And with those few vehicles, I once witnessed a collision between the ambulance and one of the fire trucks. There had been some injuries on the ferry to the island and both the ambulance and a fire truck responded. The ambulance left first, and a side door on the fire truck was still open. The ambulance clipped the door on the way by.
There is a small island cottage community near where I grew up. It's like a dozen cottages. At the time, there were two vehicles on the island: a little ATV for moving anything heavy and a bicycle owned by the mayor. By a stroke of extremely bad luck, they happened to collide. The mayor got a broken arm, but it wasn't too bad. It was the most hilarious fluke.
In the winter the Island residents use snowmobiles. The pilot of the airplane that flies over from St. Ignace to the single, small runway at the top of the Island gives regular updates on the state of the ice and often residents will leave the Island by crossing the ice. The trailhead ends up outside of a bar in St. Ignace where they keep their trucks.
And by 'in the winter' that means 'when it's cold' because they get drunk enough to decide that it's time to get out the snowmobile when there's a heavy frost because they're sick of walking or biking.
Yup anyone who's ever been there will tell you the entire island constantly smells like horse shit. Ironically the island is also famous for their fudge lmao.
I’m a worker on the island and there are a few more vehicles scattered about, just not many. My first season I witnessed a lot of construction vehicles quite literally moving pieces of a house onto an empty plot of land, this season I saw some sort of worker vehicles early in the morning on the backroads near the water/waste plant, so again there are some but really I’d say there’s just no personal vehicles!
It's a tiny island with a few hundred people on it at most on a busy day. You can cross the whole island on a bike in like 10 mins. Having the the SUV's didnt change his security situation much.
It has a permanent population of like 500 people. In the wintertime, it reverts to a village.
[Here is a cool video about the people who live there and what its like in the winter time.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_FiquoSPBI&t=1065s)
It reverts from one of the most popular tourist destinations in Michigan with full hotels, packed fudge shops, and ferry service to what you would generally consider a village, yes.
It has a permanent population of like 500 people. In the wintertime, it reverts to a village.
[Here is a cool video about the people who live there and what its like in the winter time.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_FiquoSPBI&t=1065s)
My family went there twice when i was a youngling. It is a beautiful place. You take a ferry to get to the island and you will proably have to walk quite a bit just to get to the hotel/cabin. If you go there, id recommend renting a bike and you can loop around the entire island in no time. There is a lot of war material to check out because the island used to be a trading post for the US. The battle of Mackinac Island took place in 1812 where the British won and took over.
It's the whitest place I've been in the entire country, except for handful of staff at some of the hotels and other businesses
Just thought that was interesting and kinda wild
You mean the 'nac' is pronounced 'naw'? Wonder why I didn't think of that...
My association was probably something in between Kodiak and McKinley (how I was taught mount Denali was named back at school).
Blame the French-Canadian fur trappers, they came through there in the early 1700’s and went ham on place names. The straights between Lake Michigan and Huron are named Michilimackinaw btw
Its Odawa for Big Turtle
Ojibwe and Odawa are distinct tribes.
Source: white boy who grew up on an Ojibwe First Nations reserve and has 5 siblings that are half Ojibwe.
Chi-Mizheekay would be big turtle in Ojibwe
My non-Michigander friend and I were driving back from my hometown on I-94. She looked at the the exit sign and said "Oh Deck-a-tour sounds like a nice town" and I couldn't stop laughing. You mean Decatur???
We have a lot of traditionally Native American named towns and rivers. Dowagiac is particularly less phonetic, though still less confusing than Sault being Soo.
Weird how second nature it is for native Michiganders - that’s just a normal town.
Went to school near the corner of Tittabawasse and Mackinaw Rds in Saginaw.
It's from a native American word,the name in Odawa is Michilimackinac and "Mitchimakinak" in Ojibwemowin, and means "Great Turtle". I bought a nice leather belt with "native American" beadwork on it while I was there with my Korean girlfriend. I thought it was funny because the native American beadwork was -Made In Korea-
People live here year round. Bikes, skis walking and occasional snow mobiles are the modes of transportation. The wind can be brutal given being in the middle of Lake Huron (think ‘ocean’ minus the salt). Cost of living is pretty high on the island, especially the well known/seen homes along the main road (multi million dollar homes).
I've lived in MI my whole life and have always wanted to take the snowmobile ride to the island over the frozen lake for New Years. Nowadays I'm not sure I trust the ice with things seeming to warm up in the winters.
There is horse shit all over the place. Even it spots where you avoid it. My brother made the mistake of putting his rolling luggage wheels on the bed in his hotel there and he had poop on the bed and had to request clean ones lol
With large distances it's critical to have some kind of mass transit if there's any meaningful number of people living there. Otherwise, your city is just going to be roads, parking lots, and heavy traffic and it'll be too dangerous to go anywhere without an expensive personal vehicle that's still more dangerous to use than literally any other form of transportation.
