How Australia's cities really stack up

[Scot Dutchy]

Melbourne weather is utterly miserable for half the year (including howling Antarctic winds), and blisteringly hot for the rest of the year.

A little bit exaggerated, this...

I am not surprised. I had a good look yesterday on Maps and saw some bits bicycle infrastructure but it was minimum. Melbourne is pretty flat and very suitable. Maybe when looking at traffic jams more separation of traffic could be the answer. Big wide avenues are not the answer. Traffic jams are often the result of mixing to many different types of traffic speeds together. Split them up. Make sure buses and trams have their own infrastructure. The car is not priority in cities. We have closed most town and city centres to vehicles and given them back to pedestrians and cyclists. They have become fairly quite places. Just nice to walk around in. Makes people happy and friendly.

[JimC]

They are doing some of that - some parts of the city have been converted into pedestrian malls, for example. There are also some dedicated bus lanes, and an increasing number of bike paths.

[pErvinalia]

Bogans drive down the pedestrian malls in Melbourne...

[Scot Dutchy]

They are doing some of that - some parts of the city have been converted into pedestrian malls, for example. There are also some dedicated bus lanes, and an increasing number of bike paths.

Good to hear Jim. It is the only way if you want to maintain a liveable town or city. Small towns use the principle of "shared space" an idea developed in my old company. You take away all signs, traffic lights and markings and reverse priorities.

[laklak]

Fuck bicycles. Get a pick up truck like a real man.

One of the things visitors here are surprised at is the number of drive in (or drive through) things. Drive in banks, drive in liquor stores, drive in charity donation drop off, drive in pharmacy. Now some grocery stores are offering drive in grocery pickup, you order online and they bring it out and put it in your car. There are, in some areas of town, drive in blowjobs. Or so I've been told.

No more drive in movies, though, which is a shame.

[Forty Two]

Melbourne weather is utterly miserable for half the year (including howling Antarctic winds), and blisteringly hot for the rest of the year.

A little bit exaggerated, this...

I am not surprised. I had a good look yesterday on Maps and saw some bits bicycle infrastructure but it was minimum. Melbourne is pretty flat and very suitable. Maybe when looking at traffic jams more separation of traffic could be the answer. Big wide avenues are not the answer. Traffic jams are often the result of mixing to many different types of traffic speeds together. Split them up. Make sure buses and trams have their own infrastructure. The car is not priority in cities. We have closed most town and city centres to vehicles and given them back to pedestrians and cyclists. They have become fairly quite places. Just nice to walk around in. Makes people happy and friendly.

There is a fundamental difference between a Dutch city, say, like Amsterdam (120 sq km) and Rotterdam (326 sq. km), and Melbourne Australia is a city that has the land area of 10,000 sq. km, 1/4 of the entire country of the Netherlands. I.e. 4 Melbournes = Netherlands in land area. It also has almost 1/4 of the population of the Netherlands - in one city. There are like 4.5 million people in Melbourne.

There are practicalities at play, as you're not going to have people using bike paths to get to work when they live 20 miles from work. People don't generally like getting to work sweating in their business attire.

It's one thing if you're heading a few blocks up the road in a tight city center. But, nobody is riding a third of the way across the Netherlands every day on a bike to get to work. The scales are different.

Yes, obviously, there is plenty of use to be had for bike paths, and building more of them can be a good thing. But the idea that big sprawling cities can just do what they do in Amsterdam does not account for the real differences in how people live.

It would be like putting bike paths in my town - which we have - plenty. People use them to go for a walk, jog or for biking for leisure. They don't ride them to work, because people work far from residential neighborhoods. I have 8 kilometers to go to the grocery store. I'm not going to ride a bike there and pedal my groceries home. I commute 35 km each way to work. I'm not riding a bike, no matter how awesome the bike path might be. And, I'm not going to move my family of 4 to within 5 km of my office, and cram them in an an apartment 1/3 the size of the my hosue, so that I can help us qualify as "more livable" by some continental European bureaucrat's desired standards.

[Scot Dutchy]

We dont have anything drive in. Supermarkets are downsizing and turning into grocery stores. There are still a couple of McDonalds along the motorway/highway/snelweg.

This is my local Appie:



Upstairs is a gym.

[Forty Two]

Fuck bicycles. Get a pick up truck like a real man.

One of the things visitors here are surprised at is the number of drive in (or drive through) things. Drive in banks, drive in liquor stores, drive in charity donation drop off, drive in pharmacy. Now some grocery stores are offering drive in grocery pickup, you order online and they bring it out and put it in your car. There are, in some areas of town, drive in blowjobs. Or so I've been told.

No more drive in movies, though, which is a shame.

We have a drive in movie theater a town or two over. I've not been there. LOL. If they'd show kids movies, I might take the rascals there. We took them to the movies the other day, and tickets plus movie treats was like $50. Ridiculous.

