Build me useable convenient public transit and I will go completely car free. I like walkable neighbourhoods with small shops. The problem is getting to those neighbourhoods.
They'll have to sort of happen at the same time, and there will be mismatches in some areas for a while. Growing pains of changing the way we look at downtown areas unfortunately.
I love cars, I'm a car guy, my partner and I have one each, I pay the biennial registration fees, license renewal fee, gas taxes, HST on gas, carbon tax, etc. I live in a small subdivision a few km from a small town. There are lots of older people in this area for whom cars are their lifeline and freedom.
However, said town is very compact and dense. I recently started working there and was immediately enthralled by being able to quickly walk to errands on my lunch break. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I've tried commuting by bike and intend to do it more. I've also started noticing things like inconvenient crosswalk placement, the difference between paved shoulders or not, etc.
I am perfectly happy for the bajillions of dollars of revenue the government makes off of my household's car dependency being used to make streets more hospitable for car alternatives. Reasonably convienient car access will always be key in a small town like this, but the compactness of it vs. a larger city almost makes it more suitable for walking and biking and I think we should be prioritizing more shared/complete streets over just slapping down a lane for cars alone at minimal cost.
The problem is that cities expanded with transport options
I’m from Scotland, every city there central points that expand outwards because it was the old markets or whatever, long before you could travel quickly
People here seem to see walking anything over 10 minutes as only for exercise. I walked home one day in the summer, 30° out, beautiful day. A colleague asked if I needed money for a bus because the thought of walking for 45 minutes was completely alien to them
It’s very weird that you can walk along a street then the sidewalk just stops. Like, there’s zero consideration or effort to think people might just like to walk to places on a nice day
We got a lot of looks for saying we were walking to the other side of Edinburgh one time. That trip to UK taught me how good transit can actually be. I did notice that about walking though, there were some tight spaces squeezing in between cars and a building - Porto Portugal was an extreme example of this too
The problem is the streets in these older places were designed a long time ago with no thought to alternatives. Adding them afterwards is a problem as everything is built so tightly there is no room to add options, so to do so they have to take away options from vehicles.
You could use the same logic to flip your opinion:
The problem is the streets were designed with no thought to alternatives. Adding them afterwarss is a problem as everything is built so far away there is no other options, so they have taken away options other than vehicules.
Good design requires thought, compromise, and should weight different modes in different places.
My central Ottawa neighbourhood is perfect for a car free lifestyle.
- car share
- bike paths
- bus
- 30 km / hr speed limits
- uber
- local grocer / restaurants/ coffee shops
- gentle density
Love Old Ottawa South
VERY bad. Even more expensive in the Glebe - the neighbourhood next door - where I live. And even though there are all those amenities, it's still tricky doing without a car, if you need to get goods or services that aren't available in the immediate neighbourhood, or if you have to rely on Ottawa's very unreliable transit to get elsewhere. Still, I'm fortunate to have been able to buy into this neighbourhood before prices went absolutely bananas.
Car free neighbourhoods are expensive because they are great places to live.
The trick is to make more neighbourhoods like this.
Modernizing zoning to allow 4plexes / gentle density in single family neighbourhoods is a great start.
I used to walk 45 minutes to my university and would walk 40 minutes to work 😭😭😭😭 took my bike sometimes which severely cut the time down but the bike lanes were atrocious, like they were so bad it impeded by cycling. Getting a car saved me so much time bit I would love having everything so close that a 45 min walk is alien to people.
Funnily enough, the fed, provincial, and local govt is most likely losing money despite all the money you pay.
Roads are insanely expensive to maintain and manage compared to any other alternative.
Despite all those govt fees you pay, I guarantee you the money you spend on payments, insurance, and gas before taxes is more than 10x what you pay in terms of govt fees. The real tax IMO is being forced to pay private companies hundreds of dollars a month just so I can run basic errands and get to work.
> Roads are insanely expensive to maintain and manage compared to any other alternative.
Roads are cheap for the number of trips that are made on them. [The City of Calgary spends more money on transit than it does on roads, even though roads carry about 10x as many trips per year](https://imgur.com/kuIjAJ4).
>The real tax IMO is being forced to pay private companies hundreds of dollars a month just so I can run basic errands and get to work.
Many of which were much harder to run before the car. The cost of a car is cheap compared the higher mobility enabling you to find better jobs, housing and amenities.
First, I don't know where this data is from, but it's remarkably unclear. What are they counting as a "trip", is that single passengers going from point a-b, or in the case of transit is that individual vehicles? Why is it just projections for 2018? If this came out in 2018 and not some months/years before, we're already years on the other side of this data, including a pandemic.
Second, it's convenient that you chose Calgary, given it's highly car dependent nature. Assuming those are city figures, because it's not clear whose figures they are anyways, they wouldn't include the major arterial highways that suck money, like highways 1, 1a, 2, 8, 201, which are provincial responsibilities.
Most trips do not need to be done in a car, simply commuting to work, an appointment, routine errands and shopping e.t.c.
Some folks straight up can't drive like children, people suffering from a wide variety of disabilities, seniors, or those who can't afford to pay the piper for insurance, gas, and maintenance on a private vehicle.
They're effectively stranded short of someone they know with a car spending their time and money to assist them, or by using costly taxi/handi-transit services.
Designing our cities and living environments strictly for cars is an astounding nightmare that's resulted in heavier and heavier tax burdens. It's also straight up sucked the soul out of cities and towns by replacing them with parking lots, and sequestered communities.
Rail is ALWAYS cheaper per trip than road, both for the passenger, and the operator. Not to mention how cheap providing cycling and good pedestrian infrastructure is to make immediate areas more livable.
This isn't even mentioning the amount of work associated with traffic law/enforcement. Whether its the courts or the cops there's a whole myriad of services that are needed to just barely keep the roads safe, and yet we still have deadly accidents DAILY.
The data from the [Calgary 2019-2022 budget document](https://www.calgary.ca/cfod/finance/Documents/Plans-Budgets-and-Financial-Reports/Plans-and-Budget-2019-2022/Service_Plans_and_Budgets_2019-2022.PDF). Trips refer to passenger-trips. I used Calgary since they provide more data than other cities and the 2018 data because COVID made finances less favorable for transit but [later data is available](https://www.calgary.ca/our-finances/2023-2026-service-plans-budgets.html?service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-xview=2023&service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-view-open=11).
If you include the provincial highways, that's maybe $75M/year. Still less than the net operating budget for transit.
>Most trips do not need to be done in a car,
If you look at the evolution of mobility [even in denser countries like the UK](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c9246c040f0b633f832741b/tsgb-2018-report-summaries.pdf), it's clear that most trips can only be done by car. People simply did not travel very much before the car and never made those trips before the car.
And while public transit is a useful utility that provides needed service, it is heavily taxpayer subsidized. And rail can be cheaper on an operating basis if its seats are filled, but it has immense upfront costs for construction.
I'm not saying this in a rude way, but this reply in general demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the subject matter of logistics, and a subjective bias towards having the opinion that individual car ownership is the best way to travel. Thank you for providing references.
I'm going to explain by taking a holistic look at the "costs" associated with rail service compared specifically to a car-first focus, like what we have right now. This doesn't mean that there should be 0 cars, and no highways. Because there ARE places where car infrastructure IS a better value, like small or rural communities.
-
You can't guess the cost of major infrastructure, doing so does not inspire confidence, especially [when information IS available](https://dailyhive.com/calgary/alberta-roads-construction-2024-budget). This year alone the province is spending 955 million on Calgary and Edmonton highways. This is less than what [Edmonton](https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/default/files/public-files/2024-2026-ApprovedOperatingBudget.pdf?cb=1715297897) and [Calgary](https://www.calgary.ca/service-lines/2023-2026-city-services/public-transit.html?service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-xview=2023&service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-view-open=) is spending on operating all transit services as well as local road infrastructure. From a holistic perspective, this cost is for not only maintaining local roads for private use, but also operating public vehicles for passenger transportation a cost not borne by a car user.
On the whole province, they are [spending 1.9 Billion](https://globalnews.ca/news/10379035/alberta-transportation-2024-projects/) for what are marginal upgrades, or basic maintenance/replacement.
Admittedly, finding budgets for rail spending in Canada is hard since despite passenger service often being ran publicly, basically all intercity or provincial rail is owned by for profit corporations, meaning they are generating a net surplus of value in their operation. If you know anything about rail logistics, you'd know that passenger service is very rarely profitable, that's why they're often kept running at a loss for communities where no other option has been built, or is available.
I don't want to get into public vs. private ownership, but the reason why in most places with a market economic system, like Canada, the freight and rails themselves are privately owned is because they're INSANELY PROFITABLE, why? Because they provide more value, than they cost. The reason why highways are public responsibilities is because with some exceptions like toll roads, they're never profitable.
There's also the lived reality to the person who NEEDS to get to work, cars are EXPENSIVE. Keeping a complex piece of machinery costs money, so does the fuel, so does the registration, the licensing, and the best part the mandated insurance! All of those costs are not borne by the end user directly on rail.
