HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

No but there is way less dependence on cars, at least in medium cities and up. Many developments in america just build suburban deserts where there is just more single family homes around you, where you have to drive to the next supermarket, both because it's so far away, and because sometimes there literally isn't a way for pedestrians to walk on. There are a few good videos on the subject:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajSEIdjkU8E

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

Not Just Bikes has an excellent video on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

At this point I'm decided that if I have children, I will not raise them in the U.S. Maybe a few cities are amenable to how I would like to raise children, like Cambridge, MA. But I would like for them to grow up in a healthy, independent environment.

This still happens outside the US. We've managed to become paranoid to the point of delusional about the dangers to kids here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

Absolutely need to plug Not Just Bikes, a youtube channel done by a Canadian living in The Netherlands about urban planning using Dutch infrastructure as the gold standard. Key points he makes are how bad North American environments are for child freedom. Its almost entirely due to NA urban planning prioritizing cars over everything else, making it just dangerous for anyone to try and walk anywhere, let alone children. A general difference is that Dutch urban planning prioritizes pedestrians, bikes, transit, then cars, in that order. Whereas in NA cars are really the only thing prioritized.

My favorite video of his is about this exact topic, Why I Won't Raise My Kids in Suburbia [0]. This video completely changed my own life, motivating my family and I to move to a city from the suburbs, and fingers-crossed, eventually to The Netherlands.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

⬐ Beltalowda

> Dutch infrastructure as the gold standard

I don't think it's really a "gold standard"; it's more that everything else is so unbelievably atrocious that it looks like a "gold standard", but it's still incredibly car-dominated. I watched the video and it's not wrong: it's extremely common for children to cycle to elementary school on their own and it's mostly safe, but it doesn't really "prioritize pedestrians, bikes, transit, then cars, in that order"; cars are still very central in most traffic.

Things are very slowly beginning to change, in some areas, sometimes. But it's very slow progress.

⬐ spiderfarmer

I live near one of the cities shown in the video (Assen). Look it up on Google streetview. Most streets are dominated by bikes and pedestrians, not cars. Cars are mostly routed through streets are designed to accommodate them.

Accidents are rare, but we can always do better. All accidents are documented and safety statistics are freely available here: https://swov.nl/nl/verkeersveiligheidscijfers

Drivers are the leading cause of dead kids. But for some reason we completely ignore it, while focusing on gun violence (which is also bad, to be clear).

I really don't know a solution aside from moving to a country that's better designed. The US seems too far gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

⬐ dncornholio

Funny thing is, The Netherlands used to have infra that looked more like the US once, but we almost completely rebuild all the infrastructure in our towns and cities during the 80's. It's not too late, it 'just' needs a lot of investment. The biggest problem is US culture around cars and mobility IMO. Better public transport is a nice start.

⬐ CalRobert

Yeah, though the Netherlands started before they had gone _too_ far down the sprawling hellscape path. Even with better infra, it's a rotten situation where you need to go 2 miles from home to buy milk. Hopefully we can let nature reclaim the suburbs and increase density in the cities.

Jason Slaughter of NotJustBikes also pointed out that in NL they at least had an entire generation or two of people who remembered a different way of living, without being car dependent. All those people have died out in the US now, and even people in their mid-80's came of age when the US was going whole hog on car dependency.

I want better for the US but I'm not optimistic. A new city built of whole cloth (maybe culdesac.com can do it?) might have a chance.

⬐ None

None

⬐ iso1631

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2018/12/21/child-dea...

The researchers found that motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of child deaths in the United States, comprising about 20% of all deaths among children in 2016. The chief reason for the crashes was cell phone use by drivers and pedestrians, the researchers found.

Firearms were the second leading cause of deaths among children and adolescents in 2016, according to the researchers. Overall, there was a 28% relative increase in the rate of firearm deaths among U.S. children, likely driven by a 32% increase in firearm homicides and a 26% increase in firearm suicides, the researchers said. They found that the odds of a child being killed by a firearm are 36 times higher in the United States than in other high-income countries.

About 16 children per 100k die each year in the US

https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/22-child-deaths...

In the UK for comparision it's about 10 per 100k

https://stateofchildhealth.rcpch.ac.uk/evidence/mortality/ch...

I'm not convinced the US focuses on either gun violence or deaths from cars

A nice Youtube series comparing cities and lifestyles with Netherlands/Europe and Northern America.

https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes

Good example how different life is for example for kids in The Netherlands compared to USA/Canada. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

If you haven't seen it already, the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes has a great video making the other decision (ie. moving to the Netherlands) with some compelling reasoning: https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98

Postwar American suburban development is terrible for raising children, too.

https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98

The issues are well-discussed in NotJustBikes specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

It's not just a vague grass-is-greener issue. And sure, Dutch cities can be soulless and boring by some measures, but that's the norm for American suburbia too.

It's not just a matter of self-report of happiness, the support for the Netherlands style of living is strong by a ton of measures.

Here's the thing: stuff like the eyes-on-the-street effect are HUGE. A sprawly American suburb that still has a neighborhood park where there are reliably dozens of kids who know each other… that works, because it's safe enough to let your kids go to the park with their friends without adult supervision. The fact is, other kids there means it's not bizarre to see one isolated seemingly-abandoned kid, and if they get hurt, there are other kids around to help them or to run home or call their parents etc.

It's not strictly a matter of cars. The whole issue of "stroad" vs road isn't anti-car. Roads are for cars mainly. Stroads are fundamentally dangerous. They are part of the development style that makes it unsafe for younger kids to get out on their bikes and be independent.

Given the choice of dense urban life vs car-dependent-sprawl, it's understandable why many people choose the latter. The problem is the missing-middle. Why is it illegal in most places to build moderate-dense walkable mixed-use neighborhoods that are neither densely urban nor car-dependent-sprawl? The capacity of people to choose different lifestyles along this continuum is missing. The rare places in the middle are crazy expensive because demand far outstrips supply. So, we really don't get anywhere with a conversation focused on which of the limited polarized choices people are stuck with in the USA.

This is a common viewpoint in the US, mostly because we're brought up not knowing alternatives.

It might be worthwhile to check out how cities are planned elsewhere. My wife and I recently moved to the Netherlands because we think the way they do things is much better in this regard. I would highly recommend checking out the Not Just Bikes YouTube Channel, as well as Bicycle Dutch.

Here are some videos that might be of interest to you:

- Cycling with babies and toddlers in The Netherlands (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLJ876lXsQ)

- Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98)

⬐ vic-traill

I checked out the second link and this is IMHO an interesting and thoughtful YouTube channel. These are not words that I co-locate often.

The linked video discusses the deep effect that urban planning can have sociologically; e.g. if a neighbourhood isn't walkable, kids don't walk, and if kids aren't out walking, kids not being out on their own can become normalised, and even lead to censure/punishment for children's independence.

Which seems crazy (to me, anyway) and very much at odds w/ what we want kids to grow into, e.g. that they be independent and active.

Talk about unintended consequences.

⬐ kleiba

The Netherlands also have the advantage of being completely flat.

⬐ avianlyric

There are other countries with cycling cultures that aren’t flat.

Sweden is very not flat, and they have plenty of extremely well used cycle infrastructure. Hell their kids cycle to school in snow.

⬐ kleiba

It's debatable, though, whether riding a bike in the snow is really such a great idea.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15389588.2019.1...

⬐ magicalhippo

That is true. Oslo unlike Amsterdam is not at all flat, with many having 100-200m of height to climb on their way home if going downtown for work or shopping.

