Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by asdff » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

tbarbugli wrote: post #179

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…

Houston is indeed utopia (at least for some), there are not enough resources on this planet to get a large house with pool to 7 billion people.

Don't need your own pool if the building has one. People just have to get more used to sharing common spaces. Even the suburban floorplan could be stacked up a dozen plus stories if people wanted that.

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

#252

Post by oefrha » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

konart wrote: post #243

namesbc wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a world where instead of having to strap your screaming kids in to a car seat for an hour drive in traffic, you walked along a pedestrian street, your kids kicking a ball around, you visit a couple stores, see your kids off to their school, and then walk a couple more blocks to work. When school is over your kids walk safely back home by themselves because there aren't cars out there threatening their lives.…

I don't thing this is what codebolt was talking about. If you can one kid - there is no problem really. Walk him or her to school in the morning, ask grandmother to bring them back etc. When you have more than one - it is entrily possible they will end up going to different schools and after the school one of them had to go to the music shool and the other one to his hockey team or something etc etc. You simply can't…

As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves. Kids under ten might need to be accompanied by a guardian, but there are usually two parents in a household, and some grandparents will help, too. Caretakers can be hired in certain cases. Some family “pool” their kids together too, not unlike in the U.S. where parents would take turns to drive neighbors’ kids.

Also, having cars but no public transit doesn’t change the fundamental equation and doesn’t improve the situation much (especially considering the fact that in many places driving in the morning rush hours might even be slower than taking the subway), in fact quite the opposite, teenagers are wholly dependent on parents when they could have been independent.

> You simply can’t do this without a car.

I grew up like that. People have been doing that for decades.

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

#253

Post by pferde » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 6:59 AM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #187

mantap wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, so you're that weirdo who always makes everyone around him in the vehicle listen to his loud phone conversations, making it next to impossible to focus on a book, or whatever else they were trying to do. :)

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

#254

Post by dwd » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 7:04 AM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #187

mantap wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure why you're getting down-voted as having people talking (often loudly) on their phone on public transport makes it unpleasant for everyone else. I try and save calls for the car part of my commute, but then get accused of only calling cause I have nothing better to do...

You do appreciated the relative silence (no one on their phone or talking above a whisper) on trains in Japan.

Brisbane trains on the other hand - you need to wear noise-cancelling headphones (music optional) to block out other people's conversations - even in the quiet carriages.

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

#255

Post by flukus » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

konart wrote: post #243

namesbc wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a world where instead of having to strap your screaming kids in to a car seat for an hour drive in traffic, you walked along a pedestrian street, your kids kicking a ball around, you visit a couple stores, see your kids off to their school, and then walk a couple more blocks to work. When school is over your kids walk safely back home by themselves because there aren't cars out there threatening their lives.…

I don't thing this is what codebolt was talking about. If you can one kid - there is no problem really. Walk him or her to school in the morning, ask grandmother to bring them back etc. When you have more than one - it is entrily possible they will end up going to different schools and after the school one of them had to go to the music shool and the other one to his hockey team or something etc etc. You simply can't…

I think you're struggling to imagine the impact that good public transport has on a cities design. Schools, parks, shops, sporting facilities all start congregating around transport stops/hubs so basically everywhere you need to take kids is within a 5 minute walk of one another.

> yeah, now imaging you have two of them going to two different schools, each 40 minutes walking distance from home, different directions and your office in somewhere else too.

I can't imagine why you would send them to different schools, unless one is a high school in which case they're old enough to get there by themselves. For most people the school they're taking the kids to is right next to the transit stop they'll be taking to work.

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

#256

Post by lsc » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #249

lsc wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm personally uncomfortable driving even really nice cars, 'cause you have to pay careful attention to not kill someone. I mean, driving can be fun or exciting - but it's not comfortable or relaxing, I would argue, at least not driving in places where there are other people. On public transit, on the other hand, I can relax and read and pretty safely ignore the world. Worst case someone grabs my kindle or my phone a…

> On public transit, on the other hand, I can relax and read and pretty safely ignore the world. Worst case someone grabs my kindle or my phone and runs. That surely isn't really the worst case. This happened last Friday in Madrid, just days after someone pushed a mother and her child in front of a train in Germany (and killed the child): https://twitter.com/el_pais/status/1157564725015851008 ? Granted, it's still a…

The fear I feel when driving is not fear for my own safety, but fear that my actions (or momentary inattention) might lead to the death of another.

I think driving without that consciousness that you could kill someone else is extremely dangerous.

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

#257

Post by glogla » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

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…

I'm in European city with great public transport, and my commute is 50 minutes by bus or 20 minutes by car (one way).

Every time someone says "we should forbid cars in cities", I hear "we should take away 1 hour a day from your family, you should sit in bus instead". (or more likely stand, since the bus is always full)

I'm not fan of that.

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

#258

Post by fergie » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 7:06 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #246

Most big cities have a majority of the population without cars at this point. These cities naturally favor more legislation against cars and this is causing city administrators to over time introduce more restrictions for cars. E.g. many Dutch cities got a head start on this to make more room for bicyclists in the nineteen seventies already. Simple measures include raising prices for parking and parking permits, intr…

Visited Berlin last year and was quite surprised by how cycle-UNfriendly it is. For some reason I had expected it to be really progressive

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

#259

Post by shalmanese » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

konart wrote: post #243

namesbc wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a world where instead of having to strap your screaming kids in to a car seat for an hour drive in traffic, you walked along a pedestrian street, your kids kicking a ball around, you visit a couple stores, see your kids off to their school, and then walk a couple more blocks to work. When school is over your kids walk safely back home by themselves because there aren't cars out there threatening their lives.…

I don't thing this is what codebolt was talking about. If you can one kid - there is no problem really. Walk him or her to school in the morning, ask grandmother to bring them back etc. When you have more than one - it is entrily possible they will end up going to different schools and after the school one of them had to go to the music shool and the other one to his hockey team or something etc etc. You simply can't…

Why would they need to walk 40 minutes? In countries with good public school systems, all of the public schools are equally acceptable so you just send them to the nearest one which is generally less than a mile walk away.

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

#260

Post by lazyjones » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 7:09 AM UTC

lsc wrote: post #256

lazyjones wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On public transit, on the other hand, I can relax and read and pretty safely ignore the world. Worst case someone grabs my kindle or my phone and runs. That surely isn't really the worst case. This happened last Friday in Madrid, just days after someone pushed a mother and her child in front of a train in Germany (and killed the child): https://twitter.com/el_pais/status/1157564725015851008 ? Granted, it's still a…

The fear I feel when driving is not fear for my own safety, but fear that my actions (or momentary inattention) might lead to the death of another. I think driving without that consciousness that you could kill someone else is extremely dangerous.

> The fear I feel when driving is not fear for my own safety, but fear that my actions (or momentary inattention) might lead to the death of another.

Did you watch the video? It's (also) about pedestrian/biker safety measures. All new crash tests cover this and you can see very well that cars brake automatically these days.