[hikawaii]

Yeah I live in a place where the walkscore is like 30, and am able to get more places I need to go via walking than when I lived in downtown Seattle.

They're even adding a bike and walk link to the carmall on the outskirts of town, connecting it with the rest of the city on a traffic separated trail.

Meanwhile, in Seattle it was 2 miles to get to the grocery store and took all day while dealing with city car traffic.

The problem isn't "car centric" design, the problem is that nobody is designing anything at all.

[reaperducer]

I live in a place where the walkscore is like 30

Walkscore isn't a realistic measure of anything.

I once lived in a place with a Walkscore of 80+. Looking at the details of the score, it was largely because Walkscore counts pornography shops as bookstores.

Along those lines, I imagine Walkscore also counts peep shows as movie theaters, and strip clubs as general family entertainment centers.

Meanwhile, in Seattle it was 2 miles to get to the grocery store and took all day while dealing with city car traffic.

When I lived in Seattle, I didn't even own a car. I could get everywhere I need to on a bus, or train, or walking. Perhaps you have a different definition of "downtown" than where I lived. If you were two miles away from the Whole Foods on Westlake, then you weren't downtown.

[dghlsakjg]

Haha. I had the same reaction. What Seattle were they living in? I suppose parts of north Seattle can kind of be like that.

My experience living in Seattle was that it was hard to live in a place where there wasn't a small commercial district within a few blocks. Seattle does wonderfully with mixing small commercial into residential zones.

[hikawaii]

I put my car in storage, it was doable but it wouldn't have been without uber, going anywhere via transit would've involved at least one twenty minute transfer.

I mostly just hoofed it everywhere, but it did limit my access substantially.

Meanwhile, unless it's very cold or I'm going to a different city I have much less of a need for a car in my more rural locale.

[reaperducer]

I put my car in storage, it was doable but it wouldn't have been without uber

Why not? I lived in Seattle for years without a car, before Uber was even invented. Get an Orca card, and a ZipCar subscription for once-a-month trips. Problem solved.

[hikawaii]

Having to take any transfer at all adds fifteen minutes to a trip, scheduling issues and a life pattern that routinely had me in Fremont, Bellevue, etc.

Went to SoDo a fair bit and that was always an extreme chore despite the short distance.

Walking .8 to whole foods and back with a weeks worth of groceries wasn't unlivable or anything, but I had to pay 50% more for food to even get that close.

Today, I walk like a quarter mile for groceries basically whenever I'd like and don't have to deal with city traffic.

The point is not Seattle bad or transit bad, the point is that despite a design with many more "car centric" elements, I have an easier time walking and biking here than I did there - so you can't lay all urban problems at the feet of cars and assume that pro density urbanism magically fixes them.

[mypalmike]

There is no place in downtown Seattle where the closest grocery store is 2 miles away. I think you'd have trouble finding a place anywhere within the city limits where that was the case.

[hikawaii]

I was exagerrating a bit, it was like 1.5, and no the corner store doesn't count.