However, electric bikes are changing that equation drastically. With an e-bike those climbs are not an issue at all. So there's been a good uptick in people who ride bikes here.

Of course, e-bikes are quite expensive compared to regular bikes, but compared to owning a car they're quite cheap. So for someone living in Oslo, having an e-bike and renting a car a few times for the long trips can be a very good deal.

⬐ dominotw

> - Cycling with babies and toddlers in The Netherlands (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLJ876lXsQ)

what happens when kids are 10yrs old. they prbly get their own bikes?

⬐ grardb

Heh, from what I've been able to tell, they get their own bikes much younger than that!

⬐ dominotw

thats awesome. Would love to live in a city like that. Prbly not practical here in chicago with frigid winters.

edit: looks like dutch do cycle in winter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViaDwkkXzC8

⬐ Symbiote

I assume it's not practical at present, but there are places with similar weather where it is practical: https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU?t=36

⬐ ricardobeat

That's correct. Biycle paths are very well kept. Winters in the Netherlands are pretty mild though, temperature hovers around 2-6c the whole time, and it only snows once or twice a year. The hard parts are the wind and rain.

⬐ kkoncevicius

I am not from US. I also grew up without cars and without tap water even. But it circumstances were different. For one - my parents worked 500 meters away from our home, second - my grandmother lived nearby so I didn't have to go to kindergarten, and third when I started going to school it was close enough to reach by walking.

After I started my family and moved out to a bigger city, all of these things changed. Your parents cannot help with the children because they are in another city. For me and my wife it takes about an hour both to reach our jobs. And the kindergarten we were taking our kids to was about 30 minutes (by car) away. The ones that are near our house or near our work-places had 3-year waiting lines.

And then there are winters and heavy rains. And you might have multiple children all of whom need to be taken someplace in the morning. It's just not realistic to bike, unless you somehow have everything nearby.

⬐ pizza234

> And then there are winters and heavy rains. And you might have multiple children all of whom need to be taken someplace in the morning. It's just not realistic to bike, unless you somehow have everything nearby.

This depends on the country planning. In at least some European countries, the state guarantees enrollment to kindergardens/schools close to the family residence.

I actually wonder how cities (countries) that don't make such guarantee (and are not car-centered like the US) can actually survive. Assuming that all the families with multiple children use the car during winter in the morning (you've described it as a necessity), that would make the city traffic completely stuck. I don't doubt that this may be the reality in those circumstances.

I remember similar descriptions about cities like Rome, where people use the car comparatively more than other European cities. Indeed, traffic in Rome is hell, and ultimately, it boils down to insufficient city infrastructure/planning (the official take is that they can't build underground lines due to ruins), so even willing citizens have very little wiggle room.

⬐ dvdkhlng

Where I come from, big city etc. there seems to be not much time advantage of taking a car vs. taking a bike. After all a bike is very easy to park close to your destination and it's not affected as much by traffic jam (due to rudimentary cycling infrastructure and the ability to use side streets that are too narrow for rush hour drivers to consider).

WRT child transport: child transport bikes are seeing a rising adoption here, so it is feasible to bike to work and drop of your kid on the way. Kids will stay dry below the bike's rain cover, though of course the parent who cycles will need some upgrade to his clothing compared to what's needed when going by car (finding cloth that is both rain-tight but doesn't cause sweating takes some experimentation).

If you want to look at the spectrum of possibilities, have a look at e.g.

https://www.babboe.com/

https://www.bakfiets.nl/

https://www.urbanarrow.com/

http://www.nihola.com/home.html

https://yubabikes.com/

(just enumerating what bikes I see on a regular basis, this list would go on and on)

PS: you may also want to factor in the time spent on maintenance and bureaucracy (dealing with car insurance etc) and the extra monetary effort involved with owning a car vs owning a bike.

⬐ watwut

We have school and kindergarten by walk. The work is doable by walk if you have tons of time, but normally we use public transport.

These things are doable in cities, the city however have to be build to allow it.

⬐ iforgotpassword

Yes, unfortunately it takes much more than just designing a car-free village. You need good infra like public transport, more and smaller schools and kindergartens, etc. But it absolutely exists in Europe.

I live 4 km from work and take a bike most of the year, otherwise it would be the tram or maybe even a walk if time permits. I don't have kids but usually the next elementary school is a 15 minute walk tops, there is one across the street for me actually. Kindergartens are even more ubiquitous. This is a city of ~250k. So obviously, you don't just transform an existing city into this by banning cars. And there are plenty of car-first cities in Europe still. Living in the countryside without a car is certainly very inconvenient.

Also, if the health system in the US is really as bad as it always appears to us, having good coverage of family practitioners might be off the table, and I'd certainly feel uncomfortable with the hospital being an hour away if I had toddlers around, and an ambulance either taking forever to arrive or being prohibitively expensive.

⬐ wayoutthere

As someone who lives in a major city in the US with a dense walkable city center, the health care system in cities is frequently a mess of bureaucracy and completely overwhelmed by demand.

The suburbs (not rural though) have much more accessible… everything really. Go to a Target (a “basically anything that’s not food but also some food” store) in an inner city and they’ll either be out of half the things you need or simply not stock them at all. Suburban stores are fully stocked and prices are lower, with larger sizes available.

The same dynamic exists in healthcare to the point if I actually have real healthcare needs, I go out to the suburbs. I went to the ER in the city one time because I had cut myself pretty badly while cooking. The person who was stitching me up had to stop halfway through to rush and deal with 3 gunshot victims who had all come in at the same time. I sat there with a bleeding, half-stitched hand for 2 hours until they could get someone else.

Much of this was driven historically by racism, redlining and white flight, but it still doesn’t change the fact that health care in cities is more expensive, significantly more burdened and way more of a bureaucratic machine.

⬐ i_am_proteus

Pretty key point right here: it takes a lot of infrastructure spending over a long time to build a city. Can't just snap your fingers and change how that money got spent.

Plenty of the pedestrian-friendly cities with good trains and all got built up during times when there weren't any automobiles.

They're nice to look at and great to live in. But it's not possible to transform Salt Lake city or San Antonio into New York City with the snap of a finger. Takes capital, takes time, and people need to live their lives in the meanwhile.

Transit around here is good in some bits, bad in others. House prices are about double, maybe more, if the house is walking distance to good transit. And transit isn't free. Better economics to own an inexpensive car and drive it. For a lot of people, money's tight and need to put food on the table for the family.

⬐ avianlyric

> Pretty key point right here: it takes a lot of infrastructure spending over a long time to build a city. Can't just snap your fingers and change how that money got spent.

Your not wrong, it’s take the Neatherlands 30-50 years to transition from a car centric culture that would make even an American blush, to the cycle centric one they have today.

But as with trees, the best time plant one was ten years ago, the second best time is now. If we keep using the excuse that you can’t build people friendly infrastructure, because there’s no other people friendly infrastructure for it to work with. Then you’ll never build people friendly infrastructure, and you’ll be forever stuck in a car dominated hell scape, where a 30 min drive to do anything is an inescapable reality.

"Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia (and moved to the Netherlands instead)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

"Who else benefits from the Dutch cycling infrastructure" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGx3HSjKDo

"Why Great Cities Let You (Easily!) Cycle to IKEA" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgvYgxo6UY8

"8 to 80, people of all ages cycling in the Netherlands" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swqaAIkGtpA

As you can see, you don't need "wide roads". Quite the opposite, in fact. When safe cycling infrastructure is present, traffic shifts to cycling, because it's faster, cheaper and more pleasant. This makes roads less congested for your car trips. Widening roads does not have this effect, as additional lanes simply fill up with more traffic if there is no faster, safe alternative. Also, wide lanes encourage high speeds, and you don't want that around your kids.

