Road design, transportation and walkability

[danbrotherston]

This kind of believe that you can make massive road investments "a win for everyone" just by adding some compromised cycling and walking infra around the thing is like lipstick on a pig, it doesn't change the fact that building suburbs designe exclusively around the car make walking and cycling unpleasant bordering on intolerable. Yes, this road isn't as bad as say Fairway, but it's not a design which makes cycling walking and transit a real option--despite what the regions transportation policy claims to do.

I live in a suburb and as I type this from my home office, I look out the window and see a nice young family with a young child going for a walk with their dog.  They look quite happy.  There experience doesn't seem to be unpleasant or intolerable.

Recreational walking is not the same thing as transportation.  Walking within a suburb is usually quite pleasant. But that rarely gives you access to more than a park, maybe a school, and a corner store if you're lucky.

So ask yourself, where they walking to? Are they just out for a stroll? Or are they going to a grocery store? Would they have to cross a major road with a small child to get there? How comfortable is it to a parent with a child trying to cross in front of high speed traffic.

The point is not to enable walking, it's to enable walkability, that means that destinations are accessible.

This kind of blindness we must fight, yes, lots of people go for walks in their neighbourhoods, and they find it perfectly pleasant, same with biking. They do not experience what it is like when you do not get to choose where you walk or bike, but must bike TO somewhere.