The ones that have to actually commute, not so much.
People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
291–300 of 345 posts
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also questions around a partner. Can you only have relationships with people whos career is near your current employer?
Something something dense cities and good public transport. You can get from one side of Berlin to the other - not including suburbs - in half an hour and without needing to park.
It's certainly possible, but more difficult the larger the city. Actually my main concern would be transporting furniture, appliances and the cost of renovations and maintenance. Transport of large items is difficult without cars. Cost of renovations are often many fold higher for dense housing due to greater difficulties with waste disposal and higher transport costs.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#293Earlier 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…
Yeah, what a big trudge, walking to the corner grocery for some food for dinner. A ten minute trip.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Greater Paris has a 60-65% car ownership rate among households [1]. [1] https://www.ceicdata.com/en/france/motor-vehicle-ownership-p...
That's pretty good though depending on what "greater Paris" is I suspect it's a bowl - trending to 99% ownership the further from the center you get.
The goal shouldn't be "car free cities" it should be (at least in the USA) "first get it so households feel one car is fine".
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#295Not even sure how you'd start off hating the idea. Less noise, less pollution, shorter commute, cheaper infrastructure, more green, more walking, improved health...I mean...just off the top of my head I'm thinking of tons of advantages. I can't think of a single disadvantage. The only reason I need a car is because the city / neighbourhood is configured around the expectation that everyone has a car.
One disadvantage is that many people do travel outside the city to go to an office in the suburbs, to visit friends, and to do weekend activities. I think everyone I know in Boston/Cambridge (which has relatively decent--really!--public transit) who isn't a very recent college grad owns a car.
When I lived in Boston, the thing that kept most of my friends from driving during weekdays was how profoundly aggressive the drivers tended to be. There are very few cities where I've seen that level of road rage
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#296Earlier 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…
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-fre…
> The US has the longest commutes of any country in the world
I lived in Mumbai starting 7:30 in morning I reach office by 10AM after changing buses and trains. Leave office at 6:30 -7 in evening and hit home by ~10 pm. And even those days I worked in IT so not exactly among poor who have to live far away.
Claiming US commute being longest is just ignoring how billions outside North America/Europe lives.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#297These days I'm finding myself doing half my trips on a bicycle and half in a car. In my experience one of the biggest barriers to micromobility in America is cultural. Motorists can be aggressive and complacent because their vehicles are big and have airbags, and so long as they aren't impaired they won't be held accountable for harm they cause with their vehicles. Cyclists and pedestrians can act in a way that is en…
People will always be entitled, but there needn't be dangerous contact. As a lifelong cyclist, the main problem (in my opinion) America faces here is the fact that we have exclusively car-first infrastructure.
The American stop sign, to me, is the symbol of how entrenched everything is here. Stop signs make zero sense for any mode of transportation except for cars. A physical, traffic-calming rotary at every intersection, in every neighborhood would be much more sensible, and reduce conflicts.
We could add collapsing bollards to create cycling corridors that cyclists actually want to be on, instead of the insane decision we've made to mix our cyclists and vehicles with a single line of paint on some of the busiest roads in the cities we live in.
Where all of this runs into a problem is with emergency response vehicles. Because our fire/EMS infrastructure is path-dependent with our transportation infrastructure, they tend to bitch and moan any time physical barriers are put up, or pedestrian malls are introduced. The system is the way it is, and if it changes, they believe it will cause them problems. The Fire Department in SF has been one of the biggest roadblocks to creating safe parallel corridors for cycling infrastructure, blocking bollards, neutering rotaries to the point if ineffectiveness, blocking traffic calming features unless they allow for high-speed fire/EMS vehicles, thus defeating the purpose.
If anyone wanted to make a long lasting impact on American society, this is the problem I would focus on solving. I think building emergency response vehicles (specifically fire, and ambulances) that can interact with a traffic calming feature that is impassible to normal vehicles but passable to bicycles and pedestrians (say via high clearance) would do more for saving lives, reducing emissions, and stemming the tide of the American development pattern across the world than almost anything else.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#298My biggest point on car free cities is that it is supported fervently by the people who would gain massive amounts of power over others if nobody had a car. If you're dependent on public transport, it can be taken away from you as leverage.
"If you're dependent on public transport, it can be taken away from you as leverage." I have always lived in Czech cities with extensive public transport and I have never heard of this kind of punishment, ever. Neither against communities, nor against people. Of all the risks, this is probably the most theoretical one. On the other hand, suspending a driving licence is pretty straightforward and it happens daily, CZ…
Its common in third world country where I lived as retaliation if voting went to non-establishment candidate. It would work for many social amenities like police station, dispensary, bus route and so on.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If you're dependent on public transport, it can be taken away from you as leverage." I have always lived in Czech cities with extensive public transport and I have never heard of this kind of punishment, ever. Neither against communities, nor against people. Of all the risks, this is probably the most theoretical one. On the other hand, suspending a driving licence is pretty straightforward and it happens daily, CZ…
Its common in third world country where I lived as retaliation if voting went to non-establishment candidate. It would work for many social amenities like police station, dispensary, bus route and so on.
Wow, so a mayor can say "from now on, neighbourhood X will have no bus/tram", and the apparatus will comply?
That's really bad.
Technically, I suspect that mayor of Prague could do the same, but the press would eat him alive and his own party colleagues would probably turn on him because of the resulting bad publicity.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#300I know they've spent millions on car reduction schemes, but it's mostly wasted money. If you want people to see cycling as a viable alternative, then make it a viable alternative.
I used to live in London, and now live somewhere where I cycle anywhere that's under 15Km — because it's viable (and more enjoyable!). London is not that, and they haven't done anything to make it that.
Painting bits of the road doesn't magically give you a "cycle network".