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I'm basically telling you I did this and you are still saying it's impractical.
Sure, by "impractical" I don't mean "impossible."
So for example, it's not impossible for a mother of 4 small children to bike a couple miles to a supermarket with her children on a cold rainy day; go shopping; and bike back with the groceries and the children. But it's pretty clearly impractical.
Here's what I had said before:
I'm certainly not claiming that it's impossible to live in the suburbs without a car.
I've lived without a car twice and each time I had to account for weather, but honestly you might not appreciate how mild Redmond is. It "rains" almost every day but it's rarely stronger than a drizzle and doesn't go on that long. There were only a couple times a year that I thought it wasn't safe to take kids out, and those times were due to smoke.
In college I would do most grocery shopping at a Target that was reachable by a bus, but once a Wegmans was open I walked there despite it being what Google says is a 50 minute walk. I would regularly jog down there anyways just for fresh air. It wasn't an imposition to stop at Wegmans, fill up a reusable bag and then walk back. It didn't strike me as impractical or difficult.
My point is that someone designed a neighborhood (Redmond Ridge) in such a way that, despite having a car, I elected to walk 90% of the time. And this is a nice balance between surburb and city and more neighborhood planners should try to emulate this design.
I am not someone who does well in "real" cities. I find them exhausting.
It doesn't necessarily follow that it's practical to go completely without a car.
It seems like instead of contradicting my position, you are claiming that for some people in this suburb, it's possible to get by without a car most of the time. Which is something I don't dispute. Simply put, I am getting the impression that you are arguing past me.
Do you dispute my position? In other words, are you claiming that, in fact, it's practical for a typical suburbanite to live in Redmond Washington without a car?
No, most people would need to own a car or have a friend with a car or at some point use an uber. I don't dispute that. Though I think the same would be true of any city as well, and delivery options/remote work has flattened the difference considerably.
My entire point was and is "I think this neighborhood is one of the ideal examples of urban planning and wish there were more neighborhoods like it."
Thank you.
I would have to disagree with this. If you live in Manhattan, it's not necessary to own a car and a lot of the time it's cheaper and easier to go without a car. To be sure, once in a while you may need to use a taxi or a ride-share service but that would be very unusual and when you do need such services they generally arrive very quickly.
By contrast, in the suburbs, if you tried to substitute taxi services for owning a car, you would pay such a heavy price in terms of money; time spent waiting for your ride; etc. that as a practical matter you may as well just get a car.
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