We here at Amtrak are proud to offer you the most clean and scenic travel in the country on our 33 and growing routes and over 500 stations in the system. We hope you'll enjoy this blog!
We also host @zillowblr, @urbanism-and-transit and give out daily urban design explanations found below
mychemfan asked:
do you like mcr? we need a government agency that likes mcr
I don’t know much of their music, but what I have heard is good
imat711yallneedanything asked:
Hi I'm uneducated. What are ADUs?
Accessory Dwelling Units, basically it’s where part of a home/lot is converted into a second unit to be rented out
Fun Fact, legalizing ADUs and multi family housing on single family zoned lots will not led to you living in the Kowloon Walled city, densifying a city doesn't necessarily mean living like "sardines"
Like this is seriously a pet peave of mine, once I said that zoning reform is a good thing and someone came in and said they opposed it because they liked living in a less dense setting which is fine, but I am not saying it needs to be the East Village of New York with 40,000 people per sq.mi. I am saying that we should make it legal build this instead of a single family house.
Like tell me how your quality of life will in any way be harmed by a quadplex across the street instead of a single family house, that's right, it won't. Because every debate we have about the design of our urban spaces goes back to misconceptions, misunderstandings and classism. You don't want to have a less dense neighborhood because it affects you personally, you don't want density because you associate multifamily dwellings with the poor
I have heard this called the "missing middle."
That’s actually correct low rise apartment buildings, ADUs, Quadplexes, Duplexes, Rowhomes and other forms of multifamily and dense housing options are known in planning circles as the missing middle of housing density because of how they are a middle between Single Family Houses and High rise Apartments in terms of density, that middle ground is important as it keeps cities affordable, walkable and dense at a human scale
Anonymous asked:
Thought: If kids can't exist in your city without an adult, your city is Bad at being a city.
What do kids need for that? Public transport, pavement and bike lanes. Payphones (preferably free). Option to pay in cash everywhere. Maps and signs.
Kids need to be able to move independently. They shouldn't be chained to their parent's side until they are pretty much an adult. And a city needs to accomodate that.
It's easy to leave kids out because they don't have a seat at the table.
amtrak-official answered:
Genuinely this is incredibly true, children need independence in their lives and being forced to rely on their parents to get anywhere causes harm to them. A well designed city is also one a child can navigate, calmed slower streets with visible intersections help to prevent child death so much
Also one of the biggest signs to me of how we have taken streets away from people and given them to cars is how children can no longer play in the streets outside of quiet suburbs, if we had safe designs that prevented speeding in residential streets in cities, children would be able to play in the streets again
Anonymous asked:
Thought: If kids can't exist in your city without an adult, your city is Bad at being a city.
What do kids need for that? Public transport, pavement and bike lanes. Payphones (preferably free). Option to pay in cash everywhere. Maps and signs.
Kids need to be able to move independently. They shouldn't be chained to their parent's side until they are pretty much an adult. And a city needs to accomodate that.
It's easy to leave kids out because they don't have a seat at the table.
Genuinely this is incredibly true, children need independence in their lives and being forced to rely on their parents to get anywhere causes harm to them. A well designed city is also one a child can navigate, calmed slower streets with visible intersections help to prevent child death so much
Fun Fact, legalizing ADUs and multi family housing on single family zoned lots will not led to you living in the Kowloon Walled city, densifying a city doesn't necessarily mean living like "sardines"
Like this is seriously a pet peave of mine, once I said that zoning reform is a good thing and someone came in and said they opposed it because they liked living in a less dense setting which is fine, but I am not saying it needs to be the East Village of New York with 40,000 people per sq.mi. I am saying that we should make it legal build this instead of a single family house.
Like tell me how your quality of life will in any way be harmed by a quadplex across the street instead of a single family house, that's right, it won't. Because every debate we have about the design of our urban spaces goes back to misconceptions, misunderstandings and classism. You don't want to have a less dense neighborhood because it affects you personally, you don't want density because you associate multifamily dwellings with the poor
As Mayor of [midsized American City], I will Install Public Benches and Expand the Light Rail, and I will fund it by cutting the police budget
Chicago
Hmm, I could apply these policies to that beautiful city as well
Also I will legalize construction of ADUs, and begin aggressively selling and rezoning land alongside accelerating permiting for the construction of infill development in parking and empty lots near transit stations to encourage transit ridership
As Mayor of [midsized American City], I will Install Public Benches and Expand the Light Rail, and I will fund it by cutting the police budget
Chicago
Hmm, I could apply these policies to that beautiful city as well
Which blog deserves to move forward in this competition the most?
amtrak-official
google-translate-real
Excited to compete, now vote for public transit and good urban design
As Mayor of [midsized American City], I will Install Public Benches and Expand the Light Rail, and I will fund it by cutting the police budget
