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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

#81

Post by TulliusCicero »

darkerside wrote: post #72
thomasahle wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was tried some places in the US in the part. Unfortunately most times they failed. Unable to attract enough people, they felt even less alive than the streets and entered a cycle a of death. However there are some signs of a rebirth: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275887405_American_...

I haven't been to Times Square in a while, but I have to assume that's a good example of a busy pedestrian zone in America.

I wouldn't say so. It felt more accidental to me than anything else. Like they just took a place designed for cars, shut the cars out, and yeah it's busy because it's in NYC and there's plenty of density and shops, but the actual urban design itself still felt largely bad and dumb.

Maybe it's changed since I've been, though.

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

#82

Post by TulliusCicero »

robertAngst wrote: post #75
TulliusCicero wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How it is a fantasy when many cities around the world already do this to varying extents? Did the definition of the word 'fantasy' change while I wasn't looking? Yes, US cities wouldn't be able to change to this overnight, but over the course of years and decades it's definitely possible.

Post a city please. It would be helpful to see real world executions.

Sure. Keep in mind, the idea isn't "no cars around at all", it's about balance and prioritization.

Houten, the Dutch suburb that's really built for bikes, even by Dutch standards: https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2015/06/a-case-study-in-bi...

"Superblocks" in Barcelona: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/08/inside-a-pede...

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

#83

Post by [deleted] »

leetcrew wrote: post #39
darkpuma wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America driving at 6 km/h (3.7mph) in a parking lot would induce road rage in other drivers. Trying to make roads with a 6 km/h speed limit would be political suicide for any politician that recommended it.

that's an absurd speed. i literally cannot go that slow in my car without lugging the engine or slipping the clutch the whole way. no thanks.

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by clairity »

leetcrew wrote: post #65
kingo55 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cameras overhead. There is a trial to catch drivers on their phones in Sydney IIRC. Edit: found it https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/17/drive...

in general I prefer not to lobby the government for even more surveillance, but maybe enforcement of phone use while driving is an acceptable situation. by the way, is "distracted driving" generally understood to mean "using a phone inappropriately while driving"? I took it to mean a much broader set of things that might distract a driver, which would require more invasive techniques to detect.

agreed that state-sponsored surveillance isn’t a great option. but there are companies creating in-car cameras/sensors combined with machine learning to identify distracted driving of all sorts (not just phone use). some insurance companies will lower rates for less distracted driving, for example (not that this is a great solution either). even just posting a distracted driving rating on your car as you drive might provide enough social disincentive not to do it.

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

#85

Post by [deleted] »

mschuster91 wrote: post #37
whatshisface wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems to me like a different problem (one of education or enforcement of traffic laws), although I acknowledge that a middle ground helps. The choice boils down to a dense, very large police force, versus streets designed to make good behavior natural. The latter can be a lot cheaper (and will involve many fewer tickets) than the former.

> and will involve many fewer tickets Given that many cities and police forces rely on traffic fines (and in the US, on civil forfeiture), the choice for city governments is skewed towards more enforcement...

[deleted]

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

#86

Post by smallnamespace »

wenderen wrote: post #66
codetrotter wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fußgängerzone We have these in Norway as well. Here they are called “gågate” (“walking street”), but what I actually wanted to say was that I think it’s interesting how similar some words are. The German word for pedestrian, “fußgänger”, is very similar to what it’s called in Norwegian, which is “fotgjenger”. You’ll hear how similar they are if you know how to pronounce these words in both German and Norwegian. If…

They're both Germanic languages! Learning Norwegian definitely helped me brush up on my German for free - at least, reading and to a lesser extent speaking.

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'.

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

#87

Post by megaremote »

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…

Do you mean Ackland st? A small part of it was blocked off, there are still far too many cars going down there. But it is a great start.

St Kilda is a such an awesome area, but like lots of places far too many cars. Melbourne has a serious problem with cars, most of the large parks even include roads running through them. Even with a fantastic inner city tram system, too many people are addicted to cars.

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

#88

Post by Findeton »

robertAngst wrote: post #75
TulliusCicero wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How it is a fantasy when many cities around the world already do this to varying extents? Did the definition of the word 'fantasy' change while I wasn't looking? Yes, US cities wouldn't be able to change to this overnight, but over the course of years and decades it's definitely possible.

Post a city please. It would be helpful to see real world executions.

Well, Lisbon, Madrid, Valencia and Sevilla. Sure, there are cars and roads, but the public transport system is good enough that you don't really need it. You only need a car to get out of the city. Also, in Sevilla (and now Valencia too) there are enough dedicated bike lanes that you can go to almost anywhere on bike, and you won't need to mix in with the cars or pedestrians.

Middle class definitely live in the city in those examples (and you won't be surrounded by homeless people) . In general European city centers come from medieval times, making them very walk-able (and touristic).

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

#89

Post by megaremote »

robertAngst wrote: post #49
baxtr wrote: post #28

I don’t get why cities are built around cars. As much as I love to jump into my car right outside my house, I’d love it even more when there was no car sound in the streets and children could safely walk everywhere. In densely populated cities cars should be banned outside of major roads

This was brought up in Adam Ruins Everything, and his Automotive episode was so misleading that I don't trust anything he says. >I don’t get why cities are built around cars. Sure there is a fantasy that we could have cities that don't require roads. However our modern 5,000,000 population Metro areas wouldnt exist. Instead housing prices would skyrocket, and the lowest income people would be forced to live in rural…

Are you delusional? There are plenty of cities that minimize cars to a great extent, like Hong Kong, New York, Paris.

The problem is people are really addicted to cars.

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

#90

Post by swebs »

Touche wrote: post #69
whatshisface wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a city around cars means building it around people who live far away. The people who live out in the suburbs and commute in get a lot more out of the roads than the people who are a block away from every place they need to go.

Aka, the superwealthy.

Uhh... you haven't been to the suburbs lately.
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