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American Transportation and City Design Are Abysmal

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    Name
    Teddy Xinyuan Chen
    Twitter

In America, if you don't have a car, you're sub-human (archive).

Table of Contents

Pedestrian experience

Only in North America

Strip Malls with large empty space for people to practice driving for free. And the store are accessible, since you don't need stairs at all

Driving, it's the default way of getting from point A to point B.

Sidewalks are optional.

Who needs bike lanes?

We're going to wait another 10 years before we could use the first BRT line in Raleigh.

Let's make this road as narrow as possible so we won't see anyone on bikes here.

Okay now let's spend another $20M to widen a road, but you won't get the bike lane or side walk though, that could cost another $5M.

Raleigh and the beltline and so awesome - driving to another corner of town is just 10 minutes.

That's why we built the stores out of town, because you cannot possibly have issue getting their.

No cars, no problem! We got a one-way bus route that takes you to only 6 miles away from your destination.

City of Raleigh Data made available a series of maps, including where the cyclists are normally killed by traffic, and why building bike lanes are low priority projects.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39544286

I still get really nervous when crossing the stroads and winding roads with poor visibility where drivers like to fly by.

A stroad | Credit: Not Just Bikes | Some stroads, like Western Blvd, do have side walks, but with a pot hole every 5 feet

Being nervous is a good thinig though, that's why I'm still alive.

Credit: Not Just Bikes | See the parking spaces? We have so much land! This picture is basically Western Blvd

Conclusion

Cities aren't designed for human scale and there's no other way to get around than driving.

Making other modes of transportation easier is just not a priority.

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