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The traditional suburban street design of winding roads and cul-de-sacs is just as responsible for U.S. car dependency as the distances created by sprawl, according to new Yale research. (environment.yale.edu)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Valuy@lemmy.zip to c/science@lemmy.world

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[-] tylersloeper@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I don’t believe this at all. It is 100% the distance between things. Where I live, if I get on a bicycle, it will take 30 minutes to reach the nearest grocery store. If I wanted to ride it to work, it would probably take me 6 hours each way.

By car its 5 minutes, and 30 minutes in the high way. Cars are the only way to get around, and public transport is practically non existent.

[-] bluGill@fedia.io 6 points 2 days ago

Cul-de-sacs increase distance in many cases. There often is a "as the bird flies" path that would be much faster, but there is a fence (private yard) in the way so you can't go that way. Cars don't care much about a 2 mile detour to get out of a neighborhood, but that is a long trip on a bike and not acceptable for walking.

If work is 30 minutes by car that should be about 4 hours by bike in the worst case (that is you live next to the 70mph freeway on ramp, and the office is at the end of the off-ramp, no city streets). In my case work is 15 minutes by car, 25 by ebike - but that is mostly a function of the type of roads between them, and I'm likely near the most extreme in that direction (for people who can do either)