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Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#191

Post by sensanaty »

Saline9515 wrote: post #168
andrepd wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dutch people seem to do just fine with baby seats on their bikes, or bakfiets if you have lots of kids. Anecdotally, kids are also much happier when they can just bike to school/sports/activities with their friends instead of having their parents drive then everywhere on the back of the family SUV.

Dutch people using bikes for everything is a meme, they have as many cars per inhabitants as most of the developed nations. Anecdotically, they are a small, dense, flat country, with an oceanic weather. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territ...

We have cars here, but you're not dependent on them to get everywhere unless you live in the countryside (and even then, I knew plenty of kids who lived up in the North who biked 10+ km 1 way to school) or one of the super small cities where the sprinters are sparse. And isn't that the point most people make? It's not about complete eradication of cars, it's about having viable transport alternatives and the infrastructure to support those. It's just that we live in such a world where it's unthinkable to not have half our countries paved in asphalt to make sure cars can get places, so things like these always end up falling into a 2-sided extremist camp.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#193

Post by sokoloff »

oblio wrote: post #65
NightMKoder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about tires, but for brakes we already know how to make lower dust brakes - use drum brakes instead of disc brakes. The friction material is enclosed on drum brakes so much less of it just flies away.

Can drum brakes be used for all kinds of vehicles?

They were for many decades…

Even if there’s 5% of vehicles that couldn’t use them, it would still be a large decrease in local particulates.

(I don’t expect this to happen, of course, absent draconian particulate emissions laws.)

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#194

Post by alistairSH »

paulcole wrote: post #162
grg0 wrote: post #31

Cars in cities, let alone designing cities around cars, is one of the greatest tragedies of modern life.

At least in the US people absolutely fucking love their cars. They will lie about how much they hate them but ask them to actually change their behavior and you get nothing but a litany of excuses.

I walk to work. In the suburbs.

My wife rides a bike. In the suburbs.

We chose a home that has grocers, schools, and dining within a walk or bike ride.

We own cars because there are things beyond ~2 miles and transit options aren’t good.

Sadly, doing this usually requires money. Lots of it.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#195

Post by const_cast »

Saline9515 wrote: post #157
masklinn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the people who can't afford to live in the city who need them to get there. What are you talking about. Paris's public transport reaches out 60km away from the city, and that's not including mainline trains (including high speed). The people who can't afford to live in the city have taken public transport to get there for 50 years.

A lot of economic activity requires cars. Delivery, workers coming with equipment, waste management, and so on. Every construction worker in Paris will tell you that it's very difficult to work there, and that they have doubled their prices as a result.

These people are HELPED by anti-car legislation because it clears the congestion for them to run their business.

Most small, and large, businesses would happily pay a small fee if it means half the transportation time. And it does, because traffic isn’t linear. Just a few more cars can be the difference between coasting at 30 or not moving at all.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#196

Post by Saline9515 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #185
Saline9515 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netherlands have as many cars as most the developed nations.

Yes, but they're used less frequently. Most middle class people have a car, but they're often only used for irregular trips. Commuting and errands use alternative means at much higher rates than elsewhere.

Point is, they still need cars if they have them. And Netherlands are very far from Paris, infrastructure-wise. In Paris, for instance, leaving your cargo or e-bike outside for the night means finding nothing when you wake up (I got two bikes stolen already, and they were the cheapest available).

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#197

Post by garbawarb »

Saline9515 wrote: post #114
TulliusCicero wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A city improved the air quality "Pure sadism!!!" Yeah I'm sure everyone is real miserable, which is why they just voted in a referendum for more car-free streets. Amazing how out of touch with reality the car-dominance types are.

You clearly have a non-existent knowledge of French political life. This referendum had a participation rate of 4%, and only 62% of the voters voted yes. So around 2% of the total voters. By the way, the French metro's air is highly polluted, due to tire degradation and brake dust, making it unfit for children or pregnant women. So yeah, it's manageable for young people. But when a baby arrives, it's hell. Same if yo…

So only 1.5% of Paris voted against this? It sounds like they're going by the will of the voters.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#198

Post by sokoloff »

timewizard wrote: post #112
adonovan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but even in Wyoming, where you EV is really a coal-powered vehicle, the coal is not burned in the city.

Are you sure about that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Wyom...

What you linked seems to me to support GP’s text.

What content on that page do you read as refuting those claims?

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#199

Post by flomo »

skort wrote: post #164
flomo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, the working poor generally don't work downtown, and it's really the industrial areas where there is awful transit service. So cheapo used cars are a must for these folks. There is some awful HN bias here where young healthy well-paid tech workers live in some boogie part of SF/NYC/Boston/etc and enjoy the "car-free lifestyle" (and I've been there), without any idea how the other half lives.

I've seen this "car free utopia" idea dismissed as an idea by and for "elites" (see Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's comments on people who ride the subway in NYC) plenty of times as a tactic to avoid doing anything about reducing dependence on cars. It's quite a counterproductive argument in my opinion. Even if there are well paid tech workers who are able to enjoy a "car-free lifestyle", why should it end ther…

Because the truth is nobody has any real idea how to retrofit the last 70 years of American suburbia so that mass transit is actually effective and useful for people. "Transit-oriented development" really only helps downtown workers and doesn't get you to the grocery store or daycare. (And even in NYC, the subway is not great out in Queens/etc, so people own cars.)

But it is nice to live in the Mission and take the techbus to Mountain View and handwave all the hard trillion dollar problems and say let the poors eat cake. Which is effectively how these discussions seem to go.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#200

Post by alistairSH »

Saline9515 wrote: post #100
oblio wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be real here, a huge chunk of car traffic in cities is purely for convenience. Once that's reduced by say, 50%, everything becomes much better, but nobody gives up convenience voluntarily.

The problem is that, among casualties, you create an environment that is hostile for families and disabled people.

That’s not a given. Nobody here is talking about outright bans on all vehicles. Limited access for taxis and commercial use is a thing. Buses can be built with wheelchair access. Etc.

And with less space reserved for cars and only cars, there’s more space for wide/accessible sidewalks. Less chance of being run over by a car. Less air and noise pollution.

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