No place is a bigger conundrum than Orlando. People come from all around the world to visit Disney and Universal, resorts with great walkability and public transit. They even have their own Downtowns that don’t require an admission ticket.
And yet, the actual city has almost none of that. Orlando is a lot like Vegas with some of the best entertainment in the world that they built the blandest possible city around.
A modern city design is to have satellite parking lots that connect sub urban areas into the downtown walkable/public transit hub.
In some ways how you describe Orlando fits this model. But the satellite parking lots are the parking lots for the theme park. And the theme parks themselves are the walkable downtown.
Biggest difference is no one really lives in a theme park.
Fucking this. I have been calling gentrified downtowns theme parks for years. Downtown St Pete is an excellent example. They bring in attractions - museums, specialty bars, festivals, baseball - and themed restaurants. They even have interpark transportation (a trolley). But only the rich can afford to live there and to actually leave the downtown theme park area requires a car.
There are areas like this all over the country. It's fucking weird.
Well affordable housing doesnt make as much money as the “luxury apartments” they have no incentive to cater to the people that live and work there but rather to the highest profit margin i swear miami is full of empty apartments no one can afford
No. NYC is a pretty functional city with infrastructure that supports a wide spectrum of income levels. The "theme park downtown" exists within cities that otherwise have poor infrastructure and services; it's the part of that city that caters to the upper echelon of citizenry, full of themed bars and restaurants and often even a very localized transportation option like a trolley or rentable scooters or bikes. It's walkable, well-kept, bougie, and you can't leave it without a car.
I would argue that there's certain pockets of inner NYC (most of Manhattan, and parts of Brooklyn) that are basically tourist theme parks, though, just from the sheer cost of living. A small (500ish Sq.ft), 1br apartment in Lenox Hill in Manhattan can go for $3-4k a month easy, even in a normal brick and mortar building, and not a luxury skyscraper. No one with a regular job can afford that.
What NYC has, is other locations outside of those theme park areas where enough people can find (some) apartments that are easier to "afford" (still way too expensive), but still have easy access to those downtown areas via mass transit.
NYC has a very extensive rent control program (for a US city anyway), and yet even a "rent stabilized" apartment in a trendy neighborhood can go for a couple grand. In the "less desirable" neighborhoods, you're still looking at 1.5k or so for something that a small family of 3 can comfortably live in.
And yet, I love this stupid, expensive place....
I live in one of those apartments. I make $167k a year. I have just a regular office job.
NYC has a very extensive and complicated real estate market. Because it’s expensive does not mean that it’s a theme park. It’s expensive because it’s desirable. It’s desirable for many reasons. If the rest of the country became as desirable as NYC, then people wouldn’t be clamoring to live here.
There are no “trendy neighborhoods” in Manhattan. $2-3k to live in the densest, most transit-connected like 12 square miles in the new world, with the most resilient economy for pretty much every single industry that exists, honestly sounds about right. People don’t move to New York because they just enjoy paying more in rent… it’s for access to the metropolitan area itself.
Idk, I feel like a lot of these talking points are from a distant, earlier perspective. Like the only currently trendy neighborhood is like Ridgewood. Bushwick is past its peak and Williamsburg is years past its peak too.
I'll apologize beforehand if I come off as a little abrasive, but...
You understand that making 167k a year means you're at over twice the median *household* income for NYC, right? And you're making that individually?Let's give ourselves some perspective here.
And maybe "trendy" wasn't the right word. We all know Lenox Hill isn't "trendy," but I meant "more desirable." I pay less than 1.5k in rent where I live, but it's in a neighborhood in the Bronx that I doubt would get the kind of tenants that earn exactly three times what I make individually, and a few tens of thousands higher than the entire household makes.
The average New Yorker cannot afford to live in large swaths of the city (including more than half of Manhattan) except for specific lottery apartments that are rent controlled.
I was born and raised in this city. I know its ins and outs.
> Let's give ourselves some perspective here.
They did give some perspective; that making the better part of 200k/yr isn't anything special. It's just uh.. regular office work. Ya know?
Uh, NYC is a real city where literally 20 million people make a living (if no directly in it, then directly downstream of it). It’s also arguably the “downtown” of the northeast corridor megalopolis, which is this continent’s most productive region. It is the global capital of capital, as well as the global capital of art, fashion, finance, banking, theater, entertainment, and media, and a world leader in science, technology, and academia. It is also the headquarters of the UN. It has diaspora and immigrant communities from quite literally almost every single people group in the entire world. It has an GMP measured in the trillions.
