[degrews]

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here.

Here are some other examples of things that I think contribute to the hostile walking experience in the US:

* Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that.

* Cars have much higher and stronger headlights, with the high beams often left on, and drivers are generally much less mindful of them. As a pedestrian walking at night on under-lit streets, you are constantly getting blinded.

* Tinted windows (even the mild level of tint that most cars in the US have). The whole experience of being a lone vulnerable pedestrian among a sea of cars is made even worse when you can't see the people in the cars (but you know they can see you).

* Often the only option to get food late at night are fast food places, which become drive-thru only after a certain time. Having to go through the drive-thru on foot is obviously a terrible experience, and they will often refuse to even serve you.

[tvaughan]

> I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here.

Same. I’ve lived in Los Ángeles and Amsterdam, and it is impossible to explain to my friends and family just how awful the quality of life is in LA precisely because of the difference in attitudes and priorities over cars. Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam, but once they leave their front door everything is objectively worse

[grecy]

Every time a politician anywhere in the world suggests adding more freeways or more lanes to freeways, I think they should be forced to live in LA for a year and do a ~1 hour commute each way in traffic.

They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.

[fnimick]

I had a conversation recently with someone lamenting that we didn't have roads like LA here in Boston. Saying their ideal road was 3 lanes, plus a bike lane, plus a bus lane in each direction. Imagine being a pedestrian trying to cross that!

I really don't understand someone who looks at that traffic disaster and wants to build the same thing here at home.

[kevin_thibedeau]

They're a car-centric person who wants the "nuisance" of bikes and busses out of their way while still pretending to have progressive values. People who only drive from garage to shopping center and back, never having to experience the dehumanizing impact of 6+ lanes affecting other transport modes.

[Gibbon1]

I feel like the more modes of transportation you mix together the worse the cognitive load on people. And it get rapidly worse the higher the density.

Inside of a mall where there are only pedestrians is very safe. Freeways are fairly safe. Protected bike lanes are safe. Light rail is safe.

Mix all of those on a strode, rail, buses, trucks, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, not safe.

[axpy]

This seems pretty counter intuitive but this is often the other way around. The safest streets in Europe are where cars, bikes and pedestrian mix together. It force focus on the driving task instead of doing something else. If you are interested, Freakonomics have an episode: "Why the U.S. so good at killing pedestrian". It's an interesting discussion with no simple answer.

[Karrot_Kream]

It's because US streets are designed much wider than equivalent European streets. US design standards have wider LOS than Europe so they design for faster vehicle travel and higher throughput, which puts pressure on slower modes. This comes at a financial costs (better pavement, wider roads) but the US gladly pays a fortune for roads.

[underdeserver]

As an equal-parts driver, biker, e-scooter rider and pedestrian, this is horrible. Yes, you have to focus on the driving, or walking, or scooting, but you're in constant stress because you can accidentally hit someone coming from any direction. Or they can hit you.

It's far better to have separate spaces, and cross only when you really have to.

[PaulHoule]

I'd consider Amsterdam, where many kinds of transportation are carefully weaved together

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Schiphol+Amsterdam+Airport...

In that area you will find highways, surface streets, bike paths, pedestrian walkways, trams, commuter trains and other kinds of transportation in a way that comes across as elegant, at least to me.

[kaibee]

I think they still keep them as fairly separate networks, even if they highly overlayed and so have many intersections.

[atchoo]

> the worse the cognitive load

Or maybe better the cognitive load? There are various studies that show removing white lines and navigation furniture to make junctions more of a puzzle, decreases speeds and increases attention and safety.

[DANmode]

> strode

Stroad.

[crooked-v]

That's someone who's never actually had to drive in LA traffic. I only had to visit once for the experience of 3 straight hours of gridlock traffic just to get across the city to be seared into my brain.

[Slow_Hand]

I’ve lived in LA for five years now and lived in Boston for seven years prior. They’re both uniquely terrible.

LA’s roads are easy to imagine because it’s synonymous with huge interstates, congestion, and long commutes.

Boston is terrible because it’s layout makes zero intuitive sense and looks like spaghetti when viewed from the sky. Of course Boston predates the automobile, so I understand why.

I do enjoy the prevalence of bike culture in Boston. It’s just the right size to pedal most places and there are fairly good accomodations for cycling, like bike lanes.

But hey, at least I don’t live in Philadelphia. By far the worst driving experience each time I visit. :)

[kaashif]

> Of course Boston predates the automobile, so I understand why.

New York City's grid plan far predates the automobile: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners%27_Plan_of_181...

Grids are sometimes but not always caused by cities being designed for cars.

[armandhammer]

It's the opposite, no? Cities / suburbs that were built after 1950 often don't have a grid system.

[brailsafe]

I think this is exactly what Seattle is building at it's already awful waterfront

[hombre_fatal]

Austin too.

https://twitter.com/kelseyhuse30/status/1684337210760241152

[Slow_Hand]

Funnily I live in LA and have a one-hour commute each way. But I drive a Vespa and am therefore limited to taking the side streets.

I don’t mind it all that much, aside from the distance. One thing that helps is that motor bikes are permitted to split lanes and thus I can flow through congested traffic quite easily. It’s quite fun and I find that it allows me to enter a flow state more readily and it takes some of the edge off of the whole traffic experience because I get to keep moving.

[PaulHoule]

Try Massachusetts. You drive just as far, there are hardly any businesses to patronize on your commute (except for maybe two Dunkin Donuts), sometimes traffic is going 95 mph at 1am in the morning on Rt 128 in heavy rain, and it snows.

[systems_glitch]

Out in route 128, down by the power lines.

