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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

#131

Post by maxxxxx »

danjayh wrote: post #58
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'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…

I am perfectly fine to give people with medical issues an exception. But that doesn't mean that we should build everything around cars. Cars also cause a lot of health issues which should also be accounted for.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#132

Post by graeme »

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…

The train network connected every city. It was incredibly dense.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#133

Post by threatofrain »

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.

Children who live closer to busy streets are more like to get asthma. They also radically change how parents feel about just any street of modest traffic, or biking in general. With children more dependent on parents to set play dates, children have more difficulty getting anywhere.

Also, think of the people who can't drive and for whom getting someone else to drive them is too expensive. That’s a lot of elderly.

Cars kill a lot of people every year. We need AI cars before something changes there, and when that comes, the conversation on exclusion will be very different.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#134

Post by iknowstuff »

coding123 wrote: post #99
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…

While I think it's easy to get on board mentally picturing a landscape without cars in most cities - what are we saying, that only young people that can walk or ride bikes are allowed? Would this future of yours have any consideration for the accessibility challenged or elderly people?

I think accessible public transit (as in, floor flush with the sidewalk), especially trams, and personal electric vehicles like scooters or wheelchairs, have solved that issue in Europe.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#135

Post by thereisnospork »

adrianN wrote: post #104
rayiner wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's the current cost of sucking a gallon of gasoline's worth of CO2 out of the atmosphere?

Couple of bucks. A gallon of gas emits 20-lbs of CO2, or ~1% of a tonne. Cost to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is roughly a few hundred $/tonne to about 70$/tonne depending on who's doing the estimating.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#136

Post by Kjeldahl »

calcifer wrote: post #93
Kjeldahl wrote: post #30

What the PR piece doesn't show is that during winter (4-6 months a year), very few ride bicycles around. In winter most people don't stay outside a lot, the weather is harsh (people do ski, but not inside the cities). They have installed play and outside work areas, which are mostly empty during winter, and require maintenance to get them in shape again for the next summer. A lot of shops are moving or closing down.…

> It doesn't look quite as good with 5-6 shopping bags with groceries for the kids. Here in the Netherlands people seem to have no problems doing exactly that on a bike. Is Oslo any significantly different than, say, Amsterdam? Last week we had all sorts of harsh whether (sub-zero temps, heavy rain, snow) during my morning commute, which didn't seem to affect bike traffic one bit. > Parents in Norway also spend a lot…

I doubt the climate in Netherlands is comparable. A week here and there with snow doesn't even compare. The pro car ban people mostly argue that if only the public transportation gets good enough, cars aren't needed. That remains to be seen IMHO. Until then I believe the shopping malls with parking outside the cities will grow bigger, families will be moving out, and eventually city centers will become less lively (like many places in the US, good for office space and lunch, dead in the evenings). Time will show. Regardless of this, I believe it is possible to have space for both bicycles and cars, although the people in charge of Oslo after the last election disagrees.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#137

Post by andys627 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #131
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…

I am perfectly fine to give people with medical issues an exception. But that doesn't mean that we should build everything around cars. Cars also cause a lot of health issues which should also be accounted for.

Yes - the argument is against the primacy and dominance of cars, not their existence in reasonable circumstances.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#138

Post by jpmoyn »

avar wrote: post #100

We need to end socialism for cars, but I think this way of going about it is probably counterproductive. Here in Amsterdam we also have an increase in car-free zones, but one effect of that is just to increase car parking pressure in the neighborhoods of those of us who live adjacent to the center. I think the real solution is to end socialism for cars. This problem will solve itself as soon as the land being used by…

I highly doubt throwing this issue at the free market will result in less car traffic in the city.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#139

Post by mamurphy »

rayiner wrote: post #92
_zskd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I strongly agree. Also let's end welfare for upper middle class commuters by ending subsidies for rail transit. Here in D.C., taxpayers subsidize Metro commuters, who are typically white collar and make more than the average taxpayer in DC/MD/VA. Why would you expect anything else, given the stratospheric price of housing near Metro stations? Low-income people take the bus. That's what we should subsidize.

Life and government isn't this simple. Subsidizing metro draws in high-income earners and thus builds the economy and increases tax revenues. The stratospheric price of housing near Metro stations increases real estate tax revenues as well.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#140

Post by graeme »

danjayh wrote: post #58
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'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…

You also need to redesign streets around cars, widening them, and making the city less pedestrian friendly in the process. And the less people walk, the younger they die and the more health problems they have along the way. You see your visible problem but don't consider the more diffuse and less visible problems caused by the car subsidies you favour.

What do people with your condition in Paris or Rome do? Most of Europe isn't designed around cars the way the usa is.

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