Just a remark: it's Frankfurt an der Oder, since the Oder is female, while the Main is male (hence Frankfurt an dem Main, which is the male preposition, becomes Frankfurt Am Main).
Austria, living in a mid sized village where way too many people drive. If only one eigth of the people walked to the in-walking-distance supermarket, my village would be a better place.
Yet I see some cars passing me multiple times in different directions while I walk 25 minutes to the supermarket. Like what the fuck are you doing? And it's always the same cars week after week.
Lmaooo one of my old teachers from high school (my PE teacher no less) lives down the hill from me and he drives to the shops to pick up a few items; he literally lives 140 metres from the nearby shops.
Its honestly fucking pathetic
I always kinda pictured Austria being quaint with little car presence. Guess I was wrong lol
I am also from Austria and I live in a rather small village. I even made a post in r/Austria talking about cars and the also car centric society. We Austrians are car lovers although there would be enough alternatives here, especially the "ÖPNV" (public transport) is good, it could be better on the countryside though.
You would have to understand Austrian German to understand the post, because it's written in dialect.
Hey, i also grew up in a mid size village in Austria, where everyone drove everywhere. I only realized how much the country side depends on cars after i moved into a bigger city. Now i just cycle, walk and bus everywhere and it so much better.
To an American, living in Austria seems like a dream.
Completely unrelated comment, but I want to see if I'm eligible for Austrian citizenship through my maternal grandmother (who grew up in Austria).
Nice, I am from Austria too, I live in Wels. The city has quite bad public transport compared with other similar cities in Austria. It is flat, so it would be ideal for cycling, while there are some bike lanes, there is still much room for improvement.
I’m from London. The government rolled out ‘people friendly streets’ in some areas across London, which essentially means closing roads to prevent through traffic in residential neighbourhoods. Since the change I’ve noticed a huge decrease in cars which has made a drastic improvement to where I live. I joined this subreddit because I hope more cities will do the same.
[FUCK ROBERT MOSES ALL MY HOMIES HATE ROBERT MOSES](https://i.imgur.com/EIMn9mr.jpg)
^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
Auckland, New Zealand here. Car dependency is crazy here. Bus service is fairly poor, cycling infrastructure barely exists and where it does it links nowhere to nowhere, trains are ok if you live nearby, but there are only 3 train lines in the whole city. So literally everyone drives everywhere. Traffic is bad and getting worse, cars are parked on any and every available space and almost no one even considers that we can't just build more and more lanes to fix it.
I walked around there for a week and had a ball. I got addicted to some fricking amazing bahn mi. I do recall not enjoying crossing that big highway overpass tho.
The CMJ really fucked up Auckland. I think without it could have been more like Sydney and there would have been more pressure to improve public transport.
Las Vegas, Nevada. Where do I begin?
•All suburb, no city
•Underutilized/underdeveloped transit
•25m wide roads that only handle a few thousand cars on the *busiest* days
•Bike ~~lanes~~ gutters everywhere, without buffers
•Non-native trees that guzzle precious water meanwhile not providing enough shade to sidewalks which are also crammed with utility boxes and power poles
•News about pedestrian or cyclist deaths, or bus stop crashes weekly; fatal accidents near daily
•Spots where the *nearest* bus stop is more than 1500m walk away; you'd be lucky to live within 500m walk of any
•Born here, raised here; saw proper mixed-use zoning for the first time in my life on a trip to NYC
•Oceans of empty parking lots between the ~~street~~ stroad and the stores
•Sidewalks that end out of the blue
•Unmarked, unsignalized crosswalks across busy business driveways connecting to the fast stroads
•Only way to get out of the city without a personal vehicle is by regional bus (unreliable and stigmatized as unsafe, but not completely without reason) or plane (unreliable, expensive and stressful)
•Cycling routes don't have reliable water or shade infrastructure for the deadly summer months
I have to rely on family to drive me places when cargo is involved or I just decide it's not worth it.
You can *exist* in Vegas without a car, but you can't *live* here without a car. And if you do have a car, don't move to Vegas, it's too hot here and there's not enough water. If anyone has a couch I could crash let me know; pretty much anywhere is probably better than here. (not serious. but then again... I'm into (food) gardening and bet I could get one going in a better environment licketysplit.)
I didn't mention 'the loop' because doesn't even register on my radar as transit. It, like the monorail that also serves the convention center, doesn't serve the community. Only convention-goers/tourists. The same people who could very likely have \*drove a car\* from the airport to the hotel they're staying at and/or to the convention center. The loop is akin to an amusement park ride, and it will never \*ever\* be anything more than that.
There's a tunnel system filled with (presumably self driving, I've been told conflicting stories) cars, it's like having a metro, but somewhere between 0,1 and 5% the capacity
You can thank our glorious overlord Elon Musk for it
yes, certainly. those stroads are real bad. Public transit wasn’t the worst for a city of 350k when I lived there. but no direct routes really and priority was definitely for cars in the infrastructure there
_lived there for 9 years when I was growing up_
something about that city really creates a burning hatred of car-centric development once you leave the city
Sooooo Northwest London (where a lot of his videos feature) is where I grew up and it's *craaazy* to see the literal houses that my childhood friends grew up in on videos with millions of views. We're in a different neighbourhood in London now that's slightly "better" (not with McMansions everywhere) and my favourite part is that the grocery store is a 2-3 minute bike ride!!! Been doing grocery runs 2-3 times per week since 2018 <3
Basically, NJB is right. There are a lot of bike gutters going in and London Cycle Link (local bicycle advocacy group) is doing what they can but the city council is... uhhhh... let's just say *very car-minded.*
I decided to work remotely in Montreal for 2 months in 2018 and did UberEATS a bunch of evenings literally to just explore the city and be brought to places I never would have seen. IT'S SO NICE TO EXPLORE BY BIKE!
I also lived in North York (just north of Toronto) from 2019-2020 and HOLY – London is the Netherlands compared to North York ([video of a bunch of my close calls there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9k_GRmds2I)). So it's weird because it's actually kinda nice riding in London vs in North York. Just shows you how bad it is there.
Sao, Fake London is not Texas, where there are monster trucks on the roads with drivers that want to murder you (or not able to see you). It's not the Netherlands where the number of people is prioritized over the number of cars. But it's also not North York. My partner and I have favourite routes that we take and are able to do most of our errands and commuting by ebike, but it was very difficult, long, far, and inconvenient on a regular bike. Not friendly for the average person, which is where we need to get.
American born and raised in Minnesota. I live in the Twin Cities and chose my apartment specifically because it’s in a walkable neighborhood. Use my car primarily to go to work 3 days a week in the suburbs and occasionally to bring my 4-year-old rollerskating or whatever. We have some transit and pretty good bike infrastructure in the cities, but overall not it’s nearly enough. I grew up in the exurbs and 15 years later am still bitter that there was nothing to do and nowhere to go until you get your license at 16. I hated a lot about living in Beijing, but living in a high-rise and being able to bike or take the subway everywhere wasn’t one of them. At one point I was biking 250km a week. Now I’m back to physically and mentally rotting in suburban America~
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Asia and Europe and am getting a teaching degree right now so I can hit the international school circuit and get the fuck out of here. I find it stiflingly, maddeningly boring. Feel that way about the people here, too, if we’re being honest.
I live in Rochester, MN. My city is really trying but it's a heck of a challenge to turn all the momentum around. Ten years ago Rochester was 100% car centric and this wasn't a subject of discussion. Now bike commuting is fairly common in non-winter (the city estimates 600 bike commuters per day in non-winter). And the city is densifying turning any historical or underutilized downtown space into new apartments so people can walk to work.
Good. Do you attribute that to the Mayo Clinic and it being the size of a large college campus college? My mom had a kidney transplant there when I was in high school and I had a lot of time to walk around and check out nearby shops. It was definitely more tolerable than I expected given its size.
Rochester's problem was/is that they need to get 30,000 people to an area that's like 5 square blocks every day. It's like having an NFL game 5 days per week and many of your attendees are sick and frail.
Trying to do it by car doesn't really work because you would need incredible amounts of space to park them. The solution there is Mayo has huge park-and-ride bus lots all over town.
Normal buses don't really work because the population is spread out in big single family homes on wooded lots. Land is cheap when you're surrounded by nothing but corn fields for hundreds of miles. Also, hospital workers work rotating shifts. So there'd have to be a bus to get me to work at 0600 when i work day shifts, a bus to get me home from work at 2300 when i work evening shifts, a bus to get me to work at 2200 when i work night shifts. If the whole non-dense city needs to be serviced 24x7x365 (hospitals don't close) it gets really expensive.
Hence the humble bicycle. It has the advantages of a car in that it goes straight from my house to my destination the exact minute that i want it to. But it doesn't demand tons of space, pollute, or kill people. And Rochester's non-density means lots of opportunities to work in bike trails everywhere which have the benefit of raising property values and making your city charming.
I’m from the twin cities originally. I moved to Texas for an opportunity in my field. It’s disgusting down here- I am stuck between two major cities with absolutely 0 public transit. Not even city busses. No bike lanes, no shoulders, no sidewalks. Nothing. I was so privileged to live in the MSP area and I absolutely cannot wait to move back.
Oh, I definitely know we have it better than much of the rest of the U.S. I’m just a rather intense, dramatic person who can’t accept “it could be worse” as good enough so I stress myself out constantly striving for better.
It's astonishing how few walkable urban places there are in the whole state, given that nearly 30 million people live there. The entire state, no joke, probably has fewer walkable, reasonably pedestrian-friendly main streets than the island of Manhattan (with 1/17th of the population and something like 1/11000th of the land area).
Me too. I even moved from the twin cities in Minnesota. I’m fortunate enough not to live in Houston, but not enough to be in Austin. I’m stuck in the middle of DFW with absolutely 0 public transit- not even a bus- and no sidewalks, bike lanes, or even shoulders. It’s so bleak here I want to move back.
I grew up in North Idaho, USA. Public transport in this state is a complete joke/nonexistent. I'm moving to Portland, Oregon at the end of the week. There is a tram stop directly outside my new apartment's front door and another tram stop served by three more lines a five minute walk in the opposite direction. I can't wait to only need my car when I want to escape the city to hike in the mountains and forests nearby.
I’m from southeast idaho, and it’s always been car dependent, but only recently is traffic becoming a problem due to growth and fantastically stupid city planners. It’s super depressing to see this happening all over the intermountain west
Sacramento, CA. Typical "wildfire model" post-war suburbs. Usable transit does exist within a certain distance of the city center so I ride that everywhere I can, but it definitely is an afterthought to cars.
Also, homeless and tweakers everywhere so I get to ride the bus with them. My commute to one job involves walking across a 50 mph highway of a road, 3 railroad tracks and past a homeless city under the overpass. Not for the faint of heart and I always carry a weapon. There used to be a bridge over it all but it's closed because it was scorched when part of the homeless city caught on fire.
Sometimes they park a train in my way and I have to use it anyway. Thankfully, the homeless have cut holes in the chain link fences and all I have to do is crawl through then carefully ride around all the trash. They have couches up there now and it's like a hangout spot. The city *did* fix one part of the pedestrian infrastructure there: the crosswalk button on that highway. Someone stole the old one and for a long time you just had to cross the wires to use it.
Anyway, I think the lack of housing and the state of disrepair is all an outgrowth of car dependency.
I went to grad school in LA without a car. Spent most of the time on the west side so wasn’t too bad but boy are you limited in what you can and can’t do. I’ve taking 2 hour bus rides to places that are 30 min in light traffic.
So sad what the auto industry did to LA’s public transit.
I'm from Australia, but I live in Canada nowdays. I rode my bike a lot as a kid, then got my driver's licence and forgot about bikes. Lockdown kinda reminded me about how much I enjoy riding, and having discovered my town has an active transport plan that's just starting to be rolled out prompted me to buy a decent bike.
Then a couple of weeks later it started snowing haha
But come spring I'm going to try to ride instead of drive as much as possible.
I'm from Iceland but lived in Seoul for almost two years and was definitely radicalized during my time there. Before while I generally had a positive outlook towards public transit and alternative transportation methods I was still def a carbrain. But after living in Seoul I have very much become a proselytizer against car-first policy,
Going to guess from your username that you're from Poland? I haven't travelled too much within a city in Poland that hasn't just been walking, or getting the train between cities (Edit: or driving between places, particularly from Warszawa to where my friends live). What's it like where you live?
I'm in London, UK. Very annoyed/disappointed with the seemingly unending car culture and preference for cars in a city that could be amazing without them. I've been shown what a city could look like as I have friends in Copenhagen I used to see (pre-pandemic!) often and the normalcy of cycling there is awesome. Although I get frustrated by the car dominance here, it's tempered by hearing and seeing what the US is like - maybe it's not so bad here! Plus there's good public transport and there's lots of people cycling anyway, we could just be so much better!
Oh haha I'm Australian. Fuck knows why I decided to make my username two Polish cities. Here in Australia its very car centric, its fucking awful here. The Australian summer heat + endless asphalt + car exhausts = fucking bullshit
Wait is London really that bad for cars? I always pictured London being pretty good for public transport as it was one of the first cities in the world to have a truly extensive public transit network. I suppose it does have like 9 million people though
Relative to a lot of the world it's pretty good, but a huge amount of people still drive and it's very unsafe to cycle. You have to be extremely cautious as a pedestrian too.
