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This hillbilly has never been to NYC
If you are not disabled in anyway and still need to take a transport bigger than a bicycle to buy basic groceries, the design of the city you live in is fundamentally broken.
As a disabled person, thanks for remembering us. I’ll see these “just hop on your bike and pedal over!” comments and it’s kinda saddening.
There are disabled people in the Netherlands too. And they can move around the city in micro cars, mobility scooters, electric wheelchairs, etc… with confidence, because bike lanes network allows them to go anywhere, with way more autonomy and safety than in any other country.
That sounds great, but I suspect The Netherlands wouldn’t welcome me with open arms. Until then, I’m stuck in 'Murica.
I suspect The Netherlands wouldn’t welcome me with open arms
Because you’re disabled? Or because you’ve got an unseasonal tan or low-income?
From my experience, the EU is enormously accepting and encouraging of rich white migrants, regardless of their mobility status.
honestly, that’s worth the try :D But of course, it’s easy to always show the exception and ask “why aren’t you all doing the same?”. Decades of car centric politics will not be fixed easily, not with techbros reinventing trains, not in today’s 'Murica. It’s a shame, though, because there was a great streetcars infrastructure a century ago… maybe that’s the one thing America should bring back to be great again
When the train tracks are south of the major highway, and the grocery store is north of the major highway, that doesn’t seem very safe in my area. What do?
Many options, in no particular order of feasibility:
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Dedicated bus lane across the highway, plus half hourly or better regular bus service.
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A separated bicycle lane in that area to safely get you between the two.
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A light rail line (preferably in a dedicated lane) or subway crossing highway.
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Get a grocer opened closer to you.
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Move north of the highway or somewhere else entirely.
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Build a rail spur going north over the highway and add a train service.
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That’s just idiotic traffic design. I would tell you a solution but I don’t have one. You either make something happen politically or move. Shitty infrastructure is the worst.
The tracks were originally designed for industrial use only, major industries south of the tracks. Now they’re planning to upgrade them to passenger tracks for Amtrak…
That doesn’t sound like a good or safe idea to me. Most anywhere any everyday passenger would want to visit, save for the beaches, is north of the tracks.
I mean, some sort of highway crossing might be nice. But I mean, one of the big selling points of train tracks are that they’re relatively cheap to build (maybe more expensive than roads but still pretty good). Don’t see why it’d be a safety issue tho.
Highway crossing? You think that’s all there is to it?
You got like a 10 acre parking lot, which to cross just that alone requires walking ~3 acres. Then you got a 2 lane service road, then a 6 lane highway to cross.
And then there’s no room on the north side of the tracks for a train station, you’d still have to walk across the train tracks as well just to get to the train station.
Gotta walk over 3 acres of pavement, plus 8 lanes of road, plus railroad tracks, all while toting your groceries? Yeah, ain’t nobody gonna take the train to Walmart around here.
Jesus christ, that sounds dystopian. Also, wdym walk 3 acres? Acres are a measure of area. They’re not even defined as a square.
Yes I know. When I say acre in terms of distance, for one I’m implying a square acre (per side is ~208.71 feet, 63.615 meters), and for two, I’m only estimating anyways.
Now that I look at the numbers, it’s probably an even longer walk than that, Walmart has a huge parking lot…
The design is very human…
Also, moving is kinda out of the question in this area, the manufacturing facilities near my area are among the top 10 major industrial facilities in the USA. People working there for decades ain’t about to quit and move just because of some piss poor traffic design, they’re making that good $$$
Maybe the minicipality should invest some of that good $$$ into some good infrastructure.
Though idk afaik different areas in the US are varying levels of incompetent when it comes to that.
They are investing that money, into the casinos like 20 miles west of here, where conveniently the casinos are south of the tracks. They don’t give a damn about the everyday local citizens, it’s all about the tourists.
Sucks man
well everything do have a price. And if the extra $ is worth it, you probably can afford having your groceries delivered too (you time would be more valuable than the price of delivery service)
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walking is an option
You likely wouldn’t actually want that, as the way it works on star trek at least is to effectively kill you (by recording all your molecules etc then ripping you apart), move your molecules to the new place and then reassemble you.
