Oslo made its city center basically car-free • Hacker News Board

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#451

Post by jannikarndt » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:38 AM UTC

It is interesting how the “vice mayor of urban development” only talks about getting rid of “private cars”.

While train, bus and bike can get your quite far, in large enough cities it will still be a challenge to get to and from many places. Not in the city center, but in the outer areas where people commute to and from.

I live in Hamburg (Germany) where we have a subway, S-Bahn (similar) and a quite good bus network. Still, three big car sharing companies are successfully operating: Car2Go (by Daimler), DriveNow (by BMW) and Miles (private startup). They _do_ fill a need.

Another experiment will be started in April by the company I work for, MOIA (by VW): They provide ride sharing with a completely electric van (based on the VW Crafter) with 6 seats and permanently employed drivers. The focus is on the commuters who don't have a train-/subway-station nearby.

I think there are two lessons here: Just removing all cars will probably not work, we need at least intermediate solutions to slowly move people from owning a private car to shared solutions. And second, many of these mobility on demand/mobility as a service-solutions would be very hard to pull off without mobile phones and uniquitous mobile internet access.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#452

Post by pertymcpert » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:39 AM UTC

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.

Get some exercise? It’s just rain. Has CA weather made everyone here soft?

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#453

Post by pertymcpert » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:41 AM UTC

danjayh wrote: post #82

lamp_book wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, even from the costs we can easily calculate it's obviously a massive drag on our economy, let alone the negative (in my opinion) effects on our culture. I think future generations will look on this America like we look at Easter Island now - a sort of inexplicable squandering of wealth and resources.

I think that if you do the same calculation to find the benefits (access to a greater variety of goods and services, access to a broader selection of employment, stable childhood environment due to not having to frequently move for work, etc.), the cost might not be as high. However, I have not seen any paper that attempted to account for this, so I cannot be sure.

How do you think people in dense European cities do it? Hint, life is way better there.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#454

Post by pertymcpert » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:43 AM UTC

danjayh wrote: post #268

afiori wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the reason why a cultural transformation is needed, cars are a local maxima for mass transportation, but there are much better and viable options

I'm not sure that the drive should necessary be away from cars. With the advent of driverless cars, there is a new option: shared cars. They provide the time-savings of point-to-point transit for the already time-strapped lower class, can (optionally) enable ride sharing for cost and congestion reduction, use the existing infrastructure, and with sufficient percentage of self-driven cars should provide throughput sim…

No, try more like Tokyo. It’s great.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#455

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:45 AM UTC

throwaway234231 wrote: post #430

anoncoward111 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was handicapped and people started gestapo'ing me to make sure I am who I am.... man sometimes you just have to let externalities happen in the name of not screwing over the 99% of people who do it by the book

Where I live, the light rail isn't access controlled, so they send officers around randomly to verify that everyone on the train have a valid pass (and ticket those who don't). Nobody really complains about it or thinks it's invasive. I don't see how this would be any different.

I am sure there are still people who manage to ride the rail for free. Not many, but there are. And that's ok, some low-level abuse is perfectly tolerable as long as it's low-level.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#456

Post by pertymcpert » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

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.

Oh yes it is true. As a fellow Brit all the fossil fuel use contributes huge amounts of negative externalities in pollution, health damage and other more subtle environmental impacts. Fuel taxes are not high enough. It should cost much more than 1.20 a litre for the overall damage we do driving.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#457

Post by pertymcpert » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:50 AM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #239

jacobr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let users of cars pay for the infrastructure they use Don't forget a fee for the air and noise pollution they cause.

The externalities of mass car ownership are not covered by the tax in the UK, let alone the US

Exactly, very true.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#458

Post by Broken_Hippo » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:51 AM UTC

postscapes1 wrote: post #348

TylerE wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just the thing - you can't tell how blatant they are without knowing the situation. You can merely look and think, "They can walk just fine.."

But you can't see that the person gets fatigued and suddenly can't walk very far. (And we are talking about fatigue that makes folks nearly pass out, not just mere tiredness) Or they have a history of numbness and trouble walking and keep a cane at their desk for this reason.

Like others have said, you cannot tell from the outside. This isn't freaking "entitlement". If you want to hate American culture, there are plenty of other areas to do this that doesn't make one crap on sick folks. I'd suggest focusing on letting folks go without health care or letting folks starve, but there are plenty of other choices.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#459

Post by pertymcpert » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:52 AM UTC

danjayh wrote: post #216

jacobr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let users of cars pay for the infrastructure they use Don't forget a fee for the air and noise pollution they cause.

Already in place, via mitigations that have been implemented. Fuel injection, multiple catalytic converters, exhaust gas recycling, and closed-loop control all add substantial expense to modern vehicles. They do, however, very effectively reduce/eliminate the smog problems that we had 30 years ago (which is a good thing). Most modern freeway builds include noise mitigation in their designs. This cost should be passed…

Are you serious? You think in the US of all places where environmental & air standards regulations are the weakest that all the negative externalities of air pollution from cars is captured in taxes?

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#460

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 8:52 AM UTC

t413 wrote: post #375

smsm42 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised so few people ride motorcycles I would find the risk unacceptable. Basically any flinch of anybody on the road can literally kill you. In a car, you are at least surrounded by the steel walls, so if somebody decides to do something stupid, in most cases, it's metal that gets smashed. In a motorcycle, the only thing between hunks of metal wizzing around and your flesh is a thin layer of leather. Not en…

You're not wrong, and this is the same argument used in regards to bicycling. Something I hear all the time: 'You ride in this city?! Isn't it super dangerous?' When the solution is armor-up with a car and contribute to problem I just think we're thinking about it wrong.

Yeah I try not to bicycle on roads without a dedicated bike line too. If I were in a city with European-style dedicated and separated bike lines I would use them gladly. But I am not, so when the choice is between risking my life (in the most literal sense, not like "I am risking my life by voicing an unpopular opinion on Twitter" but literally risking being killed) and getting a car, I know what I choose.

If and when the circumstances change, the calculus may change too.