02-13-2024, 01:58 AM
(02-12-2024, 05:28 PM)plam Wrote:(02-12-2024, 02:08 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Uptown mall to Waterloo park petting zoo is a good bet. but yes, in Waterloo they are rare due to our a) massive investment in roads and b) limited investment in transit which doesn’t get stuck in transit.
Obviously there can only be faster transit trips when transit isn’t stuck in traffic. Which is one reason why so much of our country doesn’t believe transit can ever be faster.
Its also worth noting that google maps lies about car travel times so it won’t actually tell you which is faster. And I do mean lies, because it only counts time driving, not parking, or walking to/from your car. Which of course it includes this time for transit.
Also again going to point out that (e)bikes are often the fastest way to get around anything that one should consider a city. (Is Waterloo a city? Well...)
This is a good addition but I’m going to throw escooters (the lime things but one you own) into contention. At least for short trips they’re faster because you can carry them into your destination saving on parking time.
One thing the Dutch have done very well on is reducing the parking time for bikes. Wheel locks+ very accessible racks + smartly equipped bike cargo means I can be off my bike an in a door in less than 15 seconds sometimes, where as in Canada between fumbling with a u lock, unhooking panniers, and less convenient parking it’s often more like 1-2 minutes and if there is protected parking, which is nice, it can be even 3-5 minutes to get down into the secure parking area and then back out. It’s why I used a kick scooter (the non e kind) for going to work when my work was a 1-2 minute bike ride away. Yeah, the ride was a bit longer but the end of trip time was way shorter.