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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

#151

Post by dbdjfjrjvebd »

kolinko wrote: post #118
calcifer wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=temperatures+in+oslo+v... Oslo is 5 deg celsius colder in winter than Amsterdam. You sometimes have sub-0, for them it's a norm. There is a big difference between 5C-10C and 0C (a Warsaw-native here, which is closer in terms of temperatures to Oslo)

Why would this be downvoted? Is absolutely correct. For example average sub zero temperatures mean that snow eventually turns to ice rather than melting.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#152

Post by dbdjfjrjvebd »

gilrim wrote: post #102
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.…

Not true. Lots of people bike in Oslo during the winter. While the numbers are lower in winter, saying that very few do is plainly wrong. Cargo bikes as well as trailers for kids are popular among families with children, see them all over the place. The city bike system are testing winter bikes and so far it been a success. The changes that are being implement take time, but overall the last few years the city have m…

Virtually no one bikes here in the winter.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#153

Post by avar »

jpmoyn wrote: post #138
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.

Why not? E.g. now the market price for where I live is to a first approximation something like 2000 EUR/month for an apartment on a single floor in a 4 floor house.

Meanwhile I can simply apply for a parking space right outside my place, and only need to pay something like a 250 EUR/yr road tax (depending on vehicle & weight etc.). That's a flat fee for the entirety of Nord-Holland (my "state"), I'd pay nothing for parking other than needing to apply.

Assuming a parking space is 6x3m = 18m^2 then 4x of those add up to 72m^2, a typical size for an apartment around here.

So if someone parking a car in a 18m^2 parking space had to compete with the market for real estate they'd need to pay 2000 EUR/month for parking their car, because we could otherwise build housing there.

That's before you even get to the problem that the fact that you can only build up to 4 floors around here is also an artificial government restraint, so the true market price of a 18m^2 parking spot is way more than 2000 EUR/month in the center of Amsterdam.

There's no reason to ban cars. You just need to make them pay a fair price for the land they're using and the problem will take care of itself.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#154

Post by dbdjfjrjvebd »

jononor wrote: post #40
hkon wrote: post #14

What's interesting is that almost all traffic in eastern Norway goes through the city. Instead of having the highways go around it, they go through it. So while the city center is "car free", there is still alot of traffic and pollution.

The highway from from east to west straight though Oslo center is underground since som years now. If you ever go to the Oslo Opera, the highway is below you somewhere. To call Oslo car free is an oversimplification, but the efforts and results over the last 15 years are tremendous.

It comes above ground quite close to the city center. There is plenty of pollution from the motorway by Frognerstrand and the massive road junction by Gamlebyen.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#155

Post by coding123 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #142
xwvvvvwx wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think the people down-voting you realize that if (US) society put more authority locally (city > state > federal) the car-free cities they want would be closer to reality. Cities would have more power to impose tolls and restrictions on cars. If cities relied less on the state for their transit budgets they could more easily do as they please, same goes at the state level (the federal .gov is known to hold tr…

You sound republican downvote 100x (just kidding). And not only that, but it even makes sense because cities that dont want cars (have a population that vote locally to remove them in key areas) can do so, and cities that want them, can keep doing that.

Personally I've always felt that about our system. Income taxes should be city 20%, State 5%, country 1%. Think about how fucked up it currently is compared to that.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#156

Post by apendleton »

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.

Both rail and bus are heavily subsidized -- buses come nowhere close to paying for either their operating or capital expenses with fare revenue. It is probably true that if you broke down the WMATA budget and looked at the degree of subsidy per passenger mile on rail vs. bus, you'd get a higher number for rail than bus, but it's tricky to do an apples-to-apples comparison because the rail figure will include the cost of the stations, tunnels, and track, whereas the bus figure won't include the cost of the roads, but the government pays for the roads too, just not as a line item within the transit agency.

The reason to subsidize rail is that if you didn't, many people wouldn't take the train, they would drive or take the bus, and we don't have the road capacity for that. Rail is an exceptionally efficient means of moving lots of people with not very much space, and drivers and bus riders benefit from those people having been moved off of the roads in the form of reduced traffic.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#157

Post by danjayh »

leesec wrote: post #61
themagician wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually not such a bad idea. If only the rich can drive then only the rich can commute. The city itself then becomes a haven for the middle class.

Ever lived any where that's not a major city in the US? It is common here in Michigan to drive 20 miles to work.

I live in a mid-sized city in Michigan (Grand Rapids). Housing in the inner city is relatively expensive (3x+ the cost of the housing 20 miles out). Congestion is not really a thing ... maybe for 1/2 an hour right at 5PM and for 1/2 an hour in the morning. Parking is solved by having cheap lots at the fringes of the city center and providing a shuttle in (parking in the city center is only for higher income folks). Affordable point-to-point transit enables lower income folks to have nice houses and work jobs in the city, all while still having enough time left over for cooking & hanging out with family.

For instance, a nice 3br 1500 sqft house can be had outside of the city for under 100k (which works out to < $1k/month for principal, tax, insurance). A nice 3br 1500 sqft condo rents in the city for nearly 3k/month.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#159

Post by kkhire »

maxxxxx wrote: post #126
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.

do what I do: live in a walkable part of LA. I live in weho and left my car at my parent's house.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#160

Post by njarboe »

munk-a wrote: post #112
dahfizz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am fully in the hate-cars bandwagon and I don't drive myself, but I have no objection to any sorts of park-n-ride style solutions. Cars are very time-efficient for long journies and they aren't terribly fuel-inefficient for those long journies considering how much infrastructure investment would be needed to establish good rail service, but within a city cars are silly. I've always wanted to establish high tolls on…

If all limited access roads were toll roads that kept traffic stoppage to a minimum (trying for zero) by active pricing, the world would be such a better place in many ways. People could plan much better for how long a trip would take, people would have much shorter travel times, investors would have some idea of the revenue potential of roads so they could decide to build more of them.

The key would be to have the toll be quite low generally and make most of its money when there is high demand. In many countries the tolls are set to maximize revenue and this usually done by having a very high toll and almost empty roads. What would better for most people would be almost free roads (trucks always pay something as they are what wears out roads) and charge when the road is getting close to slowing down.

Also: Maybe it is a good idea to let your highly productive people (rich dudes) be able to get around cities quickly. They will be even more productive that way.

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