There’s no real way to do ‘instant’ teleportation like you suggest either as it most likely breaks the laws of physics, things have to move to get places, best you could probably do is very fast teleportation.
You teleport the groceries, not the person to the store. That would be silly
At that point though, I feel like food etc could have just been grown or made locally. I hope that capitalism and thus the need for stores doesn’t exist if such advanced technology does. Heck, it might even lead to replicators if matter is already being played around with
I’d settle for speed of light tbh
Yeah, though this is difficult for anything with a significant mount of mass beyond that of a photon. The closest scientists and engineers etc have currently got to anything close to the possibility of going very very very fast is the Alcubierre drive. However, that’s still very speculative and probably nowhere close to being built.
The most impressive tech ioo that they can come up with for space travel and exists at the moment is Ion thrusters.
Yeah so I guess I’d always imagined that the closest you can really get given the laws of physics to instant travel would be disintegration+information transfer+matter synthesis. But matter synthesis is probably ruled out by the amount of energy required to do anything, and the complexity of correct assembly. Still, fun to think about.
If we ever figure out teleportation, it will be expensive. Of course, there’s a free tier where you get teleported into a void where you will have to watch ads for 20 minutes before you get sent to your destination. Complete with regular reminders that you can simply upgrade your plan to get out of teleportation purgatory immediately.
Many cities at one time had trolley service which did local point to point connection. Then they were forced out because there was more profit in growing car dependency.
I bought the red car so I could disssss…mantle it.
There were forced out because they had to pay for the road surface but vehicles could use it for free and cause damage. They also would block the trolley because people have always been assholes.
More importantly they had contracts with the cities with set fares and the cities wouldn’t let them increase the fares so they went bankrupt. source
Fun fact: this is the premise of Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Capitalist government when public transport (a public service) is not making profits
Seems more like politicians were
bribedlobbied to cut funding by car makers than they were counting coins and said we’d get more (as a government) if everyone just drove from home.
Yeah right, let me just walk to the supermarket XD
is back in 25 minutes with bag of grocceries
:o
“I don’t want to carry bags all that way!”
Here. Take a backpack.
no im obese and entirely brainwashed that walking is detriemntal to my health or smth idfk
societal constraints hold back the minds of those who are lazy to change
Shopping trolleys have grown in popularity in Sweden in recent years, sort of like a rolling suitcase but with more space, specifically made for grocery shopping.
Personally, I use a pannier basket on my bike though. Best way to shop for sure
I love shopping trolleys… But avoid the ones with multiple wheels for climbing stairs, they’re loud as hell on pavement.
In Austrian cities we see an increase of cargo bikes
Car drivers hate them, but in the city you’re much faster with a bike anyway
the bicycle in question:
:D
1: I’ve taken the metro to get groceries loads of times
2: Trams
Trams are the shit
Trains also work to get other traffic off the road too. It solves congestion for everybody, not just you. That way when you do have to drive a car, there are fewer of them on the road.
If you have to take a train to the grocery, that’s a failure in local planning and a business opportunity. That said, not every store has everything and I, too, have taken a train to the grocery store for fancier/rarer things.
In some parts of rural Japan, we also have a grocery truck carrying staples and things you requested the last time they came from the actual store. This is a huge lifeline to some rural elderly people, but I don’t see why it couldn’t be more broadly applied in other areas.
I had two grocery stores in 5 minute walking distance. I had one store with more stuff, think also basic electronics, kitchenware, home appliances etc, in one station with the inner city train that was a 5 minute walk from my flat.
For years i did my groceries taking the train and i fail to see the problem. Just having to walk to the parking lot, get my car, drive to the store i can reach by train, then park there would have taken me twice as long even without traffic.
In inner cities cars are a liability for everyone including their driver.
If the frequency is good enough, this isn’t a problem.
The best case scenario is as you mentionned : a grocery that you can walk easily, that has everything you need.
