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It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars (arstechnica.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 22 points 3 years ago (3 children)

It's time for Americans to embrace bicycles and ebikes and, gasp, walking

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  • [–] -1 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Never gonna happen. Where I live, it's not safe for my daughter to walk the 1/2 mile to school. To make it safe, we would need to install sidewalks throughout town. That's millions of dollars that less than 100 children non-taxpayers would use. And since the school is in the middle of a residential neighborhood, there's not really any other use of the sidewalks either...

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    And since the school is in the middle of a residential neighborhood, there’s not really any other use of the sidewalks either…

    As a European, this statement sounds completely insane. I honestly can not comprehend how a nation got to the point of saying "we don't need to be able to walk somewhere from our house so lets not bother building sidewalks".

    You and your daughter should cycle to school though. If she's not old enough to go on her own bike, take her with a trailer bike. If she's too young for that then a child seat, and when she's old enough she can cycle on her own.

    The idea of using a car to go 900m is just crazy to us.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    It's crazy to us too! Unfortunately, we don't have much say in the matter. That said, plenty of kids do still walk to school, and many do have sidewalks, although they're far from universal. The thing is that without the sidewalks you can more easily achieve:

    1. Speed capture traffic cameras around school zones (nobody aside from the below likes these)
    2. Contractor to manage the traffic camera
    3. Kickbacks for the politicians to install the camera
    4. Fines to pay the cop budget
    5. Accidents to justify the above
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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    No

    Redesign the roads. If you build every road like it's a highway it's obvious that everybody drives insame, can you blame them? Make the roads narrower, people will automatically drove slower.

    I can't fathom why they don't make school crossings on small increases in height. Not a traffic bump, just move a piece of 20 meters / yards long up by 25cm / 10 inches with a nice slope to get on and off. If you drove normal you barely notice it. If you drive fast, you'll go flying.

    US road engineering literally is decades behind other countries, you still build roads like it's 1960, and you build horrible stroads.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    What you're saying is completely backwards.

    If you install sidewalks, people will use it. Right now nobody walks because they can't. Install sidewalks and they will. Ensure there are places to go, so redesign your cities so that you have mixed use buildings. If you have small stores and bars and restaurants right around the corner, you'll walk.

    In a residential area there are LOADS of uses for sidewalks. It's just that the car industry has programmed Americans to think their legs can't be used for anything. I love European cities, especially the Netherlands because you can safely walk and cycle anywhere. People don't want to own cars, why would they? Everything they need is around the corner, and if they need to go far away there is awesome public transportation that is better, safer, faster cheaper and more comfortable than cars.

    To me you sound like somebody who doesn't know what he's missing out on because you've basically been lied to.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    The last time they installed sidewalks, they were installed between a Target that you can't get to unless you drive, and a commercial area that's about a mile away. I'm not sure what the percentage of people who are going to walk from work to target on their lunch break is, but that's what they did.

    The other sidewalk that they tried to put in, was in front of the township building. Which is between to a horse farm and a forest. I get the "if you build it they will come" mentality, but I don't think it applies for trees and horses.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Yeah that's just designed to fail. If you design a shitshow and then say "well let's not do this again because it failed" then you're just being disingenuous. Governments should take a hint from the Netherlands on hoe to do bicycle infrastructure. You can ride anywhere in the country on bike, there are more bicycle roads than car roads

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Yeah that's just designed to fail. If you design a shitshow and then say "well let's not do this again because it failed" then you're just being disingenuous. Governments should take a hint from the Netherlands on hoe to do bicycle infrastructure. You can ride anywhere in the country on bike, there are more bicycle roads than car roads

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    First of all, either walking near the school is unsafe or the school in the middle of a residential neighborhood. You don't get to have it both ways!

    Second, the idea that sidewalks are too expensive is obviously horseshit, considering that the alternative is widening the roads and they can somehow always find the much larger amount of money for that.

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  • [–] -1 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Ebikes are a bigger fucking hazard than cars, I've seen fucking morons on those doing speeds that you should have to be licensed for and should need insurance for.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago*

    You are kidding, right? A 17 year old irresponsible kid on a heavy bike going 30kms/hour (say, 20mph) vs irresponsible 17 year old kid in two tonnes of murder metal going 160 / 100mph, what's more dangerous?

    Ebikes can and should be limited to 25-30 (say 15-20mph) and anyone breaking that loses their bike. It's not a big problem.

    Cars are literally big problems

    Edit: bikes require, just like cars, good infrastructure. Build that and it's good

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