⬐ bobthepanda

> When safe cycling infrastructure is present

This is debatable. Tokyo lacks widespread European-style cycling facilities and still has quite high bike mode share.

Low stress roads can fill much of the same gap, as long as they are well connected.

⬐ lmm

Segregated infrastructure is missing the point. Putting liability on drivers where it belongs, and giving priority on the shared roads to vulnerable road users, is what makes it work, in the Netherlands or in Tokyo.

⬐ dunco

I'd say this is cultural and you won't ever get the same outcome in the USA(or Australia where I am from). Car drivers think they own the road. In Australia there is outright hostility towards cyclists on the road from the proudly ignorant.

⬐ bobthepanda

To a degree, it's also because Japanese streets are much, much narrower.

Anglo or Japanese culture, you can't really blaze down this street at 80kph without hitting something. https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_9Wu_fv0DMXQ/TEbn2b8Hu4I/AAAAAAAAA...

⬐ ascagnel_

A few towns in my area have been experimenting with "road diets" -- taking streets originally designed with only car traffic in mind, and reconfiguring them (without building new infrastructure) to reduce the primacy of cars and make other modes of transport more appealing -- with varying degrees of success. In one case, there was an observed impact of trip times _decreasing_ despite losing a lane of traffic in each direction -- the change in configuration reduced congestion at intersections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_diet

⬐ dunco

interesting. While I'm open minded to this, I have to say I am starting from a place of skepticism. I've come to view bike lanes painted on the road as a dangerous half-measure in most places. Studies show that Women do not take advantage of these types of cycle lanes at all, and many people view them as simply too dangerous to use. still interesting that there can be benefits to car traffic in the right conditions!

⬐ ascagnel_

The biggest impact were cases where bike lanes were protected -- that is, the view of the road from the outside-in was pedestrian sidewalk, bike lane, car parking, and then lanes of traffic, so cyclists wouldn't have to worry about double-parked cars forcing them into traffic or inattentive drivers drifting into the bike lane. That said, such a change carries its own risks (cyclists need to be aware of passengers exiting cars and vice-versa), and generally requires more thoughtful design of the intersection (since cyclists turning left will have a much longer path to follow).

NotJustBikes did a great video on how safe streets are amazing for a child's freedom. Sadly I know of no location in the US I'd let my child cycle to school.

https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98

AST editting would be kind of okay. But never better than kind of okay. Thoughtfully formatted text can be quite a bit nicer.

Also, cities where one can get around on bicyles are much nicer than where one needs to use cars. Flying or otherwise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

To summarize both points: what looks like progress superficially may actually not be progress at all.

It's great to allow your kids to take risks, and we do this with our own as much as we can (they're 1 and 3, so "within reason" is still doing some heavy lifting. I pick ticks off of them now and then and patch up their share of bruises).

But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that pretty much means the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan (more for transit than cycling).

Children can't drive, which means unless you're lucky enough to live very close to your friends, and ideally on the same side of the street, your home is effectively your prison in the US and Canada.

And yes, I suppose you _can_ let your kid ride a bike to school alone in the US at 7, but you would be risking arrest, and death. It's often forgotten that drivers are, by far, the leading killers of children. Far more than people with guns. I was an avid cyclist in the US for the first 30 years of my life and I still have a bruised rib and too many memories of very, very close calls with death.

NotJustBikes, who moved from Canadian suburbia to the Netherlands, explores this in more depth at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

⬐ wheels

> the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan

I think it's far more common than that -- actually, guessing wildly, I suspect most children around the world get themselves to school and that the US is the outlier.

In Germany, where I live, and where my oldest will be starting school in two months, it's common and encouraged for kids to walk to school in their first year (age 6). Admittedly, ours is only a quarter mile away. We've just started letting our son go alone to the bakery downstairs and across the street from our apartment, and while it's not quite typical, it's also not wild here for a 5 year old to do that.

⬐ mseidl

https://youtu.be/L7-k6nK1VUw

She has a great video. I'm a German also. I did live in the US too. I'd hate to have to raise a kid there.

⬐ eru

When I went to Kindergarten in the late 80s / early 90s in East Germany, many kids went home by themselves.

⬐ CalRobert

Germany is on our shortlist too, though the cycling infra seems poor compared to NL/DK/Nordics. Would love for the kids to learn German (and ourselves!)

⬐ marton78

I live in Germany, too and can confirm. In Hungary, where I'm from, it's no different.

What shocked me most in this article was the paragraph:

> A mom wrote that she had been so encouraged that, at the grocery store, she allowed her son to leave her to get cheese from a different aisle. When he came back, she added, “That boy was six inches taller!”

That mother never allowed her son to do that before before being encouraged by the author? Poor child.

⬐ daddylongstroke

I thought that was pretty fucked up as well. My kids are completely free range. When I was 5ish in Poland, I was going to buy bread from a stand about 1.5m away as my daily morning chore. Nobody batted an eye. I loved it, and my mom got her annoying son out of the house for 35 minutes a day: a win-win! Not sure why we infantilize kids in the US.

⬐ mips_avatar

I think cycling is one of those things where it’s important to do it in spite of Canamerica being such a bad place for it, every person cycling normalizes it and pushes indirectly for positive change. Of course it’s also important to directly push for change in city government.

⬐ meristohm

A few exceptions from my experience, where the cycling is okay (more space on the shoulder than Japan, but also larger vehicles): Madison , WI; Tucson, AZ; and Minneapolis, MN. I’ve put more time into bicycling as transportation than most other optional activities I can think of (other than walking, reading, videogames?). San Diego, CA boasted of many miles of bike lanes, but we found them often not connected, dumping us into a five-way intersection with no guidance, for example. A hard problem for city planners, maybe.

In my teens I cycled to my last three years of high school because I could sleep in (bus took over an hour) and visit friends on the way home. Thankfully the highway had a decent shoulder. I wore my helmet and eventually saw the benefit of wearing a neon-orange reflective vest (rather than stowing it once out of parental sight).

Where I’m living now I’m pushing for improved bicycle routes between towns, in part for tourism and so we don’t have to drive our kid to school.

⬐ mips_avatar

I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but road shoulders aren't safe cycling/pedestrian spaces. Roads have the shoulders as a run off space for cars travelling at speed, so only having the option of cycling on the shoulder (car run off space) is a bad option that cities need to remedy. Painting the shoulder a "cycling lane" doesn't solve this either, it doesn't change the infrastructure at all it just reminds drivers of their responsibility to safety.

⬐ meristohm

A network of bicycle lanes meant for transportation (rather than silly meandering lanes designed by someone who’s last experience biking was as a child, swerving down the road for the fun of it) would be awesome, potentially requiring less maintenance and reducing wear on automobile-roads, too.

⬐ IG_Semmelweiss

As a pedestrian and ocassional roller blader in any major Metro City i visit, I'm actually far more afraid of bicycles than of any car.

My only times I've near-collision or actual Collision have been with bikes. this is invariably because they far exceed the speed limit in some sections that are really close to pedestrian traffic or because they bike near a curve full of parked cars where he cannot have enough time to break for incoming pedestrian traffic when the bikers going to ~30 miles per hour.

⬐ mulmen

I agree. Cycling needs good stewardship.

