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As we have seen a rise of toxic behavior we have decided that it would be time for some rules. We would love other ideas too and feel free to discuss it here.

Also we are thinking about, to put in an Automoderation tool that could help us a lot. Because its currently not easy for us to scan every new comments and reports are rare currently. We want your opinons on that too, because its important to us that this community is based on the people here.

The shortlist that we have currently as idea for the Rules:

• Be Kind to each other
• No Hate speech
• Dont harass people
• No Racism, sexism and any other discrimination
• Dont attack other people just because they have differnt opinions (Stay on Topic)
• Do not double post

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let's try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

• [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
• [article] for news articles
• [blog] for any blog-style content
• [video] for video resources
• [academic] for academic studies and sources
• [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
• [meme] for memes
• [image] for any non-meme images
• [misc] for anything that doesn't fall cleanly into any of the other categories

I have copied that idea from another community. I forgot which one so sorry!

Feel free to discuss that here, I would like that change because it makes it a lot easier

A bit of a rant, but my municipality is building a "community square" in their downtown, but I noticed that there are no safe ways to get there by bike (or e-scooter, since we partake in a shared e-mobility program).

I emailed my city to voice my concern, and they said to contact the Region, who manages the main North/South road that brings you to the footsteps of this planned square.

They said that since there were no plans in the Regional cycling plan to add infrastructure to that particular road, we should just ride with mixed traffic.

For context.... this road is one-way, and four lanes. Two (one on each side) is taken up by street parking, despite us having quite a few parking lots and a large parking garage close by.

Example (and yes, the black car on the far right is illegally parking... there's another car behind them illegally parking, too............. ):

!

I asked if they could at least remove one parking lane to make a bi-direction bike lane that would connect two (East/west) bike lanes, and they said not a chance.

To expand, removing one parking lane would only "take away" 12 spots. 12 spots for sitting vehicles that take up two blocks, is more important than providing a safe passage for vulnerable residents to get to a public, outdoor community space??

This is pretty unbelievable, since our local businesses are all hurting downtown, and it only seems alive when we block off vehicle traffic during special events.

Seems insane how we bend over backwards for cars.

Rant over.

How do my fellow car-free people deal with moving heavy/bulky items without a car? What are the pros and cons of solutions you've tried?

I'm currently car-free in a city with decent public transportation (by American standards), but things are still very, very car-centric, and also a bit hilly. Living alone, I can manage weekly groceries with a backpack + 1 bag on each shoulder, but it's definitely not my favorite activity. The decent grocery stores are 1 mile (1.6 km) away, so a bit of a hassle to just go to more frequently. For heavy, shelf stable items, I usually try to get those delivered, but it's not always an option.

I also have 2 cats, plus I foster cats/kittens, so I very frequently need to transport animals to/from the vet. I have a backpack style pet carrier, but that doesn't cut it when I have to transport multiple adult cats or a mom + kittens.

I would love to hear other people's experiences, and the pros & cons of various options that you've tried. Some more detailed questions on my mind:

• Do you prefer something you can push or something you can pull?
• How annoying is it to transport when empty?
• How does it hold up to less than ideal weather?
• How does it handle stairs or curbs without a ramp?
• How does it handle poorly maintained sidewalks or unpaved surfaces?
• Is it well made/durable, or something that will probably break in a year?
• If it has pockets or segregated compartments, have those been handy or just annoying?
• Are there any uses that it's not a good fit for?

Edit: any non-bike options? I don't have the space to securely store a bike in my unit, and my building doesn't offer any secure bike storage. Due to all of the hills, I would have to get an electric bike, and was hoping to find some options in the range of $50-$200, maaaaybe $500. For example, I've been looking at collapsible carts/wagons, and pet strollers.

Hey everyone,

I'm just here to vent a bit, even though I know words won't change anything.

I'm from Saudi Arabia, where public transportation is almost nonexistent in most cities, including mine. I think Riyadh has some options, but overall, it's just not popular. So, like many others, I have to drive every day and fill up the gas tank weekly, if not more often. I absolutely hate wasting time driving.

When I say there's no public transportation, I mean it, no buses, no metro, nothing. There's a railway, but it only connects a few cities, not all.

Sure, Uber or taxis are available, but let's be honest, who can afford that for an entire month? Owning a car is much cheaper in the long run, especially for running errands for the family.

