Even if my local area was designed for foot traffic, the amount of space between literally everything here would make it impossible not to rely on a car.
If your local area was designed for foot traffic, then things wouldn’t be so spread out. One of the many reasons this is so bad in america (and this is the case in DFW) are the awful parking minimum laws that have ruined so many cities. Since the 1950’s new business developments have been required to have a minimum amount of parking so that even at max capacity there would be enough spots. In a less car-centric city almost any place you would need to visit regularly -be it a grocery store, a department store, or whatever else- would certainly be within walking distance of (or a short public transit hop away from) your home and work. But the parking minimum laws spread everything so far apart that to walk or bike anywhere is unimaginable, and it also isn’t feasible to build up good public transit because you would need stops at every major street corner (rather than in a reasonable city where you would be taking transit hops between dense clusters of businesses and other destinations).
In DFW you can sum about any trip to somewhere you want to be to a 30 minute drive. Favorite restaurant that isn’t literally right next to you? 30 minutes or an hour without tolls. Work? That’s another 30 minutes. Wanna go to a store nicer than a Walmart? You guessed it. 30 minutes.
Get home from work around 4:30? We’ll now you have a cool 5 hours of time until bed time. Subtract an hour of the gym, an hour of cooking and maybe you’ve got 3 hours of time to do anything else. Waiting for public transportation or wasting time walking would just cut down even more of the hours in your day. Maybe I want more out of life than sacrificing my time to public transportation and walking.
You said “I don’t think they live in the same reality I do,” but not only is this pretty much exactly the case in the city I live in, but I have given very similar rants when complaining about living in such a car dependent area. Honestly I was confused for a moment because you have some great points on why living in a city designed for cars sucks so much. The reason I consider myself a member of the fuckcars community isn’t that I think people should walk/bike more or that I don’t like cars. It’s that I want our city designs to change. Walking, biking, and even public transit simply doesn’t make sense in most North American cities but it doesn’t have to be that way. With policy change and redesign projects over time our cities could be so much better.
If your local area was designed for foot traffic, then things wouldn’t be so spread out. One of the many reasons this is so bad in america (and this is the case in DFW) are the awful parking minimum laws that have ruined so many cities. Since the 1950’s new business developments have been required to have a minimum amount of parking so that even at max capacity there would be enough spots. In a less car-centric city almost any place you would need to visit regularly -be it a grocery store, a department store, or whatever else- would certainly be within walking distance of (or a short public transit hop away from) your home and work. But the parking minimum laws spread everything so far apart that to walk or bike anywhere is unimaginable, and it also isn’t feasible to build up good public transit because you would need stops at every major street corner (rather than in a reasonable city where you would be taking transit hops between dense clusters of businesses and other destinations).
You said “I don’t think they live in the same reality I do,” but not only is this pretty much exactly the case in the city I live in, but I have given very similar rants when complaining about living in such a car dependent area. Honestly I was confused for a moment because you have some great points on why living in a city designed for cars sucks so much. The reason I consider myself a member of the fuckcars community isn’t that I think people should walk/bike more or that I don’t like cars. It’s that I want our city designs to change. Walking, biking, and even public transit simply doesn’t make sense in most North American cities but it doesn’t have to be that way. With policy change and redesign projects over time our cities could be so much better.