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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

#111

Post by IAmEveryone »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #43

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,…

There really isn't much of a correlation of density and fatalities, even if New York City may create that impression.

Even in New York, Long Island and Westchester County have more cases per capita than New York City.

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

#112

Post by speedgoose »

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.

Come on, Paris is almost flat and everyone with no medical condition should be able to bike up the small hill of Montmartre.

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

#113

Post by acd »

I hope we remove cars from city centers in Europe and replace them with more bike lanes and public transport. Ie the small particle pollution from cars is making pedestrians and cyclist sick. I hope we put car parking centers outside the city center and offer good inbound public / private transport.

I would say clean air is an example of Tragedy of the commons, where the pollution is an externalized cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Example...

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

#114

Post by ekianjo »

danbolt wrote: post #101
ekianjo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in Tokyo and I can assure you that living car-free is lovely So you really enjoy packed subways that make you feel like cattle pretty much every time of the day? Sorry but Tokyo is the best example of "best in class public transport" being completely over capacity for the amount of people they have to transport every day.

Tokyo can get pretty crammed, but I always feel more like cattle on a crowded highway than I do on a crowded train.

Not sure how you can compare the comfort of sitting in a car with your own space versus standing for an hour or more stuck in between everyone's armpits with no space to move beyond an inch.

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

#115

Post by ekianjo »

renewiltord wrote: post #97
ekianjo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where I can live car-free and hope more cities accelerate plans like this. You seriously want to live in a car-free society after COVID19? The subway in NY was a major source of infection in the city.

To be clear, NY handled everything poorly. Taipei has a metro. It's fine. New Orleans has no metro. It's fucked.

You will see the numbers in Japan in a few months time where everyone in cities travels by train/rail every day. COVID19 is far from over yet.

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

#116

Post by ekianjo »

olcor wrote: post #98
ekianjo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in Tokyo and I can assure you that living car-free is lovely So you really enjoy packed subways that make you feel like cattle pretty much every time of the day? Sorry but Tokyo is the best example of "best in class public transport" being completely over capacity for the amount of people they have to transport every day.

In my personal opinion, better that than trawling slowly through traffic jams. If their train system is over capacity, more people moving through cars would be even more of a nightmare. The feeling of independence (or not feeling like “cattle“) is substantially reduced in big cities, where you are subjected to a lot of traffic rules, overcrowding of cars, jaywalkers, accidents, potholes, diversions, expensive parking…

> In my personal opinion, better that than trawling slowly through traffic jams.

I think the best way to describe it is that it sucks either way to commute in Tokyo no matter what means of transports you end up using, except if you can live very close to your office, which is not the experience of 99% of people.

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

#117

Post by renewiltord »

ekianjo wrote: post #115
renewiltord wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, NY handled everything poorly. Taipei has a metro. It's fine. New Orleans has no metro. It's fucked.

You will see the numbers in Japan in a few months time where everyone in cities travels by train/rail every day. COVID19 is far from over yet.

Well, Taipei is the real secret. That's the one we need to see because if metros are a ticking time bomb for disease then they should be dying any second now.

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

#118

Post by TomMarius »

ekianjo wrote: post #116
olcor wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personal opinion, better that than trawling slowly through traffic jams. If their train system is over capacity, more people moving through cars would be even more of a nightmare. The feeling of independence (or not feeling like “cattle“) is substantially reduced in big cities, where you are subjected to a lot of traffic rules, overcrowding of cars, jaywalkers, accidents, potholes, diversions, expensive parking…

> In my personal opinion, better that than trawling slowly through traffic jams. I think the best way to describe it is that it sucks either way to commute in Tokyo no matter what means of transports you end up using, except if you can live very close to your office, which is not the experience of 99% of people.

It sucks less on a nice heated/cooled chair, with fresh air and nice music and no ------- one around - even in a 10 times less populated city

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

#119

Post by adreamingsoul »

My family (child, spouse) and I live car free in Oslo, Norway. It’s amazing.

We used to own two vehicles when we lived in the States. I did take public transportation during the week, but still had to drive almost everywhere else. When everything is designed around cars, it can be extremely difficult to try and go without.

Oslo was mostly built before cars, so roads are smaller and highways go below or around the city. Oslo is slowly making it harder for cars to be within the city, and actually changing streets to be car-free. Having a car here is not a need, but a want. I like that.

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

#120

Post by ornornor »

SECProto wrote: post #41
daenz wrote: post #23

Anecdotally, where I live in Seattle, the people who are still driving are driving like maniacs...speeding, ignoring stop signs, lights, etc. There may be more room for cyclists, but it doesn't really feel safer.

> Anecdotally, where I live in Seattle, the people who are still driving are driving like maniacs...speeding, ignoring stop signs, lights, etc This is likely similar everywhere. Traffic controls idiots speeding. For another anecdote, check out these statistics from Toronto [1], approx 460% year-over-year increase in stunting charges ("stunting" being the charge when someone is going more than 50km/hr over the speed l…

Toronto has a huge road violence problem, on top of an enforcement problem. Traffic laws are almost never enforced, the police is complacent, and road violence goes unpunished. It is absurd and hard to believe, you have I see it to believe it. Drivers know that and have no problem intimidating pedestrians and cyclists because they know absolutely nothing at all will happen. Either the police won’t even bother to take the complaint seriously, they’ll turn a blind eye (can’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone break the law in their car right next to a patrol car and the cops just carried on), or they’ll get caught but not see a judge because the system is overloaded and so the charges automatically dropped. I’m not even mentioning drivers using bike lanes as a stopping lane. Toronto is pure madness and is has terrible quality of life as a result.

They do however have once a year, for about 8h, car free streets (only 4/5 but still). It’s such a delight on these days. Everyone is out and about, cops are at every intersections to turn cars away, and you can even hear the birds sing!!! But yeah that for a grand total of maybe 10 km of main streets, 16h a year.

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