41–50 of 156 posts
Cities were designed around cars. It’s time for a change.
Very few cities were. Cities for the most part were designed around horse drawn carriages and tons of foot traffic.
Cities are rebuilt all the time. My city now invest heavily into bike lanes reducing the number of car lanes from 2 to 1 and replacing them by bike lanes. That is a choice, which can be made every year by any city.
Imagine 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.
Cabs are like cars, except more expensive, and they drive around without anyone using them for transport looking for business. Why are they superior?
I'm picking on this example not because I think that list is meant to be complete or perfectly thought out, but because cabs often seem to get exceptions like this (e.g. in HOV lanes) and I really don't understand why. It basically seems like a "I'm rich enough to pay someone to do my driving for me" exception.
Maybe fix the metro first? Kiev in Ukraine has better metro than NYC.
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Because cars have a lot of externalities that negatively affect cities? Pollution, noise, increase in collisions, space required to house and fuel them to name a few. I, and many other people, prefer areas of cities where cars aren't dominant and would like to see more of it
But I’m not sure this is a widely held preference. Seems to be a vocal minority trying to impose their will on others.
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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 f…
An alternative could be running power lines over the roads and making buses electric.
I don't understand this anti-car sentiment from the city liberals. It's already happened here in London and it's getting worse. From 20mph speed limits to blocking roads for bus-only traffic to ultra-low emission zones and congestion charges. It's becoming pretty clear that they don't want people to own their own cars. I'm struggling to see how this is progress.
I don't understand this anti-car sentiment from the city liberals. It's already happened here in London and it's getting worse. From 20mph speed limits to blocking roads for bus-only traffic to ultra-low emission zones and congestion charges. It's becoming pretty clear that they don't want people to own their own cars. I'm struggling to see how this is progress.
Walkable cities sounds great until you have luggage to carry or groceries to lug. It’s all about the collective good over that of the individual.
It is a very common sight to see people in my neighborhood get on a bus with one of those square rolling carts with a week's (or more) worth of groceries. I've considered doing the same thing but between my spouse and I, we can fit everything we want in our two backpacks and two to three reusable handle bags.
Lots of how we run society is for the collective good. Strangely, transportation seems to be the opposite. We subsidize the hell out of individual transport while minimizing collective, more efficient transport. What most of us who advocate for public / group transport want is for those to be more even.
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Just about anyone who has breathed London air in the last 30 years sees how it is progress. Dirty, smelly and unhealthy that creates a coating on clothes, furniture and windows. That's probably not ideal for lungs. We notice, and hate it every time we visit the relatives down there. "Start breathing crap" kicks in around Hendon.
It sounds like you are agreeing with me that you don't want people to own their own cars? I suppose we should all just do as the millenials do: rent cars by the mile (Uber) at ridiculously expensive rates.
It was entirely counter-productive, slower than cycling, expensive and just about zero chance of convenient parking. After one or two attempts, I left it at home and took the train down each week.