
Negative effects of driving and living near traffic - blondie9x
http://qz.com/509604/driving-even-living-near-traffic-makes-us-dumb-sick-and-lonely/
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veidr
I think the key point here (which the author kind of dances around) is that
walking puts you in a different kind of mental mode. He writes, "walking makes
me smarter".

This jibes with my experiences when I started walking 5+ miles a day (that was
before I had young kids that absorbed every minute of free time). I felt like
it _did_ make me smarter. Or at least, better at programming and writing.

I now commute by bicycle, and I think that is somewhere on the spectrum
between driving and walking. But even on a bicycle, you have to be in
"collision avoidance mode" pretty much continuously. Your mind still wanders
-- but with a lot more interruptions and alerts.

I think there is something "magic" about walking -- by which I mean something
great, but something that we may not be able to scientifically understand in
my lifetime. We know we evolved to walk upright, and we can measure a lot of
the physical health benefits it confers, but we still don't know enough about
the brain to prove that it benefits cognition, happiness, satisfaction, etc.

I strongly suspect that it does, though.

~~~
cylinder
I walk to work in Manhattan. Definitely always in collision avoidance mode or
stressing about something else, like all the clouds of God knows what kind of
dust coming from the drywall and other remnants of interior demolition being
recklessly loaded into garbage trucks. And I'm choking on the fumes of all the
cars that shouldn't be there.

Ideally, I'd walk a mile to work through a forest, nature trail, or a large
park.

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suneilp
Pretty much everything described in this article applies to other activities
or lack thereof. We sitting in front of our computers too long or wearing out
the couch too much eating potato chips.

Exercise, or just a simple walk, is critical for our lives. It affects our
outlook on life. We don't lack the ability to handle the busyness of modern
life.

We lack the priority of taking care of ourselves.

~~~
Hytosys
>Pretty much everything described in this article applies to other activities
or lack thereof.

Except the most poetic part of the article that recounts the results of heavy
car traffic and lack of foot transportation — a huge negative impact on our
sociology, not just on our physical health.

I have become a proponent for walkable cities, public transportation reform,
streets hidden from pedestrians, and narrow city roads. I'm extremely
pessimistic about everyone else getting on board with these studies, though.
People are quite proud of driving and their cars. We need to move forward and
evolve transportation for the sake of our physical and mental health and for
the sake of our society. I'm wondering how to get that national conversation
started.

~~~
wpietri
I don't think it's essentially a national conversation. I think it has to be a
thousand local conversations that borrow from one another.

When people visit me in SF from more car-heavy areas, they're shocked to learn
that I never have owned a car here. But by the time they've ridden our 4 mass
transit networks, used a rental bike, taken a ferry, and gone with me
somewhere in a CarShare car, it makes more sense. When they hear that I don't
pay for car repairs or insurance or gas, they really start to get it.

We got this over decades of local conversation and iteration, consciously
borrowing from other cities like New York and Amsterdam. Other cities can do
it too if they want. And I think many are. I hear lots of of good things about
cities being increasingly friendly to pedestrians and cyclists.

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colinshark
I enjoy driving each morning, and it makes me happy. Sports car, windows down,
cold air, a warmed up engine. Few things are better.

~~~
andys627
The US is massively subsidizing this lifestyle and making it more attractive
than elsewhere in the world. This is the only excuse for US style suburban
sprawl vs similarly developed countries.

We are massively subsidizing it by: -Not pricing in to user fees all costs of
roads (especially over several life cycles of the road). This applies to
highways but also local roads where infra in sprawly neighborhoods costs more
than denser/centric neighborhoods but usually are paying same property tax
rate -Not pricing in to user fees cost of resource security (oil) -Not pricing
in to user fees all externalities of personal auto use on health care system -
what is healthier our system or one where you have to walk a bit? -Mandating
from the highest level an interstate highway system, the funding of which no
common person understands (gas tax goes in and then distributed around country
to pay for 90% of road project - why not local funding so people understand
where the money comes from?) -We are not regulating green field development -
we are letting developers build what they want because it makes the most money
without asking how is the best way to build the city. Is the best way to build
a city "leave it to the developers to build what makes them most money" ? -Our
zoning is designed to separate stuff which makes cars the only option.

Why does this matter? Because the government is choosing how we build our
cities and they are choosing cars. It is not the free market.