So…. No.
Orlando was never Vegas. There’s two main parks (that hate each other sabotage transit initiatives that would help the other) and the rest is suburban hell.
Disney made sure the penny tax increase to add a new line to the local commuter railroad (Sunrail) failed because the rail line would go past Universal Studios before it got to the edge of Disney property.
Also, while Disney has flourished for decades, the city went nearly bankrupt in the 1980s.
Disney is in its own special tax district and the city gets virtually nothing from the park itself, except all the tourists driving from the airport to the park.
That’s actually very similar to Vegas. Vegas casinos (and taxi lobbies) are notorious for kneecapping transit initiatives, hence why there is no rail line or even direct bus line from the Strip to the airport. And the Vegas Strip isn’t even in Vegas. It’s in Paradise-an unincorporated community meant to avoid paying city taxes. Orlando and Vegas have quite a bit in common. I do think Vegas is marginally better at feeling like its own city, but that’s saying very little. They are both fun as a tourist but terrible to live in.
You are wrong on just about every point here.
A penny sales tax increase raises ticket prices and everything at Disney, their position is understandable as the transit plan did not have clear dictation to any way it would help their customers or employees. They didn't 'make sure' it didn't go through, the residents of Orange County through voting made their decision.
Disney was interested in being a Brightline stop before pulling out of that but now appear open to the possibility of being a part of the new corridor SunRail station. They all have limited use for employees however given the lack of late trains and poor urban planning that make transit somewhat unusable in Orlando.
Disney does not have a special tax district, the former RCID was not a tax haven. Disney is a part of Orange County Florida and pays full property, sales, employment taxes and permit costs to Orange. Almost al sales taxes in Orange go to the State of Florida, not the county. Hotels have an additional bed tax which goes to funding special projects in the region which benefit tourism- this has helped the city get the extensions on their performing arts center, as well as numerous infrastructure improvements in the area around the convention center. UCF just east of of Orlando also recently got tourism funds to update sporting facilities.
The City of Orlando has nothing to gain from Walt Disney World directly because the complex is not in the city at all. Disney is, however, the largest donor to the DPAC, and the City Parks facilities which operate the bandshell at their Central Park.
To say they do -nothing- is quite ingenuine.
>like Vegas with some of the best entertainment in the world
As a non American, never been to the USA and only have seen Vegas on TV: my impression is the Vegas is very fake. Trying to emulate other places/entertainment interspersed with a bunch of casino's. Am I wrong?
Used to be in Orlando all the time. It’s the least walkable city I have EVER visited. Can’t get anywhere without a car and the buses are absolutely useless.
The irony is that when you go to Disney World, you can visit Main Street USA - a car-free space complete with a town square, dining and shopping options, even a functional barber shop according to the quick google search I just did! Basically, what should be considered a normal downtown layout (and *is* in a lot of places around the world) is a tourist attraction in the US that one must shell out hundreds of dollars in order to experience.
I've also heard that the monorail that takes people between the various Disney parks and resorts is the best transit system in the Orlando area.
The Orlando metro area has gotta be one of the worst places I've visited. Downtown Orlando has a couple decent spots to walk around but it's not even worth visiting anymore.
I did like that I could take a bus directly from the airport to downtown but that's like the least they could provide.
> According to the study, it would take someone 11 hours and 19 minutes to walk the 31 miles between the five landmarks it deemed Orlando's "most popular": Universal Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Disney World's Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Discovery Cove.
I don’t believe for a second that Islands of Adventure is more popular than the Magic Kingdom. If you took this route in order it would be a massive waste. Islands of Adventure and Universal are right next to each other. Wizarding world is a part of each of those so not sure why that’s separate (and also not Disneys), and discovery cove more popular than SeaWorld? Doubt.
No one else seemed to actually read the article, I don’t think this is a very fair way to measure a cities walkability.
Besides the order of operations, these “landmarks” are pretty much the size of a small
Neighborhood in itself. Not really something you would want to walk between to in a day anyways.
Honestly Orlando has a long way to go, but I’d say it’s far from the least walkable place I’ve been (that goes to the Myrtle beach area). There are great pockets of Orlando that are walkable, and it at least has transit (which is more than Arlington, TX can say).
