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Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

citylab.com

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Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#41

Post by amwelles »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #19
NPMaxwell wrote: post #2

Part of the change is due to the appearance of alternative powered vehicles. In Tokyo, it seems like every mother is riding an electric cargo bike with covered seating for two kids and room for groceries -- the minivan of bicycles. In Seattle, the morning commute is full of electric skateboards, scooters, onewheels, and wheelchairs. It looks doable.

How do those work in winter? We had electric scooters, but they were all scooped up by their parent companies in October ahead of the coming months of hell.

With the right gear, cycling in winter isn’t bad at all, provided the path is clear.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#42

Post by herbstein »

Jamwinner wrote: post #4

We get it citylab, you hate cars, and think everyone lives in the downtown of a metropolis. Meanwhile, the rest of us have places to be, and 99% of my country has no public transport. While I agree that city centers need more walking room, the categorical exclusion of longer distant transport options will just create more parking lots at the border of such areas. The more modern planning ignores the forest (countries…

Dane here. Most cities of 15k or more has what is essentially a couple of streets worth of strip mall with no cars allowed (except for deliveries). This works really well as long as there's ample parking around - which there usually is here.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#43

Post by abyssin »

agensaequivocum wrote: post #28
NPMaxwell wrote: post #2

Part of the change is due to the appearance of alternative powered vehicles. In Tokyo, it seems like every mother is riding an electric cargo bike with covered seating for two kids and room for groceries -- the minivan of bicycles. In Seattle, the morning commute is full of electric skateboards, scooters, onewheels, and wheelchairs. It looks doable.

Not really when you have 5-7+ kids.

When you have 5-7+ kids, you don't have them all at once. By the time you're having the last ones, the eldest can cycle on their own.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#44

Post by sandworm101 »

benrbray wrote: post #16
Jamwinner wrote: post #4

We get it citylab, you hate cars, and think everyone lives in the downtown of a metropolis. Meanwhile, the rest of us have places to be, and 99% of my country has no public transport. While I agree that city centers need more walking room, the categorical exclusion of longer distant transport options will just create more parking lots at the border of such areas. The more modern planning ignores the forest (countries…

America is certainly decades (if not centuries) behind in public transportation. However, these CityLab articles are doing a great thing by highlighting our unhealthy dependence on cars and making it a part of everyday conversation. If we're ever going to change we need to start by agreeing there is a problem and discussing realistic solutions. I don't quite understand your point about the "technological and class di…

They are like a doctor complaining about my i unhealthy dependency on water. I just had to drive 40km between cities for a meeting. There is no train, no bus, no electric skateboard alternative. Sure, maybe we could do the meeting remotely and implement digital signatures on the documents, but that isnt a legal option at the moment. The car-free utopia lies on the other side of countless other revolutions in how society works. Forcing revolution C before revolutions A+B isnt going to win anyone any friends.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#45

Post by tzs »

> When asked what they like most about a city they have visited [...]

It's the people who live there you need to ask. People visiting a city generally have different goals and different constraints than people who live there.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#46

Post by bryanlarsen »

benrbray wrote: post #32
vorpalhex wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in Japan, which has wonderful public transportation and was actually a joy to navigate, there are cars everywhere and frequently there are times when you need a car or your ability to get to places outside of the cities becomes expensive and takes a long time if it's possible at all.

Living in/around Tokyo, I had the exact opposite experience. Cars, trains, pedestrians, and bicyclists are in near-perfect balance. For the most part, people live within walking or biking distance of a train station that takes them to work. Around each station is a cluster of shops and restaurants. Commercial traffic is well-separated from places where people live, meaning that on neighborhood streets there are virtu…

Agreed. Additionally:

All of my co-workers had a car, but they only used them a few times a month except for the couple of coworkers who had hobbies that took them out into rural areas.

And there were buses everywhere. You could take transit from the middle of Tokyo to that onsen in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't be convenient or fast, but it could be done and we did it all the time. You just had to be careful with your scheduling and have something to read on the bus or someone to chat with.

Nobody used their cars to get groceries. The 7-11 on the corner is crazily well-stocked with reasonable prices, and the grocery store is by the train station you walk to and from every day.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#47

Post by allovernow »

ogre_codes wrote: post #27
Jamwinner wrote: post #4

We get it citylab, you hate cars, and think everyone lives in the downtown of a metropolis. Meanwhile, the rest of us have places to be, and 99% of my country has no public transport. While I agree that city centers need more walking room, the categorical exclusion of longer distant transport options will just create more parking lots at the border of such areas. The more modern planning ignores the forest (countries…

> the technological and class divide will only widen. Car friendly infrastructure widens the technological and class divide. They create a base state where you are required to own and maintain an expensive piece of equipment in order to be an equal member of society. You are required to have parking for those cars, both at home and at your work. Forcing people to pay thousands of dollars per year to participate in so…

>Car friendly infrastructure widens the technological and class divide. They create a base state where you are required to own and maintain an expensive piece of equipment in order to be an equal member of society.

Great, so if we can't all have something, none of us should have it! Forget the fact that the vast majority of families own and benefit from personal transportation, the important thing is that we're all equal, even if the equal case is on average worse for everyone, right?

>Forcing people to pay thousands of dollars per year to participate in society is highly repressive

Is it also repressive to "force" people to hold down jobs to participate in society? To "force" people to commute to work? What about the fact that some people have the luxury of working from home? Should we make that illegal as well?

I do not understand how people can be so focused on equality as to totally ignore the average, greater good. The nature of modern civilization is such that some degree of inequality is inevitable if one optimizes for median welfare.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#48

Post by organsnyder »

sandworm101 wrote: post #44
benrbray wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is certainly decades (if not centuries) behind in public transportation. However, these CityLab articles are doing a great thing by highlighting our unhealthy dependence on cars and making it a part of everyday conversation. If we're ever going to change we need to start by agreeing there is a problem and discussing realistic solutions. I don't quite understand your point about the "technological and class di…

They are like a doctor complaining about my i unhealthy dependency on water. I just had to drive 40km between cities for a meeting. There is no train, no bus, no electric skateboard alternative. Sure, maybe we could do the meeting remotely and implement digital signatures on the documents, but that isnt a legal option at the moment. The car-free utopia lies on the other side of countless other revolutions in how soci…

How often do you have those meetings? If it's once a week or less, you'd probably be better off with a carshare rather than owning a private vehicle.

No single mode of transportation solves every use-case. My car is suboptimal when I'm going downtown, as well as for trips longer than 300 miles or so.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#49

Post by ctdonath »

tzs wrote: post #45

> When asked what they like most about a city they have visited [...] It's the people who live there you need to ask. People visiting a city generally have different goals and different constraints than people who live there.

If I can't drive to near my destination, I'll not likely visit that city.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#50

Post by MisterBastahrd »

monknomo wrote: post #8
Jamwinner wrote: post #4

We get it citylab, you hate cars, and think everyone lives in the downtown of a metropolis. Meanwhile, the rest of us have places to be, and 99% of my country has no public transport. While I agree that city centers need more walking room, the categorical exclusion of longer distant transport options will just create more parking lots at the border of such areas. The more modern planning ignores the forest (countries…

80% of Americans live in an urban area

I live in an urban area of about 2M people. It takes me 40 minutes to get to work on a good day, driving on an interstate. The closest mass transportation option would require me to drive about 25 minutes to get there. Most people are like me.
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