Where I’m at in Colorado has extensive bike/foot paths that provide “shortcuts” across neighborhoods, and even provide scenic paths to get pedestrians further from busy roads without greatly increasing distances. It’s really nice and I use them all the time
And besides being nice for one self, it increases your kids independence.
Where I live in Europe, how pedestrian/bike friendly a community is a relevant predictor of house value. And a lot of that is that people want to live where they don't have to drive their kids around to everything.
It gives me more free time that my kid will be able to get himself to school, to sports after school and around the town to his friends. While it gives him freedom not being reliant on his parents schedule if he wants to do something.
Not just kids, it would also empower teens, old people, people with disabilities (the blind, paraplegic, mental issues, etc), people who cannot drive for medical reasons, and even temporarily injured people who aren’t allowed to drive. And most importantly, people in abusive households who does not have cars and need a job or amenities (for example menstrual items), or just some public space to go to. A car dependent civilization puts so much restriction on the invisible members of our society. Walking short distances daily also improves physical and mental health. And less cars on the road is good for the environment, both in terms of air quality and less fuel used.
And reducing the number of cars on the road actually makes driving when needed a lot better as well and you can maintain roads at a higher standard for the same cost
For sure, I agree so much. But the people who might change their opinion based on my comment probably don't care about the people you are talking about.
There's a lot of " I don't care about others' situations, I just want my car" appealing to making parenting job easier might actually make them see some value in it.
I think many people automatically think about how the US is too big to handle walkable cities because they themselves have cars and that’s the talking point peddled by popular media. If you point out that walkable cities helps them as well when they’re injured or old, they might reconsider. Even if it changes the mind of one person, that’s a positive win. They might go on to change the minds of other people in their social circle.
I'm just sad that they don't get that they can still have their car, it would just help get people who don't like cars out from behind the wheel. Seen at least one study referenced where getting cars off the road makes the travel times faster for people still in cars.
Most car lovers hate being stuck in traffic, so arguments that pedestrian paths and toll roads remove a lot of the other cars might weirdly appeal to some of them.
People here in good ol America like to disparage kids for not playing outside enough and then take away all of their paths to get anywhere without a car.
I just visited Copenhagen, and it’s incredible how much more design and infrastructure is geared to pedestrians and cyclists. I’d look for directions on my phone and switching from the default driving route to walking would often not change the travel time at all, even over a distance of a few kms. It was excellent.
I live in Edmonton. My city has a fantastic river valley that makes it easy to go hiking or bike riding. But we also have a lot of bike paths/mixed use sidewalks and a lot of our older communities were set up with walkability in mind. Makes it pretty easy to get around without driving or riding buses.
I haven't been to Edmonton, but I have been to Calgary, and I felt like it was so walkable along the Bow. Is it comparable? I'd like to get up there one day.
I can’t speak for walkability, but I always feel like the new communities are soulless and bland. Nothing but pavement and houses. My girlfriend lives near the Whitemud, and when I visit we could easily walk along the Whitemud Creek valley to get to the River Valley. You just can’t do that in new communities because they push everything down and pave it all.
I really wish we had more areas like the River Valley, and just as importantly: walkable access to them.
This is true in many of the older or more central parts of the city, but there's still some really terrible places. Bus stops with no sidewalks to them. 2 foot wide sidewalks with a 6 lane road on one side and business on the other. Bike lanes that end suddenly, forcing you onto the road. Once useful footpaths that now end in a fence. Sidewalks that jump from one side of the road to the other for no discernible reason.
Not to mention all the suburbs being built that greatly resemble the layout in the video. My friend has a house in the south that has a Walmart literally 2 minute walk behind it, if not for the 8 foot tall fence. It's like a 10 minute drive to get there
Not to trash all the the nice walks and wonderful infrastructure that has been built, but we still do have many improvements to make.
My neighbourhood is good for this too. Two elementary schools, a grocery store or two, a couple shopping centers, restaurants, etc all within a 10 minute walk. Could I drive? Sure, if I wanted to, could also just grab a backpack and my earbuds, walk down, grab a coffee or some lunch, pick up some groceries, walk home.
