It’s Florida. Extremely hot and humid. The video is correct that this car-centric design is intentional. But that’s because people seriously do not want to go outside for longer than it takes to get into their car. So they definitely don’t want the city spending money to build a 400 foot walking path they’re never going to use.
It also needs to be said that Americans buy groceries differently than most other countries. They shop less often and buy much larger quantities, necessitating a car to handle all of the bags.
I’m all in favour of walkable cities but I would not choose to live in a walkable city in Florida!
It’s awful and geographically most urbanized areas in the US are built this way. Thank god for the small areas that were built before cars were invented. I live in one and while we still have huge negative impacts from car infrastructure at least walking and biking are viable alternatives here, even if the system doesn’t put them first.
On the flip side, one of the UKs major transport problems is that we were the first to industrialise. So although we have rail networks all over the place, they worm through literally thousands and thousands of small bridges and tunnels designed in the Victorian era. So not only can the speed not increase (at least not without buying the surrounding land and straightening the track, crazy expensive) adding any physical dimension to the trains would basically mean re-digging tons of tunnels and lifting bridges, which would also make the cost crazy.
Meanwhile Germany is zooming about in double decked trains like a boss…
It’s actually possible to fly to Europe cheaper than some UK train tickets (due to demand)
Meanwhile, cycling in London is actually getting pleasant in some parts. And it’s seriously satisfying to zip past cars congested for miles. The tube is 24hr as is a large part of the bus network.
We had the same issues here but then made them much worse by canceling virtually all rail lines and even tearing up a lot of the track in many places. So same situation with air travel almost always being cheaper and faster and on top of that rail travel only connects major cities and can’t connect to smaller cities and towns at all.
To get nice new/modern trains would involve widening our tracks and updating the infrastructure. Where I live in the (flat) country who gives a shit - it’s all just land banking farms anyway, but near towns and cities it’s going to involve a huge amount of, at best disruption and and worst the massive displacement of the population who have homes that back onto rail lines.
Also we’d need all new bridges, tunnels, etc.
And we’re currently broke as fuck because all the rail operators have been siphoning profit to foreign governments shareholders since we privatised the fuck out of the country.
There’s not much that will kill you in the UK but there’s a lot that will make you want to die.
I can’t comprehend living somewhere this horrible. For all its faults, I love Britain esp London.
It’s Florida. Extremely hot and humid. The video is correct that this car-centric design is intentional. But that’s because people seriously do not want to go outside for longer than it takes to get into their car. So they definitely don’t want the city spending money to build a 400 foot walking path they’re never going to use.
It also needs to be said that Americans buy groceries differently than most other countries. They shop less often and buy much larger quantities, necessitating a car to handle all of the bags.
I’m all in favour of walkable cities but I would not choose to live in a walkable city in Florida!
Interesting point thanks
It’s awful and geographically most urbanized areas in the US are built this way. Thank god for the small areas that were built before cars were invented. I live in one and while we still have huge negative impacts from car infrastructure at least walking and biking are viable alternatives here, even if the system doesn’t put them first.
The US is truly a shithole country.
On the flip side, one of the UKs major transport problems is that we were the first to industrialise. So although we have rail networks all over the place, they worm through literally thousands and thousands of small bridges and tunnels designed in the Victorian era. So not only can the speed not increase (at least not without buying the surrounding land and straightening the track, crazy expensive) adding any physical dimension to the trains would basically mean re-digging tons of tunnels and lifting bridges, which would also make the cost crazy.
Meanwhile Germany is zooming about in double decked trains like a boss…
It’s actually possible to fly to Europe cheaper than some UK train tickets (due to demand)
Meanwhile, cycling in London is actually getting pleasant in some parts. And it’s seriously satisfying to zip past cars congested for miles. The tube is 24hr as is a large part of the bus network.
We had the same issues here but then made them much worse by canceling virtually all rail lines and even tearing up a lot of the track in many places. So same situation with air travel almost always being cheaper and faster and on top of that rail travel only connects major cities and can’t connect to smaller cities and towns at all.
Your rail problem could be fixed if they were willing to invest in modernizing the system.
To get nice new/modern trains would involve widening our tracks and updating the infrastructure. Where I live in the (flat) country who gives a shit - it’s all just
land bankingfarms anyway, but near towns and cities it’s going to involve a huge amount of, at best disruption and and worst the massive displacement of the population who have homes that back onto rail lines.Also we’d need all new bridges, tunnels, etc.
And we’re currently broke as fuck because all the rail operators have been siphoning profit to
foreign governmentsshareholders since we privatised the fuck out of the country.There’s not much that will kill you in the UK but there’s a lot that will make you want to die.
https://media1.tenor.com/m/kYfQx8NswT4AAAAd/kevin-spacey-really.gif