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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

#471

Post by zhdc1 »

H8crilA wrote: post #183
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 publ…

I can't speak for mainland China, but if it's anything like Taiwan, there's probably an illusion of accessibility brought on by the sheer size of the cities/transportation infrastructure that you don't really notice until you've lived there a while.

The subway systems in Taipei and Kaohsiung are great, but it's easy to ignore just how much of each city isn't serviced by underground or above ground rail, and are only accessible via public transportation through spotty bus networks.

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

#472

Post by 11235813213455 »

bambax wrote: post #377

Surprising how the comments so far (351) seem to be debating car vs. public transport, while the original article was more about car vs. other means of personal transportation, including bikes, ebikes and scooters: > Two wheels good, four wheels bad Most car rides are done with just one person at the wheel (or in the case of Uber/Lyft, a driver and just one rider). The size and weight of the vehicle is the problem. A…

let alone if you're on your bike and get slammed by a car

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

#474

Post by jefftk »

ekianjo wrote: post #470
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…

> You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk when you are young and single. By the time you have kids this changes everything.

We live outside of Boston with two kids, now 3y and 5y. We're about 10min from the subway, and we've never had a car. We do a lot of walking with our kids, and when they were younger we used the stroller more. I'm as happy with this as I was before kids.

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

#475

Post by mymythisisthis »

puranjay wrote: post #411
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…

> Viewed from a different perspective, a country where most people can spend 48 minutes a day commuting, because it’s rich enough for everyone to afford a car, What's good for individuals might not necessarily be good for society. In 100 years, we'll look back at our car obsession as some sort of temporary societal madness. The environmental impact of cars alone is a compelling argument in favor of public transport

I see many people 'cottaging' in the summer. Drive for a couple of hours to a cottage, spend two days there, and drive back. It's not that enjoyable of an experience, really like owning two houses, that you need to clean.

I look at the pictures from 100 years ago of little resorts, and little resort towns. You take a train, spend a week in a pleasant atmosphere. Maybe you own a little cottage near the railway tracks, in a small village. It was more communal and more enjoyable. You can walk into the village in 15 minutes.

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

#476

Post by treden »

puranjay wrote: post #411
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…

> Viewed from a different perspective, a country where most people can spend 48 minutes a day commuting, because it’s rich enough for everyone to afford a car, What's good for individuals might not necessarily be good for society. In 100 years, we'll look back at our car obsession as some sort of temporary societal madness. The environmental impact of cars alone is a compelling argument in favor of public transport

In 100 years, we'll still be rich enough to afford cars, just they will be electric and self-driving. People only take public transportation because there's no parking, it's faster and/or cheaper, or they can get other stuff done while on it. All these being equal, people will choose cars.

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

#477

Post by zhdc1 »

rexgallorum2 wrote: post #453
fluffything wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany, and use the bike, e-scooter/bikes/... and public transport for everything. I have owned a car before, and I did not use those other transportation methods any less. We don't own a car anymore because it does not make economic sense for us. When we need to travel by car inside the city, we just use Uber (~30 EUR/month is what we currently pay). When we need a car for a couple of hours to pick up stu…

Your estimated costs are pretty average, but I found the €30k figure curious. Used cars are dirt cheap in Germany, and they are often in really good shape and well maintained compared to used cars in other countries. I occasionally drive a 20 year old Opel that was purchased 7 years ago for €2500. It works great. I ride my bike most of the time, but it's really handy to have a car to haul kids or heavy/bulky stuff.

€30k is only a little under the annual salary in Germany, so I'm suspicious that this figure is somewhat overblown as well.

€30k is enough for pretty much any new entry level or basic trim car outside of Audi/BMW/Porsche.

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

#478

Post by jefftk »

Dobbs wrote: post #399
noobermin wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old conspiracy, although its accuracy is debatable, google the "General Motors streetcar conspiracy." Another potential possibility is many cities scrapped their streetcars for spare metal during WWII. Along with that, market forces and lobbying and policy by people like Robert Moses, the current form of America was created.

They lost court cases over it, I don't think it is fair to call its accuracy debatable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

The debatable aspect is how much of an impact it had. Many other cities without a similar conspiracy also got rid of their streetcars.

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

#479

Post by camillomiller »

rexgallorum2 wrote: post #453
fluffything wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany, and use the bike, e-scooter/bikes/... and public transport for everything. I have owned a car before, and I did not use those other transportation methods any less. We don't own a car anymore because it does not make economic sense for us. When we need to travel by car inside the city, we just use Uber (~30 EUR/month is what we currently pay). When we need a car for a couple of hours to pick up stu…

Your estimated costs are pretty average, but I found the €30k figure curious. Used cars are dirt cheap in Germany, and they are often in really good shape and well maintained compared to used cars in other countries. I occasionally drive a 20 year old Opel that was purchased 7 years ago for €2500. It works great. I ride my bike most of the time, but it's really handy to have a car to haul kids or heavy/bulky stuff.

If you have kids, especially more than one, a no-car city center is a nightmare. Even in Europe.

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

#480

Post by mymythisisthis »

fnord123 wrote: post #261
closeparen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the environment and the people. I'd often take the long way through campus: pleasant architecture and landscaping, light filtered through tall buildings and trees, chance encounters with classmates and professors, lots of porous buildings with stuff going on. The walking parts of my Bay Area transit commute, on the other hand, were urine vapor mingled with pot smoke, harsh direct sunlight bouncing off conc…

>dozens of homeless people in varying levels of distress The homelessness problems in the US vs EU is a whole other topic.

Curious, what is your quick take on it. It's partially related to this topic. Many small cities in N.America give homeless people free bus tickets to NYC or California, so they don't have to deal with them. This allows small cities no to worry about public transit, and widens the urban/rural divide.
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