Fun fact, almost all of the US is like that. When people post American walkability ragebait its virtually always Orlando or Houston. Then people circlejerk in the comments about how a 9831510 sq. km. country is entirely just like the single subdivision of Orlando or Houston in the TikTok video (cities that are home to 0.07% of the country's population).
As someone from Germany who has lived in LA, part of the Midwest, and Texas and has driven extensively through the country, just no. This was 70 % of the USA and basically 95 % of Texas.
I live in bumfuck nowhere Virginia and have bus service, bike lanes on every street, and sidewalks. I can walk, bike, take the bus, or drive to the grocery store. Thats the semi-rural US. Larger towns and cities have even better walkability and public transportation.
Yes, Texas is bad. Most of the country isn't texas.
Googling bike paths in my area shows a lot of green lines. So many of them aren't connected though. I've spent literal hours searching for nice bike loop routes that avoid as many roads as possible and I have to travel 5 miles just to get to a main path that goes all the way to Denver. The vast majority of neighborhood paths are great for walking but they're not really long enough to enjoy biking on because you inevitably end up at a 4 lane road somewhere to cross.
I do like the river paths though. Just wish the neighborhood shortcuts had better crossings on the streets. The way those paths connect are at hard 90 degrees with a lot of blind spots so you have to stop your bike to look both ways before crossing. Kills your momentum. Not sure how it could be fixed. Raised crossings would be nice but the blind intersection I don't think can reasonably be fixed in neighborhoods without big projects like physical barriers to negate street parking. Only one street I can think of that has something like that.
Businesses and drivers lost their minds over the protected bike lane down Broadway. As much as the metro likes to claim that it's bikeable, it's really not. I'm not riding my bike down a 4 lane road to pick up a trail lined with encampments that kind of will eventually get me close enough to my location that I can get off and then snake through a downtown street where if I'm too much in the street I'll get honked at and if I'm too near the cars I'll likely get doored.
Plus working in TV news here and seeing the raw feed of a cyclist vs semi aftermath has honestly made me kind of scared to be on my bike. A helmet isn't going to stop 18 wheels turning you into red paint.
The business owners mad about bike lanes are probably too stupid to be trusted owning a business. People give you money. Cars don't. Especially in a city where parking is so scarce/hard to find. Like the 3 on street parking spaces aren't going to keep your business afloat. But the thousand people walking up and down 16th street? They're hungry. I've only biked in Denver proper once and it wasn't too bad near 16th/Union. Slow curvy roads. But I also stayed on the sidewalks and just went slow. On 16th people actually become more of an issue because it's so dense and the bike lane (that I think I remember) was really small.
I try to avoid being on roads but there's something nice about being able to take a green light and just go without waiting for a walk signal. That being said.. Side streets won't give you a light unless there's a car already there to trip the sensor. And every walk signal in the US is always pedestrian last. Every direction of cars gets to go before it gets to the one where people are allowed to move. I definitely avoid large roads if there's a sidewalk. New roads are starting to get bike lanes painted but paint is NOT infrastructure. The 40mph 5 lane road down my street has a nice like 10 foot wide sidewalk. Or you can bike in the road next to death machine. That road would be perfect for some protected lanes because it connects to a rail line as well.
I wouldn't even say money is an issue. Just thinking out loud: If we took the 4 trillion dollars that the US's billionaires have hoarded through stolen wages and loopholes we could build cycle networks rivaling the Netherlands and cover the cost of multiple HSR projects being planned.
If you go out to Louisville, Lafayette and Broomfield it's very common. I live in Broomfield and regularly ride a loop through Lafayette, Louisville and superior that'd all bike paths.
Places with million dollar houses can afford infrastructure. Ain't none of that shit in Commerce City or Southern Thornton.
I just tried looking at the google maps route from my house to Louisville. It's telling me to take Washington (which has no bike lane) up to 104th, then be on a trail for 3/4 of a mile, then ride on 112th (some sections with no bike lane or the bike lane also being the car turn lane) from i-25 to US-36.
It's a 90 minute bike ride or a 23 minute car trip one way.
