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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

#91

Post by MisterOctober »

smallnamespace wrote: post #86
wenderen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

Yep! It also shows up in loan vocabulary like "doppelganger" [double-goer] and old-timey quotes like "gang aft agley" [go often awry, via Robert Burns' "To A Mouse"]

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

#92

Post by nicoburns »

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.

I'd argue that the super-wealthy only live in the suburbs because that's the best place to live in a city designed to serve the suburbs. In London, the super wealthy live right in the centre...

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

#93

Post by allcentury »

reaperducer wrote: post #60
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…

our council recently changed one of our iconic streets to almost exclusively be for pedestrians and trams. For whatever it's worth, Chicago tried both of these things, and they didn't work out. The main shopping drag, State Street, was pedestrianized in 1979. You can see it for a few seconds in the film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation . It didn't work. It was re-opened to traffic in 1996, and is now far more vi…

In the wiki article and in the tribute article linked (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1996-11-15-961115...), it doesn't really give any insight on why it was a 'disaster'. Have anymore to share? I'm really interested.

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

#94

Post by nicoburns »

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...

There's no reason why this couldn't be replaced by tax revenue though. I know I'd vote for a tax to fund police if it was explicitly stated that this would allow them to stop picking people up on petty crimes.

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

#95

Post by daveFNbuck »

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.

Depending on the city, the suburbs can be much cheaper.

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

#96

Post by dylan604 »

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.

There are examples of this working in other cities. The 3rd St Promenade in Santa Monica comes to mind.

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

#97

Post by kortilla »

Findeton wrote: post #88
robertAngst wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Sure, there are cars and roads, but the public transport system is good enough that you don't really need it.

There is massive gulf between what you described and carless.

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

#98

Post by tom_ »

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.

The speed is not defined by a number: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https... (comprehensible, though probably more poetic in the original German)

It's not my place to speculate, but I'm going to do it anyway: I expect you can get away with simply just driving as slowly as you can, assuming that isn't ridiculously faster than the 7km/h that is suggested. (My old automatic car (1.4L) would probably creep at about the right pace. My manual car (3.0L) isn't super happy to pull the car along while idling in 1st gear, but it's fine at ~1000rpm and that's ~8km/h.)

(This does make me wonder. I typically drive in car parks in 1st gear at <2000rpm, so max ~16km/h or ~10mph. But, you know... maybe I'm going too quickly?)

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

#99

Post by dylan604 »

whatshisface wrote: post #27
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…

> Businesses protested for months about potential lost business Out of curiosity, how did that pan out? Closing off an area to road traffic is basically a re-prioritization towards nearby residents, and away from distant visitors and the commerce that they engage in, so it would be interesting to know how badly the latter groups suffer.

I would imagine having parking structures/places to accommodate those from out of the area to still be able to drive there, park, and then proceed on foot.

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

#100

Post by ip26 »

reaperducer wrote: post #60
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…

our council recently changed one of our iconic streets to almost exclusively be for pedestrians and trams. For whatever it's worth, Chicago tried both of these things, and they didn't work out. The main shopping drag, State Street, was pedestrianized in 1979. You can see it for a few seconds in the film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation . It didn't work. It was re-opened to traffic in 1996, and is now far more vi…

I mean, we can go back and forth with datapoints forever. The London Underground uses subterranean pedestrian tunnels, though personally I've only walked the one at Heathrow, at night. As it's the main way between terminals I expect it sees lots of foot traffic during the day.
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