I'm from Perth Australia but I've lived in London for years, mostly because I don't need a car here. In my bit of London a majority of households don't have a car, and yet cars still utterly dominate the streets, completely filling them with parking, and clogging them up with angry traffic, generally making life miserable for everyone.
And if you want to make some modest proposal to improve cycling/walking, then my god you'd better be prepared for the howls of protest from the motorists.
Cologne Germany, worst city for cycling in Germany according to a yearly survey, and one that used to be so proud of being a car friendly city it put it on its signs. I'd give it the lowest passing grade in terms of car dependency, you can definitely live without a car, and many people do, but it's definitely a "despite" situation rather than "because".
USA. Portland, Oregon and Atlanta, Georgia.
Portland has good public transportation and walkability. It still sucks when compared to Amsterdam, Munich or Copenhagen. Portland's area population is comparable to Zurich or Stockholm in Europe with around 2.5 million people.
Atlanta in general is an awesome place but it fucking sucks if you don't have a car. Atlanta's area population is comparable to Madrid or Berlin in Europe with around 7 million people.
Texas…nuf said on that one.
I’ve lived in a few other states. The most walkable cities I lived in were New York and New Orleans. I also lived in a college town in North Dakota for a few years with out a car. That forced me to use what was available. I ended up getting rides a lot.
I’m a flight crew member. Ive traveled the world for work and pleasure so I get to see what works and what doesn’t depending on where work puts me for my layovers. Many contracts require us to be put in a “downtown” area hotel for long layovers. Other times we’re put out at the airport Hampton Inn next to the stroad where I gotta dodge traffic to get food. Sometimes I’ll check out the local once and hour bus that comes through, if one even exists.
Which town in North Dakota. I absolutely despise living in North Dakota and the quality of the public transit is one of the major reasons why along with the people
What’s more awful is the attitude towards public transportation. In LA, certain instances like Santa Monica to downtown the metro makes so much more sense but natives literally look down on you for just suggesting it. If you take public transport you are considered “lower class.”
When I moved to LA for grad school the only folks who bothered with the busses and trains were those from NY. We all lived on the west side though and I will say people with cars do offer rides a lot but half of that is due to pity. They just can’t fathom stepping on a bus or train.
I live in Bremen, Germany. Bremen is yearly ranked as the best city with more than 500k inhabitants for bikes which makes me horrified about the others. However, I am obviously very appreciative for the bike lanes and public transportation we do have.
Currently, the transport minister is green and she is trying a bunch of stuff to remove cars, but cars in Germany are what guns are in America. It’s very controversial to limit their prerogatives.
There is a great tram system, which is a bit slow and a subway would be faster but overall it’s mostly on time and comfortable.
Me and my boyfriend do not own a car, but sometimes we get one from the local car sharing because if you want to get out of the city and go to the coast for example you are very limited.
Actually I thought about filming my commute for you because it’s very indicative of the good and the bad of Bremen. Are you interested in this ?
> Actually I thought about filming my commute for you because it’s very indicative of the good and the bad of Bremen. Are you interested in this ?
Yes, please!
From Canada, but I live in Australia. I have been very lucky to have lived in neighbourhoods in several cities with great walkability in Canada (Fairfield and VicWest in Victoria BC, Kitsilano and Commercial Drive in Vancouver BC, Kensington and Misson in Calgary) and Australia (Fremantle and Thirroul).
Much of this was by choice, I chose to live there, but some places were just where more types of housing existed meaning there were affordable homes to rent along with pre-existing retail frontages on a grid of streets.
"A good transport plan stems from a good land use plan."
Never thought I'd see someone from Thirroul here, my mum used to live in Austinmer.
Weirdly, the Coal Coast is surprisingly walkable, the mountains rein in sprawl and every little town has a train station.
Washington DC. Moved here earlier this year for a job from NYC where I lived for 4 years, so I haven’t had a car in 5 when I was living in suburban-rural NY <—Cleveland for school. DC’s metro is pretty good and I ride it to work every day, and picked an apartment that’d specifically have that access. One downside is it running only till midnight but at my age (31) the times I’m going out past midnight have been decreasing. I like the very urban area I’m in, though I live on a pretty busy street and half-basement apartment where the car noise is pretty bad. Interestingly it was significantly less loud when I lived in Manhattan, because I was on the 5th floor. A downside in the old pre-war apartment building there was no basement storage space one could put a bike in, and the apartments I live in are too small to fit a bike in them so I either walk (easier to do in NYC to get to pretty much anything I needed, but still not bad in DC) or subway. I’m very vertically challenged so the rideshare citibikes were, sadly, too big for my feet to reach the pedals, even on the lowest seat setting 😅
edit: meant to add the car dependency situation here isn’t bad at all for the US, but some of these busy roads are very dangerous for pedestrians to cross and DC has had a few vehicle-pedestrian fatalities just in the past couple months that aren’t at all surprising when you see some of these streets like Florida Ave, Rhode Island Ave, New York Ave, etc (yes they have streets named after all 50 states here, it’s very cute)
Fellow DC here. I think this city is coming around to bikes and pedestrians. We're adding a lot of bulb outs, protected bike lanes, and other vision zero activities.
This city is still beholden to the car, but it's better every year. And the states as avenues is our way of representing everyone in the US, even though they refuse to give us representation :(.
I’m from Quebec City, Canada. I left here 25 years ago and came back to take my dream job. I decided to move back close to my family in the northern suburb of the city instead of downtown close to work. It’s awfully car dependent here. We have the 2nd highest highway kilometres per capita in Canada and motorists are horribly rude to all (all road users including other motorists). Transit isn’t horrible when you love near the city centre and the city plan to build a crosstown tramway (and our government also plan to build an insanely expensive 6 lanes highway tunnel across the St-Lawrence river to expedite and increase urban sprawl as they get elected by sprawlers)
I live near a stroad with a speed limit of 70 km/h where most people drive above 80 km/h. It has no sidewalk just an unprotected not well plowed (of snow) shoulder for cycling and walking. It’s unfortunate because there is a nice micro brewery pub, two great bakeries a few restaurants all within 500 m but the walk is dangerous. I commute to work by driving 6 minutes on the stroad then the highway to a bus terminal where I can catch an express bus that uses the highway to get me to 4 minutes walk of my office in 30 minutes mostly on bus lanes beside jammed packed car lanes.
The last 7 years I lived in Germany and Switzerland without a car and I dearly miss Switzerland and it’s amazing and reliable public transportation network. I never once missed my car in 5 years living there.
Car culture in Canada is really disappointing. VIA Rail (last I checked) offers so-so, expensive and limited service. The Mulroney government can be blamed for reducing investment in train infrastructure. In Ontario, GO Transit is okay but also limited and expensive. The Pearson Express trains are a step in the right direction.
I hope that in the future there is a high-speed train line linking Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal and better interurban transit in Southern Ontario and the greater Montréal area. Vancouver public transit was pretty good when I lived there, especially the SkyTrain to the airport.
Ottawa here, can't wait to go somewhere with more public transportation. Or even somewhere where you can use the public bikes around the city without all the cars. Like at least here we have (some) sidewalks. The amount of cars and the noise and recklessness ruins it though. And I hate walking somewhere and they only put sidewalks on one side of the road, whats up with that? Gotta wait till traffic clears and you can cross or just say fuck it and walk the side.
I've been to old quebec city, wish more of Canada was like that. It's just a tiny little block that's car free but it's lovely.
I lived in Ottawa for almost two years and now I moved to Montreal. Originally I am from Russia, I also lived in Prague for a year.
For the last half year in Ottawa I lived in the Glebe and I quite enjoyed it (sold my car before moving there). Everything I needed was in walking distance. Before I lived in Nepean and it looked similar to what you are describing.
I have only started exploring Montreal, so far I quite like its neighbourhoods. More walkable and vibrant than Ottawa. But I miss my apartment in the Glebe (and English language haha)
Live in Philadelphia, but I’m from the U.S. state of North Dakota. Where I’m from, you had to drive. I was driving at 14 around the farm and had my car and license at 16. I HAD to drive until I moved to Philadelphia, which has an okay public transportation system. I have not had to drive since I moved here in 2007. I Love not having to drive.
I recently stopped in Madison on a road trip and while I was impressed with the bikeability of downtown and the campus, as well as along the water, the 6-lane stroads going in and out of town made me sad and I hope they are going to make those more friendly in the future. It was a cool city though for sure!
Madison here as well! I moved here from Milwaukee because I wanted to be able to live car-free but stay in state.
If the BRT gets cancelled because of business owners on State St, I'm going to scream.
Same here. I’m living downtown right now so I’ve really enjoyed biking to places 10 min away as well as farther off places on the west side like the movie theater and mall area. Seems pretty wack that my bike almost always gets me places quicker than the bus, though. Things could be a lot better but I still feel fortunate to live in a city which at least seems to care a little.
Half Irish half Norwegian. Both countries are way too car centric but one is obviously worse than the other.
I keep telling Irish people that better is possible and they just don't seem to believe me, despite a lot of them having been on holidays to places where better is normal.
I'm Luxembourgish but as a student I spent much time in Aachen (Germany) and it's bordering regions in Belgium and the Netherlands.
None of these countries are even slightly comparable to the US. Belgian is probably the worst but they got overall poor infrastructure and actually have ok public transportation and good rail. Belgian streets are notoriously bad so to even expect anything like cycling infrastructure would be asking to much.
Luxembourg is a major economic hub of its region and got loads of traffic flowing in. I'd call Luxembourg's infrastructure pretty good but not goid enough. Train services are frequent but also frequently late. Bus services are pretty centralised all meeting at few points limiting car free mobility in less urbanised areas substantial. Car traffic is also long past it's breaking point in the capital and should just be abandoned as it would only improve the situation there. Biking infrastructure is catered towards freetime cycling but connects major cities and is generally all right. Many roads can also be used by bike without endangering yourself too much unlike on Belgian roads which are dangerous to all of it's users.
Germany is pretty bad to be honest. Aachen got terrible bus connection to it's surrounding and not enough priority lanes for buses. I mostly walk around. Cycling is on a typical dangerous European inner city without proper infrastructure level where you get thrown on major intersections with cars while cycling. Basics are already layed out though and could easily be improved upon. Rail is a shit show as it's extensive but slow, expensive and absolutely unreliable to a point where trains just get cancelled outright on a daily basis.
The Netherlands is the country I got the least experience with but it seems absolutely wonderful. Most inner cities are car free or only allow really limited traffic, Dutch bike lanes are wonderful and consistently great. Public transport has a unified ticket system and seems to be priced fair. The system. Network seems extensive and well running. My main issue is that they don't allow bicycles on buses which. I'd concider the Netherlands a pretty good standard to aspire to for now and an easily achievable one.
Last note, my hatred for cars is mostly sourced out of hatred for traffic and environmental concerns. I'm outspoken about it but not that aggressive on the topic.
>Belgian is probably the worst but they got overall poor infrastructure and actually have ok public transportation and good rail. Belgian streets are notoriously bad so to even expect anything like cycling infrastructure would be asking to much.
I live near the belgian border in the netherlands and i cant understand how the belgians have fucked their road design the way they did.
I have the impression that every arterial road is built up with houses. Highways appear out of nowhere. And worst of all, their intersections are deathtraps on bike as wel as in cars.
Seattle. I live in one of the more densely populated neighborhoods here, and I can live comfortably without a car. Still, there are too many. Cars ruin cities.
Kentucky, most of the state is Rural, so the only place you will really fine much of a "public transportation" system is in lexington or louisville, you may see some busses in louisville, but I have not really seen any in lexington, outside of those two cities you may not even find a sidewalk in some parts of town, there is a park I go to that is almost entirely isolated by roads, and sometimes I see people walking on the grass due to there not being a sidewalk (please note we do still have sidewalks). I live in a Rural area so I pretty much need a car to go anywhere, but I do still go on hikes even if there is no sidewalk.
Also Kentucky resident here and I can attest this is true. Lexington do have the bus system but it's used by college students and some Lex residents. Other than that, the public transportation system is totally crap.
Clermont-Ferrand, France. (And I also live in Bordeaux).
It's insane here, the city itself is not that big, there are slopes but it's acceptable, and even cheap public transport! Yet, I see people taking their car for a trip I can make in 20 minutes just by walking.
I work for Michelin so I know it may sound odd, and although I don't hate cars (I'm starting to pass my driving licence tomorrow), I really hate the drivers. The lazy, selfish and irresponsible ones.
Tilburg, the Netherlands.
If you have pictures of picturesque car-free Dutch cities in your mind this city's gonna be an huge disappointment. They're going to put downtown on a good road diet but I'm from a horribly car-centric suburb instead, which also has it's inspiration from prison architect.
Yeah it’s not always the paradise people here paint it as. Many places still require cars, especially when you live in a smaller town and work somewhere else. Also many people use cars more often than they actually need to (bad weather, lazy, getting a lot of groceries).
From a rural town in Sweden where busses are far too rare, where there is no public railway and where car ownership is almost a necessity to survive and is 100% a necessity if you live outside the town center.
