this would be great, cars are the only reason why i would be afraid to let my child go by himself to kindergarten/school
What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
51–60 of 241 posts
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#52You can also have more parks and fields that are well-maintained and available in proportions appropriate to the local population (i.e. not held at existing supply through density changes). It is a false dichotomy to suggest we have to choose between kids playing outside and having streets for transportation. Not to mention that anyone who grew up pre-Internet or pre-smartphones knows that the real barriers to kids p…
> Not to mention that anyone who grew up pre-Internet or pre-smartphones knows that the real barriers to kids playing outside are more cultural/societal. I did, and 100% that's not the barrier today. I moved my kids from a neighborhood packed with cars to one with several dead-end streets and no through traffic and the change in my kids' lives has been shocking. They almost never wanted to play outside before because…
Always good to hear anecdotes like yours, so thanks for sharing. Dead-end streets and no through traffic can make some difference; but that's also saying that we need suburban towns or suburban-like neighborhoods within cities for those with families (which is valid IMO). However it isn't really practical for the next notch higher of density in terms of transit throughput, unless people are willing to give up personal point-to-point transit in favor of mass transit (which has its own tradeoffs).
I am also not assuming cities/towns can "just" add parks and fields. It is something they can do if they prioritize it and have the political will to execute. And even if it were not pragmatic for an already fully-built-up locale, I am making the point as a general matter of planning or noting what is desirable in a town.
One thing I did not understand: why do you think people without kids will not care about parks (which they can enjoy as well), but will care enough about kids to make their own street access more painful?
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the ability to get to the parks and fields without parental intervention is important in itself. I live in a neighborhood in Sydney where many of our streets are traffic sewers that people blast through at amazing (relatively speaking) speeds. As a large, visible adult, I walk the dog every day and 1-2 times out of 10 some idiot on a street 50m from my house doesn't know what the rules on a crosswalk are. Peo…
That seems to me like a different problem (one of education or enforcement of traffic laws), although I acknowledge that a middle ground helps. I have not had the same experience as you where I am - maybe that is because we have traffic signals in some places, or crosswalks with flashing lights in others, or more courteous drivers for the rest of it (unmarked crossings), but I definitely feel plenty safe walking arou…
I don't feel, strictly speaking, unsafe. Just annoyed at a personal level - obviously this happens enough (in fact, it happened again between my last post and this one!) that I'm very alert for it. However, I'm a large adult crossing in a very high visibility zone and am alert.
As for the 'kids are capable' thing - yes. We had our youngest going places independently at an age where our older child (~3 years apart) had peers whose parents were still driving them around. But the argument from LDCs is pretty terrible, as they have orders of magnitude more traffic deaths.
LDCs also typically have a culture of 'negotiation' of crossing roads where you kinda just have to get up on your hind legs and cross (anarchy makes drivers far more alert) while we have a culture of strict rules ("if you cross at the wrong place you are doing the wrong thing and it's your own fault that the driver just ran into you"). The 'rules culture' tends to make drivers feel that they can just zoom wherever they feel like and shut off mental collision avoidance algorithms with anything that isn't another car. This phenomenon is behind the whole 'naked streets' thing (not that I'm a fan, but the diagnosis is pretty good).
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
i'm on board with putting express roads and parking underground (even though the costs are high) and making the extra space available for humans, pets and lower speed transport like bikes and scooters. i'd also advocate making licensing for vehicles much harder and increasing the enforcement and punishment of distracted driving.
An alternative to underground is 'at the back'. For example you can have a car free shopping street where cars can only park at the back sides of the shops.
Which quickly becomes the front for businesses advertising to passersby.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#55I lived in Germany for two years without a car. The public transportation there was amazing—I learned to appreciate how little I needed a car, provided the infrastructure was good enough/I had a bike.
In many cities there's a "Fußgängerzone": pedestrian-only areas; these were mostly found in the city center where the streets and shops are too dense to allow much traffic. I remember specifically in Frankfurt am Main and Göttingen that the biggest shopping centers were located within this zone. Didn't seem to be hurting their business.
The Fußgängerzonen seemed alive, much more so than sterile car-optimized streets.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#56Yeah, they're doing this plan to Evansville, IN. And it's one hell of a job. They've killed downtown, since there's no 'outer areas' to park. Sidewalks are in complete disarray, and cars still zoom on past. But the center areas where there are no cars also is set up for no people to move about. The road ledges are still there, so handicapped people cant just use their wheelchairs. It's the worst of both worlds.
It's possible to do this well and badly. Bad iterations of this feel like urban renewal - like those horrifying stunts they pulled in the 70s where they closed half the streets in a given area, put huge ring roads around the area, and then wondered why a urban paradise didn't spontaneously spring into being.
It needs to be done along with public transit (usually the missing link it the US and Australia) and a reasonable attitude to deliveries and whatever parking needs remain.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is actually beneficial for pedestrian safety because it decreases the perceived safe speed for all sensible drivers, versus putting a 25mph speed limit on a wide boulevard where everyone drives 40mph.
Haha you're underestimating Boston drivers. Out of all the places I lived in my life (SF, Berlin, Paris) drivers in Boston drive by far the fastest. Streets being narrow doesn't make people drive slower, instead it makes people drive more aggressive which puts stress on drivers, bikers and pedestrians alike.
Yeah, we have these streets here that are "2 way but only one at a time". So you have to get on it and go the whole length of a block or more. Amazingly this results in more perverse incentives...
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#58Nothing happens if you keep them inside feeding their tiktok and fortnite addictions. I can't even recall the last time I broke up a hockey or streetball game driving through neighborhoods.
You have never been on a street that would support a hockey game. Such a street would not allow you to drive on it. There were hardly any kids outside in my suburb and then the council built a small dirt jumps park and the day it opens there is a swarm of 40 - 50 people using it. People won't use something until it exists for them to use it.
I grew up playing hockey in the street, but please, presume more about me.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#59Nothing happens if you keep them inside feeding their tiktok and fortnite addictions. I can't even recall the last time I broke up a hockey or streetball game driving through neighborhoods.
A large reason kids play Fortnite is because it provides a space to socialize - it's a lot harder for kids to get anywhere without a parent driving, these days, and the parents are a lot less likely to leave the kids unattended, which tends to put a damper on things. Even malls often try to discourage crowds of teens, if you can even get there without a drive.
If you think fortnite is healthy socializing, i cant argue. I do not agree in the slightest.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#60I live in St Kilda, Australia and our council recently changed one of our iconic streets to almost exclusively be for pedestrians and trams. Businesses protested for months about potential lost business, however as a resident I feel so much safer walking down the street. It feels like foot traffic has increased there, too. It's such an improvement. I also like to think tunnels to apartment buildings could help us tak…
our council recently changed one of our iconic streets to almost exclusively be for pedestrians and trams.
For whatever it's worth, Chicago tried both of these things, and they didn't work out.
The main shopping drag, State Street, was pedestrianized in 1979. You can see it for a few seconds in the film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It didn't work. It was re-opened to traffic in 1996, and is now far more vibrant than it used to be (though, with a number of other contributing factors since nothing exists in a vacuum in a large city).[1]
Maybe people weren't ready for that in the 1980's, though the region has a number of outdoor shopping malls, in spite of its cold weather.
I also like to think tunnels to apartment buildings could help us take more cars of the road and create more green spaces for people in the future.
Again, Chicago did this. 40 city blocks are linked underground (and a few via bridges). I like the Pedway, but it's mostly vacant space, sleeping homeless people, and bad smells.[2] Except for rush hours, it's pretty much derelict.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Street_(Chicago)#State_S...