I can walk everywhere in my city (Barcelona), but still fuck cars. Thankfully they are pedestrianising a lot of roads here too, as there are still far too many cars.
Same here, i don’t often use trams or trains, i’d much rather walk or bike or whatever. But the peoblem might be the people who don’t even want walkable cities, because a whole bunch of people don’t walk.
I was walking through the city the other day and i was in the middle of a bunch of people. A tram was approaching from behind and pretty much everyone around me was pucking up the pace, because they wanted to catch it. It then dawned on me that most of them are way out of shape and/or overweight. I kept walking normally because i had bo rush, and i was still just as fast as the people doing the fast walk while being super exhausted after their 50m sprint.
I wish I lived closer to the city so I could walk more. Walking is the best. But I live about 17 miles from the city and couldn’t afford to move closer if I wanted to.
I can walk everywhere in my city (Barcelona), but still fuck cars.
this reads like even though you can walk everywhere you still choose to engage in sexual activity with cars
Just made me chuckle, no offense intended.
Jeff Speck’s TED talk on walkable cities was what truly kickstarted my journey down the urbanist rabbit hole several years ago.
I hate cities because of motor vehicles and all the space that is reserved for them. If all motor traffic was moved to underground, that would make the city pleasant to exist in. I would be happy if every car space was converted to greenery.
That’s my dream too, and why I’m actually sort of onboard with Musk’s vision for car metros. The issue is that I’m 100% sure they’d also want to expand surface level car infrastructure to facilitate that network.
My centrist compromise that I hope will take off in European cities over the next decade is that most two lane city streets will become one lane one way systems with protected bike lanes, pavements and trees taking the space that’s been freed up.
Sitting in my car right now. AC on. Had to drive my Mom to the doctor which is ~8 town blocks from home, but the road is only safe for cars. No busses in my town or county. We saw two elderly women crossing the huge parking lot on foot with grocery bags, clearly to walk home with them, and noted that they are smart.
The only way to do it is to have everything in walking distance. Places where things are already too spread out make this very hard to do. People get used to driving everywhere and don’t want to pay to change things.
Public transit, busses, light rail, etc. Are great. No need for everything to be in walking distance.
It’s not too hard. It just takes time. A city can change hugely in 50 years.
And people don’t want anything to change. Until they get used to the new way. Then they don’t want it to change again. But everything always changes. That’s the only thing that doesn’t change.