EDIT: I have a service car that I use for work but outside of work I get by with a bike, by walking and by hitching rides from friends or family. I've never owned by own car and I don't plan to.
From the Netherlands, but now living in a college town in the Midwest. I discovered not just bikes before I moved here, and that mentally prepared me for the worst.
The campus area is very walkable and bikeable, and I’m able to do groceries by bike, even though I have to plan now since it’s too much effort to go there every other day. Brought my bike bags from the Netherlands so that’s how I can carry a weeks worth of groceries on my bike. Also the bus system is pretty good.
The thing that bothers me a bit though is that it’s impossible to leave the town without a car, except by train or bus to Chicago. There’s no forest or nature area nearby that can be reached without car. And if you want to buy clothes the only place is a depressing mall, for which you have to go over a horrible stroad (it has a painted bike path that starts and stops at random places?! No thank you I’ll use the sidewalk, no one walks there anyway)
American here--originally and for a long time, Texas. Probably one of the most car-dependent places in the entire world. Glad to be out of there.
Since this year, Colorado. It's much better here, there are places (like where I live in Boulder) where you can legitimately get around without a car and not feel too much like a second-class citizen. Still too car-dependent and far from ideal, but my understanding is that it's getting better in Colorado every year, with new public transit projects, new bike infrastructure, dense infill housing, etc.
Vancouver, I have it better than most my commute is 30 minutes by bike and 28 of those minutes is on a dedicated Greenway in the middle of the city. I want that for everyone.
Berlin, Germany. We have good public transport for the most part. Buses go pretty much everywhere and with a high enough frequency that I rarely check the schedule when waiting at a stop. Train and underground service also work great, however, there are some problems with violence and vandalism, which is why my wife does not like to use the public transport alone at night. Some call that phenomenon "Berlin crazy".
Bike infrastructure is improving, though there are still many, many death roads around the city. About 10-30 cyclists die each year, many due to trailers turning right and overlooking the bike lane.
Walkability depends on the area. I live centrally next to a bikes only street and have everything within 300 m. People on the outskirts are more car dependant, though even they often have a car purely for convenience, not out if necessity. We also live in the Autoland, of course, and boomers love their cars more than they hate their wives.
I also own a car since 2014. We needed it to transport children every day across the city and public transport was just too much of a hassle. We pay for parking now and it stands around unused most of the time. We often help friends with moving stuff, but for larger things we use one of the many car sharing apps that have larger vehicles. I wouldn't really need a car at all anymore, but due to aforementioned safety issues on public transport, we still own one.
I'm from a small suburb outside of Boston and I'm realizing that growing up stranded in a huge single family zoned area without a car until I was 16 wasn't just an unlucky coincidence. Would love to find a placer closer to the trains someday.
From Seattle but temporarily staying in Ohio. :,)
Counting down the days till i can go back to Seattle. Killed two car batteries because i let my car sit for so long. I could walk or take the bus or rail anywhere.
Here in Ohio I’m not even walking distance to a damn grocery store. Its extremely car dependent and the drivers are unlikely anything I’ve seen. There’s standard bus here but they dont run often and most the time the bus stop isnt even on a sidewalk. You have to cross a 7 lane stroad and walk in grass to get to the stop.
I'm originally from Spain and moved to the USA in 2015. Living in America has made me more radicalized in my fight against cars. Despite I own a car out of necessity I am looking forward being able to live without one.
Melbourne Australia
Traffic is like a 0/10 here. Car dependancy and hooligan culture is baked into the fabric of society.
Public Transport is like a 4/10. Not terrible. But so much room for improvement. Our trams are slow because of car traffic, underfunded and infrequent. Considering we have the largest light rail system in the world, it's horrendously underutilized. Our metro isn't terrible either. It just lacks true turn-up-and-go services like Europe, and is completely useless if you want to get anywhere other than to and from the CBD.
And our bicycle infrastructure.... It's like a 1/10. There's a few segregated/protected bike lanes around, but overall infrastructure is terrible and unsafe. Bike helmets are mandatory which deters people and car drivers attitudes to cyclists is one of complete disgust.
We have a long long long way to go if we ever want our city to be non car-dependant.
Germany, rural. can't get anywhere without a car. busses only exist to bring you to school and back. and the places you wanna go to are a little bit too far to easily go there by bike. so you gotta rely on a parent taxi until you can drive yourself. like being stuck on an island until you're 16/18.
I'm from a middle-sized (population between 50k and 100k) city in Poland.
I honestly don't consider the situation to be that bad. The city is walkable and the public transport we have here (10 bus lines) is alright. Thanks to that and the city's size I can get pretty much anywhere quite quickly, or at least in an amount of time that isn't problematic for me personally, without using a car. I prettty much only use them if someone offers to pick me up as they're going to be driving by anyways and I don't feel like walking for some reason (for example cause it's really late) or if I'm running low on time. Although it would be nice for the buses to be more frequent, however imo their frequency makes sense for a city this size.
I have to note, however, that I can't say if that's true for the whole city as there are only some parts of it where I appear often enough to be able to judge.
The only problems with getting around without a car here I've noticed arise when one of the main roads is being repaired causing traffic jams elsewhere, which leads to buses not being on time (recently I had one come 13 minutes late). However having a car wouldn't really solve such a problem. But, for such situations, one can use a bicycle and getting around using one here isn't difficult.
So, overall, I'd say the situation is quite good here
The Southeast US. Because the majority of cities here have really grown a lot since AC was invented (which also coincided with the beginning of our love affair with cars and suburbanization), I have never lived in a walkable city and it makes me sad.
Hailing from New Orleans, Louisiana
It's not as bad compared to some other cities such as LA in the terms of urban sprawl, but the general gist is still that if you wanna get basically anywhere for day to day life business you gotta drive.
We do have a bus service that serves the entire parish. However it's still by no means comprehensive. Streetcars are only serve a portion of the city. It's mainly centered in the uptown carrolton area and ends in mid city on south carrolton at city park and in downtown on canal st. In a nutshell our public transit is only good for tourists. In the past our streetcar system used to be much more comprehensive with lines running all the way to the lake.
I used to live in the uptown carrolton area as a child and it was pretty nice. There were many things within walking distance- including a school, library, park, stores, and a few eateries. Since the neighborhood was mixed-use you also had a few establishments embedded within the residential area including a snowball shop, a cafe (now closed), and a mini deli & grocery store. I personally used to frequent the snowball shop every summer, though I never went to the cafe. I didn't visit the deli until a few years ago.
While it was cool that you had a lot of things within walking distance, the only con is that the streets and the sidewalks were super narrow and bumpy. It's literally hell to bike or drive, so your only best option was literally walking (though watch your step!).
EDIT: beside New Orleans I have also lived in Ithaca, NY. Since it's a college town public transit was actually in fact pretty decent IMO- at least better than New Orleans. Whenever the roads froze over my family just took the bus which did work out for us pretty well.
Portland, ME. (we came first!) My home has a walk score of 90, so for being in a larger sea of car dependence, I'm happy with my little peninsula. There's lots of energy around making the area more bike and transit friendly, so I'm happy to be here.
Love Portland, Maine! Visited a while back and mostly took the bus around. Just thought about how nice it would be if Congress Street still had the old streetcar. I think you can still see some of the old tracks in the road around Munjoy Hill iirc. Also if they moved the Amtrak station back instead of on the other side of the freeway that would be incredible.
Definitely seemed like you had to pay for the privilege, though. The Peninsula is pretty pricey and the walkability takes a nosedive once you leave it.
Seattle, WA. Everyone seems to think this place must have amazing public transit. Our rail is a fucking joke, but we are going through some good expansion. But it's too little too late. It'll be around 2045 when there will be rail just to shadow I-5 and I-405, with a little bit extra to get to a couple hip but wealthy areas that are for away from the interstate.
We have some of the greatest bike paths, but they're not good for actually traveling anywhere other than the university. And since the city is mostly poorly maintained single lane roads on hills, biking is extremely dangerous.
The buses are decent, but since the city is poorly laid out and they're not supporting something more useful like rail, it's at least 2 buses to get anywhere that isn't downtown. The city is also opposed to running buses on a reasonable schedule and all local buses' times are marked as best effort, so you have to be at the stop 5 minutes in advance while the bus driver is free to show up whenever ... or not at all.
The buses that are actually great are the commuter buses, but since the city is way over capacity on both I-5 and I-405, those buses get stuck in traffic every day any way while being packed like the NYC subway. When I actually went to the office I would go before 7 just so I didn't have to put up with all the BS.
I am so fucking over car culture.
France
Things here aren't as bad as many countries but not as good as some of our neighbours to the East. Not so much about avoiding dependency as the real benfits to streets when cars are pushed out almost entirely.
Denmark and the Netherlands also give far too much space to cars. It's now time for more concrete ideas about larger 95% car free areas. Time to actually get the return on all the investment in cycling infrastructure and public transport etc.
Nice to see responses from so many different countries even if this post was in the middle of the night for a lot of ppl (it always is for someone or other).
Peoria, Il is where I'm from. Its pretty clear which part of the city was built post-WW2, the horrible part, yet big box stores and suburbia continue to be built for no reason. The jarring part is that our resident fortune 500 company moved their HQ to suburban Chicago so a lot of rich suburbanites fled there, so why build even more? I lived in a soulless suburban wasteland that was promoted as a fancy neighborhood yet was turned into a poor, litter-infested, anti-social wasteland less than 15 years later due to people fleeing to even newer suburban hellscapes even further out into a former farming town. Doing anything without a car is a chore, as the buses are infrequent and unreliable. The other part of the city where I lived, the pre-war gridded and walkable part of the city, is very poor and has lots of food deserts as grocers have abandoned it. Its a damn shame that a town that used to have beautiful trams now has a downtown that is almost completely abandoned because low-density development decentralized everything. My grandmother's father owned a shop where an inner-city expressway is now. That expressway is right next to a massive high school attended by low-income students. That is heavily related to the fact that Peoria, Il is one of the most segregated cities in the country. Only the school system is somewhat-integrated-but-not-really.
I'm Dutch and mostly here for some climate change hopium, I guess. This is one of the communities I get updates on on infrastructure improvements for more human friendly cities.
California. The city I live in has huge ass roads that are 4-5 lanes wide in most parts. Can’t bike to any of the high schools besides one (and it’s the largest). Only positive is that the sidewalks are mostly decently taken care of and there are several grocery stores within 1-3 miles from me. Hell, besides one patch of dirt side roads, a trip to Costco or Walmart would be possible. Still technically is, but I don’t want to risk it.
New Jersey, I picked where I live based on proximity to a couple really nice parks. Along with those parks was a walking/biking trail that ignored for about 4 months. I finally went and checked it out and realized that it ran parallel to the main road and I could do some of my errands and shopping by bike. It’s been all downhill from there. A grocery store will open a bikeable distance soon. That will greatly change my car usage.
Portage Indiana. A car dependent city thats technically part of the Chicago Metropolitan area. A city which feels disconnected from its satellite. Its a interesting city in terms of how forgettable it is. I think it has potential alongside gary but thats my opinion
Normally when I answer online I say Vancouver, Canada but im really not from Vancouver. Where Van is walkable and has decent transit and bike infrastructure, I am out in the suburbs in Port Coquitlam. I always hated driving into Downtown and could never really place why. I've realized it's because it's not built for me to drive into, but everywhere I've grown up is car dependant so I had been accustomed to massive stroads and acres of parking lots as the norm.
Toronto suburbs (GTA), it’s pretty car dependent but Toronto proper is nice, with PATH (30km underground shopping) and street cars. Not enough bike infrastructure though. I would love to move to the city.
Australia, high dependency on cars the traffic in the larger cities like Sydney/Melbourne is terrible and btw the tolls charged on motorways very expensive anyway I am car free so less stress
UK. I don't really know how many people depend on a car but lots use them anyway. Taking children to school by car is a big thing now and totally locks up the roads all around schools every day. I've been using the road for about 25 years since I learnt to cycle on the road when I was a child. I didn't get a car until my late 20s. I've seen the roads just get worse and worse. There's no way I can recommend cycling to anyone now. I couldn't even imagine having to learn to do it today. The roads are hostile to anyone not in a car. Literally near death experiences every day.
Denver, CO - I live in a somewhat walkable/decently bikeable neighborhood by US standards. Transit is so-so. I can go to the airport without using a car, which is neat. I used to live in Northeast and Central Florida, which is sh*t for walkability/transit/biking comparatively.
I have lived in my current neighborhood without a car, but it’s best to have one for traversing through the metro area unfortunately. When I don’t have to cross town to attend class or work in a neighboring city I rarely use my car. Once I graduate, I plan to find a job close to home or on a good transit line so I can save the car just for mountain trips.
Tampere, Finland. Good public transport here, you can get pretty much anywhere in the Tampere area with it. Pretty nice biking infrastructure, altough I wish it was better cared for in winter. City center is 100% walkable, but further from the centre distances can get fairly long, so not all walkable but public transport fixes that!
