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.
Seems more like politicians were bribed lobbied 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.
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
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
Vandalism, threats, people screaming in public, and so on; all afraid that the new area being built having stores within walking distance is a government conspiracy to restrict people’s ability to leave
…all the existing parts of town have grocers and shops within walking distance
Oh, they're putting up road barriers? No? Are they taking away cars? Also no? Do the new shops create so much traffic that it's just not feasible to leave? Also no?
Then how the hell are they restricting anything?
conspiracy
Oh right. I forgot what type of people we're dealing with.
My condolences, best wishes and hopefully justified congratulations!
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.
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).
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...
It's actually called zoning reform. Bring back neighborhood grocery stores you can walk to. Before I experienced it, I never thought about how convenient it is to walk less than 5 minutes to a grocery store almost every day and do little grocery trips instead of bit multi-bag struggles.
Bring back neighborhood grocery stores you can walk to.
This is actually probably more a federal antitrust/competition law thing than a local zoning thing. Otherwise it wouldn't have happened nationwide. I found this article to be pretty persuasive:
Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn’t materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened. That something was a specific federal policy change in the 1980s. It was supposed to reward the biggest retail chains for their efficiency. Instead, it devastated poor and rural communities by pushing out grocery stores and inflating the cost of food. Food deserts will not go away until that mistake is reversed.
. . .
Congress responded in 1936 by passing the Robinson-Patman Act. The law essentially bans price discrimination, making it illegal for suppliers to offer preferential deals and for retailers to demand them. It does, however, allow businesses to pass along legitimate savings. If it truly costs less to sell a product by the truckload rather than by the case, for example, then suppliers can adjust their prices accordingly—just so long as every retailer who buys by the truckload gets the same discount.
. . .
During the decades when Robinson-Patman was enforced—part of the broader mid-century regime of vigorous antitrust—the grocery sector was highly competitive, with a wide range of stores vying for shoppers and a roughly equal balance of chains and independents. In 1954, the eight largest supermarket chains captured 25 percent of grocery sales. That statistic was virtually identical in 1982, although the specific companies on top had changed. As they had for decades, Americans in the early 1980s did more than half their grocery shopping at independent stores, including both single-location businesses and small, locally owned chains. Local grocers thrived alongside large, publicly traded companies such as Kroger and Safeway.
With discriminatory pricing outlawed, competition shifted onto other, healthier fronts. National chains scrambled to keep up with independents’ innovations, which included the first modern self-service supermarkets, and later, automatic doors, shopping carts, and loyalty programs. Meanwhile, independents worked to match the chains’ efficiency by forming wholesale cooperatives, which allowed them to buy goods in bulk and operate distribution systems on par with those of Kroger and A&P. A 1965 federal study that tracked grocery prices across multiple cities for a year found that large independent grocers were less than 1 percent more expensive than the big chains. The Robinson-Patman Act, in short, appears to have worked as intended throughout the mid-20th century.
Then it was abandoned. In the 1980s, convinced that tough antitrust enforcement was holding back American business, the Reagan administration set about dismantling it. The Robinson-Patman Act remained on the books, but the new regime saw it as an economically illiterate handout to inefficient small businesses. And so the government simply stopped enforcing it.
That move tipped the retail market in favor of the largest chains, who could once again wield their leverage over suppliers, just as A&P had done in the 1930s. Walmart was the first to fully grasp the implications of the new legal terrain. . . . Kroger, Safeway, and other supermarket chains followed suit. . . . Then, in the 1990s, they embarked on a merger spree. In just two years, Safeway acquired Vons and Dominick’s, while Fred Meyer absorbed Ralphs, Smith’s, and Quality Food Centers, before being swallowed by Kroger. The suspension of the Robinson-Patman Act had created an imperative to scale up.
A massive die-off of independent retailers followed. Squeezed by the big chains, suppliers were forced to offset their losses by raising prices for smaller retailers, creating a “waterbed effect” that amplified the disparity. Price discrimination spread beyond groceries, hobbling bookstores, pharmacies, and many other local businesses. From 1982 to 2017, the market share of independent retailers shrank from 53 percent to 22 percent.
If you can't have smaller grocery stores in neighborhoods due to zoning laws, what will be left is bigger stores which are going to be generally operated by large corporations.
That would only explain the phenomenon in urban areas that actually have zoning. Rural areas are suffering from the same thing, but don't have zoning restrictions, so obviously that points to another cause.
Would probably help with remembering reusable bags too. Instead of driving there and being like 'oh no!' you're walking, and would realize you're not carrying them with you.
I'm fine going to the supermarket for a medium shop every week or two but being able to walk to get milk for my breakfast (especially if I only realised I'd ran out in the morning!) was so nice.
Now I don't live in town any more, it's an 11-mile drive to the nearest shop so it's more like a once a month shopping trip. Fresh fruit and veg? What's that?
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.
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.
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.
This was something that used to put me on the pro-car side; if it takes me multiple trips just to get all my groceries from my car into the house, lugging all of that on a bus or a bike would be a nightmare!
But then I saw content from people like Not Just Bikes, and saw how people in places with good public transit actually live, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that if shopping was more convenient, I wouldn’t need to buy a week’s worth of groceries in one trip. I could just swing by a corner store for what I need that night or the next morning, and one or two bags are easy to handle on a train or even a bicycle.
I take a 10-minute detour on the way home from the light rail station, fit one or two or sometimes even three days worth of groceries in my backpack, maybe make another trip of about 25 minutes + time in store (which you'd have anyway) for some more after dinner. Some extra walking doesn't hurt my pudge, and I'd rather do more walking now than be unable to later.
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.
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.
I'm disabled and definitely have a "year round tan". I work, but the bulk of my recent experience is extremely specific to state and federal law/practices. My wife isn't disabled, is lilly white, and works, but almost ALL her experience is working with US municipalities. We're definitely not rich.
It might be doable, we're at least taking a stab at leaving the US.
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
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.
This dude jokes but when I lived in Harlem I’d take the subway to Columbus circle Whole Foods as it was significantly easier than commuting to the east side on 125 to pathmark.
Elon brings shame to autists everywhere by not knowing about trains
Elon's not actually autistic. He's just terminally online and regularly high off his gord. Once he sobers up, he does a masterful job of rooking WASPs out of their retirement accounts and state treasuries out of their tax monies by doing his best Music Man impression.
