How's car culture working out in your fair city?

[IronWing]

Tucson collisions involving serious injury or death in 2024… so far:
Red = fatality
Yellow = serious injury

 

[K1052]

After spending a week in Tucson for Thanksgiving this tracks. The street design and the way you people drive there...and then over here when you visit.

 

[kt]

Our city loves building long, straight and wide roads. Then they wonder why street racing incidents keep happening on these roads.

 

[hal2kilo]

Our city loves building long, straight and wide roads. Then they wonder why street racing incidents keep happening on these roads.

I curse the Fing things, but speed bumps.

 

[feralkid]

After spending a week in Tucson for Thanksgiving this tracks. The street design and the way you people drive there...and then over here when you visit.

It's always been pretty shitty to drive in Tucson, but with the recent lack of enforcement and influx of Snowbirds and Californians, it has gotten worse.

Not saying that the locals haven't contributed to this mess.

And per the map...it's even worse if you're a pedestrian.

 

[Greenman]

I can't find stats for my city, just the state.

 

[Zorba]

After spending a week in Tucson for Thanksgiving this tracks. The street design and the way you people drive there...and then over here when you visit.

Man I was there in April of 2023 and thought it was amazing compared to OKC. I could actually safely cross streets without going a mile out of my way.

OKC metro road design and sprawl is horrible for anyone not in a car. The highway alignments were also largely very disruptive making big chunks of land poor for development.

The city itself is trying to make things better (slowly), but the major suburbs largely still suck. I love less than a mile from a 300 acre park, I have no safe way of getting there across the only intersection on the way there. Because of deep ditches right by the streets, the only way to cross is in the traffic lane. I'll do it when I'm running and I basically just act like I'm a bike, but no way I'll let my daughter go through it

 

[MrSquished]

American car culture has done so much damage to this country, both with time, money, and health. Excessive deaths and injuries, way too much time spent in traffic which is both a drain on folks personally as well as highly inefficient economically, a shitty mass transit system, cities designed around the wrong priorities. It's terrible.

I remember going to Houston for the first time for work back in like 2008. I have never been scared being a pedestrian in NYC - where a lot of these yahoos from the south think it's anarchy and also probably scary as fuck to walk in due to cars - well, the first time I'd been really scared as a pedestrian was in fucking Houston lol I was like wtf is going on - this is frightening.

 

[Brainonska511]

After spending a week in Tucson for Thanksgiving this tracks. The street design and the way you people drive there...and then over here when you visit.

This isn't surprising. Having visited my in-laws in Tucson many times (and again soon), Tucson has made sure that the only "safe" way to get around is personal automobile. Nice, big parking lots in front of all strip malls, wide roads to encourage speeding, and fairly crappy biking and walking infrastructure.

 

[Brainonska511]

I remember going to Houston for the first time for work back in like 2008. I have never been scared being a pedestrian in NYC - where a lot of these yahoos from the south think it's anarchy and also probably scary as fuck to walk in due to cars - well, the first time I'd been really scared as a pedestrian was in fucking Houston lol I was like wtf is going on - this is frightening.

I remember a few times going to NJ for work, near where some of the pharma HQs are. Hotel looks like it's <5 minutes walk from say, a Starbucks or Dunkin for breakfast: forget about walking, because there was no safe way to do that. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Perknose]

American car culture has done so much damage to this country, both with time, money, and health. Excessive deaths and injuries, way too much time spent in traffic which is both a drain on folks personally as well as highly inefficient economically, a shitty mass transit system, cities designed around the wrong priorities. It's terrible.

I remember going to Houston for the first time for work back in like 2008. I have never been scared being a pedestrian in NYC - where a lot of these yahoos from the south think it's anarchy and also probably scary as fuck to walk in due to cars - well, the first time I'd been really scared as a pedestrian was in fucking Houston lol I was like wtf is going on - this is frightening.