The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”. My hyperlocal blog has a guy that makes me want to throw my bicycle in the bay just so I’m not associated with him. And I love riding my bike.

Cycling needs a “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” moment.

E-bikes are a great opportunity for Americans to rediscover motorcycles but unfortunately cities are willing to allow motorized vehicles traveling at 20mph on mixed walking/cycling paths.

⬐ chrisin2d

I think there's a self-selection phenomenon. The inherent danger of American roads select for cyclists who are more reckless than the average person.

I strongly believe that when good protected bicycle infrastructure is built, average folks will be more represented among cyclists — and so cyclists will appear nicer and more cautious.

I try to be a good ambassador for cycling on my bike — got a rear radar, always hand signal, and always stop at lights and signs. But I've already been indoctrinated into cycling by having lived in the Netherlands.

⬐ caturopath

> The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”.

Most like probably number 3 or 4. The "cyclists" are annoying and silly, but on the other hand they aren't literally killing many people.

⬐ csunbird

I live in an European city, where the infrastructure for biking is well established.

To be honest, average people riding bicycles for commuting or getting around cycle on the safe side, use the proper bike lanes, do not make left turns in front of the cars etc... while the "cyclists" insist on cycling on the car lanes, taking left turns and changing lanes while going 25-30 km/h on 50km/h road. Those people annoy me to the death while driving and cycling as well.

⬐ omegaham

I was going to say, 40,000 Americans die every year in car accidents. People get into their cars when they're drunk and when they're so tired that they're nodding off at the wheel. People eat tacos, apply makeup, and text their friends while flying along at 45 miles per hour in a 2000-pound death missile.

I find "cyclists" to be as cringey as everyone else does, but cyclists aren't killing 40,000 people a year. They wear silly outfits and are kinda irritating. As far as sins go, those are pretty small in the grand scheme of things. By and large, when a cyclist acts a fool, they're endangering themselves. When a driver acts a fool, they're endangering everyone else on the road.

⬐ nanis

> E-bikes are a great opportunity

Until you round the corner on a sidewalk and narrowly avoid collision with a 7 year old on an electric bicycle.

I lived in Denmark for a bit in the 80s and I don't know how it is there these days, but back then, the police pulled you over and ticketed you for the tiniest infractions on a bicycle.

I can't imagine 1/10th of that level of enforcement in the NYC metro area without full scale rioting.

⬐ mulmen

Your selective quoting really changes the meaning of my statement. The rest of that sentence makes clear that e-bikes are more like motorcycles.

⬐ xxpor

It was crazy to me in NL that motor scooters (Vespas) could use the bike paths.

⬐ mc32

It's the same in Parts of Asia: bikes and scooters can go in the dedicated non-car lane. Sometimes you'll see a hand or bike pulled cart as well. Still safer than comingling with cars.

⬐ muntzy

last year this was reatricted, now only scooters with a speed limiter installed are allowed

⬐ mips_avatar

I think each near collision with a car radicalizes cyclists a bit. While cycling you build up experiences where cars prioritize speed over your safety. Most “annoying cyclists” I’ve met I feel like are arguing for the right things but they have a lot of bitterness.

⬐ throwaway0a5e

There's some minority of people who are just jerks on the road. Drivers that don't account for other road users. Cyclists who blow through intersections forcing cars and pedestrians to take evasive action. Pedestrians that expect wheeled vehicles to defy the laws of physics on their behalf.

Beyond this minority damn near every road user (regardless of car vs bike vs pedestrian) behaves perfectly reasonably if you understand what they're trying to do. Once you understand what the other participants are trying to do things become very predictable and safe. The road user who is constantly having problems is probably doing it wrong themselves in a "man who smells crap all day should look under his own shoe" sort of way.

Crappy cyclists make crappy pedestrians make crappy drivers.

I've biked walked and driven at various points in my life. If you understand what everyone else is doing and choose your own actions to mesh with this you basically never have problems with other road users. You can blow through intersections on a bike. You can jaywalk. You can ignore turn specific arrows. You can do all these things safely. But you gotta have good situational awareness exercise good judgement about the time and the place you choose to do them or you will often be in conflict with other road users.

⬐ AstralStorm

The laws and unwritten rules exist for both your and other's protection on the road.

So, that "just this once" blowing an intersection or red light might be this time that a huge crash happens or someone is killed. Not worth the few minutes saved.

And if repeated, it's unforgivable.

⬐ mulmen

Exhaust gas contributes to global warming and pollution kills people.

Every time a red light is blown without directly harming someone net negative externalities are reduced.

⬐ spaetzleesser

There are plenty of stupid cyclists who don’t prioritize their own safety. One of my pet peeves is to have bikes on the road in the dark without lights. Most of these people are adults and they should know that a car driver can’t see them.

⬐ ornornor

Yeah cycling without lights always amazed me.

At the same time, idiotic cyclists are only risking their own lives and that’s it. Idiotic drivers are risking other people’s lives but not their own.

When there is a crash between and a car and a bike that involves a fatality, 100% of the time that fatality is the cyclist and not the driver.

⬐ AstralStorm

95% is closer to reality. Sometimes a driver trying to avoid a crash will do something wrong and get injured with no harm to cyclist or pedestrian.

Or will harm someone else than the perpetrator.

⬐ ornornor

It’s still overwhelmingly other people than the driver who pay the price.

⬐ mips_avatar

Cycling lights are the law in most places in Europe, it probably should be enforced in the US as well.

⬐ II2II

It isn't just near collisions. I was once stuck be a car with enough force that it bent my bike frame, ripped the mirror off of their car, and created a crashing sound loud enough for people to hear inside their homes. As far as I can tell, the motorist never even slowed down. The people who came to my aid were nearby residents and pedestrians. How I managed to walk away from that one with little more than (nasty) bruises is a mystery.

Other times attentive drivers exhibit attitudes that are less than redeeming. I once flipped on some streetcar tracks. Attentive motorists simply drove around me and went on their way. The people who did check up on my condition were pedestrians.

I've had a number of other experiences in my life that leave me feeling as though people cease to be human as soon as they get behind the wheel of a car. While there are exceptions, they are exceedingly rare. Getting back to the article, I am extremely worried about children being on their own on the streets. It isn't because of those who would intentionally harm them, since that is relatively uncommon. It is because very few people behind the wheel even seem to care.

⬐ mulmen

I agree perceptions change when behind the wheel of a car. I have had drivers try to ram me on my motorcycle when lane splitting.

⬐ kmano8

It's a common American (but maybe elsewhere too?) attitude to feel something is being taken from you when another person is gaining -- in this case, it's you moving efficiently through traffic while they stand still. Most people will just rage inside their car, but there is definitely a subset of those that think they have a right to harm you over it.

⬐ mips_avatar

I want to find out what kind of architecture/design humanizes people. Because everywhere I go in Canamerica people have to drive and I agree with you that it makes people worse.

⬐ lotsofpulp

It is not having quarter acre single family homes with garages and 2 car driveways. And not having 6+ lane wide intersections. And using traffic circles instead of traffic lights.

But mostly the first one. The second you start giving everyone a 2k+ square foot home and backyard and front yard and 2 car parking, you now have everything spaced so far apart that you need cars. And everyone needs space to put their car, so that means huge setbacks for storefronts, huge parking lots, etc.

You cannot have a community optimized for both numerous cars and non car traffic. It is one or the other, and once the layout is done, it is not politically changeable. Certainly not the huge personal vehicles almost everyone drives today.

