The social and environmental impacts of driving cars in cities worldwide are well-documented, as gasoline-powered vehicles release harmful gases into the air and cause respiratory health risks in our communities.
However, as one Redditor recently highlighted, overreliance on cars in U.S. cities is also leading to significant safety issues because our streets simply do not have enough space for them.
The Redditor shared a video to r/ABoringDystopia depicting a disturbing scene in East Long Beach, California.
In the video, a man shows viewers how the parking situation in East Long Beach has gone from bad to worse. He says when he lived in the neighborhood 10 years ago, finding a parking spot took less than 20 minutes.
However, parking has become so bad in the past few years that people just give up and double- and triple-park overnight. The video shows cars unsafely taking up driving space and blocking vehicles in all directions.
"Only going to get worse from here," the original poster wrote in the caption.
Because the fine for double parking overnight is only $70, as the OP explained, many people do it anyway and risk getting a ticket, disregarding fire hydrants, sidewalks, and anyone but themselves.
"What's interesting is there is actually a train station just a one-minute walk away," the OP said in the video. "But people would rather use a car than the city public transportation system."
In addition to cutting down on polluting traffic, giving people access to public transportation options — something most Americans are on board with — can make our cities healthier.
Riding a bike instead of driving or walking when possible, for example, is a great source of physical exercise, but it poses challenges in cities inherently designed for cars rather than cyclists or pedestrians. While many U.S. cities have a long way to go to become friendlier to walkers and bikers, fortunately, a variety of federal and local infrastructure investments are aiming to help address this issue in American cities.
Meanwhile, Redditors were quick to criticize Long Beach's public transportation system. One person highlighted how the routes didn't go where people needed to be viable.
"That's insane," another Redditor wrote in the comments. "Maybe if they invested in mass transit so that people actually want to use it."
One Redditor commented: "Work is 25 miles away through two freeways. You want them to bike that distance every day?"
"I got so many parking tickets that I eventually just had to move out of LBC," a Redditor shared. "I simply could not afford to live there because parking was impossible."
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