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Don't they say Boston is the most European of American cities?
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Comments
"love"
I love this photo and the not-the-usual angle of looking at the city.
They say that
that's because the city is compact and walkable, with picturesque historic areas. However when conversation turns to public transportation, the comparison ends.
Or if you leave the North End
Or if you leave the North End, Beacon Hill or the South End.
East Boston, South Boston, Allston-Brighton, Fenway, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, Roslindale, West Roxbury and 95 percent of Charlestown are neither compact nor walkable. And try suggesting that they become more so and the NIMBYs try to run you down with their gas guzzlers.
At a European density of say, 70,000 people per square mile (roughly equivalent to Paris), you could fit all of Boston in less than 10 square miles. It'd take an hour and a half for a healthy adult to walk across. That's compact and walkable.
Fenway is small and walkable
and has lots to walk to: the MFA, the Gardner Museum, Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, MassArt, Northeastern University, Simmons College, etc. And that's not even mentioning the ballpark and the stuff around it.
JP, Southie, Eastie all have some lovely walks.
There's a difference between
There's a difference between "having nice walks" and being walkable. LA has nice walks -- but you have to drive to them. Walkability is all about walking being as easy a means of transportation as getting in your car and that there are actually places to walk to.
Fenway is compact, sure, but crossing Boylston St, Brookline Ave or Charlesgate is dangerous, to say nothing of Comm Ave when you get near Kenmore. If you live in the part bounded by Park Dr and Boylston St, I'm sure getting to Shaw's is an easy walk -- but from anywhere else you have to contend with cars.
Schools aside, being able to walk to the things you mentioned don't have much impact on walkability. If you work at the MFA, being able to walk there is great. Otherwise, you can't buy your groceries, do your laundry or go to work there.
Similarly, there is only one grocery store in all of East Boston (unless you count convenience stores, which I don't). JP is better, but it's not compact -- everything is spread along Centre St. JP is a streetcar suburb without a streetcar.
complete neighborhoods
This is exactly what I mean by complete neighborhoods. You can't walk very far in many European cities without encountering a supermarket or adequately sized food market and other amenities that make having a car unnecessary, even for families.
There needs to be some attention paid to creating complete neighborhoods - both in newly built areas (the Seaport sucks for this and it may bite them in the ass with all the luxury condos, MIT intentionally created one when it built the area around Albany St.) and in areas that lack specific amenities (Downtown will be much better with Roche Bros) but have the density to support them.
Here's some information on what makes a "complete neighborhood".
Micro neighborhoods?
Or the 'hoods within the neighborhoods are certainly walkable.
In many of the places you cite it's easy to walk to your local church, bakery or pub. No need to walk across the whole neighborhood.
People
People who complain about public transportation in Boston should try living in someplace like Austin.
And the people who complain
And the people who complain about cold and snow should try living in Nome, Alaska!
Just because it's worse somewhere else doesn't mean that the T doesn't suck balls.
correction
that is the Harvard bridge. stop spreading ignorance.