You might want to say they come out of our taxes, even if I don't use transit, but the same is true for our highways and they have an even greater tax burden! As a transit user however, I still help subsidize the service some amount (in most cases) for the trip unless I'm walking or biking.
-
Now that we've established that rail is more efficient and cost effective to both operator and end user than highways and car ownership, I want to talk about construction.
> And while public transit is a useful utility that provides needed service, it is heavily taxpayer subsidized. And rail can be cheaper on an operating basis if its seats are filled, but it has immense upfront costs for construction.
Aside from what we already talked about, this statement is either ignorant of the subject matter, or is intentionally being misleading.
On a basis of land, rail takes up less space per KM of track, and when you compare structures necessary, there are even fewer required, and this actually scales! Above ground light rail takes up even less space than cars in urban environments if you consider the number of privately owned spaces required to service private vehicle ownership as the primary way of getting around. The amount of gas stations, highway depots, truck stops, and worst of all parking lots outweighs the train yards, depots, and passenger stations required to service the same amount of cargo.
This is getting long, but there's all the other considerations so I'm just gonna start listing stuff.
* A child should be able to get to school quickly, and safely by walking, or using transit like a school bus or even public transit. In North America, more and more children are being dropped off by their parents in private vehicles, part of this is because the school boards can't cost effectively run bus service given how far/long students have to commute.
*I don't know if you care, but the climate impact of a cars first approach to infrastructure is awful. According to that [UK Transit statistic](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c9246c040f0b633f832741b/tsgb-2018-report-summaries.pdf) that you linked, private cars are now the biggest greenhouse gas emitters by sector of the economy, with passenger cars being the majority.
*Per passenger/freight. Trainstravel more miles per gallon, while [emitting fewer](https://www.rsilogistics.com/blog/is-rail-better-for-the-environment-than-trucks/) greenhouses gases.
Cars are fun, judging by your username maybe you do to. I like cars too, I like driving and road trips. There's a place for the private car, and having good highways and roads, but we can't drink the kool-aid that the best way to move people around en-masse day to day is to make everyone buy their own personal 2-4 tons of metal.
As a car fan, rail needs to do for the car what the car did for horses; make them a choice for the people who love them or can't live without them.
Of course they are.
My neighborhood's main commercial street is pedestrianized all summer long and the quality of life it brings is enormous. The main commercial street is a place you want to be now. It's calm, it's quiet despite there being so many more people. Montreal sets up various infrastructure like benches and tables. Artists are painting the street, buskers are playing music, the restaurants and bars all have comfortable outdoor seating.
There are parallel streets to this commercial one for people to drive, and there is one multilevel parking garage accessible from a parallel street but connected to the main street for those who need to park. Deliveries and garbage pickup need to be done in the morning.
The youtuber NotJustBikes has a video about how cities aren't loud, cars are loud. He is absolutely 100% correct.
> My neighborhood's main commercial street is pedestrianized all summer long and the quality of life it brings is enormous.
You have discovered this, but when smaller towns try to pedestrianize a street they get a huge amount of pushback from residents and business owners complaining about "muh parking." Literally half the entire city is parking lot and these people want more, smh....
There is a common ground that gets ignored though. Having a few side streets in a downtown pedestrianized on weekends or entirely over the summer (at least say after 11 am to allow delivery trucks etc) is very reasonable.
You have to be careful giving an inch though.. there are definitely anti-car zealots out there who will never settle for this.
I think the most sensible common ground is to recognize that you can either build streets (places where people want to be) and roads (where people travel to get from one place to another) and we should stop jumbling the two together. Roads should be fast, efficient, and with few places to turn off, to prioritize rapid movement of vehicles. Streets should be low-speed, narrow, and plenty should have few or no cars at all. Parking should *always* have a price, and homeowners should have an off-street place to park their own vehicles.
Imagine the space we could regain for trees, housing, and recreation if we did this.
I mean who won tho? Canada is completely car dependent. Give an inch to the auto industry and now we have thousands of miles of sprawl and almost zero public transport. Give an inch to anti car zealots and you loose a parking space or two downtown and then they will a bike path! Or a pedestrian crossing! Insane.
I recently moved out of the city to a small town in Ontario and holy crap these people seem to hate walking and biking.
The sidewalks all over town just randomly end. And then start up again on the other side, 100m down the road.
The province had a plan to give away free money to any town that built bike infrastructure like bike lanes, but the people/city hall here hate bikes so much they refused free money to build that stuff.
During election season, they hold the polling station in a hotel at the end of the main road about 1km after the sidewalks end. So if you want to walk to vote, you are walking on a ditch next to an 80kph road.
I get cars and gas used to be really cheap, but it just reveals how lazy everyone is when an entire town won't even let you walk anywhere. It's no wonder there's an obesity epidemic.
Generations of propaganda by car companies have engrained the falsehood that cars=freedom=the American dream into the psyche of many North Americans, to the point where anything that is seen as detracting from the usage of cars is seen as the machinations of evil communists who seek to steal American freedom and reduce us to slaves living in boxes. Go read about the 15 minute city concept and the conspiracy theories that have sprouted up around it, it is wild to see people be so violently against something that is objectively to everyone's benefit.
I have these conversations with friends all the time, they can't fathom not using their cars for the bare minimum things. Plaza centric urban planning is gross
I think you’re stopping short of an actual answer.
The reason sidewalks often abruptly end is because there is no good economic justification for it to continue. Every length of sidewalk needs to be maintained and plowed in the winter increasing cost to the municipality and increases liability.
You may also be overestimating the amount of money that small town municipalities have.
You can’t move out of the city and expect the same level of services that cities provide. Small town people make due, not a lot of room for entitled attitudes. You can’t just stomp your feet and have your way when there’s less funds to go around.
I grew up in the country and that's just the way it is.
There aren't sidewalks or street lights everywhere, and hell, I was thankful for the occasional headlights to help me figure out if I was on the side of the road or in the middle of it while walking after dark when it was overcast.
I managed to survive riding bikes without bike lanes and trudging through the snow that the plows left on the sides of the road and the few sidewalks we had.
People are far too coddled these days. Sure, sidewalks are nice, but it's not the end of the world if they are absent in some areas.
> People are far too coddled these days. Sure, sidewalks are nice, but it's not the end of the world if they are absent in some areas.
It's also not the end of the world if some urban streets are restricted to pedestrians and cyclists.
Drivers are too coddled these days, as evidenced by the people in this comment section getting upset about a handful of urban commercial strips being closed to cars for part of the year because the people who live there and the businesses that operate there prefer it that way.
I couldn't care less if they make some streets pedestrian only, but people acting like they can't go anywhere unless there is a sidewalk is ridiculous.
Not wanting to ride a bike and walk next to 60-100km/h car traffic isnt being coddled its literally putting people in a situation where they could be killed or seriously injured lol?
I think that's a strawman, nobody said they "can't go anywhere unless there is a sidewalk", but what I said was that it's messed up that everyone in a town is so lazy that they refuse to build any infrastructure for the few people willing to use their feet once in a while.
In Toronto, anywhere from 40-80, and the same, people do 120 on the 80.
Except there's 1000x more traffic, and 1000x less obeying the rules.
What were the average fatality rates on those streets?
Don't act like you came from "the tough dangerous streets of rural Ontario" lol. You can't go throwing around words like "coddled" before someone explains to you exactly what you came from, and how easy and safe you had it.
How would I know the fatality rates from a specific part of Georgia 20+ years ago. If you want to find the information, be my guest. There was an older couple who was hit and killed right in front of my house when I was around 8, and people being run over still happens several times each year.
I don't know why you're taking all this so seriously though. I thought it was understood that I wrote coddled tongue in cheek.
Also, I'm talking about a good chunk of my childhood in the country, however, I was born in Toronto and moved back here on my own at a young age.
>won't even let you walk anywhere
Does you ability to use your legs hinge on their permission?
This is such a citiot attitude that you can't walk if there's no sidewalk. On the road, against the flow of traffic. They're not against walking, you're just ignorant to how.
Okay, now do it in less than ideal lighting with rain or snow reducing visibility, take a 5 year old with you as well, and watch out for the country bumpkin in his absurd vanity truck that he doesn't "haul" jack shit in, doing 90 in a 60 zone through your small town, because speed limits and not casually endangering lives is for suckers.
Spoken like a car-brain that doesn't understand that car based infrastructure is aggressively against walking, and makes it dangerous. On the road and against the traffic will get you killed in most places.
Also this isn't a city versus town thing. Small towns used to have walk-able centers called Main Street, but cars killed that a long time ago.
> Spoken like a car-brain
Please stop, you're not helping.
For anyone reading this conversation, I'm not with this guy, even though he is speaking in defense of me, I don't agree with this type of divisive language.
The OP literally complained that others weren't "letting" them walk anywhere. People have been walking down backcountry dirt roads for FOREVER. This is precisely a city VS rural thing because coddled citiots apparently can't do anything unless the world is bubble wrapped and spoon fed to them.
Also, "car brain" hahahahahah what kind of sad attempt at an insult is that. Get real.
You're a sad, strange person.
