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What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

citylab.com

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Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#161

Post by adrianN »

clairity wrote: post #32
kingo55 wrote: post #23

I live in St Kilda, Australia and our council recently changed one of our iconic streets to almost exclusively be for pedestrians and trams. Businesses protested for months about potential lost business, however as a resident I feel so much safer walking down the street. It feels like foot traffic has increased there, too. It's such an improvement. I also like to think tunnels to apartment buildings could help us tak…

i'm on board with putting express roads and parking underground (even though the costs are high) and making the extra space available for humans, pets and lower speed transport like bikes and scooters. i'd also advocate making licensing for vehicles much harder and increasing the enforcement and punishment of distracted driving.

I think if you want to build tunnels, you should put rails in them. It's a much more efficient use of tax dollars, since subways have a much higher capacity than roads.

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#162

Post by marton78 »

benc666 wrote: post #108
smallnamespace wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course 'footganger' almost makes sense in English — 'gang' in the sense of a passage is preserved in 'gangplank', and modern 'gang' has the related sense of 'group of people who go together'.

In Afrikaans - spoken in ZA (south africa) - that is pretty much the actual word :) "voetganger" "voet" - foot/feet "ganger" - someone who moves along using the former noun The Latin Root is what connects many European languages.

However, there's nothing Latin about the present example...

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#163

Post by egeozcan »

ashton314 wrote: post #55

I lived in Germany for two years without a car. The public transportation there was amazing—I learned to appreciate how little I needed a car, provided the infrastructure was good enough/I had a bike. In many cities there's a "Fußgängerzone": pedestrian-only areas; these were mostly found in the city center where the streets and shops are too dense to allow much traffic. I remember specifically in Frankfurt am Main a…

I'm living in Gießen, it's very close to Frankfurt am Main. Seltersweg street, being a Fußgängerzone, is the main attraction of the city. There's a slow but sure trend though: Big shops are closing and more restaurants are opening. It's probably the effect of online shopping. I am raised in İstanbul and the same thing was happening in the Taksim/Beyoğlu/Asmalımescit areas when I was still living there even 10 years ago.

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#164

Post by Theodores »

I don't drive but I am into electric cars. I was in a ICE car over Christmas on a drive across country to see some relatives. We went through a local town that I didn't value much when I was growing up, with 'fresh eyes' I think I could see what the problem was, and it wasn't the car. The pollution is the real problem why people shun the street in front of their door. This pollution being the fumes and the noise.

With electric cars there is no reason why we can't get our streets back and for not just kids but for everyone to start to be part of their local community, not just hiding behind doors, curtains closed, putting up with where they live instead of enjoying it.

We have 20 mph city speed zones which are great. But when cars are noisy and polluting these streets are far from tranquil. The dirt from automotive isn't just the smog that comes out of exhaust pipes, there is also brake wear and the micro-particles that come from that. We have ended up with cities that are toxic to plant life as a consequence of this.

With cars that can float along on electric power we need not close off our streets, we need not even banish traffic jams.

Bus transport also needs a bit of work, with electric power they can be the modern transport that people deserve, not these noisy things that vibrate and feel hellish inside. We want the bus to be nice to be on, particularly for those with pushchairs, wheelchairs, kids in tow.

Yet we have an old population of people who seem to have a fetish of loud exhausts, V8 engines, turbo engines and this fuddy-duddy idea that electric will never replace these naff petrol and diesel engines. Hopefully these people will die off soon and Chinese electric cars will show Western auto makers how to make a car properly.

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#165

Post by autokad »

Theodores wrote: post #164

I don't drive but I am into electric cars. I was in a ICE car over Christmas on a drive across country to see some relatives. We went through a local town that I didn't value much when I was growing up, with 'fresh eyes' I think I could see what the problem was, and it wasn't the car. The pollution is the real problem why people shun the street in front of their door. This pollution being the fumes and the noise. Wit…

as an extensive walker, car fumes are never a problem for me.

usually the biggest problems are lack of mixed zoning and really wide streets which leads to very long walking distances.

