I hear what you guys are saying and we are a minority, right now. But remember too that "we" were freakshows 10-15 years ago, and non-existent 30 years ago. Personally, I think we'd be surprised by how large a minority we are.
I read in the paper the other day that Jane Jacobs had written a new foreword to
Death and Life some 25 years later where she said, "There's foot people and there's car people. Car people consider losing their cars as losing their legs. Foot people understand right away all we say about fine-grained mixed uses at street level."
There's something there to be applied to a sprawling metro area like our which still has a large enough walkable core. We need planning standards for the "pedestrian city" and planning standards for the "car city".
I don't want to waste anyone's time, and antagonize happy suburbanites, trying to force Barrhaven into looking like Sandy Hill. (I do want people who live in Barrhaven to pay their fair share of what it costs everone to have people live
there and
like that).
But I also don't want car people to have a say on how the pedestrian city looks and works. Those who are happy with their cars, are well served in the car city. If they drive into the pedestrian city they'll just have to put up with traffic, street parking, chaos, etc.
The population of the pedestrian city is indeed a minority but a large one. The pedestrian city must be made to function for people on foot. It's no use pretending that there can be a happy marriage between cars and pedestrians in things like regional arterial design and shopping mall parking.
Prev
Linear Mode
