Originally Posted by
Ged117
My employer pays a portion of the transit pass, which is generous. I'm only six miles away, so I cycle through the seasons along mostly quiet neighbourhood streets. I'll have a bus pass for January / February for truly hazardous winter days.
The majority of my colleagues live in the distant suburbs or way out of town in the middle of nowhere. I can't imagine driving an hour to work and then an hour home each day. I'd rather have a leisurely breakfast and read or have time for errands without feeling rushed.
Being able to walk to groceries, hardware stores, library, and the LBS and just downtown amenities is fantastic. 'We' really screwed up the development of the continent's city transport networks since the 1950s. Imagine if we hadn't all torn up our tram lines and replaced them with GM buses...
I’m a year-round, mostly car-free commuter as described previously. Our Corporation pays for parking at work, so I get a nice bonus since I don’t use the parking lot. I have previously posted:
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
I often tout Boston as the epitome of LCF/LCL in America, not to brag, but illustrate the possibilities. When I take visitors on a 4-5 mile walking tour of downtown Boston, I introduce it with this explanation:
Several years ago, the architectural critic of the Boston Globe, Robert Campbell, was visiting Southfield, Michigan, a town I know well, and described it as the “City of Towers and Cars” (including “busy highways and vast parking lots" [and tall office buildings, and sprawling office and retail parks]).
In his article, he contrasted that that to the “City of Outdoor Rooms” (Boston) which is visited as one would visit a person’s home, passing through the various portals, from room to room, admiring the furnishings within.
That’s the motif I use on my tours as we start in the Back Bay, and pass through the Public Garden, Boston Common, Washington St and Quincy Market, the North End, Beacon Hill and back to Back Bay.
Originally Posted by
jon c.
People walk a lot more in places where there is somewhere to walk. But in much of the US, housing is relatively far from anywhere people want to go. And if you want to walk from your home to a nearby restaurant and that involves crossing a six lane highway and walking across a large parking lot, the journey is much less appealing.
Some cities are seeing revitalization of urban neighborhoods that allow people to walk to shops and restaurants. But these will never accommodate more than a small percentage of the population
The best way to encourage people to do things without a car is to put those things closer to their homes. But the US has developed in such a way that it's now much harder to do that.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
Some cities never lost those neighborhoods, like Boston. It seems to me that in order to be an attractive place to support a variety of restaurants and shops to which to walk (and not drive to visit that neighborhood…the basic premise of this thread)
a neighborhood must be a large area with a substantial, dense population living there, likely that evolved in the pre-automotive era.
I think a lot of urban
revitalization projects tend to
create enclaves as driving destinations to walk around in such large cities like in my native Detroit.
One of my greatest complaints about the automotive industry/culture is that by by intent, or just popular acceptance, previously vitalized neighborhoods just whithered away, and deprived the citizens of the choice to Live Car Free. 
BTW, where do you live, [MENTION=483365]Ged117[/MENTION] ,if I may ask?
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
BTW, I don’t list my location under my avatar, but it is “
D’uh” [in Kenmore Square].
Jim from Boston
Originally Posted by
Maelochs
Whenever I see a series of nested quotes, I think "it's Jim from 'Duh' again."
…
Last edited by Jim from Boston; 09-27-18 at 09:52 AM.