There's still a lot of cars driving in Paris. And motor scooters.
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No need to be like that. Yes, of fucking course in a city of millions of people there are still cars. The point here is the relative amount compared to earlier.
Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
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Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#422"Ban all the cars" does have noticeable effects. I wonder if something less all / none might have nearly the same effects with far less drawbacks otherwise. E.G. What if only emissions testing certified low emission vehicles were allowed? What if only electric? How about requiring quiet utility trucks for garbage / freight / etc? For cities that large / dense, adding in Caves of Steel like people-mover belts might be…
Cars need to be banned not primary because of emissions but because they are just generally bad in every wy. They need lots of space, even if they are not actually there (parking lots), they are unsafe and the slow down every other transport method and all the utility functions as well. Plus they are fucking ugly.
A city is just 10x more beautiful without cars, and the place in the cities where most people actually want to hang out, doesn't have cars.
No idea what 'people mover belts' are. We already have trains in various forms, add bikes and maybe some scooters to that and your done. Plus of course lots of walking.
For garbage transport and cargo, it would actually be nice to use the existing tram lines. Zürich has something like that but its experimental. But it should be more developed. Until then, small electric trucks are a good solution. Most of this can be done overnight when the tram lines aren't used much.
Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cities have a positive environmental impact when you compare it with spreading the same population in villages across thousands of miles. It would be an insane amount of roads, cabling, water pipes, etc. Cities are bad for human health, but good for the environment.
Are they bad for human health compared to other ways of living like rural or suburbs? iirc rural people get the least amount of exercise because you just sit inside all day.
… in the US and Canada.
Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Riga, here cyclists ride on the sidewalk, along with e-scooters. I went out for a ten minutes walk with my son, I had to physically and verbally intervene three times to avoid him being hit by a cyclist or e-scooter. Last month our nanny was hit by a cyclist. In Paris it is very common and the main reason they banned e-scooters. So, while the US paradigm is toxic, I'm not convinced about the one you are pro…
This is certainly not very common in Paris. Cyclists behave extremely badly, but don’t ride on the sidewalk. E-scooters were another story though, and were indeed banned for this reason.
They don't do it often, but I do see it happen once or twice a day when I'm out. Usually it's only for a short distance though.
Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
> an environment that is hostile for families I don't understand this part, I read it quite often but... well, we are a family with young children, and although we do have a car we only use it once a week to go to the grand-parents that live 100 km away from here. A city with less cars is great especially for families (though I would argue that cities themselves are not so great for children, but the comparison here…
I have very two kids, plan to have three. Cargo bikes are not practical, are easily stolen, and are not safe to transport children, especially under 6 years old. Besides, when doing groceries for 5 once a week, I regularly fill my 500L car boot, so an equivalent cargo bike with at least 3 seats and a large boot... would just be a car. Which you have, and use once a week. Or when you need to go to the doctor. Or when…
Well I just have the reverse experience. My cargo bike is practical, has not been stolen yet and up to four children under 6 are fine to transport in it. I don't feel it especially unsafe.
I also use it for groceries. Sometimes using both the cargo bike and a bike trailer (on two different bikes). We don't buy nearly at many things though it seems. When I do use my car (doing groceries while the children are with the grandparents) I have to transfer them from the car to the bike anyway because I can rarely park close to my home.
My doctor (and my wife's doctor) is certainly easier to reach by foot than by car. And I guess I never have the kind of urgency that would require me to use a car in the city. If there's something urgent a bike is always faster in this city.
Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
Except that many European cities copied US cities in their development styles, and then later reversed them. So we absolutely do know how to reverse it.
> 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.
Every study shows that the poor are hurt the most because of car centric development.
Here is a guide on how to improve American cities that are surrounded by lots of suberbia:
- Remove/close all highways that go across the city, only keep the ring road. People will simple reclaim those space for recreational uses as soon as cars are gone.
- Increase price of parking space or eliminate them completely. Most parking in city is not used by residents anyway.
- Redo even if its with paint and few concrete bolders, the city streets according to Dutch street regulations. Massively increase safety for everybody.
- That frees up lots of space for bike lanes (as US cities tend to have far to many car lanes). This is actually a benefit to the history of US cities, we can't do that in some of the older dense cities.
- Change your zoning code and other access regulations, so proper urban development is actually allowed to happen. The US could adopt something like Japan zoning laws. A heavy use of mixed use and allow living in almost any zone. The US has a hilarious amount of commercial development land that completely underutilized. This also means no more minimum parking space and all that nonsense. See maybe like this: https://www.realestate-tokyo.com/news/land-use-zones-in-japa...
- This will make it so suburbs can go from single house only to a mix of single house, duplex, fourplexes, townhouses and so on. Like suburbs used to be. And it will make it so that light commercial developments can happen in subburbs. Meaning a single house can turn into small shops, coffees and such.
- In the city select a few core blocks in different places in the city, make those pedestrian only. Or like Montreal does, a whole long street. Each year add more of those pedestrian zone, improve walking infrastructure between them.
- Make it so subburban residents start to pay full price for their utilities including water and other infrastructure. New subburban developments are often hilariously subsidized, needing more water pumps and such.
