Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The total mileage of walking someone might do in a dense city vs a sprawling suburb... how meaningful is that??
The attractiveness of the urban walk-to-the-store is that one doesn't have to include a private vehicle journey in it,
and (hopefully) not have to cross a swath of pedestrian-hostile territory (a big parking lot).
And I've never found suburban walking to be very pleasant anyway. There aren't as many cars to watch out for as in a city,
but it just feels strange to be walking in an area where almost no one else does, even if the infrastructure (sidewalks) is okay.
In Hong Kong, the subway was planned so that people in a rush can do minimal walking.
Does the average subway-taking resident of Hong Kong get more exercise than a car-driving commuter of a masterplanned California suburb like Irvine? Highly doubtful. Why?
1. Hong Kong's subway has escalators and elevators in every station. No one walks the stairs.
2. Most line transfers in Hong Kong's subway are cross platform interchanges (walk 50 feet to your connecting train, that's it).
3. You likely live in a high-rise apartment building built right above the subway station. Once again, all high-rise apartment buildings in Hong Kong are fitted with very fast elevators.
4. Your office building is likely right on top of another subway station.
5. Your favorite mall/supermarket is right on top of yet another subway station.
6. If you go to school, and your school happens to be relatively far from the subway station, you take the school bus.
7. Taxis in Hong Kong are much cheaper than they are in New York. For a half a mile journey, people will just take the taxi instead of walk ten minutes.
8. Apartments are tiny in Hong Kong. Most people live in 600 square foot studios. Not much walking required in a 600 square foot studio.
9. Of course, you never have to mow your lawn, or walk around your yard while gardening (because you DON'T HAVE A YARD).
10. In such a land-scarce city, sports fields are a luxury. That's one reason why far fewer school children play sports in Hong Kong than in America. Even tennis courts are a luxury. Urban parks (ok, fine Hong Kong has country parks, but that's different) are few and far between, and they're TINY. Hong Kong's biggest urban park, Victoria Park, is only 50 acres, compared to Manhattan's 800+ acre Central Park. How many sports field per capita can you have when even your biggest park is 50 acres? Not very many.
The sprawling, Southern California suburb of Irvine was built to encourage and maximize walking and exercise.
1. Irvine has NO subway. The bus system is crap. Everyone drives everywhere.
2. In Irvine, you're likely living in a 4,000 square foot house (that's a TON more walking than a Hong Konger walking around his 600 square foot studio). Remember, MOST of the daily walking done by your average Joe is simply walking around his house everyday. The bigger Joe's house, the more he has to walk.
3. In Irvine, that 4,000 square foot house comes with a sizeable backyard (one that you actually have to mow and garden regularly).
4. In Irvine, malls and supermarkets are surrounded with ENORMOUS parking lots that are ALWAYS FULL. You're going to have to park in the back of the ENORMOUS parking lot and walk a good 2 or three minutes, at least, to get to Walmart or Costco.
5. Walmart and Costco and Home Depot are enormous. You'll have to do a TON of walking in Walmart or Costco or Home Depot. Of course, you're buying BULK at Costco/Home Depot, so you're pushing a TON of stuff as you walk around in Costco.
6. While most kids in Hong Kong take the school bus to school, Irvine doesn't even offer school buses, because most kids just walk/bike to school.
7. Irvine's schools have sports fields galore. The parks have sports fields galore. There's even a huge park with nothing but sports fields. People are very athletic in Irvine. The overweight rate in Irvine is far, far below the U.S. average.
7. Irvine was planned so that schools would be very centrally located in each neighborhood. Irvine has plenty of decent-sized urban parks that are also carefully planned so that every resident in every neighborhood can walk to a park in five minutes or so.
8. Irvine may have crappy public transportation, but practically every major street has bike lanes. Not to mention the dozens upon dozens upon dozens of off-street bike and jogging trails that go to every single neighborhood in the city. Or the fact that over a third of the city's area is set aside as wilderness parks, with tons of hiking trails.
9. Irvine has an even lower crime rate than Hong Kong, and far, far, far superior air quality to Hong Kong's thick, heavy smog.
10. The biggest mall in Irvine sprawls across 120 acres. Not only do you have to walk across that enormous parking lot, but once you're inside the mall (a mall that is mostly single-story and has very few escalators or elevators) you're walking EVERYWHERE. Walking from one end of the mall to the other takes a good ten minutes. Here's what I'm talking about:
Hiking trails in Irvine's wilderness (and this is only one small part of Irvine's wilderness!)
irlandmarks-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/COI.TrailMap.for_.web_.10.2017.pdf
I've never been to Hong Kong, but here are my responses regarding Irvine.