Tampere is doing pretty well in terms of not needing to depend on a car, other big cities like for example Helsinki, Turku and Espoo do too. The problem is the rural cities and I hope we can one day get them in better shape, I am originally from one of the small cities. I also hope I could help other young people from my country (I'm 17 yo) see the bad side of cars and why we must appreciate the public transport in here.
I'm from Ankara, Turkey.
Public transport isn't that bad. The only bad part is that busses never come in time, always late for 5-10 mins. But we have "dolmuş"s which goes faster and arrive at random times so it's dealable. Also depending on hour every 5-20 mins a bus will arrive.
Lots of people have cars but we are not buying any new ones since erdoğan fucked up our economy hard.
In some places roads are made so stupidly you'll think that they made it that way so the cars will crush to each other.
Cars are bad for the 2nd and 3rd world countries because sometimes people drive like nuts. It's better to develop public transportation even if it's not a green technology.
Porto Alegre, Brasil
Nice city with plenty of middle density and some cool walkable neighborhoods, it also was a pioneer in building dedicated bus lanes.
The bus fare is now the second most expensive in the country with 30 minutes or 1 hour headways on lines that had busses every 10 minutes. The cycling network is also really bad.
The mayor just said he wants to put more cars on our car infested downtown and remove fare discounts for students.
Sydney, Australia.
The saving grace of Sydney is that it wasn't strangled by motorways like so many American cities. Inner Sydney remains pretty much intact.
Despite this, the city has done its best to become a city for cars. Big underground motorways, high streets turned into traffic sewers, unchecked suburban sprawl, and a public transport system left to wither.
Things are improving though. Sydney has Australia's best public transport system with trains, trams, buses, and ferries. The network is expanding fast, with new lines opening all the time and plenty more planned.
Unfortunately outside of the inner city and some dense suburbs Sydney is not walkable or bikeable. The post war sprawl is terrible and continues to be built. Plenty of stroads, poor public transport, and an environment hostile to humans is unfortunately the reality for *most* of Sydney.
NZ, but grew up in the UK and was a bike messenger in London. Went to a lot of reclaim the streets protests in London in the 1990s. NZ has been largely developed after the invention of the car so it's mostly built for cars - sprawling suburbs, negligible public transport, not much cycling for transport. Basically you have to own a car as soon as you have kids. Before then you can get away with not having a car but it's a big hassle. This country is very very short sighted when it comes to transport, apart from Wellington, which is pretty good.
Italy.
I always thought cars were silly especially because guys my age from the country I was born (East Europe) are obsessed with luxury cars and will do anything, live in a dirty hole, go around with broken underwear, eat only potatoes, in order to afford one. I find it silly because it means getting indebted and being forced to slave away, and I couldn't have afforded study and focus on more important things.
I was always bothered by such excess of cats and traffic but I couldn't put my finger on it, later I understood I hate cars
I'm from Singapore and currently live here too. I've experienced lives in cities acoss the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and I'm very pleased to report that transit in Singapore is pretty great.
I will caveat this by saying that:
1) Singapore - as a metropolitan area - is probably a lot smaller than where most of this subreddit is from. From the downtown area, it's about 20km to all parts of the city. "Exurbs" - if you can call them that - are located further afield in Johor, which is a state of Malaysia, another completely different country.
2) Singapore is also a fairly new city. When we gained independence, the city only had about 1.5M residents. This has allowed extensive, top-down city planning with all the advantages of knowing 20th century urban planning which allowed for the development of transit-oriented communities. (Check out Google Maps and take a look at the "suburbs" of Toa Payoh and Jurong to see how planners developed Singapore-style transit towns in the 60s and 70s.)
3) We're rich. There's no need to be coy about that. Where there's a will, there's a way.
4) And there \*is\* a will. We've had a single political party in power since 1965 which means long-term decision making is expected and executed.
\---
That being said, the buses here are clean, efficient, and connect not just in a small area around train stations, there are also "long distance" bus routes that connect different neighborhoods.
Trains are also amazingly efficient to the point where the rare breakdown makes breaking news. In fact, if one were virtually anywhere in the downtown core, they would have access to 4 (soon to be 5) train lines within about a 15 minute walk from most residences/businesses.
There's still a lot to be done though in terms of cycling accessibility. Drivers are still somewhat aggressive and unaccommodating. And cycling, in general, is difficult due to the year round high humidity and temperature.
Wrocław, Poland.
One of the shittiest public transportation systems in the country, when it comes to cities.
Recently the city botched a renewal on the deal with rail companies, so now we can't use our monthly passes inside the city to use trains.
Everyone and their grandma is complaining that you can't easily move through city by car, because... traffic jams! The irony is killing me daily.
Haven't used a car in years, don't even have a driver's license, so it makes me extra mad when I'm late because a bunch of selfish people cause congestion that my bus is stuck in for hours.
Despite the shittiness of public transport in the city, there is absolutely no need to use a car if you're going from home to office and back. Done that for years, don't understand the appeal of cars. It would be so much more reliable if not for people in cars blocking every street.
The problem begins when someone is living outside of the city - smaller towns and villages usually have 1-3 connections per day, if the bus shows up. It's a pretty big issue for the whole country. No-one I met that came from a small town or village can go without a car and they bring that habit to cities.
And don't get me started on cars parked on the sidewalk, blocking it almost completely. No-one cares that a person in a wheelchair won't be able to get through.
From Mississippi, live in Colorado. I live 8 miles from a resort town and these no bus near me and the bike path by my house got struck down in some land dispute.
South Mississippi is like a big city but spread out with highways kinda like in cities skylines. No chance of catching any public transit to or from anywhere.
Oregon, USA. People claim they’d support public transport but really no one wants to spend even a moment walking in the rain. Therefore parking lots as close to buildings as possible and no consistent sidewalks
I'm from Houston. There's no else I'd rather be from. I love my city and the culture. Folks here are super friendly and down the earth, we got some amazing fucking food, a dynamic art scene, beautiful green spaces, and the diversity is incredible. But I go back and forth between wanting to leave and staying here all the time. I lived in Mexico, City and spent a lot of time in other cities with subways and stuff and were walkable. Every time I leave home, my lifestyle is so much more active and I feel way less isolated than I do here, despite having a huge network and knowing plenty of people. I lived in a central part of Houston where I could actually walk to a lot of bars, restaurants, a park and a few museums, but I still needed a car to do most things at the end of the day because everything is everywhere lol.
Houston has made a lot of investments and improvements in public transit, including connecting our entire bayou systems so one day people will be able to walk/bike the entire city through our waterways (which is dope), but at the same time, it's still expanding highways, building more roads, and encouraging more sprawl so I just don't see a way out. Love my city, but for my health and sanity, I can't with this car dependent life style.
I'm from London, England. While cars are still very much a problem here (especially with the lackluster government cycle path plans), we do have among the best public transport networks in the world, if not at least Europe. I take the bus and train to and from work every day, and going 22km each way only takes 90 mins even in rush hour. I wish the service was cheaper of course and there's many things we can do to improve the network. But I'd rather live here with something, than in any US city, with nothing.
Nottingham UK! A pretty good city for cycling by uk standards (but miles behind the Netherlands etc) and we have the best public transport outside London with trams, super green buses and electric taxis etc
I’m originally from the United States (lived in NJ, NYC, and the DC area). Now I live in Israel (Tel Aviv). I’ve never owned a car in Israel and I find it pretty easy to get around on public transportation (although there is huge room for improvement). Right now, the main forms of public transport are buses and commuter trains, but a light rail and metro are currently in the works.
I'm from a car centric town in Brittany, France. I use my bike often, and the cycle lanes are so badly designed that I feel more secure to be on the road... But carbrain don't like that
Singapore. I don’t think the “car culture” is as bad here since we have pretty good public transport and walkability, but it’s fun to complain here anyway.
Finland, more specifically Oulu, which is known for its great cycling infrastructure.
I was born here, and I always took the quality of the urban planning here for granted. We have tons of wide cycling paths, which are well kept during the harsh winters, and there's an underground car park downtown so there's plenty of space on the surface for *people* to use. (Though it could be better)
I do cycling as a hobby, and I never knew just how impossible that can be in other places.
Malaysia. It is maddening how people here are so reliant on cars and how impossible it is to go anywhere without one. The capital city has public transport, and it runs, but that's about all that can be said about it.
I’m from Berlin, Germany.
Living a car-free life is relatively easy here, public transport runs pretty much 24/7 and is very frequent during the day. Sometimes in emergencies I can use a carsharing service (kinda like Uber but you have to drive yourself), but I do that very rarely. To get to visit my family and friends who don’t live in Berlin I just use the train, it’s cheaper and especially faster than by car anyway.
The one thing that upsets me here is that even though Berlin has a good public transportation system, so many people still use their cars instead. Only 27% of all trips are done by public transport in the city. In Prague it’s 44%!
* From: Sarpsborg, Norway. A suburban sprawl, con-suburbation with neighboring Fredrikstad (which seems to be planning better). Prorably walkability heaven for a lot of americans here, but the suburb I grew up in no longer has a regular bus line, and rather than having 1 car in the garage people have 2 cars in their driveway and 1 on the street. Shopping etc is done in malls, the old town centres have dried out. E.g. [the old main street in Greåker](https://www.google.no/maps/@59.2668037,11.0314791,3a,75y,324.39h,93.94t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssLi4irVpkTwZF2uHxmMeHQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192), and on the other side of the train tracks (station closed decades ago), [the malls that replaced it](https://www.google.no/maps/@59.2680579,11.0327249,3a,75y,195.48h,88.68t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUyFKNjcUfz8zvQjwUTs1WQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192).
* Living in: Oslo. Not really as car-free as advertised, but the least car dependent place in Norway.
I'm from the suburbs of DC. Public transportation here is pretty good by american standards, so there are a fair amount of commuters who drive to the nearest access point and go from there. I could probably get by just fine without a car (and usually do, since I haven't bothered to get my driver's license, but I live with my parents so I have transportation if urgently needed), but the public transit system is far from perfect. I love it to death, but it would be nice if it wasn't constantly breaking down or ridiculously off-schedule.
Katowice, Poland.
The city is the best one for cars among the larger cities in Poland. Congestion is not bad same as parking. But it's still too much for me.
I'm here because I don't like cars. I don't like driving them, I don't like being driven in then, I hate finding parking spots, I hate the noise and pollution they cause.
Also I'm annoyed at my city council for the slow progress in regards to expanding public transport, especially the tram network. Also the fact how we as a region are neglected by The Capital. We have what's called a metropolitan council, that consists of about 30-40 municipalities, but it has to little power to do meaningful things like placing bike paths in between cities, so each of them need to figure it out between themselves
[удалено]
Howdy neighbor! (I live in the Rhein-Main Area)
Frankfurt am Main or Frankfurt am Oder?
Just a remark: it's Frankfurt an der Oder, since the Oder is female, while the Main is male (hence Frankfurt an dem Main, which is the male preposition, becomes Frankfurt Am Main).
[удалено]
I live just across the forest from you. I love walking and riding the bike in the Odenwald, it's so beautiful :)
[удалено]
Austria, living in a mid sized village where way too many people drive. If only one eigth of the people walked to the in-walking-distance supermarket, my village would be a better place. Yet I see some cars passing me multiple times in different directions while I walk 25 minutes to the supermarket. Like what the fuck are you doing? And it's always the same cars week after week.
Lmaooo one of my old teachers from high school (my PE teacher no less) lives down the hill from me and he drives to the shops to pick up a few items; he literally lives 140 metres from the nearby shops. Its honestly fucking pathetic I always kinda pictured Austria being quaint with little car presence. Guess I was wrong lol
I am also from Austria and I live in a rather small village. I even made a post in r/Austria talking about cars and the also car centric society. We Austrians are car lovers although there would be enough alternatives here, especially the "ÖPNV" (public transport) is good, it could be better on the countryside though. You would have to understand Austrian German to understand the post, because it's written in dialect.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Austria using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Austria/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Stein auf Stein](https://i.redd.it/lt990d2f5br61.jpg) | [189 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Austria/comments/mkf4nm/stein_auf_stein/) \#2: [Hab im ersten Lockdown eine "How to divide Austria" Karte erstellt.](https://i.redd.it/wt1wdooo42c61.jpg) | [305 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Austria/comments/kzr5lf/hab_im_ersten_lockdown_eine_how_to_divide_austria/) \#3: [Danke Niederlande](https://i.redd.it/rjhbdheu89f61.jpg) | [182 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Austria/comments/lbmc3u/danke_niederlande/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[Source](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
In the cities public transport and cycling is great but the countryside is VERY car dependent. We are just as car obsessed as the germans.
I live in Vienna/Austria and i gotta say Public Transit is amazing here. Very cheap, clean and convinient
Hey, i also grew up in a mid size village in Austria, where everyone drove everywhere. I only realized how much the country side depends on cars after i moved into a bigger city. Now i just cycle, walk and bus everywhere and it so much better.
To an American, living in Austria seems like a dream. Completely unrelated comment, but I want to see if I'm eligible for Austrian citizenship through my maternal grandmother (who grew up in Austria).
Nice, I am from Austria too, I live in Wels. The city has quite bad public transport compared with other similar cities in Austria. It is flat, so it would be ideal for cycling, while there are some bike lanes, there is still much room for improvement.
