• maegul (he/they)
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    7 months ago

    Yea, I’d personally completely missed the PT usage and avoiding sick people interaction even though I’m guilty of it myself (but I don’t have a car so I walk).

    And it’s fair, the amount of people that haven’t learnt the if you're coughing, cover your mouth at a bare minimum, wear a mask to be mediocre and stay away from closed spaces to be decent lesson … like at all … is just shit. Come a cold winter, and PT becomes germ-chamber, let’s be real.

    Thus my sibling comment … the solution to excessive car use and congestion probably isn’t simply “build more PT everywhere” (while PT is obviously essential) … it’s more localisation. Higher density residential areas, living closer to where you work, being able to move closer to where you work, having amenities close by … basically “cancelling” the thing that Melbourne/Aus-cities/Modern-post-car-cities are based on … the 'burbs. Which given culture and house prices isn’t gonna happen any time soon. Not to mention that Melbourne’s (and prob Australia’s) urban planning culture and expertise is likely rubbish.

    In the mean time though, I’d imagine that planning for more regionalisation could go quite far. Establishing distributed centers of business and employment and higher density living across the city’s 'burbs. Again, urban planning needs to be up to the challenge (mere shoe-box apartments in lightless high rises won’t do the trick). But here we are.