[Karrot_Kream]

The reason LA doesn't have bike lanes is that LA City Councilmembers have fought back bike lanes for years. It's zero sum thinking. The Councilmembers think that making driving worse for cyclists hurts the dominant mode so hurts the most people, even though many of the arterials in LA just cannot be expanded because of existing businesses, homes, and ROWs.

[Lammy]

Ironically the reason LA's freeway traffic is so bad is because so much of the system was left unfinished: https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-forgotten-freeways-20141...

[chrismcb]

I lived in a place for most of my life that refused to build freeways "because they didn't want to become like LA" meanwhile more people moved there, traffic got worse. Going "across town" about 15 miles was a burden. You hated to do it. I then moved to a town that had a few freeways and 15 miles away was considered close. The town I grew up in, finally built some cross town roads, and travel time improved. I think you can have too many freeways, but you can definitely have to few

[xmprt]

I think the problem with the town you grew up in is that they didn't build any good modes of transportation and not that they didn't build freeways. Sure freeways can fix the problem of people getting from point A to point B, but they're probably one of the worse ways to go about it. Street cars, bus rapid transit, metros, etc., are all better across the board even for the people who do want to drive because it allows non-drivers to get to point B without a car, thereby clearing up traffic for the drivers.

[chrismcb]

In a town that is very forward out, almost any form of public transportation is worse than cars. And while I agree that public transportation helps. My current turn has horrible transportation abs more freeways and it is far easier to get around in than my old town.

[escapedmoose]

I grew up in a similar place, which had too few freeways around it and navigating anywhere was a major headache. Now I live in a highly walkable town near a few freeways, and it’s much nicer; I can avoid driving altogether and walk/bike around town, or I can easily get to the nearby city by car. There’s a happy medium to be found.

[angmarsbane]

Austin?

[eredengrin]

I'd say split it half and half, 6 months LA to learn the pain of the wrong way, then 6 months in a place with proper transit like Amsterdam or Seoul, then they come back with a vision of what could be.

[PaulHoule]

LA is by no means the worst that America has to offer. At least within a 1 hour radius you have a staggering population and amount of commerce available. People visiting LA from "average" places in the U.S. will note that it's really dense, about as dense as the outer boroughs of New York City. If it's "sprawling" it is not because it is uneconomical in the use of space but because the whole area that is habitable is crammed with people.

In Southern New Hampshire people drive almost as far although there is hardly anything to drive to. The confluence of Route 101 and I-93 south of Manchester is as bad as anything you'll find in a city 100 times Manchester's size leaving the question of where the hell all these cars are coming from and where they are going.

(The answer is that the population is dispersed over a large area with a hierarchical road network that, as much as possible, wants to be like your lungs. Thus you always get stuck in traffic at several bottlenecks on your drive that you can't avoid.)

[jjav]

> Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam

The (insane) cost of housing in LA doesn't exactly lead to people having bigger houses (or often affording any house).

[rconti]

Gotta imagine the cost per square foot is significantly less in LA than Amsterdam. Obviously depends where in "LA".

[sershe]

Subjectively worse, not objectively worse. I think driving is much more convenient and nice for most things I like to do. The only exceptions I can think of are if I were a kid in a car-centric area (strangely, the thinking in the US is usually reversed, kids supposedly need to be in the burbs), or if I was drunk. I don't often get drunk, so I'd prefer to drive for everything from minor groceries to outdoor activities ~100% of the time.

[aesclepius]

Jesus it's objectively worse. NY/Chicago/London/Paris/Tokyo you can conceivably and easily nip out to a grocer's, bodega, cafe or pub within 10 minutes of where you are. LA? Outside of certain certain pockets like DTLA, KTown, WeHo or similar walking is tough and if your friend is across town you're SoL without a car.

[sershe]

But I don't want to! I literally just walked to the store and it was in absoute perfect conditions - we wanted to go for a walk anyway, the weather is perfect (sunny but not hot), the store is 10min walk from my house, the neighborhood is nice and not drive-thru so there is ~0 non-local traffic. The plan was we go for a walk, and pop by a store and get one item. But as usual it never ends up being that way, so we had one paper bag of items - 6 pack of beer, some cheese, box of blueberries, nothing very heavy.

I am pretty fit, like I deadlift 280lbs :) and still walking with this stupid bag ruined the whole walk back. And it wasn't even much - if I replaced beer with food it would be like, 2-3 days worth.

I would have rather just finished the walk, then drove 3mins to the same store. In the most perfect conditions imaginable, with minimal amount of groceries. And what if it was 100F, or 32F, or raining, or I didn't want to go for a walk, or I needed to get some large items like sugar or rice or a gallon of milk or a lot of beer for a party?

Walking to a store is simply not an advantage at all. And if you go to even a poor country you can see most people agree - as soon as they can they start driving to big box stores, and small local stores die.

And regardless, even if (which I wouldn't grant) the majority would prefer to walk rather than drive, it's still SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE. A ton of people prefer to drive.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

Not gonna lie, having a 10 minute walk ruined by carrying a bag home sounds like you maybe need to deadlift less and cardio more or something. Or maybe get better bags?

Walking to stores is an advantage because it allows for a density of services unavailable if parking lots are a serious consideration for businesses. I can go to my local convenience store, and my barber, and a no-waste shop, and my local bar, all in one pleasant morning… plus I don’t have to worry about a dui!

[SoftTalker]

Yeah if you're going to walk with groceries, use a mesh or canvas bag with handles, or a grocery basket/cart if you're buying more than a few items. Carrying paper bags sucks because you have to hold them in your arms and support the bottom of the bag.

[sershe]

I mountaineer too, it's just a chore to walk with groceries, esp. if the weather is bad and you have to do it every 3 days given how little one can carry.