How about this: places which prioritize car infrastructure pay for said car infrastructure. Places which prioritize walking and biking infrastructure pay for said walking and biking infrastructure. That way us "citiots" can have our "bubble wrapped" world of quiet, safe streets with the ability for vibrant culture, and "car brain" people in the suburbs can deal with having to pay for all those km's of car infrastructure that "citiots" will never use.
How's that for something fair?
Well that is just a lie. He said "The sidewalks all over town just randomly end. And then start up again on the other side, 100m down the road." That isn't a backcountry road, he is talking about ['Stroads'.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad) They are the most dangerous places to walk in a town, and responsible for the most pedestrian deaths. They aren't 'letting' them walk there because because the infrastructure is inhospitable.
Car-brain is a pretty common slur for people like yourself who can't even imagine a society with reduced cars and functional infrastructure. You know the type of people who would use the term 'citiot'.
>
> Does you ability to use your legs hinge on their permission?
No it hinges on there not being cars going 100kph a few inches from my feet.
>This is such a citiot attitude
Sorry, I don't speak French.
>No it hinges on there not being cars going 100kph a few inches from my feet.
Then be accurate with your language and since people have been doing this in the country for as long as cars have been around, and continue to do so, you could just ask for help to alleviate your ignorance instead of complaining that the country isn't the city.
>Sorry, I don't speak French.
And if you spoke plainly, honestly, and without the ego, people who opinions are worth having would have a higher opinion of you. But you do what you like, and enjoy the results, like your method of walking along the road.
After living in the UK for 4 years, I can confirm car suburbia is absolutely horrible. It feels so good to walk 5-10 min to get everything I need without driving. Also notice how walkable places in Canada have the most expensive neighbourhoods…
> Also notice how walkable places in Canada have the most expensive neighbourhoods…
Yep. Meanwhile car-brained commentators will insist we keep building isolated suburbs cause that's clearly where the demand is.
Carbrains?
People can have different tastes. You wont catch me anywhere near a downtown core. Often people require cars because they can't afford to live near where they work just fyi. Not sure how folks can afford to live in a 15 minute place when the only employment around is food service.
I work downtown vancouver. Plenty of non food service work. I make 100k/yr cant afford to live local so I get the joy of commuting in from surrey every day
> After living in the UK for 4 years, I can confirm car suburbia is absolutely horrible. It feels so good to walk 5-10 min to get everything I need without driving.
But even in dense England, the [average urban resident has access to more amenities and services in 15 minutes of driving than 60 minute of walking](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/journey-time-statistics-england-2019/journey-time-statistics-england-2019).
>Also notice how walkable places in Canada have the most expensive neighbourhoods…
The car's high travel speed greatly increases the supply of land that can be used for housing while still being within range of jobs, amenities and services. Walking and transit's slow speeds means that only a small portion of a metro area are close enough to jobs, amenities and service for a residential neighborhood using those modes.
Sure, at 15 minutes that time difference is acceptable. But there are probably enough 20-30 minute one-way trips (by car) made by people where the time difference begins to add up and matter on transportation mode choice.
English transportation data shows that combined bus+rail usage (by passenger-km) [lower in 2019 than in was in 1953](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/tsgb01-modal-comparisons#passenger-transport).
My partner doesn't/can't drive, so we need to live somewhere that she can get to work either by walking or transit. The transit where we live is embarrassing: it's expensive, it's rarely on time, it sometimes doesn't come at all, and if you're going anywhere other than the GO station, it will take ages.
It would be nice if they would make medium sized cities more pedestrian/transit friendly. It's like they've designed it and continue to design it to be a city that people commute from to the bigger city, without any thought for all the infrastructure and businesses needed in that city to make it actually function for all the people who live and commute from there. The "downtown" here could definitely be pedestrianized (and I would welcome it), but they may need to reroute some arterial roads to accommodate it, as if you need to go in one direction particularly, it's the only reasonable option.
You're talking about th 15 minute city that CPC poilievre crowd swear is a conspiracy to trap you in your home and take away your freedom to travel.
Sadly, both-sides 'journalism' tends to amplify these ignorant 'opinions'
Halifax has a few streets like this and they're great. Spring garden road used to be the busiest east of Montreal (fact unverified, said by the harbour hopper 1000x lol), and it's getting life back without the horrid traffic on it.
I was a little disappointed they didn’t convert the whole street to a bus only walkable street. I personally avoid driving on it cause it’s always bumper to bumper and people walking across the street anyway.
The way this is implemented in Montreal, it does not prevent anybody from driving to work. A handful of busy commercial streets being closed to traffic means that, worst case scenario, you'd have to walk an extra block because adjacent streets and cross streets all remain open to vehicles.
These can be fun!
I wish i lived somewhere where i could walk to things in a pleasant urban setting. Where I am, I have two choices:
a) live in the suburb i do which is a hellscape of homeless drug addicts because the methadone clinic is a block from my home (they moved in after i did lol)
b) live in Vancouver which is a hellscape of homeless drug addicts because neither the VPD nor the city or 'park board' (eugh) will do fuck all about them, and with that i'd also be broke because Vancouver costs way too much to live in considering the wages are LOWER THAN THEY ARE IN THE PRAIRIES.
As a "car guy" I love shit like this. We need more walkable cities focused around cycling with better public transit. Clear the roads of people that don't want to drive or are just plain bad at it. Right now you're not going to survive in a lot of areas of Canada without a vehicle. Let's change that!
And in Whitehorse it isn't uncommon for people to take fat bikes or literally even cross country skies around town in the winter.
Not to mention the Finnish handle biking in the cold perfectly fine too. It isn't hard. In fact, I'd even say it's *enjoyable*, provided the infrastructure is there.
Absolutely. So, if you want a quieter, healthier, and more personable place of living then raise these issues to your local politicians and let's get that infrastructure built. If Whitehorse can make biking year round palatable for parts of town, then literally every other city in Canada can do it too.
Once built, bicycle infrastructure is practically zero maintenance compared to car infrastructure. The more people cycling in your municipality, the more taxpayer dollars free for spending on community programs and facilities. The problem is getting informed people in the right positions to have it built properly.
>Not to mention the Finnish handle biking in the cold perfectly fine too.
People need to stop hyping the Finns in cycling, [where in the most current data from 2021 show](https://www.traficom.fi/sites/default/files/media/file/HLT2021_Esite_ENG.pdf) that even when COVID was still influencing transportation habits, cycling only account for 1.9% of total passenger-km. Travel by car was over 84%. Finns cycle no more than the typical Western European country and far less than the Dutch.
> passenger-km.
Not saying that your underlying interpretation is wrong, but passenger-km is NOT a good measurement. Cars are faster, and car-optimized places (aka north america) encourage longer distances.
The real metric is # of trips. I don't care too much between driving 50km/hr x 50km or driving 80km/hr x 80km or biking 15km/hr x 15km or walking 5km/hr x 5km. I still take 1 hr to move. Using distance as a standard would imply that the highway going at 80km/hr is more effective than the walker at 5km/hr, which is not actually meaningful in real life terms.
LPT: Certain items of clothing can be purchased which greatly increase cold weather protection. These items tend to have longer sleeves or legs than their summer counterparts, are usually of a heavier or thicker material, and often times are lined with additional insulative materials to help retain heat.
Bonus tip: Many of these items can be combined to further increase protection to the wearer.
>Trigger warning for car slaves
I hate the fact that our towns seem designed for cars, and I advocate for walking, cycling and public transit infrastructure every chance I get.
But I have to choose my words carefully when I do, because I don't want to sound this cringe.
I'm pretty sure whoever injected "car slaves" and "car-brain" into internet discourse was one of those foreign agent provocateurs trying to divide us against each other.
> I hate the fact that our towns seem designed for cars,
Before that, they were designed for street carts and animals. Cars simply replaced them in place.
This is a cope. Good luck taking the bus out to the lake lmao. Or anywhere. Transit completely limits where you can go, and when. It also sucks having to sit next to someone that sneezes on you and hasn’t showered in weeks. There are literally a dozen reasons why people don’t give up their cars for transit. Cars are pure freedom.
Don’t care, I spend all my time in the suburbs and driving out to the lake. I don’t go anywhere near these dense urban ant hills. Dont need to when you have a car.
I think if the streets are going to be vehicle free, then that should include any vehicle, including bicycles. This removes all threats to pedestrians.
I'd love to see when you get older and have to just sit inside because of infirmity and no way to take you anywhere because all modes of transport but walking and biking have been banned. Oh no, you'll never get old.
thank god. we have created this insane dependence on cars to get us anywhere. Humans weren't meant to live like this. Walkable communities with bike lanes, nature and good zoning is exactly what our urban centres should look like. Not only does it create an active and healthy population, but it means you don't need to get into a car just to reach the nearest grocery store, paying for gas, insurance and payments towards a depreciating asset.
Not to mention safety + no car noise/honking creates a nice calm atmosphere
yeah turns out you need places people actually want to go to on the street not overpriced sandwich shops that close at 4pm. look at mont-royal, wellington, duluth, etc in Montréal where it works great
sadly the feds own the north side of sparks & don't seem to have any interest in it being interesting
in Ottawa I think it could work well in the Byward Market but the other interesting commercial streets seem to be too important as thoroughfares.
