Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[ijmorlan]

There is a lot about modern life that makes kids more complicated, just to turn it around a bit. And small vehicles are a significant part of that. Public transit and active transportation are inherently much more kid-friendly. Although vehicles (again) lead to active transportation being another problem for kids where proper infrastructure is not provided.

You are right about that...I've never been so frustrated to see an elevator out of service as coming off an 8 hour flight, hour train ride, and now have to haul a stroller up a flight of stairs, but it's still easier than trying to sort out vehicles.

I'm curious what you mean by "small" vehicles? Certainly if you have a large number of children you'll need a vehicle with more capacity (minivans are great for this...carry more passengers than the gargantuan pickup trucks most are choosing to drive...many of them haul more too), but we *shouldn't* need large cars for 1-3 children. FWIW...we DO need a larger vehicle for children because our car seats are comically and inconveniently large. The car seat that Tessa's coworker had was....I kid you not...half the size of the one we have in Canada.

I mean personal vehicles. What I’m saying is that car dependence (of the city) makes things more difficult for people with kids, especially people with lots of kids: you need to have enough car seats for the little ones, and enough seats for everybody. If the whole family is walking somewhere, it doesn’t really matter how many there are or what age. The same is true on public transit (which in many ways is really just supercharged walking). But as soon as you drive somewhere in your own or a rented vehicle, you have additional logistics to consider.

This doesn’t mean I’m promoting a return to the days of 10-child families (and infant mortality and all the other ills that we have worked to reduce), just observing that cars work worse for families with kids than they do for singles and couples. It’s not that you can’t get a family vehicle — minivans are great! — but even if you have the necessary capacity you still have to deal with carseats.