⬐ mulmen

I don’t think this is an absolute. I grew up in a neighborhood that provided what you describe in Idaho. Both my brothers are raising their kids in an environment like you describe. I live in one in Seattle now. It’s not cheap in a city but it’s not unheard of in the US.

⬐ mips_avatar

I don’t think Seattle does a great job of this either. The eastside is a suburban sprawl, and most of the parents I know in Seattle are too afraid of the homeless to let their kids go to parks/stores nearby alone.

⬐ mulmen

The East side isn’t Seattle. If you want to include suburbs you also need to include Shoreline and Burien.

It depends a lot on your neighborhood. Mine is nice and I see kids running around the neighborhood regularly.

As I mentioned this is definitely a thing in Idaho. My brothers and sister all have families and live in areas where kids can have freedom in the neighborhood but away from home.

⬐ Loic

> the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan (more for transit than cycling).

From my small experience living in France, Germany, Denmark and spending quite some times in other old[0] EU countries, you can do it everywhere there. From Portugal up to Finland and everything in-between. This is the normal way here.

[0]: Not to be taken negatively, just that I did not had the opportunity to visit/stay in the EU countries from the former East block.

⬐ CalRobert

We hoped that this would be our experience moving to the EU (Ireland) but due to housing issues we wound up in a field in the countryside. They DO get free reign of the field and the lovely walking trail, but the road is full of high speed drivers with nothing but a dense, tall hedgerow to jump in to. Ireland copied all the mistakes of America with regards to urban design, too.

⬐ disgruntledphd2

Yeah, the Irish countryside is beautiful, but not walkable.

Both my wife and I grew up there, hence why we prioritized getting a walkable place in the suburbs.

⬐ CalRobert

Funny enough when we were looking it was either between the canals in Dublin or in the countryside. We looked at places in Clonsilla, etc. but they seemed really hostile to walking. Inside the canals was too expensive, sadly. I ended up getting a remote job and we moved to a few acres in Offaly, about a 15 minute bike ride from the train. It's beautiful and there's a lot to like (We even have a walking trail by the house!) but it's definitely a place you need a car.

⬐ disgruntledphd2

Yeah, we looked at clonsilla too but it didn't work for the same reason. We managed to find something just over the m50 but still pretty walkable, in Laurel lodge.

I'm way too neurotic about the future to take the plunge and move away from Dublin, unfortunately.

⬐ retrohomearcade

Lots of kids ride their bikes to my daughters elementary school, where we live in the United States. Safe small towns with functional sidewalks, for kids to ride bikes on as necessary, still happily exist in some places in our nation.

⬐ mips_avatar

Where you live can the kids get to anything other than single family housing? Because there are definitely suburbs in the US with low enough traffic to be safe, but they don’t allow important freedoms like biking to schools/libraries/shops

⬐ tesseract

Yeah I think this is common. Where I grew up I could easily bike to some other kids' houses or to school, or a mile or two around the neighborhood for exercise, but other destinations I would have been interested in (the library, the local ice cream shop, the hardware store, parks other than the school playground) were basically impossible to reach due to distance, traffic/safety, or both.

⬐ closeparen

Built before WWII is the key. Inner-ring streetcar suburbs tend to have some local resources: schools, parks, library, small overpriced shops. Anything after 1945, forget it.

Some metro areas demolished all of theirs, or developed too late to have built any. Rust Belt is surprisingly rich with them.

⬐ retrohomearcade

We live on Main street in a single family home in a nice moderately touristy fairly inexpensive mountain town in the north-east.

Main street is generally thriving, with the preschool, elementary school, middle-high school, library, and town park/common down said Main street. (The library is one block off.)

Mixed together among the core mile and a half or so stretch is a decent collection of retail establishments (including 2 gas stations, a few coffee shops local and chain, restaurants local and chain, doctors offices, post office, auto mechanics, the now ubiquitous Dollar General, a liquor store, an ole' time hardware store, and a couple good ice cream places), single family homes, a church, a police station/opera house/townhall, and some hotels and motels local and chain.

Side streets with single family homes, and some New England style multi-unit three stories are on both sides of Main street, where the river allows, with a small trailer park mixed in.

There is certainly traffic on Main street, including log trucks, but with a 30 mph speed limit, and lots of crosswalks where people will generally stop for you (the law says you should), it's pretty human friendly.

I will admit it's in many ways a throwback to the way things used to be...

⬐ mips_avatar

That sounds like a special place that didn’t bulldoze the good stuff for a parking lot in the 60s-80s

⬐ patentatt

They do, but let’s talk about the elephant in the room. It’s expensive to live in these places. I found a suburb of Chicago where my kids could walk to school and I feel they’re safe, but my neighborhood is out of reach for most. So yeah, the idyllic American neighborhood still exists, but only for the relatively well off. That sucks.

⬐ ajuc

> But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that pretty much means the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan (more for transit than cycling).

Why these countries in particular? You can do this in pretty much any EU country and many non-EU European countries.

I walked back 4km from primary school every day. I could go by bus but then I'd had to wait for 30 minutes and everything beats that when you're 10.

And during vacations me and my cousins roamed the forest near my grandparents house whole day every day only returning for a dinner :)

⬐ mmsimanga

Sounds pretty much like my upbringing in Africa. Bus drivers had authority and if they spied you being naughty through their review mirror they could kick you off the bus resulting in a few kilometre of walk home. It was common to get off the bus in solidarity with your friend who was being kicked off and walk home with him. Sometimes it was just more fun and quicker to walk than wait for the bus much like you.

⬐ ornornor

In Switzerland it’s mandatory to let your kids go to and from school on their own from age 7 (I think, +/- 1 year)

The alternative is called “elterntaxi” (meaning parent taxi) and is very much frowned upon.

So, every school morning, lunch, and afternoon, you have bunches of little kids walking on their own between their schools and their homes, wearing a special reflective jacket.

⬐ watwut

Switzerland managed to figure out preschool/kindergarten system that literally puts even more limitations on mom then having kids at home.

⬐ nix23

What is the limitation on "moms" here? And btw, why having a limitation on one parent?

⬐ lordnacho

In Switzerland you'll see very young kids taking themselves to school too. In fact I think the schools discourage you from doing them off. Loads of kids can be seen around town going to and from school, totally normal.

⬐ throwaway0a5e

>Children can't drive, which means unless you're lucky enough to live very close to your friends, and ideally on the same side of the street, your home is effectively your prison in the US and Canada.

There are huge swaths of the country that are not the "built up in the 50s and 60s but now populated and trafficked enough to be dangerous" suburban hellscape that you are implying.

⬐ chrisseaton

America is famous for its small towns. People forget this.

⬐ mastax

A lot of small town USA looks like this now: https://postimg.cc/4YHfF59X

⬐ ska

This is true. On the other hand, there are huge swaths that are.

⬐ bsder

> As best I can tell that pretty much means the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan (more for transit than cycling).

Or old pre-car cities in the US.

The point of those is that they have dense interconnection that predates cars. In addition, building roads cost too much in terms of eminent domain, so they don't have very many high-speed roads interfering.

⬐ ed_balls

I grow up in a small town in Poland. I was walking on my own to preschool since I was 5 (it was about 400m from the house).

If I had kids I'd let them free roam the city.

⬐ dougmwne

Seeing elementary kids off on their own in Poland is shocking to me now, even though I was an elementary kid wandering around in the USA 30 years ago. Not sure how the USA took such a bizarre and sad turn.

