NarrativeBear

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NarrativeBear OP ,

Its a shame when projects like these are cancelled. It really shows how "car centric" North America can be in that a simple pedestrian bridge is harder to build and costs more then one designed for cars.

In a time when we should really be shifting to a more "pedestrian focused" design and "livable cities" in general, project like these are in the correct direction.

NarrativeBear OP ,

Your right, its sad because its true.

But when people walk across a pedestrian bridge society profits. Healthier population both physically and mentally. Greater happiness and less stress. Less pollution, pretty much all these benefits put less "burden" on peoples pockets financially, either both directly and indirectly through taxs.

Unfortunately probably all hard to quantify though.

‘Mini Holland’ scheme in Walthamstow hailed as major success as traffic falls by half, cycling and walking scheme is model for other cities ( www.standard.co.uk )

Campaigners have called for “mini Holland” walking and cycling schemes to be introduced in towns across Britain after the first London pilot scheme produced dramatic results....

NarrativeBear OP ,

True, the article may be old news, so here is an article celebrating the success of the same location after the last 10 years.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/mini-holland-cycling-scheme-sadiq-khan-will-norman-walthamstow-b1158415.html

Wish more cities would take note and move away from car centric urban and suburban design.

They Transformed a Nasty Stroad With Bus Rapid Transit (CityNerd) ( www.youtube.com )

In Albuquerque NM, they not only built world class BRT infrastructure -- they leveraged it to transform old Route 66 into a safer, more people-friendly corridor. Albuquerque Rapid Transit, or ART, is already a big ridership success, but there's so much more potential. So today we're taking a tour of the US's only Gold-rated BRT...

NarrativeBear , (edited )

Examples like these show its never to late to shift a city from a "car centric" design to a pedestrian focused design, with bus, tram, light rail, or subway routes.

Cities should be designed for people first, as opposed to cars first.

Pedestrian cities are also in a way cheaper in terms cost & mantinace of infrastructure, such as less traffic lights to maintain. Traffic lights are by far the biggest money sink for a financially struggling city, not to mention large parking lots that provides no return on investment.

NarrativeBear ,

Condos need to be built for families, give me more three or four bedrooms in the city, and make it more affordable.

Condo developers can't build these affordable three or four bedrooms though, because on average these layouts are about 20% larger in size to their comparable European unit layout. This is all to due to building code, and something called "point access layout" vs "common corridor layout".

If we could get more families in the city buy making costs comparable in sq/ft to a single family home in the suburb we could make cities more enjoyable and give people a better sense of belonging, as opposed to just commuting in for a few hours.

NarrativeBear , (edited )

Fyi, my fiancée became a Canadian resident a few years back. When you become a new resident Canada gives you a welcome package, in this package you get a one year voucher for free visits to any national park (ie, not provincial parks).

So the closest national park to us is like 6-7 hours away. We do the drive and have no way to use this voucher, even in the one year window. To add (if I remember correctly) it was also only a voucher for a day visit, so parking...

I have a feeling like 90% of these voucher do not get used.

It reminded me of the time a handful of years ago VIA Rail did a promotion for anyone under 18-19. You would received a voucher to travel VIA rail from one side of Canada to the other. I don't remember the specifics but it was only for the train ride with unlimited stops 2-ways.

NarrativeBear ,

Absolutely, a welcome package for a new Canadian is not something we as Canadians should be angered about.

You don't freak out when the new person that just joined your office you been working at got a new pen, and maybe a shinny new stapler?

What we really should be angered aboot, and ashamed of as Canadians, is that its actually cheeper for us to go on vacation to Europe for 2-3weeks instead of being able to visit parts of Canada. A train ride to Vancouver is just as expensive as a plane flight if not more, and if you want to go to any of the northern parts you will need a car. Not to mention the price of accommodations such as a hotel or airbnd.

There should be more trains that take you to national and maybe even provincial parks and surrounding towns.

NarrativeBear ,

You mean German Canadians.

Though they would also need to be financially sound at the time they became a full on citizen, own a car (to make us of the day pass free parking), and be able to take the time off, to actually go see these parks.

Remembering the voucher kicks in on the day of becoming a citizen and then expires exactly in exactly 1 year.

I guarantee you if someone becomes a citizen in their teens and originally immigrated on their own with no family (which happens), they would more then likely not benefit from this, and probably not even have the means to see these parks in that one year window, and make use of the free day pass voucher for free parking...

NarrativeBear ,

For parking...

NarrativeBear ,

Day pass admission is 10-11$ for adults

Yearly passes cost around 135$

If you have 7 people in a car you can use that yearly pass for your group of 7.

Kids under 18 are free by default.

NarrativeBear ,

That's the one, thanks for finding a link.

Seems like it was 12-25 years of age and 150$ for a month of unlimited travel. It was a good deal but only available for 1 month, and i was already to old :'(

Would of been nice to use the pass and only sleep on the train as opposed to finding hotels.

NarrativeBear ,

Absolutely, though I do wish more of the public and local governments would follow this type of mentality. Seems like most local towns and cities have lost this.

Seems like everything's more along the lines of "if it's not completely broken, then don't bother fixing or even improving it."

NarrativeBear ,

Could you imagine having to fill up on gas driving to a specific gas station designed for your make/brand of car.

Hey honey, going out to fill up the car at the local Subaru Gas Station.

NarrativeBear OP ,

I have tested both lingding and linkwarden. Lingding was easy to use and did the basics in bookmark management. Though I settled on linkwarden for its saving of webpages in different formats with folder and subfolder organisation in the UI.

Both are good options, but linkwarden seem to be more power user focused.

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