Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 286 posts

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#71

Post by ghaff »

adimitrov wrote: post #60
ctdonath wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can't drive to near my destination, I'll not likely visit that city.

Honest question: why? It seems patently absurd to me, especially when you're visiting. I'm visiting Berlin right now. It's a car friendly city in a car friendly country and I wouldn't want to drive anywhere here if you paid me. Too much of a hassle. Besides driving is so incredibly boring. If you're visiting, you're not going to really experience the city from behind the windows of a metal box. Maybe Northern America…

If it's a city I'm flying into (or taking train to), sure. I don't want to drive in a city, especially one I'm not familiar with, when I don't need to.

But a nearby city I'm driving to from home? I'm far less likely to go in for the evening if there aren't good parking options. I'm even near a commuter rail line which works pretty well if I have a daytime event. But it doesn't work for evening things.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#72

Post by tomtheelder »

sandworm101 wrote: post #44
benrbray wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is certainly decades (if not centuries) behind in public transportation. However, these CityLab articles are doing a great thing by highlighting our unhealthy dependence on cars and making it a part of everyday conversation. If we're ever going to change we need to start by agreeing there is a problem and discussing realistic solutions. I don't quite understand your point about the "technological and class di…

They are like a doctor complaining about my i unhealthy dependency on water. I just had to drive 40km between cities for a meeting. There is no train, no bus, no electric skateboard alternative. Sure, maybe we could do the meeting remotely and implement digital signatures on the documents, but that isnt a legal option at the moment. The car-free utopia lies on the other side of countless other revolutions in how soci…

Car-free is about dense urban centers, not transit between them. That's an entirely different problem (or potentially not a problem at all).

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#73

Post by barney54 »

adimitrov wrote: post #60
ctdonath wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can't drive to near my destination, I'll not likely visit that city.

Honest question: why? It seems patently absurd to me, especially when you're visiting. I'm visiting Berlin right now. It's a car friendly city in a car friendly country and I wouldn't want to drive anywhere here if you paid me. Too much of a hassle. Besides driving is so incredibly boring. If you're visiting, you're not going to really experience the city from behind the windows of a metal box. Maybe Northern America…

I have really liked driving in Europe. The true benefit of driving is seeing what is in between cities.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#74

Post by ctdonath »

organsnyder wrote: post #48
sandworm101 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are like a doctor complaining about my i unhealthy dependency on water. I just had to drive 40km between cities for a meeting. There is no train, no bus, no electric skateboard alternative. Sure, maybe we could do the meeting remotely and implement digital signatures on the documents, but that isnt a legal option at the moment. The car-free utopia lies on the other side of countless other revolutions in how soci…

How often do you have those meetings? If it's once a week or less, you'd probably be better off with a carshare rather than owning a private vehicle. No single mode of transportation solves every use-case. My car is suboptimal when I'm going downtown, as well as for trips longer than 300 miles or so.

Except ... cars do solve every use case. Suboptimal, yes, but I can get whoever & whatever I need to practically every square kilometer of this country (4200 x 2500) within 50 hours (5400km). Public transport simply can't, because it can't have stations within anywhere close to each of 10,500,000 square kilometers - and even where it does, I'm waiting (maybe hours) for service, and am severely limited in cargo options.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#75

Post by jjoonathan »

dahfizz wrote: post #66
ogre_codes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technological and class divide will only widen. Car friendly infrastructure widens the technological and class divide. They create a base state where you are required to own and maintain an expensive piece of equipment in order to be an equal member of society. You are required to have parking for those cars, both at home and at your work. Forcing people to pay thousands of dollars per year to participate in so…

> Forcing people to pay thousands of dollars per year to participate in society is highly repressive. You're right. We should charge them thousands of dollars per month so they can live downtown and walk everywhere instead. Problem solved!

Support a landlord near you!

(Just kidding, you can't afford to. Enjoy your hike! Maybe in 30 years they'll get public transit working where you need it. You'll promptly get priced right out again, but at least you'll know your taxes went to a good cause!)

