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Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

economist.com

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Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#181

Post by mantap »

rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

Time on a train is at least semi-productive time. You can read HN! Which, face it, is what you'd be doing anyway. Time in a car is just spent staring at the road.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#182

Post by jedberg »

jcims wrote: post #111
jedberg wrote: post #10

It's a lot easier for Europe to go carless than the USA. They have better intra-city public transit for one. Also, most (all?) of their major cities laid out their grids before the invention of the car. In the USA, even older cities had all but their city centers designed around cars, and if you look at the top 10 cities, 7 of the 10 saw >90% of their road construction after the invention of the car. That being said,…

Are there any new cities in the US?

There are lots of new cities, or at least cities that were founded or built substantially after the invention of the car. Irvine, CA, for example began construction in the 60s and incorporated in the 70s. The town I grew up in only incorporated in 1982 (and most every house was built in the 70s to 90s.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#183

Post by H8crilA »

JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

It's the case not just in Korea and Japan but in most cities outside of America. It's one of American peculiarities, like checks or no public health care.

China has a fantastic subway system in most big cities, for example. I once took a subway ride from the Shenzhen airport to the Hong Kong border, crossed the border, switched to another subway and arrived in downtown Hong Kong. That's around 65km (40 miles) by public subway!

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#184

Post by jedberg »

hannasanarion wrote: post #150
softwaredoug wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately “new cities” develop in places where everyone is used to driving, so it takes a lot to overcome a car centric culture. I live in a college town in a rural area. The transition to public transportation happens when parking becomes expensive or impractical (such as at the university) so people park and ride on a bus. But that still requires cars. Frankly cars have value that’s hard to replace when there’s…

How many such "new cities" are there really? Car culture wasn't a thing until the 1950s and I can't think of a single metropolitan city that was founded after that.

There are lots of new cities, or at least cities that were founded or built substantially after the invention of the car. Irvine, CA, for example began construction in the 60s and incorporated in the 70s (and now has more than 250K people making it a top 100 city by population). The town I grew up in only incorporated in 1982 (and most every house was built in the 70s to 90s).

Also the city of Mountain House is a planned community for 20,000 that started construction in 2001.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_House,_San_Joaquin_...

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#185

Post by wildmusings »

rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

It’s also worth remembering how comfortable cars are compared to being packed like a sardine in public transit next to total strangers, some of whom are rude or unhygienic.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#186

Post by megaremote »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
simias wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how it is in the USA but in France (and I suspect most old European cities) the richer people who can afford to live in the city center are generally in favor of removing cars because they either don't have a car or can afford to pay for a private parking spot while people who live in the suburbs and take their cars to work every day have to suffer the consequences. So you end up with this "class warfare…

Do people commute into Paris by car in relatively large numbers? Where on earth do they park? Certainly in the UK cities I've known people who live in the core are much less likely to own cars, but people from outside rarely commute in by car to the core because it's just too slow. Medieval city plans just don't suit cars, even where the walls were demolished to make a ring road. I used to joke that there was no way…

No, they do no. Hardly anyone does.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#187

Post by wildmusings »

mantap wrote: post #181
rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

Time on a train is at least semi-productive time. You can read HN! Which, face it, is what you'd be doing anyway. Time in a car is just spent staring at the road.

I like to call my family and girlfriend during my commutes. It’s much nicer to do that in the privacy and comfort of a car than in public transportation. There’s also audiobooks and music.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#188

Post by bromuro »

rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

In italy it is slow because there’s still lot of traffic and not enough funds for public transport.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#189

Post by fzeroracer »

wildmusings wrote: post #185
rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

It’s also worth remembering how comfortable cars are compared to being packed like a sardine in public transit next to total strangers, some of whom are rude or unhygienic.

To be fair, that's not something you escape when you're driving at all. You still have to deal with rude drivers, people that cut you off, honk, road rage etc.

And I don't think in my entire college life of taking public transit to and from school did I ever really encounter anyone or anything that made my day worse. In fact it was the opposite, since one of the things that still stands out in my mind is the day a complete stranger decided to give out roses to men and women aboard the bus I was riding, myself included.

It was such a small thing, but something that really stuck with me.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#190

Post by [deleted] »

wildmusings wrote: post #185
rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

It’s also worth remembering how comfortable cars are compared to being packed like a sardine in public transit next to total strangers, some of whom are rude or unhygienic.

[deleted]
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