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#166

Post by eigenvector »

freeone3000 wrote: post #119
lmm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those pedestrian tunnels are pretty unpleasant; everyone I know regards them as a necessary evil at best. Tunnels are inherently not human-friendly spaces (limited natural light) so I don't think you'll find any real success stories for pedestrian tunnels; better to put the cars in tunnels if you must go that route.

Montreal's underground is a pretty strong counterexample. The pedestrian "tunnels" have retail, dining, etc on the sides, with strong artificial lighting and skylights when possible. It's closer to a mall than a tunnel, and they're quite nice.

Toronto also has a quite extensive and successful underground mall - the 'Path' - but I'd imagine it's success is in part due to the climate. Walking underground is vastly preferable to above ground for a good portion of the year. It also allows access from Financial District office towers to Union Station unimpeded by traffic lights.

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#167

Post by alexis_fr »

oska wrote: post #148
manmal wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the place where I live (Austria, town with 30k residents), the Fußgängerzone in the center is currently dying. Shops close left and right, and migrate to the three big shopping centers. This town is a strange mix because almost everybody needs to own a car (bus system is underdeveloped) to take kids to school or shop groceries, but the town itself is not that big (a lot of places are reachable by bike). Most peopl…

Why do parents feel the need to take children to school in a small town in a very safe country? Why can't they ride a bike or walk?

People talk to each other. They know about migrants’ rapes. It triggers a question which is « Is it true », but countries, Europe and UN has a track record of lying and forbidding the publication if information about migrants, so it’s a bit like in DDR: choose whom you trust, but your child’s safety is on the line.

The discredit in govt trust, information and islamisation of our countries is so wide that many people are not only talking about Europe-exit, but about UN exit.

I guess it’s easier to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#168

Post by woodpanel »

ashton314 wrote: post #55

I lived in Germany for two years without a car. The public transportation there was amazing—I learned to appreciate how little I needed a car, provided the infrastructure was good enough/I had a bike. In many cities there's a "Fußgängerzone": pedestrian-only areas; these were mostly found in the city center where the streets and shops are too dense to allow much traffic. I remember specifically in Frankfurt am Main a…

One has to know that there are trends in urban planning and one of those trends is our current focus on cars being a net-negative to human life and how banning them from cities altogether can only yield net-positives. Clearly this trend is intertwined with the demographic trend of migrating to the urban cores all across the West.

So it’s a good thing you‘ve mentioned the Fußgängerzone, which were a trend in the 1950-1970s and German cities adapted them just to find out that they can become a booster of decay, if demographics and economics as well as just the trend don’t hold up (homelessness, empty shopfronts, only elderly folk, unemployed youth hanging around).

Fußgängerzonen are largely considered a failed experiment (And because of widespread bombing in WW2 German cities had plenty of room for experiments, which often failed). That they seem to work today, might have more todo with spill over effects from urban population growth, urban revival and a narrow set of datapoints (Fußgängerzonen if plighted areas are often not known to outsiders).

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#169

Post by sgift »

alexis_fr wrote: post #167
oska wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do parents feel the need to take children to school in a small town in a very safe country? Why can't they ride a bike or walk?

People talk to each other. They know about migrants’ rapes. It triggers a question which is « Is it true », but countries, Europe and UN has a track record of lying and forbidding the publication if information about migrants, so it’s a bit like in DDR: choose whom you trust, but your child’s safety is on the line. The discredit in govt trust, information and islamisation of our countries is so wide that many people…

> People talk to each other. They know about migrants’ rapes.

'Know' as in "I've heard that the Meyer has a brother who has a friend who has another friend and THEY have a sister who know someone that was once raped by a migrant". Or the same way anti-vaxxers know that vaccines lead to autism.

Re: What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars

#170

Post by lmm »

ajmurmann wrote: post #122
lmm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those pedestrian tunnels are pretty unpleasant; everyone I know regards them as a necessary evil at best. Tunnels are inherently not human-friendly spaces (limited natural light) so I don't think you'll find any real success stories for pedestrian tunnels; better to put the cars in tunnels if you must go that route.

There is of course also the option of a bridge/elevated walkway system that seems to be working really well in Hong Kong. At least I loved it.

That was tried in London and went badly. Pedestrians don't like having to go up and down a lot, and there's a bootstrapping problem with trying to create a nice environment at high level. Better to keep street level for the pedestrians.
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