In my city there are a lot of bicycle lanes but practically no bike racks near any businesses - and the lanes themselves avoid the main commercial streets and wind through residential neighborhoods instead.
It’s painfully obvious the bicycle infrastructure is designed for rich yuppies exercising and not commuting or shopping. Because fuck the poors.
Watched a NotJustBikes video about how poor people are actually subsidizing rich neighborhoods because of how inefficient and under taxed the houses are. Suburbs actually lose North American cities tons of money, but no one wants to make walkable cities since cars own everything now.
I don’t think that’s 100% true. I know they’re building a walkable, car fee suburb in Phoenix/mesa. And at least in my area (Southern Hamilton county Indiana) they’re building more and more multi use pathways for cyclists and pedestrians along the major roads to businesses and schools.
You should totally pull up Google maps and select cycling routes in that area (near Carmel) and tell me what you think. It’s not just scenic trails through neighborhoods, but actually useful routes to places you want to shop or hang out.
When cities are no longer built for foot/bike traffic and businesses instead choose locations based on the amount of stop signs or red lights which can view the storefront, this is an inevitable result.
IDK how much it works. Although I’m sure there has been extensive research done on the topic by large retailers who include criteria like this in their checklist for a new store so I would assume it works. These storefronts are most of the time also large anchor stores on the corners of shopping centers. So perhaps it is just a coincidence that there are a lot of stopped vehicles in line of sight of a sign.
I wouldn’t need to park in front of so many places if there were bike lanes around my apartment so I could just ride my bike two or 3 blocks instead of driving. If I’m going to drive, I might as well go further away to justify using the gas.
I got an insulated backpack like food delivery people use. With that I’m able to walk anyplace within walking distance. Which for me would be a 30 min walk. But it definitely takes more time than if I were to bike
Add comment