Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oslo made its city center basically car-free

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 505 posts

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#71

Post by danjayh »

8ytecoder wrote: post #50
themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

Market st is already a no-go for private cars for many blocks. As much as I hate the scooters that go around in the sidewalks and then park haphazardly blocking the path for disabled people, they did reduce the traffic around Bart stations quite a bit. If it's easy to use the alternative, people do take it. There are a few who'd never leave their precious cars but most others care about the commute and not necessaril…

Why should public transit be paid for by automobiles? Let the users of each service pay for what they consume. Cars pay for roads, maintenance, highway patrol, etc. Public transit users pay for rail, buses, dedicated lanes, etc. Forcing automobile users to pay for public transit obscures the true societal cost of implementing public transit just as much as using tax revenues outside of gas/license taxes for roads obscures the true cost of driving private cars.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#72

Post by themagician »

benj111 wrote: post #48
themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

Hatred... is a strong word. I agree the balance is completely out of whack, but hatred? Are there really no redeeming qualities? Ps you've advocated taxing petrol, but EVs are now a thing. Pay per mile road pricing?

I don’t find many real redeeming qualities. Cars allow me to get stuff. That’s about it. I hate having one now. Even when I lived in the city I hated that they were still there.

I’ve spent some time in Belgium’s city center which has few to to cars, and small beach towns with few to no cars. It’s amazing. You spend a few days in an area with no cars and think to yourself, “Wow. Wow. It doesn’t have to be like that. What are we even doing?”

To me the car is just a phony sense of freedom and control. It drives the modern economic engine. But at great cost.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#73

Post by afiori »

benj111 wrote: post #48
themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

Hatred... is a strong word. I agree the balance is completely out of whack, but hatred? Are there really no redeeming qualities? Ps you've advocated taxing petrol, but EVs are now a thing. Pay per mile road pricing?

Pay per entrance would be a more stable option.

most of the traffic near city centers are not residents but commuters and shoppers. the goal is not to decrease the number of miles driven but to decrease the number of cars in a zone.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#74

Post by apendleton »

kodablah wrote: post #63
themagician wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking. That’s how you get around quickly. It’s quicker to walk in downtown SF than take a car for a good portion of the day. Also maybe you don’t need to get around so quickly. That’s kind of my point about how much damage the car has done to society.

> Walking. That’s how you get around quickly. You either have a limited definition of "quickly" or a limited definition of "around". > Also maybe you don’t need to get around so quickly. Or maybe you do. > That’s kind of my point about how much damage the car has done to society. There have been positives as well.

While I think the comment you were responding to was being somewhat snarky, urban design specifically to accommodate walkability is a thing. Cities that are high-density and mixed-use allow for many of the things people need to do on a daily basis to be close to where they already are, which makes "around" smaller for most purposes and consequently makes "quickly" more achievable on foot. Cities that have lots of parking lots place the actual stuff people want to visit farther apart, or who entirely separate offices from retail from food from residential, require vehicles.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#75

Post by sowbug »

themagician wrote: post #32
umvi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose getting around quickly in car-free city centers? Electric scooter services? I was in NYC the other day, and it was like 1 am and we were several blocks northwest of Times' Square, it was freezing and raining and public transportation was on late night service which would have required 20+ minutes of waiting around shivering for a bus, or a long-ish walk to the nearest subway station and another lon…

Walking. That’s how you get around quickly. It’s quicker to walk in downtown SF than take a car for a good portion of the day. Also maybe you don’t need to get around so quickly. That’s kind of my point about how much damage the car has done to society.

To put it another way, how did you get there? If it was by car, then yes you'd probably need a similar way to get back. If you'd settled on walking, then returning by walking would naturally be more viable. Obviously, what I'm saying is you'd have chosen a closer destination.

Hard to talk about public transportation without getting into statements that sound like judgments. Definitely not judging your actions. But it's not really a useful analysis to insert a particular solution midway into a situation when the solution wouldn't have allowed the situation to happen in the first place.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#76

Post by xwvvvvwx »

8ytecoder wrote: post #50
themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

Market st is already a no-go for private cars for many blocks. As much as I hate the scooters that go around in the sidewalks and then park haphazardly blocking the path for disabled people, they did reduce the traffic around Bart stations quite a bit. If it's easy to use the alternative, people do take it. There are a few who'd never leave their precious cars but most others care about the commute and not necessaril…

You are literally describing a soviet style centrally planned economy.

Society should be organised bottom up and decentralised.

Communities and regions need more autonomy. Decision making power belongs at the edges, with those who have the most context.

Bazar significantly outcompetes cathedral at scale.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#78

Post by masklinn »

vinay427 wrote: post #22
hjnilsson wrote: post #6

Oslo is still heavily lacking in bike accessibility, more so than the article presents. New bike paths are around the periphery of the center. In the city center, there are close to zero bike parking spots. Everyone who wants to take the bike to work, must have parking in the workplace. In addition the tram tracks on many streets are a hazard to taking the bike. But things are improving here slowly Public transport t…

> Public transport though is probably the best in the world per capita, with subway, buses or trams going every couple of minutes. I believe Zürich would like to have a word. Not that this is a competition, but it's an even smaller city (by population) with incredibly extensive public transport that's well-known for its punctuality. It really is quite easy living without a car when you have a multiple reasonable opti…

> I believe Zürich would like to have a word. Not that this is a competition

I don't know, public transport accessibility, frequency and quality is finally a competition I could get behind.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#79

Post by themagician »

themagician wrote: post #32
umvi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose getting around quickly in car-free city centers? Electric scooter services? I was in NYC the other day, and it was like 1 am and we were several blocks northwest of Times' Square, it was freezing and raining and public transportation was on late night service which would have required 20+ minutes of waiting around shivering for a bus, or a long-ish walk to the nearest subway station and another lon…

Walking. That’s how you get around quickly. It’s quicker to walk in downtown SF than take a car for a good portion of the day. Also maybe you don’t need to get around so quickly. That’s kind of my point about how much damage the car has done to society.

Believe it or not, there were old and pregnant people before cars! We even had cities before cars!

Venice even had old people, pregnant people, and children! The trifecta. Rumor has it these people still roam Venice today, although in smaller numbers.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#80

Post by _zskd »

themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

I agree with this so much.

I am sick and tired of subsidizing drivers.

I am done with the irresponsible and unsustainable policy of ignoring costs associated with road maintenance in the United States.

I am done with building roads through lower-class neighborhoods and damaging their property values.

End welfare for drivers. Make the drivers pay their own way.

Post reply on HN