To think cars and wheelie bins are big factors in why a lot of areas look terrible?

So all the families and households in the uk who live without cars are utter fools?

Availability is the same online or in person

Yep, but they’re not always convenient in terms of availability.

Not round here you can’t 😬 unless you’re super fit and can cycle up a hill in a NSL zone with no pavements or lights - in which case, go right ahead 🤣

Every single person on this planet does something that’s inconvenient for others 🤷‍♀️

For me, my car is cheap, convenient and a hell of a lot quicker than trying to use public transport. As I said upthread, I can get to my parents in 40 minutes by car - it’s four hours on public transport and costs about ten times as much. A taxi is a similar price as it’s well out of the company’s area.

Only a complete and utter fool would pick public transport over a car. And that’s hardly a rare scenario - especially if you’re transporting a family or multiple people, plus baggage etc.

supermarket deliveries go right to your doorstep

You can cycle without soaking in sweat, and the more that cycle the safer it will be hir everyone

The suburbs where the majority of people live would still be full of cars, vans and bins even if there town was a fifteen minute one.

Supermarkets that deliver

that's why you make your house and back garden a pretty oasis of calm from the chaos out front

Not convenient for the people they inconvenience

I live in an area with houses with drives, so cars are less of a problem - it's a mixture of on-street and off-street and not too busy. But I completely agree about bins. I was thinking of getting some sort of 'bin house' and topping it with a flowerbed. But it's just one more thing to do in a busy life, so it hasn't been done.

Only if you have shops within 3/4 of a mile of home. Lots of people don't anymore now that the vast majority of small/corner shops have closed down due to supermarkets etc.

Totally agree with you OP. I think the idea of a '15 minute town' was excellent - but of course it was 'woke' for some reason. Although the same people complaining about that are the same ones who whine 'Why can't we go back to thaaaat?' every time someone posts a 1950s photo on the Facebook town group...

It’s not nonsense - cycling as a means of regular transport to/from school, work and shops is hugely impractical for the vast majority. It’s unsafe, you arrive sweaty and soaking, you can’t transport much with you and it’s generally slow and inconvenient.

Around here, for example, there are no cycle paths. Most streets aren’t well lit and it’s impossible to pass cyclist safely or even at all. It just causes chaos and is frankly unsafe as cyclists aren’t visible and don’t have a safe route to travel on.

Where are all these utopias where every house has a drive away or access to a garage?

Yes, of course. This is why lots of people move out to the countryside or to a larger house as soon as they can.
Hell is other people (and their stuff).

People should walk more, use public transport or local taxis. If you insist on having multiple cars live in a property with a double garage and/or hire a local garage nearby.

We have 1 car but bought a 5-bed house with an extra driveway to the side. Second driveway is well designed but only fits a narrow car! Garage is too narrow to fit a modern car, it was built 40 years ago. We're planning to convert garage into a playroom at some point as it's mostly storage now.

I think life has changed so much since the 80s, eg adult children tend to live at home longer. Our neighbour has 3 adult children at home, so 5 cars (2 parked on road). It other bothers me if they have guests/boyfriends staying, as they often park opposite our driveway and block us from getting out! But neighbours are lovely and always tell their visitors to move the cars as soon as they notice.

Neighbours across the road are elderly with 2 adult children at home plus 1 who visits and leaves her car parked on street with their 3 other cars to do school run. It is unsightly but better than many areas.

We're walking distance from train station and shops, but most people can't get to work via train nowadays, unless they take daily taxis the other end, or can manage to connect journey with buses or walking. I used to walk to train station, take train 35mins then walk 30mins to work. It was exhausting! And creepy in dark as the route I walked was a short cut through a park.
I managed it for a year when first child was in nursery, but gave up once had second child.

What absolute nonsense. This is the sort of comment I expect to read on the Daily Mail website.

Also new builds builders don’t measure the size of cars. Even my parents’ place built in 2003, they can park their VW Golf in the garage but unable to open the door to get out of the car. That’s with nothing on the sides.

Imagine if we had sensible urban planing, adequate shops near to residential areas, sufficient public transportation. The country would look a lot different. I was on the radio talking about the area I grew up in and there was a lot about how reliant we are on cars and how that ended up happening. Take a listen if you're interested: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00291pq

Exactly.

Cycling isn't a real mode of transport, It's a hobby.

At best it can take a person (slowly) a short distance, that's it. It isn't safe, convenient or practical. And the UK climate means that for the majority of the year it's just a stupid waste of everyone's time. Not to mention the entitlement of someone who thinks it's fine to dawdle along, holding up all the traffic, just because they want to play their hobby on a public road.

We live on a new build estate and thankfully on our street most houses have large drives. We do have neighbours who have a double garage and space for four cars on their drive but there are four cars (they have three adult children living there) and as they run a business from home there are also two transit sized work vans and a trailer. That’s before their daughters’ boyfriends stay over and need to park somewhere too.

We are retired (well DH still works a bit but at home) and still, have two cars. Both over 10 years old. We don’t really need two cars and will go down to one at some point but for now we’re keeping them. I know people who have regretted going down to one car after retirement. We did manage with one for about fifteen years when we were working.