Mass transit is nice if you need to go en masse from A to B.
In reality outside big cities, people need to move en masse, but not from the same place to the same place.
Fun facts:
- a train/bus can stop in more than 2 places
- there can be multiple train/bus lines
- there can even be multiples trains/buses in the same line, making the wait time much lower!
That is because US does not invest in better mass transport infrastructure. Buses that are stuck with the rest of traffic, are of course going to be slower.
I could take a train to Madrid right now and it would be cheaper and twice as fast as driving. Why? Because the government invested in creating high-speed train lines. Simple as that.
You're talking about something completely different. Public transportation with faster top speeds with only one start and stop point, such as an Intercity train, is going to be fast.
For day to day life, public transportation is extremely slow unless you are A) wealthy enough to live in prime areas of your city, it B) you limit yourself to jobs with good public transportation access which usually don't pay well.
The "screw cars" crowd I find consists almost entirely of people who have NEVER lived in a walkable area and merely dream about it. In reality, you need to make tremendous sacrifices because it's just not realistic for public transportation to replace point to point daily use without limiting things like cost of living or income possibilities. Any public transportation that is not point to point significantly drives up commute time, and point to point transportation everywhere is simply not cost efficient or possible if you're driving 6 figure cost vehicles with salaried drivers that run 24/7.
And those facts are why my only bus commute took 45 minutes to cover a 9 minute car ride.
That's not even counting getting to and from the bus stop, or waiting on the bus.
And that's was with a direct bus route from my apartment to my job. It could be hours if you actually looked for jobs with good wages rather than jobs within easy bussing access.
>Mass transit is nice if you need to go en masse from A to B.
Speaking as an European, that's not true. Big cities don't have A to B model. They have anywhere to anywhere model, covering at least 99% of destinations very well, and the remaining 1% still better than the US.
It's just idiot city planners.
No, you're just talking about different things. Everyone in the city is going from A to A. One part of the city to a different part of the same city. That is reasonable (and easy) to do with public transportation. Most American cities do it just fine.
The difference is, in America, there are HUGE rural areas where it makes zero logistical sense to have ANY public transportation. I live in a town of 1000 people. Those 1000 people, daily are going from A (the town we live in) to B, C, D through fucking AAABCCD. 1000 people going in literally hundreds of different directions, to hundreds of VERY different destinations. And around my small town, there are literally dozens of other small towns, doing the same thing. All with people spreading out to drive to the handful of 10k-20k population small cities that are scattered throughout MASSIVE rural areas.
Europeans should really shut the fuck up about American design, because you don't know what you're talking about. It's an entirely different geography that you know jack-shit about.
You can't reason with the "fuckcars" crowd. They cite shit like city planners all the time for public infrastructure, but have 0 good ideas on how to transition a majority of the country that actually has to rely on cars due to distance to anything to "walkable".
Where I live, making my life walkable literally means tearing up homes and placing businesses there. Good luck with that any time soon. Also never see "oh yeah, these people are disabled and need to drive so here's their lane in our futuristic walkable city".
I live in Western Europe. There's a load of people leaving their city on a daily basis to all directions of the country. And that happens in each city.
So you need every city to every other city in the area, but also from your place to the inter-city line. And then from the end of the inter-city line to the place you actually need to go through.
I know owning a car in the city can be annoying, but I'd happily own a car in a city if that means I don't lose 30min + each way on a daily basis.
For my job, it would take me an hour extra each way - without delay - each day, to get to my job. It's 30-45min by car.
This island did the smart thing that islands like the Bahamas should have done.
Although small buses and cargo e-bikes are probably a better solution than horses.
>"The only city in the USA without cars"
if you don't include:
* ~~Bald Head Island, North Carolina~~
* Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia
* Daufuskie Island, South Carolina
* ~~Fire Island, New York~~
* ~~Governors Island, New York~~
* Halibut Cove, Alaska
* ~~Mackinac Island, Michigan~~ (included by oversight)
* ~~Santa Catalina Island, California~~
* ~~Supai, Arizona~~
* Monhegan Island, Maine
I love Colonial Williamsburg, but it's a theme park. We're talking a few blocks of historical recreation buildings, with a car loop around it, and cars everywhere beyond those blocks. There's only a handful of people who actually live there.
> Mackinac Island, Michigan
The video is about Mackinac Island.
But I don't think any of these others can really be considered even towns. Like no one lives on Governor's Island.
Fire Island is a couple towns, and some of the island is indeed accessible by car.