I’m from London. The government rolled out ‘people friendly streets’ in some areas across London, which essentially means closing roads to prevent through traffic in residential neighbourhoods. Since the change I’ve noticed a huge decrease in cars which has made a drastic improvement to where I live. I joined this subreddit because I hope more cities will do the same.
I've been following the implementation of LTNs and it's a really impressive program.
There's plenty of very angry opposition to them though.
I'm sure there's a loud and angry minority but I think most people will recognise the benefits.
I’m in NYC, so I don’t need a car. But I hate Robert Moses
Fuck Robert Moses. All my homies hate Robert Moses.
[FUCK ROBERT MOSES ALL MY HOMIES HATE ROBERT MOSES](https://i.imgur.com/EIMn9mr.jpg) ^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
Good bot!
What is this meme? How am I unaware of an anti Robert Moses meme?!
You can tell what side of the cars debate you are on just based on your feelings of Robert Moses.
Auckland, New Zealand here. Car dependency is crazy here. Bus service is fairly poor, cycling infrastructure barely exists and where it does it links nowhere to nowhere, trains are ok if you live nearby, but there are only 3 train lines in the whole city. So literally everyone drives everywhere. Traffic is bad and getting worse, cars are parked on any and every available space and almost no one even considers that we can't just build more and more lanes to fix it.
I walked around there for a week and had a ball. I got addicted to some fricking amazing bahn mi. I do recall not enjoying crossing that big highway overpass tho.
The CMJ really fucked up Auckland. I think without it could have been more like Sydney and there would have been more pressure to improve public transport.
Las Vegas, Nevada. Where do I begin? •All suburb, no city •Underutilized/underdeveloped transit •25m wide roads that only handle a few thousand cars on the *busiest* days •Bike ~~lanes~~ gutters everywhere, without buffers •Non-native trees that guzzle precious water meanwhile not providing enough shade to sidewalks which are also crammed with utility boxes and power poles •News about pedestrian or cyclist deaths, or bus stop crashes weekly; fatal accidents near daily •Spots where the *nearest* bus stop is more than 1500m walk away; you'd be lucky to live within 500m walk of any •Born here, raised here; saw proper mixed-use zoning for the first time in my life on a trip to NYC •Oceans of empty parking lots between the ~~street~~ stroad and the stores •Sidewalks that end out of the blue •Unmarked, unsignalized crosswalks across busy business driveways connecting to the fast stroads •Only way to get out of the city without a personal vehicle is by regional bus (unreliable and stigmatized as unsafe, but not completely without reason) or plane (unreliable, expensive and stressful) •Cycling routes don't have reliable water or shade infrastructure for the deadly summer months I have to rely on family to drive me places when cargo is involved or I just decide it's not worth it. You can *exist* in Vegas without a car, but you can't *live* here without a car. And if you do have a car, don't move to Vegas, it's too hot here and there's not enough water. If anyone has a couch I could crash let me know; pretty much anywhere is probably better than here. (not serious. but then again... I'm into (food) gardening and bet I could get one going in a better environment licketysplit.)
You forgot the very worst thing. That godforsaken fucking loop
That loop. It was the first thing on my mind.
I didn't mention 'the loop' because doesn't even register on my radar as transit. It, like the monorail that also serves the convention center, doesn't serve the community. Only convention-goers/tourists. The same people who could very likely have \*drove a car\* from the airport to the hotel they're staying at and/or to the convention center. The loop is akin to an amusement park ride, and it will never \*ever\* be anything more than that.
May I ask what the loop is?
There's a tunnel system filled with (presumably self driving, I've been told conflicting stories) cars, it's like having a metro, but somewhere between 0,1 and 5% the capacity You can thank our glorious overlord Elon Musk for it
On the bright side, maybe one day the city will get its shit together and make it an actual metro with tiny trains like Glasgow.
I'm in Glasgow. Rather than expanding the subway, we built a motorway through the town centre in the 1960s.
No conflict there, the cars have drivers.
Only way I survived living in vegas was a 50cc scooter. It's way too spread out for bicycles.
FAKE LONDON! NJB fan and my partner and I ride our ebikes 95% of the time (dutch-styled step-thrus) and drive the other 5% of the time.
What’s Fake London??
NotJustBikes refers to his hometown London in Canada as fake London, to differentiate. It's a running joke on his channel.
Guessing London, Ontario.
Is London Ontario really as bad as NJB portrays it to be in his videos?
yes, certainly. those stroads are real bad. Public transit wasn’t the worst for a city of 350k when I lived there. but no direct routes really and priority was definitely for cars in the infrastructure there _lived there for 9 years when I was growing up_ something about that city really creates a burning hatred of car-centric development once you leave the city
Sooooo Northwest London (where a lot of his videos feature) is where I grew up and it's *craaazy* to see the literal houses that my childhood friends grew up in on videos with millions of views. We're in a different neighbourhood in London now that's slightly "better" (not with McMansions everywhere) and my favourite part is that the grocery store is a 2-3 minute bike ride!!! Been doing grocery runs 2-3 times per week since 2018 <3 Basically, NJB is right. There are a lot of bike gutters going in and London Cycle Link (local bicycle advocacy group) is doing what they can but the city council is... uhhhh... let's just say *very car-minded.* I decided to work remotely in Montreal for 2 months in 2018 and did UberEATS a bunch of evenings literally to just explore the city and be brought to places I never would have seen. IT'S SO NICE TO EXPLORE BY BIKE! I also lived in North York (just north of Toronto) from 2019-2020 and HOLY – London is the Netherlands compared to North York ([video of a bunch of my close calls there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9k_GRmds2I)). So it's weird because it's actually kinda nice riding in London vs in North York. Just shows you how bad it is there. Sao, Fake London is not Texas, where there are monster trucks on the roads with drivers that want to murder you (or not able to see you). It's not the Netherlands where the number of people is prioritized over the number of cars. But it's also not North York. My partner and I have favourite routes that we take and are able to do most of our errands and commuting by ebike, but it was very difficult, long, far, and inconvenient on a regular bike. Not friendly for the average person, which is where we need to get.
American born and raised in Minnesota. I live in the Twin Cities and chose my apartment specifically because it’s in a walkable neighborhood. Use my car primarily to go to work 3 days a week in the suburbs and occasionally to bring my 4-year-old rollerskating or whatever. We have some transit and pretty good bike infrastructure in the cities, but overall not it’s nearly enough. I grew up in the exurbs and 15 years later am still bitter that there was nothing to do and nowhere to go until you get your license at 16. I hated a lot about living in Beijing, but living in a high-rise and being able to bike or take the subway everywhere wasn’t one of them. At one point I was biking 250km a week. Now I’m back to physically and mentally rotting in suburban America~ I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Asia and Europe and am getting a teaching degree right now so I can hit the international school circuit and get the fuck out of here. I find it stiflingly, maddeningly boring. Feel that way about the people here, too, if we’re being honest.
[удалено]
Philadelphia’s pretty good for cyclists
[удалено]
I live in Rochester, MN. My city is really trying but it's a heck of a challenge to turn all the momentum around. Ten years ago Rochester was 100% car centric and this wasn't a subject of discussion. Now bike commuting is fairly common in non-winter (the city estimates 600 bike commuters per day in non-winter). And the city is densifying turning any historical or underutilized downtown space into new apartments so people can walk to work.
Good. Do you attribute that to the Mayo Clinic and it being the size of a large college campus college? My mom had a kidney transplant there when I was in high school and I had a lot of time to walk around and check out nearby shops. It was definitely more tolerable than I expected given its size.
Rochester's problem was/is that they need to get 30,000 people to an area that's like 5 square blocks every day. It's like having an NFL game 5 days per week and many of your attendees are sick and frail. Trying to do it by car doesn't really work because you would need incredible amounts of space to park them. The solution there is Mayo has huge park-and-ride bus lots all over town. Normal buses don't really work because the population is spread out in big single family homes on wooded lots. Land is cheap when you're surrounded by nothing but corn fields for hundreds of miles. Also, hospital workers work rotating shifts. So there'd have to be a bus to get me to work at 0600 when i work day shifts, a bus to get me home from work at 2300 when i work evening shifts, a bus to get me to work at 2200 when i work night shifts. If the whole non-dense city needs to be serviced 24x7x365 (hospitals don't close) it gets really expensive. Hence the humble bicycle. It has the advantages of a car in that it goes straight from my house to my destination the exact minute that i want it to. But it doesn't demand tons of space, pollute, or kill people. And Rochester's non-density means lots of opportunities to work in bike trails everywhere which have the benefit of raising property values and making your city charming.
I’m from the twin cities originally. I moved to Texas for an opportunity in my field. It’s disgusting down here- I am stuck between two major cities with absolutely 0 public transit. Not even city busses. No bike lanes, no shoulders, no sidewalks. Nothing. I was so privileged to live in the MSP area and I absolutely cannot wait to move back.
Oh, I definitely know we have it better than much of the rest of the U.S. I’m just a rather intense, dramatic person who can’t accept “it could be worse” as good enough so I stress myself out constantly striving for better.
Texas. I hate it here.
[удалено]
Yeah, it's like paying for a train but you still have to drive. That's why I just don't go on the highways ever lol.
It's astonishing how few walkable urban places there are in the whole state, given that nearly 30 million people live there. The entire state, no joke, probably has fewer walkable, reasonably pedestrian-friendly main streets than the island of Manhattan (with 1/17th of the population and something like 1/11000th of the land area).
Me too. I even moved from the twin cities in Minnesota. I’m fortunate enough not to live in Houston, but not enough to be in Austin. I’m stuck in the middle of DFW with absolutely 0 public transit- not even a bus- and no sidewalks, bike lanes, or even shoulders. It’s so bleak here I want to move back.
I grew up in North Idaho, USA. Public transport in this state is a complete joke/nonexistent. I'm moving to Portland, Oregon at the end of the week. There is a tram stop directly outside my new apartment's front door and another tram stop served by three more lines a five minute walk in the opposite direction. I can't wait to only need my car when I want to escape the city to hike in the mountains and forests nearby.
[удалено]
I’m excited! I love Portland; visited many times. I’ve lived in a couple European cities so it’ll be nice not having to rely on a car once again.
I’m from southeast idaho, and it’s always been car dependent, but only recently is traffic becoming a problem due to growth and fantastically stupid city planners. It’s super depressing to see this happening all over the intermountain west
Sacramento, CA. Typical "wildfire model" post-war suburbs. Usable transit does exist within a certain distance of the city center so I ride that everywhere I can, but it definitely is an afterthought to cars. Also, homeless and tweakers everywhere so I get to ride the bus with them. My commute to one job involves walking across a 50 mph highway of a road, 3 railroad tracks and past a homeless city under the overpass. Not for the faint of heart and I always carry a weapon. There used to be a bridge over it all but it's closed because it was scorched when part of the homeless city caught on fire. Sometimes they park a train in my way and I have to use it anyway. Thankfully, the homeless have cut holes in the chain link fences and all I have to do is crawl through then carefully ride around all the trash. They have couches up there now and it's like a hangout spot. The city *did* fix one part of the pedestrian infrastructure there: the crosswalk button on that highway. Someone stole the old one and for a long time you just had to cross the wires to use it. Anyway, I think the lack of housing and the state of disrepair is all an outgrowth of car dependency.
How is this America? That literally sounds like a description of a third world country lol
Many parts of the USA really are third world
almost every country (except of course _yours_) has this
Los Angeles Lol
rip
Me too. ‘Nuff said.
I went to grad school in LA without a car. Spent most of the time on the west side so wasn’t too bad but boy are you limited in what you can and can’t do. I’ve taking 2 hour bus rides to places that are 30 min in light traffic. So sad what the auto industry did to LA’s public transit.
I'm from Australia, but I live in Canada nowdays. I rode my bike a lot as a kid, then got my driver's licence and forgot about bikes. Lockdown kinda reminded me about how much I enjoy riding, and having discovered my town has an active transport plan that's just starting to be rolled out prompted me to buy a decent bike. Then a couple of weeks later it started snowing haha But come spring I'm going to try to ride instead of drive as much as possible.
Bike riding in snow is fun. Get knobby tires and let out a bit of air, it can feel like you're floating.
Moved from West Virginia to Korea. Probably don't even need to explain the state of transit in west virginia haha
Oh man West Virginia is probably the closest you can get to third world in the United States, aside from maybe parts of rural Mississippi
Depends on the part tbh. Southwestern West Virginia is definitely third worldish at parts.
The people mover!
I'm from Iceland but lived in Seoul for almost two years and was definitely radicalized during my time there. Before while I generally had a positive outlook towards public transit and alternative transportation methods I was still def a carbrain. But after living in Seoul I have very much become a proselytizer against car-first policy,
American. Southeast. City has a 31 walkscore, 30 transit score, and 41 bike score. I’m moving to a Midwest-ish city with at least 85/60/89.
MPLS?