Coming out of Long Island on the Long Island Expressway around rush hour when you get up near the city and the yahoos and OG wannabes come flooding onto it was always like a really bad Urban Mad Max video game.

 

[MrSquished]

I remember a few times going to NJ for work, near where some of the pharma HQs are. Hotel looks like it's <5 minutes walk from say, a Starbucks or Dunkin for breakfast: forget about walking, because there was no safe way to do that. Absolutely ridiculous.

Yes a lot of the jersey burbs/larger towns are not pedestrian friendly. Pretty common in burbs all over the country.

But for a big city, I felt much safer walking in NYC than Houston.

 

[IronWing]

Zooming in:

Note the high intensity enforcement zone and the dearth of serious accidents! Note that this stretch of road really is subject to intense traffic law enforcement and it isn't just a couple signs. But… there are almost no pedestrians there anyway as on one side of the road is an airport enclosed in razor wire topped fencing and on the other side are mostly fenced vacant lots or industrial businesses that offer nothing to would be pedestrians. The stretch of road to the west with the bicycle and pedestrian injuries and fatalities is lined with apartment complexes, restaurants, and other consumer oriented businesses. No traffic enforcement zone for you! The stats look great for the enforcement zone so I guess that's a win.

 

[K1052]

This isn't surprising. Having visited my in-laws in Tucson many times (and again soon), Tucson has made sure that the only "safe" way to get around is personal automobile. Nice, big parking lots in front of all strip malls, wide roads to encourage speeding, and fairly crappy biking and walking infrastructure.

This is why I stay downtown when I go. It’s at least somewhat walkable if not large.

 

[BoomerD]

We have a pretty mediocre public transit system here. The “normal” bus route from Ocean Shores into Hoquiam/Aberdeen takes about 2 hours. ( 25 miles) They run a couple of “direct” routes daily…about 45 minutes. Around town…we have a small (one or two mini-vans) owner-operated cab service.

 

[Greenman]

We have a pretty mediocre public transit system here. The “normal” bus route from Ocean Shores into Hoquiam/Aberdeen takes about 2 hours. ( 25 miles) They run a couple of “direct” routes daily…about 45 minutes. Around town…we have a small (one or two mini-vans) owner-operated cab service.

It never occurred to me till I read your post, but I've never seen a public transit bus around here. I would have to assume that's because there really isn't anywhere to go.

 

[WelshBloke]

It never occurred to me till I read your post, but I've never seen a public transit bus around here. I would have to assume that's because there really isn't anywhere to go.

There's some routes like that around here! The bus ends up going through some lovely countryside but you're thinking "what ah heck is getting off here?"

Edit: that word filter is weird! There's definitely a cultural difference in swearing! I'll let you lot try to work out which bit got filtered and what it was!

 

[K1052]

Looks like 2022 is the most recent I can find for pedestrian deaths in my immediate vicinity and they are all on the actual highways somehow. Once in a while I read about a homeless person wandering on and getting struck so could be mostly that.

The streets, signals, and grid are not at all conducive to higher speeds which are known to be a major factor in fatalities.

 

[Fenixgoon]

As I was driving home tonight, I was shocked at the number of on- and off-ramps that have pedestrian walkways.

Like, where are these going to? It's a fucking highway.

It just speaks to the focus on cars where there are pedestrian walkways in obviously dangerous spots that often also lead to nowhere

 

[Franz316]

There's a reason I live in Madrid 9 months a year. America has completely surrendered the public domain to the automobile and everything it entails, and in doing so has created a a landscape that is mostly inhospitable to human life on foot. There's a reason why the most expensive places to live in the US are also the most walkable. At least zoning and minimum parking laws have become more relaxed in the past decade (in some places), but the majority of America is really just subdivisions separated by 6 lane roads with the same 30 stores every 3 miles. Everywhere looks the same.