But having a light rail with high frequency makes it so that you can reach more area easily. And it also means that less dense part of the city still be serviced decently.
We just have food delivery. You order and it arrives the next day, no delivery fee. Of course the sales usually aren’t as good as in typical stores but the general prices are almost identical. They deliver in cute little electric vehicles.
That’s cool. Though less bog in terms of infrastructure.
Holy based. Very cool
Yes, it’s called a tram. It’s how I get to the shops, city centre, etc.
Only if you live in a city
My parents, who live in a town, can just walk to buy their groceries instead.
Good for them, but I know a dozen towns that are big enough you can’t, or the only store wouldn’t be in realistic walking distance for at least half the residents.
And even those that can, you have to either be in good health. So it isn’t like your parents (or anyone’s) will always be able to walk to the grocery.
There is no such thing as a town that’s too legitimately big for walking but too small for transit. Any example you think you can give is actually an example of fucked-up priorities and incompetent planning.
You are right, I just wanted to point out, that trains aren’t the only possible option. For people who can’t walk, there might be bicycles and mobility scooters instead, which also do not take up too much space.
You do realize that if you can’t walk, you aren’t very likely to be riding a bike either.
Nor are either a very viable grocery conveyance.
Even assuming a big backpack, and a large basket on the scooter or bike, you can’t do much shopping. So you’re now expecting people with mobility issues to go more often, spend more time tramping around a store, with their already limited stamina and resources.
That’s not even mentioning that a mobility scooter has limited range, and requires maintenance that anyone needing one is unlikely to be able to do themselves. Which means another trip somewhere to get that done.
Look, not everyone thinks about this stuff until they have no choice in the matter. But not only did I take care of the elderly, dying, and disabled for a living for twenty years, I stopped doing that because I’m disabled now too. And us cripples have communication.
I’m straight up telling you that anyone unable to walk to a store is not going to be able to make do with bikes and scooters. It just ain’t happening on any kind of regular basis unless you live somewhere that the stores are under a five minute walk, and even then that’s going to be a horrible time any foul weather days.
When you’re having mobility issues serious enough to need a scooter or chair, you aren’t in a situation where haring off to a grocery store every few days is sustainable. It just isn’t.
There’s this thing called the spoon analogy. It’s a disability thing you run into.
Every day, we wake up with some spoons. Everything we do costs spoons.
The typical healthy person starts out with the usual number of spoons. You start with 20. Getting your shower costs a spoon. Walking to work costs a spoon. Shopping costs a spoon. Cooking costs a spoon. You get the idea, I assume.
Well, us cripples start the day with 15, or even less. Getting the shower costs two. Shopping costs two. Cooking costs three. Again, I’m confident you get the idea.
That’s the thing that nobody ever considers. Once you reach a point where you would have access to a mobility scooter or chair, you’re spending spoons left and right. You can’t just stop by the store on the way down the block from the bus that dropped you off after work. Every task costs. So you have to do your shopping in big batches. You’re also going to be fixed income most of the time, so shopping in bulk is pretty much the way you have to shop to be able to keep a realistic budget.
Now, there’s ways to fix all of that. But it ain’t something you fix by public transport. Doesn’t matter if there’s a bus or light rail when just waiting for the damn things is a spoon from your supply. Then the ride is slower, so that’s another.
The way to fix that that’s the most kind is to subsidize shopping delivery the way you’d set up parcel post. Or set up shared transport that ferries the disabled directly to and from places in a realistic, bearable time frame. You could maybe hybridize that.
It’s all fine and good to improve the clusterfuck that is transportation and infrastructure. Gods, please, we need it bad. But we can’t pretend that trains and buses are going to magically fix it all, or that the same fixes that will work in a city will work everywhere else, or vice versa.
I’m straight up telling you that anyone unable to walk to a store is not going to be able to make do with bikes and scooters.
Yeah that’s bullshit.
