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Oslo made its city center basically car-free

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Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#121

Post by shoguning »

dahfizz wrote: post #97
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…

The problem is that this anti-car sentiment only works in dense urban areas. Many millions of Americans are a 20+ minute drive from work with absolutely zero options for public transportation. > Cities existed without cars Yeah, and if you ever had to leave the city, it was a multi-day dangerous journey by horse-back to get anywhere. Again, there is an argument to reduce cars in big, dense cities. But making driving…

> Yeah, and if you ever had to leave the city, it was a multi-day dangerous journey by horse-back to get anywhere.

Not so much. There used to be inter-city rail that people used regularly.

This old railroad map (https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4121p.ct001917/?r=0.329,0.288,...) shows how dense and sprawling the railroad network was, even in 1900. Towns like Rhinelander, WI (and ones even smaller) that aren't even served by inter-city bus routes today had regular train service.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#122

Post by Broken_Hippo »

openbasic wrote: post #69
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.

You missed the whole point. Raining, cold, pregnant wife. Or maybe he was accompanied by his elderly father. Or young kid. Not everyone is a healthy 20 year old.

I live in Norway, and have for 5-6 years now. I'm 40. One of the things I noticed about the city I'm in - Trondheim - was that it was a walkable city. Between busses and walking, I'm usually set for transportation. We use the car once or twice a month for convenience (cat litter, for example). I don't have a valid license, so I don't drive at all and we didn't have any car the first 2-3 years I lived here.

I commonly see people walking in all sorts of weather - rain, snow, freezing weather and sun. Proper clothing makes these things tolerable in addition to simply getting used to it. I see pregnant women walking. I regularly see mothers with young infants in strollers. I regularly see elderly folks, sometimes with canes or walkers. In fact, I did some language practice in a nursing home and somewhat regularly went for walks with a few residents. The folks that did language training in a preschool were outside daily. The elementary schools have sleds and buckets for snow.

The combination of walking and public transportation usually works out well, and you do not need to be a healthy 20-year old to deal with it.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#123

Post by kolinko »

themagician wrote: post #27
squidbot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest issue with bikes and walking in SF (as well as Seattle) is the hills. Oslo is relatively flat, as are other very bike centered cities like Amsterdam. Mind you, the rise of electric bikes is helping a lot, but it seems like hilly cities would only be able to get rid of cars if they replaced them with better, efficient, clean public transit. And it doesn't have to be just buses. Seattle, where they exist, e…

You mean like the cable car?

Just a modern one. I know cable cars are a tourist attraction in SF, but even the ones on Market are like 50 years (seriously) behind what you can see in Europe.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#124

Post by atonse »

karmelapple wrote: post #62
atonse wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see the appeal of congestion fees now that seamless tolls are so easy to collect (using RFID, License Plate Readers, etc). But apart from that, just needlessly taxing gasoline everywhere seems silly when you're trying to just reduce congestion in cities.

Would people who are advocates of a “pay for what you use” system be fine with being taxed by miles driven? Have a yearly inspection of your car for both safety concerns as a variety of states do, and also record the odometer at that point. Tax miles driven, and also multiply that a lot for vehicles that directly contribute to more maintenance on the roads, like semi trucks. It will increase costs for shipping by tru…

Again, as a fellow armchair policymaker, it feels like his would penalize people that earn less.

In most areas, if you want a more affordable house, you go further out. So now it'd get prohibitively expensive to drive to work.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#125

Post by nkantar »

hartbeatnt wrote: post #59

This is my dream for downtown LA. Never gonna happen, but a man can dream

I'm an avid driver who lives in LA (Westside), and this sounds pretty great, honestly. Driving in and through DTLA is a total nightmare, and public transit has a hard time covering enough of the relatively large area.

I love being able to take the Expo Line to LA Live, especially for the LA Auto Show (amusingly enough), and would welcome more of that.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#126

Post by maxxxxx »

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…

Agreed. LA took any love I had for cars out of me. Now I just want to live somewhere quiet where I can walk to places.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#127

Post by apendleton »

rayiner wrote: post #88
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…

The externalized costs of automobiles almost certainly are not a dollar a mile. The estimate is $3.80 per gallon: https://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/08/true-cost-emissions-fac... . For a typical small SUV getting 30 mpg these days, it's $0.13 per mile.

That's the cost of the emissions. What about the inefficient use of road space that comes from having highways full of single-occupant vehicles at rush hour, the larger roads required by said inefficiencies per given unit throughput as compared to buses or rail, and the opportunity costs of the land for the bigger roads or the money to build them?

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#128

Post by Sammi »

dahfizz wrote: post #97
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…

The problem is that this anti-car sentiment only works in dense urban areas. Many millions of Americans are a 20+ minute drive from work with absolutely zero options for public transportation. > Cities existed without cars Yeah, and if you ever had to leave the city, it was a multi-day dangerous journey by horse-back to get anywhere. Again, there is an argument to reduce cars in big, dense cities. But making driving…

That is a different problem needing a different solution. The problem at hand is transit and congestion in cities.

Obviously the automobile is the problem and bikes and public transit is the solution, which we can see has happened here in Olso but also famously in Amsterdam and Copenhagen before it. There is no excuse and reason for having cars in city centers, after you build out good bike, bus, and train transit inside a city.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#129

Post by graeme »

openbasic wrote: post #84
danjayh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed that so many people who consider themselves inclusive in their thoughts don't realize how exclusionary anti-automobile policies are. As someone who suffers from mild arthritis, the trip to the back of a Wal-Mart can be painful for me, and a walk or bike ride across a city block absolutely foreboding. On the bad days, even standing in line at a checkout for an extended period of time can send my knees and h…

This. So much this. Most supporters of anti-automobile policies think that everyone is a healthy young adult grabbing his latte on the way to his Scrum daily meeting. No responsibilities with dependents, such as children, elderly or disabled family members. No plantar fasciitis, lordosis, arthritis, etc. Grow up. Start seeing the world from the perspective of others.

My grandma never had a car in a major pedestrianized city. She lived independently until the age of 92. She took buses and walked everywhere. My other grandmother mostly walked around town.

My parents have a car but mostly walk around town.

Would I be right in thinking that you come from a car centric area where people don't walk and this lose their ability to get around at a younger age? Perhaps you have difficulty conceiving of life in a pedestrian friendly city.

If so, I don't blame you, there are almost none in the us.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#130

Post by coding123 »

so33 wrote: post #53
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…

Most city centers that go "car-free", especially in Western Europe, only do so for a few blocks. Imagine the entire area around Times Square becoming pedestrianized. And yes, as much as they seem to clutter city streets, electric scooters and the like are seemingly becoming a viable last-mile transportation option.

I think this comment is actually so key and apt in this entire discussion. It almost sounds like some of the comments in this thread are like BAN all cars. But in reality, these efforts are really small, subtle fixes and actually probably make a lot of sense. And if we were to look at the maps of Oslo, the pregnant elderly people can still live, with a car, somewhere in Norway where they can still park AT the grocery store.

Baby steps instead of basically saying themagician is trying to kill my pregnant wife on a 20 mile hike in the forest and openbasic is going to run over my kids!

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