 

[Brainonska511]

There's a reason I live in Madrid 9 months a year. America has completely surrendered the public domain to the automobile and everything it entails, and in doing so has created a a landscape that is mostly inhospitable to human life on foot. There's a reason why the most expensive places to live in the US are also the most walkable. At least zoning and minimum parking laws have become to be more relaxed in the past decade, but the majority of America is really just subdivisions separated by 6 lane roads with the same 30 stores every 3 miles. Everywhere looks the same.

My fellow Americans completely lack imagination and have terrible status quo bias. They love to visit these great, walkable places abroad (and even in the US, like Disney), but then refuse any measures that could enable those things in their own communities. I think a big part is actually too much "community input". The benefits flow to a nebulous group of people who may or may not yet live in the area, and the people that think they will be harmed by new development (eg, incumbent landowners) complain loudly, and are over-represented: thus, nothing changes.

I try not to doom about it too much though: there has been progress, albeit slow in many areas. Bike infrastructure is getting better, zoning/parking minimums are changing in many places, pedestrianization in urban areas is happening. And there are certainly plenty of lots available where we could turbocharge these things with the appropriate political courage.

 

[K1052]

I think a big part is actually too much "community input". The benefits flow to a nebulous group of people who may or may not yet live in the area, and the people that think they will be harmed by new development (eg, incumbent landowners) complain loudly, and are over-represented: thus, nothing changes.

One recent change I've started to see is cities taking public feedback in written form instead of people showing up to meetings to scream at politicians and planners that they hate everything. Mostly the only people who can attend in person have nothing better to do and are not a representative slice of the area in the first place.

 

[pmv]

Still can't get my head around the fact that the only person who made any serious effort to take on the petrolhead lobby in London was Boris "Spaffer" Johnson. Khan has been annoyingly timid in comparison.

Johnson was a "curate's egg" as mayor (in contrast to the utter disaster he was as PM). Of course the origin of the term "curate's egg" kind of emphasizes the original point (that got lost when the expression became a common idiom) that an egg that's "good and bad in parts" is effectively all-bad.

I guess only a toff with the overweening arrogance that goes with that identity, had the self-confidence to take on the Mr Toad lobby. Khan probably feels too insecure, with being not only not-a-toff, but also up-against-it as an ethnic minority and Muslim, to risk picking fights with the petrol-head mob and their apparently limitless sense-of-entitlement.

Motorists have been pandered-to so relentlessly for so long now that they've just come to take it for granted that they are more important than anyone else.

 

[K1052]

Still can't get my head around the fact that the only person who made any serious effort to take on the petrolhead lobby in London was Boris "Spaffer" Johnson. Khan has been annoyingly timid in comparison.

Johnson was a "curate's egg" as mayor (in contrast to the utter disaster he was as PM). Of course the origin of the term "curate's egg" kind of emphasizes the original point (that got lost when the expression became a common idiom) that an egg that's "good and bad in parts" is effectively all-bad.

I guess only a toff with the overweening arrogance that goes with that identity, had the self-confidence to take on the Mr Toad lobby. Khan probably feels too insecure, with being not only not-a-toff, but also up-against-it as an ethnic minority and Muslim, to risk picking fights with the petrol-head mob and their apparently limitless sense-of-entitlement.

Motorists have been pandered-to so relentlessly for so long now that they've just come to take it for granted that they are more important than anyone else.

Meanwhile across the channel Hidalgo has now long successfully waged total war against the car in Paris.

 

[feralkid]

Zooming in:
View attachment 112843
Note the high intensity enforcement zone and the dearth of serious accidents! Note that this stretch of road really is subject to intense traffic law enforcement and it isn't just a couple signs. But… there are almost no pedestrians there anyway as on one side of the road is an airport enclosed in razor wire topped fencing and on the other side are mostly fenced vacant lots or industrial businesses that offer nothing to would be pedestrians. The stretch of road to the west with the bicycle and pedestrian injuries and fatalities is lined with apartment complexes, restaurants, and other consumer oriented businesses. No traffic enforcement zone for you! The stats look great for the enforcement zone so I guess that's a win.

Tiger attacks have been reduced significantly.