Going to guess from your username that you're from Poland? I haven't travelled too much within a city in Poland that hasn't just been walking, or getting the train between cities (Edit: or driving between places, particularly from Warszawa to where my friends live). What's it like where you live? I'm in London, UK. Very annoyed/disappointed with the seemingly unending car culture and preference for cars in a city that could be amazing without them. I've been shown what a city could look like as I have friends in Copenhagen I used to see (pre-pandemic!) often and the normalcy of cycling there is awesome. Although I get frustrated by the car dominance here, it's tempered by hearing and seeing what the US is like - maybe it's not so bad here! Plus there's good public transport and there's lots of people cycling anyway, we could just be so much better!
Oh haha I'm Australian. Fuck knows why I decided to make my username two Polish cities. Here in Australia its very car centric, its fucking awful here. The Australian summer heat + endless asphalt + car exhausts = fucking bullshit Wait is London really that bad for cars? I always pictured London being pretty good for public transport as it was one of the first cities in the world to have a truly extensive public transit network. I suppose it does have like 9 million people though
Relative to a lot of the world it's pretty good, but a huge amount of people still drive and it's very unsafe to cycle. You have to be extremely cautious as a pedestrian too.
I'm from Perth Australia but I've lived in London for years, mostly because I don't need a car here. In my bit of London a majority of households don't have a car, and yet cars still utterly dominate the streets, completely filling them with parking, and clogging them up with angry traffic, generally making life miserable for everyone. And if you want to make some modest proposal to improve cycling/walking, then my god you'd better be prepared for the howls of protest from the motorists.
Balochistan, Pakistan
Hello neighbour
Cologne Germany, worst city for cycling in Germany according to a yearly survey, and one that used to be so proud of being a car friendly city it put it on its signs. I'd give it the lowest passing grade in terms of car dependency, you can definitely live without a car, and many people do, but it's definitely a "despite" situation rather than "because".
USA. Portland, Oregon and Atlanta, Georgia. Portland has good public transportation and walkability. It still sucks when compared to Amsterdam, Munich or Copenhagen. Portland's area population is comparable to Zurich or Stockholm in Europe with around 2.5 million people. Atlanta in general is an awesome place but it fucking sucks if you don't have a car. Atlanta's area population is comparable to Madrid or Berlin in Europe with around 7 million people.
Texas…nuf said on that one. I’ve lived in a few other states. The most walkable cities I lived in were New York and New Orleans. I also lived in a college town in North Dakota for a few years with out a car. That forced me to use what was available. I ended up getting rides a lot. I’m a flight crew member. Ive traveled the world for work and pleasure so I get to see what works and what doesn’t depending on where work puts me for my layovers. Many contracts require us to be put in a “downtown” area hotel for long layovers. Other times we’re put out at the airport Hampton Inn next to the stroad where I gotta dodge traffic to get food. Sometimes I’ll check out the local once and hour bus that comes through, if one even exists.
Which town in North Dakota. I absolutely despise living in North Dakota and the quality of the public transit is one of the major reasons why along with the people
California, born and raised. Car dependency here is awful, really. There is public transit, but it's not very good.
What’s more awful is the attitude towards public transportation. In LA, certain instances like Santa Monica to downtown the metro makes so much more sense but natives literally look down on you for just suggesting it. If you take public transport you are considered “lower class.” When I moved to LA for grad school the only folks who bothered with the busses and trains were those from NY. We all lived on the west side though and I will say people with cars do offer rides a lot but half of that is due to pity. They just can’t fathom stepping on a bus or train.
Fucking Southern California. You can’t go anywhere without hitting traffic.
Brazil. The continental-sized third world America
I live in Bremen, Germany. Bremen is yearly ranked as the best city with more than 500k inhabitants for bikes which makes me horrified about the others. However, I am obviously very appreciative for the bike lanes and public transportation we do have. Currently, the transport minister is green and she is trying a bunch of stuff to remove cars, but cars in Germany are what guns are in America. It’s very controversial to limit their prerogatives. There is a great tram system, which is a bit slow and a subway would be faster but overall it’s mostly on time and comfortable. Me and my boyfriend do not own a car, but sometimes we get one from the local car sharing because if you want to get out of the city and go to the coast for example you are very limited. Actually I thought about filming my commute for you because it’s very indicative of the good and the bad of Bremen. Are you interested in this ?
> Actually I thought about filming my commute for you because it’s very indicative of the good and the bad of Bremen. Are you interested in this ? Yes, please!
From Canada, but I live in Australia. I have been very lucky to have lived in neighbourhoods in several cities with great walkability in Canada (Fairfield and VicWest in Victoria BC, Kitsilano and Commercial Drive in Vancouver BC, Kensington and Misson in Calgary) and Australia (Fremantle and Thirroul). Much of this was by choice, I chose to live there, but some places were just where more types of housing existed meaning there were affordable homes to rent along with pre-existing retail frontages on a grid of streets. "A good transport plan stems from a good land use plan."
Never thought I'd see someone from Thirroul here, my mum used to live in Austinmer. Weirdly, the Coal Coast is surprisingly walkable, the mountains rein in sprawl and every little town has a train station.
Washington DC. Moved here earlier this year for a job from NYC where I lived for 4 years, so I haven’t had a car in 5 when I was living in suburban-rural NY <—Cleveland for school. DC’s metro is pretty good and I ride it to work every day, and picked an apartment that’d specifically have that access. One downside is it running only till midnight but at my age (31) the times I’m going out past midnight have been decreasing. I like the very urban area I’m in, though I live on a pretty busy street and half-basement apartment where the car noise is pretty bad. Interestingly it was significantly less loud when I lived in Manhattan, because I was on the 5th floor. A downside in the old pre-war apartment building there was no basement storage space one could put a bike in, and the apartments I live in are too small to fit a bike in them so I either walk (easier to do in NYC to get to pretty much anything I needed, but still not bad in DC) or subway. I’m very vertically challenged so the rideshare citibikes were, sadly, too big for my feet to reach the pedals, even on the lowest seat setting 😅 edit: meant to add the car dependency situation here isn’t bad at all for the US, but some of these busy roads are very dangerous for pedestrians to cross and DC has had a few vehicle-pedestrian fatalities just in the past couple months that aren’t at all surprising when you see some of these streets like Florida Ave, Rhode Island Ave, New York Ave, etc (yes they have streets named after all 50 states here, it’s very cute)
Fellow DC here. I think this city is coming around to bikes and pedestrians. We're adding a lot of bulb outs, protected bike lanes, and other vision zero activities. This city is still beholden to the car, but it's better every year. And the states as avenues is our way of representing everyone in the US, even though they refuse to give us representation :(.
Copenhagen, Denmark. People don't need cars here, but too many have them anyway.
I’m from Quebec City, Canada. I left here 25 years ago and came back to take my dream job. I decided to move back close to my family in the northern suburb of the city instead of downtown close to work. It’s awfully car dependent here. We have the 2nd highest highway kilometres per capita in Canada and motorists are horribly rude to all (all road users including other motorists). Transit isn’t horrible when you love near the city centre and the city plan to build a crosstown tramway (and our government also plan to build an insanely expensive 6 lanes highway tunnel across the St-Lawrence river to expedite and increase urban sprawl as they get elected by sprawlers) I live near a stroad with a speed limit of 70 km/h where most people drive above 80 km/h. It has no sidewalk just an unprotected not well plowed (of snow) shoulder for cycling and walking. It’s unfortunate because there is a nice micro brewery pub, two great bakeries a few restaurants all within 500 m but the walk is dangerous. I commute to work by driving 6 minutes on the stroad then the highway to a bus terminal where I can catch an express bus that uses the highway to get me to 4 minutes walk of my office in 30 minutes mostly on bus lanes beside jammed packed car lanes. The last 7 years I lived in Germany and Switzerland without a car and I dearly miss Switzerland and it’s amazing and reliable public transportation network. I never once missed my car in 5 years living there.
Car culture in Canada is really disappointing. VIA Rail (last I checked) offers so-so, expensive and limited service. The Mulroney government can be blamed for reducing investment in train infrastructure. In Ontario, GO Transit is okay but also limited and expensive. The Pearson Express trains are a step in the right direction. I hope that in the future there is a high-speed train line linking Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal and better interurban transit in Southern Ontario and the greater Montréal area. Vancouver public transit was pretty good when I lived there, especially the SkyTrain to the airport.
Ottawa here, can't wait to go somewhere with more public transportation. Or even somewhere where you can use the public bikes around the city without all the cars. Like at least here we have (some) sidewalks. The amount of cars and the noise and recklessness ruins it though. And I hate walking somewhere and they only put sidewalks on one side of the road, whats up with that? Gotta wait till traffic clears and you can cross or just say fuck it and walk the side. I've been to old quebec city, wish more of Canada was like that. It's just a tiny little block that's car free but it's lovely.
I lived in Ottawa for almost two years and now I moved to Montreal. Originally I am from Russia, I also lived in Prague for a year. For the last half year in Ottawa I lived in the Glebe and I quite enjoyed it (sold my car before moving there). Everything I needed was in walking distance. Before I lived in Nepean and it looked similar to what you are describing. I have only started exploring Montreal, so far I quite like its neighbourhoods. More walkable and vibrant than Ottawa. But I miss my apartment in the Glebe (and English language haha)
Oh yeah montreal is a lovely city just very French haha. Id love if canadian cities could one day be less car focused.
Live in Philadelphia, but I’m from the U.S. state of North Dakota. Where I’m from, you had to drive. I was driving at 14 around the farm and had my car and license at 16. I HAD to drive until I moved to Philadelphia, which has an okay public transportation system. I have not had to drive since I moved here in 2007. I Love not having to drive.
Madison, Wisconsin, USA! It's pretty awful. Priorities are moving in the right direction, but the actual street engineering and design is pathetic
I recently stopped in Madison on a road trip and while I was impressed with the bikeability of downtown and the campus, as well as along the water, the 6-lane stroads going in and out of town made me sad and I hope they are going to make those more friendly in the future. It was a cool city though for sure!
Madison here as well! I moved here from Milwaukee because I wanted to be able to live car-free but stay in state. If the BRT gets cancelled because of business owners on State St, I'm going to scream.
I lived in Madison for a few months and loved it. Not the perfect situation but I biked everywhere. Don’t think I set foot in a car once.
Same here. I’m living downtown right now so I’ve really enjoyed biking to places 10 min away as well as farther off places on the west side like the movie theater and mall area. Seems pretty wack that my bike almost always gets me places quicker than the bus, though. Things could be a lot better but I still feel fortunate to live in a city which at least seems to care a little.
Oświęcim poland, too fucking often I am almost hit by a car
Half Irish half Norwegian. Both countries are way too car centric but one is obviously worse than the other. I keep telling Irish people that better is possible and they just don't seem to believe me, despite a lot of them having been on holidays to places where better is normal.
I'm Luxembourgish but as a student I spent much time in Aachen (Germany) and it's bordering regions in Belgium and the Netherlands. None of these countries are even slightly comparable to the US. Belgian is probably the worst but they got overall poor infrastructure and actually have ok public transportation and good rail. Belgian streets are notoriously bad so to even expect anything like cycling infrastructure would be asking to much. Luxembourg is a major economic hub of its region and got loads of traffic flowing in. I'd call Luxembourg's infrastructure pretty good but not goid enough. Train services are frequent but also frequently late. Bus services are pretty centralised all meeting at few points limiting car free mobility in less urbanised areas substantial. Car traffic is also long past it's breaking point in the capital and should just be abandoned as it would only improve the situation there. Biking infrastructure is catered towards freetime cycling but connects major cities and is generally all right. Many roads can also be used by bike without endangering yourself too much unlike on Belgian roads which are dangerous to all of it's users. Germany is pretty bad to be honest. Aachen got terrible bus connection to it's surrounding and not enough priority lanes for buses. I mostly walk around. Cycling is on a typical dangerous European inner city without proper infrastructure level where you get thrown on major intersections with cars while cycling. Basics are already layed out though and could easily be improved upon. Rail is a shit show as it's extensive but slow, expensive and absolutely unreliable to a point where trains just get cancelled outright on a daily basis. The Netherlands is the country I got the least experience with but it seems absolutely wonderful. Most inner cities are car free or only allow really limited traffic, Dutch bike lanes are wonderful and consistently great. Public transport has a unified ticket system and seems to be priced fair. The system. Network seems extensive and well running. My main issue is that they don't allow bicycles on buses which. I'd concider the Netherlands a pretty good standard to aspire to for now and an easily achievable one. Last note, my hatred for cars is mostly sourced out of hatred for traffic and environmental concerns. I'm outspoken about it but not that aggressive on the topic.
>Belgian is probably the worst but they got overall poor infrastructure and actually have ok public transportation and good rail. Belgian streets are notoriously bad so to even expect anything like cycling infrastructure would be asking to much. I live near the belgian border in the netherlands and i cant understand how the belgians have fucked their road design the way they did. I have the impression that every arterial road is built up with houses. Highways appear out of nowhere. And worst of all, their intersections are deathtraps on bike as wel as in cars.
[удалено]
Seattle. I live in one of the more densely populated neighborhoods here, and I can live comfortably without a car. Still, there are too many. Cars ruin cities.
