I think in the short term, the biggest improvement that can be made to the suburbs is better sidewalks. Many have none at all, or they're a bizarre patchwork that don't connect to each other. I agree with you that we shouldn't favor one option over another (car, bike, walking, transit) and instead should do all we can to give people as many options as they'd like. Start with safe sidewalks and suddenly you have an easier way to get to the bus stop or the train station or the store.
Most suburban neighborhoods are somewhat close to a strip mall. If sidewalks and bike lanes/bikeways can safely link to those areas, you've created something that isn't urbanist, but can be more walkable and bikeable. If those neighborhood strip malls also hosted microtransit, they become a transit-oriented development. Plop down some bicycle lockers and you've made the suburbs much more convenient for non-drivers.
It's not urbanist - but not every place needs to be urbanist. The problem now is that near every place either requires a car or a large paycheck. Making a 2-car family into a 1-car family with a fleet of e-bikes and some fairly convenient bus options sounds pretty reasonable.
I live in an unincorporated part of Cobb County, GA, near Atlanta. We got rid of our "local" public buses because almost nobody used them. It's cost prohibitive and traffic congesting. Every chance we get, we vote down extending MARTA up to the new baseball stadium we never wanted. Why? Crime! We don't want to give a steady steam of urban problems ready access to our safe neighborhoods.
I would love to see these bike and bus people cart my kids around to band and dance and orthodontists, and maybe they can carry the groceries for three teenagers home for me. You are also talking about a ton of unproductive time, pulling someone out of the workforce to manage all this.
I grew up in a city taking public transport. It's fine in a city. But I was also stalked and followed by creeps just from my short seven block walk home from school, and that was 35 years ago. That same city nowadays? LMFAO, I would never feel safe enough for me or my kids to do the same.
People need to mind their own business and allow people to make choices different from their own. We all have different life circumstances. Accept that and move on.
The logic flaw in the idea behind that tweet is that e-bikes substantially change the game beyond that of traditional bikes. While e-bikes do extend the range marginally from their human powered brethren, it's incremental at best. Where I think the real gain is in lowering the barrier to using a bike because it's just easier. There are two associated causes for increased ridership beyond the pragmatic benefits of bikes (cheaper, easier store, often faster over short distances etc). First, it gets people who might not be fit enough or just don't like exercising on one; and second, for people who actually like riding bikes the ease makes it more convenient in adverse weather, especially when it's hot when people don't what to arrive some place a sweaty mess. Direct bike connectivity and mobility in suburbia are definitely universal goods for many reasons and should be encouraged to benefit specific use cases (kids, safe recreation and some few people who are willing to ride long distances) but those are more a quality of life thing that a transportation solution. But e-bikes are not going to substantially change the game that is more driven (pardon the pun) by autocentric land use policies.
Transit will never work in these contexts because it is too costly to provide great service for relatively low ridership due to the land use. As a result, the service provided will suck and it is always the choice of last resort. Only when transit is the FIRST choice is it successful. There are many theoretical ways to make it this way, but from a practical standpoint, it's only going to be this way when you have a combination of land use policy and a great multimodal transportation network like that of the Netherlands (not to mention a legal framework that does not bias towards auto drivers). Adding more bikes of any sort in this context will have zero influence on transit.
"So for these late-suburban landscapes, what is the best way to improve them around the edges for everybody?"
Probably the best pathway is what we already see to some extent, which is encouraging developers to turn shopping malls and big-box stores (with their nice, large footprints) into pre-canned "new urbanist" style developments. Outside commercial zones with residential built above/around, designed in a way to encourage people to stroll around and linger, most or all parking hidden underground. These always have a weird artificial Disneyland vibe, but it does at least concentrate people and activity in a more compact area.
I agree with the NewLou guy. Vehicle choice is a side effect of urbanism, street width, lot sizes and configurations, etc. - all of the things which make Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Boston's South End, Georgetown etc. different from Levittown. You will *never* get more than a small fraction of people to ride bikes in the suburbs as a routine practical transport option - distances are too large, destinations too widely separated, the scenery ranges from boring to grotesque, cars are simply too convenient.
Pleasant (and walkable/bikeable) urbanism isn't about houses vs. apartments: it's very common to see suburban townhouses with the same square footage as terraced houses in a European village, but they're plopped down in 'islands' surrounded by dead-space grass and parking, next to nothing but a highway.
IMO retrofitting the suburbs to get rid of cars is a pipe dream - it ain't going to happen, not given the existing streetscape and design philosophy. "Missing middle" will just turn Levittown into Los Angeles, giving you more or less the worst of both worlds.
That tweet was in my feed the other day. He doubled down on it when a few large accounts mocked him. I was ready to light it up, but took a breath, counted to 3, and scrolled away. He's not alone in the "transit is The Way" and I think it's a case of falling in love with the solution instead of the problem. There are long-term & short-term ways to improve car-oriented cities & counties. E-bikes & e-trikes bring extraordinary opportunity to live happy, healthy lives.