This is the most offensive and derogatory form of ableism. I'm reporting this and I'm tagging you as "Person who hates the disabled" and I am not going to spend even a moment thinking about how mass transit or pedestrian pathways might benefit an individual with mobility issues.
See your comment brings up the big issue I have with the bicycle crowd. I literally cannot ride a bike due to disability , so ride transit right? If my city had a good and reliable transit system i fucking would! But it doesn’t, and it never fucking will. So yes I will give up the car and take transit every day, when pigs fly and my city has a good transit system.
Your way of thinking relies on the belief that transit is adequate in most places, and it sure as hell is not
Urban landscapes change regularly. US metropolises used to be significantly more mass transit friendly, and it took billions of dollars and millions of man hours to ruin them over the course of decades. You aren't trapped in a historical moment forever, you're riding the tide of history just like the rest of us.
Your way of thinking relies on the belief that transit is adequate in most places
My way of thinking relies on the belief that people being reflexively hostile to bicycles degrades future bicycle infrastructure development.
I'm seeing this happen in my home city of Houston, as the current mayor rips out a bunch of newly built bike lanes and bike-share racks because he'd rather the money go towards roadway expansion and policing. $10M/year transferred from bike development to resurfacing roadways of his friends and political allies, so he can tell me that people with mobility issues are best served by River Oaks getting a new coat of varnish.
You, for some unknowable reason: "But what if I need to travel 50km to work, see bike people have no brain"
You take a train for that, obviously! You just take bike for anything shorter than 2 - 5km, maybe E-bike if you need/want it, Bus and Metro lines should get you anywhere in your city. And before you ask, if all stations are too far to walk, you bike there. If all of these don't work for you, then you can drive a car on clear roads, because everyone who doesn't need to drive doesn't.
"But there are no good bicycle paths/Light rail lines/public transit stations where I live!" Yes, what I said is unrealistic to do in most cities. But we can work towards it, and that starts by getting the people that can use bikes on bike paths, and the people that can take the train on train lines.
I do this with light rail. Takes 6 minutes with slow walking included. It's pleasant.
Especially in the winter. I live in Norway, so if I use a car I wait for the engine to warm up before driving. (It's better for the engine.) This and removal of ice and snow easily takes more than 6 minutes. I'm really glad I don't have a car.
I completely understand that owning a car can be necessary for someone, but since I'm lucky enough to have access to good public transit a car just doesn't make any sense for me.
It's MANY times as expensive, the car requires maintenance/repair and driving requires me to be focused and well rested.
Even with zero sleep, a headache, icy roads, a beer in my stomach and lots of stress, I can safely get where I need to go and I don't even have to think about parking when I get there. I can even listen to music or a podcast on really low volume with closed eyes. I hope that more people get access to good public transit.
For a society in the long run public transit is also cheaper per passenger than cars. The difference in cost efficiency grows the more densely populated an area is. Statistically most people on Lemmy live in a more densely populated area than me, so you can probably demand this from your government. Y'all would end up saving money.
The Ford Motor Company decided that streetcars weren't a proper mean of transportation, both for the US people and for the Ford Motor Company shareholders.
Ok, but imagine this: you work a mile or two from your house, with bus stops every two blocks, and they come every 5 minutes. That walk to your house passes a grocery store, several bakeries, a small hardware store, and most other places you'd need to go day to day. On one side of this main Street is a park, on the other is a few blocks of homes and businesses before you get to a parking garage next to the highway - all the roads inside the community have low speed limits and little parking, so there's not much traffic.
If you qualify for handicap placards you can park on the street, a few parking passes can do the same, but are hard to get because they're auctioned off. Most people leave their cars in the parking garage if they don't need them, they might park near their building to unload large amounts of stuff, but after they take it back to the lot. People at the stores in the community don't generally buy more than will fit in a personal cart or a backpack, because they're so close and convenient
It's actually way more convenient, because you don't have parking lots everywhere. Instead stores, offices, and housing of all levels of affordability is all mixed together, so you just give priority to people who can't walk far, and everyone else just has a couple staircases or a couple blocks further to go
And it's not just a dream, I spent a summer living in a place that worked exactly like this
Imagine if you lived somewhere that your disability would be considered and accommodated for, so you were given an electric mobility scooter or other, more sensible and less dangerous transport for those one mile situations...
The fact people want to get in a car in order to get groceries is beyond me. I'm in Australia, where car brain is also very prevalent, but with many urban places good for walking and PT.
I live close to the shops, and go there multiple times a week because it's literally right there. Driving and parking? Nah, I'm good.
I live in Houston. We have a grocery store in town that has a big apartment block over the top of it. A friend lives there and he jokes that he's taking the elevator to the grocery store any time I complain about traffic or parking.
Unfortunately, living in a posh apartment that's conveniently placed over a nice grocery store means the price of rent is astronomical. So he needs to work as a highly paid attorney in the oil industry to afford to live in a place where he doesn't need to use a car to get groceries.
Well good on him at least for copping the first adopters price haha, hopefully you can put some stuff back where the city bulldozed to put carparks one day 😅 one apartment at time
The ironic (Or perhaps just interesting) thing is that apartments are supposed to be cheaper living because you don't have a front or back yard.
It's vaguely that here, if location is the same apartment is usually cheaper than a free standing house, but apartments are usually better located near public transport and amenities (the whole point), so there's a slight premium for that.
The American description of apartments almost always coming along in the phrase "luxury condos" is perplexing (other than NYC, it seems)
In fairness, in Melbourne we also do not build many apartments. Far fewer than we should, mostly due to regulations and laws not being airtight around owners corporations, aka body corp, and conflicts of interest where the developer awards a building management contract before selling all the apartments... So people are a bit hesitant to sign up for that and apartment living is still a pretty foreign concept to most
The ironic (Or perhaps just interesting) thing is that apartments are supposed to be cheaper living because you don’t have a front or back yard.
They tend to be more expensive per sqft but smaller than a house you could buy. And there's no mortgage, so you don't need a big down payment to move in.
But apartment living in a private system means enriching a landlord first and foremost. That means whatever the actual cost of the space, you're going to pay extra.