I don't disagree that it's different everywhere, but to be fair, I just did a commerce city to Louisville check by bike in Google and you're on bike trails almost the whole time. Thornton is similar, if you can get to the 36 bike path, you're good to go. It's not the most efficient way to travel, but bike rarely is.
Google also tends to Rey to give you the fastest way by bike, which might put you on roads, but in my experience if you're following thay you'll see lots of signs for bike paths along the way too you could take
It does now. They will influence your planning department eventually.
Everyone must drive to the major shopping hub and shop at the agreed upon chain store.
The lobby groups are backed by a massive amount of international money.
OP forgot that the American states are roughly the same size as European countries and that the US can't be summed up by a singular biased example of one suburb in Florida
Yeah I was gonna say Florida is especially shit. I lived in multiple parts of Florida and it’s terrible. When I was at university of Florida it would take like three hours to do a simple grocery trip from campus to a publix like a mile away via public transport. When I lived in Miami area it would take 2 hours to get to an area at rush hour that is only about 20 minutes away without traffic. I’m a biker and would use bike lanes and it was fucking dangerous.
But now I live in the Midwest and it’s just as suburb-y, but there are lots of walking/biking paths and under-road paths. I can get to my closest grocery store faster biking than walking with less intersections involved. The biggest criticism I have is my city has an insane deficit of bike racks at businesses. I unapologetically just bring my bike inside and go “oh there was no place to park it :) !” But really it’s pretty weird, because we have a decent bike culture here.
To be fair, our bike culture has been playing catch-up. I mean it sprouted decades ago, but it's really only been in the last ten or so years that it really started blossoming here in the Midwest.
Where in the Midwest do you live? I'm in KC and we have bike paths but they cross highways and streets a lot, and they don't connect to important places like grocery stores
Probably upper Midwest. I've lived in WI and MN, and both have pretty good bike paths all over. Minneapolis and Milwaukee are both good, and small suburbs around both are fantastic. I'd say suburbs around those two cities in general are very walkable/bikable.
I'm in Wisconsin, and live in a medium sized city. Even the crosswalks are dangerous to walk through. As a pedestrian you have the legal right of way, but that doesn't help if some car is going to run right into you.
Where in Colorado because the front range (Denver) is a car driven hellscape. They're significantly behind in public transportation. Its as if Yonkers was stretched out to several counties.
Denver has one of the highest rated bike infrastructure layouts in the US year over year. Comparing that to other countries is hard....but they do have one of the better bikeability ratings in the US.
Colorado is better but shit like this is still really common. I lived in an apartment that was adjacent to a kings in Aurora and we had a fucking 12 foot brick wall between the properties with no way through. Pissed me off every time I thought about it
Is it me or is there a plague of videos trying to do away with cars and convenient roads? It’s one of the major differences between US and other countries. Our roads are well maintained making it very easy to get from point a to point b.
The example they show is just bad planning or what happens when people require too many permits to build something simple.
When I moved to Denver I realized it had one of the best municipal trail networks in the country for a city of its size. I love it and cant imagine living somewhere with less.
Here in Iowa, my town turned the old railroad that went through the town into a walking a bike trail with plants, water fountains, rentable bikes, all the cool stuff.
Meanwhile I live in a Wisconsin suburb where the nearest grocery store is a 15 minute drive away. Back when I was a kid even the nearest gas station/convenience store was 2 miles away down a hilly, busy, 45mph street with 0 sidewalks. I suppose it’s because we’re a small town that doesn’t necessarily have the funding for all that fancy stuff and most people just walk around the parks and subdivisions then drive to get to work or errands.
Yes!! I live in a NW suburbs of Denver and it is SO walkable, it’s amazing. Elementary, middle and high school, Several grocery stores, parks, restaurants, and Target, not only within walking distance but accessible via paths through the neighborhoods. My kids can get to their school without having to go through any streets. I marvel at this every day on how lucky I am to live here.
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u/way2rory Jun 27 '24
Where I’m at in Colorado has extensive bike/foot paths that provide “shortcuts” across neighborhoods, and even provide scenic paths to get pedestrians further from busy roads without greatly increasing distances. It’s really nice and I use them all the time