this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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A big problem is now fixing our land use, zoning, and density to be serviceable by transit. Most developments since the rise of suburbia have been extremely car centric and low density which can be hurdles in creating effevtive transit networks.
People are also going to have to accept that building transit will require taking some priority away from cars in some areas (reduced parking, reduced lanes, lower speeds) and this is generally viewed as bad because people already hate being in their cars in existing traffic.
That's okay. Make driving a little more painful will discourage it, as long as other options also become available and less painful.
There are ways to do this, but it requires adopting patterns that drivers tend to object to.
For example, you could block or reduce car traffic on arterial highways, replacing them with regular buses or trains. As someone living in a suburb, you can still get into the city, but you have to leave your car at the park & ride. There are no (private) cars in the city anymore. This looks a lot of the motivation for driving at all: the traffic will be brutal, and you still have to take transit from the periphery to your destination.
Your shitty suburb is still a shitty suburb, but the lion's share of car use is now gone.
Next you start designating areas of these towns car-free and requiring drivers (including residents!) to leave their cars at the periphery. Transit, cabs, bikes, e-mobility, delivery trucks, etc. are all permitted, but no private cars. Routes in and out of this zone should also prioritise transit.
As density improves, you scale out the car-free zones and close /repurpose the Walmarts.
Combine the above with high carbon taxes that you in turn use to subsidise transit/e-bikes and rebate poorer people, and you have a reasonable system for a transition.
If you're the kind of person who needs a car, you can always walk/transit out of the car-free zone and leave town, or even live on the outskirts. The key is that this should be appropriately priced and your car stops where the people start.
Of course, a well designed city has no need for transit. Everything is available in walking distance.
Yeah, yeah, I know, your friend lives an hour's drive clear the other side of the city and you don't have the personality to make new friends in your neighbourhood. That's fine, but that kind of activity alone would not bring enough ridership to support a transit system. Transit only works when a lot of people are all trying to get around, which wouldn't happen as 99% of life would take place within walking distance. A lot of people trying to get around is the outcome of poor land use, zoning, and density.
Fair that transit is a pretty nice bandaid if you don't want to fix the actual problems, though.
I don't think this is what he's talking about. It's not about a city where everything is in walking distance, is a city where 90% of the people live in suburbia, where nothing is in walking distance, but everybody is so far apart that no bus can service anything at any decent level of convenience, let alone cost.
Public transit doesn't work when the population density of your city outside of downtown is more comparable to Yellowknife than Toronto.
Yes, that's right, he's saying our city planning is poorly done. And he's correct. A city should allow you to live out your entire life within walking distance and our cities do not. After all, that's the whole reason why would you want to live close to other people. If you wanted to have to have to get into a vehicle every time you do something, why not live out in the forest in the middle of nowhere?
Suburbia is rural living for those too poor to live in an actual rural area, but he's saying that cities should abandon the rural lifestyle entirely and embrace being cities β but misses that actual cities don't need transit because actual cities are, despite recognizing the need for densification, dense enough to not need them.
Having tractors to pull people around is a reasonable bandaid to deal with the cuts of cities wishing its inhabitants were farmers, but why would you want a city like that in the first place? If we are going to actively fix the problems of our poorly designed cities, as the other commenter suggested we should, then why not fix it right?
I think you have a rather extremist view of walkability. Most people would rather partake in various businesses throughout town, meet up with friends and family, and maybe even travel between cities for work/leisure than stay within their small bubble of their own neighbourhood. Yes the average person should be able to walk to the majority of their needs but I just don't see a functional city without transit.
Is everyone supposed to live walking distance to their hospital/medical centers? Are people expected to abandon their families when they move across town/to a different city? Are people with disabilities that make walking/active transport difficult just expected to not go anywhere? I think transit fills a very important role in cities, I highly doubt cities can eliminate people's need/desire to travel, they can influence how they travel.
If the answer is no, why take up valuable urban real estate for hospitals in the first place? Why not stick them on country back roads? Transit can get the people there. If you have transit, it is not clear what you need cities for.
Thing is, Canada used to have transit lines between every little nook and cranny when the vast majority of the population lived in rural areas. Exactly what is being asked for. We eventually ripped it up because Canadians indicated that they didn't want to live rurally, they wanted to live in urban centres where they can walk everywhere, negating the need for those transit systems.
But now they want to go back. What's brought on this desire to live rurally again?
Sure, I guess. I expect you will find that they do. Jetting off to lunch with your friend who moved to Tokyo will never be practical, save some fundamental shift in how we understand space-time.
Why can't they use the tools that they already use to get around? If they don't even have that, transit isn't going to help. Transit will never stop in their bedroom.
I think there are some bad arguments here. Hospitals outside of the city would increase travel times and reduce accessibility to healthcare. Suddenly comparing driving a few cities over to going across the world to Tokyo is an unrealistic comparison. Claiming that transit cannot benefit the disabled is incredibily rude. It may be fine to travel short distances but longer distances could cause discomfort or pain, no one is expecting their transit to take them to their bedroom but being able to bring grocceries home on transit, rest on a bus seat, or give sore joints a break from walking can be quite valuable to those who need it, disabled or not.
You're responding to a troll.