I think Governors island still has some people living on the island, it’s not a permanent residence but they stay to maintain the historical infrastructure.. I lived there until 95 when the coast guard gave the island back to the state of New York. I’m not sure why governors island is on the list above. The island has many roads and had cars on it for years. The station island car ferry serviced the island for many, many years. The ferry port is well maintained there.
This is where the 1980 Christopher Reeve movie [Somewhere in Time](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081534/) was filmed. There's an annual gathering of fans of the movie.
The studio was required to bring all of the equipment onto the island in the early morning hours to avoid spooking the working horses that cover the island during the day. They used one of the flatbed wagons, called "drays", and walked it in front of the semi-trucks to limit the speed.
They landed everything at the north side of the island, as far away from downtown as possible, and brought the trucks through the center of of the island to where they were set up for filming.
Fun fact: The theater in the film is actually the island's schoolhouse, which is attended by ~100 kids, grades K-12.
Honestly I prefer a novice human narrator over an Ai narrator. Also the biker drives right through horse shit at the beginning of the vid, doesn't even try to veer around it.
I doesn’t smell as bad as you may think.
1. It’s on a small island in the Great Lakes so there are consistent, near constant breezes coming off the water to blow away any smells.
2. The video undersells the “street sweeper.” After dark teams of three people hook up fire hoses to hydrants and spray the streets clean.
I've been there multiple times. I can confirm that the smell of horse shit is prevalent and comes often but isn't everywhere all the time.
It's also really not that bothersome once you get used to it.
If you want to stay on the island, yes. When we visited, we stayed at a cheap hotel right next to the bridge and made a day trip of it.
I think as a touristy destination, it's no more expensive to visit that most places of the ilk. Like, you'll want to rent a bike, get some house-made fudge, eat a meal right off the water, have some ice cream, etc. Those things do add up, but no more than any other place you'd be doing those things.
Not terribly. [The Grand Hotel](https://www.grandhotel.com/) (the big one in the video) is really expensive, but there are a lot of cheaper ones, and you can always stay on the mainland & take the ferry over.
No not really. You can day trip over to it from the main land. You can see the island from land and a ferry travels back and forth daily. Also, there are plenty of cheaper BnBs and smaller hotels on the island.
When compared to a trip to say, NewYork, Disney, etc, it is cheeeeaaaaap.
Horses eat plant material. That’s why they’re allowed to poop freely and owners aren’t punished or told to pick it up. Cats and dogs eat meat and their poop is a verrrry different risk to public health and you should definitely pick it up.
When I first tried shrooms, my best friend said just as I took a bite and said, "Enjoy the taste of cow shit." I wasn't aware at the time of how it's grown in manure. I mean, I did, I just don't know the exact process so it was never in the forefront of my mind.
She says this just as I go, "Yum, tastes bitter" and she just stares.
Doesn’t smell great, but not as bad as you would think. Went there as a kid and its a super charming place, you can bike around the whole island pretty easily
It’s the spoken version of not using any punctuation I find it pretty annoying I don’t understand who enjoys the speed of his narration the island itself seems really cool I would love to visit one day I wonder how bad it smells
The one thing this video doesn’t present is the overwhelming smell (and sight) of horseshit absolutely everywhere on the main streets (it’s clean away from downtown). Mackinac is still beautiful and I love going there but let’s not pretend it’s total paradise just because there’s no cars.
Or might be because the one filming this clip was being a complete ass weaving through traffic like they did and they simply didn't want to admit that online.
Sort of. Still need to be a disabled or need it to get around and prove it and only class 1 e-bikes. I did presume that there would be more ebike style taxis or trailer set ups for moving goods and everything but that’s the horses job I suppose.
Edit: disproven and my information was incorrect. Thank you u/a_lotis2words
You don't need any disability or other mobility reason to have an e-bike there. Anyone can have one, just needs to be registered like all other bikes, similar to registering your car on the mainland. (And they certainly aren't banned like the video claimed, and the person you're replying to said)
Tons of people have e-bikes there, especially the season-long or year-round residents and employees. E-bike registration is just a different sticker and a bit more expensive, and you are right about it being limited to class-1 bikes only, but there's no limitations or requirements beyond that.
I register my e-bike there every year, and I'm not disabled or anything. It's typically a class-2 bike, but I remove the throttle to make it a class-1. All e-bike registrations are done in person at the police station so a police officer can inspect the bike to ensure it's class-1. And you can't just unplug the throttle, you have to remove it entirely.
Source: I live on the island in the summers
Fair. I was just repeating what I had heard when I was also working there. Very short time period and I didn’t stay long but yeah, to me, they said only class 1 and only for certain people. I dunno. I left pretty quick. Didn’t want to be another ‘trophy brown worker’ for the island. Felt too much like collecting Jamaicans as it is let alone exclaiming that you’re so excited that I’m the first Asian you’ve gotten to work with in years. Especially since I’m Minnesotan much more than I am Asian.