1. It's a suburb, but as suburban bus systems go OCTA is really good. I've ridden it. But your point is that nearly everyone drives everywhere and that's a true statement.
2. The average house size in Irvine is 1,700 square feet. 4,000 square feet is rate anywhere in Southern California aside from a few areas where mansions are common.
3. 4,000 square feet homes and sizable backyards? Have you been to Irvine? Yards are generally small and I would guess that most people hire landscapers to maintain.
4. Somebody has to be parking close, no?
5. You get some steps in at these places, but not as many as you might think. I've lived this lifestyle and you just don't average very many steps any given day although some days may be relatively high.
6. If it's like the rest of SoCal there are many kids getting dropped off by car.
7. Agreed
8. Agreed but these are used by people intentionally getting extra exercise from their normal routine. That can happen anywhere although Irvine is well suited to these types of exercise.
9. Agreed
10. Agreed. But how many and how often do people go to the spectrum and walk a lot?
Hong Kong may be different but if the question is comparing American lifestyles there's just no question in my mind that people that take public transportation walk far, far more on average than suburban dwellers. Like I said I've lived both lifestyles and counted steps and it's not even close in my experience.
I've never been to Hong Kong, but here are my responses regarding Irvine.
1. It's a suburb, but as suburban bus systems go OCTA is really good. I've ridden it. But your point is that nearly everyone drives everywhere and that's a true statement.
2. The average house size in Irvine is 1,700 square feet. 4,000 square feet is rate anywhere in Southern California aside from a few areas where mansions are common.
3. 4,000 square feet homes and sizable backyards? Have you been to Irvine? Yards are generally small and I would guess that most people hire landscapers to maintain.
4. Somebody has to be parking close, no?
5. You get some steps in at these places, but not as many as you might think. I've lived this lifestyle and you just don't average very many steps any given day although some days may be relatively high.
6. If it's like the rest of SoCal there are many kids getting dropped off by car.
7. Agreed
8. Agreed but these are used by people intentionally getting extra exercise from their normal routine. That can happen anywhere although Irvine is well suited to these types of exercise.
9. Agreed
10. Agreed. But how many and how often do people go to the spectrum and walk a lot?
Hong Kong may be different but if the question is comparing American lifestyles there's just no question in my mind that people that take public transportation walk far, far more on average than suburban dwellers. Like I said I've lived both lifestyles and counted steps and it's not even close in my experience.
2. True, but you're still walking a ton more in a 1700, two story house than you would in a 600 square foot studio in Hong Kong.
3. Grew up in Irvine, and many of the older houses have much larger yards. You're right that yards are tiny (or even non-existent) in all the new development.
4. Highly unlikely, given how darn busy and overcrowded malls in Irvine are.
6. Some kids, but these kids getting dropped off by car are almost all in sports anyways (they want to save energy to practice for sports). Those not in sports all walk or bike to school. Traffic is tough, and walking/biking to school is faster.
10. Everyone in Irvine goes to the Spectrum every week, and yes, it's meant to be walked all over.
BUT, based off my comparison of the Hong Kong vs. Irvine lifestyle, can't you possibly see that it is at least possible to walk more in Irvine than you would in Hong Kong?
I can see based on your comparison that you could walk more in Irvine, but that's only based on what you posted since I've never been to Hong Kong. But I also think that this topic was likely considering American or maybe American and Canadian cities. Maybe people living in poor suburbs of Addis Ababa walk 10-15 miles a day, but is that relevant? There's all kinds of examples that could show any result, but in America the general trend would be that people living in cities taking public transportation tend to walk significantly more.
I can see based on your comparison that you could walk more in Irvine, but that's only based on what you posted since I've never been to Hong Kong. But I also think that this topic was likely considering American or maybe American and Canadian cities. Maybe people living in poor suburbs of Addis Ababa walk 10-15 miles a day, but is that relevant? There's all kinds of examples that could show any result, but in America the general trend would be that people living in cities taking public transportation tend to walk significantly more.
I suppose you have a point. Maybe the topic of the thread should have been, can an urban planner plan an affluent, sprawling, masterplanned suburb yet somehow encourage its residents to walk copiously? And can an urban planner plan a very dense, urban city with so much connectivity and convenience of accessing the subway that you minimize walking altogether?
