Sometimes I think Americans don’t know how badly they want this.
Americans will tell you how wonderful European cities are with their small streets and their public squares filled with great restaurants. They think we don’t have cities like that because we’re lacking some fundamental European-ness.
No. We just put cars everywhere. Cars ruin everything. Now you have wider streets. Louder streets. More dangerous streets. Far less foot traffic which means very low chances of discovering a new favorite place. You have lower business density which totally changes the economics of an entire neighborhood. Etc.
In this and so many other things Americans say they want what they see elsewhere but are uninterested in doing anything about it.
- Politicians need to be willing to withstand accusations that they are allied with property developers who earn more than they spend.
- Politicians have to be willing to piss off people who support minimum parking requirements and other restrictions.
- Those same politicians have to be able to get re-elected.
- Large numbers of people have to credibly promise to volunteer and vote for a local politician who supports the walkable urban development policies alongside positions they disagree with.
An individual can want it, but it requires costly collective action to change. If just one person goes to a town council meeting and argues in favor of letting a housing developer build apartments near them, that will have little impact unless they also talk 2 other people into both taking similar action and recursively getting similar alignment.
The rate at which YIMBY activism spreads is too low.
I’ve lived in walkable US cities. The main ingredients are mixed use, high density, effective public transportation, useable sidewalks, and zero surface level parking lots. Roads and underground parking is fine because they don’t lower density that much and density defines how much you can reach in a reasonable walk.
What I think people miss is public transportation is the least important part of the equation. Once people start walking everywhere you can increase the number of trips people take with public transportation, but you want people making short trips not simply long commutes.
Roads often do make a big difference - if there are too many lanes it you end up with a block-sized, loud and dangerous chasm in the middle of what could be a bustling neighborhood.
I live in Tokyo and it’s dominated by streets that are literally barely wide enough to have two cars pass each other at <5mph, and I’ve come to love that.
IMO this still just comes down to density. Getting to a park just across a 3 lane divided highway isn’t a problem especially via skyway or underground tunnel. Walking 5 miles to that same park isn’t.
Narrow streets can significantly boost city density which then gets people out of their cars. One way streets make crossing traffic easier. But, if there’s nowhere to walk to then it’s all kind of pointless.
I kinda disagree. Highways are usually real barriers within cities. So much so that, if a city made the mistake of running highways through itself or along its waterfront, it's now worth it to spend billions burying the thing or building some kind of giant elevated park on top.
Not saying you’re wrong but in Tokyo most of the streets I mentioned have no sidewalk but just by the nature of being tiny they don’t need one - cars will pass at very slow speeds anyway. Agreed that it only matters if you can achieve high density, but part of achieving high density is designing for it, including not optimizing car traffic.
I found Boston much more walkable than SF having lived in both. Due to smaller size, higher density, better transit, flatter, safer. I also find Boston seemed to be prioritizing it more, whereas sf govt really struggles to prioritize peds, muni, bikes.
You are right, and there are also design speeds routinely imposed on new/“improved” U.S. roads that enable or even require (under govt safety standards) wide roads, which just encourage faster driving and worsen the problem. Even here in nyc we have some roads like this. Thankfully they are a smaller proportion than in the rest of the country. But mainly that’s because of the age of the streets — we are lucky to have old ones not ruined by our engineers and government.
Americans aren’t homogenous: those who adore European cities aren’t the same ones demanding parking minimums at their local neighborhood groups. Those people don’t give a hoot about European cities: they just want everything within a 10 mile radius of where they live to be easy to drive to and don’t want to think through or be reminded of the externalities.
I was going to write almost very similar comment. A follow up question will be how badly they want it and are they willing to give up their cars to have a walkable City and you would immediately see how many are actually interested in it
Zoning is a dragon that even a clear majority can’t slay in many cities. In Boston there is a major controversy that all new construction must have 1 parking space for every 2 condos.
Property developers, residents, and everyone else hates this regulation as the people buying these condos aren’t getting cars. You end up with buildings that are 1/3rd empty parking lot.
Bear in mind that the most popular neighborhoods of Boston were built in the 1600s without cars in mind.
The problem is that American cities also generally don't have functioning mass transit systems. And even in those that do (New York), they don't always go where you need them to go, so mass transit trips can be 2-3x longer than a car trip.
Want to do a big shopping trip? Have more than 1 child you need to move around the city? Want to do more than 1 specific errand in the same afternoon? Without a car, all of this becomes a huge pain in the ass even in New York or Boston, which have extensive networks of subways and buses, let alone anywhere else.
And now let's say you want to get out of the city for the weekend. Do you rent a car? That's way more expensive in the long run compared to owning.
