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People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

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Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#331

Post by oaiey »

bombcar wrote: post #294
tzs wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Totally agree. Mix it is. Car free is only possible in high density, high public transport coverage inner cities.

Grande Paris is definitely not the zone I put my 2/3 statement on.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#333

Post by apexalpha »

sktrdie wrote: post #281
apexalpha wrote: post #142

These (American) articles on urbanism and what not always make it seems much more insane than it is. I live in the Netherlands, a country usually lauded for it's bicycles and public transport and what not. And let me tell you: We still drive cars. All the time. Even in Amsterdam, our biggest city, 4/10 families still owns their personal car. In the Netherlands as a whole it's 9.5/10 or so. It's about THE MIX of optio…

Where do you get this data from? I've been living in Amsterdam for 5 years now and all of my friends or people that I know of that live somewhat in the city don't have a car... because (1) they can't afford it and (2) they don't need it. Biking infra is so freaking amazing that it makes me want to bike all the time instead of getting the car (even if I had one). Driving around with a car in Amsterdam is just madness.…

> Where do you get this data from?

https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/maatschappij/verkeer-en-vervoer/ov-....

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#334

Post by platelminto »

dividefuel wrote: post #270
gizmo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Door-to-door, a Costco trip usually takes me about 90 minutes. I go to Costco probably once every two weeks. Just a data point. I'd love to hear how often urbanites go to the grocery store and how long each trip typically takes.

Didn't see any replies with specifics, so here's mine: Door-to-door, it takes me no more than 30 minutes for a shop, and I usually go 3 times every 2 weeks. So about the same as you. I wouldn't consider my location "lucky" either: there's 3 supermarkets alone within a 5 minute cycle from my house. Across most of the city, you're always going to be close to one.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#335

Post by sktrdie »

ghusto wrote: post #301
sktrdie wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get this data from? I've been living in Amsterdam for 5 years now and all of my friends or people that I know of that live somewhat in the city don't have a car... because (1) they can't afford it and (2) they don't need it. Biking infra is so freaking amazing that it makes me want to bike all the time instead of getting the car (even if I had one). Driving around with a car in Amsterdam is just madness.…

This is likely an age thing. I suspect you're without a family? I think what he's getting at is that we cycle everywhere, except when we can't, which matches my experience.

You're seriously driving around Amsterdam in a car? But why when a bicycle is 10x faster and easier?

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#336

Post by Kalium »

tejohnso wrote: post #316
giraffe_lady wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while you can walk and cycle without any of those things. A few years ago a driver making a right-on-red bumped me in the crosswalk with his car. It was reckless but whatever no harm no foul. But then he got out, incorrectly thinking he had the right of way, and demanded my "papers." He was incredulous and furious that I didn't have insurance papers to show him, or thought I was refusing to. He ended up calling 911…

Probably just trying to frighten or intimidate. Someone else could easily have been fooled into thinking they needed papers. The guy could've berated them into tears. Probably just about all he was attempting to do.

It doesn't have to be deliberate. For a lot of people, aggression is their immediate defensive response.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#337

Post by steelframe »

scoofy wrote: post #297
steelframe wrote: post #257

These 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 interse…

Why doesn't Japan need parallel corridors, blocking bollards, and so forth to keep their cyclist casualties down?

https://medium.com/vision-zero-cities-journal/the-unique-saf...

Key point from the article: "Public safety is facilitated by a culture of compliance."

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#338

Post by eropple »

ryandrake wrote: post #72
eddieroger wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that scenario isn't universal, and while you can't think of a reason, others can. Perhaps someone would rather shop at Costco because they've got a big family and need to buy items in higher quantities. You can't get a Costco in a small city setting, so you need to drive there, and even if you could, shared transit isn't amenable to getting home the types of things you buy at Costco. Or perhaps you wish to ha…

> Because that scenario isn't universal, and while you can't think of a reason, others can. Thank you very much for this island of sanity inside this topic’s sea of bewilderment. These comment sections always seem to end with someone up asking: “How could anyone like things I don’t like??” and then a bunch of commenters just shake their heads and conclude “Those poor souls, they don’t know how they are suffering.” I’…

> EDIT: And to be perfectly clear: I am not against cities building themselves toward car-freeness. I support citydwellers making their cities bikeable and walkable! I just don’t want to live there.

Are you willing to pay to account for the externalities that your preferences create? If so, I'm all for it, but let's be real: most folks aren't.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#339

Post by kijin »

seoulmetro wrote: post #326
kijin wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A strange thing about South Korea is that even the most expensive condos in Gangnam derive a significant part of their value from being close to a subway station ( yeoksekwon ). The millionaires who live there are riding the subway right beside the pleebs! No wonder they want to keep the trains nice and clean.

This is incorrect. Yes, people appreciate the subways but not in the way you just described. It's the "wealthy" that use the subway as well as a car, but the expensive condos in Gangnam are not using or caring about the subway. The subway is just a plus. People living in the expensive parts of Gangnam(-gu) are not riding the subway. People living in the affordable parts of Gangnam(-gu) are. In fact, if you look on a…

One can always find counterexamples in a large city.

Meanwhile, the one lame station you mentioned that serves the 신반포 area is directly connected to the financial district and the airport. And just a couple of blocks away is 고속터미널 station where three subway lines intersect.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#340

Post by seoulmetro »

kijin wrote: post #339
seoulmetro wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. Yes, people appreciate the subways but not in the way you just described. It's the "wealthy" that use the subway as well as a car, but the expensive condos in Gangnam are not using or caring about the subway. The subway is just a plus. People living in the expensive parts of Gangnam(-gu) are not riding the subway. People living in the affordable parts of Gangnam(-gu) are. In fact, if you look on a…

One can always find counterexamples in a large city. Meanwhile, the one lame station you mentioned that serves the 신반포 area is directly connected to the financial district and the airport. And just a couple of blocks away is 고속터미널 station where three subway lines intersect.

Well yeah.. all subway stations connect in Korea and are very useful?

The rich in expensive apartments don't use them. In fact in order to appear rich, people prefer to take taxis and their car. That's why the entire city is filled with cars even when they're incredibly slow.

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