Cities were designed around cars. It’s time for a change.
New York wasn't.
Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
21–30 of 156 posts
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#22Imagine if, in high density areas like Manhattan, cars were simply not allowed. Wow. The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy. Would be so awesome.
Busses and delivery trucks are the most noisy and polluting! That doesn’t seem like the panacea you suggest.
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#23Imagine if, in high density areas like Manhattan, cars were simply not allowed. Wow. The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy. Would be so awesome.
Busses and delivery trucks are the most noisy and polluting! That doesn’t seem like the panacea you suggest.
On a per-unit basis, sure. There are way more cars than buses or delivery trucks though.
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#24This is one of the more exciting things that has happened to traffic in NYC. Getting rid of cars in a city isn't possible, but being able to make this change to one street at a time seems feasible. I live a block away from this area, and it's completely transformed the neighborhood. It's much safer to walk across 14th st. There are many shops in the area that seem to be getting more foot traffic (no data behind this)…
This is a better strategy than trying to put bike lanes on every street. Drivers don't pay attention enough. Risk of getting doored or having some car turn right without checking their blindspot/mirrors is too high.
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#25As far as I'm concerned, cars have no place in Manhattan, and should be banned from all but a handful of designated roads. Maybe give out special licenses to the disabled, or anyone else who physically requires a car—that way, they'll actually be able to get around at reasonable speeds, too.
If you're disabled, wouldn't it be better to use a motorized wheelchair? Then you can go anywhere that's wheelchair accessible, without creating any risks for pedestrians.
That doesn’t work for the visually impaired, for those with epilepsy, for the extremely short of stature, for persons without hands, for those who are aged or living with progressive impairments who shouldn’t drive but for whom a $10k-$50k power chair is not an appropriate solution.
Not to mention those who could not afford them even if they wanted them. I won’t even touch social issues related to hierarchies of disability.
You know what works for everyone though? Dropping the pretender that everyone “needs” personal transport and embracing accessible transit and the infrastructure that requires and offers.
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#26Maybe fix the metro first? Kiev in Ukraine has better metro than NYC.
This is a false dichotomy. One does not exclude another.
No but the order is important. Making public transport better first would make the transition away from car traffic somewhat smoother.
Many cities already successfully pulled this off and this method received far more popular support than just cutting off car traffic and expecting the people to "deal with it" without having good options.
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#27As far as I'm concerned, cars have no place in Manhattan, and should be banned from all but a handful of designated roads. Maybe give out special licenses to the disabled, or anyone else who physically requires a car—that way, they'll actually be able to get around at reasonable speeds, too.
I think Manhattan is way to big to ban cars from the entire island. They could do it gradually and add public streetcars to main thoroughfares, but the way things are now, it would not work to straight up ban cars today.
The entire island is well covered by the subway except for going crosstown past the 100's which is served solidly by buses for that use case.
Not to mention the many buses that most wealthy people ignore. No need for public streetcars when you already have buses that will be running quite ahead of schedule, as seen with 14th street :)
I'm for gradually removing for other reasons, but the size is not the prohibitive factor.
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#28Imagine if, in high density areas like Manhattan, cars were simply not allowed. Wow. The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy. Would be so awesome.
Busses and delivery trucks are the most noisy and polluting! That doesn’t seem like the panacea you suggest.
Delivery truck volume scales with demand and has pretty upfront costs.
Buss volume scales with funding and political will with upfront costs and delayed realized benefits. Generally supply is outstripped by demand.
Personal conveyance volume does not appear to have any of these limiting factors. And has terrible demonstrated density.
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#29Imagine if, in high density areas like Manhattan, cars were simply not allowed. Wow. The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy. Would be so awesome.
If driving into Manhattan were not an option, I would expect demand for housing in Manhattan would go up[0]. Of course, housing in Manhattan is already incredibly expensive...
I'm sure Manhattan would become very pleasant for those who could still afford to live there.
[0] (Suppose for the sake of argument my preference for commuting was driving,walking,transit (in that order.) With the option of driving eliminated my second preference would be to walk, which means finding housing closer to my workplace in Manhattan.)
Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
#30Imagine if, in high density areas like Manhattan, cars were simply not allowed. Wow. The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy. Would be so awesome.
Busses and delivery trucks are the most noisy and polluting! That doesn’t seem like the panacea you suggest.
Per vehicle yes, per capita no.