⬐ ed_balls

I guess there was a change in law in Poland as well. Now it's illegal to let someone younger than 7 to wonder alone.

⬐ abraxas

Poland is far more walkable and pedestrian/commuter friendly than the US or Canada. It really has to be experienced first hand to sink in. The way that building codes in North America separate the buildings lends the geography there to be friendly to the cars and only to the cars.

⬐ presentation

A take from Japan - actually for cycling it's not bad. Even though the infrastructure doesn't have nice separate cycling paths, it's still 16% trips taken by bicycle out here vs 25% in the Netherlands [1]. Most neighborhoods aren't high-speed and streets are tiny, making low-speed cycling not so dangerous, and the proximity of neighborhoods means that kids bike places all the time.

[1] https://medium.com/vision-zero-cities-journal/the-unique-saf....

⬐ meristohm

When I was in Japan in the early 2000s I felt safe biking around. I already felt confident on a bicycle, and was grateful for the deference from drivers, both in and between cities. Some mountain tunnels were harrowing, with no railing and a longish drop to the road. Sometimes I used the road (I had lights and reflective vest, and the ignorant bravado of youth). In cities it seemed most cyclists used the sidewalk. I wanted to go fast, so I joined the cars. What a rush! I’m sorry now for the stress I likely caused people in their cars, and grateful I didn’t get injured. In the US I’m somewhat scared of getting shot or “nudged” off the road (had stuff thrown at me and people drive too close), so that and the caution of age make me a more defensive, careful, respectful cyclist.

With plenty of bright, reflective things on my bike I’m willing to take our kid on the road, and am working on promoting better bikeways around here, for locals and tourists.

⬐ lanewinfield

I grew up in Milwaukee, WI and had this exact experience from an early age through 15 when I got my driver's license. A lot of biking between friends' houses and school.

Not to say that bike lanes and bike protection couldn't be better, because it absolutely could be.

⬐ neartheplain

I also grew up in a midsized Midwestern city, and had the same (wonderful) childhood experience. Biked to school, parks and playgrounds, the YMCA, local diner, you name it. This was in the 1990s and early 2000s, so I doubt much has changed.

⬐ bcrosby95

I disagree with one point on the video: at least in the suburbs I've lived in (various places in the South SF Bay Area, and Los Angeles), you could bike places. And I regularly did starting around 8 years old. I would regularly ride up to 4 miles out. And you could retrofit many of these suburbs to be more bike safe.

I think the far larger problem is cultural. It doesn't matter how safe bicycling is if there's a chance for your children to be taken away from you for letting them take advantage of it. That is also why my wife is hesitant about this stuff.

⬐ kfajdsl

Not sure if you're already doing this or not, but walking to the bus stop with friends (no adults) and playing outside after school were both the main ways I got independence in my suburban childhood. As long as I was home before dark, I was good.

⬐ edem

When I was a kid I lived in the suburbs (Hungary) and I was cycling all day. It was great. I want the same for my kid and for that we had to move to the countryside because the capital (Budapest) became hell on earth in the last 10 years.

⬐ matt_j

This seems like an over-protective attitude to me.

I rode my bike around the (Australian, suburban) streets from age 5, rode to school for 12 odd years, caught the train to the city and skated all over it from about age 13. My parents made a point of letting us (me and siblings) 'rough and tumble' as we grew up.

We had a lot of scrapes, don't get me wrong, but you learn a lot as a kid if you can fall over a few times. Kids are good at taking care of themselves, and each other, if you let them. Within reason, of course, but I see a lot of coddling these days and a lot of soft kids that have never been beyond the padded playground walls.

⬐ js2

I grew up in Miami in the 70s/80s. My parents gave me almost unlimited freedom. I biked or rode a skateboard _everywhere_. Miami built the "Metrorail" while I was a kid so as a teenager, that got me to a lot of places too.

I still have no idea how I survived. None of it seemed dangerous then. I knew every backroad, path, and sidewalk I could ride.

I live in the suburbs of NC now, outside Raleigh, and the roads here are death traps. Many of them have no sidewalk or service lane at all. Our kids are almost all grown up now anyway.

⬐ Alupis

Why not let your kids take the school bus to school?

Most suburban areas (and urban areas too) have a school bus pickup for the neighborhood. Showing up at the bus stop made me a ton of friends right there in my neighborhood, and made for some great long-lasting relationships that continue to this day.

Having friends that lived in the same neighborhood meant I could ride my bike to my friends house, or walk, or whatever.

⬐ johnkpaul

My burb school rules are that they’ll only bus you if you are outside of 4 miles of the school as the crow flies. Even if there’s no possible way to walk there, my kids are stuck and I have no option but to drive them.

⬐ burlesona

I agree wholeheartedly. My life dream is to build a car-free city in the US so I can live there. When I was young and even more naive I hoped I could do this before having kids, so they could grow up with that freedom. Now I’m hoping maybe I can do this by the time I have grandchildren. We’ll see.

It would require a lot of capital in the form of patient equity to pull off.

⬐ mulmen

You could just move to a walkable neighborhood in an existing city.

⬐ Symbiote

I don't know North America well enough, but the linked video says such walkable neighbourhoods have very high prices. That's great if you can afford it, but it's also good to campaign for it to be available for those who can't.

⬐ colinmhayes

But if you built a similar city it would likely have high prices too. Why not try to get more housing built in the places that are already nice instead?

⬐ oblio

I'm not sure I understand this, why would walkable places be expensive? Walkable places are generally high density which means that buildings are bigger and homes are smaller so prices should be lower.

⬐ colinmhayes

For the same reason walkable places that currently exist are expensive. People want to live there.

⬐ oblio

Yeah, they want to live there but they don't want others to live there.

Otherwise you can just build taller.

⬐ AstralStorm

That sounds like a fake supply problem. Potentially people having places to sell or rent blocking high density developments, or lack of infrastructure causing issues.

Good old adage is infrastructure first.

⬐ loonster

It exists. Mackinac Island, Michigan.

⬐ laverya

Permanent population of 492, though. 80 [0] kids in pre-k through 12th grade at the school.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island_School_Distric...

⬐ grahamplace

The team at Culdesac is working on something like this in Tempe, Arizona, with capital from the likes of Alexis Ohanian[1]

see:

- https://culdesac.com/

- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/business/culdesac-tempe-p...

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alexisohanian_culdesac-re-ima...

⬐ smoldesu

I live in a relatively rural area of America, and I still can't even fathom letting a kid ride their bike to school. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable riding more than a mile along any side roads, not to mention any city streets or main roads. America is really just not made for cyclists (not that I am one).

⬐ meristohm

Familiarity can lead to feeling safer, even if nothing else changes. I’m comfortable on a bicycle, but in a new place I’m more on-guard until the route feels known.

⬐ eweise

I think the idea that kids don't roam, is a bit overblown. I live in the bay area and kids generally roam from house to house, the mall, school. The main difference from when I was a kids, is that we can keep in touch with them via phones. But as far as freedom, its about the same around here as when I grew up.

⬐ refurb

My neighbors kid in San Francisco was 9 and has been taking the Muni bus alone, back and forth to school. There are plenty of kids that age doing that.

I think the “your home is a prison” is an upper middle class thing. Poor folks don’t have much choice but to let their kids use transit.

⬐ widforss

I'm Swedish, but lived in New Orleans for 6 months in 2001, when I was 5 years old. I used to walk to kindergarten together with my siblings, 3 and 5 years older. Was that another time, or was that too much freedom for the US to handle even then?

