is dark (or dinner time). Oh and watch your sister." I later found out not all kids had lunch time scheduled. They were supposed to be gone from basically early AM till dusk.
We were allowed to play in the street, though we mostly played in the middle of the street on the small culdesac around the corner. My street was a little too busy.
But my mom let us roam all over (starting around age 5-6) alone with some boundaries. The boundaries extended a block or 2 every year. I could bike around where ever I wanted. At first the play zone was just my block (and the adjacent one with the small culdesac.) I wasn't allowed to cross the street until I was allowed to walk to school by myself (I guess that was age 7). When I was 8, the line increased to my school, and the block behind my house. But I wasn't allowed to leave the "neighborhood" and cross the busy thoroughfare.
At grandma's house, playing in the street was encouraged. That was the play zone. (1 car an hour would have been busy on that street, and most of the cars traveling on the road were other relatives so they stopped to chat). The double line wasn't striped on that street most of the time. So we played tag in the street. Soccer in the street and whatever else we could come up with. We had a boundary set on how far we could go. But it was basically to the train tracks (which was essentially a cousins house.) And supposedly the home on the other side of the tracks was haunted and full of witches so we weren't supposed to go over there. (Gotta love the superstitious south!)
I turned out OK.
I remember playing in the streets in the neighborhood I grew up in, and when one of us spotted a car coming, we would yell car which paused the game and we would all move off the street to let the car pass.
I remember playing in the streets in the neighborhood I grew up in, and when one of us spotted a car coming, we would yell car which paused the game and we would all move off the street to let the car pass.
But this woonerf stuff gives pedestrians, playing children, etc full access over drivers. They wouldn't have to pause the game and let the car through. The driver could go fly a kite while waiting for the game to end.
But this woonerf stuff gives pedestrians, playing children, etc full access over drivers. They wouldn't have to pause the game and let the car through. The driver could go fly a kite while waiting for the game to end.
Then a driver is just gonna have to wait for a pause in the game, I am sure the locals are aware of this when driving around and plan their routes of driving accordingly.
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