this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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The pedestrian-friendly cities I know often allow vans and trucks to resupply stores on the walking streets, even if normal traffic is disallowed. They’re also encouraged to deliver in the morning.
Trying to point the issue to disabilities is often extremely counter-intuitive; it’s often hard for disabled people to use a car for everything (picture wheelchair transfers every time), as well as walking across huge parking lots or inside megastores. It’s often far better if they can just make it to a small store directly without excessive worry about high-traffic crosswalks. Public transit is often wheelchair accessible by default.
The mindset of completely banning cars is not one I’ve joined up with; as you say, contractors or the slim minority of workers transporting heavy goods should likely still be using cars. But that experience of driving is often terrible when every single person (on their own with no heavy cargo) is using a car for every trip.
OK, but what would be the alternative? Especially for those living outside and entering the city either for work of for shopping?
When I was young, I went basically everywhere by bike, as I neither has a car, nor could I afford public transport (which would have cost me about 60% of available money). So I went to work and back on my bike (15km each way), and then to university and back in the evening (another 20km each way). Well, that was when I was young. Nowadays, this is no longer an option.
I don't expect people to commute 20+km a day by bike. A safe bike garage at a P+R place would be nice and reduce at least part of the way by bike, but it does not exist. And public transport, well, at this P+R, there are good connections into the cities, but they have a low frequency and take quite some time, apart from costing a shitload of money for what they offer.
Putting aside that I’ve seen some relatively old people continue to stay healthy on bikes (often as leisure, not utility), generally the hope would be that public transit would cover the needs for longer distances. As you said, many current forms are pretty bad, but that’s because our money is spent (that is KEY - we SPEND the money either way!!) on road maintenance and new parking garages, and of course individually on car maintenance.
We also have these long distances to cover to stores in part because of the big wide roads and parking lots that elongate our trips. As it turns out, civic centers don’t have to be so spread out.
I’d also expect most people not to need to go into the city for all forms of shopping. If you just need groceries for the week, but your town has nothing to offer in walking distance, it almost sounds like there’s a business begging to be built there, even if it’s a two-room local affair.
When I go to the city for shopping or attending a meeting, it is maybe once per month. I'm not stupid enough to do everyday shopping in the city when I have five supermarkets within 10 minutes walking distance. No, when I go to the city, it is usually to visit a few selected highly specialized shops that can only survive in an urban center with an appropriate environment. And I go there to see, touch, feel the goods I purchase in contrast to those who buy online and return every other piece because it either does not fit or whatever. Saves me a lot time, and protects the environment, as less returns are needlessly destroyed.
With our next city, well... spending money on road maintenance basically does not happen. They only repair what would otherwise fall apart, and this only adds to the chaos in this city. And as I said, money to properly reconfigure the city to make it bike friendly is simply not there.
While this sounds a good idea at first, literally tens of thousands of shops of this kind have died in my country in the last years, because there is simply no money to be made. There are a few shops that are run by local groups of volunteers because such a shop would not make enough money to survive otherwise.
My bicycle commute is 22km each way, and after riding for a few weeks, I was up for riding that plus a loop around the local lake (with a friend), then back home all on a Saturday, after doing that commute every day of the week before
Now e-bikes exist that's even achievable by quite unfit people