The American description of apartments almost always coming along in the phrase “luxury condos” is perplexing (other than NYC, it seems)
It's just a marketing gimmick. The term doesn't have any legal meaning, so everyone uses it to upsell their units.
Some of the dingest places I've lived have been billed as "luxury".
Most people don't buy a home outright. They take out a long-term low-interest loan (mortgage literally means "pledge till death" although they typically only last 15-30 years) to pay back the house in installments. However, before you can take out this loan, banks will often demand a down payment equal to 20% of the total value of the property. With the high price of housing, this down payment can be substantial - a $500k house requires a $100k down payment.
Renters don't need to make these large advanced payments in order to get access to a rental unit. You aren't required to have $100k in the bank before you get your own place.
I say it's a business opportunity, why don't Americans just open a small general store in their residential areas? Not everything need to come from a supermarket, here we have people that literally sell you vegetables in a rented garage.
Seems like the only acceptable usage of garages for you people are tech startups and maybe teenager bands lol.
I hope the answer is not "due to some obtuse regulation, residential areas can't have business operating in any shape or form, unless is a tech startup or an ice cream truck".
It's not obtuse regulation, it's explicitly by design. In most places in the US, you cannot operate a business in a residential area that serves the public. Businesses that do not serve the public (like a tech startup or someone working from home) are fine. Ice cream trucks are also not allowed unless you have a proper business license / permit.
That laws sounds exactly like obtuse regulation to me. Why you cannot have a grocery store in your neighborhood? I really can't think of a good reason. If there is a case for ice cream trucks, proper business license/permit and all that, it makes even less sense for other business types.
C'mon, you really need to commute to the supermarket to buy some bananas? That's nonsense.
C'mon, you really need to commute to the supermarket to buy some bananas?
In the US our culture has mostly adapted the grocery store routine to our car culture. The typical trip to the grocery store involves filling a large shopping cart with all the family’s food for the next week or two. People get in the car and drive a far distance to a big grocery store that sells everything. They buy more than they could ever carry, and they load it all into the car.
Also exacerbating this is how much we love shitty processed food. The big grocery stores have nice produce sections, but 80% of what’s in the store is shelf stable and in a box.
As an American that wishes for having stores just that close, the zoning laws are like that for a reason. That reason is to keep people dependent on cars. That is good for the fossil fuel industry.
I know it's nonsense. A fair amount of people know it's nonsense. But also a lot of people don't know, because they can't imagine a life without cars (or a life where you don't need to drive to do every mundane task). They only know no car = no job, food, or socialization and they will fight hard to guard it.
You can zone them there, it more over ends up being that large companies lowered prices to drive out competition, and then raise them back up after. If it cost your 30% more to shop somewhere when you are paycheck to paycheck, eventually the majority of people start going to the price selling at cost for those product and putting promotions on them because they can afford to stay afloat until you go out of business. Then they slowly raise the prices back up and they make their money, maybe a little higher because they don't have competition.
Also:
If you order 50 cases of something it costs less as well. Ordering 1 case often makes a vendor not want to ship there as it cost them more time/labor/fuel to make those deliveries. So when a product cost $5 at Walmart vs $5 at your local convenience store, Walmart is making more money off the sale. Making it easier to use lower prices
I think I understand now why another commenter said that they are not obtuse laws. Obtuse laws emerge organically from idiot people, this is very malevolent and intentional. These fuckers have been around more than 100 years fucking up your community planning.
edit: wow, also racism is involved in this? I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, but still...
It turns out that, despite allegations to the contrary, the United States is actually small. Like, really, really tiny. We just don't have the room to put supermarkets in places near where people live.
I live in the U.S. (for less than one more week now!) and currently, the closest place for me to buy groceries is five miles down a four lane highway. No sidewalks, obviously. You would be safe from cars walking on the median, less safe from poison ivy, ticks and lime disease since they don't exactly care about keeping them well-mowed in the summer.
I can already see that things will be different in the place where we will be temporarily living in the UK (Blackburn).
I usually stop at a grocery store on my commute, but if I just need something real quick I just walk to one of the three grocery stores down the street, but loading up the car on the way home is just much easier
They are slower than driving except in peak traffic. Caltrain san Francisco to san Jose is about 2x driving time, and on neither end does the train get you into real downtown. San Jose is close but still a 15 minute walk before you get to anything interesting. Francisco is in a relatively shady area near a stadium, also 15 mins from market.
If you don't have to park, getting to the airport by transit involves switching from Caltrain to BART at a random suburb so as an example San Jose to SFO is 30 mins by car, 1:30 by train. Note the tracks for the Caltrain and Bart are parallel here.
If you mean to say "trains with high average speeds have high average speeds" I'll agree, but even in countries trying to get faster average speeds it's still relatively new outside of Japan.
There's also cost to consider. You can get a fast train Paris to Berlin and it's 4 hours faster than driving, but costs more than 4x to transport 1 passenger vs a car which can bring 5. The main route is slow, matching the speed of a car. (If you had a family, would you pay 60 euros to drive, 520 euros to train at car speeds, or 932 euros to train faster?)
However the "fast" train is still only reaching normal highway speeds (120-130 kmph) on average...it's just the roads are so bad google is estimating an average car speed of less than 80 kmph which is essentially like...suburb/business area street speed here in this country.
I'm cheating slightly because I'm considering distance in terms of the direct train. The other is faster but goes another few hundred km wayyyy out of the way so I'm considering that to be the average speed for comparison purposes.
The other fatal flaw in the analysis is that while gas (actually I used VW+diesel) is pretty flat rate, trains can be cheaper off-peak. But I was mostly looking to confirm that the general economics aren't that different.
Where the us is real dumb is we actually have a shitton of space. Like the whole LA-SF train if we built it would be literally just next to i-5 in the middle of a redneck wasteland....plenty of space to get up to speed, and pretty much no reason to stop between sf and la. But we don't do it because we suck.
That doesn't work if the grocery store is too far to walk or for larger grocery hauls (which often go hand in hand - the further away, the fewer trips you'll want to make). I've been told that some places just genuinely don't have a grocer within 20min walking distance, because some construction planning apparently prefers huge zones of housing without any kind of commercial usage allowed - no baker, no grocer, no hairstylist, no doctor - making it effectively impossible to have any of those amenities in range.
