Of course, this could never happen in the United States. A friend of mine, a single mother, was arrested and charged for letting her kids play without an adult present in the park across the street from her apartment. There are lots of scary people with guns out there, you see. If only it was possible to do something about that.
What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
141–150 of 241 posts
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
And of course 'footganger' almost makes sense in English — 'gang' in the sense of a passage is preserved in 'gangplank', and modern 'gang' has the related sense of 'group of people who go together'.
Footwalker would be a more appropriate translation, German uses more describing words.
Well, there's already the footwalk. I think the parent comment was going more for using etymologically related words.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#143What I find funny is that the American mall that so many people disparage (like citylab) is a place where the streets are closed to cars. Cars are not really the problem and people should really stop focusing on this object as the reason of so many social problems that exist. The car is used by individual people and families to somewhat mitigate these large scale problems.
Lots of cool main streets have cars going through them. It is just the post war, huge road, big-box chain stores that suck. Maybe we need to go back to where a corporation is only allowed to form (get a charter) if it is planning on doing something that takes a lot of people and capital to execute. Like building an airplane, or a car, or a computer chip, not anything like a retail store. Leave that to the sole proprietor. We don't need corporations, and all its inhumanity, to run burger joints.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, we can go back and forth with datapoints forever. The London Underground uses subterranean pedestrian tunnels, though personally I've only walked the one at Heathrow, at night. As it's the main way between terminals I expect it sees lots of foot traffic during the day.
Most of those pedestrian tunnels are pretty unpleasant; everyone I know regards them as a necessary evil at best. Tunnels are inherently not human-friendly spaces (limited natural light) so I don't think you'll find any real success stories for pedestrian tunnels; better to put the cars in tunnels if you must go that route.
Houston's downtown tunnels are thriving and kind of an awesome hidden secret.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Afrikaans - spoken in ZA (south africa) - that is pretty much the actual word :) "voetganger" "voet" - foot/feet "ganger" - someone who moves along using the former noun The Latin Root is what connects many European languages.
Voetganger is the same in Dutch ;)
Afrikaans is a derivative of Dutch, so no surprise.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#146I 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 a…
In the place where I live (Austria, town with 30k residents), the Fußgängerzone in the center is currently dying. Shops close left and right, and migrate to the three big shopping centers. This town is a strange mix because almost everybody needs to own a car (bus system is underdeveloped) to take kids to school or shop groceries, but the town itself is not that big (a lot of places are reachable by bike). Most peopl…
But in Vienna, it seems like the Fußgängerzonen are all over the middle of the city and have a mix of the fancy brands that would normally be in a shopping center, while also having smaller and more boutique shops.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#147I 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 vi…
Tokyo has pretty extensive underground infrastructure that is full of people, has shops and no homeless or bad smells.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#148I 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 a…
In the place where I live (Austria, town with 30k residents), the Fußgängerzone in the center is currently dying. Shops close left and right, and migrate to the three big shopping centers. This town is a strange mix because almost everybody needs to own a car (bus system is underdeveloped) to take kids to school or shop groceries, but the town itself is not that big (a lot of places are reachable by bike). Most peopl…
Why do parents feel the need to take children to school in a small town in a very safe country? Why can't they ride a bike or walk?
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
That is the default residential street in Berlin. Often with cobblestone to further decrease speeds.
Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
In America driving at 6 km/h (3.7mph) in a parking lot would induce road rage in other drivers. Trying to make roads with a 6 km/h speed limit would be political suicide for any politician that recommended it.
that's an absurd speed. i literally cannot go that slow in my car without lugging the engine or slipping the clutch the whole way. no thanks.
In driving school I learned that I should put the car in first gear, not touch the gas and keep my foot ready to hit the brake when I enter such a street. That is, I'm supposed to go as slow as reasonably possible and be prepared to stop on a dime if a child materializes in front of the car.