alt Hacker NewsIt's impossible for people to get how bad it is until they see it. My old house had a grocery store 1.2 miles away. To walk there, you have to cross a 6 lane highway. Entire neighborhoods here have no sidewalks. And the roads are so torn up they're unusable. My friend had to get rid of his road bike and get a fat tire suspension bike. None of the intersections have any lights or visibility. And you can't run off the road because the ditches have broken glass and garbage in them!. Trash that hasn't been cleaned up in years. Add to that there's a general culture of hostility towards bicycles.
A pedestrian got hit by a pickup truck and the trucks made a "caravan" to roll coal at the memorial spot where they hit her.
There's no consistency in america. I moved 15 minutes away to "the good" part of town, and every street is new and perfectly smooth. There are marked bike lanes everywhere and they're all connected. I didn't understand at the time, but moving to where the bike lanes are completely changed my life and opened up the entire city for exploring in a way that I didn't expect.
Aside from getting my adorable cats on craigslist, no other 1 decision has changed my life for the better so drastically. I sold my car. I bike to new food places on my lunch break. I met tons of amazing new friends. My fitness is way up.
People aren't good at visualizing what being in a car all the time is taking from them. In terms of happiness, I honestly feel like I got a 50k raise at my job or something. Car centric design is robbing people of the chance to disscover thier own cities
Replies
Too, in regions with winter weather (snow, or worse, sleet and ice), what few sidewalks or walking/biking trails which might exist are often further limited due to accumulated snow, if not slick with ice.
This can be found even within town/village centres, let alone the stroads and strip-malls on their peripheries. Walking and cycling become far more perilous.
Not impossible, but challenging, and a clear danger for the very young, elderly, or disabled.
Local ordinances to maintain clear sidewalks are quite often observed in the breach.
Then there's the shortened daylight hours, mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
You are right for most people. I am not (and cannot get) fit enough to walk and ride everywhere. I walk as much as I can because cars suck but I appreciate the car. You got me thinking about ebikes. Speed is also a thing though. Getting somewhere in 2 minutes instead of 10 is very convenient.
> People aren't good at visualizing what being in a car all the time is taking from them.
I really wish someone would do a study somehow on what kind of psychological effects are caused by being angry at everyone in your city for an hour twice a day (sitting in traffic).