Check out Jeff Speck "Walkable City" for lots of facts, examples, and ways
forward.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
The system that manages the money flow isn't perfect but we don't subsidize
driving.

I think you're confusing subsidizing it with taxing it like cigarettes. We
don't discourage driving because that would discourage utilization of land
that isn't located near a population center. Land is a natural resource that
we can't practically use up (short of massively contaminating it) and to
discourage its use would be moronic.

~~~
andys627
I just gave a bunch of examples of how we're making driving cheaper than it
would be if only supported by user fees... that's a subsidy.

I think we subsidize it because we thought it was a good idea back in the day
- we chose cars and for example, Spain, chose trains. There are pros and cons
to each. I suppose my point is that we CHOSE at every level of government.

This is the lens I see the world through and I think choosing cars (or how
Spain chose trains) massively effects a society's quality of life. I want
people driving to know that we as a society chose to support cars - to
subsidize them to make them cheaper - and there are pros and cons (eg. more
freedom but less walking). Anecdotally, no one I know thinks about it - they
assume that's just the way it is and there are no alternatives. Maybe even
that it's the result of free market.

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sandworm101
>> Walking 30 minutes a day— [...] lowers the risk of heart disease by up to
40%, reduces the risk of Type II diabetes by as much as 60%, and can cut the
risk of stroke by a third.

Can we please stop with this "Walking 30 minutes" ridiculousness. Yes it is
correct, but only if you compare the 30-minute walkers with shutins or elderly
people who rarely if ever get out of their chairs. Most of us already get far
more than 30-minutes of far more vigorous exercise.

I did 45 minutes in the pool today (2.75km) spent an hour walking my dog, and
dealt with numerous stairs ramps and other not-sitting things. I'm not
anything I would call "in shape" but would another 30 minutes of walking
really reduce my diabetes risk by 40%? I think not. So stop telling us that
extra 30-minutes of barely moving will make a hoot of difference.

~~~
kraftman
'Most of us already get far more than 30-minutes of far more vigorous
exercise.' [Citation needed]

I mean it's great that you're doing nearly 2 hours of exercise a day, but many
people I know drive to work, sit down all day, drive home, sit down all
evening. It seems to be pretty common at least across the UK:

[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/10/uk-
exercise-l...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/10/uk-exercise-
levels-low-targets-fitness)

~~~
veidr
Yikes, it's worse than I thought, even: _The study found that nearly 80% of
the population fails to hit key national government targets – performing
moderate exercise for 30 minutes at least 12 times a month. It found that just
over 8% of adults who could walk had not – with the exception of shopping –
walked continuously for five minutes within the previous four weeks, while 46%
had not walked for leisure for 30 minutes continuously over the same period.
Almost nine out of 10 had not swum and a similar proportion had not used a
gym._

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guuiijvhiubf
I look forward to electric (and autonomous) cars for air quality alone. As a
dedicated pedestrian fewer cars on the street will directly translate into an
improved quality of life. It would be amazing if heavily urban areas would
dedicate even larger spaces as car free.

~~~
wlesieutre
Autonomous cars won't do much more than cabs for reducing the number of cars
on the street, will they? They'd mostly reduce the number of cars sitting
unused in driveways at any given time, but you still have just as many people
who need to get from A to B.

~~~
stephengillie
I think a lot of us are quietly hoping the Auto-car will lead to some sort of
CarBNB outcome, where the car can be scheduled by almost anyone when it's
available. The car's owner is just another passenger, except maybe they can
bump another's schedule and call the car to them on demand.

~~~
jschwartzi
I'm more interested in Car-as-a-Service. Basically, I pay a monthly fee for
car access from a fleet in my metro area. When I need a car, I text a pickup
and dropoff address to dispatch, which runs the numbers and sends me an eta.
If I know I'll be making a trip ahead of time, I can bid for an appointment
though a web or app interface which lets me see what prices will likely win
for certain time slots and trips. That way dispatch can optimize fleet size,
travel time, and eta by charging a monthly fee for system maintenance plus
trip fees for each trip. All it has to do is be cheaper than what I pay now to
maintain my own vehicle.

~~~
toomuchtodo
With self driving tech and electric drivetrains, it'll be impossible for it
_not_ to be significantly cheaper than current car transportation.