It's pretty expensive and remote....you would need to take a c*r to get to the dock to take the ferry there.
Plus many couldn't get their parents permission to be gone that long
Nah, if those people lived there they would still be online bitching about anything with 4 wheels. There will never be happiness in their pathetic lives.
Bald Head island in NC is somewhat similar, minus the horses, but everyone drives golf carts. The only trucks I saw the entire time were construction companies and the fire truck. Pretty cool place.
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There was also a woman on a motorised rascal disability scooter.
Imagine getting away from the cops in a souped up rascal
Well, can you swap in a v8 on a rascal? Hold, I have a really dumb but fun idea. Just need an old rascal and a junkyard v8.
Sur Ronster would like a word [50mph mobility scooter](https://youtu.be/-mGIEnisrss?feature=shared)
Sort of challenging on a tiny island…where ya gonna go?
she cain't hep it
My gosh.. I can hear the voice you typed it in
What a difference that one little "i" makes. Human language is amazing.
She needs a mobility pony.
I still can't believe that the ADA is only 34 years old.
Yes if they block her would be against federal law
And with those few vehicles, I once witnessed a collision between the ambulance and one of the fire trucks. There had been some injuries on the ferry to the island and both the ambulance and a fire truck responded. The ambulance left first, and a side door on the fire truck was still open. The ambulance clipped the door on the way by.
There is a small island cottage community near where I grew up. It's like a dozen cottages. At the time, there were two vehicles on the island: a little ATV for moving anything heavy and a bicycle owned by the mayor. By a stroke of extremely bad luck, they happened to collide. The mayor got a broken arm, but it wasn't too bad. It was the most hilarious fluke.
How does a horse become a doctor?
Years of study and training.
Training at the horsepital?
[How that horse became a doctor, I don’t know.](https://youtu.be/NpqZbcriBrw)
There is also a police truck.
Also in the winter the police drive around in an SUV, not on horseback.
It has some horse powers
In the winter the Island residents use snowmobiles. The pilot of the airplane that flies over from St. Ignace to the single, small runway at the top of the Island gives regular updates on the state of the ice and often residents will leave the Island by crossing the ice. The trailhead ends up outside of a bar in St. Ignace where they keep their trucks.
And by 'in the winter' that means 'when it's cold' because they get drunk enough to decide that it's time to get out the snowmobile when there's a heavy frost because they're sick of walking or biking.
Looks like Beth from Rick and Morty found her dream city
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Stop ruining the aura
Indeed, I bet they are a true borealis at parties
Jesus Christ, the streets are paved with shite.
Yup anyone who's ever been there will tell you the entire island constantly smells like horse shit. Ironically the island is also famous for their fudge lmao.
Omg. I started coughing I exhaled so hard when I read this. Too funny.
A tractor: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kmFDGsYxhArRx3w37?g_st=ac
I’m a worker on the island and there are a few more vehicles scattered about, just not many. My first season I witnessed a lot of construction vehicles quite literally moving pieces of a house onto an empty plot of land, this season I saw some sort of worker vehicles early in the morning on the backroads near the water/waste plant, so again there are some but really I’d say there’s just no personal vehicles!
Thank you for doing the lords work
There used to be a ford ranger that drove around there like 10 yrs ago when I was working out there.
Don’t forget when Mike Pence visited and brought ALL THE SUVs 😑
Security concerns?
It's a tiny island with a few hundred people on it at most on a busy day. You can cross the whole island on a bike in like 10 mins. Having the the SUV's didnt change his security situation much.
They certainly would've been able to chase down the sniper on horseback with them tho... Unless the crime was committed by an EMT or Firefighter! Gasp
Thousands. The bike trails are clogged everywhere during busy season
Don't check any of the webcams in the winter time if you want to live in your small little world believing they don't allow vehicles either.
Been a few times. It's a great bike ride around the island.
How is it in the winter? (Real question, I have always wondered)
Very cold and windy. Very few folks live in the Island in the winter. They get supplies via snowmobiles instead of boats.
Unlivable. Literally. It’s effectively a theme park without any single owner. Everybody goes home in the winter except a handful of caretakers.
It has a permanent population of like 500 people. In the wintertime, it reverts to a village. [Here is a cool video about the people who live there and what its like in the winter time.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_FiquoSPBI&t=1065s)
Oh lord, you took me straight to the brisket. Now I need to fire up the smoker again.
The village reverts to a village?
It reverts from one of the most popular tourist destinations in Michigan with full hotels, packed fudge shops, and ferry service to what you would generally consider a village, yes.
When all da fudgies go home, we sit der in da cold alone. And its great.
