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In all 50 states, it's now cheaper to fill up with electricity than gasoline
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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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The Climate Crisis
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I'm curious what city planning without any cars would look like. I've been to parts of Europe, and the cities were very walkable. However, I didn't see any industry in the places where I was staying. How would goods be transported? How would people in loud/polluting industries get from where they live to where they work?
Anyone have the answers to these questions?
Absolutely, these are all totally valid questions to ask and answer as we build walkable places.
Goods do need to move: from hubs (ports, airports) to distribution centers (warehouses) to their "last mile" destinations (stores, restaurants etc). Cars and vans are great ways to move goods even to destinations: even pedestrian streets allow delivery trucks in at low speeds and/or off peak hours. It's just private cars not allowed in these people-centric places. Though bike delivery is increasingly popular in dense walkable places.
As for heavy industry, it's true that these places tend to be underserved by useful transit. In a lot of walkable places these kinds of places do have transit: especially industrial parks which can be pretty dense if designed properly. But if transit is truly infeasible, driving is totally acceptable to these places. The goal of a walkable community isn't to eliminate all car trips. They're absolutely a useful tool that will continue to play an important role in our cities and towns.
The goal of a walkable trip is to reduce the number of car trips and eliminate the low hanging fruit. Going to school, going to the shops or to get groceries, visiting your friends and family, going to the doctor: in a lot of places these trips can only be done by car because of how we build our cities and towns. There will always be trips for which cars are the best tool: we just need to make it a goal to reduce those trips through thoughtful land use and city building.