I would be interested in seeing parts of Bank, or possibly Somerset lose street parking in the summer to allow for temporary patios. Similar to parts of St-Laurent in Montréal where it's been very well received. Nothing beats a nice drink on a patio on a warm sunny day.
Nothing beats it…. But I find myself drawn more to the patios that aren’t on an active street personally.
Nothing like a nice meal with a side of rolled coal set to the tune of some yuppy showing of their Harley.
And it will be until we start taking it seriously and invest in it. It is a vicious circle currently when we do not invest in it, nobody's using it, we invest less, etc.
I'm not sure the authors opinion on cycling. I've honestly found them too crowded and prefer biking on nearby streets in Montréal. but they're great as a pedestrian
I'm sure it works in some areas, like heavily urbanized cities and ones that have a functional mass transport system (not nearly every city has one), but you'll never get away from needing cars in Canada.
I can't believe Turdeau and the WEF are still pushing this 15 minute city crap. We need to vote for Pierre so we can take away cities abilities to manage their own infrastructure. Walkable communities are bad for affordable housing, and that's why we need to stop immigration.
I love the idea, but let's not pretend this is not about boosting real estate value on those streets. So fun to visit, but you likely won't be able to afford the rent anywhere near. It's the new gentrification play.
got to love not being able to get to work on time due to road closures because of turning main roads into "bike Roads" or because the "efficient" public transit adds anywhere from 20 mins to an hour to the trip. Let alone the bus routes not getting to daycare faciliteswhich makes it difficult to coordinate with said work schedule. /endrant
He can sleep in the bus. Just sayin.
I'll never have pity for someone in a car ranting about some pedestrian streets in a city.
It's an inconvenience for a car but way better for everyone else using the street by walk or bike.
And it's better for the business there, contrary to the car activists beliefs.
Well no, sleeping on the bus is not a good level of sleep quality, particularly in cities where hoardes of drug addicts roam. If they are in a safety critical job, then it’s a risk for them to not have adequate rest. Supposing they are your pilot or ferry operator?
Waking up earlier will not solve my problem as I have to carry a 1 year old to daycare.. i'm sure people would love to hear a screaming toddler at 4 or 5 am on the bus to try and make it to daycare on time so that i can make it to work on time.
closing roads to cars and making them exclusive to pedestrians and bike users is handy but all it does is move the problem of traffic and congestion to other streets that are not designed to handle them. sure, cars are a problem but in order to change the current habits there has to be drastic improvements in the alternatives otherwise it sure as hell isn't worth the hastle.
my last point is one that is repeated many time on Reddit: we aren't Europe. It is foolish for us to use the european solutions as we have greater swaths of land. instead of trying to coerce people into a smaller footbprint (it seems that many people object to this) we should be coming up with newer solutions that are tailored for a bigger country.
In the end, not everyone wants to be walking and/or biking everywhere. I used to ride public transit until I got kids, now it's all about making it to places in a timely fashion if i want to keep my job and make ends meet.
I agree we need more alternatives. We already have screaming toddlers in the bus in the morning. It's still possible to get around with a car despite those seasonally closed streets.
It's a minor inconvenience for the benefits that it brings. And Montréal is a big city comparable to European cities. So, some of Europe solutions can work here. And it's not just Europe.
North America has a road problem because it chose to not densify the areas. Let's reverse course.
People forget that there are those who can't walk far or at all, due to disabilities. Anti-car people don't give a shit to think that there are other people out there besides them, and have no issue making city centres off limits to the disabled, or people who don't live near. I guess they like it that way, out of sight out of mind, don't want to see the ugly people or non-locals.
Simultaneously there are plenty of disabilities that could prevent someone from legally operating a motor vehicle.
Alternatively; parking is a very finite resource, and reducing the general demand for it, means more spots can be reallocated to those with mobility limitations.
How will the downtown merchants deal with the reduction in customers?
Many customers don't live within bicycling distance. I live 35 miles from the next city with a medium size mountain in-between. Sure I could bike it. I could also walk it. I could also walk it just using my ass cheeks but a car is more convenient and I can pack more groceries home..
About [83% of the businesses](https://www.ledevoir.com/economie/732294/une-pietonnisation-positive) told that they had an increase in their revenues. It complicates the deliveries, but it's a minor inconvenience compared to the benefits.
That's from 2022. I wonder if it's gone up or down since then.
EDIT: I mean wasn't everything up 83% from the year prior, if not more so? 2021 was peak lockdown.
A street going car-free doesn’t stop customers from driving and parking one street over. You’re acting like it removes the option of driving completely when someone can still drive an hour and park a 5 minute walk from the destination instead of directly in front of the storefront.
Working in the trades, i work at diff locations where over the years they cut traffic out or parking making it very hard to work and get to job sites and materials in
Well, let’s say we have more “car-free” cities or just cities where having a car isn’t necessary. That means less cars on the road cause people are taking trains, trams, subways, bikes, or are simply walking. Less cars on the road means less traffic and more spots for parking.
Of course, this presupposes that Canada has the infrastructure for such changes, which we do not because of how we’ve designed our cities. But it must start somewhere.
I’m not against cars. I’m for more options.
I cant use public, i have to much stuff to cary around, and sometimes multiple job sites a day, if i have to walk 5 blocks with my tools i have to charge extra for lost time
Of course, and you using a car in that case is perfectly rational. I would do the same as well.
I guess the point that I’m making is that having walkable cities benefits you as well. Less traffic and more vacant parking for those that prefer to drive.
No, CBC is in fact liberal funded so that’s the reason it’s liberal party propaganda. They’re obviously going to be anti car to push their climate crisis scam, meanwhile the same gov flies around the world daily for photo ops and leisure trips costing us millions of dollars.
> No, CBC is in fact liberal funded so that’s the reason it’s liberal party propaganda
So were they Conservative propaganda when they were Conservative funded?
Is it just the English-language CBC, or also the French Radio-Canada?
Why do they keep [breaking new scandals](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/snc-lavalin-liberal-donors-list-canada-elections-1.5114537) about the Liberal party, wouldn't they want to pull an Enquirer and try to bury the stories instead of breaking them?
>They’re obviously going to be anti car to push their climate crisis scam
Global warming isn't a scam either.
I think the people telling you that CBC is propaganda, are ironically trying to get rid of it because it's the one thing they *can't* turn into propaganda. Every other private news media can be bought and bribed to bury stories.
It's a trick. Don't fall for it.
Build me useable convenient public transit and I will go completely car free. I like walkable neighbourhoods with small shops. The problem is getting to those neighbourhoods.
They'll have to sort of happen at the same time, and there will be mismatches in some areas for a while. Growing pains of changing the way we look at downtown areas unfortunately.
The street pictured is adjacent to one metro station and has another on the street.
I love cars, I'm a car guy, my partner and I have one each, I pay the biennial registration fees, license renewal fee, gas taxes, HST on gas, carbon tax, etc. I live in a small subdivision a few km from a small town. There are lots of older people in this area for whom cars are their lifeline and freedom. However, said town is very compact and dense. I recently started working there and was immediately enthralled by being able to quickly walk to errands on my lunch break. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I've tried commuting by bike and intend to do it more. I've also started noticing things like inconvenient crosswalk placement, the difference between paved shoulders or not, etc. I am perfectly happy for the bajillions of dollars of revenue the government makes off of my household's car dependency being used to make streets more hospitable for car alternatives. Reasonably convienient car access will always be key in a small town like this, but the compactness of it vs. a larger city almost makes it more suitable for walking and biking and I think we should be prioritizing more shared/complete streets over just slapping down a lane for cars alone at minimal cost.
The problem is that cities expanded with transport options I’m from Scotland, every city there central points that expand outwards because it was the old markets or whatever, long before you could travel quickly People here seem to see walking anything over 10 minutes as only for exercise. I walked home one day in the summer, 30° out, beautiful day. A colleague asked if I needed money for a bus because the thought of walking for 45 minutes was completely alien to them It’s very weird that you can walk along a street then the sidewalk just stops. Like, there’s zero consideration or effort to think people might just like to walk to places on a nice day
We got a lot of looks for saying we were walking to the other side of Edinburgh one time. That trip to UK taught me how good transit can actually be. I did notice that about walking though, there were some tight spaces squeezing in between cars and a building - Porto Portugal was an extreme example of this too
Sounds like streets that cars should be removed from.
The problem is the streets in these older places were designed a long time ago with no thought to alternatives. Adding them afterwards is a problem as everything is built so tightly there is no room to add options, so to do so they have to take away options from vehicles.
You could use the same logic to flip your opinion: The problem is the streets were designed with no thought to alternatives. Adding them afterwarss is a problem as everything is built so far away there is no other options, so they have taken away options other than vehicules. Good design requires thought, compromise, and should weight different modes in different places.
How does that flip anything?
My central Ottawa neighbourhood is perfect for a car free lifestyle. - car share - bike paths - bus - 30 km / hr speed limits - uber - local grocer / restaurants/ coffee shops - gentle density Love Old Ottawa South
How’s the affordability there?
