• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Back in the day people would go for a drive and stop at random shops…

    I’m older now, but traffic and road rage is way crazier these days. I don’t know how people find driving enjoyable.

    Lots of people like riding bikes tho, and they’ve got even more reason to stop for shopping, food, or drinks.

    What works better than bike lanes tho is bike trails. Lots of cities are converting old rail road tracks into biking/walking trails, and business is booming up and down those trails.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      I’m not personally a fan of rail trails. Most of the rail trails I’ve seen kind of start nowhere and go nowhere, and they’d be much better off being part of a larger transit infrastructure (like a bus-only route or tram/light-rail route) than as just this weird long park thing that crosses multiple stroads.

      But as for driving, yeah, it sucks. There’s pretty decent research to show that car dependency is awful for small businesses, because if you have to drive to the store, you’re usually just going to pick the one-stop big box mart instead of stopping at four or five mom and pop shops.