Older, Wiser (Maybe), I'm Back
3 months ago
03 August 2009
Vacation Reading
"The problem that lies behind consideration for pedestrians, as it lies behind all city traffic difficulties, is how to cut down absolute numbers of surface vehicles and enable those that remain to work harder and more efficiently. Too much dependence on private automobiles and city concentration of use are incompatible.". The Death and Life of Great American Cities, pg 349
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and you know... without a non-car infrastructure to travel on daytrips, it is sort of difficult to get by without having a car, even in the city. (We use our cars mostly on weekends and trips.)
But there's also this unspoken list of things people in america are supposed to have in order to be successful: house, car, spouse, kids... so people have these things without thinking about really why they have them...
I think rising population density will make public transportation popular again. People in Cincinnati may gripe about rush hour and a decaying urban core, but our traffic is fairly light outside of rush hour and finding a cheap or free parking space in a decaying urban core is rarely a problem.
The cost of a monthly parking space downtown is often less than a monthly bus pass, and driving downtown is faster than the bus even if you're just coming down from one of the hills.
Don't get me wrong; I love the idea of a streetcar and think the city would really benefit from it. But until driving and parking aquire more of a practical hassle than using public transportation, I don't know if the average person will share my opinion.
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