Obviously, that is a planning issue and ought to be fixed. You'll have to contend with NIMBYs, but you'd have to do that with any changes anyway. Alternatively or additionally, you could install a usable network of bus lines and trams (though they shouldn't be run for profit, so it'll be a tough sell too).
There is also the issue of accessibility, but I think that would be trivial to solve as a side effect: If the streets are less crowded with cars, it's easier to offer special accommodation for people with limited mobility or anxiety issues.
Bikes are faster than walking and you can attach a trailer. I know a lot of people do that in denmark. Suddenly your cargo capacity is larger than a lot of cars, of course not for weight. As for people with mobility issues, where i live they have a dedicated branch of the public transit for them. On train you can go with wheelchair and if you need extra help in the city they can send you someone with minibuss to help you. Same if youre not in a wheelchair but limited because of your age. Of course these arent cheap to solve but putting out the la fires that were caused by global warming that was in part caused by cars isnt cheap either.
...but put me at a higher risk of hurting myself because I'm bloody clumsy (impaired balance and coordination). Joke aside, good point.
As for people with mobility issues, where i live they have a dedicated branch of the public transit for them. On train you can go with wheelchair and if you need extra help in the city they can send you someone with minibuss to help you. Same if youre not in a wheelchair but limited because of your age.
That is awesome!
Of course these arent cheap to solve
In the short term, no, it's probably an expensive project. But in the long term, even aside from environmental impact, I think it would save money.
Just not for the car manufacturers... Those poor, poor billionaires will need to find a different income I guess.
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.
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?
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.
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 $$$
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.
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)
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.
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..
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.
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".
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.
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).
These “take a train” crowd think that everyone in every city and every town has a subway system or even a functional bus system. It’s like the bicycle people who insist that I don’t need a car, I can just strap my kids to my back in winter and drop them off at school before cycling to work and stopping for errands and groceries on the way home! So easy! /s
If I didn’t NEED a car I wouldn’t drive one, and that applies to most people. But for some reason everyone on here is a 20something city kid with easy access to public transit
“These ‘take a train’ crowd” tend to be also the ones saying “build more trains, light rail, and tram lines, also bike lanes” but who are prevented from making progress at every turn by oil and motor lobbyists. They are very aware of the limitations but generally encourage it because it’s a good thing to do.
something a lot of people miss is, that some people have to shop for more than 3 or 4 people, when I grew up we were 5 plus a somewhat big dog, you can't really do weekly shopping without some kind of help under these circumstances
I use public transport to get everywhere I can, which is pretty easy where I live, but having 4 full shopping bags on a tram sounds like a horrible experience
People in countries and cities with good public transport don’t really do “weekly”. They stop in to the local market on the way home daily or every other day. There’s literally an express type grocery store every block or three, and a full serve store probably 10-15 minutes walk.
I spend a lot of time overseas for work, and getting groceries is without a car is zero trouble.
I mean, there's a bunch of factors to this some social some geographical, but it turns out, the US has almost uniqiely bad design of towns and city with the auto-lobby holding a firm grip on their balls.
I'm not in a particularly desirable area... I'm also not in the US though.
A bug reason why the only desirable areas tend to be walkable in the US is just because there are so few.
If you promoted widespread walkable city-design, then prices will become more accessible to everyone. Even the poorest areas lf my city are super walkable, even moreso than many of the richer areas.
I mean, being poor sucks everywhere, but there's a lot of intermediate steps between dense well-designed city and car-centric hellhole.
Arguably the latter is way worse if you can't afgord a car.
Just shop daily instead of weekly. A grocery store just opened three blocks from me so I just walk down with a single canvas bag and grab what I need for the next day or two. For the dog, we walk down to the pet store together to grab his food and a treat or toy for him.
Obviously not possible in many suburbs, but when you live in a walkable area it works great.
Maybe you're right. I'm where I'm at, I drive about 10-12 minutes to get to a nice grocery store with decent prices where the parking lot won't be sketchy or crowded. But having one on my way as I'm walking to and from somewhere else would be pretty great. Most of the stores like that where I'm at are considered "concenience" stores, and the prices are wildly inflated there, so I never shop there unless I just want a drink or some junk food real quick.
As someone who loves cars and is cool with car culture, I do feel that it should be completely optional, and more walking based infrastructure and public transportation would be nice for everyone.
It takes less than 15 minutes to do a shopping trip. 4 minutes by bike to get there, 4 minutes back. Time inside the store depends on how much stuff I need but usually not more than a few minutes, including self-checkout.
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.
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.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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
I bought the red car so I could disssss…mantle it.
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.
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
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
I love shopping trolleys... But avoid the ones with multiple wheels for climbing stairs, they're loud as hell on pavement.
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
the bicycle in question:
:D
why would I take a train when the store is 3 minutes walking diatance
That's literally communism and also the cause of everything wrong with the economy, that's why!
Driving is for free people, walking is for slaves! /s
My township is going through this
Vandalism, threats, people screaming in public, and so on; all afraid that the new area being built having stores within walking distance is a government conspiracy to restrict people’s ability to leave
…all the existing parts of town have grocers and shops within walking distance
Oh, they're putting up road barriers? No? Are they taking away cars? Also no? Do the new shops create so much traffic that it's just not feasible to leave? Also no?
Then how the hell are they restricting anything?
Oh right. I forgot what type of people we're dealing with.
My condolences, best wishes and hopefully justified congratulations!
1: I've taken the metro to get groceries loads of times
2: Trams
Trams are the shit
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.
Greg is gonna shit on the floor when he'll learn that happens everywhere in Europe.
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
Don't a decent amount of European businesses even do delivery in back by train?
Probably, I mean it makes sense. The few times I've been in Europe, in the many cities I've been, the public transit was good.
It's actually called zoning reform. Bring back neighborhood grocery stores you can walk to. Before I experienced it, I never thought about how convenient it is to walk less than 5 minutes to a grocery store almost every day and do little grocery trips instead of bit multi-bag struggles.
This is actually probably more a federal antitrust/competition law thing than a local zoning thing. Otherwise it wouldn't have happened nationwide. I found this article to be pretty persuasive:
The whole thing is worth reading.
Genuinely high quality post.
And yet another Reagan roast.
Wow, one more thing to thank Reagan for that I was unaware of. Thank you for the link.
It's definitely both.