- Redevelop current stroads into much fewer lanes and create separate access roads to the commercial developments. This improves flow on the stroads, reduce accidents and makes walking and biking along those stroads safer. Of course some of those lanes would turn into bike infrastructure.
- In the subburbs, also reduce road with, install protected cycle lanes. Break open the horrible cul-de-sac, the city can buy part of peoples garden to create cross connects between different cul-de-sacs and surrounding developments (cross connects for people and bikes, not cars).
- Make all the bus services public, heir a real transportation engineer to come up with a plan. Consisting of a few main routes, using the old stroads and highways, and smaller buses that serve as connectors to these major routes. Of course for that you would make some lanes on the highway, busways. Despite what some people in the US think, you can actually do decent bus service in suberbia. Combine that with public on demand service, that gets you cheaply to the next closes major public transport node. Maybe start planning a tram route along the major bus-routes.
- Look at your old rail infrastructure and develop a plan for a decent regional service. Develop a 50 year rail plan.
- The city can also simply buy up some cul-de-sacs that are strategically located and redevelop them into proper nice walkable neighborhoods. The city can even own the land and only rent half of the appartments, some at affordable price. This worked well in Britain and still does work well in Austria. And of course develop a transportation plan for those new neighborhoods. See an example, where old soviet style neighborhoods were developed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfonhlM6I7w
- Change your property tax into a land tax, or a property tax heavily focused on land. Or potentially do more with sales or what taxes, importantly, just don't do property tax.
- Like in Japan, require anybody that wants to own a car in a city, to first prove the have a private place to part.
- Make all car registrations based on weight, meaning you pay more for a heavier car.
- Focus development on the city and the first suburban ring around the city. Offer intensives for people in the outer rings to move into the inner rings. So for example somebody that owns a small house in the far outer ring of the city, could move into a duplex in the inner rings.
- If yours city has repair backlog (and most cities do) focus on the city core and the inner ring of subberbia.
- Do not develop more land, US cities already are far to wide spread. Simply announce no new infrastructure or roads. And not taking over into city property stuff that developers have built.
I could list more, pretty much all of these have been discussed in urbanism research.
Pretty much all of these have been done in different places at different times. And the all pretty much work. Doing them all together hasn't been done but there is no reason to believe it wouldn't work.
Of course this does not mean that for 1 day to the next everybody will go from suberbinate to die hard city person. But the culture after 1-2 decades of such changes will be dramatically different.
I also suggest to see this video about comparing two cities over time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uqbsueNvag
Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#427Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your argument that I should accept one source blindly Others may have made that argument, but show me where I’ve done that. So far, all I’ve done is ask you who you’d accept as a valid authority, or what evidence you’d accept. And you can’t even do that. A claim has been made that air quality in Paris has improved, and evidence has been provided to back that claim up, in the form of AQI readings provided by (in you…
I simply questioned the independence of the source of the evidence, is such critical thinking not allowed? Your attempt to somehow make me responsible to provide an alternative source of evidence is classic deflection. That is not my responsibility. Do your own research etc.
This isn’t critical thinking. Your complete inability to even vaguely hint or suggest at someone who might be better equipped to either perform this analysis or fund it makes that clear.
“Someone without bias” is a cop out. Everyone has bias, and literally anyone performing or funding air quality measurements is going to have some sort of interest in their outcome. There is no sterile room of blind and deaf eunuchs performing these services and you know that.
This comment was made in bad faith on your part, all I did was make that fact obvious.
Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Riga, here cyclists ride on the sidewalk, along with e-scooters. I went out for a ten minutes walk with my son, I had to physically and verbally intervene three times to avoid him being hit by a cyclist or e-scooter. Last month our nanny was hit by a cyclist. In Paris it is very common and the main reason they banned e-scooters. So, while the US paradigm is toxic, I'm not convinced about the one you are pro…
It's a shame that riders of bikes and scooters in your city feel so unsafe riding on the road, that they are forced onto the sidewalks. Blame dangerous drivers and the lack of protected bike lanes though, not your neighbors who are just trying to arrive at their destinations alive. Pedestrian collisions with bikes versus collisions with automobiles are utterly incomparable both in number and severity. If that cyclist…
Delivery drivers on e-bikes are the worst in my country, they ride on the sidewalk between pedestrians and cross the roads ignoring traffic lights and rules, feels like you are in a developing Asian country. Why don't they want to ride on the roadway? Because with their and car drivers style of driving it's dangerous.
Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did you find this ? This is just plain wrong. Airparif is a collection of people involving regular people, the local cities, major polluters etc. https://www.airparif.fr/airparif/missions-dairparif ( unfortunately in French) It’s funded 24% by the state, 24% by cities, 27% by large companies including the polluting ones,20% by selling what they produce/know how etc.
"Airparif has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from 1 Grant (prize money) round on Jun 01, 2014 from European Union." Source: https://tracxn.com/d/companies/airparif/__7FZ-JDeTGVeYNdb_2-...
Who, exactly, should be funding air quality measurements within the European Union?