Anyway, yes, the overseas visitors we get are surpised by the size of the vehicles, and the efficiency/quality of the roads. We get places fast, and everyone has cars.

Another thing I get from furreners all the time is how much they enjoy how nice and open and friendly Americans are. I just had some Belgians around who said they could not believe how helpful and kind the people are they meet on a day to day basis. They get such bad news over there about the US, and here the people are always glad to meet them, they inquire if anything is needed, help translate with patience, and will even communicate with - gasp! - people they don't know. Customer service in stores and restaurants here in the States is, apparently, far better than in Europe. They are amazed at the level of trust and the giving and caring people. The were surpised they never saw anybody carrying a gun either.

[Scot Dutchy]

You think that is something to be proud of?

[pErvinalia]

We've had drive in facilities at supermarkets for a long time here (decades, I'd say). I've never used them, as, like home delivery services, you don't get to pick your fruit and veges. You get what they give you, and you can bet they will be more likely to give you the scabby stuff that no one in store would pick.

[Forty Two]

You think that is something to be proud of?

Having a drive in movie theater? Not "proud", but it's nice to have that relic of the past still around. It's a different way to see a movie.

Cars? Not "proud" but it allows us to live in nice, very clean, non-urban homes, with lots of room, and in a neighborhood conducive to letting kids go out and play in nature, and then still get to work and such in a reasonable time. So, it is effective for how we like to live, with a nice, roomy, large home, some space between our houses and neighbors, with lots of wildlife preserve land in the area (I have no houses behind me, just woodlands, and across the street I have a wetlands preserve. At night it's very dark, so you can see many stars, and very quiet, except for the sounds of the animals in the forest and wooded areas - frogs, birds/owls, and the like.

Also, the kindness of the people is definitely something to be proud of. The Belgians I was recently speaking with were saying that in Belgium people are rather rude to foreigners, especially if they have a hard time speaking the native languages there, whether French or Flemish. And, it would be rare for someone to open up conversation with a foreigner to welcome them or ask them how they are doing, or to offer any assistance. I've had Brits, Irishmen, Germans, Brazilians, Colombians, and French people, and as I noted Belgians, express the same sentiments (which they find the American culture and attitude of the people very welcoming and enjoyable). Yes, I am quite proud that literally every foreign person I've talked to has expressed very positive experiences with the American people. It corresponds well with how I think people should be treated, and how my experience tells me foreign people are treated here in the US. It does not correspond well with what you see on your Dutch news reports, apparently.

[laklak]

That's always been my objection to online grocery shopping, I want to squeeze the produce.

I looked online, 42, and the drive in is in Ruskin. That's about halfway between us, I believe.

http://www.ruskinfamilydrivein.com/movies/

[Scot Dutchy]

I never order fresh fruit and veg on line. The rest once a month. It is a great delivery service.

[Forty Two]

We've had drive in facilities at supermarkets for a long time here (decades, I'd say). I've never used them, as, like home delivery services, you don't get to pick your fruit and veges. You get what they give you, and you can bet they will be more likely to give you the scabby stuff that no one in store would pick.

Here in the US they would not give the delivery folks the scabby stuff on purpose, because store policies would have them issuing refunds plus added bonus money to make the customer happy. They'd prefer to throw the scabby stuff out, rather than incur the added cost of returns or pissing off a customer to cause them to go to the other supermarkets nearby.

DISCLAIMER - of course, some delivery mishaps will happen, just as there is sometimes some bad stuff now and again at a restaurant or supermarket. It's not a claim that Merkin supermarkets are superior to Ozzie supermarkets. Just noting that here the return policies at stores are almost absurd. One chain, Publix, will let you walk out of the store on a promise to pay later, if you forgot your money (I saw that with the person in front of me in line a while back), and one time I went back to the store because I had forgotten two bags of groceries at the check out line. I noticed when I had gotten home and we were sorting the groceries that some stuff was missing, and then I remembered that I had goofed and failed to pick up two bags that the bagger person had left on the side. I drove back to the store, and as it was some time later, the same check out person was not there, and the groceries were gone. Probably they were put in the cart of the next person in line. So, I went to the customer service, and I explained what happened, and they took down my name and number and said to go get whatever I wanted. White privilege, probably.

[Forty Two]

That's always been my objection to online grocery shopping, I want to squeeze the produce.

I looked online, 42, and the drive in is in Ruskin. That's about halfway between us, I believe.

http://www.ruskinfamilydrivein.com/movies/

Not familiar with that one. Mine is http://joylandrivein.com/ You know, there's one in Lakeland, too? What, are you in Sarasota or something? Did you used to be inland? For some reason I thought you in the central part among the rednecks.