[degrews]

I moved from Spain to the US, and I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here.

Here are some other examples of things that I think contribute to the hostile walking experience in the US:

* Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk. Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that.

* Cars have much higher and stronger headlights, with the high beams often left on, and drivers are generally much less mindful of them. As a pedestrian walking at night on under-lit streets, you are constantly getting blinded.

* Tinted windows (even the mild level of tint that most cars in the US have). The whole experience of being a lone vulnerable pedestrian among a sea of cars is made even worse when you can't see the people in the cars (but you know they can see you).

* Often the only option to get food late at night are fast food places, which become drive-thru only after a certain time. Having to go through the drive-thru on foot is obviously a terrible experience, and they will often refuse to even serve you.

[tvaughan]

> I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here.

Same. I’ve lived in Los Ángeles and Amsterdam, and it is impossible to explain to my friends and family just how awful the quality of life is in LA precisely because of the difference in attitudes and priorities over cars. Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam, but once they leave their front door everything is objectively worse

[grecy]

Every time a politician anywhere in the world suggests adding more freeways or more lanes to freeways, I think they should be forced to live in LA for a year and do a ~1 hour commute each way in traffic.

They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.

[jjav]

> Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam

The (insane) cost of housing in LA doesn't exactly lead to people having bigger houses (or often affording any house).

[sershe]

Subjectively worse, not objectively worse. I think driving is much more convenient and nice for most things I like to do. The only exceptions I can think of are if I were a kid in a car-centric area (strangely, the thinking in the US is usually reversed, kids supposedly need to be in the burbs), or if I was drunk. I don't often get drunk, so I'd prefer to drive for everything from minor groceries to outdoor activities ~100% of the time.

[msla]

> Los Ángeles

Why the accent? Is it not the one in California?

[ytdytvhxgydvhh]

Tinted windows are such a pet peeve of mine. I get it in the tropics but in most of America the individual benefits of dark tint seem like they’d be outweighed by the collective good of better visibility through cars, enabling eye contact with drivers, etc.

The SUV craze is really to blame - in general many US states don’t allow dark tint on traditional cars but do on SUVs. And since rear windows on vans and light trucks (aka SUVs) are exempted from window tint restrictions, pull up to a typical intersection in the US and look around and you can’t see worth a damn.

Somehow it’s ok for a Subaru Crosstrek to have dark tint but not an Impreza that is the same car but lower? There are even more weird situations like the Mercedes Benz GLA compact CUV which typically has tinted windows, but not the top-of-the-line AMG trim because that one has a lowered suspension, making it a “car” instead of a “light truck”.

[vegetablepotpie]

I was surprised by SUVs being able to have more window tint, and I looked it up, and you’re right [1]. For windshield and drive side windows it’s the same as a sedan, but for rear windows it can be darker for passenger comfort.

Apparently in Alabama at least, the manufacturer determines the designation [2]. So you might be able to call Subaru about the Impreza and have them call it “an SUV” to get that sweet rear window tint.

[1] https://www.suvradar.com/can-suvs-have-tinted-windows/

[2] https://www.alea.gov/dps/highway-patrol/alabama-tinting-regu...

[dymk]

In most states (all?) it's illegal to have a tinted front window, yet people still have them, because it's not enforced. IMO cops should be citing people left and right for tinted windows and tinted license plate covers. You'd think they'd already be taking advantage of such an easy revenue source.

[Zak]

SUVs having different rules is bizarre, but I'm confused as to how this impairs your ability to make eye contact with drivers since it doesn't apply to the front windows.

[bit_logic]

People in this thread are really talking past each other. I've been to the nice Asian mega cities with great and clean subways and buses. And I've lived in the American suburbs. You can't make the American suburbs like the mega cities by just making them walkable.

Everything in a mega city works together to make transit work. Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations. Also, the walk itself is so much more interesting, random stores to stop at and places to eat and go to. Density makes transit work.

You can't just put random stores in a suburb and make it "walkable" and expect the same thing. Just as everything in a mega city works together to make transit work, everything in a suburb works together to make cars work.

We need to give up on the mass transit solutions that work for dense cities (subways and buses) for suburbs. It's a waste of money and completely the wrong solution. It hasn't worked for decades and never will.

Shut down bus systems for suburbs and use the government funds to give out ride sharing (either Uber or government run) credits for everyone to use (low income can get more credits). That's what a suburb is designed for, point-to-point travel such as cars. And invest massively in real protected, useful bike lanes and stop trying to kill e-bikes with regulations (which a lot of cities are trying to do). e-bikes are finally a real alternative to cars in suburbs, it has just the right amount of travel speed and ease to challenge the car, but it's already under attack. Ride sharing credits and e-bikes, these are the solutions for suburbs. Stop trying to fit a square peg (buses and subways) into a round hole.

[113]

>Those tall buildings? They provide great shade no matter how sunny it is which is critical for walking to bus stops and subway stations.

Did you just make this whole post up? This is obviously wrong.

[Mordisquitos]

> The whole experience of being a lone vulnerable pedestrian among a sea of cars is made even worse when you can't see the people in the cars (but you know they can see you).

It's even worse than that. You don't know they can see you, you know they could see you but you cannot know if they do see you. That's terrible for pedestrian safety.