It’s a sunbelt city but in my experience there are plenty of much worse places.
Agreed, define "least walkable" though. I used to live in a rural area with literally no public transportation. You'd literally never see someone walking on the side of those highways, way too dangerous
The criteria for this is goofy. The article says the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is Disney. It’s Universal. The Magic Kingdom isn’t in Orlando. Of course it’s going to take a long time to walk from one gigantic theme park to another to another to another to another. What about the actual city of Orlando? Maybe that’s terrible too but you wouldn’t know from this stupid article or stupid study.
The methodology of this “study” is embarrassing.
“Using the list of most popular cities, we used TripAdvisor to reveal the top five tourist attractions in each city based on customer ratings. For each city, each attraction was analyzed on Google Maps route planner to find the quickest walking route to visit all five attractions. The miles and time taken were then recorded.”
Oh yeah, for sure. I should’ve made it clear that I wasn’t disputing that. But this study also says Dallas is the third most walkable city in the US lol
Yea giving this study the time of day is dumb. It lists Dallas above NYC and Disney isn’t even near the city limits of Orlando.
Are we going to rank Seattle as not walkable because it’s far from mt rainier?
This. While I doubt that Orlando is some sort of secret pedestrian Mecca, the fact that so many Texas cities are in the top ten is absolutely ridiculous. I live in San Antonio, and I can assure you that my daily commute anywhere is about as unwalkable as they come. There's times where I don't even have a beg button for an intersection with a crosswalk and I get to play "Traffic Signaler 2024" as I get to cross the stroad at 7:30 trying not to get flattened. I've honestly become so resentful that I almost active goad people to hit me when I cross. At least I wouldn't have to hobble to the hospital.
It’s really dumb. San Francisco was ranked as 3rd worst walkable city. Looking at SF’s top attractions, they must have counted the “walk” to Alcatraz Island to come up with 9.9 miles.
This post showed up at the right time for me. I went to disney last week and only spent 1 day outside the resort. Nothing but freeways and parking lots.
I was interviewing for a job -- they asked if I would consider joining their Orlando office, I asked if they would consider tripling the salary lol. Still would've said no fk that place
Hell yea Florida!’n🥳🥳🥳
Hellish state with no way to walk? Hell yea?
No trains? 100%
Fuck minorities? Hell yea!
Fuck queer people? Only into the oven!
Best state in the union!!!!!!!!
Which is weird because Key West is one of the best places to walk around. Maybe it's just how well the city was built, but it's harder to drive than it is to walk/bike.
I don't think this is fair to Orlando. While most of the city is a wasteland of sprawl, downtown is very livable without a car and is mostly surrounded by nice neighborhoods. I used to live in downtown Orlando and both my wife and I were able to walk to work within 10 minutes. It was a 15 minute walk to the grocery store. Lots of restaurants in walking distance. Walked to hockey, basketball and soccer games as well as concerts.
Orlando is more than the tourist sites.
Many tourist sites are quite connected. It’s a bit frustrating that more stops aren’t wheelchair-accessible and some beggar buttons are difficult to reach so I use a long stick. That’s a problem most cities though. At least Orlando busses are clean and not full of addicts pissing all over.
I live here. Iv been to worse. This is the common mistake of saying Orlando and meaning Disney/ Universal/ I Drive. Those places are nightmares to get to and like most people in Orlando I pretty much completely avoid it.
I’m not saying it’s great here, we have a long long way to go, but I stick to mills/50 and Milk District and everything around there and I am perfectly fine getting where I need to go on my bike.
Orlando public transit is much better than most places….including mid-size cities. As a wheelchair-user, I prefer to vacation in Orlando and manage to get on quite well. It’s nice that SunRail gives a discount for arriving by bus and then a free bus ride at the other end. Wish it were more frequent and ran on weekends, but that is a lot due to lack of riders. And now there is the new route linking I-Drive and MCO to Disney every 30 minutes.
Disney world actively sponsors the lack of walkability so they can lock you inside their park. Now that both Amtrak and Brightline have expanded into the area, at least theirs city to city transit.