Sure, there may be some people for which that is true, but anyone unable to walk to a store can’t go by bike? I know for certain that’s not true: one of my mates ex-GF had issues walking, certainly couldn’t walk to the store. She had no problem cycling though. She used a 3-wheeled e-bike. Cycling is much easier than walking, you spend way less energy, especially with electric assistance, and there’s trikes for those who have balance issues.
Go watch any busy street anywhere in the Netherland and count how many elderly people you see on bikes. You’ll be amazed.
that’s going to be a horrible time any foul weather days.
Like any Dutch mom would say to their kids complaining about having to cycle in the rain: you aren’t made of sugar, are you?
The way to fix that that’s the most kind is to subsidize shopping delivery the way you’d set up parcel post.
You don’t have online grocery shopping with free next-day delivery there? Hell, we have 10-minute delivery on groceries if you’re willing to pay a bit extra. (Delivery is done by bike, of course).
Or set up shared transport that ferries the disabled directly to and from places in a realistic, bearable time frame. You could maybe hybridize that.
That also exists, at least in my country. It’s run by volunteers and you only pay a small fee (mainly to cover fuel costs).
Nobody wants to ban people from taking a car if they reasonably need it to get around. Or even just want to use it.
But if alternatives are actively pursued, it’ll end up better for everyone. Bikes, pedestrians and public transport cause way less traffic per person per mile. And usually cheaper (in terms is tax dollars spent), too.
And shorter distances between homes and stores will also reduce the length of the car trips.
It’s incredulous to me that people will still frame this issue as “car drivers will lose”.
Are these elderly people driving to the grocery store? That doesn’t really seem much safer.
Bus and train will reduces the dependence on cars by a big margin and allow people that really need a car to move around to not be stuck in traffic.
The goal is to remove the most car possible on the road. I live in an area where everything is walkable and going downtown is well served by light rails, and I still have a car for when I need it (kids, big items), but otherwise I use walking/light rail.
But you are right that it won’t fix everything. Suburbs as they are today shouldn’t exist. They cost a lot to maintain versus the density of people and create a big dependance on cars.
So if we have medium/high density cities with rural towns and no suburbs, then the rural people can take their car because they need it, and people living in the city can walk and take the transit. But it will overall greatly reduce the number of cars on the road, which is a lot better than keep doing what we do right now.
The best is when the grocery stores are so close that you don’t need a car or a train. Japan does it right. You can always walk to at least one grocery store.
True enough for urban areas.
There’s also a lot of more rural areas in Japan where the only thing in walking distance from a house is a bus stop, and it might be a bit of a long walk.
I’m sure there are more remote places, but I haven’t been to those places.
I think the important part is that the Japan residents know it is possible once the town or city grows vs here in North America where people cannot fanthom the idea of not having a car (or in the US and Canada 1 car per person on the home).
I am privileged since I have been able to work from home recently, but it is so clear that you don’t need a car if non-work things were closer (better zoning and design roads for people instead of cars). Once you put 1k miles per year on your car instead of 10-20k and your quality of life is much higher due to no stress from having to commute it starts to radicalize you against into the dumb shit we do in the name of growth and profit (not violently but still makes you feel cheated out of a better life).
It’s not only Japan, I dare to say most countries have grocery stores within walkable distances.
It sure was great. We don’t have that at all in the US.
Yeah there’s this thing called LIGHT RAIL, but even heavy rail, the NYC subway and BART are actually both heavy rail transit systems that one could absolutely casually take to the grocery store.
Their real issue is they think they have to travel 20+KM to the closest Walmart every time they want to buy something.
I get her point but trams!!!
I think she should see a city with trams and see how useful it is when implemented properly :)))
trams are the train’s cute younger sibling :)
Greg is gonna shit on the floor when he’ll learn that happens everywhere in Europe.
Don’t a decent amount of European businesses even do delivery in back by train?
In socialist Europe, I walk to the groceries, comrade… I take 15min train ride from home to work in the city center… and I wait no longer than 5 minutes on train because that’s its frequency… but I have no car…
Damn it must suck to live in such terrible conditions
