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People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

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Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#221

Post by lucumo »

kijin wrote: post #127
lucumo wrote: post #25

There's probably also a bit of selection bias going on. People who prefer car usage will be less likely to go live in places where car ownership is difficult. The longer a city is "car-free" the more of that bias will accumulate. There's really not much in the article to suggest that the same people are first against and later in favour. It shouldn't be surprising that some people prefer to live in car-free places, b…

That's okay. Not every city needs to be equally car-free. Let people naturally gravitate toward the type of city they want, and we'll actually end up with more diversity than we currently have.

Yeah, I agree. I'm not actually against more car-free neighbourhoods, in fact we could do with more. Also more congestion charges, and other kinds of pay as you go road fees.

I just really dislike the intellectual dishonesty of headlines like this.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#222

Post by jimbokun »

lucumo wrote: post #157
baq wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the problem is exactly the design of cities which make the car the best solution! The car is both the fastest and the most convenient if the roads are wide and the buildings are sprawled around. If you build the city tightly so it's easy to walk everywhere and everything is nearby, you a) don't need a car and more importantly b) there is no room for cars, this space is recovered for humans. Disclaimer: my househ…

I'm not talking about "everything". I'm talking about jobs. Your job. Is your job so generic that almost everybody in your country can do it? Because that's what you would need for this to be realistic. Everybody living so close to enough jobs of the exact type they desire. Not just a job title, but the industry, the size and type of company, the salary level, the type of people, and a bunch of other things. And even…

Jobs of a given type tend to congregate in specific locations. Tech in Silicon Valley. Finance on Wall Street. Politics in DC. Entertainment in LA.

So picking a geographic location based on your field and having a lot of job options is workable for a lot of occupation categories.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#223

Post by ghaff »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #168
stetrain wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most advocates for reduction in car dependency in urban environments think that trades people shouldn't have vehicles to carry tools and materials around in.

The title of the article mentions car-free cities. I don't interpret that to mean that a Ford F-150 is fine, do you?

The title may imply this but the article really doesn't. Go to an actual "car-less" area of a city like Brussels and there are delivery vehicles at least in the morning, work vehicles of various kinds, street sweepers, etc. Even at the relatively extreme end of pedestrianized malls, there are still a fair number of vehicles around.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#224

Post by alkonaut »

lucumo wrote: post #204
alkonaut wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Between the trade-off bad job, no time, and car/public transport, the car quickly becomes the best solution If you beat public transport by using a car then there just isn't enough public transit or the city isn't dense enough (likely the former, due to the latter). If you live 3km from your job in London or NYC then at least during rush hour it's likely to be faster to use public transport than a car. > Life becom…

IF you live in a city with enough density that public transport beats the car most of the time, and IF your job is in that same area too, then yes, going car-free can save time. But you need several hundreds of thousands people in the same-ish spot for both those assumptions to hold true for most people. And probably also some badly designed roads. I live in a town of 125k people, where I can reach any spot by bike o…

> I live in a town of 125k people, where I can reach any spot by bike or public transport in about 30 minutes. Perfectly commutable. It has a few jobs for people like me, but not enough for a decent amount of variety.

Car-free center can work there too. But for 125k people it might just be a few blocks square in the middle. The math is pretty simple. If density is so low that there can't be stations every 5 minutes of walking, or so low that businesses like large detached grocery stores, gas stations, building material stores and so on could even think of being there, then it's 100% car territory.

But one shouldn't let it become self-fulfilling. If city restaurants have parking then they need a lot of space, which lowers density, and they become unattractive to people who are walking. So a key ingredient for a car free city could be to ensure no establishments have parking lots within a specified distance of the city center. It's nearly impossible to combine parking lots with walkability.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#225

Post by gizmo »

gadders wrote: post #184
dijit wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you must also ask the question why you want to make a huge shopping trip. If you lived in a world where accessing the shop was easy and convenient, and they stocked everything you need, and you didn't have oodles of storage at home to store it all: why would you even make such a huge shopping trip?