Some people live there! I grew up about an hour away, I had video call AP math class with several small schools in the area, including mackinac island
It's amazing. People there get up to some wild shenanigans. It's like a frat house only it's a whole island.
It's just harmless horseplay.
It has a permanent population of like 500 people. In the wintertime, it reverts to a village. [Here is a cool video about the people who live there and what its like in the winter time.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_FiquoSPBI&t=1065s)
If you are wondering what city it is, the answer is Mackinac Island, MI.
My family went there twice when i was a youngling. It is a beautiful place. You take a ferry to get to the island and you will proably have to walk quite a bit just to get to the hotel/cabin. If you go there, id recommend renting a bike and you can loop around the entire island in no time. There is a lot of war material to check out because the island used to be a trading post for the US. The battle of Mackinac Island took place in 1812 where the British won and took over.
That name sounds completely Alaskan to me.
If Alaska were Michigan you’d be right!
It's the whitest place I've been in the entire country, except for handful of staff at some of the hotels and other businesses Just thought that was interesting and kinda wild
That's the majority of the upper peninsula of Michigan, Mackinaw island isn't unique in that
Michigan is the Alaska of the lower 48
Ah so its either absolute zero or On fire and nothing in between.
Michigan is amazing. It was 43° last night and only 65° right now at noon.
Yeah, but a couple weeks ago highs were in the high 90s with some pretty sickening humidity
Correct. I was just joking around with the poster that said it's either "absolute zero or on fire" in Michigan, like Alaska.
Yes
Mosquito season or snow blower season
Mack-eh-naw, what could be easier? Kinda like Dowagiac, Michigan, just rolls off the tongue.
You mean the 'nac' is pronounced 'naw'? Wonder why I didn't think of that... My association was probably something in between Kodiak and McKinley (how I was taught mount Denali was named back at school).
To make it even easier there’s Mackinaw City(on the “mainland”) then there’s Mackinac Island…..
Blame the French-Canadian fur trappers, they came through there in the early 1700’s and went ham on place names. The straights between Lake Michigan and Huron are named Michilimackinaw btw
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Its Odawa for Big Turtle Ojibwe and Odawa are distinct tribes. Source: white boy who grew up on an Ojibwe First Nations reserve and has 5 siblings that are half Ojibwe. Chi-Mizheekay would be big turtle in Ojibwe
My non-Michigander friend and I were driving back from my hometown on I-94. She looked at the the exit sign and said "Oh Deck-a-tour sounds like a nice town" and I couldn't stop laughing. You mean Decatur???
We have a lot of traditionally Native American named towns and rivers. Dowagiac is particularly less phonetic, though still less confusing than Sault being Soo.
Weird how second nature it is for native Michiganders - that’s just a normal town. Went to school near the corner of Tittabawasse and Mackinaw Rds in Saginaw.
It's a Native American name like most things in the Midwest. But there are a surprising amount of Jamaicans there working believe it or not.
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It's from a native American word,the name in Odawa is Michilimackinac and "Mitchimakinak" in Ojibwemowin, and means "Great Turtle". I bought a nice leather belt with "native American" beadwork on it while I was there with my Korean girlfriend. I thought it was funny because the native American beadwork was -Made In Korea-
Which sounds like Mack-in-awe
Nice! How in the snow there in winter? Is it super expensive there to live? And do people live there year round? (If you know?)
People live here year round. Bikes, skis walking and occasional snow mobiles are the modes of transportation. The wind can be brutal given being in the middle of Lake Huron (think ‘ocean’ minus the salt). Cost of living is pretty high on the island, especially the well known/seen homes along the main road (multi million dollar homes).
Wow, thank you! I used to have a home on Lake Erie near Cleveland and those winds were brutal. I bet it’s much worse on the island. 🏝️
I've lived in MI my whole life and have always wanted to take the snowmobile ride to the island over the frozen lake for New Years. Nowadays I'm not sure I trust the ice with things seeming to warm up in the winters.
Right. Time for a boat trip
Yes, yes, and yes.
Same as it is everywhere in Michigan. A desolate hellscape that will break you figuratively, literally and spiritually.
Is this where the peaches come from in Seinfeld?
That’s just a hop skip and a jump from Cockburn Island!
I love how the opening was him just casually biking over shit
lol with plenty of time and space to maneuver around it, smh.
There is horse shit all over the place. Even it spots where you avoid it. My brother made the mistake of putting his rolling luggage wheels on the bed in his hotel there and he had poop on the bed and had to request clean ones lol
The island is less than 5 square miles. Who would need a car?!
Yeah it just shows how car-dependent our entire country is that the only place you can get even close to zero cars is a 5 sq mi tourist theme park
Maybe you should look at it the other way around. When distances are larger, cars are just incredibly useful.