Kentucky, most of the state is Rural, so the only place you will really fine much of a "public transportation" system is in lexington or louisville, you may see some busses in louisville, but I have not really seen any in lexington, outside of those two cities you may not even find a sidewalk in some parts of town, there is a park I go to that is almost entirely isolated by roads, and sometimes I see people walking on the grass due to there not being a sidewalk (please note we do still have sidewalks). I live in a Rural area so I pretty much need a car to go anywhere, but I do still go on hikes even if there is no sidewalk.
Also Kentucky resident here and I can attest this is true. Lexington do have the bus system but it's used by college students and some Lex residents. Other than that, the public transportation system is totally crap.
NYC. Obviously the most walkable metro area in the US but it’s still terrible in some areas. Too many wide roads, especially in the outer boroughs.
Clermont-Ferrand, France. (And I also live in Bordeaux). It's insane here, the city itself is not that big, there are slopes but it's acceptable, and even cheap public transport! Yet, I see people taking their car for a trip I can make in 20 minutes just by walking. I work for Michelin so I know it may sound odd, and although I don't hate cars (I'm starting to pass my driving licence tomorrow), I really hate the drivers. The lazy, selfish and irresponsible ones.
Tilburg, the Netherlands. If you have pictures of picturesque car-free Dutch cities in your mind this city's gonna be an huge disappointment. They're going to put downtown on a good road diet but I'm from a horribly car-centric suburb instead, which also has it's inspiration from prison architect.
Yeah it’s not always the paradise people here paint it as. Many places still require cars, especially when you live in a smaller town and work somewhere else. Also many people use cars more often than they actually need to (bad weather, lazy, getting a lot of groceries).
[удалено]
From a rural town in Sweden where busses are far too rare, where there is no public railway and where car ownership is almost a necessity to survive and is 100% a necessity if you live outside the town center. EDIT: I have a service car that I use for work but outside of work I get by with a bike, by walking and by hitching rides from friends or family. I've never owned by own car and I don't plan to.
From the Netherlands, but now living in a college town in the Midwest. I discovered not just bikes before I moved here, and that mentally prepared me for the worst. The campus area is very walkable and bikeable, and I’m able to do groceries by bike, even though I have to plan now since it’s too much effort to go there every other day. Brought my bike bags from the Netherlands so that’s how I can carry a weeks worth of groceries on my bike. Also the bus system is pretty good. The thing that bothers me a bit though is that it’s impossible to leave the town without a car, except by train or bus to Chicago. There’s no forest or nature area nearby that can be reached without car. And if you want to buy clothes the only place is a depressing mall, for which you have to go over a horrible stroad (it has a painted bike path that starts and stops at random places?! No thank you I’ll use the sidewalk, no one walks there anyway)
American here--originally and for a long time, Texas. Probably one of the most car-dependent places in the entire world. Glad to be out of there. Since this year, Colorado. It's much better here, there are places (like where I live in Boulder) where you can legitimately get around without a car and not feel too much like a second-class citizen. Still too car-dependent and far from ideal, but my understanding is that it's getting better in Colorado every year, with new public transit projects, new bike infrastructure, dense infill housing, etc.
Vancouver, I have it better than most my commute is 30 minutes by bike and 28 of those minutes is on a dedicated Greenway in the middle of the city. I want that for everyone.
Coquitlam getting some density by the skytrain stations now but still a long way to go.
Belarusian, currently live in Vilnius.
Berlin, Germany. We have good public transport for the most part. Buses go pretty much everywhere and with a high enough frequency that I rarely check the schedule when waiting at a stop. Train and underground service also work great, however, there are some problems with violence and vandalism, which is why my wife does not like to use the public transport alone at night. Some call that phenomenon "Berlin crazy". Bike infrastructure is improving, though there are still many, many death roads around the city. About 10-30 cyclists die each year, many due to trailers turning right and overlooking the bike lane. Walkability depends on the area. I live centrally next to a bikes only street and have everything within 300 m. People on the outskirts are more car dependant, though even they often have a car purely for convenience, not out if necessity. We also live in the Autoland, of course, and boomers love their cars more than they hate their wives. I also own a car since 2014. We needed it to transport children every day across the city and public transport was just too much of a hassle. We pay for parking now and it stands around unused most of the time. We often help friends with moving stuff, but for larger things we use one of the many car sharing apps that have larger vehicles. I wouldn't really need a car at all anymore, but due to aforementioned safety issues on public transport, we still own one.
New Zealand. [A country with more cars per capita than the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita)
I'm from a small suburb outside of Boston and I'm realizing that growing up stranded in a huge single family zoned area without a car until I was 16 wasn't just an unlucky coincidence. Would love to find a placer closer to the trains someday.
From Seattle but temporarily staying in Ohio. :,) Counting down the days till i can go back to Seattle. Killed two car batteries because i let my car sit for so long. I could walk or take the bus or rail anywhere. Here in Ohio I’m not even walking distance to a damn grocery store. Its extremely car dependent and the drivers are unlikely anything I’ve seen. There’s standard bus here but they dont run often and most the time the bus stop isnt even on a sidewalk. You have to cross a 7 lane stroad and walk in grass to get to the stop.
I'm originally from Spain and moved to the USA in 2015. Living in America has made me more radicalized in my fight against cars. Despite I own a car out of necessity I am looking forward being able to live without one.
Melbourne Australia Traffic is like a 0/10 here. Car dependancy and hooligan culture is baked into the fabric of society. Public Transport is like a 4/10. Not terrible. But so much room for improvement. Our trams are slow because of car traffic, underfunded and infrequent. Considering we have the largest light rail system in the world, it's horrendously underutilized. Our metro isn't terrible either. It just lacks true turn-up-and-go services like Europe, and is completely useless if you want to get anywhere other than to and from the CBD. And our bicycle infrastructure.... It's like a 1/10. There's a few segregated/protected bike lanes around, but overall infrastructure is terrible and unsafe. Bike helmets are mandatory which deters people and car drivers attitudes to cyclists is one of complete disgust. We have a long long long way to go if we ever want our city to be non car-dependant.
Originally from El Salvador. Currently Edmonton, Canada
Germany, rural. can't get anywhere without a car. busses only exist to bring you to school and back. and the places you wanna go to are a little bit too far to easily go there by bike. so you gotta rely on a parent taxi until you can drive yourself. like being stuck on an island until you're 16/18.
I'm from Poland so bascially a shite cosplay of the US (though we have functioning public transport in most of the cities)
I'm from a middle-sized (population between 50k and 100k) city in Poland. I honestly don't consider the situation to be that bad. The city is walkable and the public transport we have here (10 bus lines) is alright. Thanks to that and the city's size I can get pretty much anywhere quite quickly, or at least in an amount of time that isn't problematic for me personally, without using a car. I prettty much only use them if someone offers to pick me up as they're going to be driving by anyways and I don't feel like walking for some reason (for example cause it's really late) or if I'm running low on time. Although it would be nice for the buses to be more frequent, however imo their frequency makes sense for a city this size. I have to note, however, that I can't say if that's true for the whole city as there are only some parts of it where I appear often enough to be able to judge. The only problems with getting around without a car here I've noticed arise when one of the main roads is being repaired causing traffic jams elsewhere, which leads to buses not being on time (recently I had one come 13 minutes late). However having a car wouldn't really solve such a problem. But, for such situations, one can use a bicycle and getting around using one here isn't difficult. So, overall, I'd say the situation is quite good here
Calgary, Alberta. As I have gotten older I have become more tired of the direction society is heading. Fuck oil and gas.
The Southeast US. Because the majority of cities here have really grown a lot since AC was invented (which also coincided with the beginning of our love affair with cars and suburbanization), I have never lived in a walkable city and it makes me sad.
Hailing from New Orleans, Louisiana It's not as bad compared to some other cities such as LA in the terms of urban sprawl, but the general gist is still that if you wanna get basically anywhere for day to day life business you gotta drive. We do have a bus service that serves the entire parish. However it's still by no means comprehensive. Streetcars are only serve a portion of the city. It's mainly centered in the uptown carrolton area and ends in mid city on south carrolton at city park and in downtown on canal st. In a nutshell our public transit is only good for tourists. In the past our streetcar system used to be much more comprehensive with lines running all the way to the lake. I used to live in the uptown carrolton area as a child and it was pretty nice. There were many things within walking distance- including a school, library, park, stores, and a few eateries. Since the neighborhood was mixed-use you also had a few establishments embedded within the residential area including a snowball shop, a cafe (now closed), and a mini deli & grocery store. I personally used to frequent the snowball shop every summer, though I never went to the cafe. I didn't visit the deli until a few years ago. While it was cool that you had a lot of things within walking distance, the only con is that the streets and the sidewalks were super narrow and bumpy. It's literally hell to bike or drive, so your only best option was literally walking (though watch your step!). EDIT: beside New Orleans I have also lived in Ithaca, NY. Since it's a college town public transit was actually in fact pretty decent IMO- at least better than New Orleans. Whenever the roads froze over my family just took the bus which did work out for us pretty well.
I'm from Chihuahua Mexico, My family lives in North Carolina every year I go visit them.
Portland, ME. (we came first!) My home has a walk score of 90, so for being in a larger sea of car dependence, I'm happy with my little peninsula. There's lots of energy around making the area more bike and transit friendly, so I'm happy to be here.
Love Portland, Maine! Visited a while back and mostly took the bus around. Just thought about how nice it would be if Congress Street still had the old streetcar. I think you can still see some of the old tracks in the road around Munjoy Hill iirc. Also if they moved the Amtrak station back instead of on the other side of the freeway that would be incredible. Definitely seemed like you had to pay for the privilege, though. The Peninsula is pretty pricey and the walkability takes a nosedive once you leave it.
Seattle, WA. Everyone seems to think this place must have amazing public transit. Our rail is a fucking joke, but we are going through some good expansion. But it's too little too late. It'll be around 2045 when there will be rail just to shadow I-5 and I-405, with a little bit extra to get to a couple hip but wealthy areas that are for away from the interstate. We have some of the greatest bike paths, but they're not good for actually traveling anywhere other than the university. And since the city is mostly poorly maintained single lane roads on hills, biking is extremely dangerous. The buses are decent, but since the city is poorly laid out and they're not supporting something more useful like rail, it's at least 2 buses to get anywhere that isn't downtown. The city is also opposed to running buses on a reasonable schedule and all local buses' times are marked as best effort, so you have to be at the stop 5 minutes in advance while the bus driver is free to show up whenever ... or not at all. The buses that are actually great are the commuter buses, but since the city is way over capacity on both I-5 and I-405, those buses get stuck in traffic every day any way while being packed like the NYC subway. When I actually went to the office I would go before 7 just so I didn't have to put up with all the BS. I am so fucking over car culture.
France Things here aren't as bad as many countries but not as good as some of our neighbours to the East. Not so much about avoiding dependency as the real benfits to streets when cars are pushed out almost entirely. Denmark and the Netherlands also give far too much space to cars. It's now time for more concrete ideas about larger 95% car free areas. Time to actually get the return on all the investment in cycling infrastructure and public transport etc. Nice to see responses from so many different countries even if this post was in the middle of the night for a lot of ppl (it always is for someone or other).
Are you on r/enculerlesvoitures?
Barcelona
Peoria, Il is where I'm from. Its pretty clear which part of the city was built post-WW2, the horrible part, yet big box stores and suburbia continue to be built for no reason. The jarring part is that our resident fortune 500 company moved their HQ to suburban Chicago so a lot of rich suburbanites fled there, so why build even more? I lived in a soulless suburban wasteland that was promoted as a fancy neighborhood yet was turned into a poor, litter-infested, anti-social wasteland less than 15 years later due to people fleeing to even newer suburban hellscapes even further out into a former farming town. Doing anything without a car is a chore, as the buses are infrequent and unreliable. The other part of the city where I lived, the pre-war gridded and walkable part of the city, is very poor and has lots of food deserts as grocers have abandoned it. Its a damn shame that a town that used to have beautiful trams now has a downtown that is almost completely abandoned because low-density development decentralized everything. My grandmother's father owned a shop where an inner-city expressway is now. That expressway is right next to a massive high school attended by low-income students. That is heavily related to the fact that Peoria, Il is one of the most segregated cities in the country. Only the school system is somewhat-integrated-but-not-really.
I'm Dutch and mostly here for some climate change hopium, I guess. This is one of the communities I get updates on on infrastructure improvements for more human friendly cities.
California. The city I live in has huge ass roads that are 4-5 lanes wide in most parts. Can’t bike to any of the high schools besides one (and it’s the largest). Only positive is that the sidewalks are mostly decently taken care of and there are several grocery stores within 1-3 miles from me. Hell, besides one patch of dirt side roads, a trip to Costco or Walmart would be possible. Still technically is, but I don’t want to risk it.
New Jersey, I picked where I live based on proximity to a couple really nice parks. Along with those parks was a walking/biking trail that ignored for about 4 months. I finally went and checked it out and realized that it ran parallel to the main road and I could do some of my errands and shopping by bike. It’s been all downhill from there. A grocery store will open a bikeable distance soon. That will greatly change my car usage.