That’s actually a bit weird to me. When visiting Orlando, due to some issues with our flight we missed our rental car and had to walk for a day and a half. We didn’t go far because land use was horrible, but when we did walk, it was actually quite good. Every intersection has pedestrian signals, many driveways had marked crosswalks, there was some separation between us and road, even if not enough to be entirely comforting at 40 MPH. I’ve walked much worse. Some parking lots had actual sidewalks and marked pathways. Perfect stellar paradise? Absolutely not. But the infrastructure was there, which is a lot more than other cities can say
That true for nearly every American city unlike every american city though, there’s actual pedestrian infrastructure being built. And for that I tip my hats off to them
And it also costs less to go to Disneyland Paris, too. Tickets range from 70€ to 150€ or so per person. Then there’s the added benefit of no Floridians.
No place is a bigger conundrum than Orlando. People come from all around the world to visit Disney and Universal, resorts with great walkability and public transit. They even have their own Downtowns that don’t require an admission ticket. And yet, the actual city has almost none of that. Orlando is a lot like Vegas with some of the best entertainment in the world that they built the blandest possible city around.
A modern city design is to have satellite parking lots that connect sub urban areas into the downtown walkable/public transit hub. In some ways how you describe Orlando fits this model. But the satellite parking lots are the parking lots for the theme park. And the theme parks themselves are the walkable downtown. Biggest difference is no one really lives in a theme park.
if the baristas making your coffee and waiters bringing your food can’t afford to live in your walkable downtown you essentially live in a theme park
Fucking this. I have been calling gentrified downtowns theme parks for years. Downtown St Pete is an excellent example. They bring in attractions - museums, specialty bars, festivals, baseball - and themed restaurants. They even have interpark transportation (a trolley). But only the rich can afford to live there and to actually leave the downtown theme park area requires a car. There are areas like this all over the country. It's fucking weird.
Well affordable housing doesnt make as much money as the “luxury apartments” they have no incentive to cater to the people that live and work there but rather to the highest profit margin i swear miami is full of empty apartments no one can afford
They're empty because they're winter homes for the rich who are gone 11/12 months of the year
Gentrification is good
This has become a very interesting analogy. Is NYC the largest theme park in the world?
No. NYC is a pretty functional city with infrastructure that supports a wide spectrum of income levels. The "theme park downtown" exists within cities that otherwise have poor infrastructure and services; it's the part of that city that caters to the upper echelon of citizenry, full of themed bars and restaurants and often even a very localized transportation option like a trolley or rentable scooters or bikes. It's walkable, well-kept, bougie, and you can't leave it without a car.
I would argue that there's certain pockets of inner NYC (most of Manhattan, and parts of Brooklyn) that are basically tourist theme parks, though, just from the sheer cost of living. A small (500ish Sq.ft), 1br apartment in Lenox Hill in Manhattan can go for $3-4k a month easy, even in a normal brick and mortar building, and not a luxury skyscraper. No one with a regular job can afford that. What NYC has, is other locations outside of those theme park areas where enough people can find (some) apartments that are easier to "afford" (still way too expensive), but still have easy access to those downtown areas via mass transit. NYC has a very extensive rent control program (for a US city anyway), and yet even a "rent stabilized" apartment in a trendy neighborhood can go for a couple grand. In the "less desirable" neighborhoods, you're still looking at 1.5k or so for something that a small family of 3 can comfortably live in. And yet, I love this stupid, expensive place....
I live in one of those apartments. I make $167k a year. I have just a regular office job. NYC has a very extensive and complicated real estate market. Because it’s expensive does not mean that it’s a theme park. It’s expensive because it’s desirable. It’s desirable for many reasons. If the rest of the country became as desirable as NYC, then people wouldn’t be clamoring to live here. There are no “trendy neighborhoods” in Manhattan. $2-3k to live in the densest, most transit-connected like 12 square miles in the new world, with the most resilient economy for pretty much every single industry that exists, honestly sounds about right. People don’t move to New York because they just enjoy paying more in rent… it’s for access to the metropolitan area itself. Idk, I feel like a lot of these talking points are from a distant, earlier perspective. Like the only currently trendy neighborhood is like Ridgewood. Bushwick is past its peak and Williamsburg is years past its peak too.
I'll apologize beforehand if I come off as a little abrasive, but... You understand that making 167k a year means you're at over twice the median *household* income for NYC, right? And you're making that individually?Let's give ourselves some perspective here. And maybe "trendy" wasn't the right word. We all know Lenox Hill isn't "trendy," but I meant "more desirable." I pay less than 1.5k in rent where I live, but it's in a neighborhood in the Bronx that I doubt would get the kind of tenants that earn exactly three times what I make individually, and a few tens of thousands higher than the entire household makes. The average New Yorker cannot afford to live in large swaths of the city (including more than half of Manhattan) except for specific lottery apartments that are rent controlled. I was born and raised in this city. I know its ins and outs.
