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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

#271

Post by arcaninsanium »

bllguo wrote: post #61
colechristensen wrote: post #50

A thought in the back of my mind is fear of government oppression in a world without prevalent cars. If you have a car you can travel hundreds of miles with few limitations and it's particularly hard to quash this even in an oppressive state. If you only have your feet and public transit you are very limited to distance and location and tracking movements is an easy feature of the system. Things going wrong? The gove…

an interesting point but such a quintessentially american mindset imo. This thing could potentially used wrong so let's build in all kinds of hedges and failsafes; our freedoms could be impinged in these edge cases so this is a no go, etc. cannot help but lament the inefficiency and stagnation arising from this culture of distrust

> This thing could potentially used wrong so let's build in all kinds of hedges and failsafes

Lmfao if anything this is a super European mindset. Does this not remind you of another hot button issue? (hint: GUNS)

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

#272

Post by arkh »

dwd wrote: post #254
wildmusings wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Not sure why you're getting down-voted

Maybe because just speaking on the phone in traffic makes a lot less attentive so you're prone to create accidents.

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

#273

Post by te_chris »

adrianN wrote: post #268
IloveHN84 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let be fooled by the "tourist impression". Staying for some days isn't the same as living in a place, involving commuting to work, bringing children to school, etc Every city looks nice as a Tourist, but then it's hard if you live there and in the false zone of the city (=farest away)

American cities definitely don't look nice as a tourist. SF for example is terrible if you don't Uber everywhere.

I didn’t particularly love SF, but this is a weird view. We spent 5 days there walking most places with the occasional (unimpressive) PT trip. It was fine. The Tenderloin is certainly sketchy, but the city is very walkable and quite nice to walk around due to the hills and they way they reveal views of the bay.

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

#274

Post by lsc »

lazyjones wrote: post #260
lsc wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not going to watch a video. what sort of person do you think I am?

I do have a reasonable knowledge of modern car safety features, and yes, high end (well, high trim level; these features are optional at additional cost on many cars I would call low end.) cars bought in the last few years have automatic braking systems that function reasonably well at low speeds, and that's a great thing that has probably saved many lives.

Certainly, if I buy a car again I will be sure to pay extra for these features

But these features don't make driving safe. These cars are not even close to being self-driving, and these features don't absolve the driver of vigilance.

Now, this doesn't apply to me ('cause I have a good job and can afford a recent car and can pay extra for the requisite options) but most cars still don't have those features. The vast majority of cars that are on the road today, and even many cars on the new-car lot don't have any sort of automatic-braking system.

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

#275

Post by arkh »

glogla wrote: post #257
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.

Part of the solution is to invest in internet infrastructure and encourage work from home when it is possible. People waste less time and for those who have to get somewhere for their job there is less traffic.

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

#276

Post by virgilp »

adrianN wrote: post #268
IloveHN84 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let be fooled by the "tourist impression". Staying for some days isn't the same as living in a place, involving commuting to work, bringing children to school, etc Every city looks nice as a Tourist, but then it's hard if you live there and in the false zone of the city (=farest away)

American cities definitely don't look nice as a tourist. SF for example is terrible if you don't Uber everywhere.

Really? SF is one of the best, IMO. You can actually take long walks, it actually has a subway (plus busses, trams), it has sidewalks almost everywhere..... sure, less parks than one would like/ a bit too much concrete, lots of homeless people, etc. but hey, it's a big USA city, what did you expect?

Compare it to e.g. the nearby San Jose - SF is so much better that it's not even funny. What US city would you consider more "walkable"/ tourist friendly? MAYBE NY, if we only include Manhattan and nothing else.

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

#277

Post by Kifot »

sunstone wrote: post #139

Last year in the Netherlands more e-bikes were bought than regular bikes. And on average the e-bikes cost twice as much as the regular bikes. What the Dutch have discovered is that an e-bike is more of a substitute for a car rather than for a pedal bike, it's expands the range of running errands up to 10km or 15km while being more convenient and often faster than a car. This is future of most cities worldwide sooner…

As a guy from Poland, I feel like the only obstacle is atrocious weather in winter, which stops 95% people from riding bikes. From March to November it would work just fine though.

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

#278

Post by te_chris »

sprafa wrote: post #247
masklinn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people find time on public transit more pleasant, and are willing to do more of it. My knowledge of "popular" underground (London) or metro (Paris) lines makes that very unlikely, they're hot, way overcrowded, and odd-smelling when they don't outright stink. Very useful and convenient, and can be pleasant outside of peak hours, but back when I worked in Paris despite not being a morning person I switched my work ho…

London has incredible public transport and only one line has no AC so it’s hot (edit) this is completely wrong, actually quite a few lines lack AC.. On being overcrowded - sure, during rush hour. Even then you marvel at the TfL’s efficiency - during rush hour I’ve counted one underground train every 20 seconds. 20 seconds! And this keeps on going for an hour or more.

Huh? None of the deep lines have AC

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

#279

Post by mytailorisrich »

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…

> where middle class people can afford big houses with a pool

And where each person (in the country) consumes twice as much energy as an average French person does [1] and more than 3 times as much water [2]

The "American way of life" is not sustainable.

Mind you, many French can afford a house with a pool as well. The problem is in fact that they do buy houses with pools these days... There were 700k private pools in France in 2000, 1.7 millions in 2012, probably more than 2.5 millions in 2018, making the country the 2nd market after the USA. [3][4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263156/water-consumption...

[3] https://www.planetoscope.com/habitat/1002-les-ventes-de-pisc...

[4] http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/2018/07/23/97002-20180723FI...

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

#280

Post by moksly »

codebolt wrote: post #211
oefrha wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having moved from somewhere with working public transportation to the United States (and having lived here for close to a decade), I can assure you it’s not tourist impression.

How many kids do you have? Any more than one and car becomes necessary in my experience.

I have one, I live in our second largest city (Aarhus). I’ve lived in Aalborg and Odense as well (two other relatively large cities by Danish standards).

I’m 36 and I’ve never taken a drivers license because I’ve never needed it.

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