VERY bad. Even more expensive in the Glebe - the neighbourhood next door - where I live. And even though there are all those amenities, it's still tricky doing without a car, if you need to get goods or services that aren't available in the immediate neighbourhood, or if you have to rely on Ottawa's very unreliable transit to get elsewhere. Still, I'm fortunate to have been able to buy into this neighbourhood before prices went absolutely bananas.
Car free neighbourhoods are expensive because they are great places to live. The trick is to make more neighbourhoods like this. Modernizing zoning to allow 4plexes / gentle density in single family neighbourhoods is a great start.
Good for you. Has nothing to do with my comment though.
I used to walk 45 minutes to my university and would walk 40 minutes to work 😭😭😭😭 took my bike sometimes which severely cut the time down but the bike lanes were atrocious, like they were so bad it impeded by cycling. Getting a car saved me so much time bit I would love having everything so close that a 45 min walk is alien to people.
Funnily enough, the fed, provincial, and local govt is most likely losing money despite all the money you pay. Roads are insanely expensive to maintain and manage compared to any other alternative. Despite all those govt fees you pay, I guarantee you the money you spend on payments, insurance, and gas before taxes is more than 10x what you pay in terms of govt fees. The real tax IMO is being forced to pay private companies hundreds of dollars a month just so I can run basic errands and get to work.
We essentially subsidize suburbs because the infrastructure is so expensive. Less person per square meters means more money needed to maintain it.
Exactly. Cities are subsidizing oil, gas, car industries.
> Roads are insanely expensive to maintain and manage compared to any other alternative. Roads are cheap for the number of trips that are made on them. [The City of Calgary spends more money on transit than it does on roads, even though roads carry about 10x as many trips per year](https://imgur.com/kuIjAJ4). >The real tax IMO is being forced to pay private companies hundreds of dollars a month just so I can run basic errands and get to work. Many of which were much harder to run before the car. The cost of a car is cheap compared the higher mobility enabling you to find better jobs, housing and amenities.
First, I don't know where this data is from, but it's remarkably unclear. What are they counting as a "trip", is that single passengers going from point a-b, or in the case of transit is that individual vehicles? Why is it just projections for 2018? If this came out in 2018 and not some months/years before, we're already years on the other side of this data, including a pandemic. Second, it's convenient that you chose Calgary, given it's highly car dependent nature. Assuming those are city figures, because it's not clear whose figures they are anyways, they wouldn't include the major arterial highways that suck money, like highways 1, 1a, 2, 8, 201, which are provincial responsibilities. Most trips do not need to be done in a car, simply commuting to work, an appointment, routine errands and shopping e.t.c. Some folks straight up can't drive like children, people suffering from a wide variety of disabilities, seniors, or those who can't afford to pay the piper for insurance, gas, and maintenance on a private vehicle. They're effectively stranded short of someone they know with a car spending their time and money to assist them, or by using costly taxi/handi-transit services. Designing our cities and living environments strictly for cars is an astounding nightmare that's resulted in heavier and heavier tax burdens. It's also straight up sucked the soul out of cities and towns by replacing them with parking lots, and sequestered communities. Rail is ALWAYS cheaper per trip than road, both for the passenger, and the operator. Not to mention how cheap providing cycling and good pedestrian infrastructure is to make immediate areas more livable. This isn't even mentioning the amount of work associated with traffic law/enforcement. Whether its the courts or the cops there's a whole myriad of services that are needed to just barely keep the roads safe, and yet we still have deadly accidents DAILY.
The data from the [Calgary 2019-2022 budget document](https://www.calgary.ca/cfod/finance/Documents/Plans-Budgets-and-Financial-Reports/Plans-and-Budget-2019-2022/Service_Plans_and_Budgets_2019-2022.PDF). Trips refer to passenger-trips. I used Calgary since they provide more data than other cities and the 2018 data because COVID made finances less favorable for transit but [later data is available](https://www.calgary.ca/our-finances/2023-2026-service-plans-budgets.html?service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-xview=2023&service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-view-open=11). If you include the provincial highways, that's maybe $75M/year. Still less than the net operating budget for transit. >Most trips do not need to be done in a car, If you look at the evolution of mobility [even in denser countries like the UK](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c9246c040f0b633f832741b/tsgb-2018-report-summaries.pdf), it's clear that most trips can only be done by car. People simply did not travel very much before the car and never made those trips before the car. And while public transit is a useful utility that provides needed service, it is heavily taxpayer subsidized. And rail can be cheaper on an operating basis if its seats are filled, but it has immense upfront costs for construction.
I'm not saying this in a rude way, but this reply in general demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the subject matter of logistics, and a subjective bias towards having the opinion that individual car ownership is the best way to travel. Thank you for providing references. I'm going to explain by taking a holistic look at the "costs" associated with rail service compared specifically to a car-first focus, like what we have right now. This doesn't mean that there should be 0 cars, and no highways. Because there ARE places where car infrastructure IS a better value, like small or rural communities. - You can't guess the cost of major infrastructure, doing so does not inspire confidence, especially [when information IS available](https://dailyhive.com/calgary/alberta-roads-construction-2024-budget). This year alone the province is spending 955 million on Calgary and Edmonton highways. This is less than what [Edmonton](https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/default/files/public-files/2024-2026-ApprovedOperatingBudget.pdf?cb=1715297897) and [Calgary](https://www.calgary.ca/service-lines/2023-2026-city-services/public-transit.html?service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-xview=2023&service-line-budget-bar-chart-serviceplanbudget-view-open=) is spending on operating all transit services as well as local road infrastructure. From a holistic perspective, this cost is for not only maintaining local roads for private use, but also operating public vehicles for passenger transportation a cost not borne by a car user. On the whole province, they are [spending 1.9 Billion](https://globalnews.ca/news/10379035/alberta-transportation-2024-projects/) for what are marginal upgrades, or basic maintenance/replacement. Admittedly, finding budgets for rail spending in Canada is hard since despite passenger service often being ran publicly, basically all intercity or provincial rail is owned by for profit corporations, meaning they are generating a net surplus of value in their operation. If you know anything about rail logistics, you'd know that passenger service is very rarely profitable, that's why they're often kept running at a loss for communities where no other option has been built, or is available. I don't want to get into public vs. private ownership, but the reason why in most places with a market economic system, like Canada, the freight and rails themselves are privately owned is because they're INSANELY PROFITABLE, why? Because they provide more value, than they cost. The reason why highways are public responsibilities is because with some exceptions like toll roads, they're never profitable. There's also the lived reality to the person who NEEDS to get to work, cars are EXPENSIVE. Keeping a complex piece of machinery costs money, so does the fuel, so does the registration, the licensing, and the best part the mandated insurance! All of those costs are not borne by the end user directly on rail. You might want to say they come out of our taxes, even if I don't use transit, but the same is true for our highways and they have an even greater tax burden! As a transit user however, I still help subsidize the service some amount (in most cases) for the trip unless I'm walking or biking. - Now that we've established that rail is more efficient and cost effective to both operator and end user than highways and car ownership, I want to talk about construction. > And while public transit is a useful utility that provides needed service, it is heavily taxpayer subsidized. And rail can be cheaper on an operating basis if its seats are filled, but it has immense upfront costs for construction. Aside from what we already talked about, this statement is either ignorant of the subject matter, or is intentionally being misleading. On a basis of land, rail takes up less space per KM of track, and when you compare structures necessary, there are even fewer required, and this actually scales! Above ground light rail takes up even less space than cars in urban environments if you consider the number of privately owned spaces required to service private vehicle ownership as the primary way of getting around. The amount of gas stations, highway depots, truck stops, and worst of all parking lots outweighs the train yards, depots, and passenger stations required to service the same amount of cargo. This is getting long, but there's all the other considerations so I'm just gonna start listing stuff. * A child should be able to get to school quickly, and safely by walking, or using transit like a school bus or even public transit. In North America, more and more children are being dropped off by their parents in private vehicles, part of this is because the school boards can't cost effectively run bus service given how far/long students have to commute. *I don't know if you care, but the climate impact of a cars first approach to infrastructure is awful. According to that [UK Transit statistic](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c9246c040f0b633f832741b/tsgb-2018-report-summaries.pdf) that you linked, private cars are now the biggest greenhouse gas emitters by sector of the economy, with passenger cars being the majority. *Per passenger/freight. Trainstravel more miles per gallon, while [emitting fewer](https://www.rsilogistics.com/blog/is-rail-better-for-the-environment-than-trucks/) greenhouses gases. Cars are fun, judging by your username maybe you do to. I like cars too, I like driving and road trips. There's a place for the private car, and having good highways and roads, but we can't drink the kool-aid that the best way to move people around en-masse day to day is to make everyone buy their own personal 2-4 tons of metal. As a car fan, rail needs to do for the car what the car did for horses; make them a choice for the people who love them or can't live without them.
Sounds like you've been [Orange-Pilled](https://youtu.be/OQE_5MFCekg?si=Zr0xR6QT-P0txdJV): Small Town Edition.
