Building Drinking-Safe Suburbs
7 Comments Published by Joel September 4th, 2007 in Beer, Booze. Share ThisPart of the reason I have some pity for people who get busted for drunk driving is that I understand why it happens. (Although it’s still not an excuse.) Most towns in America are designed around driving; it is literally impossible in most places to go get a drink without traveling.
(Yes, get a cab. I agree. But I can sympathize without condoning.)
One small community in Westminster, Colorado has been constructed with an eye toward mitigating the drinking-and-driving problem, both physically—there are bars within walking distance—and socially, by encouraging families to get together on porches and in parks to drink. Sounds pretty great.
Every home in Bradburn includes a large front porch—not just a token 2 foot concrete stoop. Garages are all in the back, and homes here also have very small setbacks (the distance between the house and the sidewalk, or front yard), meaning the porches sit right above the sidewalks. This means people sitting on their front porches easily see neighbors walking by, and they stop to talk, creating a community bond that is so elusive in most traditional suburban neighborhoods.
Won’t You Be My Drinking Buddy Neighbor? [Fermentarium via Boing Boing]
Taxis are a great solution… if you live in an area that has them. I live in an area that is made up of a lot of little towns of 1000 to 5000 people. Only the biggest “city” (11,000) has a taxi service and that consists of less than 10 cars.
289, I know your work from Deadspin, KSK, etc. Nice to see that you are a fellow reader here.
As to drinking and driving, I live in Houston, and honestly there are not enough cabs here to make it feasible to use them. They often take well over an hour, and have been known to not show up at all on occasion. Fortunately, I live within walking distance of my two favorite watering holes, so this does not come up much for me.
I used to be a soldier stationed in a suburb of Stuttgart. It was then in West Germany. There was a tavern right across the front gates of my barracks. You might think this was the work of an entrepreneur seeking to fleece some thirsty GI’s, but that wasn’t the case. Every neighborhood had at least one bar in walking distance of home.
And there was great public transportation. On Saturday nights, we would often travel across town on streetcars or trains or buses to discos and whatnot. After realizing that we weren’t going to get lucky that night, we would discover that the same streetcars, trains and buses were there to take us home, often very drunk.
The system worked. Everyone had choices for nightlife and a safe way to get there. Yeah, there was occasional spats in the neighborhood taverns, but that situation wasn’t common. People in the taverns all knew each other better than I know my neighbors here in the US. They often met on weeknights to drink, play cards, shoot pool or darts. There was very much a sense of community. I wish the zoning authorities here in the US would wise up…
Here in Atlanta we have just about the most useless public transportation system ever created, and taxis are too expensive for most people who live outside the perimeter when all the fun bars are inside. Not to mention the hassle of having to get back to wherever you were to pick up your car sometime the next day.
The only worthwhile service I’ve seen that isn’t super-crazy expensive is this service that for $60 picks you up, and brings someone along to drive your car back to your place. A friend of mine used it, and they picked her and her brother up in a Hummer, while some poor soul puttered along behind them in her junky little Geo. Not a bad deal, and I think the rate varies depending how far they have to drive.
After living in New York for the past couple years where the transit system is (despite the constant complaints) pretty awesome and there are always plenty of cabs to get your drunk ass home if you can’t be bothered to wait for a train…. I fear the (probably inevitable) move to somewhere where that’s just not possible.
“Hey kids look! It’s drunken Joel the live blogger passed out in a pool of his own vomit sleeping the night off on our porch again. That silly Joel!”
“Dad, what was he doing with that Sony Rolly?”
“Never you mind young my young one. I’m sure it just fell out of his pocket and he landed funny.”
I’m on board to that I do not condone drunken driving but I do wish there were better alternatives. I work in a great lounge with a small parking lot. A lot of the customers ask if they can leave their cars in the lot overnight and call a taxi. Problem is at 1:30 – 2:00 AM it takes 15 to 20 rings for any of the seveeral cabs to answer their telephones and another half hour to an hour for them to show up (7 miles cross town with no traffic.) Sometimes people try to be responsible but just can’t quite make it because their is no dependable alternative.