Pet Peeve OmnibusFollow

Gbaji's worries sound like he's 70 years old. "I'd have to go on the internet machine and order it and what if it's broken how will I ever get it back into the internet and what if I need a mixer that day but it takes four days and my Walmart has VCRs but what if I can't find a VCR on the internet? ... Ooohhhh... I'd better just take the Oldsmobile."

And if you're paying less in store than online, you need to learn how to shop on the internet instead of just hitting the Amazon bookmark.

It's like the classic SUV argument where someone insists that they NEED a giant vehicle for hauling furniture through muddy creeks when, in reality, it's used as a sedan 99.95% of the time and the one time in six years you needed to move a coffee table you could have rented a pick-up from the Home Depot. Meanwhile you're getting 17mpg because what if you need to haul a sofa around one day? People's fear of worse case scenarios drive them to make irrational decisions.

Or just take the train. Everyone knows that zombies can't read schedules so what are they gonna do?

If gbaji thinks living in a major city with good public transportation systems is awful, how would he react to how Parisians live?

I mean he can't understand that some people rather buy their food for dinner fresh each day and have only a small refrigerator under a counter to hold the food that needs to be kept cold until it cooked or eaten fresh.

I loved it when visiting my aunt in Brooklyn and we would go down to Flatbush and we would shop at the green grocer, a butcher, baker and any other stores we needed to get food for the weekend. She kept a few netted shopping bags in her purse, just in case she ran across a bargain while we were out around town. Saturday nights we would go to the corner along Prospect Park Ave, were she lived and get the best hot dogs with the works from the local street vendor. She lived in Paris back in the early 50's and was used to living in big cities and traveling the world without worry.

She and my uncle still had a car, but it stayed in a garage most of the time and they had to call ahead to get it out, as the cars were moved by a elevator up and down floors. Taking the subway everywhere was great fun for us kids.

I plan on going to NYC this month to check out a old hat factory that is selling old stock of hat making supplies with my daughter who is studying to be a costume designer. She go to NYC often to see plays and shop in the garment district. Living on the east coast is wonderful for the great cities we have and being able to take a train, so you don't have to drive between the cities to get to museums and shows. I do miss getting in our car and driving 5 hours, up into the High Sierras to go camping away from the crowds in Yosemite. But then I have parks design by Frederick Olmsted, within walking distance from my house here in Baltimore.

Please no.

Without a car, how will I get my 70lb sack of leeks home and feed my family for eight weeks?

I've actually taken shopping several times a week just to grab a few things rather than big $200 shopping trips to stock up for Armageddon. My reason for this is that it's easier to take my little one on short trips than a long-*** trip and we can swing by as we head home but, truth be told, it's a lot nicer than the trips that would pack the trunk.

And I said "city". Because my point was specifically how a well designed highway system makes it easier/faster for people living in a city to travel outside just their local neighborhoods and to other areas of the city. What part of "traveling from one suburb to another" did you fail to get 3 posts ago when I said it?



I honestly have no clue what point you're trying to make here. You're certainly not addressing any point that I have made, so... random blather I guess?

San Diego is not a single suburb. You don't normally use a freeway to travel from one part of a suburb to another. So either you're totally confused about what a suburb is, or you're just spouting random stuff and hoping no one notices that it makes no sense. I'm speaking of the entire city highway and freeway design, not just surface streets within a given neighborhood.

To be fair, you apparently aren't the only one confused given the comment above somehow equating the grid pattern of the street layout in Manhattan to the grid pattern of the freeway system I was speaking of in San Diego. There's a pretty significant scale difference there. It's almost like you guys are intentionally misunderstanding the issue. But that's just crazy talk, right?



What are you? A shut in? Some of us like to leave the house and go places. You get that you're basically supporting my earlier point about mass transit city designs creating a more provincial lifestyle for it's citizens. "I have everything I need within walking distance. And if I need to go elsewhere on occasion, I'll just take the transit system. And if I need to buy something that isn't at a store within walking distance, I'll just order it online". Um... So you only see things close to you, and a small number of things far away, and nothing in-between? Yup. That's provincial.




Spending an hour or more to get somewhere that I can't easily actually do anything other than merely visit (ie: I'm not taking the subway across town to buy groceries, right?), is radically different than spending 15-20 minutes driving somewhere where you can actually buy stuff and take it home easily. You know. Actually interact with a broader part of the environment around you? You honestly don't get why this is useful? That's kinda sad. Like a blind man who's never seen light and just don't understand what it's like to see.



Um.... You're failing to realize that I actually enjoy driving. You know why? Because I'm in control of where I"m going at all times and I live in a city where driving is not a chore you have to endure to get places. If I decide I want to travel down that road over there to see where it goes, I can. Right then. Because it's fun. Again, this is that whole issue of "want" versus "need". I should not have to spend extra effort doing something I just decided to do on a whim. With mass transit, you tend to only travel to places you need to go, and plan out your trip. With a car? I can go anywhere I want, any time I want. Just because I feel like it.

So yeah, there is quite a bit of freedom involved too. And you know what the great thing about roads are? It does not require some union organization to operate it for me in order for me to get places. It's just a road. Barring it falling apart to the point where it's no longer usable, it requires no action by anyone else for me to travel on it. Power out? I can still drive. Transit union on strike? Doesn't affect me one bit. So there is that as well.

Yeah, San Diego doesn't really qualify

It's essentially one big one: Large, low density sprawl. San Diego's population density is 4,003 ppl per sq mile. Naperville, IL has 4,025 people per sq mile. Congratulations, SD is less densely populated than the idyllic suburb of Naperville. And Naperville still has corn fields. Taking a highway from one end of SD to the other is the same thing as taking the expressway here from the west suburbs to the north.

Really? Walmart to buy a new VCR? Livin' large, Gbaji! Must be that high-swinging San Diego city life

Sure, I'm happy to go places. You know, places I feel like actually going to instead of small appliance shopping.

That's nice. Believe it or not, I don't actually care if you drive places. I drive places too. Once again: low density sprawl -- lends itself to driving around since large-scale mass transit in suburbia typically doesn't happen. People are just laughing at how proud you are of having streets and, ooohhhh, "It's designed for cars".

Edited, Jul 1st 2016 11:03pm by Jophiel

They're all unicycle riding hipsters, though.

ITT: I learn that unions are integral to mass transit and that no mass transit functions without them. I feel smarter just reading that.

ITT: I learn that San Diego has roads that never require something called "maintenance". Neato!

ITT: I learn that everyone in San Diego is so cool and nice that there's never a traffic issue when the directional, stop/go and other lights cease to function. What a wonderful, magical land!

ITT: .....nah, that fruit is hanging so low there be foule wyrms within.

Six stoppages in fifty years isn't really all that bad compared to a bunch of forty car pileups whenever someone thinks they see a snowflake.

Windex, bro.