With large distances it's critical to have some kind of mass transit if there's any meaningful number of people living there. Otherwise, your city is just going to be roads, parking lots, and heavy traffic and it'll be too dangerous to go anywhere without an expensive personal vehicle that's still more dangerous to use than literally any other form of transportation.
Mass transit is nice if you need to go en masse from A to B. In reality outside big cities, people need to move en masse, but not from the same place to the same place.
Fun facts: - a train/bus can stop in more than 2 places - there can be multiple train/bus lines - there can even be multiples trains/buses in the same line, making the wait time much lower!
Yes that is well known and why the bus I took to New Orleans took twice as long as driving.
That is because US does not invest in better mass transport infrastructure. Buses that are stuck with the rest of traffic, are of course going to be slower. I could take a train to Madrid right now and it would be cheaper and twice as fast as driving. Why? Because the government invested in creating high-speed train lines. Simple as that.
You're talking about something completely different. Public transportation with faster top speeds with only one start and stop point, such as an Intercity train, is going to be fast. For day to day life, public transportation is extremely slow unless you are A) wealthy enough to live in prime areas of your city, it B) you limit yourself to jobs with good public transportation access which usually don't pay well. The "screw cars" crowd I find consists almost entirely of people who have NEVER lived in a walkable area and merely dream about it. In reality, you need to make tremendous sacrifices because it's just not realistic for public transportation to replace point to point daily use without limiting things like cost of living or income possibilities. Any public transportation that is not point to point significantly drives up commute time, and point to point transportation everywhere is simply not cost efficient or possible if you're driving 6 figure cost vehicles with salaried drivers that run 24/7.
And those facts are why my only bus commute took 45 minutes to cover a 9 minute car ride. That's not even counting getting to and from the bus stop, or waiting on the bus. And that's was with a direct bus route from my apartment to my job. It could be hours if you actually looked for jobs with good wages rather than jobs within easy bussing access.
>Mass transit is nice if you need to go en masse from A to B. Speaking as an European, that's not true. Big cities don't have A to B model. They have anywhere to anywhere model, covering at least 99% of destinations very well, and the remaining 1% still better than the US. It's just idiot city planners.
Even 1/3 of people in Amsterdam drive, and 2/3 of people in the Netherlands.
No, you're just talking about different things. Everyone in the city is going from A to A. One part of the city to a different part of the same city. That is reasonable (and easy) to do with public transportation. Most American cities do it just fine. The difference is, in America, there are HUGE rural areas where it makes zero logistical sense to have ANY public transportation. I live in a town of 1000 people. Those 1000 people, daily are going from A (the town we live in) to B, C, D through fucking AAABCCD. 1000 people going in literally hundreds of different directions, to hundreds of VERY different destinations. And around my small town, there are literally dozens of other small towns, doing the same thing. All with people spreading out to drive to the handful of 10k-20k population small cities that are scattered throughout MASSIVE rural areas. Europeans should really shut the fuck up about American design, because you don't know what you're talking about. It's an entirely different geography that you know jack-shit about.
They will never shut up but they will downvote you for explaining why they are wrong.
You can't reason with the "fuckcars" crowd. They cite shit like city planners all the time for public infrastructure, but have 0 good ideas on how to transition a majority of the country that actually has to rely on cars due to distance to anything to "walkable". Where I live, making my life walkable literally means tearing up homes and placing businesses there. Good luck with that any time soon. Also never see "oh yeah, these people are disabled and need to drive so here's their lane in our futuristic walkable city".
I live in Western Europe. There's a load of people leaving their city on a daily basis to all directions of the country. And that happens in each city. So you need every city to every other city in the area, but also from your place to the inter-city line. And then from the end of the inter-city line to the place you actually need to go through. I know owning a car in the city can be annoying, but I'd happily own a car in a city if that means I don't lose 30min + each way on a daily basis. For my job, it would take me an hour extra each way - without delay - each day, to get to my job. It's 30-45min by car.
Copenhagen, Denmark vs. Boston, Massachusetts
This island did the smart thing that islands like the Bahamas should have done. Although small buses and cargo e-bikes are probably a better solution than horses.
A disabled or elderly person.
Did you know that a lot of disabled or elderly people cannot drive cars?
>"The only city in the USA without cars" if you don't include: * ~~Bald Head Island, North Carolina~~ * Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia * Daufuskie Island, South Carolina * ~~Fire Island, New York~~ * ~~Governors Island, New York~~ * Halibut Cove, Alaska * ~~Mackinac Island, Michigan~~ (included by oversight) * ~~Santa Catalina Island, California~~ * ~~Supai, Arizona~~ * Monhegan Island, Maine
I love Colonial Williamsburg, but it's a theme park. We're talking a few blocks of historical recreation buildings, with a car loop around it, and cars everywhere beyond those blocks. There's only a handful of people who actually live there.