We would need to fundamentally redesign our cities/towns and transit systems for Americans to be able to give up their cars.
I lived in the Boston area for five years and it was a great experience overall, it's quite walkable. The one thing I could never quite get used to was public transit taking longer than walking! You often had a choice of walking for 20 minutes or waiting 15 minutes for a 6 minute bus ride. (Tip: in winter, walking isn't just faster, it feels much warmer too.)
This really confused my Mexico City brain. Here in Mexico City public transit is horribly crowded but faster than walking. The subway is usually faster even than driving, which makes sense because you're not in our terrible traffic.
I guess part of the problem in Boston is that there just aren't enough riders: after waiting 10 minutes for a bus it wasn't even full! Here in Mexico City a more typical waiting period is 5 minutes and the bus is usually packed. I bet in Boston it's just not economically viable to run transit more frequently. Although maybe more people would opt for public transit if it were more frequent?
Anyway, I do recommend living Boston for a few years even with its wonky public transit. It's very pretty and has plenty of character.
Apparently 12 minutes of waiting is the critical point where you start to lose riders of public transit. If you want people to really use your system, you need to keep wait times consistently under that.
> And now let's say you want to get out of the city for the weekend. Do you rent a car? That's way more expensive in the long run compared to owning.
Are you doing it every weekend? Renting a car for just the odd weekend away would be way cheaper than owning. The initial cost / capital depreciation aside even.
I live in London and don't have a car, a £50+ train out to my parents' seems a bit absurd next to the cost of a train to Paris, Ryanair flights, or my Netflix subscription. But I could do it every other weekend just for the cost of insuring a (basic, sensible) car.
I could probably go more often than I do, take taxis there and back (>2h each way) and still come out ahead vs. car ownership.
Really need a 'day to day' (or specialised, such as needing capacity for something, or disabled access) use to make it worthwhile IMO, too many people I think see it as just a 'standard' thing which must be had.
Cars are unfortunately too cheap. My last car was a basic VW polo, and the insurance was £350/year, road tax £99 and probably £200 a year amortized over the 5 years on servicing/wear and year, with a 400 mile range on ~£50 worth of fuel. The break even point on that is ~5-6 trips per year, and much lower if you use the car for basically anything else. I can fly to eastern Europe for £15, but the transit to the airport is more expensive than that in my city.
Arguably they aren't cheap... they're just able to externalize their greatest cost: roads. If the cost of building and maintaining the US road system were baked into say the cost of gas or registration... you would be looking at an entirely different cost of ownership.
It's not that easy. For one there is a notable population which will complain and even for those who want to get rid of cars it is a long project: You need to change the city structure. If you have a resedential area without shops to run errands and no workplaces whatsoever people will need to travel long distances each time. Long travel time (whatever the means) means that you don't do grocery shopping for a day or two, but a week or two, which means you carry more and that's only viable by car.
Transforming city structure and society takes time.
As a resident of another very walkable European city, I love the ease and affordability of e-scooters. They haven’t replaced walking for me, they’ve replaced the longer trips where I might take a bus, train or taxi. They’re cheaper, more convenient and especially during the pandemic have meant fresh air and the joy of being outside.
Actually, it seems that European companies have the larger market share in Europe, with Tier (Germany) as #1, Voi (Sweden) as #2, and Bolt (Estonia) as #5.
The problem isn't cars. Cars are the symptom. The underlying issue is zoning that disincentivizes walkable areas and public transport infrastructure so bad that most people don't even want to use it.
What choice is there if you live in an area designed for cars? In the average suburb there is nothing around for miles, the streets are wide and designed for cars as you said. At that point the only workable option is to buy a car like everyone else. Urban centres which are walkable tend to have the highest home prices. It's a tough feedback loop.
The suburbs have to be made livable first, with plenty of shopping, restaurants, theatres, parks nearby so that living without a car is feasible.
Personally I hope to live in/rent apartments all my life and even raise a family there, but i don't know what it'll be like.
I always wish for big pedestrian zones like those public squares in Europe. I have noticed closing off streets has become more common but we need to commit and make those full time pedestrian areas. We don't need to park 3 feet away from everything.
Americans will tell you how wonderful European cities are with their small streets and their public squares filled with great restaurants. They think we don’t have cities like that because we’re lacking some fundamental European-ness.
No. We just put cars everywhere. Cars ruin everything. Now you have wider streets. Louder streets. More dangerous streets. Far less foot traffic which means very low chances of discovering a new favorite place. You have lower business density which totally changes the economics of an entire neighborhood. Etc.
In this and so many other things Americans say they want what they see elsewhere but are uninterested in doing anything about it.