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#76

Post by mixmastamyk »

srhngpr wrote: post #61
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do those work in winter? We had electric scooters, but they were all scooped up by their parent companies in October ahead of the coming months of hell.

You must be from Calgary! Unfortunately, scooters and bikes won't work when there is so much snow during the winter.

Not entirely true: https://www.boredpanda.com/students-bicycle-school-winter-sn...

However I think below zero is better for biking than near zero to avoid remelting.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#77

Post by crematoria »

allovernow wrote: post #47
ogre_codes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technological and class divide will only widen. Car friendly infrastructure widens the technological and class divide. They create a base state where you are required to own and maintain an expensive piece of equipment in order to be an equal member of society. You are required to have parking for those cars, both at home and at your work. Forcing people to pay thousands of dollars per year to participate in so…

>Car friendly infrastructure widens the technological and class divide. They create a base state where you are required to own and maintain an expensive piece of equipment in order to be an equal member of society. Great, so if we can't all have something, none of us should have it! Forget the fact that the vast majority of families own and benefit from personal transportation, the important thing is that we're all e…

GP was merely refuting the one point made by GGP, that a lack of cars would somehow widen the class divide.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#78

Post by dsfyu404ed »

spats1990 wrote: post #63
FussyZeus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America is certainly decades (if not centuries) behind in public transportation. However, these CityLab articles are doing a great thing by highlighting our unhealthy dependence on cars and making it a part of everyday conversation. If we're ever going to change we need to start by agreeing there is a problem and discussing realistic solutions. Then let's discuss some realistic solutions: Outside of densely populat…

I sympathise but I think this post has a few contradictions in it. For example, I'm not surprised the bus in your area is inconvenient schedule-wise because I assume you aren't the only person in your city who drives ten minutes to work. Ten minutes? Wouldn't it take you about thirty minutes maximum to walk in that case? If the walk would be unpleasant or otherwise not viable, can't that probably be blamed on car sys…

Ten minutes? Wouldn't it take you about thirty minutes maximum to walk in that case?

You can go a lot more than 1.5mi in 10min if there isn't bad traffic. If 3/10 of those minutes are on a highway that's probably an hour or worth or more of walking.

>If the walk would be unpleasant or otherwise not viable, can't that probably be blamed on car systems as well?

Houston will be hot and Detroit will be cold for several months of the year with or without cars. Having air conditioned boxes that can do last mile transportation is part of why the southern US is as developed as it is. Obviously there becomes a density point where it makes sense to offload a lot of the transportation needs onto public traffic by many cities and suburbs are not there yet.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#79

Post by srhngpr »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #69
srhngpr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be from Calgary! Unfortunately, scooters and bikes won't work when there is so much snow during the winter.

That's downright insulting! I'm from Edmonton. Yeah, I fear we have too much snow - while bicycles can still be used by the most stubborn, electric vehicles can't summon up that curmudgeonly spirit that will get them out of every second snow drift.

I'm very sorry to hear that! coming from a Vancouverite.

I spend a decent chunk of the year in Calgary for work and last year they kept the Lime bikes during the winter and on non-snow days, it was actually useful for getting around downtown. But this year they got rid of those too. Car2go is no longer in Calgary either, so transportation options are super limited.

Re: Car-Free Streets Will Soon Be the Norm

#80

Post by ramshorns »

dahfizz wrote: post #66
ogre_codes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technological and class divide will only widen. Car friendly infrastructure widens the technological and class divide. They create a base state where you are required to own and maintain an expensive piece of equipment in order to be an equal member of society. You are required to have parking for those cars, both at home and at your work. Forcing people to pay thousands of dollars per year to participate in so…

> Forcing people to pay thousands of dollars per year to participate in society is highly repressive. You're right. We should charge them thousands of dollars per month so they can live downtown and walk everywhere instead. Problem solved!

We should improve public transit and urban design so that walkable places aren't in such short supply.
Post reply on HN