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This is the point I am trying to make. Even somewhere which is lauded as having "good" public transport such as London and its actually not good in real life situations. Yes its great and all to visit London or Amsterdam or Berlin or whatever on vacation when you don't have Real Life (TM) responsibilities to worry about and you're only ever shuffling around the most central tourist areas and attractions with no real time pressures etc. But realistically unless you put train lines literally everywhere there are roads now, and have non-stop trains shuttling around all day every day that turn up every 3 minutes, public transport is going to be terrible for day to day living for most people simply because it doesn't go where you need it to go, when you need it. I think the 15 minute city proponents are deluding themselves. Yes it is a nice dream that everything is a 15 minute walk away (...presumably on a warm sunny day when you have no time pressures), but really when it comes down to actual day to day living its kinda ridiculous - so you're going to have offices, nurseries, primary schools, secondary schools, universities, doctors, dentists, hospitals, grocery stores, vets, hardware stores, gyms, libraries, churches, synagogues, mosques, cinemas, restaurants, bars, art galleries etc etc - all the things we need for day to day living and life in general - repeated every mile or two so that people can walk to them within 15 mins? That is absurd. You just cant have that density of things like major hospitals or universities for example. Ah but then we add public transport links they say! But then you're back to where we are currently with a "good" public transport system actually being expensive and a pain in the ass to use because it can't be a direct link to every single possible place in the urban graph so it ends up meaning in reality you walk 5-10 minutes to reach a stop, wait 5-10 minutes for something to turn up, pay £3.50 to ride for 10-15 minutes, potentially change buses or train/metro/tram lines (including the 5-10 minute wait for that to arrive), get out, walk another 5-10 minutes etc, when if you had just driven it would have taken 5 minutes and you don't need to carry back 18kg of groceries on the return journey that also costs you £3.50 as well and also takes just as long except now everyone else on the bus/train/tram hates you because you're taking up the space of 4 passengers with your shopping bags and you're banging into them. And let's not even start with the weather. |