Let's go with that. Can you think of ways to do either?
I suppose you have a point. Maybe the topic of the thread should have been, can an urban planner plan an affluent, sprawling, masterplanned suburb yet somehow encourage its residents to walk copiously? And can an urban planner plan a very dense, urban city with so much connectivity and convenience of accessing the subway that you minimize walking altogether?
Let's go with that. Can you think of ways to do either?
tell them to not put parking lots right in front of a store? or have the building entrance on the side away from the parking lot
subway riders walk more because the stations aren't in front of the store they are going to directly
move the car parking lots 2-3 blocks away and they will walk the same distance, or everyone gets a handicap sign. the draw of having a car is you can park it closer to the stores
I lived in NYC for 10 years, and various suburbs and small cities at other times.
The OP is making some erroneous assumptions about mass transit. In NYC, my first apartment was 10 blocks from the subway, then the subway was another 3 blocks from my workplace. That is a minimum 26 blocks of walking every work day.
It is an exaggeration to say that subway stations are 1-3 minutes apart. Walking time is likely closer to 5 minutes, then you need to wait 1-15 minutes for a train. Rule of thumb is that a short subway trip takes 20 minutes, so many people simply walk 10-15 minutes instead, which is about 1/2 mile. That is assuming you want to go uptown or downtown. There are very few train lines that run crosstown (NYC bias here), so mass transit is a poor option here. The same thing goes for other cities with which I am familiar. Mass transit works in some directions, not others.
Parking at the mall or costco is a different matter than parking in the city, if you even have a car. At the mall you are maybe 400 feet from the store if you are at the outer limits of the lot. In one of those suburban centers with Walmart at one end, Costco at the other, lots of people drive from one store to the other. In the city, once you park your car in a hard to find space, you walk miles rather than try to find another space.
In my real world experience, it isn't even close. Urban dwellers walk far more than suburban dwellers.
I lived in NYC for 10 years, and various suburbs and small cities at other times.
The OP is making some erroneous assumptions about mass transit. In NYC, my first apartment was 10 blocks from the subway, then the subway was another 3 blocks from my workplace. That is a minimum 26 blocks of walking every work day.
It is an exaggeration to say that subway stations are 1-3 minutes apart. Walking time is likely closer to 5 minutes, then you need to wait 1-15 minutes for a train. Rule of thumb is that a short subway trip takes 20 minutes, so many people simply walk 10-15 minutes instead, which is about 1/2 mile. That is assuming you want to go uptown or downtown. There are very few train lines that run crosstown (NYC bias here), so mass transit is a poor option here. The same thing goes for other cities with which I am familiar. Mass transit works in some directions, not others.
Parking at the mall or costco is a different matter than parking in the city, if you even have a car. At the mall you are maybe 400 feet from the store if you are at the outer limits of the lot. In one of those suburban centers with Walmart at one end, Costco at the other, lots of people drive from one store to the other. In the city, once you park your car in a hard to find space, you walk miles rather than try to find another space.
In my real world experience, it isn't even close. Urban dwellers walk far more than suburban dwellers.
Read my past posts. Maybe you are right about NYC. But my experience was in Hong Kong. My apartment was literally right on top of the subway. All the supermarkets and shops I went to were also right on top of the subway station. Taxis are dirt cheap, so people will just take the taxi instead of walk half a mile. And yes, trains in fact come every two minutes on most lines.
Never, ever did any apartment dweller have to walk ten freaking blocks to get to the nearest subway station! Or wait 15 minutes for a train!
I really need to post some pictures of what I'm talking about because you obviously can't envision a city where apartment complexes and malls are literally built right on top of subway stations. Nor can you imagine a subway so reliable that it boasts a 99.5% punctuality rate and only two minutes between trains. Or a subway that has escalators and elevators in every station. Or a subway where you walk a mere fifty feet to transfer between trains.
tell them to not put parking lots right in front of a store? or have the building entrance on the side away from the parking lot
subway riders walk more because the stations aren't in front of the store they are going to directly
move the car parking lots 2-3 blocks away and they will walk the same distance, or everyone gets a handicap sign. the draw of having a car is you can park it closer to the stores
As for minimizing walking for subway riders, how about placing malls and apartments right on top of the subway stations, connected to the subway platforms directly via elevators and escalators? Then the stations will actually be in front of the store they are going to.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
