06-18-2023, 06:29 PM
(06-16-2023, 12:49 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Honestly, this has been the biggest surprising moving here. The country is HIGHLY driveable (outside of Amsterdam). Basically every single one of my neighbours owns a car. We are the odd ones out by not having one. Most have only one, but a few have two. Parking is free everywhere but the centre of the city. Right now they are trying to make all curb parking permit based (which is most overnight parking in the city, most people don't have a garage or driveway) and there is all kinds of uproar and petitions going on about it (albeit less entitled--"I have a RIGHT to park free" and more utilitarian--"expenses are high enough already" than in Canada).
People who claim "oh that's just Europe" are naive at best.
The land use is certainly more dense, but that matters less for cycling. Yeah, walkability depends hugely on the built form, but cycling extends the distance you can move. The suburb I live in is not particularly walkable. The grocery store I go to is almost exactly as far away as the one I went to in Kitchener, but it feels much closer, because I don't have multiple near death experiences on the way there (or realistically, I don't have to choose a more circuitous route and go to a farther grocery store just to avoid unsafe roads). We should still stop sprawling and do infill development, but cycling is the secret sauce that can make the garbage land use we already have less car dependent.
My walk/cycle split is pretty indicative of that too. In months where I'm in KW my bike/walk split heavily leans towards bike, while in Wellington there's way less biking and way more walking. KW is much better for biking than for walking, and it's going to be hard to get buses that meet those needs, especially in deep suburbia. Bikes are far more practical for many people.
NZ outside Wellington is pretty car centric too. Although, as in any city, driving a car in central Wellington is not that fun. And the streets are narrow.