If you can't have smaller grocery stores in neighborhoods due to zoning laws, what will be left is bigger stores which are going to be generally operated by large corporations.
That would only explain the phenomenon in urban areas that actually have zoning. Rural areas are suffering from the same thing, but don't have zoning restrictions, so obviously that points to another cause.
Another way that Reagan really shit the bed, huh
It sounds like he knew what he was doing, and it worked as intended. "Holding back American businesses" indeed.
Thanks for sharing the article! It was very informative. I'm definitely going to remember it as the Robert pattinson law though.
In the US you'd be arrested for unlawful walking in a car only area, or something.
Would probably help with remembering reusable bags too. Instead of driving there and being like 'oh no!' you're walking, and would realize you're not carrying them with you.
I'm fine going to the supermarket for a medium shop every week or two but being able to walk to get milk for my breakfast (especially if I only realised I'd ran out in the morning!) was so nice.
Now I don't live in town any more, it's an 11-mile drive to the nearest shop so it's more like a once a month shopping trip. Fresh fruit and veg? What's that?
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.
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.
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.
Holy based. Very cool
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.
Taking a train to the grocery store only seems absurd to people who have never experienced a really efficient rail system.
You get what you pay for.
I used to take the train to the grocery store. It was called the red line in Chicago
In Tokyo I'd hop on the subway regularly to shop. Not a big deal at all.
The only thing that was different was that you don't buy two weeks of groceries at once.
This was something that used to put me on the pro-car side; if it takes me multiple trips just to get all my groceries from my car into the house, lugging all of that on a bus or a bike would be a nightmare!
But then I saw content from people like Not Just Bikes, and saw how people in places with good public transit actually live, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that if shopping was more convenient, I wouldn’t need to buy a week’s worth of groceries in one trip. I could just swing by a corner store for what I need that night or the next morning, and one or two bags are easy to handle on a train or even a bicycle.
I take a 10-minute detour on the way home from the light rail station, fit one or two or sometimes even three days worth of groceries in my backpack, maybe make another trip of about 25 minutes + time in store (which you'd have anyway) for some more after dinner. Some extra walking doesn't hurt my pudge, and I'd rather do more walking now than be unable to later.
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.
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.
I'm disabled and definitely have a "year round tan". I work, but the bulk of my recent experience is extremely specific to state and federal law/practices. My wife isn't disabled, is lilly white, and works, but almost ALL her experience is working with US municipalities. We're definitely not rich.
It might be doable, we're at least taking a stab at leaving the US.
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
Yes, it's called a tram. It's how I get to the shops, city centre, etc.
Light rail. All the time. Train isn't only Amtrak.
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.
This dude jokes but when I lived in Harlem I’d take the subway to Columbus circle Whole Foods as it was significantly easier than commuting to the east side on 125 to pathmark.
as a Dutchy, this confuses me greatly
Trains solve traffic issues
Elon brings shame to autists everywhere by not knowing about trains
Gregory does not have enough trains in his neighbourhood
yeah, the Netherlands is so nice with that, you bike to a station for 10 minutes and then its a 2 hour train ride to go anywhere in the country
Elon's not actually autistic. He's just terminally online and regularly high off his gord. Once he sobers up, he does a masterful job of rooking WASPs out of their retirement accounts and state treasuries out of their tax monies by doing his best Music Man impression.
This is the most offensive and derogatory form of ableism. I'm reporting this and I'm tagging you as "Person who hates the disabled" and I am not going to spend even a moment thinking about how mass transit or pedestrian pathways might benefit an individual with mobility issues.
Please, add /s. I almost believed you.
See your comment brings up the big issue I have with the bicycle crowd. I literally cannot ride a bike due to disability , so ride transit right? If my city had a good and reliable transit system i fucking would! But it doesn’t, and it never fucking will. So yes I will give up the car and take transit every day, when pigs fly and my city has a good transit system.
Your way of thinking relies on the belief that transit is adequate in most places, and it sure as hell is not
That is what is being argued for.
Urban landscapes change regularly. US metropolises used to be significantly more mass transit friendly, and it took billions of dollars and millions of man hours to ruin them over the course of decades. You aren't trapped in a historical moment forever, you're riding the tide of history just like the rest of us.
My way of thinking relies on the belief that people being reflexively hostile to bicycles degrades future bicycle infrastructure development.
I'm seeing this happen in my home city of Houston, as the current mayor rips out a bunch of newly built bike lanes and bike-share racks because he'd rather the money go towards roadway expansion and policing. $10M/year transferred from bike development to resurfacing roadways of his friends and political allies, so he can tell me that people with mobility issues are best served by River Oaks getting a new coat of varnish.
My city installed bike lanes all over the place, the cyclists don’t use them. They just zip by you on the sidewalk as the bike lane sits empty
My neighborhood doesn't have that problem. You'll see regular big rides with dozens - even hundreds - of riders spilling down the protected lanes.
Nobody rides on the sidewalks if they can avoid it. Where do you live that the sidewalks are even maintained? Around here they're a jagged mess.
Wow, well put my dude.
Lemme strap my wife and kids to my back while I cycle them all to their destinations then head off to work 50km away in the dead of winter!
Bicycle people have no brain, they think everyone lives in California or some shit
Elon's commenter: "Trains!"
Elon defender: "But what about groceries?"
The comment you replied to: "Bikes!"
You, for some unknowable reason: "But what if I need to travel 50km to work, see bike people have no brain"
You take a train for that, obviously! You just take bike for anything shorter than 2 - 5km, maybe E-bike if you need/want it, Bus and Metro lines should get you anywhere in your city. And before you ask, if all stations are too far to walk, you bike there. If all of these don't work for you, then you can drive a car on clear roads, because everyone who doesn't need to drive doesn't.
"But there are no good bicycle paths/Light rail lines/public transit stations where I live!" Yes, what I said is unrealistic to do in most cities. But we can work towards it, and that starts by getting the people that can use bikes on bike paths, and the people that can take the train on train lines.
50 km commute is wild anywhere, sorry to hear that
I do this with light rail. Takes 6 minutes with slow walking included. It's pleasant.
Especially in the winter. I live in Norway, so if I use a car I wait for the engine to warm up before driving. (It's better for the engine.) This and removal of ice and snow easily takes more than 6 minutes. I'm really glad I don't have a car.