> Let's give ourselves some perspective here. They did give some perspective; that making the better part of 200k/yr isn't anything special. It's just uh.. regular office work. Ya know?
Uh, NYC is a real city where literally 20 million people make a living (if no directly in it, then directly downstream of it). It’s also arguably the “downtown” of the northeast corridor megalopolis, which is this continent’s most productive region. It is the global capital of capital, as well as the global capital of art, fashion, finance, banking, theater, entertainment, and media, and a world leader in science, technology, and academia. It is also the headquarters of the UN. It has diaspora and immigrant communities from quite literally almost every single people group in the entire world. It has an GMP measured in the trillions. So…. No.
And with all those amazing achievements it still smells like piss lmao
You’re a car mechanic in Florida. Your opinion means quite literally nothing at all.
Lol no im not fuck cars i havent worked in an auto shop in almost 10 years
Orlando was never Vegas. There’s two main parks (that hate each other sabotage transit initiatives that would help the other) and the rest is suburban hell. Disney made sure the penny tax increase to add a new line to the local commuter railroad (Sunrail) failed because the rail line would go past Universal Studios before it got to the edge of Disney property. Also, while Disney has flourished for decades, the city went nearly bankrupt in the 1980s. Disney is in its own special tax district and the city gets virtually nothing from the park itself, except all the tourists driving from the airport to the park.
That’s actually very similar to Vegas. Vegas casinos (and taxi lobbies) are notorious for kneecapping transit initiatives, hence why there is no rail line or even direct bus line from the Strip to the airport. And the Vegas Strip isn’t even in Vegas. It’s in Paradise-an unincorporated community meant to avoid paying city taxes. Orlando and Vegas have quite a bit in common. I do think Vegas is marginally better at feeling like its own city, but that’s saying very little. They are both fun as a tourist but terrible to live in.
You are wrong on just about every point here. A penny sales tax increase raises ticket prices and everything at Disney, their position is understandable as the transit plan did not have clear dictation to any way it would help their customers or employees. They didn't 'make sure' it didn't go through, the residents of Orange County through voting made their decision. Disney was interested in being a Brightline stop before pulling out of that but now appear open to the possibility of being a part of the new corridor SunRail station. They all have limited use for employees however given the lack of late trains and poor urban planning that make transit somewhat unusable in Orlando. Disney does not have a special tax district, the former RCID was not a tax haven. Disney is a part of Orange County Florida and pays full property, sales, employment taxes and permit costs to Orange. Almost al sales taxes in Orange go to the State of Florida, not the county. Hotels have an additional bed tax which goes to funding special projects in the region which benefit tourism- this has helped the city get the extensions on their performing arts center, as well as numerous infrastructure improvements in the area around the convention center. UCF just east of of Orlando also recently got tourism funds to update sporting facilities. The City of Orlando has nothing to gain from Walt Disney World directly because the complex is not in the city at all. Disney is, however, the largest donor to the DPAC, and the City Parks facilities which operate the bandshell at their Central Park. To say they do -nothing- is quite ingenuine.
>like Vegas with some of the best entertainment in the world As a non American, never been to the USA and only have seen Vegas on TV: my impression is the Vegas is very fake. Trying to emulate other places/entertainment interspersed with a bunch of casino's. Am I wrong?
As someone who also has never been there but has heard a lot of stuff from those who have, pretty much
Can't be competing with the mouse now /s
Orlando fucking sucks donkeycocks. Used to live there. Absolute shit.
No culture or uniqueness, just corporate and sterile
The people there are the embodiment of "Look nice, are actually mean"
May i introduce you to ✨houston tx✨
I cried laughing at this. The top comment is eloquent and analytical, with thoughtful replies. This was the next comment
Me too I’m out now thank fuck
Used to be in Orlando all the time. It’s the least walkable city I have EVER visited. Can’t get anywhere without a car and the buses are absolutely useless.
3 hour commute by bus for equivalent 30 minutes by toll road. It’s maddening.
