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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

#31

Post by jariel »

Symbiote wrote: post #13
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…

There is nothing in the article to suggest they're reducing service. There's also nothing in your comment to suggest you read the article, so I don't think you're aware of what's planned. > the floors of metro cars and buses will be marked out with circles showing passengers the right level of distance to maintain. If the system looks like it will exceed the passenger numbers that makes this level of distancing possi…

"There is nothing in the article to suggest they're reducing service"

"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.""

Is literally from the article and the comment I was responding to.

Please read the article before complaining to others that they may not have read the article.

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

#32

Post by dzhiurgis »

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…

Why not have both!?

Surely you can have city centres (especially old towns) without cars and people living in suburbs, with special needs or whatever to own a car.

I'd love to drive to a city centre and then have a walk without the traffic noise! I'd hate taking 90 minutes of bus instead of 20 minute drive.

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

#33

Post by CydeWeys »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #32
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why not have both!? Surely you can have city centres (especially old towns) without cars and people living in suburbs, with special needs or whatever to own a car. I'd love to drive to a city centre and then have a walk without the traffic noise! I'd hate taking 90 minutes of bus instead of 20 minute drive.

> I'd love to drive to a city centre and then have a walk without the traffic noise

There's a huge inherent contradiction here though: You are creating the very problem you want to escape from for everyone along your path of travel. land tends to be quite expensive in the city center, and parking is not a good use of it. Are you willing to spend $50 to park your car there to drive to the city center?

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

#34

Post by CydeWeys »

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 isn't that hilly, and anyway ebikes are great at solving this problem.

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

#35

Post by Proven »

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.

> Some cities have seen greater business increases on pedestrian and bike converted through-ways because people in cars weren't just passing by.

First, a person doesn't buy a car but 100 pedestrians buy an ice cream and you think that's a triumph of superior central planning.

Second: so what? Since when does greater business justify fascist government behavior?

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

#36

Post by chriswphoto »

kortilla wrote: post #26
secondraft wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 eve…

Because we don’t charge for roads, users “pay” in congestion delays, so as we widen roads more drivers can use the road at the same “price” measured in minutes of delay. In some cases You might say that increased capacity induced hesitant drivers to drive.

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

#37

Post by ghaff »

CydeWeys wrote: post #33
dzhiurgis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not have both!? Surely you can have city centres (especially old towns) without cars and people living in suburbs, with special needs or whatever to own a car. I'd love to drive to a city centre and then have a walk without the traffic noise! I'd hate taking 90 minutes of bus instead of 20 minute drive.

> I'd love to drive to a city centre and then have a walk without the traffic noise There's a huge inherent contradiction here though: You are creating the very problem you want to escape from for everyone along your path of travel. land tends to be quite expensive in the city center, and parking is not a good use of it. Are you willing to spend $50 to park your car there to drive to the city center?

>Are you willing to spend $50 to park your car there to drive to the city center?

That's pretty common for people who drive into big cities for the day (or indeed to work for a day). Maybe they park on the outskirts and take transit in. But that takes time and, especially for a family, the savings may not really be worth it.

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

#38

Post by SECProto »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #29

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.…

I'm having a lot of trouble trying to conceptualize how "car/bike traffic" could be a giffen good. "A product that people consume more of as the price rises". Raising/creating tolls for cars decreases usage. Raising bus prices also discourages use. Could you help clarify what you meant?

As for road space usage, generally bike lanes are added by adjusting street parking, narrowing lanes, etc. Eg I worked on a recent project where two 4m lanes were turned into a 3m middle lane and 3.5m curb lane and a 0.5m buffer and a 1.0m bike lane. I can't think of many situations where bike lanes were added by removing capacity from roads that had usage approaching capacity.

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

#39

Post by btilly »

bootloop wrote: post #18
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.

There was so much fear-making in Vienna when they pushed for a pedestrian-first shopping mile in the city center. It would destroy economy.. People wouldn't come anymore with there car to buy stuff.. And what happened? A lot more people came, people going just for walks etc. Business increased substantially and now the chamber of commerce (which was heavily lobbying against it) wants even more "Begegnungszonen" as th…

Reminds me of bars in NYC back when smoking bans were implemented. They all thought they would lose business. They gained it instead as new customers who had been avoiding bars because of the smell of smoke flocked there instead.

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

#40

Post by Igelau »

> If the system looks like it will exceed the passenger numbers that makes this level of distancing possible, station entrances will be temporarily closed until congestion eases.

Now you still have close crowding: it's just outside the gate and not getting anywhere. I guess it's more about metro companies being able to say "didn't happen on our trains".

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