Is There 'A Hill You're Prepared To Die On' ?

[Razgovory]

Euro-centric elitism

[Tamas]

You "live your life via train and bus" guys conveniently ignore a lot of factors which (at least yet) have not entered your life. Just a couple of these:
- Not everyone lives, or wants to live in an urban sprawl
- If you don't live in an urban sprawl you can't just go around the corner to get what you need
- If you don't live in an urban sprawl you may need things which can't just be put in a bag in your hand and walk around with
- People don't stay young and healthy forever. Skipping an hour of walking and instead just rolling up next to where you need to be may seem like irresponsible planet-destroying now, but I guarantee you it will look mighty tempting sooner than you think

etc.

[Sheilbh]

You "live your life via train and bus" guys conveniently ignore a lot of factors which (at least yet) have not entered your life. Just a couple of these:
- Not everyone lives, or wants to live in an urban sprawl
- If you don't live in an urban sprawl you can't just go around the corner to get what you need
- If you don't live in an urban sprawl you may need things which can't just be put in a bag in your hand and walk around with
- People don't stay young and healthy forever. Skipping an hour of walking and instead just rolling up next to where you need to be may seem like irresponsible planet-destroying now, but I guarantee you it will look mighty tempting sooner than you think

etc.

My point isn't necessarily live via train and bus - but that it should be possible for everyone to live their life via train and bus. If that's the case my suspicion is most people will do it.

Urban sprawl happened because of cars and decisions to move to a car-centric system - look at the density in that photo v Google earth. The sprawl is because of the need for lots of space for cars, whether through big highway or parking space. Even in the UK there is not a single local authority in England where housing takes up more land area spaces for cars (roads - excluding bike lanes and bus lanes - plus parking areas). So much space and sprawl is necessitated by a preference for cars.

I'd also add that that photo is Cincinnati - it's not a huge city. But I'd argue (I believe the stats back this up) that the cities that managed to avoid the car-ification in the 50s-70s are now doing far better economically - that might go back, but I'm not sure it will. The other point is that, of course, this has a huge issue in terms of property values/assets and that disproportionately affected Black Americans. So I think the set of decisions that get you to the modern picture of Cincinnati is environmentally bad but also economically and socially bad. I can't think of an area where you could say, in the long run, this policy worked especially because as the infrastructure the number of cars tends to grow - because that's the favoured method of transport - until you have those initial highways snarled up as well.

My point isn't that this some type of mortal sin by car users, but rather that it isn't just the operation of some natural market choice and that it doesn't reflect some uniquely North American problems of scale. Every city in America in 1950 was like New York or San Francisco or the model "European" city. It was decisions after that that transformed them (I also fully buy into the General Motors streetcars conspiracy theory and if nothing else it was probably a really bad thing in terms of developing electric vehicles) and the choices are shaped by what's available - so if you tear up every streetcar in the country, barely fund buses, stop building metros and replace entire blocks of downtown cities with highways people will "naturally" choose cars.

Also just to point out on walking an hour - my view is that in the UK the goal of government in planning policy should be that everyone is within 30 minutes to 1 hour by walking, cycling or regular public transport to the essentials (shops, pubs, GP and a train station etc) and if you have that chances are most jobs will also be within that "commuteable" time.

[garbon]

Thank hod you aren't in charge. Oh yes I love an hour walking in the rain to work.

[Sheilbh]

Thank hod you aren't in charge. Oh yes I love an hour walking in the rain to work.

Fair and it should be "and" regular public transport. No-one should feel like they need a car. We should be working to make them redundant, luxurious frivolities like open fires in homes.

But most people live within an hour's journey by whatever method to work - that seems to me to be the outer limit of a dailiy commute for most people (and that may shift as for many, middle class, workers it becomes less than a daily commute). My point is just we should be working for people to have access within that time frame to essentials without having to use a car. Even if you love cars I don't really understand how that can be an objectionable goal

[Josquius]

Also just to point out on walking an hour - my view is that in the UK the goal of government in planning policy should be that everyone is within 30 minutes to 1 hour by walking, cycling or regular public transport to the essentials (shops, pubs, GP and a train station etc) and if you have that chances are most jobs will also be within that "commuteable" time.

The 15 minute city is what I normally hear mentioned. Is this 30 minute thing stretched out to the country?

And yeah, agreed with your post. Its weird that Tamas is using urban sprawl, which he recognises as bad, as an argument FOR car-based urban design. My time living in Japan really showed as bad as the UK is it could be far worse on this front...

Everyone should watch the youtube channel not just bikes, he has a very nice way of putting all this as a suburban Canadian (from 'Fake London' as he puts it ) who moved to Holland.

[The Larch]

...at least in Europe we normally have the excuse of carpet bombing:

In the 70s a Vancouver city council voted in favour of building a freeway through the city, much like what happened in the US city you posted.  Part of the work started, but then an incoming council reversed the decision and to this day there is no freeway running through the city core, making it much more livable.  The on ramps to what was to have been the freeway have been a constant source of debate - but finally those have been repurposed and largely removed.

Same in my hometown, an entrance ramp to the region's main highway was built in the very center of the city in the late 70s, but after it was built and before it was inaugurated the project was modified to avoid it and in 1986 the massive elevated ramp was demolished. It was never used.

It almost happened in London in the 60s and 70s too huge elevated ring road in the middle of the city as part of four concentric ring motorways:


Only parts of it were built in the end and it was cancelled due to strong local opposition (this is like NIMBYs as good guys before their downfall in the villain origin story). It's the moment that London diverged from many American cities, I think there's similar in New York with Moses's plans eventually running into the ground.

