151–160 of 699 posts
Raleigh converted Fayetteville Street to pedestrian only back in 1977. It ended up killing all of the businesses there. https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/163829/ The city reopened it to traffic, however, and "revitalized" the area, resulting in a booming downtown economy: https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-may-learning-... I love pedestrian districts in cities. Copenhagen comes to mind. However, pedes…
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I lived for a while in Berlin. Coming back to the U.S. the first thing I noticed were too many billboards and ugly parking lots. Each store has its own parking lot. Largely underused. No nice paths to traverse the bleak endless parking lot landscape. It’s ugly and wasteful. It’s hostile to pedestrians and discourages people from going outside to just wander. Even in relatively walkable communities like the one I live…
> It’s hostile to pedestrians and discourages people from going outside to just wander This is a good point. The leisurely stroll is practically nonexistent in my city. I'm in a more rural setting, but there is still a well-defined city hub. It just feels awkward walking down the sidewalk when people are zooming by at 35mph+. The result is sidewalk cut offs, which is inconvenient to me as a biker. There are frequentl…
This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…
This is an honest question. I live in a city with public transport now and I much prefer it for myself, but when I think of how I was brought up it's hard to imagine that working without a car.
I thing "banning" cars in a Town/City work well for smaller cities, through you still might want to have some time frame in which e.g. trucks can bring new goods to super markets, fire fighter etc. For larger cities I think it would still be possible to have many "no-car" isles, paired with good public transportation available for anyone at "any" place (which can be done today by e.g. using this small and _slow_ self…
Hi, Van and trucks can enter the city the first time in the morning, so things are ok, and there are no problems for that. The city itself is a "round island", so cars can go close to the estuary and be close to the city, so get into city center takes less than 15 minutes.
Forcing all deliveries to happen in the early morning sounds like a massive pain in the butt.
For example: Forcing a lunch/dinner restaurant to have people there early to deal with inventory or delivering inventory to a diner during breakfast rush are both far from ideal.
Any industry that routinely has to get materials (e.g. skilled trades) delivered will be inconvenienced by not being able to take delivery during mid-morning or after lunch, this can unnecessarily stretch out jobs (and cost more $$).
I guess if the only industries in your city are white collar or tourism it's fine.
Better to just not allow noncommercial vehicles during certain times.
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Seconded, Ghent in belgium is also pretty cool car-wise. It has so-called pedestrian-centric planning. For example, the city centre may not be entered with a car, only by foot, bicycle or public transport. It's great. I enjoyed Musk's Boring Company's presentation, where they talk about some problems with transportation today and present some solutions, with emphasis on transportation within city borders [0]. [0] htt…
In addition Ghent must have the most awesome bars and pubs per m2 in Europe with an absolute abundant collection of premium Belgium beers.
Downside is that the bar is pricey and touristy, and most of the beers seem to be commercial. We were in this bar in Bruges last winter, it has 300 kinds of beer and all from small breweries. If a brewery is acquired by a big company, they don't serve it anymore. They also have almost no tourists there, which is refreshing for Bruges. I'll try and find what it's called.
Edit: The Bruges bar is called Le Trappiste [3]. Apparently, it's well advertised in touristic literature. They even have a website.
[0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,75y,55.7... [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,28.6y,20... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.056575,3.7252618,3a,51.1y,22... [3] https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g188671-d42950...
Raleigh converted Fayetteville Street to pedestrian only back in 1977. It ended up killing all of the businesses there. https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/163829/ The city reopened it to traffic, however, and "revitalized" the area, resulting in a booming downtown economy: https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-may-learning-... I love pedestrian districts in cities. Copenhagen comes to mind. However, pedes…
1977
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On top of other issues, most of Europe also enjoys a 4-season year - meaning that a bike or scooter is safely and comfortably usable around half of a year, definitely not more.
That really depends on the level of comfort you want to have when riding a bike. A lot of people do still use a bike in winter (through I can't recommend it), through even if you don't do so, using it for 5/8 of a year is quite doable.
Visiting LA this summer, I knew I was in for a car heavy metropolis but this... I can't understand why people waste so much time of their precious life (usually alone which also greatly worsen the problem) - locked in a car.
Coming to the topic of the autonomous car revolution, which I frankly do not understand. Sometimes it feels like the ambition is to end up as the humans in WALL-E. What kind of life is that?
Ps. Coming from Europe, I crossed US by bicycle a few years ago, from NY to US. People say it's a country to be seen through a car, but I argue it's to be seen on a bike.