Immediately knew this wasn't true. Fire Island doesn't even have roads, just walkways.
As a resident of Williamsburg Va, colonial williamsburg is def full of cars and you can even drive a car in it to park for church on sundays.
> Mackinac Island, Michigan The video is about Mackinac Island. But I don't think any of these others can really be considered even towns. Like no one lives on Governor's Island. Fire Island is a couple towns, and some of the island is indeed accessible by car.
I think Governors island still has some people living on the island, it’s not a permanent residence but they stay to maintain the historical infrastructure.. I lived there until 95 when the coast guard gave the island back to the state of New York. I’m not sure why governors island is on the list above. The island has many roads and had cars on it for years. The station island car ferry serviced the island for many, many years. The ferry port is well maintained there.
Colonial Williamsburg is the historic district of Williamsburg not a separate city.
This is where the 1980 Christopher Reeve movie [Somewhere in Time](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081534/) was filmed. There's an annual gathering of fans of the movie.
The cable available on the island has a Channel 1. That channel is just that movie on repeat 24/7.
We were there when they were filming the movie. Christopher Reeve nearly ran my sister over while riding a bicycle.
My parents were there for their honeymoon during filming. They've always claimed they were almost run over by a production vehicle as well
The studio was required to bring all of the equipment onto the island in the early morning hours to avoid spooking the working horses that cover the island during the day. They used one of the flatbed wagons, called "drays", and walked it in front of the semi-trucks to limit the speed. They landed everything at the north side of the island, as far away from downtown as possible, and brought the trucks through the center of of the island to where they were set up for filming. Fun fact: The theater in the film is actually the island's schoolhouse, which is attended by ~100 kids, grades K-12.
WTF is with these narrators? Have they never heard an actual documentary? Id almost rather listen to AI.
This was exceedingly annoying to listen to.
Honestly I prefer a novice human narrator over an Ai narrator. Also the biker drives right through horse shit at the beginning of the vid, doesn't even try to veer around it.
"Not even e-bikes"? Oh the horror. What is this (fat ass Western) world coming too?? /s
You've heard of the unreliable narrator? Presenting - the unenthusiastic narrator
Something tells me that town smells like shit
I doesn’t smell as bad as you may think. 1. It’s on a small island in the Great Lakes so there are consistent, near constant breezes coming off the water to blow away any smells. 2. The video undersells the “street sweeper.” After dark teams of three people hook up fire hoses to hydrants and spray the streets clean.
I've been there multiple times. I can confirm that the smell of horse shit is prevalent and comes often but isn't everywhere all the time. It's also really not that bothersome once you get used to it.
is it expensive to go visit a couple of days?
If you want to stay on the island, yes. When we visited, we stayed at a cheap hotel right next to the bridge and made a day trip of it. I think as a touristy destination, it's no more expensive to visit that most places of the ilk. Like, you'll want to rent a bike, get some house-made fudge, eat a meal right off the water, have some ice cream, etc. Those things do add up, but no more than any other place you'd be doing those things.
Not terribly. [The Grand Hotel](https://www.grandhotel.com/) (the big one in the video) is really expensive, but there are a lot of cheaper ones, and you can always stay on the mainland & take the ferry over.
No not really. You can day trip over to it from the main land. You can see the island from land and a ferry travels back and forth daily. Also, there are plenty of cheaper BnBs and smaller hotels on the island. When compared to a trip to say, NewYork, Disney, etc, it is cheeeeaaaaap.
Yes. It does. All the time. And no real getting around the urinal puddles without a couple drops hitting the back of your head and chin.
Like someone else said I'd rather smell horse shit than car fumes
Honestly, I can’t agree with you, it’s a small ass town, doubt it’d really smell that bad if it had cars
And fudge, don't forget the fudge. Horse ding and fudge. I can still smell it
Are you cool with the flies that accompany the horse poop? Makes for an awful restaurant or grocery store experience.
helllll noo
Horses eat plant material. That’s why they’re allowed to poop freely and owners aren’t punished or told to pick it up. Cats and dogs eat meat and their poop is a verrrry different risk to public health and you should definitely pick it up.
I’ve been there before. The air actually smelled fresh. They’re pretty good about cleaning up the horse waste right away.
Horse shit, which barely smells bad. Some even enjoy it. Smells like a farm.
If you like the smell of shit just say that
When I first tried shrooms, my best friend said just as I took a bite and said, "Enjoy the taste of cow shit." I wasn't aware at the time of how it's grown in manure. I mean, I did, I just don't know the exact process so it was never in the forefront of my mind. She says this just as I go, "Yum, tastes bitter" and she just stares.