Most of the world is not like Norway and having a car is a necessity not a desire
I completely understand that owning a car can be necessary for someone, but since I'm lucky enough to have access to good public transit a car just doesn't make any sense for me.
It's MANY times as expensive, the car requires maintenance/repair and driving requires me to be focused and well rested.
Even with zero sleep, a headache, icy roads, a beer in my stomach and lots of stress, I can safely get where I need to go and I don't even have to think about parking when I get there. I can even listen to music or a podcast on really low volume with closed eyes. I hope that more people get access to good public transit.
For a society in the long run public transit is also cheaper per passenger than cars. The difference in cost efficiency grows the more densely populated an area is. Statistically most people on Lemmy live in a more densely populated area than me, so you can probably demand this from your government. Y'all would end up saving money.
Ideally we could just fucking walk to a small grocery store instead of having to drive to one. Also would increase jobs with more foot traffic.
Most Americans lost one or both of their feet to the diabeetus
Don't forget polio, due to anti-vaxxers, it's making a comeback!
We pay extra to send our kids to a school where all Vax need to be up to date and it's actually verified. Fucked up its come to this.
Working from home is the only way to really beat traffic.
No congestion at all. Not even an overcrowded train.
WE ONCE HAD STREETCARS LOOK WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US
The Ford Motor Company decided that streetcars weren't a proper mean of transportation, both for the US people and for the Ford Motor Company shareholders.
Still my favourite form of transport
the virgin bus route weeps and gnashes at the feet of CHAD STREETCAR
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 :)
Introducing:the tramway!
Wait until they hear about the Bus. But probably is for the best they don't, their head would explode at the thought
Ok, but imagine this: you work a mile or two from your house, with bus stops every two blocks, and they come every 5 minutes. That walk to your house passes a grocery store, several bakeries, a small hardware store, and most other places you'd need to go day to day. On one side of this main Street is a park, on the other is a few blocks of homes and businesses before you get to a parking garage next to the highway - all the roads inside the community have low speed limits and little parking, so there's not much traffic.
If you qualify for handicap placards you can park on the street, a few parking passes can do the same, but are hard to get because they're auctioned off. Most people leave their cars in the parking garage if they don't need them, they might park near their building to unload large amounts of stuff, but after they take it back to the lot. People at the stores in the community don't generally buy more than will fit in a personal cart or a backpack, because they're so close and convenient
It's actually way more convenient, because you don't have parking lots everywhere. Instead stores, offices, and housing of all levels of affordability is all mixed together, so you just give priority to people who can't walk far, and everyone else just has a couple staircases or a couple blocks further to go
And it's not just a dream, I spent a summer living in a place that worked exactly like this
Your problem is with infrastructure
It should be designed for people who can’t drive
Generally those physically capable of driving are better off not driving than those who physically can’t drive
Imagine if you lived somewhere that your disability would be considered and accommodated for, so you were given an electric mobility scooter or other, more sensible and less dangerous transport for those one mile situations...
A mile on a bike should take about 5 minutes too.
The fact people want to get in a car in order to get groceries is beyond me. I'm in Australia, where car brain is also very prevalent, but with many urban places good for walking and PT.
I live close to the shops, and go there multiple times a week because it's literally right there. Driving and parking? Nah, I'm good.
Friends I have talk about ordering groceries so casually. I go onto these apps and see a 20% markup with delivery fees and I'm like what the fuck.
I live in Houston. We have a grocery store in town that has a big apartment block over the top of it. A friend lives there and he jokes that he's taking the elevator to the grocery store any time I complain about traffic or parking.
Unfortunately, living in a posh apartment that's conveniently placed over a nice grocery store means the price of rent is astronomical. So he needs to work as a highly paid attorney in the oil industry to afford to live in a place where he doesn't need to use a car to get groceries.
Well good on him at least for copping the first adopters price haha, hopefully you can put some stuff back where the city bulldozed to put carparks one day 😅 one apartment at time
The ironic (Or perhaps just interesting) thing is that apartments are supposed to be cheaper living because you don't have a front or back yard.
It's vaguely that here, if location is the same apartment is usually cheaper than a free standing house, but apartments are usually better located near public transport and amenities (the whole point), so there's a slight premium for that.
The American description of apartments almost always coming along in the phrase "luxury condos" is perplexing (other than NYC, it seems)
In fairness, in Melbourne we also do not build many apartments. Far fewer than we should, mostly due to regulations and laws not being airtight around owners corporations, aka body corp, and conflicts of interest where the developer awards a building management contract before selling all the apartments... So people are a bit hesitant to sign up for that and apartment living is still a pretty foreign concept to most
They tend to be more expensive per sqft but smaller than a house you could buy. And there's no mortgage, so you don't need a big down payment to move in.
But apartment living in a private system means enriching a landlord first and foremost. That means whatever the actual cost of the space, you're going to pay extra.
It's just a marketing gimmick. The term doesn't have any legal meaning, so everyone uses it to upsell their units.
Some of the dingest places I've lived have been billed as "luxury".
I am not quite following you here. What do you mean there's no mortgage? (Other than if you have the cash, and thus don't need a loan)
Most people don't buy a home outright. They take out a long-term low-interest loan (mortgage literally means "pledge till death" although they typically only last 15-30 years) to pay back the house in installments. However, before you can take out this loan, banks will often demand a down payment equal to 20% of the total value of the property. With the high price of housing, this down payment can be substantial - a $500k house requires a $100k down payment.
Renters don't need to make these large advanced payments in order to get access to a rental unit. You aren't required to have $100k in the bank before you get your own place.
Ah, you did not mention the renter part haha, I was considering how much each costs to buy
American problems
In fairness, also Australian problems, just to a lesser degree overall (in urban areas)
"boss battle"
So fucking cringe.
People really need to commute for groceries? Like, I have the store 1 block away. Americans don't know they can walk?
TIL
Most Americans leave too far away from any supermarket, even if there were roads that could take you there, either by walking or cycling.
I say it's a business opportunity, why don't Americans just open a small general store in their residential areas? Not everything need to come from a supermarket, here we have people that literally sell you vegetables in a rented garage.
Seems like the only acceptable usage of garages for you people are tech startups and maybe teenager bands lol.
I hope the answer is not "due to some obtuse regulation, residential areas can't have business operating in any shape or form, unless is a tech startup or an ice cream truck".
