I live in an urban part of my city, and I still have plenty of reasons to leave my 15-minute walkable area. A friend far to the north, a friend on the other side of the river, family on the outskirts. Restaurants I love all over. My office downtown. Theatres near the university. Festivals and expos spread out across all the parks and venues and other walkable areas. I can use my bike to access pretty well all of those things in the warmer months but transit (and sometimes, unfortunately, a car) keeps it accessible year round.
If you don’t see any reason to use transportation in a city, you either don’t appreciate the breadth of experiences that come with city life, or you live in a really boring city.
I live in an urban part of my city
That may be, but you’re living the rural lifestyle. That is what rural people do – they get into a vehicle and have it move them to where friends are, where restaurants are, where work is, where theatres and festivals are, etc.
Which is fine. There is nothing wrong with rural living. But what set urban areas apart is being able to do all those things only steps away – not needing a vehicle to get you to and fro. The value proposition of urban life is lost if you are back to needing a vehicle to do anything.
If you don’t see any reason to use transportation in a city, you either don’t appreciate the breadth of experiences that come with city life
I see the need for transportation in our poorly designed cities. The question is: Giving that we are inventing our dream world, why use transit as a bandaid when we can do a better job in city design instead? If you had a well designed city, not the wannabe-rural cities of Canada, what would you need transit for?
Even the best designed city will have different things in different parts of it. I’ve been all over the planet - from the backwoods hickville I grew up in to beautiful metropolises in Europe to Asian megacities and no matter where I went there was always a reason to travel around. A particularly beautiful park. A temple floating on a lake. The best damn hamburger you’ll ever eat. That doesn’t change just because I live in a place, and it doesn’t mean it’s poorly designed. Different people in different parts of the city make those parts of the city different.
I noticed you completely glossed over friends and family living in different places. That’s not just some side point. People travel to see other people. I can’t force *everyone *I love to live within a 15 minute walk of me - even if I could, they have their own friends and family, and they have theirs, and they all need to work, probably not in the same buildings. If I’m friends with a Construction worker, a tech bro, an RN, a Highschool teacher, a personal trainer and a genetics researcher, are we all going to be able to live in a 6 block radius? Possibly. But it’d be a lot easier for all of use if we could live a little farther apart (maybe near where we each work) and just take a train to hang out somewhere central.
Life sprawls. It doesn’t mean rural, it doesn’t even mean suburbs (even though that’s how people seem to want it today). But it does mean transportation is a requirement.
I noticed you completely glossed over friends and family living in different places.
I’ve addressed that many times already. What new and edgy details have you brought to the table that warrants a new response?
People travel to see other people.
Once every few years, sure. You are an exceptional individual if you are jetting off to China each week to lunch with your friend. That is not the norm at all. People normally only keep regular ties to those who are convenient.
are we all going to be able to live in a 6 block radius?
Well, if you don’t all live nearby, who is going to support the local economy? An economy needs all of those functions.
But it does mean transportation is a requirement.
Why’s that? Given a properly designed city, what would you need it for?
I get you want to vacation once in a while, and while it is a stretch to think that is a requirement, without regular traffic there won’t be the ridership to support transit even granting it as a luxury. You’re back to needing car .