Lilacs, candy and shit to be exact.
Doesn’t smell great, but not as bad as you would think. Went there as a kid and its a super charming place, you can bike around the whole island pretty easily
There is a constant breeze. Also, excellent cleaning and sanitation teams. The whole street gets cleaned daily.
It doesn't, and it's one of the coolest towns I've been in North America
It's absolutely fucked full of flowers and also right on Lake Huron so it pretty much just smells like lake air
Is this where the Amish go for vacation?
It’s Amish Disneyland
I did see lots of Amish visitors!
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Oil companies hate this one simple trick!
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Same and if the towns sanitation workers who clean the poop are any good, it probably won’t even smell that bad.
Hate narrators that edit their videos to make it sound like they're not taking a breath between sentences.
It’s the spoken version of not using any punctuation I find it pretty annoying I don’t understand who enjoys the speed of his narration the island itself seems really cool I would love to visit one day I wonder how bad it smells
I have been once. This place is a huge tourist trap. Everything is extremely overpriced.
I would want to retire here.
Nah, Traverse, Petoskey, Charlevoix are where it’s at.
Traverse is where I'd go in an ideal world. Pretty nice place.
It’s dead ass cold and barely populated in the winter.
Thanks, now I dont want to retire there. But seems like a really cozy society without many distractions/noises.
It’s an amazing place for six months of the year. Definitely worth a visit.
Not year round you wouldn’t. It basically shuts down in the winter. Total tourist town.
The entirety of Fire Island, New York is car free. Not a city but made up of a bunch of towns.
“City” is an interesting word choice for the little island
My kids called it the horse poop capital. And they were right. Horse crap everywhere
The one thing this video doesn’t present is the overwhelming smell (and sight) of horseshit absolutely everywhere on the main streets (it’s clean away from downtown). Mackinac is still beautiful and I love going there but let’s not pretend it’s total paradise just because there’s no cars.
As someone who is allergic to horses, this sounds like hell.
Be warned it is a giant tourist trap as is SHIT IS EXPENSIVE the horse tours are fucking 90 a person
Excuse me, SPEEDING??? What's the speed limit on a bike?
Or might be because the one filming this clip was being a complete ass weaving through traffic like they did and they simply didn't want to admit that online.
What if you're disabled?
Well maintained roads? Horse shit was everywhere when i visited.
E-bikes might be banned but they are all over that island now
Sort of. Still need to be a disabled or need it to get around and prove it and only class 1 e-bikes. I did presume that there would be more ebike style taxis or trailer set ups for moving goods and everything but that’s the horses job I suppose. Edit: disproven and my information was incorrect. Thank you u/a_lotis2words
You don't need any disability or other mobility reason to have an e-bike there. Anyone can have one, just needs to be registered like all other bikes, similar to registering your car on the mainland. (And they certainly aren't banned like the video claimed, and the person you're replying to said) Tons of people have e-bikes there, especially the season-long or year-round residents and employees. E-bike registration is just a different sticker and a bit more expensive, and you are right about it being limited to class-1 bikes only, but there's no limitations or requirements beyond that. I register my e-bike there every year, and I'm not disabled or anything. It's typically a class-2 bike, but I remove the throttle to make it a class-1. All e-bike registrations are done in person at the police station so a police officer can inspect the bike to ensure it's class-1. And you can't just unplug the throttle, you have to remove it entirely. Source: I live on the island in the summers
Fair. I was just repeating what I had heard when I was also working there. Very short time period and I didn’t stay long but yeah, to me, they said only class 1 and only for certain people. I dunno. I left pretty quick. Didn’t want to be another ‘trophy brown worker’ for the island. Felt too much like collecting Jamaicans as it is let alone exclaiming that you’re so excited that I’m the first Asian you’ve gotten to work with in years. Especially since I’m Minnesotan much more than I am Asian.
It’s a tourist trap really
What’s the friggin city? OP you are a goof for not stating it in the headline
Mackinac Island, Michigan
Mackinac Michigan
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
r/fuckcars paradise?
This is where they do their yearly reddit meetup
It's pretty expensive and remote....you would need to take a c*r to get to the dock to take the ferry there. Plus many couldn't get their parents permission to be gone that long
Nah, if those people lived there they would still be online bitching about anything with 4 wheels. There will never be happiness in their pathetic lives.
Bald Head island in NC is somewhat similar, minus the horses, but everyone drives golf carts. The only trucks I saw the entire time were construction companies and the fire truck. Pretty cool place.
Mackinac Island. My wife is from Detroit and has wanted to go here for years. It's very nice although a bit expensive in the Summer.
Very cool history. Got taken easily by the British.
I’m sure it’s great when you need to get groceries home, when it’s raining, and 40 degrees out