Cars Kill Cities
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Cars Kill Cities
1–10 of 223 posts
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#2At this point for a lot of cities, it would require a large amount of infrastructure change. Mass transit in most cities sucks today, so people use cars. To do this right, the city needs to do a massive up-front investment in public transit. And there is no guarantee that this investment will ever pay off.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#3This post is a rant backed up with only anecdotal evidence and an enraged author with a penchant for catchy headlines.
No solutions are offered because no problem is properly presented.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#4I fond our cities profoundly ugly, but cars serve an essential service. I need a flexible, quick means of secure transport. I need to move a variable number of people from 1-4. I often need to bring tens of kilograms of stuff with me. What else can fill the bill around a large metro area (~3 million people)?
I would love an alternative, to live in beautiful cities, to walk around the way I can overseas.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#5At this point for a lot of cities, it would require a large amount of infrastructure change. Mass transit in most cities sucks today, so people use cars. To do this right, the city needs to do a massive up-front investment in public transit. And there is no guarantee that this investment will ever pay off.
Yes, it would require a change in infrastructure. No, it is not necessary for the investment to be done upfront. You quickly ramp up cheap mass transit options (bus service segregated from regular vehicular traffic with dedicated lanes, MUCH cheaper than light rail construction) while using permitting/zoning to phase out car-friendly policies.
It won't happen overnight, but its a start.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#6This is easy enough to fix from a policy standpoint:
(1) make free parking a taxable benefit for companies
(2) tax the hell out of gas/car registration, or at the very least tax it enough to pay for infrastructure
(3) no mandated parking minimums in new construction in cities
(4) get rid of publicly paid for parking
But of course this requires transit alternatives and popular support, which does not exist in places like Atlanta. I live in Orange County, and I bike to work (we have perfect weather and mediocre bike infrastructure), but people love their cars here.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#7The post is right, and even more so for developing world cities that emerged before cars were around.
However the post is also naive. Cars are usually much faster, provide much better shelter from the weather, and are much less tiring than trying to lug bags from one place to another on buses or other public transport. They also place far fewer constraints on when you can travel.
Of course it's possible to structure one's life so as to deal with all of the issues. I have lived half of my adult life without a car, including 4 years in the SF Bay Area, and I managed.
But let's stop pretending that there isn't a trade off. Cars are very very convenient. The key to reducing the need for cars is not just good public transport - it's services that reduce the reliance on traveling to get chores done. Things like grocery deliveries, laundry pickup, and amazon.com.
It would be a lot easier to rely solely on public transport if you never had to carry anything.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#8I fond our cities profoundly ugly, but cars serve an essential service. I need a flexible, quick means of secure transport. I need to move a variable number of people from 1-4. I often need to bring tens of kilograms of stuff with me. What else can fill the bill around a large metro area (~3 million people)? I would love an alternative, to live in beautiful cities, to walk around the way I can overseas.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#9The post is right, and even more so for developing world cities that emerged before cars were around. However the post is also naive. Cars are usually much faster, provide much better shelter from the weather, and are much less tiring than trying to lug bags from one place to another on buses or other public transport. They also place far fewer constraints on when you can travel. Of course it's possible to structure…
Self driving electric cars that people pay for on a subscription model (rather than ownership) are the future I'd like to see. I hope it happens during my lifetime.
Re: Cars Kill Cities
#10Eh, IMO, cars are killing democracy, too. I haven't lined up the studies to actually show the causal chain, though. It's something I need to get around to doing.