Walkabilty: "As Good As It Gets"

[phantom power]

I, too, lived in Irvine for a bit so I'm familiar with what Kevin's talking about. It's what would happen if someone looked at suburbia and said, "all we need to do is make sure to add a few sidewalks and have shopping centers at regular intervals and we'll have built a walkable community." It's true that it is possible to walk places, and I think because of this it's an improvement over some suburban development. If your car breaks down, or you are too young to drive, you can still get to other places. Walking is possible. But, despite that Southern California weather, nobody does, and it isn't just a cultural thing. Things are built within walking distance, and there are sidewalks, but it still just isn't built with pedestrians in mind. You have to navigate giant parking lots, and cross multi-lane parkways with lights not timed with pedestrians in mind. You can walk, but I understand why nobody does. It just isn't pleasant.

So, no, I don't think it's as good as it gets. I think you can have development which is fundamentally suburban in character, mostly automobile-centric, but still much more pedestrian friendly. As Ryan Avent says:

If you build a lowish density neighborhood, separate the homes from the retail, and surround the retail by roads and parking lots, well, you’re not going to get walkers. If you try to make the development more like a small town, however, with residences over retail on the main strips, distributed retail throughout the neighborhood, and a fairly compact design, then you can get real walkability, to a certain extent, even with single-family homes and yards. And you can also follow the model in New England (and old England, actually) and drop that development onto a commuter rail line or transit connection, and then you’ve reduced driving still more, even as most or all residents of the neighborhood own and frequently use cars.

Instead of sidewalks+nearby strip malls, you need sidewalks+strips of "small town." The Main Line area of Philadelphia would be like this (and is a bit in places) if it had a bit more residential density near the main strip. Or, to be clear, it is like this except that it doesn't have enough residential density in enough places to make it consistently successful (plus a tendency to ruin a good thing by building more parking lots). Beach/resort towns are often like this, though their "residential density" often comes from hotel populations. I fled Irvine for Laguna Beach which, although not my idea of heaven, was at least genuinely a nice place to walk, and not simply because there's a beach there.

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_09_07_archive.html#5681687901123943902

[Stanchetalarooni]

1. I lived in Boulder, Colorado back in '79, '80 and '81.

I walked to work. Rode my bike to the library. Only used the car to visit the mountains and friends out of the city. It was for me a paradise that I can now only dream of.

[NNadir]

4. Boulder is a wonderful walking city, particularly with the wonderful pedestrian mall.

It's really, really, really beautiful city.

I've spent a lot of nights in the Hotel Boulderodo which was my favorite Hotel in North America. One could spend a wonderful week there and never get in a car.

The walkability is the main reason that Amory Lovins doesn't live there, I'd guess.

[tinrobot]

7. Boulder is a great city.

Used to work for a company based in Boulder and would spend months at a time up there. Walked just about everywhere (except when it snowed really hard)

[Kolesar]

2. Nobody Walks in L.A.

For all you fans of "Missing Persons". Seriously, though, this is important stuff. The Europeans have "leveled off" the amount of miles that they drive since the "energy crisis" of the 1970s.

[tinrobot]

3. I walk in LA.

There are tons of little neighborhoods (Larchmont, Silverlake, Venice, etc) that are very walkable.

Almost everything I need is within a mile of the house. I walk or ride my bike most of the time and only use the car if I have to leave the neighborhood.

[kestrel91316]

8. I've got you beat - I walk the Ventura corridor in the San Fernando Valley, lol.

Closest thing to a neighborhood in these parts, lol.

[NNadir]

5. One thing LA has is the bike path from Redondo to Santa Monica.

I once commuted on that thing by bicycle.

On weekends it gets sort of zoo like in the stretch between Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, although in the latter city there are stretches where the pedestrian and bicycle paths are separate.

Off the bike paths in LA, my recollection is that cars try to kill you.

My hatred of the car culture came to full maturity in LA.

[hunter]

6. I learned to hate cars in Los Angeles too.

Cars are a terrible infringement upon one's freedom. On foot or on bicycle, even on public transportation, you are part of the world, not confined to the road and isolated from others.