I think I mentioned the drinking aspect in the original comment. I could do all of these things by car, probably faster too... except drinking. So I guess it depends on how often one drinks :)

[johnnyanmac]

>Walking to stores is an advantage because it allows for a density of services unavailable if parking lots are a serious consideration for businesses.

in my case it doesn't matter because the nearest store is a mile and a half uphill. Nothing can fix that.

It's also a desert so there's plenty of space. Suburbs are simply incompatible with these ideas.

[mtalantikite]

> And what if it was 100F, or 32F, or raining, or I didn't want to go for a walk, or I needed to get some large items like sugar or rice or a gallon of milk or a lot of beer for a party?

As a New Yorker, you just described daily life here? It’s really not a big deal — things are so close you can take multiple trips if you need to. Get some canvas bags. Plus since everything is so close you end up just doing smaller trips every day or so. If the shop is longer than 10-15 minutes and I’ve got more than, say, 40 pounds of groceries I might get a car back home, but that’s a rare trip. And honestly I’ll probably just walk it back anyway.

Maybe we just have a higher tolerance for pain here — I’ve certainly had people visit who think of themselves as fit and they get gassed out by regular New York walking life.

[climb_stealth]

> I’ve certainly had people visit who think of themselves as fit and they get gassed out by regular New York walking life

It's interesting how things become normal once you do it every day. I used to live in a fifth floor apartment without lift. Quite a few stairs to climb. Three things come to my mind.

a) You very quickly learn not to forget anything when leaving the house.

b) There is some perverse sense of satisfaction in having guests over and walking up the stairs together; and purposefully keeping a calm breath whilst the guests are wheezing and complaining.

c) Some tradesman was working on one of the floors. I will never forget the sight of him carrying something heavy up those stairs whilst practically breathing through the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

For very legitimate reasons life like this is not for everybody. But I would say for able-bodied healthy people it would be good to have a bit of regular forced exercise like that.

[LampDrewNear]

You can still drive perfectly well in walkable cities.

And maybe it's just a TV trope, but do your paper bags lack handles? In Europe essentially all grocery bags have handles and are easy to carry. The amount of food you bought sounds easy to me to carry home, and I don't even lift.

[sershe]

It's a tradeoff - the argument is about car vs walking infrastructure, and while it's nice to have both I'd prefer to lose the latter if I had to make a choice. Driving in Amsterdam is... inconvenient. At least in central areas, I've never been far out.

They have handles, it's still just inconvenient to carry and makes a nice walk into a chore, vs driving with much more groceries per trip.

[foooorsyth]

I agree with your general point about the romanticization of no-car life. I grew up without a car in a walkable city. It was nice but there are legitimate trade offs.

My mom used a wheelie cart to do our shopping growing up. As a kid I thought it was embarrassing but now I get it. Cargo bikes are another good option. Having to carry home groceries without some sort of cargo apparatus like that does suck, even in nice weather.

[spixy]

Then go there with some backpack.

I have a store in same building than my flat (but other side), and it is the best. Dont need to have car, dont need to worry about DUI...

100F (38C) is here twice maybe per year? Cannot you survive 38C for a few minutes?

If it is 32F (0C). I just put warm clothes on? 32F is not very cold temperature anyway.

Raining = umbrella (but I go without it, 2 minutes of rain wont kill me).

How many times a year do you host a party? For me its just once a year (birthday), I just go to store multiple times.

But I understand that your store is 10 min walk which sucks. I guess your city is not dense enough.

[sershe]

Or I could just drive. How is walking with all these inconveniences "objectively better"? :)

[webkike]

When you live closer to grocery stores, you buy less food more often. I live two blocks away from the grocery store, I go fairly frequently, and I never have an issue with the weight I’m carrying. And I deadlift the same as you

[EarthMephit]

That's because 10 minutes away is too far, that's almost a mile, and it becomes a chore.

I live a block from a store, and its much, much easier and more plesant than going to the effort of getting the car out, driving somewhere, having to find a parking spot, etc... Driving's a pain in the arse.

A decently walkable suburb/city would have a store within a block or two, maybe a five minute walk.

[scrollaway]

The US is too far gone for this to make sense. “Walking to get groceries”, I mean jeez this means something utterly different in the US vs Europe.

Here, walking to get groceries means depending on what I need, I walk down the road to get some daily fresh produce, or a few minutes more to get more variety of non perishables, cleaning products etc. It’s a lovely walk, it’s relaxing, and I come back with at most 3-4kg. I do this regularly, and I can do it on my way home when I take the metro for whatever.

In the US, it’s literally something you have to plan for. No kidding you don’t want to walk; one of the goals is to minimise time spent especially if it’s not relaxing time.

[pandaman]

I can't speak for all people in the US but my family is not content with selection in a single store. We buy different kinds of items in different stores. And I mean big stores, with big parking lots and dozens of isles. It is also not very clear that you spend less time shopping: you cannot possibly live off 3-4kg of food for a week or two so you must shop very frequently.

[rdtsc]

Grew up in the city and yeah you get used to it. We had our own bags my mom sewed or mesh bags. If we bought something like beer it wasn’t in 6 packs but one or two bottles at a time. Also we had decent public transportation, we’d hop on a trolleybus (electric buses) even for a few stops if the bags got heavy.

At the same time I agree that it wasn’t fun and I didn’t enjoy it as a kid. If we could have an option to have a car, drive it and fill the trunk with groceries and drive back we would have.

[kiliantics]

It's tragically hilarious to me that the car brain imagination can only consider moving a multi tonne large dangerous vehicle around in order to simply ease the discomfort of the small bag of groceries. Most people use little wheeled carts that are light and foldable and easy to push or pull around.

[sershe]

Yeah, most people thru history were also subsistence farmers and it's "tragically hilarious" that "civilized brain" only considers I dunno, engineering or science or art to make a living, or whatever when you could be subsistence farming for reliable and easy to produce food.

