What happens when a city bans cars from its streets? • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#111

Post by journalctl » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

nightsd01 wrote: post #88

beefield wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Self-driving cars are going trigger a new wave of automobile growth, at least in the US. They won't be dangerous, will run clean, be super convenient and unbelievably inexpensive to own and operate. My guess is that you are wrong. At least what comes to driving in cities. As the (current) main problem of cars in cities is not accidents, emissions, lack of convenience or even cost. It is the massive amount of space…

beefield: a self driving car doesn’t NEED to take up space in a crowded city. It can drive you to work, then you get out, then it can go drive itself to a less crowded area. Then when you’re ready to leave the office it can be there when you’re ready to go.

Where... where does the car live? It has to take up space somewhere. And if you say “outside the city”, then you’ve just reinvented suburbs.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#112

Post by scarejunba » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #51

scarejunba wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there good city locations still available? (By water, large enough area available, not actively attempting to kill you)

A good city location is right next to an existing city. Existing cities have everything someone moving to your city might want, so just locate next to them. There are plenty of locations with the characteristics you name all over the world. You can start a city half way between Omaha and Kansas City if you want - nobody will home even though it meets all your requirements. Major cities develop near shipping when ther…

Oh that's a good observation: near a city location is the best city location.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#113

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #47

judge2020 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think this describes many of the cars on the streets. That's part of the reason people favor(ed) cars over train - they effectively accommodate everyone and work for every use case.

Past a certain population density, cars absolutely do not accomedate everyone . There's simply a finite amount of street space in the city, if everyone chose to drive in Manhattan the streets would cease to function. Case in point, if you walk around Broome St. between 4:30 and 6:00 PM on a weekday, there are regularly cars (and pedestrians) that miss an entire light cycle because there are too many cars stopped acro…

No, police don't enforce traffic laws because they all drive in from Long Island and spend their whole day in a car, so they view cars and their drivers as belonging to the same tribe as police, which puts them above the law. Pedestrians and cyclists are "the other" that is capable of actually breaking laws.

Put cops on bikes and see how enforcement changes.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#114

Post by jimmaswell » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #10

bananabiscuit wrote: post #7

I’m guessing so many people on HN are anti-car because they live their lives through their computer and never feel the need to travel outside their immediate area? What are you supposed to do if you like to take trips to places hundreds of miles away? What if your job involves visiting many different locations in your city throughout the day? I have family that lives in the same city as me and the difference between…

No, you're guessing that because you live in a world that's been designed for cars for 50 years, so you naturally see it as the most convenient option -- because it's been designed that way. Even in NYC. Design cities for people first and not automobiles and you'll be asking why anyone would take a car over a train/bus/bike because it's more expensive, takes longer, and is more of a hassle.

Why would I want to walk to a train/bus station, wait around, cram into a space full of people (some crazy or smelly or muggers), then walk even more afterwards and probably have to take even more connections, or be forced to use a bike all the time (I use one recreationally but I'd hate to rely on it)? We're not all such smug masochists that we're willing to turn every day into an inconvenient exercise routine and carry the cross of carlessness for ideological reasons.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#115

Post by opportune » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:57 PM UTC

journalctl wrote: post #109

opportune wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree we will still need roads in the foreseeable future, probably the rest of our lifetimes, but it’s not out of the question for materials to dropped into a construction site using drones. Maybe even entire prefabbed buildings or segments of buildings There are significant benefits to this approach other than not having to use roads, but of course the tech isn’t there yet

I mean this really nicely: it is 100% out of the question for entire buildings or even just materials to be dropped into a construction site with drones. Also, how are you going to get large digging equipment in? Or things like wrecking balls?

Something like an Ibeam could, it would just require something closer in size/larger than a helicopter. A 50 foot Ibeam is a bit over 2 tons; a small modern military helicopter would be able to carry that easily. When I say drone I just mean a remotely controlled copter-thing, not specifically a small one.

