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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

#341

Post by TulliusCicero »

openbasic wrote: post #105
themagician wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t know that they executed all old people, children and pregnant women in Venice. Looks like they are doing it now is Oslo too.

Now that's a straw man. Congratulations.

Now there's some irony.

You literally suggested that it would be, at the very least, impractical to get around if you're not a "healthy 20 year old", and yet cities all over the world are filled with people who are not, in fact, healthy 20 year olds, and they manage just fine.

And yet after an extremely blatant strawman, you have the audacity to call someone out who was responding to that strawman with a similarly extreme, but obviously tongue-in-cheek statement.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#342

Post by gaius »

danjayh wrote: post #210
unionemployee wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this work when our cities have been so heavily developed to favor the automobile? I'm for road users paying for the roads or access, but public transit is so lightly used in most of the US and there's so little existing infrastructure that it's at a severe disadvantage and can't take advantage network effects or economies of scale. Instead of a train near my house, there's an interstate highway. Our cities…

I think public transit would only be viable in dense urban cores. In other areas, if the city desires to provide transportation assistance, I think it's probably more efficient to provide other forms of transportation to the working poor (who are typically the primary users of public transit in midsized cities). Here in Grand Rapids, the busses are so lightly used that it would probably be cheaper for the city to han…

There won’t be Uber and Lyft if there aren’t already a road network and a massive pool of people who know how to drive

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#343

Post by bjourne »

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 do know that exercise is crucial for people with arthritis?

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#344

Post by NeedMoreTea »

gaius wrote: post #340
gnopgnip wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say that public transit is heavily subsidized ignores that the alternative, building new roads, parking, bridges, and other infrastructure is even more expensive. And it ignores how much regular road use is subsidized.

In the UK fuel taxes raise £50Bn for the exchequer every year and the total transport budget is £25Bn. Maybe it’s different in the US but certainly here, the idea that cars are subsidised just isn’t factually true. Drivers pay for all forms of transportation then contribute as much again to e.g. the NHS.

Just a couple of days ago there was a piece reporting research that the UK had the highest fossil fuel subsidies in the EU, to the tune of £10.5bn a year), along with another piece earlier in the week that we have to increase allocation of public funds for subsidising North Sea oil rig decomissioning. Can't quickly dig up a link for the second, but it was around £25bn.

Not to forget that the escalating climate change tax on petrol was paused some years back.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/23/uk-has-b...

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#345

Post by mvanbaak »

dbdjfjrjvebd wrote: post #254
pi-rat wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric bikes are getting more and more popular here in Norway (and we got hills and cold weather). Studded tires and an electric motor doing most of the work helps.

I know no one commuting on an electric bike...

a LOT of people in eg. Amsterdam use them daily. And I see more and more of those every morning and afternoon when I cycle to/from work.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#346

Post by TulliusCicero »

refurb wrote: post #315
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…

Spoken like someone who has the funds to live in some of the most expensive areas of the US, pick and choose their employer, doesn't mind spending money on quick, convenient transportations like Uber or Lyft and can afford to shop a high-end grocery stores. For the average person in the US, who can't live in large cities due to cost, is lucky to have the job that is 25 miles away from home, and has to shop at the Wal…

Your post amounts to: "In an environment designed around cars, people have to drive!"

I mean, yeah. There's a reason people in, say, Germany do not really have this problem, and it's because cities and towns there aren't built around the assumption that everyone must have a car.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#347

Post by JewsDidIt »

lamp_book wrote: post #232
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…

Anti-automobile policies need to be careful to accommodate the disabled but it's unfair to label them as "exclusionary" compared to the racist and classist history of automobile adoption and according public infrastructure support. From Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses, America's most influential and prolific public planner and builder, The Power Broker: “Underlying Moses' strikingly strict policing for cleanl…

He's not wrong. Look around primarily nier vs aryan populated areas. On average which is cleaner and less run down?

Don't spout that historical racism/slavery bullsh*t at me, they were a socially underdeveloped breed while they were alone with their own devices before aryans tried to uplift them (and failed while also bringing those problems home to destroy their own nests with their overinflated sense of social justice and liberal 'immigration' policies).

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#348

Post by postscapes1 »

TylerE wrote: post #322
postscapes1 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My office is directly in view of all the handicap spots in a large commercial office buildings so watch this everyday. It is crazy how many people abuse the handicap parking permits. And then you see the people who really need it and would make a difference if they didn't get those very front spots taken up by these folks.

Please don’t be that guy. Manybhandixaps are not visually obvious.

I try to reserve judgement for only the most blatant of cases.

I just have some anti-American culture hate going on right now (I am an American). You can just feel the entitlement coming off some of these people.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#349

Post by improbable22 »

danjayh wrote: post #272
improbable22 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience: I broke my leg, while I happened to be living both with a car, and in a building with underground parking. This really made staying independent possible, for the months it took before I could walk properly. Sure it was slower to drive to the supermarket & park underground there, instead of walking... but much quicker than waiting for someone else to have time to help. I agree that solutions other…

I was in Shanghai for work for about 3 weeks a few years back. For the first week, I tried to use mass transit, because everyone said it was the best way around (and in shanghai, their mass transit is absolutely world-class, the best of the best). It was absolute hell - a perfect description; I was in constant pain. After the first week I broke down and just took cabs everywhere. Perfectly practical, but only when so…

I can well imagine! Good on you for going all the same.

In defence of the transit, it has to be said that (in a city that size) those cabs could not work without it. The roads are only passable because 90% of people aren't on them.

Which is to say, the fares have to be out of reach (as a daily expense) for > 90% of people. I imagine most employers would balk at the cost of catching cabs everywhere in Oslo.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#350

Post by etrautmann »

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…

Most of Valencia! why are there cars anywhere except crossing valencia from 25th - 16th st? It seems like a natural location for a pedestrian mall with shops and natural area
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