A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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i find it fascinating how Americans secretly love walkable towns.
Where do they vacation? Disneylands, Makinac island, NY, Chicago, or go to iconic walkable cities overseas like London, Paris...
but the idea of enjoying something line that throughout their entire life seems propostrotous. they gotta have their 2 ton trucks.
The average American doesn't vacation. In the past ten years, the only travel I've done was to attend two funerals and one wedding. Vacations are for the rich, and nice areas are only for the rich. We secretly love walkable towns like we secretly love Buckingham Palace, we like to dream that one day, we'll be able to afford it too.
The only reason my town is affordable is because it's shitty, and improving it would price me out of living here, so I don't want to improve it.
I would like to point out that the likes of walmart and amazon have, like the mosquitos they are, sucked dry the money that used to circulate around smaller towns, and that might otherwise be used for a swim center or something.
I say this because step number one to fixing these places is bringing the money back.
Step two might be price locking rent and/or just taking land out of the hands of landlords and housing firms.
The US was designed for cars specifically, unlike European cities that have been around since 1150 or 1288 or 1467 or whatever. So, we see how well it works there but it’s not quite the same here.
The adduction to massive trucks isn’t just for traitor lunatics. It’s just like a rural farmer in the Nederlands with their tractor. It’s how things are set up.
most cities in the US predates cars. but countless towns and small cities that were walkable were practically entirely demolished to turn them into parking lots. whole neighborhoods were demolished to make highways (guess the colour).
some before/after pictures are depressing as fuck.
like three US was entirely peppered with (what we would now call) European style towns.
I really like those stealth bike racks where they put a car shape on the road facing side so that the cars don't get upset that they lost a potential parking spot.
They'll never see through this clever ruse;. Most cars have pretty poor eyesight; the only way they'll figure it out is if they honk at it, and it doesn't respond convincingly.
the only way they’ll figure it out is if they honk at it, and it doesn’t respond convincingly.
Just needs a sound-activated arm showing the middle finger to pop out of the fake window.
Large SUV and giant truck drivers still bemoaning the tiny spaces used by cyclists
I really wish there was a better way to secure bicycles. Most of the time I choose to take the car or motorcycle is because I got a nice bicycle after my old cheapo got stolen from what I thought was a safe location.
I'm not even talking about lack of bicycle racks in many parking lots, but the fact that a $50 angle grinder goes through just about any chain/u-lock in about 30 seconds.
I know this because I had to cut off my own U-lock after assholes tried to drill through the lock on mine and ruined it. Also, nobody even looked twice at a guy using an incredibly loud grinder generating a ton of sparks in the middle of a retail parking lot.
Locks will only ever be a minor deterrent imo. The problem is that police in most places don't even try to go after bicycle thefts and the would be criminals know that.
If governments took bicycle theft as seriously as they did horse theft in the 19th century, then few criminals would even attempt to steal a bicycle if it had some basic protection like a cheap lock + a camera pointed at the bicycle rack.
The solution is bike lockers. It’s an important piece of public infrastructure that often gets overlooked.
Bike cages are great, but the haters would rather spend on a 100-car parking lot than a 100-bike cage.
Not to mention how much dead space is needed in front and behind the parking spot for that SUV.
And in all likelihood, that is a single occupancy vehicle, so the amount of space needed is even more obscene.