Mandatory Jay Foreman plug!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUEHWhO_HdY

[garbon]

Thank hod you aren't in charge. Oh yes I love an hour walking in the rain to work.

Fair and it should be "and" regular public transport. No-one should feel like they need a car. We should be working to make them redundant, luxurious frivolities like open fires in homes.

But most people live within an hour's journey by whatever method to work - that seems to me to be the outer limit of a dailiy commute for most people (and that may shift as for many, middle class, workers it becomes less than a daily commute). My point is just we should be working for people to have access within that time frame to essentials without having to use a car. Even if you love cars I don't really understand how that can be an objectionable goal

Resources could be better use than managing commutes.

[Tamas]

Thank hod you aren't in charge. Oh yes I love an hour walking in the rain to work.

Fair and it should be "and" regular public transport. No-one should feel like they need a car. We should be working to make them redundant, luxurious frivolities like open fires in homes.

But most people live within an hour's journey by whatever method to work - that seems to me to be the outer limit of a dailiy commute for most people (and that may shift as for many, middle class, workers it becomes less than a daily commute). My point is just we should be working for people to have access within that time frame to essentials without having to use a car. Even if you love cars I don't really understand how that can be an objectionable goal

So what about the mundane like doing groceries for a bigger family, obtaining anything that doesn't fit on your back or your hands on a bus?

What about the not so mundane non-essentials? Let's say you need outpatient treatments in a hospital? When my wife needed that for a while in this country, it would have been almost two hours of walking and hopping around buses because they come every 30 minutes. Double the number of buses and that's still one hour of standing and walking for somebody who needs medical attention (would not have been a concern in my wife's case luckily but what about others?). It was 40 minutes drive door to door both ways.

Are those people supposed to hire a taxi for each trip or keep a horse and carriage?

[Sheilbh]

Resources could be better use than managing commutes.

Cars are responsible for about 20% of global emissions, it's not really shrinking yet and I think it's good public policy to make sure people have other options so no-one is in a position where they need a car. I'd also promote more densification which I think is better in terms of the carbon impact of housing but also economic output - and would allow more young people to buy, build up their own assets for their lifetime without just building on "green" land.

The alternative, it seems to me, given that we have a growing population is to lean more into car-centric sprawling development. We will be building something and allocating resources in some way - we already in terms of maintenance, space, new road-building etc. My view is that just the focus should be on trying to transition from the failed car-centric model of 70 years ago.

So what about the mundane like doing groceries for a bigger family, obtaining anything that doesn't fit on your back or your hands on a bus?

What about the not so mundane non-essentials? Let's say you need outpatient treatments in a hospital? When my wife needed that for a while in this country, it would have been almost two hours of walking and hopping around buses because they come every 30 minutes. Double the number of buses and that's still one hour of standing and walking for somebody who needs medical attention (would not have been a concern in my wife's case luckily but what about others?). It was 40 minutes drive door to door both ways.

Are those people supposed to hire a taxi for each trip or keep a horse and carriage?

So in part that's why I said more regular public transport too - it's a huge issue outside of London and a few other cities. And of course that is reality for many people who can't afford cars, can't drive or haven't re-certified their licence - so particularly the elderly. At the moment our entire public transport network (outside of London etc) is designed around school children getting to class and the elderly being able to get to the local town etc. My point is simply that it should be for everyone and we should be trying to make it a viable, practical and useful alternative for everyone.

In terms of the big shop - again we had cities and towns without cars before the days of the big shop (and they relied far more on deliveries which is interesting because that may be where we're going back to). I think we should be trying to encourage deliveries, from electric vehicles. But there is absolutely stuff where people may in some way need a car my preference would be a focus on (personally I'd like this to be owned by local authorities) networks of rideshare vehicles and charging points - so that is another part of general public transport infrastructure.

[Threviel]

It's all good and fun for inhabitants of densely populated areas like England, the Netherlands and Belgium to talk big about everyone not needing a car.

For me, if there was a gigantic hugely expensive buildup of public transport, I would have to do a 20-30 min bus ride into the nearest town, then 30-40 min train to the city where I work and then 15 min bus to my work place with waiting time added to that. And that's without talking about how I'd solve daycare for the kids.

And that is in a magical future where we have ten times as many buses as now, nowadays I have to walk 4 km to even get to a bus stop.

I have exactly 45 min door to door now with my own car. Daycare is easily solved on the way.

I do agree that cities should be built in a way that makes it easy to live there without car. Self driving rentable cars and Amazon style logistics will probably solve all of the weekly shopping stuff in a decade or so and it would be opportune for city planners to plan for this already now. It will probably be very advantageous for old style dense citys when it comes to attracting highly educated populations in the future. Cincinnati might as well pave over the city center and start again.

[Iormlund]

I live in a mid sized city (~700k) and my employer provides a free bus service. Even so, I would lose 30% of the time I have left ( after work and sleep) every weekday, using it instead of my car.

No thanks.

[Tamas]

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/dec/11/south-western-left-my-16-year-old-son-stranded-at-a-locked-unstaffed-station

[Josquius]

These examples are evidence in favour of what we are saying. Not points against.

Trains in the UK are an awful ran for profit mess ? Yes. This is a prime motivator in my beliefs having experienced better in a variety of other countries.

Where you live and work now you would lose out taking the bus? Exactly. You shouldnt. You should be able to afford to live in an accessible place and have access to efficient transport to get you anywhere sensible in the area for a reasonable time and cost.

[Razgovory]

It is now clear: We must kill Tyr on a hill.