It's not obtuse regulation, it's explicitly by design. In most places in the US, you cannot operate a business in a residential area that serves the public. Businesses that do not serve the public (like a tech startup or someone working from home) are fine. Ice cream trucks are also not allowed unless you have a proper business license / permit.
That laws sounds exactly like obtuse regulation to me. Why you cannot have a grocery store in your neighborhood? I really can't think of a good reason. If there is a case for ice cream trucks, proper business license/permit and all that, it makes even less sense for other business types.
C'mon, you really need to commute to the supermarket to buy some bananas? That's nonsense.
In the US our culture has mostly adapted the grocery store routine to our car culture. The typical trip to the grocery store involves filling a large shopping cart with all the family’s food for the next week or two. People get in the car and drive a far distance to a big grocery store that sells everything. They buy more than they could ever carry, and they load it all into the car.
Also exacerbating this is how much we love shitty processed food. The big grocery stores have nice produce sections, but 80% of what’s in the store is shelf stable and in a box.
As an American that wishes for having stores just that close, the zoning laws are like that for a reason. That reason is to keep people dependent on cars. That is good for the fossil fuel industry.
I know it's nonsense. A fair amount of people know it's nonsense. But also a lot of people don't know, because they can't imagine a life without cars (or a life where you don't need to drive to do every mundane task). They only know no car = no job, food, or socialization and they will fight hard to guard it.
You can zone them there, it more over ends up being that large companies lowered prices to drive out competition, and then raise them back up after. If it cost your 30% more to shop somewhere when you are paycheck to paycheck, eventually the majority of people start going to the price selling at cost for those product and putting promotions on them because they can afford to stay afloat until you go out of business. Then they slowly raise the prices back up and they make their money, maybe a little higher because they don't have competition.
Also: If you order 50 cases of something it costs less as well. Ordering 1 case often makes a vendor not want to ship there as it cost them more time/labor/fuel to make those deliveries. So when a product cost $5 at Walmart vs $5 at your local convenience store, Walmart is making more money off the sale. Making it easier to use lower prices
Welcome to America.
I watched a video about the topic some time ago, it sheds some light upon the stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVwBuMX2mD8
I think I understand now why another commenter said that they are not obtuse laws. Obtuse laws emerge organically from idiot people, this is very malevolent and intentional. These fuckers have been around more than 100 years fucking up your community planning.
edit: wow, also racism is involved in this? I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, but still...
I want to also mention that smaller grocery stores used to exist but Walmart effectively outed them
https://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/1bpbgia/how_bad_did_stores_like_walmart_kill_small/
Zoning laws and NIMBYs
Well if they leave so far why don't they return?
slow clap
It turns out that, despite allegations to the contrary, the United States is actually small. Like, really, really tiny. We just don't have the room to put supermarkets in places near where people live.
The closest (and not my preferred because it's kind of expensive) grocery store would be a 2 hr round trip walking distance from me
That's just fucked up, I'm so sorry.
I live in the U.S. (for less than one more week now!) and currently, the closest place for me to buy groceries is five miles down a four lane highway. No sidewalks, obviously. You would be safe from cars walking on the median, less safe from poison ivy, ticks and lime disease since they don't exactly care about keeping them well-mowed in the summer.
I can already see that things will be different in the place where we will be temporarily living in the UK (Blackburn).
I usually stop at a grocery store on my commute, but if I just need something real quick I just walk to one of the three grocery stores down the street, but loading up the car on the way home is just much easier
What if trains weren't slow? 🤔
Wdym? In what clown world are trains slow?
The US
"Oh no! Trust me. Free market capitalism is gonna bring us so much innovation! "
If I wanted to take the train from my city to NYC, I'd end up spending about as much as a flight and I'd be on the trip for about 34 hours.
Freedom! Prestige!
They are slower than driving except in peak traffic. Caltrain san Francisco to san Jose is about 2x driving time, and on neither end does the train get you into real downtown. San Jose is close but still a 15 minute walk before you get to anything interesting. Francisco is in a relatively shady area near a stadium, also 15 mins from market.
If you don't have to park, getting to the airport by transit involves switching from Caltrain to BART at a random suburb so as an example San Jose to SFO is 30 mins by car, 1:30 by train. Note the tracks for the Caltrain and Bart are parallel here.
Ah, American trains. Outside of the USA and Canada, trains are fast.
If you mean to say "trains with high average speeds have high average speeds" I'll agree, but even in countries trying to get faster average speeds it's still relatively new outside of Japan.
There's also cost to consider. You can get a fast train Paris to Berlin and it's 4 hours faster than driving, but costs more than 4x to transport 1 passenger vs a car which can bring 5. The main route is slow, matching the speed of a car. (If you had a family, would you pay 60 euros to drive, 520 euros to train at car speeds, or 932 euros to train faster?)
However the "fast" train is still only reaching normal highway speeds (120-130 kmph) on average...it's just the roads are so bad google is estimating an average car speed of less than 80 kmph which is essentially like...suburb/business area street speed here in this country.
is the paris-berlin route really that slow?
vienna-munich travels at around 200 km/h...
Train should take the German highway to go faster
I'm cheating slightly because I'm considering distance in terms of the direct train. The other is faster but goes another few hundred km wayyyy out of the way so I'm considering that to be the average speed for comparison purposes.
The other fatal flaw in the analysis is that while gas (actually I used VW+diesel) is pretty flat rate, trains can be cheaper off-peak. But I was mostly looking to confirm that the general economics aren't that different.
Where the us is real dumb is we actually have a shitton of space. Like the whole LA-SF train if we built it would be literally just next to i-5 in the middle of a redneck wasteland....plenty of space to get up to speed, and pretty much no reason to stop between sf and la. But we don't do it because we suck.
Me watching the cars crawling on the highway at 120 km/h when I zip by at 330 km/h in my comfortable TGV seat, playing on my Steam Deck.
Playing online on the steam deck even
The future is now
Amtrak has entered the chat
THE LAAAAAAAND OF THE FREEEEEEE! 🇺🇸🦅🛻🔫
What if they didn't have to run on tracks either? And then there could be smaller personal sized versions that families could own too!
why the fuck would any family want to own their own trolleybus
You walk to the fucking grocery store. I know it sounds wild but we have legs so we can use it.
