Comments by "mindstalk" (@mindstalk) on "Can Paths Save America's Suburbs?" video.

  1. "a questionable neighbor illegally installed a fence" So worried about "crime" that he committed a crime.
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  2. Grade separation can be nice but is expensive. Especially if accessible (e.g. an overpass with wheelchair ramp and not just stairs.) Probably a lot cheaper to just make the intersections safer. Bulb-outs, median refuges, removing slip lanes or rounded corners that allow fast turns, roundabouts to slow traffic and prevent left turns... Of course, the state DoT might value slightly faster traffic over human lives and deny such improvements.
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  3.  @gerardojasso9259  "Too dangerous for that now" No, it isn't. Crime isn't high most places, has been going down since the 1990s, and generally doesn't target children. "Stranger danger" is real but massively overblown by fearmongering news stations. The biggest threat to kids is cars, sometimes getting run down by their own parents who don't see a kid in the driveway from their massive SUV.
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  4. Depends on destinations, too. A 10 minute walk to a convenience store will get some people walking even in hot weather. Also on how shaded the path is.
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  5.  @briano9397  "No parent would let their child go" Incorrect.
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  6.  @hWat-Ever  Yeah. One curbside parking space can easily hold 7 bikes. 14 if they get very friendly.
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  7. They also need to allow more businesses nearby so there's someplace to _go_.
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  8.  @briano9397  "no parent will ever let their kid bike on paths to school." False again.
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  9. " Paths, like alleys, are mugging-grounds. " Stop living in fear.
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  10.  @Distress.  Yeah. eminent domain a 5 foot wide path, 2.5 feet from each of two properties.
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  11.  @briano9397  Your reasoning is invalid because your claim is simply false. Many parents do let their kids bike on paths to school. End of story.
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  12. There's also variation, like protected roundabout designs, or adding beg button yield lights for a more official "stop for pedestrians now".
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  13.  @FoCoBuzz  "I respect yours and I expect you to respect mine" Sure, soon as we can stop subsidizing suburbs with handouts paid for by urban taxes.
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  14. "It doesn't work except for all these places in the real world where it works." Width helps. Also, well, who's biking? Where you see really mass biking, like Netherlands or Japan, most bikes aren't that fast. Heavy bikes, upright posture, no helmets, speeds around 10 MPH; not 20 MPH road bikes. Having more separation is nice, when you can, but if you can't, it's still better to have a path than not. If you're on a fast bike, just slow down. Or if you want to keep going fast, stick to the roads.
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  15. Some would dispute whether we're really a first world nation.
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  16. Nah. All development should be friendly to people on foot or bike, period. Or at least as friendly as the density allows.
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  17. "like a lot of the extreme urban planning " I bet you can't name a single YouTuber who's actually against "any single family homes". What urbanists are against is SFH zoning -- zoning that bans everything except SFH houses (on big lots, too.)
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  18.  @AnotherDuck  If you want to nerd out about our wide streets, look up "Street Standards as Parking Policy: Rethinking the Provision of Residential Street Parking in American Suburbs" Basically it's public design rationales that don't really make sense, inspired by vague idea of traffic safety and assuming inelastic demand for driving and parking.
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  19. "When commercialism and industry is centralized, you get large urban sprawl" What? No, those have nothing to do with each other. "bike paths should be used as a means of work home transportation," Bike paths are a means of transportation, period. Jobs, shopping, parks, schools, whatever. Yeah, in a big urban area, many will find the distances too far to simply bike to work, though they might bike to transit to work. But work trips are only like 1/3 of all trips, you know? Majority of trips are short. Even in the US, half of car trips are under 3 miles.
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  20. Not always that difficult. For his 'zipper' paths IIRC, connecting cul de sacs to a road behind, you could often just eminent domain a small strip of land from a couple of properties. There might not be much to walk to but at least the foot/bike network would become more gridlike.
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  21.  @chickentoucher55  "a park and a school nearby for their kids, people aren’t thinking about wanting a footpath at the end" Gee, wouldn't it be nice if the kids could walk to school on their own?
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  22.  @cmdrls212  "stack people in towers like livestock" Lots people enjoy apartments. You're the one dehumanizing people by dismissing their preferences.
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  23. Folding bikes are another way of combining bikes and transit better.
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  24. Americans are not some magically different species. Give us more options and we take them. Provide a safe and direct route to shopping and more Americans will take it. I've spent my life shopping for groceries at urban supermarkets and never owned a car. I walk over in 9 minutes, buy stuff, and bring it home. If I need a ton of stuff I bring a personal shopping cart, or take a bike with baskets.
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  25. "Many people will never cycle---there are surveys which back this up" All the surveys I've seen show that the vast majority of people say they're open to biking, if it feels safe. And in places where there's a solid network of safe biking routes, we see lot of people bike. Americans aren't magically different. If you have a 15 foot path you can allocate 5 feet for walking and 10 for 2-way biking and it works. This is a real path near me, heavily used by both modes. If it's a short narrow connector path, bikes can slow down for the short distance.
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  26. I smell fear.
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