@bikepedantic also Northampton is an ultra-progressive university city. They have Smith College. (One of the 5 colleges in the area) Easthampton (next door) has a private highschool that costs $90k a yr.
Not to rain on your parade. I'm really excited too, it's just been a lot. There's a ton of other awesome in the pipeline for the Pioneer Valley. Holyoke should look like this in 5+ years too. The progress being made in Hadley is also impressive.
Now if we could just get Springfield on board.
@alexisdyslexic @bikepedantic I don't think even the big cities have caught on yet to how Paris or even Jersey City has shifted the conversation from being about a hypothetical cross-section on a few blocks "late next year maybe" to having a usable low-stress bikeway network throughout the city right now. Portland has certainly been too slow to build too little separation, every city is missing their #VisionZero goals by a decade or more at this rate.
@alexisdyslexic @bikepedantic I get that people need to see a built example of what it could be like, but what actually decides whether you have bike ridership or car congestion, is the A to B experience for all trips being easy and convenient by biking, walking, and transit, and not having free / cheap parking everywhere particularly at the expense of the exact locations where you could have a usable bike network. I don't see how we'll get there politically or otherwise except comprehensively.
@enobacon @alexisdyslexic @bikepedantic you forgot that it's also free for the first hour and has four EV charging bays. Honestly, the Thornes Garage is a big part of what makes Northampton as walkable as it is, but there's still way too much vehicular traffic on Main Street.
@enobacon @colby @bikepedantic there's like 6 giantic surface parking lots + the parking garage. Within a 5 block radius.
If they are driving around looking for parking it's because they are lazy bones.
Unfortunately Northampton has the most happening downtown for a county of 20+ rural towns so everyone drive in with their Ford 150's to go to dinner. The Hill towns their called.
@colby @alexisdyslexic @bikepedantic how much of that traffic is circling for parking?