DescentBB

My wife and I bought a house not too long ago, and we had two different mindsets: She wanted the biggest house possible while I wanted an area connected to the main walking trails so that we had easy access to stores and the ability to commute to our jobs by bike. We ended up buying a pretty decent-sized house, larger than either of our parents' houses, in a neighborhood that's kind of a suburban hub (not sure what the correct word is). However, my office is a whopping 40 minute bike ride away, but it's a safe ride on a trail, which is far better than what we'd get if we had bought a big house off a farm road, which my wife was kind of pushing for. My wife got the best improvement as she now has less than a one minute commute to work by car or a 20-minute walk... she walks faster to her job than I can bike to mine. On top of that, 15 minutes away walking, in the same block as our neighborhood, we have 2 grocery stores, 5 restaurants, 2 medical clinics, a cafe, and more stuff is getting built. Still though, my neighborhood still prioritizes cars over people despite the higher than normal walk-ability.

My mother, who lives about a mile away, basically has no walkable paths leading out of her subdivision. She has to drive to go anywhere safely. Some of my coworkers live in nearby cities that are just a collection of streets off the highway, trading the low cost of land for needing to drive to another municipality to go grocery shopping. My in-laws are in a neighborhood that wasn't always part of the city and has no walkable areas. My cousins just bought a new house in the next city, built around a golf course, giving it a very luxurious feel, but the neighborhood itself has no sidewalks, and there’s only one very small convenience store in the city that’s a 30-minute walk away, forcing you to drive into the next town to grocery shop. If you can’t tell, this is Texas, and it’s one of the worst when it comes to building cities for people. It makes it where, if you don't have a car, you're absolutely, without question, a second class citizen. That's ★■◆●ing wrong.

When the issue of traffic is brought up, 99% of the time the solution is adding more roads. City planners can't comprehend people walking for any reason other than recreation. The term "15 minute city" is sad because something that's 15 mintues away isn't that close. Again, I live 15 minutes from stores. I wouldn't consider it a close walk, but it's only that far because cars need space for roads and roads make everything farther away than they need to be.. If it weren't for cars, I think my house would be a 5 minute walk to those stores. The roads themselves are heat batteries that increase the temperature of where you live even at night. The cities look uglier, small stores get noticed less as the major roadways provide better infrastructure for big box stores. It's like a bad science fiction where someone would criticize it for "not being realistic" because it's really not. The grocery store being father away means needing a bigger house and refrigerator because you're basically on an island compared to a place where you can walk 2 minutes away to buy eggs like in an old city.

What's my point? I don't have have one. I'm basically ranting about something we'll never solve. "If you don't like it you can get out". Sure! I think about these really nice old cities, like the one in the photo above as a perfect place to live. There are places in europe and mexico like this because the US has no hope of fixing the car problem.

My town is very bike friendly. Lots of bike paths to use to go most places. However, I've noticed that one of our major grocery store parking lots doesn't have a simple sidewalk to enter the entire complex from the northern direction, which is were I come from when walking. Car only. One has to walk past the driveway access using the crosswalk across the street, then punch the walk button to go across the major arterial street to get to the sidewalk next to their lot. Then I have to walk down the street for about 60 feet before I reach the access walk in front of the stores. They definitely didn't think of pedestrian access, or even bikes for that matter, when they developed the parking lot. Even the parking lot itself is hazardous to walk or ride a bike through because most drivers don't look for peds or bikes in the car lanes, so getting to that sidewalk is a necessity to avoid hitting hit by a car.

Ah, so you've been trainpilled too. I got on a huge urban planning kick on YouTube a couple of years back, and now I can't unsee all of it.

Tunnelcat wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 2:32 pm My town is very bike friendly. Lots of bike paths to use to go most places. However, I've noticed that one of our major grocery store parking lots doesn't have a simple sidewalk to enter the entire complex from the northern direction, which is were I come from when walking. Car only. One has to walk past the driveway access using the crosswalk across the street, then punch the walk button to go across the major arterial street to get to the sidewalk next to their lot. Then I have to walk down the street for about 60 feet before I reach the access walk in front of the stores. They definitely didn't think of pedestrian access, or even bikes for that matter, when they developed the parking lot. Even the parking lot itself is hazardous to walk or ride a bike through because most drivers don't look for peds or bikes in the car lanes, so getting to that sidewalk is a necessity to avoid hitting hit by a car.