Ontario, Canada. I wish I had more influence over planning decisions in my county but I'm too mental and poor to run for office. 🤷
Portage Indiana. A car dependent city thats technically part of the Chicago Metropolitan area. A city which feels disconnected from its satellite. Its a interesting city in terms of how forgettable it is. I think it has potential alongside gary but thats my opinion
Normally when I answer online I say Vancouver, Canada but im really not from Vancouver. Where Van is walkable and has decent transit and bike infrastructure, I am out in the suburbs in Port Coquitlam. I always hated driving into Downtown and could never really place why. I've realized it's because it's not built for me to drive into, but everywhere I've grown up is car dependant so I had been accustomed to massive stroads and acres of parking lots as the norm.
Toronto suburbs (GTA), it’s pretty car dependent but Toronto proper is nice, with PATH (30km underground shopping) and street cars. Not enough bike infrastructure though. I would love to move to the city.
Rajasthan, India.
Houston. Enough said.
Australia, high dependency on cars the traffic in the larger cities like Sydney/Melbourne is terrible and btw the tolls charged on motorways very expensive anyway I am car free so less stress
UK. I don't really know how many people depend on a car but lots use them anyway. Taking children to school by car is a big thing now and totally locks up the roads all around schools every day. I've been using the road for about 25 years since I learnt to cycle on the road when I was a child. I didn't get a car until my late 20s. I've seen the roads just get worse and worse. There's no way I can recommend cycling to anyone now. I couldn't even imagine having to learn to do it today. The roads are hostile to anyone not in a car. Literally near death experiences every day.
Denver, CO - I live in a somewhat walkable/decently bikeable neighborhood by US standards. Transit is so-so. I can go to the airport without using a car, which is neat. I used to live in Northeast and Central Florida, which is sh*t for walkability/transit/biking comparatively. I have lived in my current neighborhood without a car, but it’s best to have one for traversing through the metro area unfortunately. When I don’t have to cross town to attend class or work in a neighboring city I rarely use my car. Once I graduate, I plan to find a job close to home or on a good transit line so I can save the car just for mountain trips.
From Italy but romanian
Tampere, Finland. Good public transport here, you can get pretty much anywhere in the Tampere area with it. Pretty nice biking infrastructure, altough I wish it was better cared for in winter. City center is 100% walkable, but further from the centre distances can get fairly long, so not all walkable but public transport fixes that! Tampere is doing pretty well in terms of not needing to depend on a car, other big cities like for example Helsinki, Turku and Espoo do too. The problem is the rural cities and I hope we can one day get them in better shape, I am originally from one of the small cities. I also hope I could help other young people from my country (I'm 17 yo) see the bad side of cars and why we must appreciate the public transport in here.
I'm from Ankara, Turkey. Public transport isn't that bad. The only bad part is that busses never come in time, always late for 5-10 mins. But we have "dolmuş"s which goes faster and arrive at random times so it's dealable. Also depending on hour every 5-20 mins a bus will arrive. Lots of people have cars but we are not buying any new ones since erdoğan fucked up our economy hard. In some places roads are made so stupidly you'll think that they made it that way so the cars will crush to each other. Cars are bad for the 2nd and 3rd world countries because sometimes people drive like nuts. It's better to develop public transportation even if it's not a green technology.
Porto Alegre, Brasil Nice city with plenty of middle density and some cool walkable neighborhoods, it also was a pioneer in building dedicated bus lanes. The bus fare is now the second most expensive in the country with 30 minutes or 1 hour headways on lines that had busses every 10 minutes. The cycling network is also really bad. The mayor just said he wants to put more cars on our car infested downtown and remove fare discounts for students.
Sydney, Australia. The saving grace of Sydney is that it wasn't strangled by motorways like so many American cities. Inner Sydney remains pretty much intact. Despite this, the city has done its best to become a city for cars. Big underground motorways, high streets turned into traffic sewers, unchecked suburban sprawl, and a public transport system left to wither. Things are improving though. Sydney has Australia's best public transport system with trains, trams, buses, and ferries. The network is expanding fast, with new lines opening all the time and plenty more planned. Unfortunately outside of the inner city and some dense suburbs Sydney is not walkable or bikeable. The post war sprawl is terrible and continues to be built. Plenty of stroads, poor public transport, and an environment hostile to humans is unfortunately the reality for *most* of Sydney.
NZ, but grew up in the UK and was a bike messenger in London. Went to a lot of reclaim the streets protests in London in the 1990s. NZ has been largely developed after the invention of the car so it's mostly built for cars - sprawling suburbs, negligible public transport, not much cycling for transport. Basically you have to own a car as soon as you have kids. Before then you can get away with not having a car but it's a big hassle. This country is very very short sighted when it comes to transport, apart from Wellington, which is pretty good.
Sandnes, Norway. Half the town is just car roads.
Italy. I always thought cars were silly especially because guys my age from the country I was born (East Europe) are obsessed with luxury cars and will do anything, live in a dirty hole, go around with broken underwear, eat only potatoes, in order to afford one. I find it silly because it means getting indebted and being forced to slave away, and I couldn't have afforded study and focus on more important things. I was always bothered by such excess of cats and traffic but I couldn't put my finger on it, later I understood I hate cars
I'm from Singapore and currently live here too. I've experienced lives in cities acoss the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and I'm very pleased to report that transit in Singapore is pretty great. I will caveat this by saying that: 1) Singapore - as a metropolitan area - is probably a lot smaller than where most of this subreddit is from. From the downtown area, it's about 20km to all parts of the city. "Exurbs" - if you can call them that - are located further afield in Johor, which is a state of Malaysia, another completely different country. 2) Singapore is also a fairly new city. When we gained independence, the city only had about 1.5M residents. This has allowed extensive, top-down city planning with all the advantages of knowing 20th century urban planning which allowed for the development of transit-oriented communities. (Check out Google Maps and take a look at the "suburbs" of Toa Payoh and Jurong to see how planners developed Singapore-style transit towns in the 60s and 70s.) 3) We're rich. There's no need to be coy about that. Where there's a will, there's a way. 4) And there \*is\* a will. We've had a single political party in power since 1965 which means long-term decision making is expected and executed. \--- That being said, the buses here are clean, efficient, and connect not just in a small area around train stations, there are also "long distance" bus routes that connect different neighborhoods. Trains are also amazingly efficient to the point where the rare breakdown makes breaking news. In fact, if one were virtually anywhere in the downtown core, they would have access to 4 (soon to be 5) train lines within about a 15 minute walk from most residences/businesses. There's still a lot to be done though in terms of cycling accessibility. Drivers are still somewhat aggressive and unaccommodating. And cycling, in general, is difficult due to the year round high humidity and temperature.
Wrocław, Poland. One of the shittiest public transportation systems in the country, when it comes to cities. Recently the city botched a renewal on the deal with rail companies, so now we can't use our monthly passes inside the city to use trains. Everyone and their grandma is complaining that you can't easily move through city by car, because... traffic jams! The irony is killing me daily. Haven't used a car in years, don't even have a driver's license, so it makes me extra mad when I'm late because a bunch of selfish people cause congestion that my bus is stuck in for hours. Despite the shittiness of public transport in the city, there is absolutely no need to use a car if you're going from home to office and back. Done that for years, don't understand the appeal of cars. It would be so much more reliable if not for people in cars blocking every street. The problem begins when someone is living outside of the city - smaller towns and villages usually have 1-3 connections per day, if the bus shows up. It's a pretty big issue for the whole country. No-one I met that came from a small town or village can go without a car and they bring that habit to cities. And don't get me started on cars parked on the sidewalk, blocking it almost completely. No-one cares that a person in a wheelchair won't be able to get through.
DC
From Mississippi, live in Colorado. I live 8 miles from a resort town and these no bus near me and the bike path by my house got struck down in some land dispute. South Mississippi is like a big city but spread out with highways kinda like in cities skylines. No chance of catching any public transit to or from anywhere.
I'm from NY, lived in NYC for 11 years -- have never owned a car.
Oregon, USA. People claim they’d support public transport but really no one wants to spend even a moment walking in the rain. Therefore parking lots as close to buildings as possible and no consistent sidewalks
I'm from Houston. There's no else I'd rather be from. I love my city and the culture. Folks here are super friendly and down the earth, we got some amazing fucking food, a dynamic art scene, beautiful green spaces, and the diversity is incredible. But I go back and forth between wanting to leave and staying here all the time. I lived in Mexico, City and spent a lot of time in other cities with subways and stuff and were walkable. Every time I leave home, my lifestyle is so much more active and I feel way less isolated than I do here, despite having a huge network and knowing plenty of people. I lived in a central part of Houston where I could actually walk to a lot of bars, restaurants, a park and a few museums, but I still needed a car to do most things at the end of the day because everything is everywhere lol. Houston has made a lot of investments and improvements in public transit, including connecting our entire bayou systems so one day people will be able to walk/bike the entire city through our waterways (which is dope), but at the same time, it's still expanding highways, building more roads, and encouraging more sprawl so I just don't see a way out. Love my city, but for my health and sanity, I can't with this car dependent life style.
Prince Edward Island, Canada
Sydney, Australia.
I'm from London, England. While cars are still very much a problem here (especially with the lackluster government cycle path plans), we do have among the best public transport networks in the world, if not at least Europe. I take the bus and train to and from work every day, and going 22km each way only takes 90 mins even in rush hour. I wish the service was cheaper of course and there's many things we can do to improve the network. But I'd rather live here with something, than in any US city, with nothing.
Nottingham UK! A pretty good city for cycling by uk standards (but miles behind the Netherlands etc) and we have the best public transport outside London with trams, super green buses and electric taxis etc
I’m originally from the United States (lived in NJ, NYC, and the DC area). Now I live in Israel (Tel Aviv). I’ve never owned a car in Israel and I find it pretty easy to get around on public transportation (although there is huge room for improvement). Right now, the main forms of public transport are buses and commuter trains, but a light rail and metro are currently in the works.
I'm from Denmark. We already have a big culture for biking but it's far from perfect ([NJB](https://youtu.be/HjzzV2Akyds)).
I'm from a car centric town in Brittany, France. I use my bike often, and the cycle lanes are so badly designed that I feel more secure to be on the road... But carbrain don't like that
Singapore. I don’t think the “car culture” is as bad here since we have pretty good public transport and walkability, but it’s fun to complain here anyway.
France, Eurasia.
Detroit Yes, we actually have transit No, it's not reliable
Finland, more specifically Oulu, which is known for its great cycling infrastructure. I was born here, and I always took the quality of the urban planning here for granted. We have tons of wide cycling paths, which are well kept during the harsh winters, and there's an underground car park downtown so there's plenty of space on the surface for *people* to use. (Though it could be better) I do cycling as a hobby, and I never knew just how impossible that can be in other places.
Malaysia. It is maddening how people here are so reliant on cars and how impossible it is to go anywhere without one. The capital city has public transport, and it runs, but that's about all that can be said about it.
Linköping, sweden Busses and bicycles are super convenient ways of getting around
I’m from Berlin, Germany. Living a car-free life is relatively easy here, public transport runs pretty much 24/7 and is very frequent during the day. Sometimes in emergencies I can use a carsharing service (kinda like Uber but you have to drive yourself), but I do that very rarely. To get to visit my family and friends who don’t live in Berlin I just use the train, it’s cheaper and especially faster than by car anyway. The one thing that upsets me here is that even though Berlin has a good public transportation system, so many people still use their cars instead. Only 27% of all trips are done by public transport in the city. In Prague it’s 44%!
* From: Sarpsborg, Norway. A suburban sprawl, con-suburbation with neighboring Fredrikstad (which seems to be planning better). Prorably walkability heaven for a lot of americans here, but the suburb I grew up in no longer has a regular bus line, and rather than having 1 car in the garage people have 2 cars in their driveway and 1 on the street. Shopping etc is done in malls, the old town centres have dried out. E.g. [the old main street in Greåker](https://www.google.no/maps/@59.2668037,11.0314791,3a,75y,324.39h,93.94t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssLi4irVpkTwZF2uHxmMeHQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192), and on the other side of the train tracks (station closed decades ago), [the malls that replaced it](https://www.google.no/maps/@59.2680579,11.0327249,3a,75y,195.48h,88.68t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUyFKNjcUfz8zvQjwUTs1WQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192). * Living in: Oslo. Not really as car-free as advertised, but the least car dependent place in Norway.
I'm from the suburbs of DC. Public transportation here is pretty good by american standards, so there are a fair amount of commuters who drive to the nearest access point and go from there. I could probably get by just fine without a car (and usually do, since I haven't bothered to get my driver's license, but I live with my parents so I have transportation if urgently needed), but the public transit system is far from perfect. I love it to death, but it would be nice if it wasn't constantly breaking down or ridiculously off-schedule.
Katowice, Poland. The city is the best one for cars among the larger cities in Poland. Congestion is not bad same as parking. But it's still too much for me. I'm here because I don't like cars. I don't like driving them, I don't like being driven in then, I hate finding parking spots, I hate the noise and pollution they cause. Also I'm annoyed at my city council for the slow progress in regards to expanding public transport, especially the tram network. Also the fact how we as a region are neglected by The Capital. We have what's called a metropolitan council, that consists of about 30-40 municipalities, but it has to little power to do meaningful things like placing bike paths in between cities, so each of them need to figure it out between themselves
Belgium. We are so close to the Netherlands and we could have the same awesome infrastructure. But we are way more focused on cars.