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It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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More and better public transport, cycling, and walkable cities would be great. But we can't have nice things because car and gas companies might make less profits.
We can't have nice things because the zoning code is wrong. The fundamental problem is that low-density zoning and minimum parking requirements physically force destinations further apart, resulting in fewer possible destinations within walking distance or biking distance and making transit uneconomical due to fewer riders per unit length of transit line. Simultaneously, it also makes walking and cycling deeply unpleasant because even if the sidewalk or bike path exists, you end up sandwiched in a no-man's land between a stroad and a succession of huge parking lots.
I mean, it's a big comfort thing too. I have zero interest in walking or using public transport in negative temps or 80+ degree weather. I enjoy not struggling to survive a trip.
There is actually a bigger city that spent in the ball park of 500k putting in a miles of a walking/bike path, less then 10 people showed up for it's "grand opening" and it's so unused there isn't even trash or homeless camps. It was dubbed a waste of money.
I'm willing to bet it's winding and/or goes fucking nowhere. When bike paths don't get used, it's almost universally because they were designed by dipshits who think they're for recreation instead of transportation.
To be honest, you may have a point. I can't think of anything demanding thats within 1 city block from it. A school, some medical places and a gas station is pretty much the only things along it.
Poor planning, could've been better spent.
The key to bike infrastructure is that it needs to be a connected network. Even a path that goes 99% of the way directly from your house to your workplace is completely useless if there's a barrier (e.g. a stroad that's unsafe to bike along, a freeway with no bridge across, etc.) occupying the last 1%.
That said, the other important takeaway is that a bike path like yours might be useless at the moment, but that doesn't necessarily mean the money spent on it was a waste. Instead, it could mean that it's vitally important the city keep going and build more connections to retroactively make it useful.