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It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

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Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#291

Post by bogomipz »

CydeWeys wrote: post #168
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately in the US most of the major cities have essentially been designed (or redesigned) around private vehicles, so banning them is not going to happen. However you are absolutely correct - walking through Times Square in NYC is a pleasure (aside from all the guys in Batman costumes) with traffic removed compared to turn of the millennia. I don’t care to bike but the bike lanes squeezing out all the auto traf…

The most recent part of Manhattan to be designed was still over two centuries ago in 1811, so we're not going to have that problem at least. But I think you're over-estimating how hard it would be to get rid of traffic in many other urban cores in the US. You don't need to do the entire city; you can just do the densest parts. It's not that hard to beef up a city's existing bus services and use them to totally replac…

>"The most recent part of Manhattan to be designed was still over two centuries ago in 1811."

That's not correct. Battery Park City was developed in the mid 1970's.[1] And that development is particularly significant here as it includes a car-free green space in the form of Hudson River Park which begins there. Hudson River Park itself also being significant in that it won out over the proposed Westway Project which would have placed an interstate highway there instead.[2] The extension of Hudson River Park all the way up to the 72nd St Boat Basin is also a very recent and significant development.

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Highway#Westway

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#292

Post by randallsquared »

rocgf wrote: post #244
randallsquared wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually you can't offer any more carrots and you have to start using a stick. At least you're open that you want to force them to do what you prefer, instead of what's best for them. Most people who want to force their preferences on others are not so clear-eyed.

And at least you're open that you care little about anything else apart from your personal comfort. All the externalities associated with you driving while having perfectly good alternatives should be suffered by the rest of us.

I live in NYC and do not typically drive, nor do I want to drive in NYC. Of course, that has nothing to do with the carrot/stick dichotomy to which I was responding, as you know.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#293

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

portlander12345 wrote: post #267
Someone wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also move most, if not all, furniture that fits through a house’s door or elevator on a small electric van or even a (three-wheeled) bicycle. Electric vans also could be the preferred method of supplying shops with goods. That need not be much more expensive if containers can be moved from larger vans onto such smaller vans at city boundaries. If you have furniture that’s so large that you have to hoist it up…

Can confirm, have moved king-sized mattresses, large dressers and cabinets, etc via a trailer on an ordinary bicycle. It’s really easy! Where I’m from there’s a tradition in the bike community called a “bike move”. When you’re moving, you invite everybody to show up on a certain day with their trailers and cargo bikes. Everybody packs and moves you in a distributed manner! All you have to do is provide coffee and don…

That sounds awesome. Are you in Oregon?

Edit: Ah, I see your username now =)

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#294

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

freehunter wrote: post #272
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average SUV is a fastback car with a few extra inches of ground clearance. Just modernized versions of the Tercel 4WD.

There's a big difference between "the average SUV" that you're talking about and "a big SUV" that the other person is talking about. A Ford Escape is just a taller hatchback, but a Ford Explorer or Expedition are a different story.

Body on frame SUVs are vastly outnumbered by the unibody models.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#295

Post by CydeWeys »

humanrebar wrote: post #287
CydeWeys wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have functioning limbs, respiratory systems, etc. We shouldn't design a system that allows everyone to drive just because a much smaller minority has a harder time taking alternatives. We already have paratransit for the elderly and handicapped in NYC. My 97-year-old great aunt uses it. And those people will benefit from getting rid of most of the rest of the vehicles, as it will reduce congestion (and th…

> ...a much smaller minority has a harder time taking alternatives At any given time it's a minority. But everyone is a baby, has a baby, or is elderly at some point.

You keep insisting that it's essentially impossible to raise a kid without having a car. This is flat out untrue, especially in New York City or any other place with good mass transit. Many, many people who don't own cars raise kids.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#296

Post by jshaqaw »

As real not snarky rhetorical questions - how does an aging populace get around a city without cabs? When I injured my leg last year I found just how unviable it was to commute by crowded subway during rush hours on crutches. It gave me sympathy for the disabled and elderly. For all their faults, Uber and Lyft were the lifeline which let me get my kids to school and get myself to work until I healed.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#297

Post by missosoup »

telchar wrote: post #277
missosoup wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck everyone with disabilities yeah? ALS? Just walk a few blocks! Parkinson's? Just walk a few blocks! Dystrophy? Just walk a few blocks! Life isn't hard enough for these individuals so let's kick it up a notch by rolling out exclusively ableist transportation.

You say that like electric wheelchairs and scooters don't exist. People too disabled to even use those already require assistance anyway, so they're no worse off requiring assistance in a (nearly) car-free environment.

As someone who suffers one of the above and uses taxi services on a daily basis, that's a load of crap and such a change would make my life significantly worse. I'm not n=1, I'm a member of an entire demographic that clearly know nothing about but feel confident enough to make broad sweeping nonsense claims.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#298

Post by qmmmur »

portlander12345 wrote: post #267
Someone wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also move most, if not all, furniture that fits through a house’s door or elevator on a small electric van or even a (three-wheeled) bicycle. Electric vans also could be the preferred method of supplying shops with goods. That need not be much more expensive if containers can be moved from larger vans onto such smaller vans at city boundaries. If you have furniture that’s so large that you have to hoist it up…

Can confirm, have moved king-sized mattresses, large dressers and cabinets, etc via a trailer on an ordinary bicycle. It’s really easy! Where I’m from there’s a tradition in the bike community called a “bike move”. When you’re moving, you invite everybody to show up on a certain day with their trailers and cargo bikes. Everybody packs and moves you in a distributed manner! All you have to do is provide coffee and don…

How? I can't feasibly imagine balancing my UK queen in a bicycle.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#299

Post by oska »

Merrill wrote: post #143

This seems to ignore freight. First, since there are no freight railroads into Manhattan; everything consumed by the residents and the much larger daytime population has to arrive by truck. Most freight into Manhattan comes via the Hudson River bridges and tunnels since the container port is in New Jersey and the rail yards are also there. There is little barge traffic, although I think that garbage is barged out via…

The article is about banning cars (it's right there in the title). Cars don't carry freight they carry people. Still fine to bring in freight to Manhattan in small trucks & vans but we should make them all have to be zero emission and limit their speed to 30 km/h.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#300

Post by vinceguidry »

jcranmer wrote: post #279
vinceguidry wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had to really look hard to find a part of downtown that looks like that. If you zoom out a bit you can see how all that parking came to be - the nearby stadiums / conference centers. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Forsyth+St+%26+Trinity+Ave... Atlanta's pretty run down in parts, but downtown really isn't that bad.

But you can compare to, say, Baltimore, where there's barely any surface parking around the convention center there, despite the fact that it's right next to a major sports stadium.

Sure, you can make that comparison, I just don't know what useful conclusion you'd get from it. Maybe property rights are stronger there. Maybe nobody offered enough money. Land in Atlanta has historically been relatively cheap compared to New England.

I have a pet theory that states that land values are higher on the coast mainly because sprawl doesn't have as many places to go, so it concentrates in smaller areas. Atlanta was historically a rail hub, exacerbating sprawl because transport could always move people farther outward. Picture pouring money onto a map, and walls are anywhere it's infeasible to develop the land. The money will spread out where there's no natural barriers. It will pile up if there's a lot of them. Money piling up means increased property values.

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