I didn't drive until I was 29-30 and lived mostly in walkable areas so I can easily consider the alternatives. They are just, as I found out when I tried car-dependent lifestyle, inferior. One might even say, "objectively worse"...

[escapedmoose]

Walking to the store is great when it’s a habit to do so every day, so you’re just picking up some fresh meat and produce for whatever dinner you’re making that night. It’s a very pleasant (and healthy) lifestyle. For trips where you need to make larger and heavier purchases, it’s also very enjoyable to bike.

[slifin]

Sounds like you need a walking trolley for groceries

It's like a bag with wheels you can drag, that was my immediate thought anyway

There's tons of micro mobility that could have also helped

[jjav]

> NY/Chicago/London/Paris/Tokyo you can conceivably and easily nip out to a grocer's, bodega, cafe or pub within 10 minutes of where you are.

This keeps coming up on HN but it's not as absolutist as it's made to be.

There are lots and lots of suburban places in the US where you can walk to things as you describe. NY/Chicago/London/Paris/Tokyo do not have a monopoly on walkability.

I live in very suburban (approaching on rural, but still suburban) area in the outskirts of silicon valley. Within 10 minutes I can walk to two supermarkets, several cafes and two pubs. Also to movie theaters, library, two drug stores, many restaurants, child care, a department store and many other businesses.

But unlike Manhattan, within 10 minutes (ok maybe 12) I can also walk to an open space forest where I can hike, mountain bike and go camping. Unlike in Manhattan, I can road bike many tens of miles of rural low-to-no-traffic roads out of my front door. We have many open soccer fields within easy walk (kid loves soccer so this is great).

Suburbs can be very walkable and have more variety of amenities within easy reach than a dense city.

[Karrot_Kream]

I think people are criticizing "American suburbia", not a a truly suburban form which is more urban than a rural form and less urban than an urban form. I live in what I call a "bike suburb". While the grocery and a couple other businesses are a 7-8 min walk away on a multi use path, the rest of the town opens up in a 5 min bike. Likewise I'm a 15-20 min drive away from tons of nature, and if we do need to drive around it's not as convenient as it is in suburbia but not too difficult either.

But a lot of suburbia is completely inaccessible or hostile by foot and unbikeable. Since you're in Silicon Valley, you can probably think of tons of places like that. Mixed use zoning and infill developmental priorities are what create this urban form. This is the important bit, not squabbling over which city is better than the other.

[jjav]

> Since you're in Silicon Valley, you can probably think of tons of places like that.

I sort of can't, which is why I always express doubt about these suburbs where one must supposedly drive 30 minutes to the nearest store (not a quote from this thread, but one that I've seen many times on HN).

I've lived also in south San Jose, Cambpell and Cupertino. In all those I could also walk to supermarkets and many other businesses.

[lisper]

Also, when grocery shopping using a car, I can carry a shit-ton more than I can on foot, so I don't have to go shopping nearly as often. In a pedestrian-centric town, grocery shopping is a daily chore. Using my car, I only have to go once a week or so.

[ulfw]

This is exactly why I lived in Santa Monica when I lived in LA. One of the few walkables cities in the area (not all of SaMo mind you. Just talking about the area between Ocean and say 7th or 8th)

[burnished]

Normally I'd agree with your pedantry, but seriously have you been to LA? "Objective" feels like the right qualifier in this case

[sershe]

I've visited, although didn't spend much time in the city itself. I think it's not amazing for me cause other amenities LA has are not the type of stuff I need or enjoy, and there's a huge number of people who do need and enjoy them making the place really crowded. On the other hand, Amsterdam wouldn't be my first choice for similar reason (I've visited a couple times).

If choosing between areas that either are less crowded, or have all the stuff I enjoy, I'd prefer an LA-like one to an Amsterdam-like one.

[badtension]

Objectively we are still animals that need at least some movement. The environment described by the parent is hostile to our most basic needs.

[sershe]

I find I'd much rather drive to the mountains, or a lake, or at least a nice big park, and recreate there. Walking to a store in Amsterdam or Munich or Vancouver or Moscow was neither much fun nor a lot of exercise.

[badtension]

I am not talking about spending the leisure time but the amount of movement we need every day just to keep our bodies healthy. Sitting all the time is detrimental to us.

[tempaccount1234]

As a European who owns both a car and a bike, regularly driving somewhere just to do a bit of walking there feels like a complete waste of resources to me. I use my car for work related travel, at distances over 5 miles or to move heavy stuff. For anything else the default choice (which includes grocery shopping) is walking or biking. Amsterdam has great bike paths, I’d probably cycle even more there.

[kaibee]

> I find I'd much rather drive to the mountains, or a lake, or at least a nice big park, and recreate there.

This is not a sustainable solution to population level health needs, even if maybe in your particular situation you do actually get enough vacation days and free time on weekends to be able to do this (I also doubt this).

[sershe]

Well, a more sustainable solution is everyone exercising at home whenever they want in the way they want, or going for a run around the block. Going to the store by car + going for a run, is still faster and more convenient than walking to the store (per unit of exercise - e.g. driving to the store 10 times and running 2 miles vs walking 0.2 miles to the store).

[nimbleplum40]

Build roads through natural environments is pretty bad for wildlife though and really harms the environment. It’s definitely not sustainable.

[rewmie]

I'm not sure you noticed you actually said you'd rather have enjoyable but infrequent events in one place than basic mundane and recurring chores.

A honest, objective comparison would be between going to a store in, say, LA or Amsterdam, and going to a lake or nice big park in LA or Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam, you can go to stores on foot without any issue. Not in LA.

