Japan manages it pretty well. The mass transit system of Tokyo is well known. But the city is also zoned such that walking or biking from an apartment/house/hotel to a restaurant, supermarket, or even a major park or museum is easy and fairly safe. The roads are clean and well-maintained, and traffic really isn't that bad. Street parking is rarely allowed, but small parking lots are numerous albeit expensive.
Biking and public transit moves most commuters off of the streets, leaving the roads to the owners of luxury cars and driving aficionados who don't mind paying the tax premium to subsidize their vehicular access. I pay $450/yr in road taxes, kei car drivers pay maybe $75, and someone with a big-displacement engine like a Lexus IS-F or a Mercedes AMG probably pays $800-$1000 every year. I'm totally ok with this system.
I spent 3 weeks in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia and HATED how I couldn't walk to anything....but the roads are also of absolutely terrible quality (potholes everywhere) and are mostly straight and boring highway travel, so they aren't even fun to drive. Then I quarantined in Tokyo for 2 weeks and everything was a convenient 5-minute walk away. If I LIVED in Tokyo, I would still own my sports cars there, as I love the freedom of being able to travel longer distances, at any time, with privacy and storage capacity.
I'm in another region of Japan where the public transit is almost non-existent but the walking-friendly zoning helps to compensate. I don't NEED a car to get to the convenience store or the supermarket, but they definitely make life 100x easier, especially since the weather here is terrible more often than not.
So I'd say Japan is proof that walkability and driveability are not in "irresolvable conflict".
> Help me understand this. Where do cyclists and ground-level public transportation go if they're not on the streets?
Public transportation is much denser ( even a paltry bus can fit at least 30 people vs a car which occupies slightly less space, but usually has a single person in it), and bikes take much less space. You can fit 4 bikes in the space of a single standard sedan; and a small bus is what, 2-3 sedans but 30 times the capacity?
You'd think, but come to San Diego and take a look at downtown. I frequently see 2-3 buses driving in a row down Broadway with single digits of occupants between all three.
>>>Where do cyclists and ground-level public transportation go if they're not on the streets?
Cyclists are on the sidewalk, and use little ringer bells to signal to pedestrians to move outta the way. For public transit "off the streets" I was mostly referring to the subway system. Buses and taxis are still "on" the street but the users are out of privately-owned vehicles. I wasn't clear on that.
>>>Wait a minute, quarantined and walked around?
Technically "restriction of movement" not "quarantined", I get sloppy and often use the two terms interchangeably. Quarantine = you are COVID+, inside a specially-designated hotel, which you can't leave. ROM = you are COVID- pending additional testing, can stay in any hotel, but can leave your room for essentials such as groceries/take-out food.
> Cyclists are on the sidewalk, and use little ringer bells to signal to pedestrians to move outta the way.
No, cyclists are on the bike lanes or, if they aren't there, with the cars. The sidewalk is for people on foot only, who are the most vulnerable and should be separated from other faster modes of transport.
US and Japan both have a number of mid-tier cities in the 4000-6000 per km2 range (look at the "list of [US|Japan] cities" pages on Wiki and sort by descending pop density). Japan has a number of efficient cities far from the Tokyo/Osaka megalopoli that don't benefit from their network effects. Consider Fukuoka, Sapporo, or Kagoshima (all fairly remote/isolated cities) compared to Miami, FL and Santa Ana, CA (for high-density US cities outside of the Northeast Corridor). Hiroshima and Sapporo have surprisingly-low pop densities closer to Nashville and Kansas City. We Americans should be able to draw some applicable conclusions even when we look outside of Tokyo. The initial reaction is usually "the density disparity makes it cost-ineffective when applied to the US". If we zoned and developed along Japanese patterns, wouldn't our city densities increase, due to the higher quality of life delivered by the efficiency improvements? People would actually want to live in places where they had flexible transit options and safe walkable neighborhoods with integrated commercial and entertainment activities.
Biking and public transit moves most commuters off of the streets, leaving the roads to the owners of luxury cars and driving aficionados who don't mind paying the tax premium to subsidize their vehicular access. I pay $450/yr in road taxes, kei car drivers pay maybe $75, and someone with a big-displacement engine like a Lexus IS-F or a Mercedes AMG probably pays $800-$1000 every year. I'm totally ok with this system.
I spent 3 weeks in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia and HATED how I couldn't walk to anything....but the roads are also of absolutely terrible quality (potholes everywhere) and are mostly straight and boring highway travel, so they aren't even fun to drive. Then I quarantined in Tokyo for 2 weeks and everything was a convenient 5-minute walk away. If I LIVED in Tokyo, I would still own my sports cars there, as I love the freedom of being able to travel longer distances, at any time, with privacy and storage capacity.
I'm in another region of Japan where the public transit is almost non-existent but the walking-friendly zoning helps to compensate. I don't NEED a car to get to the convenience store or the supermarket, but they definitely make life 100x easier, especially since the weather here is terrible more often than not.
So I'd say Japan is proof that walkability and driveability are not in "irresolvable conflict".