Driving stresses me out, especially at night with the bright headlights and fast speeds (most roads are 100 km/h, or about 62 mph). My daily commute to university takes an hour, and the traffic is terrible. I have to stay fully alert the whole time to avoid accidents, so by the time I arrive, I'm already exhausted, and of course there's no time to rest because classes start right away. I lose two hours every day just driving, time that I could be using to read, chat with friends, or even watch a movie if I were on public transportation.

I don't really have a solution to this problem, but does anyone else? It's becoming unbearable. Just to add, I don't have any close friends to carpool with. I once thought about sharing the driving with someone, but most of us have other commitments before and after college. In my case, I also have to drop my siblings off at school and pick them up later.

Living in a walkable city means my weekly shop is a few hours of walking or biking instead of being stuck in traffic, and I'm only mildly tired afterwards since I use a bike with pretty large pannier bags. Since I have no car related costs I can afford more fresh food, a healthier diet, and I can afford to be more choosy about the ethics of what I buy. There's a twice weekly farmers market about a ten minute walk away, and quiet walks through parks to get to the shops. Living somewhere with car centric infrastructure, as I used to, this lifestyle was far less feasible.

Have your experiences been different with moving to walkable/bikeable cities? Any questions or points to be made? I'm not very up on the theory side of city planning, but my experiences line up with the whole "fuck cars" thing.

I was surprised that even here in Portland, OR…not far from downtown…I was on my bicycle and pulled into a small shopping center. I guess you could call it a strip mall, but it was pretty small and completely surrounded by small residential streets.

So imagine my surprise when (a) I couldn't find any bike parking in front of the main grocery store. I had to walk entirely across the parking lot and over to the side of a dentist's office. Then (b) I went back to the grocery store and discovered it had no indoor seating. There was plenty of room from what I could tell—they had an entire wall dedicated to greeting cards and another entire wall dedicated to flowers. But nope, nobody can sit here—even though they have a significant large deli! They did offer a very bland outdoor seating area over on the side of the building, but given it's been windy and a bit drizzly I decided against it. (Also it was deserted for obvious reasons.)

Folks, I am so weary of bike/pedestrian-unfriendly retail. The accommodations car drivers get that we don't continues to astound me—even in areas which are presumably "progressive". 🤨

I can talk the talk, but this is really going to test that ……

I live in a fairly walkable town outside one of the most walking and transit oriented cities in the US. I’ve always been a transit and walkable communities advocate.

My town is centered on a train station/bus/taxi/scooter/bicycle hub and we have a traditional walkable “Main Street” with shops and restaurants that we pedestrianize for the summer. We have a new rail trail that will eventually connect to a statewide network, a riverwalk and even kayak rentals in the middle of downtown

Higher density housing is centered on the downtown, dominated by 4-6 story apartment/condos, including residential over commercial. Works great. Surrounding that is a belt of 2-3 story multifamily houses, townhouses, and small apartments. I’m the first street zoned for single family, but I can still walk to the town center, and take the train into the nearby major city.

I even spoke up in favor of new statewide zoning, requiring “as of right” zoning for large apartment buildings near transit …… maybe you see where this is going …..

When I was out walking my dog this morning, I saw construction …. apparently there are a couple huge 6 story apartment buildings going in just a couple blocks away. It all seemed like a great idea until it was my neighborhood. It was a great idea when things were grouped by size. But now it’s a behemoth towering over three deckers and the like, and even looming near single family housing.

I’ve “talked the talk” but really don’t know if I can “walk the walk”. This really seems excessive for the neighborhood.

What do you think? Could you still support higher density housing when it means something twice the height going into your neighborhood, hundreds of tenants where now it’s 3-10 per building? What would you do when you get what you were asking for but it’s in your neighborhood and way out of scale?

First off, I want to point out that I am totally on team /c/fuckcars. I highly believe in transit, walking, and biking.

That being said, I think it's fair to say that:

1. Cars aren't fully going away anytime soon
2. Even in our wildest dreams, it still makes sense for cars to be usable in some way, just that the other transport methods are highly prioritized.

So the discussion I want to have is about parking garages, and the hate I see towards them from the urbanist community.

I feel like parking garages vaguely align with urbanist views, because they are high density, and they allow someone to drive to a general area after which they can do the rest of their transportation via other methods.

To put it into perspective, I'd rather have 1-3 dense parking garages in a neighborhood than have street parking along all the roads plus wide open parking lots around grocery stores and whatnot.

I understand this is a lesser of the two evils discussion but it seems to me like parking garages are the clear winner.