In LA you need to drive for hours to go to any of the nice spots you listed. In Amsterdam you can walk to a nice park or a nice lake, and for the same amount of time you need to drive in LA to reach any decent spot, in Amsterdam you can actually reach at least two different countries, and by train you can reach spots like Paris.

[sershe]

Going to the store - I'd prefer to drive in LA on an average day of the year.

For the mid-range activities we have to compare like with like. For some low-mid range activity (like a local park) indeed, walking in Amsterdam would be more convenient. Something more remote/infrequent (e.g. a specialized gym like a climbing gym or a large pool), I'd prefer to drive rather than take transit.

As for the surrounding area it doesn't really depend on the city itself, LA is surrounded by desert and mountains, Amsterdam is in one of the most historically agriculturally productive (and so, densely populated for centuries) and flat areas in Europe. If LA was built like Amsterdam, it'd still take forever to get anywhere interesting outside of the city.

[godzillabrennus]

You mirror my sentiments. I greatly enjoy my time in my car. I rather have a bigger home and drive to recreation areas.

[sershe]

Personally I don't even like driving :) To me it's a minor annoyance, like washing the dishes. But it's just SO much more convenient, so it's worth it.

[leokennis]

> I think driving is much more convenient and nice for most things I like to do

Sure…is that because driving is inherently more convenient than walking, or because your city was designed so driving was more convenient than walking?

[makeitdouble]

A thought exercice: would you enjoy living in a 3x bigger house and drive a small cart from room to room ? with a well adapted house it could be more convenient. Would it be nicer ?

[sershe]

I don't think this is very relevant. I would prefer to live in a 3x bigger house, but it would still be walkable.

A reverse (also not very relevant) thought experiment - would you prefer to live in one room that is office/bedroom/bathroom/kitchen, just because you don't have to walk at all, everything is so close, why sprawl? :)

[makeitdouble]

European and asian cities pretty much feel like a 10x - 20x bigger house for many.

You walk down 2 blocks to get some milk and bread for the breakfast, post office is 3 blocks in the other direction, 1 block another way and you have fruits and vegetable. Basically you can treat the immediate surroundings as an extension of your house where you just "go" without a modal distinction of getting into a car, parking, back into the car, parking again.

Even taking a bus or train feels less of a discontinuation as you just walk in walk out and at no point have to switch to a "driver" mode.

[sershe]

I dunno, I used to feel this friction (I didn't use to drive until I was ~30), how driving is a thing and not driving is frictionless, but I think it was just psychological. It feels reverse now - the only frictionless places for ~everyone are grocery stores and such, cause they are everywhere. And maybe things you consciously live next to, like if you decide to live next to an olympic pool facility or a nightclub. Transit has pretty high fixed cost of getting anywhere, even in transit friendly placed like Munich or Moscow.. everything takes at least 30-40 minutes given to/from and wait times, any time of day. And that's if you don't have any transfers. I used to take it for granted but now when I look up transit directions it just weird to think it used to take so long and I thought it was normal.

Whereas if you drive you can choose when to go and so make it convenient - like I go to a climbing gym at 6am in winter, no traffic and less people. Also, many things you don't even need to leave the house for - even with a relatively small house (1100sqft) I have room for a weight rack and home office, no need to go to a real office or to a gym.

[throwaway22032]

FWIW I agree with this wholeheartedly.

I own a car in London and there are many cases in which it's objectively superior for me to use it purely based on time savings. Generally any journey that's more than about 3-4 miles from the absolute centre of town.

It's also more comfortable, private, has AC, I don't need to wear headphones to listen to music, can carry more, etc.

It's just fundamentally better. If the UK had an equivalent of LA I'd move there in a heartbeat.

The only people I hear who are rabidly anti-car are those who ideologically prefer not to use one. They're generally not people who tried it and found it lacking.

[mbs159]

It is more convenient because city infrastructure in the US was designed specifically for the car, not for humans.

[msla]

> Los Ángeles

Why the accent? Is it not the one in California?

[thenewwazoo]

Almost certainly autocorrect. Bilingual devices sometimes forget (or mistake) the language you’re typing in. I’m typing this on a Spanish keyboard, for example.

[tvaughan]

This is the answer

[downWidOutaFite]

Reminds me of the runin I had with someone from San Rafael north of SF. They corrected me when I pronounced it as the spanish name it is. Apparently it's officially pronounced ra-fell, and they're adamant about it.

[systems_glitch]

Our town is Buena Vista, the first word is pronounced "Bew-nuh" -- and it's not strictly local, horse saddles were produced here in the early 1900s until I guess sometime before WW2, and old-timers who worked horses in the surrounding states know the local pronunciation!

The conflict aversion way to pronounce it is "BV" :P

[panzagl]

It's pronounced 'Bew-nuh' in both Virginia and Colorado.

[TacticalCoder]

That's the spanish spelling of the city's name.

[DANmode]

It's just a mistake they made due to their keyboard localization settings.

Finish the comment to confirm ;]

[ytdytvhxgydvhh]

Tinted windows are such a pet peeve of mine. I get it in the tropics but in most of America the individual benefits of dark tint seem like they’d be outweighed by the collective good of better visibility through cars, enabling eye contact with drivers, etc.

The SUV craze is really to blame - in general many US states don’t allow dark tint on traditional cars but do on SUVs. And since rear windows on vans and light trucks (aka SUVs) are exempted from window tint restrictions, pull up to a typical intersection in the US and look around and you can’t see worth a damn.

Somehow it’s ok for a Subaru Crosstrek to have dark tint but not an Impreza that is the same car but lower? There are even more weird situations like the Mercedes Benz GLA compact CUV which typically has tinted windows, but not the top-of-the-line AMG trim because that one has a lowered suspension, making it a “car” instead of a “light truck”.