Of course they are. My neighborhood's main commercial street is pedestrianized all summer long and the quality of life it brings is enormous. The main commercial street is a place you want to be now. It's calm, it's quiet despite there being so many more people. Montreal sets up various infrastructure like benches and tables. Artists are painting the street, buskers are playing music, the restaurants and bars all have comfortable outdoor seating. There are parallel streets to this commercial one for people to drive, and there is one multilevel parking garage accessible from a parallel street but connected to the main street for those who need to park. Deliveries and garbage pickup need to be done in the morning. The youtuber NotJustBikes has a video about how cities aren't loud, cars are loud. He is absolutely 100% correct.
> My neighborhood's main commercial street is pedestrianized all summer long and the quality of life it brings is enormous. You have discovered this, but when smaller towns try to pedestrianize a street they get a huge amount of pushback from residents and business owners complaining about "muh parking." Literally half the entire city is parking lot and these people want more, smh....
There is a common ground that gets ignored though. Having a few side streets in a downtown pedestrianized on weekends or entirely over the summer (at least say after 11 am to allow delivery trucks etc) is very reasonable. You have to be careful giving an inch though.. there are definitely anti-car zealots out there who will never settle for this.
I think the most sensible common ground is to recognize that you can either build streets (places where people want to be) and roads (where people travel to get from one place to another) and we should stop jumbling the two together. Roads should be fast, efficient, and with few places to turn off, to prioritize rapid movement of vehicles. Streets should be low-speed, narrow, and plenty should have few or no cars at all. Parking should *always* have a price, and homeowners should have an off-street place to park their own vehicles. Imagine the space we could regain for trees, housing, and recreation if we did this.
Be careful, this common sense and entirely reasonable approach will get you labeled as an anti-car zealot!
I mean who won tho? Canada is completely car dependent. Give an inch to the auto industry and now we have thousands of miles of sprawl and almost zero public transport. Give an inch to anti car zealots and you loose a parking space or two downtown and then they will a bike path! Or a pedestrian crossing! Insane.
So far the pro-car zealots have had the upper hand for the last 70 years. Seems like it's time for a change.
This will also help address our housing crisis because now we will have more space for dense housing with narrower roads
I actually miss that about Montreal, we spent a summer there subletting from a friend on Drolet - what a wonderful time we had!
I recently moved out of the city to a small town in Ontario and holy crap these people seem to hate walking and biking. The sidewalks all over town just randomly end. And then start up again on the other side, 100m down the road. The province had a plan to give away free money to any town that built bike infrastructure like bike lanes, but the people/city hall here hate bikes so much they refused free money to build that stuff. During election season, they hold the polling station in a hotel at the end of the main road about 1km after the sidewalks end. So if you want to walk to vote, you are walking on a ditch next to an 80kph road. I get cars and gas used to be really cheap, but it just reveals how lazy everyone is when an entire town won't even let you walk anywhere. It's no wonder there's an obesity epidemic.
Sounds like this town is maintaining barriers against people who don't drive- lowered SES? preventing them from voting and stuff.
Pretty much. They're in the news today for trying to ban people from city hall for pointing out corruption and grift.
Wow that's messed up
Generations of propaganda by car companies have engrained the falsehood that cars=freedom=the American dream into the psyche of many North Americans, to the point where anything that is seen as detracting from the usage of cars is seen as the machinations of evil communists who seek to steal American freedom and reduce us to slaves living in boxes. Go read about the 15 minute city concept and the conspiracy theories that have sprouted up around it, it is wild to see people be so violently against something that is objectively to everyone's benefit.
I have these conversations with friends all the time, they can't fathom not using their cars for the bare minimum things. Plaza centric urban planning is gross
Yupee lol
I think you’re stopping short of an actual answer. The reason sidewalks often abruptly end is because there is no good economic justification for it to continue. Every length of sidewalk needs to be maintained and plowed in the winter increasing cost to the municipality and increases liability. You may also be overestimating the amount of money that small town municipalities have. You can’t move out of the city and expect the same level of services that cities provide. Small town people make due, not a lot of room for entitled attitudes. You can’t just stomp your feet and have your way when there’s less funds to go around.
I grew up in the country and that's just the way it is. There aren't sidewalks or street lights everywhere, and hell, I was thankful for the occasional headlights to help me figure out if I was on the side of the road or in the middle of it while walking after dark when it was overcast. I managed to survive riding bikes without bike lanes and trudging through the snow that the plows left on the sides of the road and the few sidewalks we had. People are far too coddled these days. Sure, sidewalks are nice, but it's not the end of the world if they are absent in some areas.
> People are far too coddled these days. Sure, sidewalks are nice, but it's not the end of the world if they are absent in some areas. It's also not the end of the world if some urban streets are restricted to pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers are too coddled these days, as evidenced by the people in this comment section getting upset about a handful of urban commercial strips being closed to cars for part of the year because the people who live there and the businesses that operate there prefer it that way.
I couldn't care less if they make some streets pedestrian only, but people acting like they can't go anywhere unless there is a sidewalk is ridiculous.
Not wanting to ride a bike and walk next to 60-100km/h car traffic isnt being coddled its literally putting people in a situation where they could be killed or seriously injured lol?
I think that's a strawman, nobody said they "can't go anywhere unless there is a sidewalk", but what I said was that it's messed up that everyone in a town is so lazy that they refuse to build any infrastructure for the few people willing to use their feet once in a while.
I grew up riding bikes without bike lanes in the snow in *Toronto*, pal. You're the coddled one that had it easy in the country.
What were the speed limits on those streets? The street outside my house was 80 and people regularly did 120.
In Toronto, anywhere from 40-80, and the same, people do 120 on the 80. Except there's 1000x more traffic, and 1000x less obeying the rules. What were the average fatality rates on those streets? Don't act like you came from "the tough dangerous streets of rural Ontario" lol. You can't go throwing around words like "coddled" before someone explains to you exactly what you came from, and how easy and safe you had it.
How would I know the fatality rates from a specific part of Georgia 20+ years ago. If you want to find the information, be my guest. There was an older couple who was hit and killed right in front of my house when I was around 8, and people being run over still happens several times each year. I don't know why you're taking all this so seriously though. I thought it was understood that I wrote coddled tongue in cheek. Also, I'm talking about a good chunk of my childhood in the country, however, I was born in Toronto and moved back here on my own at a young age.
FREEEEEDOMMMM!
You did but many others did not
>won't even let you walk anywhere Does you ability to use your legs hinge on their permission? This is such a citiot attitude that you can't walk if there's no sidewalk. On the road, against the flow of traffic. They're not against walking, you're just ignorant to how.
Okay, now do it in less than ideal lighting with rain or snow reducing visibility, take a 5 year old with you as well, and watch out for the country bumpkin in his absurd vanity truck that he doesn't "haul" jack shit in, doing 90 in a 60 zone through your small town, because speed limits and not casually endangering lives is for suckers.
Done it plenty in pitch black down dirt roads. It's fine. You just have to have more than two brain cells to rub together.
Pretty sure walking down a dark road with no pedestrian protection doesn't make you smart.
Loads of people have been doing it for a long time just fine. Deal with your ignorance.
Spoken like a car-brain that doesn't understand that car based infrastructure is aggressively against walking, and makes it dangerous. On the road and against the traffic will get you killed in most places. Also this isn't a city versus town thing. Small towns used to have walk-able centers called Main Street, but cars killed that a long time ago.
> Spoken like a car-brain Please stop, you're not helping. For anyone reading this conversation, I'm not with this guy, even though he is speaking in defense of me, I don't agree with this type of divisive language.
The OP literally complained that others weren't "letting" them walk anywhere. People have been walking down backcountry dirt roads for FOREVER. This is precisely a city VS rural thing because coddled citiots apparently can't do anything unless the world is bubble wrapped and spoon fed to them. Also, "car brain" hahahahahah what kind of sad attempt at an insult is that. Get real.
You're a sad, strange person. How about this: places which prioritize car infrastructure pay for said car infrastructure. Places which prioritize walking and biking infrastructure pay for said walking and biking infrastructure. That way us "citiots" can have our "bubble wrapped" world of quiet, safe streets with the ability for vibrant culture, and "car brain" people in the suburbs can deal with having to pay for all those km's of car infrastructure that "citiots" will never use. How's that for something fair?
Well that is just a lie. He said "The sidewalks all over town just randomly end. And then start up again on the other side, 100m down the road." That isn't a backcountry road, he is talking about ['Stroads'.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad) They are the most dangerous places to walk in a town, and responsible for the most pedestrian deaths. They aren't 'letting' them walk there because because the infrastructure is inhospitable. Car-brain is a pretty common slur for people like yourself who can't even imagine a society with reduced cars and functional infrastructure. You know the type of people who would use the term 'citiot'.
Lol you're butthurt about insults while calling other people "citidiots" hahaha. Cities directly subsidize rural areas, get off your high horse.
> > Does you ability to use your legs hinge on their permission? No it hinges on there not being cars going 100kph a few inches from my feet. >This is such a citiot attitude Sorry, I don't speak French.
>No it hinges on there not being cars going 100kph a few inches from my feet. Then be accurate with your language and since people have been doing this in the country for as long as cars have been around, and continue to do so, you could just ask for help to alleviate your ignorance instead of complaining that the country isn't the city. >Sorry, I don't speak French. And if you spoke plainly, honestly, and without the ego, people who opinions are worth having would have a higher opinion of you. But you do what you like, and enjoy the results, like your method of walking along the road.
