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by jwilbs
2777 days ago
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As someone from San Diego I find it insane that you think the city is “tending toward car-free living.” Even in 5-10 years when the trolley maybe hits the beach, how would you get to north county?. What if you’re in north park and you work in spring valley? How is San Diego tending toward making that more available? I wish I could offer a more constructive response but it’s honestly very surprising to me that someone would ever make that claim. |
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The daily traffic through Downtown and Mission Valley, North 15, South 163, North 125, East 94, etc, then flipping directions later, is all the truly insane thing.
I don't think we "need" transit that anticipates bad choices of where to live relative to work, and Downtown is part of the World more than the Region. The world is changing this way. People used to live near rivers for water, and near animals for food, etc. Still applies if you can't work remotely.
Working remotely, living a more master-planned life, ride-sharing, etc... these are all options. But instead people prioritize this idea of me the individual in my individual car ought to be able to individually drive with all the other individual drivers wherever I want, and I disagree that is a design priority for a civil infrastructure.
So no, San Diego isn't making that more possible, and I applaud that. But when it comes to the original post and questions posed, it's still safe to say San Diego is tending toward car-free, especially Downtown, if you don't maintain backward compatibility with inappropriate circumstances like what you described. I've heard people say they commute to Point Loma from Descanso and we have a word for that: masochism.
Everyone commuting at all is a choice. The best case I can hear for not being car-free is the delivery business, contractors, etc... people who _actually need_ to be that kind of atypical. But to expect the civil infrastructure to give you the option to all rush certain areas at the same time every day, anywhere on the grid, is a bit old.
As far as getting to the beach, that's definitely an option depending on which beach obviously, but again, this isn't an amusement park so I'm not expecting the government to take me where I want to go, and I do have a car, largely for just driving at night all around the county, or for transporting animals, or making some of the trips you mention -- just never commute. And this is the type of thing San Diego has caused me to question. In the future if I wanted to just drive around, I might consider just using a ride-share rental vs. ride-share driver, etc. I never said public transportation itself was the answer, and to be car-free tending is within that definition: still planning to pay what you cost, not needing a huge system to accommodate me and do massive public works projects. I'd rather there be less of that honestly.