It sounds like your area is better than 99% of Texas, but that situation with that grocery store sounds pretty aggressively anti pedestrian. As far as the grocery stores go, they should allow them inside of neighborhoods. I'm not sure what bonehead thought "let's put ALL businesses as far from the people as possible. That's smart". It should be illegal to have a zoning law that forces out stores that sell basic needs.

Top Gun wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 6:58 pm Ah, so you've been trainpilled too. I got on a huge urban planning kick on YouTube a couple of years back, and now I can't unsee all of it.

I bet I've watched the same videos. For the longest time I thought more advanced transportation systems would be the next step, but 99% of the problems are caused by the way cars have taken over. I say if removing cars from the road all together will solve problems, that's a better solution than some high-tech nation-wide elevator system that I was once thinking about (I'm good at dumb ideas).

I just biked to work. Just over 1 hour. 23KM. Yes, it's crazy. In the morning I use the roads as it cuts 2KM off my trek. In the PM, I use the bike path next to the river. It adds an extra 2KM to my ride.

On weekends, I tend to do about 60KM mostly on paths but some roads (with bike lane).

I live literally accross the street from a outdoor shopping complex. My bus stop is 3 min walk away. There is nothing I need that isn't within 2KM of my house.

But I work in another province accross the river.

CDN_Merlin wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 4:23 am I just biked to work. Just over 1 hour. 23KM. Yes, it's crazy. In the morning I use the roads as it cuts 2KM off my trek. In the PM, I use the bike path next to the river. It adds an extra 2KM to my ride.

On weekends, I tend to do about 60KM mostly on paths but some roads (with bike lane).

I live literally accross the street from a outdoor shopping complex. My bus stop is 3 min walk away. There is nothing I need that isn't within 2KM of my house.

But I work in another province accross the river.

That's awesome! Since you live in Canada I assume the weather is nicer to bike in than it is where I live, where it's super hot. Is the distance you ride because of how rural the area you live in is or are things spread out in Canada?

Our major cities are packed. But Ottawa (where I live) has lots of bike paths and they are making more to try and force people to use public transportation/bikes etc. I live 20KM from the downtown core which is pretty much where I work (federal gov't) and at my age I'm trying to keep active to stay healthy. I've always been active (used to roller blade 10KM a day) and now biking 2-3 days a week to work and sometimes doing 60KM on a weekend in one go.

As for weather, I'll bike in 40c weather. It doesn't bother me.

What kind of bike? I've recently been big on road bikes. I even run clipless racing shoes that clip into the pedals (Yeah, they're called clipless).

Work in progress, I'm trying to build up my rollerblading skills so that I can skate to work, which sounds like so much fun. I'm running 3x110mm blade. My skills are pretty beginner. I fear curbs still. I think once I can curb hop like a monkey I can commute to work, like legendary Canadian, Bill Stoppard.

I have a Trek Domane AL3. 18 speed. Cost 2000$ plus an extra 1000 for the shoes, pedal, lights etc.
My blades were 90mm. The 100+ were to big.

CDN_Merlin wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 2:07 am I have a Trek Domane AL3. 18 speed. Cost 2000$ plus an extra 1000 for the shoes, pedal, lights etc.
My blades were 90mm. The 100+ were to big.

I used to have a rare bike around that price (Not going to say which because it would be easy to track to another community forum) and a backup cheaper road bike with shimano parts and but the frame was from Schwinn to lend to people. The Schwinn frame is one of the better frames they make but it's still pretty cheap compared to Trek, Cannondale, or Canyon. I ended up crashing my rare bike and cracking the frame and ended up with a bad head injury (a helmet literally saved my life). Afterwords I moved over the expensive parts to the cheaper road bike, which was from a cycling shop, so it's not as cool as my old setup, but it's honestly good enough for me.

We're skating this evening at a park in my city. We try to meet every Thursday. It's so much fun despite the 100 degree Frightening weather.

Sad about the bike. When I bought mine during COVID, I wanted a good bike and not a cheap Walmart type.

Top Gun wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 6:58 pm Ah, so you've been trainpilled too. I got on a huge urban planning kick on YouTube a couple of years back, and now I can't unsee all of it.

hehe. Yeah NotJustBikes has got their clutches into me this past year or 2. And with how much they reference BetterTowns it's just a matter of time before i'm inevitably gonna find myself subscribed to them too