I think in the short term, the biggest improvement that can be made to the suburbs is better sidewalks. Many have none at all, or they're a bizarre patchwork that don't connect to each other. I agree with you that we shouldn't favor one option over another (car, bike, walking, transit) and instead should do all we can to give people as many options as they'd like. Start with safe sidewalks and suddenly you have an easier way to get to the bus stop or the train station or the store.
I elaborated on this idea a few weeks ago: https://heathracela.substack.com/p/walk-dont-walk
Most suburban neighborhoods are somewhat close to a strip mall. If sidewalks and bike lanes/bikeways can safely link to those areas, you've created something that isn't urbanist, but can be more walkable and bikeable. If those neighborhood strip malls also hosted microtransit, they become a transit-oriented development. Plop down some bicycle lockers and you've made the suburbs much more convenient for non-drivers.
It's not urbanist - but not every place needs to be urbanist. The problem now is that near every place either requires a car or a large paycheck. Making a 2-car family into a 1-car family with a fleet of e-bikes and some fairly convenient bus options sounds pretty reasonable.
I live in an unincorporated part of Cobb County, GA, near Atlanta. We got rid of our "local" public buses because almost nobody used them. It's cost prohibitive and traffic congesting. Every chance we get, we vote down extending MARTA up to the new baseball stadium we never wanted. Why? Crime! We don't want to give a steady steam of urban problems ready access to our safe neighborhoods.
I would love to see these bike and bus people cart my kids around to band and dance and orthodontists, and maybe they can carry the groceries for three teenagers home for me. You are also talking about a ton of unproductive time, pulling someone out of the workforce to manage all this.
I grew up in a city taking public transport. It's fine in a city. But I was also stalked and followed by creeps just from my short seven block walk home from school, and that was 35 years ago. That same city nowadays? LMFAO, I would never feel safe enough for me or my kids to do the same.
People need to mind their own business and allow people to make choices different from their own. We all have different life circumstances. Accept that and move on.
The logic flaw in the idea behind that tweet is that e-bikes substantially change the game beyond that of traditional bikes. While e-bikes do extend the range marginally from their human powered brethren, it's incremental at best. Where I think the real gain is in lowering the barrier to using a bike because it's just easier. There are two associated causes for increased ridership beyond the pragmatic benefits of bikes (cheaper, easier store, often faster over short distances etc). First, it gets people who might not be fit enough or just don't like exercising on one; and second, for people who actually like riding bikes the ease makes it more convenient in adverse weather, especially when it's hot when people don't what to arrive some place a sweaty mess. Direct bike connectivity and mobility in suburbia are definitely universal goods for many reasons and should be encouraged to benefit specific use cases (kids, safe recreation and some few people who are willing to ride long distances) but those are more a quality of life thing that a transportation solution. But e-bikes are not going to substantially change the game that is more driven (pardon the pun) by autocentric land use policies.
Transit will never work in these contexts because it is too costly to provide great service for relatively low ridership due to the land use. As a result, the service provided will suck and it is always the choice of last resort. Only when transit is the FIRST choice is it successful. There are many theoretical ways to make it this way, but from a practical standpoint, it's only going to be this way when you have a combination of land use policy and a great multimodal transportation network like that of the Netherlands (not to mention a legal framework that does not bias towards auto drivers). Adding more bikes of any sort in this context will have zero influence on transit.
"So for these late-suburban landscapes, what is the best way to improve them around the edges for everybody?"
Probably the best pathway is what we already see to some extent, which is encouraging developers to turn shopping malls and big-box stores (with their nice, large footprints) into pre-canned "new urbanist" style developments. Outside commercial zones with residential built above/around, designed in a way to encourage people to stroll around and linger, most or all parking hidden underground. These always have a weird artificial Disneyland vibe, but it does at least concentrate people and activity in a more compact area.
I agree with the NewLou guy. Vehicle choice is a side effect of urbanism, street width, lot sizes and configurations, etc. - all of the things which make Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Boston's South End, Georgetown etc. different from Levittown. You will *never* get more than a small fraction of people to ride bikes in the suburbs as a routine practical transport option - distances are too large, destinations too widely separated, the scenery ranges from boring to grotesque, cars are simply too convenient.
Pleasant (and walkable/bikeable) urbanism isn't about houses vs. apartments: it's very common to see suburban townhouses with the same square footage as terraced houses in a European village, but they're plopped down in 'islands' surrounded by dead-space grass and parking, next to nothing but a highway.
IMO retrofitting the suburbs to get rid of cars is a pipe dream - it ain't going to happen, not given the existing streetscape and design philosophy. "Missing middle" will just turn Levittown into Los Angeles, giving you more or less the worst of both worlds.
That tweet was in my feed the other day. He doubled down on it when a few large accounts mocked him. I was ready to light it up, but took a breath, counted to 3, and scrolled away. He's not alone in the "transit is The Way" and I think it's a case of falling in love with the solution instead of the problem. There are long-term & short-term ways to improve car-oriented cities & counties. E-bikes & e-trikes bring extraordinary opportunity to live happy, healthy lives.