Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife
You definitely drive less when you live downtown, mostly because if where you are going is also downtown, it is annoying to drive around trying to find parking in a downtown that is so easy to walk in.
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There's more to it than that. Our side of the river is comprised of neighborhoods packed closer together simply because there's less land over here, so it's really nothing to walk from one neighborhood to another whereas my friends in SE drive from neighborhood to neighborhood. Going to watch the soapbox derby at Mt Tabor this summer? Odds are, you're driving there. Want to grab a drink at the Horse Brass afterwards? Again, you're driving. On the other hand, if they're doing Shakespeare in the park at Washington Park... that's an easy walk from downtown. And then, a drink at the Rogue isn't too far even though you have to walk through Goose Hollow, NW and The Pearl to get there.
Pull up a map and look at the sheer size of SE. It's more than double (probably triple) the size of all four of the neighborhoods on the west side the river combined: Downtown, The Pearl, NW and Goose Hollow. Compare the distance just based on the number of city blocks... NW 23rd is obviously 23 blocks from the river, most of them small. Mt. Tabor is SIXTY blocks from the river, and they're much larger blocks. And then look at how far south of Burnside SE stretches. That's a lot of land.
Also, we drive less downtown because we have more mass transit (ok, it's mostly the light rail that we really use around here). The streetcar takes us through downtown, the Pearl and NW, and AX goes right through Goose Hollow - soon into The Pearl and even more of downtown too.
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