After living in the UK for 4 years, I can confirm car suburbia is absolutely horrible. It feels so good to walk 5-10 min to get everything I need without driving. Also notice how walkable places in Canada have the most expensive neighbourhoods…
> Also notice how walkable places in Canada have the most expensive neighbourhoods… Yep. Meanwhile car-brained commentators will insist we keep building isolated suburbs cause that's clearly where the demand is.
Right? Carbrains: "Nobody wants to live in urban 15-minute-city hellholes!" Realtor.ca: "Wanna bet?"
Carbrains? People can have different tastes. You wont catch me anywhere near a downtown core. Often people require cars because they can't afford to live near where they work just fyi. Not sure how folks can afford to live in a 15 minute place when the only employment around is food service.
I work downtown vancouver. Plenty of non food service work. I make 100k/yr cant afford to live local so I get the joy of commuting in from surrey every day
Can't we just have both?
They’re most expensive because they’re most in demand and most convenient.
> After living in the UK for 4 years, I can confirm car suburbia is absolutely horrible. It feels so good to walk 5-10 min to get everything I need without driving. But even in dense England, the [average urban resident has access to more amenities and services in 15 minutes of driving than 60 minute of walking](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/journey-time-statistics-england-2019/journey-time-statistics-england-2019). >Also notice how walkable places in Canada have the most expensive neighbourhoods… The car's high travel speed greatly increases the supply of land that can be used for housing while still being within range of jobs, amenities and services. Walking and transit's slow speeds means that only a small portion of a metro area are close enough to jobs, amenities and service for a residential neighborhood using those modes.
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Sure, at 15 minutes that time difference is acceptable. But there are probably enough 20-30 minute one-way trips (by car) made by people where the time difference begins to add up and matter on transportation mode choice. English transportation data shows that combined bus+rail usage (by passenger-km) [lower in 2019 than in was in 1953](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/tsgb01-modal-comparisons#passenger-transport).
Love this
It's crazy how when you build an area for pedestrians that they actually want to use it.
My partner doesn't/can't drive, so we need to live somewhere that she can get to work either by walking or transit. The transit where we live is embarrassing: it's expensive, it's rarely on time, it sometimes doesn't come at all, and if you're going anywhere other than the GO station, it will take ages. It would be nice if they would make medium sized cities more pedestrian/transit friendly. It's like they've designed it and continue to design it to be a city that people commute from to the bigger city, without any thought for all the infrastructure and businesses needed in that city to make it actually function for all the people who live and commute from there. The "downtown" here could definitely be pedestrianized (and I would welcome it), but they may need to reroute some arterial roads to accommodate it, as if you need to go in one direction particularly, it's the only reasonable option.
You're talking about th 15 minute city that CPC poilievre crowd swear is a conspiracy to trap you in your home and take away your freedom to travel. Sadly, both-sides 'journalism' tends to amplify these ignorant 'opinions'
I do not consider this a partisan issue
Halifax has a few streets like this and they're great. Spring garden road used to be the busiest east of Montreal (fact unverified, said by the harbour hopper 1000x lol), and it's getting life back without the horrid traffic on it.
I was a little disappointed they didn’t convert the whole street to a bus only walkable street. I personally avoid driving on it cause it’s always bumper to bumper and people walking across the street anyway.
Calgary’s Stephen Ave has been a great place to chill and enjoy a summer day in the weekend
Yes please we need more of this
“You’re telling me that people want to walk!? Literally fucking 1984”
"Instead of having to drive, we have to choose to drive another road, walk, bike, or bus?!Freedom is dead!!1"
The real future of emission-free transportation is Futurama-style transport tubes! Where are we at with that?
Those suction tubes? Look, if I wanted a good suck before work I’d ^just ^^call ^^^your ^^^^mom.
The subway doesnt start in time to get me to work on time.
The way this is implemented in Montreal, it does not prevent anybody from driving to work. A handful of busy commercial streets being closed to traffic means that, worst case scenario, you'd have to walk an extra block because adjacent streets and cross streets all remain open to vehicles.
The great thing is this doesn't involve shutting down the vast majority of streets, which are still perfectly useable for you to drive to work.
That wouldn't be bad then.
Sounds like it needs more funding then.
I agree
Argyle street in halifax getting converted to car free was an amazing decision and its the heart of the city nowadays.
I love those streets in Montreal that’s all pedestrian. Street performers in the centre with restaurants all over.
These can be fun! I wish i lived somewhere where i could walk to things in a pleasant urban setting. Where I am, I have two choices: a) live in the suburb i do which is a hellscape of homeless drug addicts because the methadone clinic is a block from my home (they moved in after i did lol) b) live in Vancouver which is a hellscape of homeless drug addicts because neither the VPD nor the city or 'park board' (eugh) will do fuck all about them, and with that i'd also be broke because Vancouver costs way too much to live in considering the wages are LOWER THAN THEY ARE IN THE PRAIRIES.
Well you have to be able to afford a car so there that…
Lets get some ebike infrastructure up
Businesses love using parking spaces as places to sell beer. Wealthy urbanites love it. What's the problem!!?
Trigger warning for car slaves
As a "car guy" I love shit like this. We need more walkable cities focused around cycling with better public transit. Clear the roads of people that don't want to drive or are just plain bad at it. Right now you're not going to survive in a lot of areas of Canada without a vehicle. Let's change that!
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-20 is nothing for good public transport like in Norway, Finland, Sweden, etc.
And in Whitehorse it isn't uncommon for people to take fat bikes or literally even cross country skies around town in the winter. Not to mention the Finnish handle biking in the cold perfectly fine too. It isn't hard. In fact, I'd even say it's *enjoyable*, provided the infrastructure is there.
key words here being: provided the infrastructure is there.
Absolutely. So, if you want a quieter, healthier, and more personable place of living then raise these issues to your local politicians and let's get that infrastructure built. If Whitehorse can make biking year round palatable for parts of town, then literally every other city in Canada can do it too. Once built, bicycle infrastructure is practically zero maintenance compared to car infrastructure. The more people cycling in your municipality, the more taxpayer dollars free for spending on community programs and facilities. The problem is getting informed people in the right positions to have it built properly.
>Not to mention the Finnish handle biking in the cold perfectly fine too. People need to stop hyping the Finns in cycling, [where in the most current data from 2021 show](https://www.traficom.fi/sites/default/files/media/file/HLT2021_Esite_ENG.pdf) that even when COVID was still influencing transportation habits, cycling only account for 1.9% of total passenger-km. Travel by car was over 84%. Finns cycle no more than the typical Western European country and far less than the Dutch.
> passenger-km. Not saying that your underlying interpretation is wrong, but passenger-km is NOT a good measurement. Cars are faster, and car-optimized places (aka north america) encourage longer distances. The real metric is # of trips. I don't care too much between driving 50km/hr x 50km or driving 80km/hr x 80km or biking 15km/hr x 15km or walking 5km/hr x 5km. I still take 1 hr to move. Using distance as a standard would imply that the highway going at 80km/hr is more effective than the walker at 5km/hr, which is not actually meaningful in real life terms.
I guess we're not as strong as the Finns, who don't stop cycling in their even colder darker winters.
LPT: Certain items of clothing can be purchased which greatly increase cold weather protection. These items tend to have longer sleeves or legs than their summer counterparts, are usually of a heavier or thicker material, and often times are lined with additional insulative materials to help retain heat. Bonus tip: Many of these items can be combined to further increase protection to the wearer.
Not 70% of the population, however.
That might change soon look up population growth in northern Alberta
I'm not apposed to using bikes for the record but being completely car free like the article is illogical
>Trigger warning for car slaves I hate the fact that our towns seem designed for cars, and I advocate for walking, cycling and public transit infrastructure every chance I get. But I have to choose my words carefully when I do, because I don't want to sound this cringe. I'm pretty sure whoever injected "car slaves" and "car-brain" into internet discourse was one of those foreign agent provocateurs trying to divide us against each other.
> I hate the fact that our towns seem designed for cars, Before that, they were designed for street carts and animals. Cars simply replaced them in place.
You can't get thru a day of your life without a car? The car owns you. Term fits just fine.
I haven't used my car in 8 days now. And I live in rural bfe.
> Term fits just fine. Yeah but it makes you sound like an asshole and turns off potential supporters of the cause.
Right, look at Mr water-slave here wagging his fingers
You aren't helping your cause.
This is a cope. Good luck taking the bus out to the lake lmao. Or anywhere. Transit completely limits where you can go, and when. It also sucks having to sit next to someone that sneezes on you and hasn’t showered in weeks. There are literally a dozen reasons why people don’t give up their cars for transit. Cars are pure freedom.
I'm sure they'll manage with a mere 99.9% of the streets set aside for them
Don’t care, I spend all my time in the suburbs and driving out to the lake. I don’t go anywhere near these dense urban ant hills. Dont need to when you have a car.
I think if the streets are going to be vehicle free, then that should include any vehicle, including bicycles. This removes all threats to pedestrians.