[vegetablepotpie]

I was surprised by SUVs being able to have more window tint, and I looked it up, and you’re right [1]. For windshield and drive side windows it’s the same as a sedan, but for rear windows it can be darker for passenger comfort.

Apparently in Alabama at least, the manufacturer determines the designation [2]. So you might be able to call Subaru about the Impreza and have them call it “an SUV” to get that sweet rear window tint.

[1] https://www.suvradar.com/can-suvs-have-tinted-windows/

[2] https://www.alea.gov/dps/highway-patrol/alabama-tinting-regu...

[kevin_thibedeau]

This wouldn't be as much of a problem if "crossover" hatchbacks were properly classified as cars as they should be.

[dymk]

In most states (all?) it's illegal to have a tinted front window, yet people still have them, because it's not enforced. IMO cops should be citing people left and right for tinted windows and tinted license plate covers. You'd think they'd already be taking advantage of such an easy revenue source.

[sndknd]

Exactly this. I’m not a fan of cops, but ENFORCE THE LAWS.

If the tint is illegal, cite the person and force them to remove it right there.

If we aren’t going to enforce the law, remove it from the books.

[jstarfish]

They do though. It's one of those things you'll get cited for if you're already being cited for something else, or they need a reason to pull you over to begin with (seatbelt law). See how many people complain about this on tuner forums, especially in hot/sunny places like Arizona and California.

Sometimes they'll let you tear off the tint and avoid the citation.

Technically they should be ticketing everyone that doesn't use turn signals either but there are only so many cops, so many hours in the day, and more-pressing issues to deal with (accident reports, domestic disputes, etc.).

[SoftTalker]

Cops are understaffed and overworked in any major city. They have bigger fish to fry than worrying about stuff like window tint or really most traffic infractions that aren't just totally reckless driving.

Basically, if it's something that would just be a ticket and a fine, and not an arrestable offense, chances are good they have something more urgent to deal with. Even if it's something they could make an arrest for, if the prosecutor is just going to dismiss the case, why bother?

Chickens are coming home to roost after the last few years.

[Kye]

I doubt cops like pulling people they can't see over. They could be shot dead and never see the gun.

[vivalasvega]

Perhaps, then, those officers could get safer jobs doing something else, if they are unable to perform their duties. Or perhaps it could be harder to drive around freely with and conceal a deadly weapon. We have a lot of options other than "just let people break the law, I guess".

[sndknd]

Nope. “Let people break the law” is the new standard.

[sobkas]

> Nope. “Let people break the law” is the new standard.

First of all cops in America don't have to do nothing. Being robbed or murdered? Nah, let's look other way. Mass shooter on the prowl? But he can shoot at me better hide. White person in expensive car, nothing happened, nothing to see. But as soon there is money to be made through civil forfeiture, every cop is all of sudden a brave law defender. There is no money in law enforcement, but a lot in legalised theft.

[reducesuffering]

> Perhaps, then, those officers could get safer jobs doing something else, if they are unable to perform their duties.

Do you have this same energy for every hazardous occupation? Like when workers protest dangerous working conditions? Do you also advocate they "could get safer jobs?"

[Aeolun]

Well, “make conditions safer” has historically not gone down well in the states.

[dymk]

Take a picture of car and the license plate, and send them a citation in the mail. We already have traffic cameras doing the same thing.

[Zak]

SUVs having different rules is bizarre, but I'm confused as to how this impairs your ability to make eye contact with drivers since it doesn't apply to the front windows.

[ytdytvhxgydvhh]

Because it’s normalized dark window tint all around over the past few decades. We used to think family cars looked like this rather than the heavily tinted vehicles of today: https://i.insider.com/5e875eba8427e939fb61ffb4?width=1200&fo...

So now individuals get dark tint on windshields and front side windows, which would have really stood out 40 years ago but now is just another dark window in a sea of dark automotive glass. That’s my theory anyhow.

[bit_logic]

People in this thread are really talking past each other. I've been to the nice Asian mega cities with great and clean subways and buses. And I've lived in the American suburbs. You can't make the American suburbs like the mega cities by just making them walkable.

Everything in a mega city works together to make transit work. Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations. Also, the walk itself is so much more interesting, random stores to stop at and places to eat and go to. Density makes transit work.

You can't just put random stores in a suburb and make it "walkable" and expect the same thing. Just as everything in a mega city works together to make transit work, everything in a suburb works together to make cars work.

We need to give up on the mass transit solutions that work for dense cities (subways and buses) for suburbs. It's a waste of money and completely the wrong solution. It hasn't worked for decades and never will.

Shut down bus systems for suburbs and use the government funds to give out ride sharing (either Uber or government run) credits for everyone to use (low income can get more credits). That's what a suburb is designed for, point-to-point travel such as cars. And invest massively in real protected, useful bike lanes and stop trying to kill e-bikes with regulations (which a lot of cities are trying to do). e-bikes are finally a real alternative to cars in suburbs, it has just the right amount of travel speed and ease to challenge the car, but it's already under attack. Ride sharing credits and e-bikes, these are the solutions for suburbs. Stop trying to fit a square peg (buses and subways) into a round hole.

[113]

>Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations.

Did you just make this whole post up? This is obviously wrong.

[Mordisquitos]

> The whole experience of being a lone vulnerable pedestrian among a sea of cars is made even worse when you can't see the people in the cars (but you know they can see you).

It's even worse than that. You don't know they can see you, you know they could see you but you cannot know if they do see you. That's terrible for pedestrian safety.

[toddmorey]

Adding even MORE to the insult is this part from the article: "many agencies will simply remove pedestrian facilities to reduce the cost of compliance". I see that so often: having to cross the damn intersection three times just to continue across, and all the light timings favor cars. It's a big middle finger.