[toddmorey]

Adding even MORE to the insult is this part from the article: "many agencies will simply remove pedestrian facilities to reduce the cost of compliance". I see that so often: having to cross the damn intersection three times just to continue across, and all the light timings favor cars. It's a big middle finger.

[rconti]

I see this all the time. It makes me SO angry. They do the same thing for construction. "Oh, sorry, the bike lane is closed for the next 2 years. Sorry, sidewalk closed. Walk 10 more minutes for the next 2 years."

[mm007emko]

"Often refuse to serve you" means that they sometimes do? I tried to go through a drive-thru on a bicycle in Czechia and they told me to fuck off.

[jhot]

I live in the US in a "platinum rated" bike city (so there are a relatively high amount of bike commuters) and have gone through drive throughs on my bike a handful of times. Every time I have been served but told not to do it again.

[__MatrixMan__]

I've had some luck asking a stranger in a car to trip the sensor and then back up so I can order and walk though. Once your order is in its more work to say "no" than it is to say "yes but don't do it again"

[ben_w]

Was drive-thru the only late night food option in that bit of Czechia? That felt like the pertinent part, not being able to get any in some places.

(Here in Berlin I have to plan around Sunday trading rules in a way I didn't back in the UK, but we have Spätis, so there are options).

[Rebelgecko]

Yeah, I've had decent luck walking thru in Los Angeles. Some places will turn you away but some don't care.

[inferiorhuman]

  just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here

I ended up talking to some woman yesterday who mentioned she loved to come back to Oakland because of how walkable it is compared where she is now in the central valley. I was amused at the whole exchange because while Oakland and San Francisco do a decent job, they're by no means great.

  Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk.
  Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all
  pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that.

One of the big things I noticed when comparing the pedestrian experience in Manhattan (and to a lesser extent the outer boroughs) to San Francisco is that New York lacks the curb cuts that encourage this kind of behavior. You spend a lot less time walking around parked cars or having to keep an eye out for someone who's in a hurry to exit "their" driveway.

In San Francisco, at least, there's a big tug of war about where your driveway ends and the curb begins. Suffice to say blocking the curb is one of those things that's almost never enforced.

Also this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/155z0eo/frien...

[Aeolun]

Damn, that’s some damning contrast. The city looks so much better without all the cars.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

really?

Tokyo is very oriented towards pedestrian traffic, considering shinkansen and most rail service - yet satellite suburban sites, like Saitama, etc have tiny residential rows that literally don't fit both a car and a pedestrian. And that's where most people live. Yet Japan is highly pedestrian.

Now, South America. Most if not all urban centers of 1M are extremely well covered by bus networks. And they have to, since most of the population cannot afford a car. However, the moment you step off the old city centers, you are literally walking on the main road, sharing space with speeding cards and buses driving like maniacs. You will often find a major road has literally no sidewalk, only dirt, weeds and sewage.

Compared to those situations, the US is a walking paradise.

The problem of distance is very different from the problem of safety and confort in the US

[bichiliad]

You can find a ton of much worse examples than the US, but the US is just vastly far behind Europe (i.e. Spain, to which OP was comparing the US to).

Plus, it's worth mentioning that while Tokyo has a lot of mixed-traffic streets, the streets are small, have very low speed limits, and have strong restrictions on the size and type of car that can actually be within the city. It's less like you're walking in traffic and more like the car is intruding on a pedestrian space.

[valtism]

re: Japan, I think it has to do with having higher density, meaning many things are within shorter walking distances.

I also think Japan is generally a lot more pleasant to walk in than the US

[Aeolun]

> Yet Japan is highly pedestrian.

Japan’s cars are mostly small, civilized and without tinted windows.

Sidewalks next to large roads generally have a barrier that clearly separates the bike/pedestrian traffic from the cars.

If there’s roads where there is no separation between cars and pedestrians the speed for the cars is generally limited to 30km/h.

Streets also have natural speedbumps in the form of lantern and electricity poles essentially standing on the street, instead of the sidewalk.

I certainly feel safer walking here than anywhere in the US.

[cstejerean]

The first one doesn't seem unique to the US.

I just spent the last 2 months i Europe and on many side streets there is no place to safely stop a car which means pulling into the sidewalk is the only option. So I frequently had to step into the street to walk around a stopped delivery van or similar.

[elric]

You're probably not supposed to stop a car in those places, and when you do, you're supposed to stop on the road, never on the sidewalk. Steep fines for that in Belgium at least, though the odds of getting caught are slim.

[lrem]

In most places that's illegal and they'd be risking a likely-too-low fine.

[Forgeties79]

I’ve never heard the experience described as “humiliating,” which is incredibly surprising because just seeing that written out (and your thoughtful elaboration) made a lot of things click into place for me.

[cafard]

Actually, the tinted windows worry me because I don't know whether the drivers do see me. Vanishingly few drivers would deliberately run over a pedestrian, but plenty are distracted or otherwise inattentive.

[chrismcb]

It is illegal in most places to park a car on the sidewalk. I don't know of anyone, at least the big chains, that will serve a pedestrian in a drive thru. If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.

[johnnyanmac]

>If you live in a more walkable part of town there is usually an all night diner.

Oh I wish. On the contrary, it feels most everything closes around 9pm here and it hurts as a night owl. Heck, so many cafes seem to close around 6-7pm.

[asm0dey]

Well, TBH in Europe you usually don't have an option to get food late at night :)