The End of Walking(aeon.co)
aeon.co
The End of Walking
http://aeon.co/magazine/society/step-by-step-americans-are-sacrificing-the-right-to-walk/
4 comments
Los Altos in the bay area is like that. The stated reason is to "preserve the rural feel of the city" [1], but it's just a suburb. As a kid walking to school and even now walking to the sleepy downtown always feels somewhat fraught with peril. It's very unwelcoming. Compare that to Mountain View which neighbors it, it's always a pleasure to walk with friends to the vibrant downtown.
[1]: http://patch.com/california/losaltos/bp--los-altos-needs-a-p...
[1]: http://patch.com/california/losaltos/bp--los-altos-needs-a-p...
I've got half an hour's walk to work every morning. It's a great way to start the day, especially because the route is through a couple of parks. It clears the mind and wakes me up. I really can't imagine living in a place where that wasn't possible.
I don't really get the broken brain meme that cars have some conspiracy over pedestrians thing.
In any commercial setting you don't have dangerous machinery and humans mixing. It would not make sense. So it also makes sense to have absolute barriers in public between the two.
The concept people prefer to walk only holds when that person wants to walk in place X and doesn't want 'other' humans to at that 'time and place' to be driving. Just like we all hate traffic jams, which really means we wish everyone else was not on the road.
Driving gives us unbelievable freedoms and amazing access to things otherwise impossible.
There is no conspiracy, it's just some places are not as well designed as others to get the two to work together, yet.
In any commercial setting you don't have dangerous machinery and humans mixing. It would not make sense. So it also makes sense to have absolute barriers in public between the two.
The concept people prefer to walk only holds when that person wants to walk in place X and doesn't want 'other' humans to at that 'time and place' to be driving. Just like we all hate traffic jams, which really means we wish everyone else was not on the road.
Driving gives us unbelievable freedoms and amazing access to things otherwise impossible.
There is no conspiracy, it's just some places are not as well designed as others to get the two to work together, yet.
That you claim that there is no conspiracy is empirically false. The street used to be exclusively for pedestrians. Read about car manufacturers in the USA and how they conspired to bring down both pedestrian traffic and also public transportation.
> In any commercial setting you don't have dangerous machinery and humans mixing.
Sure you do, forklifts in a warehouse for one. An "absolute barrier" means obstructing pedestrians even when there is no one driving at that time and place.
Accidents also happened back when horse and carriage were the norm too but it was for cars that campaigns were started to make streets an exclusive domain [0].
[0] http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-...
Sure you do, forklifts in a warehouse for one. An "absolute barrier" means obstructing pedestrians even when there is no one driving at that time and place.
Accidents also happened back when horse and carriage were the norm too but it was for cars that campaigns were started to make streets an exclusive domain [0].
[0] http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-...
The US is a dystopia, no surprises there. What a shame that all humans are anymore are an outpost of corporate greed.
Actually, i've seen that in lots of places. What the hell?
Near my work, for many years, there's been a large complex of buildings for tech workers. A block away across a busy two-lane intersection is a strip mall full of restaurants, mechanics, cleaners, etc. There was no sidewalk of any kind and certainly no pedestrian crossing lights. This year, construction finally started on pedestrian crossing. But i've made the mad dash across four two-lane sections of grass and curbs several times. I still don't get what the hell the city planners were thinking.