An entire building is less feasible unless it is small, but it could be done using modular components

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#116

Post by thelittleone » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

foobar1962 wrote: post #90

brenden2 wrote: post #3

I'm so happy to see this idea starting to get mainstream attention. I predict that in 50-100 years we'll look back on the age of the automobile as one of the biggest mistakes in urban planning. Automobiles are dangerous, kill thousands of people every year, contribute significantly to pollution, and cause health problems by discouraging physical activity. They're expensive, inefficient, and cause more harm than good…

> I predict that in 50-100 years we'll look back on the age of the automobile as one of the biggest mistakes in urban planning. No need to wait that long, the regret is felt already. Sydney ripped up its extensive tram network in the 1950s and 1960s to improve the roads for cars. Remnants of the infrastructure remain: cuttings through rocky, hilly areas in particular. My mother (in her 90s now) talks about taking the…

Isn’t it ironic that trams are about to start running again in Sydney.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#117

Post by username90 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:07 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #85

brenden2 wrote: post #3

I'm so happy to see this idea starting to get mainstream attention. I predict that in 50-100 years we'll look back on the age of the automobile as one of the biggest mistakes in urban planning. Automobiles are dangerous, kill thousands of people every year, contribute significantly to pollution, and cause health problems by discouraging physical activity. They're expensive, inefficient, and cause more harm than good…

The idyllic dream of vendors lugging their wares through the subway and city streets every day... When construction companies hire armies of people to walk individual I-beams through the city for every project... Where I get to haul my garbage a dozen blocks to the nearest accessible trash pickup location... In the end you still need roads. You don't get to convert all of that space into a park even if you ban cars.

You can ban cars but still allow cargo trucks to drive through pedestrian streets, that is what Zurich in Switzerland does. People and cars can share space just fine if the cars are few and slow enough.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#118

Post by mc32 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #55

brenden2 wrote: post #3

I'm so happy to see this idea starting to get mainstream attention. I predict that in 50-100 years we'll look back on the age of the automobile as one of the biggest mistakes in urban planning. Automobiles are dangerous, kill thousands of people every year, contribute significantly to pollution, and cause health problems by discouraging physical activity. They're expensive, inefficient, and cause more harm than good…

> I predict that in 50-100 years we'll look back on the age of the automobile as one of the biggest mistakes in urban planning. I think that's a very hyperbolic prediction. I think elevating the automobile to the detriment of other forms of transportation will be viewed as a mistake, but the automobile itself is no more a mistake than the horse and carriage were. > My dream is that one day most streets in Manhattan w…

Agreed. It was a necessary step to the next stage.

We could say the industrial revolution was a great disaster as if disrupted how people worked, their relationship to labor, capital, etc., but it also enabled us to get where we are today.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#119

Post by throwing838383 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:11 PM UTC

pchristensen wrote: post #21

jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the USA empty enough that you could still start such a city today?

Availability of land is the limiting factor inside existing cities, but not for the development of new cities. To build a new city, your limiting factor would be a self-sustaining cluster of economic activity that can attract participants. And that's difficult to bootstrap for a lot of reasons.

To get people to move somewhere, you mainly just need jobs. Everybody wants jobs. There's no choice, people have to go where jobs are because employers have much more bargaining power.

So, create some large enough tax incentives for companies to move there, and people will follow.

Re: What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?

#120

Post by thelittleone » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:13 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #81

darksaints wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to be far worse than that. The economics of self driving cars are so biased toward taxi-like usage that the city streets won't just be filled with cars taking up a lot of space. They'll be filled with cars moving at a glacial pace because the streets are all gridlocked by pickups and dropoffs. Every street will look like an airport or elementary school pickup/dropoff zone. And even where there aren…

Who's to say cities won't regulate how many of these cars can be on the road at any time? They already do this for taxis... And I believe some of them put limits on Uber and Lyft, too. Right?

This is done in Singapore. You can buy a car no problem but you need a certificate of entitlement to register and drive it. COE price fluctuates based on demand but has been over $50k USD (no mistake).

A small island nation. Traffic still gets pretty bad but it would probably be a lot worse without this policy.