⬐ widforss

I digress, but the reason we lived there for exactly 6 months (on the day) was that we would be ineligible for Swedish child allowance after that.

⬐ CalRobert

Interesting that now you can have the same argument but in reverse, with the US introducing child benefit.

⬐ _jal

> I suppose you _can_ let your kid ride a bike to school alone in the US at 7

I think you're forgetting just how big and diverse the US is.

⬐ rmah

In NYC, over a million kids of all ages walk, skateboard, bike, kick-scooter, or take the bus and subway to school every day. Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school. Well, really they travel in packs, but still. Even in the dangerous Big Apple, the number of serious accidents or criminal incidents while going to/from school is just a handful a year.

When I was young and growing up in the burbs, many kids walked or rode bikes to school. The roads were much more dangerous back then. Crime was much MUCH worse. No one batted an eye. I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today.

⬐ rjzzleep

When I was in Louisiana for a year I'd walk or cycle to work. Walk was about half an hour and most of the way had no sidewalks. Buying things at a target meant cycling for 40 minutes on a busy road with no bike lane or sidewalk(a street where I later learned a person had turned without watching and cracked a friends skull open).

"Fun" fact: On my way home I was wearing a pink/white Nike hoodie and asked a woman for directions and she said something like "sir, please step away I have a child".

I grew up in Europe, so I get what you're saying and agree with it, but for most of the US, that is actually built for cars, it's not true.

⬐ eru

> Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school.

That's not a little kid, that's just a kid. Americans have weird standards for kids' independence.

Compare the Japanese show 'my first errand' where little kids go on their first errands:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JapaneseGameShows/comments/1lvvgm/h...

⬐ ekianjo

You'd probably want to avoid citing Japanese TV shows as reference. They are all fake and completely scripted/heavily edited from start to finish.

⬐ tidenly

True, but younger kids walk around by themselves (mostly in groups) all around Japan. Japan is a weird case though where the cities are safer than the countryside.

⬐ ekianjo

Not saying it's not true. Just saying taking a Japanese TV Show as a proof has 0 credibility.

⬐ eru

Yes, it doesn't have credibility for what actually happens, but it can have credibility for what standards people / pop culture apply.

(And that's what my original comment talked about. Also, it's just a cute show.)

⬐ watwut

In Germany school literally recomends for kids to go alone to school from first grade. First graders also went alone from school to afterschool activity.

7 years old navigating streets is not as much rarity as Americans think. And it used to be completely normal too.

⬐ mixmastamyk

In our neighborhood we have folks screaming in the street, repeat offenders flashing girl scouts, others sleeping on the sidewalk, and/or uber sketchy camper vans and tents parked on the way to school.

I don’t believe in helicopter parenting but this is where we live.

⬐ krrrh

The author of the linked piece, Lenore Skenazy, is famous for becaming known as the worst mother in America when she wrote about letting her 9 year old ride the subway alone in her column for the New York Sun. I’ve never seen that in NY, though old Sesame Street cartoons made it seem pretty common prior to the nineties.

⬐ ngngngng

As I'm reading this and relating it to myself, I feel myself doing the thing we're acknowledging in this article and trying to move away from. My oldest is 2, so I still have a few more years before I need to think about this. But I keep thinking that it's different here, because I live in a rural area with high speed limits and no sidewalks. But at the same time, that also means fewer cars, and virtually no drunk drivers in this area of rural Utah. So what am I so worried about?

⬐ WalterBright

> I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today.

Evolution has wired us to be constantly looking for risk. If we don't find danger, we'll invent it.

As we remove the riskiest risks, the bar on what we're willing to spend and sacrifice to address the next level of risks goes higher and higher.

Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to grossly exaggerate risk levels in our society.

⬐ panopticon

> Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to grossly exaggerate risk levels in our society.

Humans are really bad at assessing risk. Parents are more likely to be afraid of a stranger kidnapping their child when their child is far more likely to die on the car ride to school.

Which is sad when you think about how suburbs are designed to make people feel safe even though their road designs tend to be extremely dangerous.

⬐ raverbashing

Well, the roads are safe (for cars). For pedestrians, it's mostly barely adequate.

⬐ panopticon

> Well, the roads are safe (for cars).

Not necessarily. Your risk of being in a fatal car accident is nearly 3x higher on suburban roads than urban roads.

This is a good video on the deficiencies of suburbia road design if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

⬐ refurb

Yup. I lived in Asia for a while and toddlers ride on scooters without helmets. Shocking!

Then I remember back not long ago when seat belt laws came into effect in the US. Before then? Meh. And car seats for 6 year olds?

⬐ AstralStorm

The difference here is that the these scooters either have a separate lane or are driving on pavement.

There are no such provisions in most of the US.

⬐ refurb

Some parts have a separate lane, most dont. Plenty of scooters get squished under 53 ft trailers. And most scooters don’t drive on pavement in the US? Not sure what you mean.

> hateful and bitter

Agreed. I am deliberate about what things I choose to be riled up by. American planning happens to make that small list.

My comment was a pure rant in a way that was unproductive.

I also agree that there is nothing objective here, which is why I tried to phrase it in the 'as objective as something subjective can be' form. But I guess it was a bit convoluted.

_____

Let me be specific: Post WW2 car-mandating endless suburbia built without any regard for financial or environmental sustainability is something I actively dislike.

> single, in a tiny apartment in a crappy, dirty apartment building

This gets to the core of the brainwashing I speak of. American cities were left to the dogs during white flight, and they haven't recovered since. There can only be one NYC in the nation. There a dozens of other ways to build sustainable & beautiful cities. NYC's subway system is pretty shabby for a city its size and the city feels haphazardly built. A lot of European capitals in comparison have wonderful examples of apartments that don't suck and subway systems that are a joy to use.

I am not anti-village or even anti-suburb. There is such as thing as well built suburbs. Plus,villages are bound to be low density by their very nature. But villages also tend to be quite sustainable. Strongtowns.org have written a ton of articles on this, and notjustbikes [1] does a great job of elaborating on this.

Urbanist communities have spent agonizingly long talking about the 'missing middle' [2] in housing. The options aren't NYC like shoulder to shoulder density or single family zoning. There are a plethora of options that lie in the middle.

> car-mandating

The car-mandating part is important too. It is one thing to want a huge house with a huge garden. It is another to protest building of non-single family homes in plots near you. Especially when asset prices continue to appreciate as wages stay flat. That's Nimbyism.

It forces a village level of density on any area that's a few miles outside the downtown mandating cars as the only possible form of transport.

> I love where I live and my neighbors do, too. We get along

Exactly, then why not let everyone have that choice?: The choice of living in an arrangement they desire in a manner that is reasonably priced. Imagine if it was illegal for you to build a house on your own land in a manner that you desired, even when it was safe and affected no one else. That's exactly what's happened to middle housing in the US.

> without any regard for financial or environmental sustainability

This is my last point. After all that, the cost of maintaining low density essential public infrastructure (electricity, water, roads, etc) is much much higher than that in denser neighborhoods. This video by not-just-bikes go into detail on this point. [3]

> brainwashed

brainwashing is rarely implied in the literal sense. In most cases, it implies a situation where a person refuses to acknowledge negatives of a system even when it's staring them in the face. America has doomed its cities and implemented laws that strongly favor suburbs. If I grew up here, I would also think that cities were terrible too. Here, people live in cities transiently and usually in rentals. They never develop a relationship with neighbors or drop roots, because they move out the second they have their first child.

> I want my kids to live in a nice neighborhood and, overall, have a good growing-up experience.

