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Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

citylab.com

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Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#21

Post by ourlordcaffeine »

Mirioron wrote: post #9
makomk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically, the idea is to substantially shrink people's worlds in real, day to day terms, reducing the distance it's practical to travel to work, socialize and shop? Why even live in a big city anymore at that point, if you're only going to be able to interact with a small corner of it?

That's how I understood it as well. This idea seems to be gaining popularity in a lot of places. I wonder how much this is going to cost their local economy in the long-term.

Based on existing experience in Europe, it will significantly bolster local economies, as walkers and bikers often go into shops, often unplanned as they just saw an interesting shop during their journey. Net result was a big increase in purchases from brick and mortar stores.

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#22

Post by lbeltrame »

briefcomment wrote: post #5
dmitrygr wrote: post #2

That is a great idea. Push more people to crowded public transit where infections can spread easier.

Nope, the article says "Accordingly, says Milan Mayor Beppe Sala, the city plans to maintain its metro system’s capacity at less than two-thirds of its pre-pandemic activity. Instead of the 1.4 million average trips it saw daily before the pandemic, it will accommodate a maximum daily ridership of 400,000." Instead, they're focusing on supporting walking and cycling. "As a result, Milan is going big on cycling and wa…

> the city plans to maintain its metro system’s capacity at less than two-thirds of its pre-pandemic activity.

As a resident of Milan, I find this rather displeasing. I don't own a car (and have no plans to own one), and I exclusively depend on the metro + trains to get to work, which is too far away for serious walking or even cycling. FTR: it's actually far easier to go there (at least from where I live) with public transport than walking , cycling, and even with a car.

Even at full capacity trains are already packed, and I'm afraid that this will make matters worse than before (example: at some point last month metro lines cut rides to Also, what happens if it rains?

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#24

Post by briefcomment »

cafxx wrote: post #15
jasonv wrote: post #11

I'm perplexed by the comments here. Some cities have seen greater business increases on pedestrian and bike converted through-ways because people in cars weren't just passing by. Bikers and pedestrians stopped and shopped in the areas they were traveling through. I, for one, look forward to making a choice to move to a place where I can live car-free and hope more cities accelerate plans like this.

I live in Tokyo and I can assure you that living car-free is lovely. I used to love driving, then moved here and stopped caring altogether when I realized that public transport here is significantly faster (and cheaper) than using your car to go from point A to point B.

And probably safer

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#25

Post by stereo »

patrickaljord wrote: post #20
hk__2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Biking in Paris where it rains all the time and gets really cold, good luck with that (I'm a biker myself and use it all the time, just not feeling good about this knowing Parisians). Is it really worse than other big cities? Does it have a proven impact on bike usage? As some anecdata, it rains twice more in New York than in Paris 1,200mm vs. 600mm/year) and on more days (121 vs. 111/yr). Amsterdam, the well known…

Amsterdam is flat, not the case for Paris.

Paris is a lot flatter than Aarhus, which has much higher bicycle usage. And if you need to go to Montmartre, any Decathlon in Paris sells perfectly decent e-bikes for a few hundred Euros. It's infrastructure, not culture or hills or weather.

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#26

Post by kortilla »

secondraft wrote: post #16
jariel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is misleading - the city controls supply, not demand. By cutting service in specific routes, they're probably just going to increase density on them. The issue is less about 'net capacity / ridership' as much as literally density on each ride. Paradoxically, reducing density comes with increasing capacity. Cities/central planners do this kind of thing all the time, they change some thing over here and think that…

> This is misleading - the city controls supply, not demand. Well. Relevant quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand "Trying to cure traffic congestion by adding more capacity is like trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt."

Shitty quote. Induced demand is a lazy intellectual concept that fails to realize that congestion follows a standard supply and demand curve and the price is just being hidden because the monetary cost is usually free for everyone so it’s all based on time cost.

So you add supply, you capture more of the demand that has been there at a lower cost. You didn’t induce shit. You will eventually add enough supply that everyone will be satisfied (see every road not suffering from congestion issues).

”Trying to cure a toilet paper shortage by producing more toilet paper is like trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt.”

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#27

Post by KozmoNau7 »

jasonv wrote: post #11

I'm perplexed by the comments here. Some cities have seen greater business increases on pedestrian and bike converted through-ways because people in cars weren't just passing by. Bikers and pedestrians stopped and shopped in the areas they were traveling through. I, for one, look forward to making a choice to move to a place where I can live car-free and hope more cities accelerate plans like this.

I think some people are commenting from a perspective of a society/environment where a car is basically mandatory, where you cannot really go anywhere or do anything without a car, or where it is at least hopelessly cumbersome to use public transit and dangerous to ride a bicycle.

Not just in this discussion, but whenever the subject of transportation and public transit come up.

If you asked me ~10 years ago, I could not have imagined not having a car. I finally sold mine 3 years ago and started biking and taking public transit everywhere, and it works just fine. On the rare occasions where I have needed a car (moving apartments, a wedding in the middle of nowhere), rental cars covered my needs.

The amount of money I save by not having a car is not trivial.

When we go visit my girlfriend's family in southern Germany, renting a car is completely mandatory, it's more or less impossible to do anything without one. So I absolutely understand where people are coming from, you need an environment where public transit and walkability are prioritized for this to work.

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#28

Post by cafxx »

briefcomment wrote: post #24
cafxx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Tokyo and I can assure you that living car-free is lovely. I used to love driving, then moved here and stopped caring altogether when I realized that public transport here is significantly faster (and cheaper) than using your car to go from point A to point B.

And probably safer

Quite so. And, I forgot, you can use the time commuting for something that requires your complete attention - like reading, studying, or even just deep thinking - that you simply can't do when you're driving.

So not only it's faster, it actually frees up time for other things.

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#29

Post by IAmEveryone »

This (specifically car/bike traffic) may be the first real-life example of a Giffen Good I've come across: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good

You'd think that people avoiding public transport would result in increased car traffic. But in a scenario where the roads were already at or near capacity, that's impossible. Not only would a number equivalent to those switching from public transport have to use bikes. Because bikes also need (some, but less) space on the roads, car traffic actually needs to decrease.

Re: Europe’s cities are making less room for cars after coronavirus

#30

Post by AshamedCaptain »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #27
jasonv wrote: post #11

I'm perplexed by the comments here. Some cities have seen greater business increases on pedestrian and bike converted through-ways because people in cars weren't just passing by. Bikers and pedestrians stopped and shopped in the areas they were traveling through. I, for one, look forward to making a choice to move to a place where I can live car-free and hope more cities accelerate plans like this.

I think some people are commenting from a perspective of a society/environment where a car is basically mandatory, where you cannot really go anywhere or do anything without a car, or where it is at least hopelessly cumbersome to use public transit and dangerous to ride a bicycle. Not just in this discussion, but whenever the subject of transportation and public transit come up. If you asked me ~10 years ago, I could…

I have done the opposite direction. I moved from a big city where I just would not even think about getting a car -- it would be just a huge expense that would sit there gathering dust and depreciating faster than I can sneeze. I would spent more time walking to whether I parked it (and finding a place to park it) than I would ever save by driving instead of walking.

Then I moved to a smaller city with a larger suburb area. Within 6 months I had bought the car. The last straw was having had to wait an hour for the bus, carrying grocery bags. At the same time, you find parking spots almost everywhere, and walking was not that easy, with longer distances and in many places not even sidewalks.

It's just two different worlds, really.

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