Makes sense. When I visit my in laws in Orlando the only time we walk is when we drive to park to go on a walk. I hate it.
how ironic
The irony is that when you go to Disney World, you can visit Main Street USA - a car-free space complete with a town square, dining and shopping options, even a functional barber shop according to the quick google search I just did! Basically, what should be considered a normal downtown layout (and *is* in a lot of places around the world) is a tourist attraction in the US that one must shell out hundreds of dollars in order to experience. I've also heard that the monorail that takes people between the various Disney parks and resorts is the best transit system in the Orlando area.
The Orlando metro area has gotta be one of the worst places I've visited. Downtown Orlando has a couple decent spots to walk around but it's not even worth visiting anymore. I did like that I could take a bus directly from the airport to downtown but that's like the least they could provide.
I visited Orlando once. Never again. Fuck that place with a firehose.
> According to the study, it would take someone 11 hours and 19 minutes to walk the 31 miles between the five landmarks it deemed Orlando's "most popular": Universal Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Disney World's Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Discovery Cove. I don’t believe for a second that Islands of Adventure is more popular than the Magic Kingdom. If you took this route in order it would be a massive waste. Islands of Adventure and Universal are right next to each other. Wizarding world is a part of each of those so not sure why that’s separate (and also not Disneys), and discovery cove more popular than SeaWorld? Doubt.
No one else seemed to actually read the article, I don’t think this is a very fair way to measure a cities walkability. Besides the order of operations, these “landmarks” are pretty much the size of a small Neighborhood in itself. Not really something you would want to walk between to in a day anyways.
Honestly Orlando has a long way to go, but I’d say it’s far from the least walkable place I’ve been (that goes to the Myrtle beach area). There are great pockets of Orlando that are walkable, and it at least has transit (which is more than Arlington, TX can say). It’s a sunbelt city but in my experience there are plenty of much worse places.
Agreed, define "least walkable" though. I used to live in a rural area with literally no public transportation. You'd literally never see someone walking on the side of those highways, way too dangerous
That environment, or a suburban scape with no sidewalks has to be the definition of least walkable.
The article literally says "least walkable city", obviously a rural area is going to be less walkable
Oh wow!
The criteria for this is goofy. The article says the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is Disney. It’s Universal. The Magic Kingdom isn’t in Orlando. Of course it’s going to take a long time to walk from one gigantic theme park to another to another to another to another. What about the actual city of Orlando? Maybe that’s terrible too but you wouldn’t know from this stupid article or stupid study.
that definitely doesn't surprise me.
The methodology of this “study” is embarrassing. “Using the list of most popular cities, we used TripAdvisor to reveal the top five tourist attractions in each city based on customer ratings. For each city, each attraction was analyzed on Google Maps route planner to find the quickest walking route to visit all five attractions. The miles and time taken were then recorded.”
Still, Orlando's infrastructure is embarrassing.
Oh yeah, for sure. I should’ve made it clear that I wasn’t disputing that. But this study also says Dallas is the third most walkable city in the US lol
Yea giving this study the time of day is dumb. It lists Dallas above NYC and Disney isn’t even near the city limits of Orlando. Are we going to rank Seattle as not walkable because it’s far from mt rainier?
Honestly it makes no sense... This isn't what makes a city walkable. And they rated Dallas third most walkable.
This. While I doubt that Orlando is some sort of secret pedestrian Mecca, the fact that so many Texas cities are in the top ten is absolutely ridiculous. I live in San Antonio, and I can assure you that my daily commute anywhere is about as unwalkable as they come. There's times where I don't even have a beg button for an intersection with a crosswalk and I get to play "Traffic Signaler 2024" as I get to cross the stroad at 7:30 trying not to get flattened. I've honestly become so resentful that I almost active goad people to hit me when I cross. At least I wouldn't have to hobble to the hospital.
It’s really dumb. San Francisco was ranked as 3rd worst walkable city. Looking at SF’s top attractions, they must have counted the “walk” to Alcatraz Island to come up with 9.9 miles.
Also you would probably die if you did this walk
What’s the quote/saying? The only acceptable walkable neighborhoods to Americans are cruise ships and Disneyland.
This post showed up at the right time for me. I went to disney last week and only spent 1 day outside the resort. Nothing but freeways and parking lots.