The negatives of cities are very much the negatives of American cities. The many positives of American suburbs would look less great if they had to pay the real cost of maintaining their infrastructure. NotJustBikes has an entire video [4] on how sustainable cities provide a significantly better growing-up experience for children than American suburbs. I highly recommend it.

People spend thousands on visiting Europeans cities for the summer. People fantasize about how dreamy such a place would be and retiring there. By all definitions, these ARE their cities. That's what cities in developed countries could've been like. Alas, the New World seems to lack the creativity to imagine such a place back home.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A

[2] https://missingmiddlehousing.com/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98&t=1s

If your city properly prioritizes parks and makes them safe and easy for everyone to walk to, they're better for field games than a backyard anyways. Unfortunately children in the US aren't given a lot of freedom to explore and develop independence in public spaces, but that's a whole other issue. [1]

And planting native vegetation isn't black and white. You can still have a lawn with plenty of native vegetation.

[1] https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98

⬐ frumper

Parks in my city are filled with encampments. They don’t even attempt to make them safe anymore.

I know you meant the car centric anecdote to be an analogy and not the point itself, but I must nitpick.

Public transportation/buses/subways are honestly quite convenient even if you are wrangling 3 kids around. The problem is that public transportation in the US at its best (NYC, Boston) is still a far-cry from actually 'good' public transportation systems. In many places kids as young as 11 are able to independently navigate the city without the parents help when public transportation is well built. If anything, car dependence means that kids take 5 more years (16) before they can be independant and parents will often struggle to meet diverging needs of 3 children when the car is a single bottleneck.

Not-just-bikes does a great contrast between North America and the Netherlands to highlight how car-dependence can lead to struggles as a parent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

Also, given that most upper middle class families usually have 3 cars (2 for parents work and 1 for a 16-yr old child), if public transport allows you to go from 3 -> 1, that's already a huge plus. It is not like families in European capitals do not own 5 seater hatchbacks. Public transport isn't against cars. It's is against car essentialism. If anything, moving people to public transport will improve the experience of those who need cars by declogging highways.

Lastly, car essentialism, highways, the suburban dream and white flight were all distinctly post-WW2 phenomena and heavily subsidized to be that way. It is by no means a part of American culture. Most pre-ww2 cities such as the ones in the NE had perfectly acceptable public transportation for the time, which has since not been maintained as well. Even smaller cities such as Portsmouth NH and Portland ME are incredibly walkable, dense and public transport friendly. (rural culture is an entirely different point. If you own 10,000 acres of corn fields ofc you own a tractor or a pickup. No one is suggesting public transportation for them)

Older American suburbs are actually far less cardependent than you'd think: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVeSiWTU74s)

Dallas style urban design has existed for less than 70 years, and was specifically engineered by politicians and corporate interests rather than being a natural outcome of American cultural desires.

⬐ JamesBarney

Arguing that a phenomenon is less than 80 years old doesn't mean that it's not a part of American culture.

And there is more than just public transportation keeping 11 year olds from navigating the city by public transit. We also have crime rates far higher than western Europe or Asia.

⬐ closeparen

Making public transit suitable for unaccompanied children would involve an unacceptable, probably illegal curtailment of the freedoms of mentally ill homeless people to do as they please in public spaces.

⬐ rayiner

The birth rate in transit friendly European cities has collapsed, so I’m not sure what that gets you. You make a good point about older children, but if you have 3 kids (American women in average want closer to 3 than to 2) you’re going to spend 15 years or so with at least one kid below 10.

Of course you can have three kids in the city, but you can also do your laundry by hand. That doesn’t mean people want to go back to that way of living. And birth rates in cities were never particularly high in the modern era. Most people in America at the turn of the 20th century lived in rural areas.

Also, a bunch of other stuff has changed since the pre-suburbanization era. Both parents typically work, and have to reconcile commuting to work with child care drop off and pickup (which isn’t necessarily located near transit).

That said, I know someone with three young kids living in Chicago without a car. But she’s a champion, and most people aren’t as hard as her. Dallas-style cities make a lot of the ancillary aspects of parenting much easier.

⬐ refurb

What’s with people doing videos instead of writing? I assume ad revenue?

Most videos that are 15 min long have content that could be summarized in a 1-2 min read.

⬐ Will_Do

I’d be very surprised if an Indie creator would create a 1-2 minute read about bikes that 500k people would find worthwhile to read.

Video is offen a compelling medium— especially if you can’t write for a major publication

⬐ tluyben2

Especially most casual linux/programming tech videos are horrible: I do not even understand how someone watches those. You need to know how to sort files for latest entries (ls -lat) and instead of 7 chats you get a 15 minute video. How does that make sense? Not only that, you have to type the commands yourself instead of copy/paste. Very weird with larger programming explanations IMHO. Reading is vastly more efficient for me: I also absorb it better that way.

But yes, people are lazy readers it seems, so these things work for most I guess. And everything is optimized for revenue which makes stuff even more unwatchable.

⬐ voussoir

This past week, I discovered and watched pretty much all of Not Just Bikes's videos. For me, it has been like waking up out of the Matrix to see that all of my surroundings are artificial and bad. I'm sharing on HN because I think this will resonate with the upbringing of other North Americans. I also feel that the current push to get everyone out of their gas cars and into electric cars is still ignoring an extraordinary hole in American infrastructure -- the possibility of not driving a car in the first place.

⬐ richjdsmith

I’m a massive fan as well. Found it about 4 months ago and it has changed my level of civic engagement in my small town. I am actively involved in the future of my town’s cycling infrastructure and it is in a large part due to these videos.

⬐ jimmaswell

There are lots of packed in little towns and big cities if you want to walk everywhere. I like it much better as it is more spread out where I am with trees and privacy.

⬐ 8bitsrule

In the US it's long seemed obvious that cars have way too much privilege. (Just tonight I was honked at by a driver who wanted to use the intersection I was crossing.)

Yet, while we've had ideas floated for decades (e.g. limiting auto-traffic on downtown streets, as in Tokyo), it seems that not-driving keeps getting pushed away by something else. Malls disappearing? Amazon appears. (Humor: a person I knoe has been able to rebuild their only car because all the parts are being delivered - from everywhere in the country.)

Covid appears and mass-transit takes a big hit ... and Zoom appears to keep people home from work and school.

Someplace in the US has to be the first to try the Amsterdam way. But, given our habits built by 80 years of politics and conditioning (the Freeways were built under the direction of the former CEO of GM !) ... who'll be able to be the first?

I've recently discovered Not Just Bikes channel [1], and can't recommend it enough.

He is Canadian, commuter, not a cyclist [2], yet he found that in Netherlands are the most livable cities, to the point he's decided to rise children there [3]. He answers all the critique raised in this thread. And describes how Netherlands achieve its goals - bike paths are on another level there, they are specifically organized on different routes [4].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMed1qceJ_Q

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1l75QqRR48

> safer for kids to run around.

https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98

> Well, in most places in the US you literally can't go without a vehicle if you want employment and food.

That's due to zoning laws being the way that they are. If you'd change the way you'd build up and zone things it would be possible.

The YouTube channel "Not Just Bikes" goes into this in various videos. I couldn't find the exact video that explained the zoning laws, did find another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98 (kids in Netherlands go to school on their own).

Despite Netherlands being considered great for cyclists there's loads to improve. The channel goes into that detail as well, e.g. that major roads are being closed. See e.g. this video of a big road being closed in Utrecht: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fePpwYCs_JM (different channel)