People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by oaiey » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:30 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #45

pjerem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. 2/3 of Parisians don’t even own a car and Paris is a very average city when it comes safety. Density is also pretty low for one of the biggest European cities. And it’s just a known example, there are a lot of cities way smaller than Paris where it’s easy to live car free.

2/3s sounds like a lot but it would be better to count how many households have no car. And the US is covered with cities that can be lived in car-free; but the tradeoffs are too great for most people. (By definition any rural town that’s about a square mile or two is walkable.) Cars are so cheap and so good that most everyone grabs one when they can.

2/3 is very realistic even for households. It is just prohibitive time wise (it takes more times in most cities to go by car than by train) and parking wise (densities is high, parking is on the street, searching a parking slot up to an hour, ...). You do not want to own a car.

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

#232

Post by dml2135 » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:30 PM UTC

eddieroger wrote: post #97

ryandrake wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that scenario isn't universal, and while you can't think of a reason, others can. Thank you very much for this island of sanity inside this topic’s sea of bewilderment. These comment sections always seem to end with someone up asking: “How could anyone like things I don’t like??” and then a bunch of commenters just shake their heads and conclude “Those poor souls, they don’t know how they are suffering.” I’…

I appreciate your comment as well! I feel like I'm off on Preference Island sometimes, so it's good to know I'm not. I particularly appreciate the point you make about prioritization. When I left school and started working, I lived in an apartment downtown, walked to work, hung out afterward at bars and stuff, and loved it. At that point in my life, I didn't need a car, and was fine. I'm older now. I've lived in an a…

Not to be a downer, I do sympathize with all you wrote here. But its not a simple as, people have different preferences and we should let everyone do what suits them. Cars have major externalities that harm the environment and affects the well-being of others.

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

#233

Post by 946789987649 » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:32 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #126

mwagstaff wrote: post #34

As someone who has worked in London for many years, the difference is amazing. Biking in the city is now enjoyable, and the air quality is (subjectively, even without the data) dramatically better. There was an incredible resistance to the recently introduced ULEZ (Ultra Low Emissions Zone) expansion, but I'm incredibly grateful for the sake of my children, if nothing else, that it has been pushed through.

I remember about 20 years ago I was taking my bicycle on the train, and this involved a transfer through London. You can't take full-size bicycles on the London Underground, so I cycled across London from Kings Cross to Waterloo, and I definitely remember being reasonably terrified the whole way. If that has greatly improved since then, then that's wonderful.

That's a pretty short journey (probably about 15 minutes), but yes it will definitely be a lot better now. I think also part of it comes down to 1. getting used to it, and 2. the time you cycle at. Rush hour, while more hectic, actually is quite a bit easier because you're often going far quicker than any cars.

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

#234

Post by lucumo » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:38 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #224

lucumo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I agree with all of that. And in fact, that is what this city has. The car-free center thing works very well. You get a few large parking garages around the center, and inside you do everything on foot.

The rest of the city is spacious and has good car accessibility, so you can also get out quickly.

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

#235

Post by hawski » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #45

pjerem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. 2/3 of Parisians don’t even own a car and Paris is a very average city when it comes safety. Density is also pretty low for one of the biggest European cities. And it’s just a known example, there are a lot of cities way smaller than Paris where it’s easy to live car free.

2/3s sounds like a lot but it would be better to count how many households have no car. And the US is covered with cities that can be lived in car-free; but the tradeoffs are too great for most people. (By definition any rural town that’s about a square mile or two is walkable.) Cars are so cheap and so good that most everyone grabs one when they can.

Distances are one thing, existing pavements/walkways another.

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

#236

Post by gadders » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

KingMob wrote: post #226

gadders wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you think they would rather swap? What is the weather like where they live?

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

#237

Post by epolanski » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:42 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #91

epolanski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People mock the soviet way of building neighborhoods but it was miles better. Instead of extensive pointless suburbs where everybody has his house, they built huge 8/10 story buildings. The buildings were surrounded by parks, benches, places for kids to play. People aggregated a lot and everything was relatively close (building taller means you can build a lot closer to downtown). I have lived 6 months in Ohio, Colum…

> they built huge 8/10 story buildings. The buildings were surrounded by parks, benches, places for kids to play. This is exactly what they did for "the projects" in big American cities and these were almost universally viewed as failures.

Projects in US instead catered to house the poorest part of society thus they became fertile ground to breed criminality and further ghetto-ization. Giving people houses in areas where there's no real jobs or connection downtown makes things even worse.

It's no surprise that a country with a better public transport, such as the UK, made its projects a largely successful experiment. In Eastern Europe this kind of housing too was aimed at the masses, not the poor.

I would not say that the issue was the city planning per se. The US is filled by poor neighborhoods/open space ghettos too.

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

#238

Post by maxsilver » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:43 PM UTC

moberemk wrote: post #154

maxsilver wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tricky too, because a lot of "low density suburban wastelands" was already significantly phased out over a decade ago, in a lot of the US anyway. People hear "suburbs" and imagine a single-family home on 1 to 2+ acre lots -- something that looks like this -> https://st2.depositphotos.com/1658611/5485/i/950/depositphot... . And while that definitely still happens, it's really limited to the exurbs in the US these…

My first thought looking at that first "new suburb" photo was: where's the sidewalk? And the second photo has sidewalks but no visible amenities. Sure they're denser, and townhouses are at least less materials-intensive to build, but I'm curious how this is otherwise an improvement on the old planning model of swathes of detached homes?

> I'm curious how this is otherwise an improvement on the old planning model of swathes of detached homes?

It's not. (Or at least, I'm not arguing it's better). My only point is that "more density" isn't the magic bullet fix people sometimes think it is -- because the US is doing a lot more density than we historically have in the past 60-ish years, and it's not meaningfully different in terms of lifestyle or planning.

If you want good alternative public transit, you have to just decide to build it first, and you kind-of have to do it almost everywhere nearby. (not just Division St, not just Woodward Ave, not just Hiawatha Ave, etc).

"Crank up density" doesn't magically result in a "car-free" city. You can't townhouse your way into having the Chicago Elevated, you have to actually decide to build the L. (similar to, say, Seattle SoundTransit)

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

#239

Post by gadders » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:44 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #229

gadders wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in Europe as well.

I can understand not owning a car, but never learning to drive is like never learning to swim. Driving is a life skill, whether you own a car or not.

Groceries are a lot more than 5% more expensive in a corner shop vs out of town supermarket.

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

#240

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

gammalost wrote: post #115

Kindling7257 wrote: post #79

This whole idea is fucking terrifying. Normalizing not having cars i.e. making people dependent on the government from birth. If you didn't understand what Americans were complaining about with gun laws you will soon.

You are already dependent on the government from birth. It is the government that has a monopoly on violence and they are the enforcers of private property.

[deleted]