[rconti]

I see this all the time. It makes me SO angry. They do the same thing for construction. "Oh, sorry, the bike lane is closed for the next 2 years. Sorry, sidewalk closed. Walk 10 more minutes for the next 2 years."

[mm007emko]

"Often refuse to serve you" means that they sometimes do? I tried to go through a drive-thru on a bicycle in Czechia and they told me to fuck off.

[jhot]

I live in the US in a "platinum rated" bike city (so there are a relatively high amount of bike commuters) and have gone through drive throughs on my bike a handful of times. Every time I have been served but told not to do it again.

[kccqzy]

But did they explain why?

[KennyBlanken]

Pedestrians are not served at drive-through windows at least in part because they are more dangerous to the workers. A driver at a drive-through window can't open their door, the window is very close to the drive-through kiosk but the kiosk is usually much higher (in a sedan) making it hard to climb out through the car window...they've also got a license plate.

During the pandemic most fast food places locked their lobbies and only did drive-through, which meant truckers couldn't get food because workers wouldn't serve them due to policies the companies refused to adjust.

I remember some police departments were volunteering to go through the drive-throughs for truckers.

[ClumsyPilot]

This kafkesque nightmare sounds like it came from soviet-union style central planning

[pessimizer]

The nightmare is being shot through a drive-through window and not even being able get a license plate. I've never had a car driver's license (only motorcycle) and I completely get it.

They're not staffed the same way at night as they are during the day.

[mindslight]

As much as the political salesmen love to emphasize the differences, Soviet style bona fide government central planning and American style corporate central planning have many commonalities.

[jeromegv]

You need a certain amount of revenue to be able to afford a car. Easy way to get rid of indesirables at night

[rewmie]

Undesirable what? Undesirable paying customers?

[mschuster91]

Probably, as usual, liability insurance issues.

[bombcar]

This is exactly it, a walker/biker can easily be run over.

But where it’s common the workers often look the other way.

[__MatrixMan__]

I've had some luck asking a stranger in a car to trip the sensor and then back up so I can order and walk though. Once your order is in its more work to say "no" than it is to say "yes but don't do it again"

[ben_w]

Was drive-thru the only late night food option in that bit of Czechia? That felt like the pertinent part, not being able to get any in some places.

(Here in Berlin I have to plan around Sunday trading rules in a way I didn't back in the UK, but we have Spätis, so there are options).

[simfree]

Some cities like Portland, Oregon have made it a violation of city code to refuse to serve pedestrians and bicyclists through the Drive Through window if the lobby is closed.

There are still some businesses that violate this, but at least you can report it and they will be fined, and threatened with revocation of their business license.

[klardotsh]

Good. Let's make this federal law. These restrictions are ridiculous and we stand no chance of eliminating car culture without eliminating them. I wish I was kidding, and I wish it were just a trollish joke to say "you should be able to bike through Taco Bell at 2am", but if we're gonna eliminate car culture in the US, we can't just do it in the downtown cores of Chicago, NYC, Seattle, SF, etc. We gotta do it everywhere, and a lot of "everywhere" in the US is drive-thru this and drive-thru that, especially once you get out into the boonies (which of course need more infrastructure work to become bike friendly in their current states, but also, rural bike trails can and should exist, but there'll be little reason to use them if you can't stop anywhere along the way to take a break - and the rabbit hole continues from here)

[DangitBobby]

After 9 or 10 PM that's exactly how it is here in TN, USA. Dine in is closed and the drive through won't take you on foot or on a bike. I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People.

[unholythree]

But why? They would have to allow these same “Certain People” in their lobby from 7am until 9pm when their most affluent patrons are probably coming in for lunch, after soccer practice, etc. At the drive through there is barely any interaction between staff and customer much less between customers.

[brightlancer]

> I think most franchises have a blanket policy against serving people without a car to intentionally exclude... Certain People.

Bicyclists?

[nemomarx]

I would assume the homeless, certain income ranges, etc. That's the real reason to close the lobby but keep the drive through right, so people aren't hanging around in it and resting at night?

[variadix]

The homeless, I imagine

[mm007emko]

No, it was during a day. I had a trailer behind a bicycle with my then two year old son who wanted chips. So I tried McDonald's.

Since there was no secure way to lock the bicycle (well, locks don't really work either) I tried drive-through.

[Rebelgecko]

Yeah, I've had decent luck walking thru in Los Angeles. Some places will turn you away but some don't care.

[inferiorhuman]

  just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here

I ended up talking to some woman yesterday who mentioned she loved to come back to Oakland because of how walkable it is compared where she is now in the central valley. I was amused at the whole exchange because while Oakland and San Francisco do a decent job, they're by no means great.

  Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk.
  Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all
  pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that.

One of the big things I noticed when comparing the pedestrian experience in Manhattan (and to a lesser extent the outer boroughs) to San Francisco is that New York lacks the curb cuts that encourage this kind of behavior. You spend a lot less time walking around parked cars or having to keep an eye out for someone who's in a hurry to exit "their" driveway.

In San Francisco, at least, there's a big tug of war about where your driveway ends and the curb begins. Suffice to say blocking the curb is one of those things that's almost never enforced.

Also this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/155z0eo/frien...

[Aeolun]

Damn, that’s some damning contrast. The city looks so much better without all the cars.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

really?

Tokyo is very oriented towards pedestrian traffic, considering shinkansen and most rail service - yet satellite suburban sites, like Saitama, etc have tiny residential rows that literally don't fit both a car and a pedestrian. And that's where most people live. Yet Japan is highly pedestrian.

Now, South America. Most if not all urban centers of 1M are extremely well covered by bus networks. And they have to, since most of the population cannot afford a car. However, the moment you step off the old city centers, you are literally walking on the main road, sharing space with speeding cards and buses driving like maniacs. You will often find a major road has literally no sidewalk, only dirt, weeds and sewage.

