I wasn’t arguing against building communities to be built around human beings, I’m saying they aren’t so it’s infeasible.
I’ve never seen anyone with kids on bikes here because it’d be miserable. Narrow roads, parked traffic, and no safe routes from A->B for most things. No bike routes, can’t go on the motorway, backroads are a death sentence. Looking at a cargo bike - never seen one IRL - that would fit a small weekly shop. Then you have the kids and all their stuff. God forbid we want to take the dog also.
There’s no need to spend on a car. There’s a shop for essentials within walking distance like there is anywhere I’ve lived in the UK, you could just not visit people who live further than walking distance from you, rely on other people to drop off things for you. Spend a lot more time commuting doing smaller trips to avoid being overloaded, spend more in the expensive local shops. Order a delivery from ASDA instead of driving around the zero waste shops, local co-ops, etc. Just a lot less practical and more restrictive. Not really edge cases, people use their cars to transport stuff regularly. New homes take time to build up, new family members, refurbishments, events, etc. If you don’t drive then someone else is doing it for you or you’re just doing less.
It would be miserable to bike with kids where you are right now because of who your local government decided public space belongs to and how they should get to use it (ie, people in cars and they should use it by driving around). It doesn’t have to be that way and it’s absolutely possible to live perfectly happily without a car when communities choose to prioritize public space being for things other than cars.
I wasn’t arguing against building communities to be built around human beings, I’m saying they aren’t so it’s infeasible.
I’ve never seen anyone with kids on bikes here because it’d be miserable. Narrow roads, parked traffic, and no safe routes from A->B for most things. No bike routes, can’t go on the motorway, backroads are a death sentence. Looking at a cargo bike - never seen one IRL - that would fit a small weekly shop. Then you have the kids and all their stuff. God forbid we want to take the dog also.
There’s no need to spend on a car. There’s a shop for essentials within walking distance like there is anywhere I’ve lived in the UK, you could just not visit people who live further than walking distance from you, rely on other people to drop off things for you. Spend a lot more time commuting doing smaller trips to avoid being overloaded, spend more in the expensive local shops. Order a delivery from ASDA instead of driving around the zero waste shops, local co-ops, etc. Just a lot less practical and more restrictive. Not really edge cases, people use their cars to transport stuff regularly. New homes take time to build up, new family members, refurbishments, events, etc. If you don’t drive then someone else is doing it for you or you’re just doing less.
It would be miserable to bike with kids where you are right now because of who your local government decided public space belongs to and how they should get to use it (ie, people in cars and they should use it by driving around). It doesn’t have to be that way and it’s absolutely possible to live perfectly happily without a car when communities choose to prioritize public space being for things other than cars.