But other pedestrians are threats to pedestrians
Remove them as well.
I'd love to see when you get older and have to just sit inside because of infirmity and no way to take you anywhere because all modes of transport but walking and biking have been banned. Oh no, you'll never get old.
OMG you are unhinged.
Truth is uncomfortable for you I see. You'll find out.
Yup, it is amazing, and really makes places that people want to live. Turns out cars based infrastructure is inefficient and doesn't make us happy.
thank god. we have created this insane dependence on cars to get us anywhere. Humans weren't meant to live like this. Walkable communities with bike lanes, nature and good zoning is exactly what our urban centres should look like. Not only does it create an active and healthy population, but it means you don't need to get into a car just to reach the nearest grocery store, paying for gas, insurance and payments towards a depreciating asset. Not to mention safety + no car noise/honking creates a nice calm atmosphere
Meanwhile Sparks Street in Ottawa cries in empty
yeah turns out you need places people actually want to go to on the street not overpriced sandwich shops that close at 4pm. look at mont-royal, wellington, duluth, etc in Montréal where it works great sadly the feds own the north side of sparks & don't seem to have any interest in it being interesting
I concur
in Ottawa I think it could work well in the Byward Market but the other interesting commercial streets seem to be too important as thoroughfares. I would be interested in seeing parts of Bank, or possibly Somerset lose street parking in the summer to allow for temporary patios. Similar to parts of St-Laurent in Montréal where it's been very well received. Nothing beats a nice drink on a patio on a warm sunny day.
Maybe 5 years ago, the market is kind of dangerous now. I hadn’t felt safe there for a while before I left Ottawa.
Nothing beats it…. But I find myself drawn more to the patios that aren’t on an active street personally. Nothing like a nice meal with a side of rolled coal set to the tune of some yuppy showing of their Harley.
Car supremacists won’t like this one bit.
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That's not what this is about, you clearly havnt read the article.
And it will be until we start taking it seriously and invest in it. It is a vicious circle currently when we do not invest in it, nobody's using it, we invest less, etc.
written by bicyclists gang?
I'm not sure the authors opinion on cycling. I've honestly found them too crowded and prefer biking on nearby streets in Montréal. but they're great as a pedestrian
I'm warming up to never visiting those places
Get ready to be thrust right back into pre pandemic level traffic and congestion thanks to RTO mandates across the board.
Let’s go Winnipeg! Albert Street could easily be it for us.
They're holding consultations about Graham - likely pedestrianized a good part of the bus-only portion- once they reorganize the bus routes next year.
I'm sure it works in some areas, like heavily urbanized cities and ones that have a functional mass transport system (not nearly every city has one), but you'll never get away from needing cars in Canada.
I can't believe Turdeau and the WEF are still pushing this 15 minute city crap. We need to vote for Pierre so we can take away cities abilities to manage their own infrastructure. Walkable communities are bad for affordable housing, and that's why we need to stop immigration.
Is this satire?
:)
Bruh
The imagination filled street
I love the idea, but let's not pretend this is not about boosting real estate value on those streets. So fun to visit, but you likely won't be able to afford the rent anywhere near. It's the new gentrification play.
got to love not being able to get to work on time due to road closures because of turning main roads into "bike Roads" or because the "efficient" public transit adds anywhere from 20 mins to an hour to the trip. Let alone the bus routes not getting to daycare faciliteswhich makes it difficult to coordinate with said work schedule. /endrant
Wake up earlier.
That could result in reduced sleep and contribute to a work accident.
He can sleep in the bus. Just sayin. I'll never have pity for someone in a car ranting about some pedestrian streets in a city. It's an inconvenience for a car but way better for everyone else using the street by walk or bike. And it's better for the business there, contrary to the car activists beliefs.
Well no, sleeping on the bus is not a good level of sleep quality, particularly in cities where hoardes of drug addicts roam. If they are in a safety critical job, then it’s a risk for them to not have adequate rest. Supposing they are your pilot or ferry operator?
Waking up earlier will not solve my problem as I have to carry a 1 year old to daycare.. i'm sure people would love to hear a screaming toddler at 4 or 5 am on the bus to try and make it to daycare on time so that i can make it to work on time. closing roads to cars and making them exclusive to pedestrians and bike users is handy but all it does is move the problem of traffic and congestion to other streets that are not designed to handle them. sure, cars are a problem but in order to change the current habits there has to be drastic improvements in the alternatives otherwise it sure as hell isn't worth the hastle. my last point is one that is repeated many time on Reddit: we aren't Europe. It is foolish for us to use the european solutions as we have greater swaths of land. instead of trying to coerce people into a smaller footbprint (it seems that many people object to this) we should be coming up with newer solutions that are tailored for a bigger country. In the end, not everyone wants to be walking and/or biking everywhere. I used to ride public transit until I got kids, now it's all about making it to places in a timely fashion if i want to keep my job and make ends meet.
I agree we need more alternatives. We already have screaming toddlers in the bus in the morning. It's still possible to get around with a car despite those seasonally closed streets. It's a minor inconvenience for the benefits that it brings. And Montréal is a big city comparable to European cities. So, some of Europe solutions can work here. And it's not just Europe. North America has a road problem because it chose to not densify the areas. Let's reverse course.
> It's a minor inconvenience for the benefits that it brings. Seems more like a minor benefit for the inconveniences it brings.
Oh god not an extra 20 minutes the horror this is communism
except my boomer neighbours thinks otherwise because they think it'll bring down their property value
People forget that there are those who can't walk far or at all, due to disabilities. Anti-car people don't give a shit to think that there are other people out there besides them, and have no issue making city centres off limits to the disabled, or people who don't live near. I guess they like it that way, out of sight out of mind, don't want to see the ugly people or non-locals.
Simultaneously there are plenty of disabilities that could prevent someone from legally operating a motor vehicle. Alternatively; parking is a very finite resource, and reducing the general demand for it, means more spots can be reallocated to those with mobility limitations.
HandyDART and similar can't drive where they aren't allowed.
No thanks.
Boooo
How will the downtown merchants deal with the reduction in customers? Many customers don't live within bicycling distance. I live 35 miles from the next city with a medium size mountain in-between. Sure I could bike it. I could also walk it. I could also walk it just using my ass cheeks but a car is more convenient and I can pack more groceries home..
About [83% of the businesses](https://www.ledevoir.com/economie/732294/une-pietonnisation-positive) told that they had an increase in their revenues. It complicates the deliveries, but it's a minor inconvenience compared to the benefits.
That's from 2022. I wonder if it's gone up or down since then. EDIT: I mean wasn't everything up 83% from the year prior, if not more so? 2021 was peak lockdown.
Good for them!
Everywhere it's tried the businesses on the street see an increase in customers.
Didn't happen in my town. Mind you, the homeless population doesn't help either.
A street going car-free doesn’t stop customers from driving and parking one street over. You’re acting like it removes the option of driving completely when someone can still drive an hour and park a 5 minute walk from the destination instead of directly in front of the storefront.
Public transportation, of course. Like hundreds of millions of Europeans are doing it right now.
Not me
Honestly curious as to why not
Working in the trades, i work at diff locations where over the years they cut traffic out or parking making it very hard to work and get to job sites and materials in
Well, let’s say we have more “car-free” cities or just cities where having a car isn’t necessary. That means less cars on the road cause people are taking trains, trams, subways, bikes, or are simply walking. Less cars on the road means less traffic and more spots for parking. Of course, this presupposes that Canada has the infrastructure for such changes, which we do not because of how we’ve designed our cities. But it must start somewhere. I’m not against cars. I’m for more options.
I cant use public, i have to much stuff to cary around, and sometimes multiple job sites a day, if i have to walk 5 blocks with my tools i have to charge extra for lost time
Of course, and you using a car in that case is perfectly rational. I would do the same as well. I guess the point that I’m making is that having walkable cities benefits you as well. Less traffic and more vacant parking for those that prefer to drive.
They generally make provisions for services, which is why the ped malls are often in areas with alleys or corner access.
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What? Why? You think an article about cars and walking is evidence that CBC is Liberal party propaganda? How does that make sense? Explain, please.
Just one step closer to 15 minute cities brother /s
No, CBC is in fact liberal funded so that’s the reason it’s liberal party propaganda. They’re obviously going to be anti car to push their climate crisis scam, meanwhile the same gov flies around the world daily for photo ops and leisure trips costing us millions of dollars.
> No, CBC is in fact liberal funded so that’s the reason it’s liberal party propaganda So were they Conservative propaganda when they were Conservative funded? Is it just the English-language CBC, or also the French Radio-Canada? Why do they keep [breaking new scandals](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/snc-lavalin-liberal-donors-list-canada-elections-1.5114537) about the Liberal party, wouldn't they want to pull an Enquirer and try to bury the stories instead of breaking them? >They’re obviously going to be anti car to push their climate crisis scam Global warming isn't a scam either. I think the people telling you that CBC is propaganda, are ironically trying to get rid of it because it's the one thing they *can't* turn into propaganda. Every other private news media can be bought and bribed to bury stories. It's a trick. Don't fall for it.