Compared to those situations, the US is a walking paradise.

The problem of distance is very different from the problem of safety and confort in the US

[bichiliad]

You can find a ton of much worse examples than the US, but the US is just vastly far behind Europe (i.e. Spain, to which OP was comparing the US to).

Plus, it's worth mentioning that while Tokyo has a lot of mixed-traffic streets, the streets are small, have very low speed limits, and have strong restrictions on the size and type of car that can actually be within the city. It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.

[ska]

> It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.

As far as I can see, this is essential to ant attempt a truly "walkable" city (assuming that is your goal). City streets designed & optimized around car usage are basically inconsistent with pedestrian spaces that really work well.

[cscurmudgeon]

Unpopular opinion: We (US) should stop subsidizing Europe's security while they are better than us and can afford to do so.

https://cvafoundation.org/does-the-us-subsidize-european-def...

[gumby]

> Unpopular opinion: We (US) should stop subsidizing Europe's security

It's cheaper to subsidize European defense than to let them arm up and start fighting again. The lack of large militaries in the second half of the 20th century has lead to the longest period of peace in Europe in about 1500 years.

What would be smart, as has been shown by the invasion of Ukraine, would be to integrate the NATO supply chains more deeply (for the same reason we do multipath and redundant routing). This wouldn't threaten US jobs or safety, but instead make the whole system more resilient.

(Honestly I don't know why supply chain people don't talk to networking people and consider multipath, bufferbloat, and the like. The finance people wicked down those supply chains and have resulted in too many single points of failure.)

[ClumsyPilot]

US is defending its interests in Europe, not Europe itself. This benefits GoldmanSacks, rather than it is for the benefit of Nathan the Romanian plumber.

Europe is the largest affluent market outside US. They’ve considered purchasing tech from China, they’considered taxing internet tech companies based on revenue instead of profit, and each time US convinced them not to.

[laserlight]

Did you reply to the wrong thread? Where did defense subsidies come from?

[InertBrake]

Without really reading the article, I think maybe the parent's point is that the US basically pays for large portions of defense and security of Europe, especially when it comes to the need for blue water navies to protect trade. That frees up a lot of time, money, and manpower for them to spend on not defense, and spend instead on infrastructure and nice things. It's also nice that another effect Pax Americana has contributed to is that the majority of Europe has stopped starting progress-destroying wars with each other every two decades.

The US doesn't get that benefit as the self-employed enforcer, and I'm sure we're all aware of how insanely massive the defense budget is.

[tremon]

So the argument is actually that the US can't have livable cities because they spend all that money defending Europe? Because of the implicit assumption that European-style cities are more expensive in upkeep than current US cities?

[marfil]

Unpopular indeed. Opinions don't exist to be voiced, and nobody asked.

[valtism]

re: Japan, I think it has to do with having higher density, meaning many things are within shorter walking distances.

I also think Japan is generally a lot more pleasant to walk in than the US

[johnnyanmac]

Correct. People in these EU countries never understand how large the US is. it has the 3rd highest population but is almost 10 times less dense than Japan, 9 times less dense than the UK. There's so much dang land here. And until modern industrialism so much of it sucks to build a proper community around. mountainous, extreme weather, disaster prone, simply infertile. Much of western US doesn't have hundreds of miles of view into the horizon; you're going to get cut off maybe 5, 10 miles off by some mountain (or you live in a valley). It's very hard to "just build denser cities" in the same way the EU could.

That's what makes China really impressive (losgistically speaking). it's really large AND very dense population wise (I don't know about the land quality).

[Aeolun]

> Yet Japan is highly pedestrian.

Japan’s cars are mostly small, civilized and without tinted windows.

Sidewalks next to large roads generally have a barrier that clearly separates the bike/pedestrian traffic from the cars.

If there’s roads where there is no separation between cars and pedestrians the speed for the cars is generally limited to 30km/h.

Streets also have natural speedbumps in the form of lantern and electricity poles essentially standing on the street, instead of the sidewalk.

I certainly feel safer walking here than anywhere in the US.

[cstejerean]

The first one doesn't seem unique to the US.

I just spent the last 2 months i Europe and on many side streets there is no place to safely stop a car which means pulling into the sidewalk is the only option. So I frequently had to step into the street to walk around a stopped delivery van or similar.

[elric]

You're probably not supposed to stop a car in those places, and when you do, you're supposed to stop on the road, never on the sidewalk. Steep fines for that in Belgium at least, though the odds of getting caught are slim.

[brightlancer]

It's illegal in the US to block the sidewalk with a car and it's one of the few things cities will actually enforce aggressively -- if they don't, they can be sued for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

[inferiorhuman]

At least in San Francsico this is very rarely enforced. What I've seen professionally and personally is that cities will ticket the easy stuff. Street cleaning is at the top of that list followed by time-based red zones.

[lrem]

In most places that's illegal and they'd be risking a likely-too-low fine.

[Forgeties79]

I’ve never heard the experience described as “humiliating,” which is incredibly surprising because just seeing that written out (and your thoughtful elaboration) made a lot of things click into place for me.

[cafard]

Actually, the tinted windows worry me because I don't know whether the drivers do see me. Vanishingly few drivers would deliberately run over a pedestrian, but plenty are distracted or otherwise inattentive.

[chrismcb]

It is illegal in most places to park a car on the sidewalk. I don't know of anyone, at least the big chains, that will serve a pedestrian in a drive thru. If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.

[johnnyanmac]

>If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.

Oh I wish. On the contrary, it feels most everything closes around 9pm here and it hurts as a night owl. Heck, so many cafes seem to close around 6-7pm.

[asm0dey]

Well, TBH in Europe you usually don't have an option to get food late at night :)