So your plan is for people to have a longer commute to work, work 8 hours at the job, have a longer commute home, and then have to trudge to a shop in the evening most nights of the week (in all weathers)? Sounds idyllic. Food shopping every night can replace going to the gym or playing with your kids. And if you're elderly and would rather drive - tough luck. >>If you lived in a world where accessing the shop was ea…

How is driving to a costco, parking on a giant parking lot, walking through a massive store, loading up a cart, walking the the cart to your car/truck, unloading everything, returning the cart, and then driving home at all efficient?

People do giant shopping trips exactly because the whole process is so cumbersome.

The US has the longest commutes of any country in the world because of urban sprawl and zoning. Car-free cities offer an alternative to that way of life.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#226

Post by KingMob »

gadders wrote: post #190
underdeserver wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what a cargo bike is for.

It's mad that you can't see that strapping two kids and 8 bags of shopping into a cargo bike and cycling 10 minutes is far worse than doing the same errand by car.

Not as mad as imagining that everyone without a car does this onerous strawman version of your errand.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#227

Post by gadders »

arlort wrote: post #199
gadders wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck walking 5 mins with 6 or 8 bags of shopping, a five year old and a baby in a pushchair. All these arguments for car-free cities are mostly supported by young, single and childfree urbanites.

You buy 6 or 8 bags or groceries every day?

You want people to go to the store every day? God forbid people want to relax after work.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#228

Post by [deleted] »

gadders wrote: post #122
CharlieDigital wrote: post #8

I was back in Taiwan last year after an extended absence. It's pretty amazing how easy it is to get around with a combination of the mass rapid transit (MRT) system and high speed rail (HSR). When I was last there, you still needed to take a bus or taxi from TPE to the city center. Now right from TPE airport, you can be in either Taipei city center in 30 minutes (MRT) or on the other end of the island in short order…

It sounds like you're saying it works for tourists. How would I get a massive CostCo shop home in Taipei (or similar large amount of shopping)?

[deleted]

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#229

Post by dijit »

gadders wrote: post #184
dijit wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you must also ask the question why you want to make a huge shopping trip. If you lived in a world where accessing the shop was easy and convenient, and they stocked everything you need, and you didn't have oodles of storage at home to store it all: why would you even make such a huge shopping trip?

So your plan is for people to have a longer commute to work, work 8 hours at the job, have a longer commute home, and then have to trudge to a shop in the evening most nights of the week (in all weathers)? Sounds idyllic. Food shopping every night can replace going to the gym or playing with your kids. And if you're elderly and would rather drive - tough luck. >>If you lived in a world where accessing the shop was ea…

The issue you're having is not understanding how it can be.

The lucky truth is that this is not some hypothetical situation, it's a lived reality for me and many more people in Europe.

I'm 34 and I don't even have a drivers license; that's freedom. I never needed one.

That said: I'm not really talking about an absolute reality (IE; no cars at all). Reducing car usage actually helps those that really need to use a car, like the disabled, the elderly, people hauling large things (such as when they move homes) etc;

Groceries aren't far more expensive, but the inner city stores are, on average 5% more expensive than larger stores of the same brand. 5% on your groceries is vastly under the tax burden of maintaining huge roads, the accidents they cause (which has a healthcare burden) and even disregarding that: fuel cost and mileage on your vehicle (which increases insurance rates and decreases the longevity of your car).

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#230

Post by StuffMaster »

safety1st wrote: post #159
eropple wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but that model of suburban development still tends to push necessities out of walking or even biking distance. I visited my folks in the Des Moines suburbs while they were out there and it was an hour's walk to almost anything bigger than a corner store. Of which I found, I think, one that was closer than that.

If we go by your parent's photos, my main beef with these neighborhoods is there's no commercial development. There should be (light) commercial development. I am a big fan of the Asian shophouse. You can open a restaurant or a convenience store or a small clinic or whatever class of local service business isn't going to be too disruptive on the bottom floor of your residential property. You need to own and operate i…

Some new developments in the US are "mixed use" which emulates what you described.
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