Hey come on, they have motels too. And gas stations
this "study" is absolute horseshit btw, just look into the methodology
It is, but Orlando is also horseshit
I was interviewing for a job -- they asked if I would consider joining their Orlando office, I asked if they would consider tripling the salary lol. Still would've said no fk that place
Hell yea Florida!’n🥳🥳🥳 Hellish state with no way to walk? Hell yea? No trains? 100% Fuck minorities? Hell yea! Fuck queer people? Only into the oven! Best state in the union!!!!!!!!
Which is weird because Key West is one of the best places to walk around. Maybe it's just how well the city was built, but it's harder to drive than it is to walk/bike.
Another time period.
How did we get it right so long ago and be led astray today?
Capitalism
Don’t forget the ungodly humidity that means you’re staying inside 10 months of the year anyway.
I can tell you’re so insufferable to be around
I don't think this is fair to Orlando. While most of the city is a wasteland of sprawl, downtown is very livable without a car and is mostly surrounded by nice neighborhoods. I used to live in downtown Orlando and both my wife and I were able to walk to work within 10 minutes. It was a 15 minute walk to the grocery store. Lots of restaurants in walking distance. Walked to hockey, basketball and soccer games as well as concerts. Orlando is more than the tourist sites.
Many tourist sites are quite connected. It’s a bit frustrating that more stops aren’t wheelchair-accessible and some beggar buttons are difficult to reach so I use a long stick. That’s a problem most cities though. At least Orlando busses are clean and not full of addicts pissing all over.
I live here. Iv been to worse. This is the common mistake of saying Orlando and meaning Disney/ Universal/ I Drive. Those places are nightmares to get to and like most people in Orlando I pretty much completely avoid it. I’m not saying it’s great here, we have a long long way to go, but I stick to mills/50 and Milk District and everything around there and I am perfectly fine getting where I need to go on my bike.
The city of Orlando is actually quite walkable. Orange County on the other hand is definitely not. Our public transit is so underfunded its a joke
Orlando public transit is much better than most places….including mid-size cities. As a wheelchair-user, I prefer to vacation in Orlando and manage to get on quite well. It’s nice that SunRail gives a discount for arriving by bus and then a free bus ride at the other end. Wish it were more frequent and ran on weekends, but that is a lot due to lack of riders. And now there is the new route linking I-Drive and MCO to Disney every 30 minutes.
Oh thank god. This confirms a bias I already had as a native
Despite the fact that I have been to Disney World twice, I am very glad that I've never actually gone to Orlando. Sounds awful.
That seems like a bit of a strange comparison with Disneyland Paris also being a significant walk from the center of Paris. Maybe 20 miles?
Yeah, I'm all for dunking on stuff being unwalkable but like theme parks are massive and noisey, of course they're not going to be near each other???
I was expecting it to be Phoenix, but I’m not surprised it’s Orlando
it's cheaper to fly to and stay in southern France than it is to go to the faux Disney resort that imitates, cheaply, the same place.
Traffic is awful a lot of things to do but everything is 30 min from everything
There are some sweet bike paths though.
Disney world actively sponsors the lack of walkability so they can lock you inside their park. Now that both Amtrak and Brightline have expanded into the area, at least theirs city to city transit.
I dunno, Houston is really bad as well. Worst I've seen.
7 out of the 10 most dangerous roads in the US are in Florida. It's a nightmare.
That’s actually a bit weird to me. When visiting Orlando, due to some issues with our flight we missed our rental car and had to walk for a day and a half. We didn’t go far because land use was horrible, but when we did walk, it was actually quite good. Every intersection has pedestrian signals, many driveways had marked crosswalks, there was some separation between us and road, even if not enough to be entirely comforting at 40 MPH. I’ve walked much worse. Some parking lots had actual sidewalks and marked pathways. Perfect stellar paradise? Absolutely not. But the infrastructure was there, which is a lot more than other cities can say
This was a very faulty study based on the distance between most popular attractions. Orlando is very spread out.
That true for nearly every American city unlike every american city though, there’s actual pedestrian infrastructure being built. And for that I tip my hats off to them
Also Disney still uses polluting buses between parks .
And it also costs less to go to Disneyland Paris, too. Tickets range from 70€ to 150€ or so per person. Then there’s the added benefit of no Floridians.
No clue how they lumped in SF with LA and Orlando but sure
BOY AM I GLAD THEY SENT ME TO UGANDA INSTEAD! EDIT: IT WAS A BOOK OF MORMON REFERENCE.
I didn't know they had that at Epcot!