That doesn't work if the grocery store is too far to walk or for larger grocery hauls (which often go hand in hand - the further away, the fewer trips you'll want to make). I've been told that some places just genuinely don't have a grocer within 20min walking distance, because some construction planning apparently prefers huge zones of housing without any kind of commercial usage allowed - no baker, no grocer, no hairstylist, no doctor - making it effectively impossible to have any of those amenities in range.
Obviously, that is a planning issue and ought to be fixed. You'll have to contend with NIMBYs, but you'd have to do that with any changes anyway. Alternatively or additionally, you could install a usable network of bus lines and trams (though they shouldn't be run for profit, so it'll be a tough sell too).
There is also the issue of accessibility, but I think that would be trivial to solve as a side effect: If the streets are less crowded with cars, it's easier to offer special accommodation for people with limited mobility or anxiety issues.
Bikes are faster than walking and you can attach a trailer. I know a lot of people do that in denmark. Suddenly your cargo capacity is larger than a lot of cars, of course not for weight. As for people with mobility issues, where i live they have a dedicated branch of the public transit for them. On train you can go with wheelchair and if you need extra help in the city they can send you someone with minibuss to help you. Same if youre not in a wheelchair but limited because of your age. Of course these arent cheap to solve but putting out the la fires that were caused by global warming that was in part caused by cars isnt cheap either.
...but put me at a higher risk of hurting myself because I'm bloody clumsy (impaired balance and coordination). Joke aside, good point.
That is awesome!
In the short term, no, it's probably an expensive project. But in the long term, even aside from environmental impact, I think it would save money.
Just not for the car manufacturers... Those poor, poor billionaires will need to find a different income I guess.
This hillbilly has never been to NYC
walking is an option
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.
You could take a train to the shop, though. If the infrastructure is built right.
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?
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.
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)
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....
Many options, in no particular order of feasibility:
Dedicated bus lane across the highway, plus half hourly or better regular bus service.
A separated bicycle lane in that area to safely get you between the two.
A light rail line (preferably in a dedicated lane) or subway crossing highway.
Get a grocer opened closer to you.
Move north of the highway or somewhere else entirely.
Build a rail spur going north over the highway and add a train service.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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?
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).
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).
Are these elderly people driving to the grocery store? That doesn't really seem much safer.
Laughs in Japanese
These “take a train” crowd think that everyone in every city and every town has a subway system or even a functional bus system. It’s like the bicycle people who insist that I don’t need a car, I can just strap my kids to my back in winter and drop them off at school before cycling to work and stopping for errands and groceries on the way home! So easy! /s
If I didn’t NEED a car I wouldn’t drive one, and that applies to most people. But for some reason everyone on here is a 20something city kid with easy access to public transit
“These ‘take a train’ crowd” tend to be also the ones saying “build more trains, light rail, and tram lines, also bike lanes” but who are prevented from making progress at every turn by oil and motor lobbyists. They are very aware of the limitations but generally encourage it because it’s a good thing to do.
something a lot of people miss is, that some people have to shop for more than 3 or 4 people, when I grew up we were 5 plus a somewhat big dog, you can't really do weekly shopping without some kind of help under these circumstances
I use public transport to get everywhere I can, which is pretty easy where I live, but having 4 full shopping bags on a tram sounds like a horrible experience
People in countries and cities with good public transport don’t really do “weekly”. They stop in to the local market on the way home daily or every other day. There’s literally an express type grocery store every block or three, and a full serve store probably 10-15 minutes walk.
I spend a lot of time overseas for work, and getting groceries is without a car is zero trouble.
It tends to be much easier in walkable/well designed areas because you have a much higher density of grocery stores.
I have about 8 within a 2-10 minute walk. So I don't really do a big weekly shop, but rather a couple small ones throughout the week.
So yeah, depends hugely on how human-friendly the area is
Look at Mr Fancypants, with enough money to live in a desirable area and have enough time to go for strolls to the grocery store(s).
Seriously though, this is not the norm in the states.
I mean, there's a bunch of factors to this some social some geographical, but it turns out, the US has almost uniqiely bad design of towns and city with the auto-lobby holding a firm grip on their balls.
I'm not in a particularly desirable area... I'm also not in the US though.
A bug reason why the only desirable areas tend to be walkable in the US is just because there are so few.
If you promoted widespread walkable city-design, then prices will become more accessible to everyone. Even the poorest areas lf my city are super walkable, even moreso than many of the richer areas.
Literally every town or city in Europe is like this.
Which is why there's traffic
human-friendly as in you can live there in poverty or human-friendly as in it's great if you're middle class?
I mean, being poor sucks everywhere, but there's a lot of intermediate steps between dense well-designed city and car-centric hellhole. Arguably the latter is way worse if you can't afgord a car.
I actually live mostly surrounded by public housing! But I'm also not in the US...
The poorest part of my city is also the most densely populated and has an absolute shit-load of walkable grocery stores.
Just shop daily instead of weekly. A grocery store just opened three blocks from me so I just walk down with a single canvas bag and grab what I need for the next day or two. For the dog, we walk down to the pet store together to grab his food and a treat or toy for him.
Obviously not possible in many suburbs, but when you live in a walkable area it works great.
I hope I never end up in an American suburb.
Shopping daily sounds terribly inefficient. I don't even want to be at the store once per week, much less every single day.
It's really minor when you just walk in and grab like... some vegetables for dinner. It's like a 5-10 minute detour.
Maybe you're right. I'm where I'm at, I drive about 10-12 minutes to get to a nice grocery store with decent prices where the parking lot won't be sketchy or crowded. But having one on my way as I'm walking to and from somewhere else would be pretty great. Most of the stores like that where I'm at are considered "concenience" stores, and the prices are wildly inflated there, so I never shop there unless I just want a drink or some junk food real quick.
As someone who loves cars and is cool with car culture, I do feel that it should be completely optional, and more walking based infrastructure and public transportation would be nice for everyone.
It takes less than 15 minutes to do a shopping trip. 4 minutes by bike to get there, 4 minutes back. Time inside the store depends on how much stuff I need but usually not more than a few minutes, including self-checkout.
Sure. But one car ride a week to fulfill the daily needs of six living beeings doesn't cause congestion. What has this to do with anything?
If you live in more urban areas, you even don't need your own car for that.