51–60 of 246 posts
Some additional interesting links in this summary article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/24/coronavi...
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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.
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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 p…
London’s Embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars (and the rest of CS3 on other roads) added a bike lane by removing car capacity despite it being full every rush hour. The road as a whole has higher throughput now. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-cycle-lane-superhighway-em...
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 never even got a drivers license and have lived just fine so I'm also always shocked by the comments here in transport-related threads when people talk about not having a car as if this is somehow a fantasy utopian vision. And this also I might add includes families with children. While I don't have any I know a lot of parents who don't rely on cars either.
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 never even got a drivers license and have lived just fine so I'm also always shocked by the comments here in transport-related threads when people talk about not having a car as if this is somehow a fantasy utopian vision. And this also I might add includes families with children. While I don't have any I know a lot of parents who don't rely on cars either.
(Certainly I couldn't really have done jobs I've had without being able to drive a car and would have missed out on many, many travel experiences including just visiting family.)
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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 p…
London’s Embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars (and the rest of CS3 on other roads) added a bike lane by removing car capacity despite it being full every rush hour. The road as a whole has higher throughput now. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-cycle-lane-superhighway-em...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never even got a drivers license and have lived just fine so I'm also always shocked by the comments here in transport-related threads when people talk about not having a car as if this is somehow a fantasy utopian vision. And this also I might add includes families with children. While I don't have any I know a lot of parents who don't rely on cars either.
I have zero trouble understanding that owning a personal car may not make economic sense in many cities. I have more trouble really grokking the no driver license. So many trips associated with both work and vacation experiences--or even weekend activities outside of a city--require renting a car. I guess you can consciously avoid those situations but it seems very limiting. (Certainly I couldn't really have done job…
imagine my shock when i went to college with a bunch of kids from “the city” (nyc) who never got a license in the first place and many didn’t even see the point of it. truly mind-blowing.
now i live in LA and haven’t owned a car for years (but still have a license). it’s great! the weather makes this the perfect city for mass biking/scootering, if only we could convert even some of our abundance of street parking into bike lanes.
This seems really short-sited given the reality of pandemics. Walking or biking or high utilization of public transport implies high density. In a pandemic, the more people you encounter, the higher the chance of contracting the disease. Cars decrease density by increasing the effective area where people can work/shop/live. The area accessible grows as the square of the distance you can travel. In addition, in a car,…
I don’t think density matters as much as you think it does. The evidence seems to be that people are mostly contracting the virus in indoor spaces like offices, restaurants, theaters and churches, and people in low density areas go to offices, restaurants, theaters and churches that are just as crowded as the ones in cities. In high density areas people live in smaller apartments that are stacked on top of one anothe…
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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.
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I never even got a drivers license and have lived just fine so I'm also always shocked by the comments here in transport-related threads when people talk about not having a car as if this is somehow a fantasy utopian vision. And this also I might add includes families with children. While I don't have any I know a lot of parents who don't rely on cars either.
I have zero trouble understanding that owning a personal car may not make economic sense in many cities. I have more trouble really grokking the no driver license. So many trips associated with both work and vacation experiences--or even weekend activities outside of a city--require renting a car. I guess you can consciously avoid those situations but it seems very limiting. (Certainly I couldn't really have done job…
Nowadays as an adult, I think on vacations it might actually be a good thing because I've found just taking trains in foreign countries is actually one of the more fun aspects of travelling.