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The majority of people in my Municipality don't need to take a car. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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And it's infuriating that we are planning highly disruptive and expensive road widening projects, when investments in public transportation and active transportation could remove the "need" to widen roads!

Car-centric infrastructure is not sustainable, and every time I hear people moan and bitch about taxes, they should know that it's largely due to runaway road work and maintenance costs!

NOTE: the far left lable on the bottom chart is "less than 15 minutes." Factor in several minutes for stop signs and red lights, WHY THE HELL DRIVE AT ALL? 😡

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[-] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Streets are destinations and should be design as such. They are low speed 20-40kpm with many places for pedestrians to cross and walk, there are driveways and intersections. Homes and businesses face streets. Street parking is common. Streets are "multi-use" for all modes of transportation, this includes walking and cycling. In some cases access for vehicles is restricted to pedestrians only use, or a mix of public transportation and pedestrian walking/cycling traffic. Lanes of traffic should not exceed two lanes.

Images of streets 1000029408

1000029409

Roads are throughways and should be designed as such. They have a higher speed between 50-80kpm with reduced conflict zones between vehicles traffic and pedestrian traffic. Roads don't have driveways. Signalized intersections are not used, roundabouts and on/off ramps are preferred. Homes and businesses do not face roads, there is no street parking on roads. Roads generally have center mediums such as grass or curbs to decrease left turn conflict zones. Lanes of traffic should not exceed three lanes. Roads act as a slower speed hwy without the "over engineering " that a hwy and its travel speeds require.

Images of roads: 1000029407

Proper roadway design should mean a decreased need of signalized intersections in city and surrounding neighborhoods. This has a benefit of decrease costs for municipalities as signalized intersections are cost intensive to build and maintain. It also means properly designed city streets become more enjoyable to walk and experience in person.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

kpm = ? Did you mean kph?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

kph? Did you mean km/h?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Good catch, kph

Kilometers per minute would be fast!

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

VVRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

They've gone to plaid

1000029588

[-] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

WHY THE HELL DRIVE AT ALL? 😡

Becuase we make the transition experience for everyone outside a car shitty as fuck in Canada.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

We need to be more like Montreal. 💁‍♂️

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I bought an ebike. In the first week, I had 3 people try to take it from me while I was on it. I can't go shopping, or take it anywhere where I would have to leave it alone. The cops don't give a fuck, the city doesn't give a fuck. I'm going back to a car.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

May I ask what city? We have a trail in Oshawa that is frequented by homeless and drug addicts, and a few times I've been run at by one person in particular ( this guy also made attempts to stop my son and a friend of his in separate incidents, and they're in their 20s), and also a few small groups have purposely blocked the trail as I approached.

They never got me, but I swore if it ever happened again, I would get one of those retractable batons.

The unfortunate thing is that this trail is a major connection between the waterfront and the city, and there really aren't any other safe ways around it unless I want to contend with high-speed traffic.

So I can certainly empathize, it really is a shame that it came down to that for you. I would suggest still using it, perhaps not in that same area, but to do errands or other recreational rides, just to get more comfortable. Some people suck, but don't let that spoil a good thing.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Wow, where was that?

[-] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

What the fuck? I live in a place where you can't leave them out, but you got bike-jacked thrice?

I got insurance on mine, $25 a year covers both theft/damage and liability. As compared to about $3,000 for a car. At work I can park it inside the building but I've used it for shopping plenty, oddly enough there are bike racks at grocery stores here. Locked for a short time. If weather is dry I also pop out the battery and take it into the store.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

but you got bike-jacked thrice?

Like I said, that was just the first week, I've lost count of how many attempts.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Montreal is far, FAR from good public transit. As soon as you’re outside of the core central area of the city, a 20 minute drive turns to a 1 or 1.5 hour trip. It takes me 8 minutes to drive to work, 12 to bike, and 30 to take the bus.

Even if you’re in the city, certain routes take 45 minutes via the subway instead of just 20 by car (parking is still a nightmare though.)

I’ve only ever taken public transit in Montreal, Toronto, New York City, and Paris. Paris is pretty damn decent, and I didn’t have any incidents in Toronto. NYC was pretty confusing sometimes. Montreal is absolutely abysmal though compared to the other 3.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, you’d much rather hear from people who live these other cities.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Ding ding ding! Montreal is the closest to true European city design.

Montreal actually has proper street vs road differentiation where they don't actually try and turn everything into a strode.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

It's not just the left bar but also the entitlement of the others. Recently we had a reduction of parking spots at our workplace. The remaining ones are no longer free but cost a hefty price.

One of my coworkers send an email to all employees with a long rant about this. He said if they'd do this he'd be forced to ride to work on his horse. So this guy has a big ranch outside the city with horses simply as his hobby and he's upset about having to pay for the space his truck is taking because he considers all of those things his right.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Our downtown has on-street parking, making what should be a pedestrian friendly city centre look like a highway with shops.

But what kills me is that we have empty parking lots and a few parking garages that would easily put you with a short walk of your destination, but nobody uses them.

And then around the winter holidays those on-street parking spots are free to use.

What a massive disappointment.

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
86 points (97.8% liked)

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