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What I think this demonstrates is something that a lot of cities are waking up to. The car is not a friend of the urban landscape. A lot of cities are now prio
by awjr 11y ago
What I think this demonstrates is something that a lot of cities are waking up to. The car is not a friend of the urban landscape.
A lot of cities are now prioritising walking/cycling/public transport over the ability to drive anywhere and everywhere and this is having a profound effect on health and well being of their residents. It is hard though.
Events like this show what is possible.
- andys627 11y agoTotally agree. Helps to point out how much we've been subsidizing personal auto use - mainly by not charging user fees enough to cover all costs of driving.
- awjr 11y agoThat's the thing. In the UK the cost to the NHS (UK Free Healthcare) is not costed into the price people pay at the fuel pump. I believe revenue from Car Tax/Fuel/VAT is about £48 billion, however the cost to the country is calculated at about £70 billion.
- jedrek 11y ago+ 28 billion quid spent on roads.
- dalke 11y agoThe calculation isn't so simple. The use of cars may enable additional business. If that leads to an additional £50 billion in tax revenue, then it would be worthwhile, from a bookkeeping perspective.
- rsfern 11y agoOn the other hand, more pedestrian traffic also may enable additional business, as people are more likely to wander in and out of shops, and they aren't competing for limited parking availability.
- awjr 11y agoCycle Lanes have a similar impact. Cars go from A to B. Walking/Cycling goes via A to B via CDEF. Some studies have shown significant (150%) increases in business when they have been introduced.
- meatysnapper 11y agoWhat about the pollution, road maintenance, time spent commuting, and accidents? I think you are making a similar argument to taxpayers footing the bill for stadiums.
- dalke 11y agoI wasn't being complete, only saying that it's not a simple calculation.
- celticninja 11y agoOnly on the basis that if cars were banned that commerce would not take place, which is unlikely.
- dalke 11y agoStrictly speaking, that is not true, as Venice and Mackinaw Island demonstrate.
- celticninja 11y agoThat was my point. If there are no cars people find other ways to do business.
- dalke 11y agoAhh, I read 'which is unlikely' as referring to 'cars were banned' not 'commerce would not take place'. My apologies.
- willyk 11y agoIf you're interested in more discussion on this, Robin Chase, founder of ZipCar, often comments on the actual/total cost of operating a car
- andys627 11y agoAAA puts it around $10k/yr for USA
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- icebraining 11y agoI think it's possible, but one time events are misleading, in my opinion. People use exceptional measures that are not sustainable in the long term - out here, some people even took a vacation day when our cities did the "day without cars".
- awjr 11y agoThe issue is one of persuasion. By having these days it gives local authorities the ability to demonstrate what is possible and makes actual implementation of smaller leaps (e.g. segregated cycle tracks) easier to swallow.
- steadicat 11y agoIf no cars is the goal, how are segregated cycle tracks a leap in the right direction?
- Retric 11y agoCars are local optima. In a 100% car city you need a lot of car infrastructure and there is pressure to keep building more. In a 25% car city the pressure switches to maximizing other modes of transit, but as long as 98% car city is worse it's really hard for cities to make that jump. PS: It's really a lot like social networks, dropping G+ vs Facebook is really more a question of which your friends spend time on not which one has better software.
- awjr 11y agoBecause it is not about "removing" the car, but making it the most difficult thing to use vs any other type of transport. For example, you can make the most direct route to a place via bike or walking, but if you use a car you have to use the ring road to get from one side of the city to the other. You enable cars to go into a city, but not through a city. The other issue is that people equate the idea that people can walk and cycle together. This is really uncomfortable for walkers. You need to segregate space for each type of transport.
- padenot 11y ago
- raverbashing 11y agoWell, to be fair Paris has an excellent subway/suburban train network So it makes it feasible to go to Paris intramuros from anywhere pretty much
- maelito 11y agoBut is it easy enough to park your car outside of the city ?
- elros 11y agoI think the whole point is precisely to make it impractical to own or rely on a car.
- awjr 11y agoOr more precisely that you do not need to own a car to live in the city. That does not mean you should not have access to one through a car share programme or cheap car rental.
- awjr 11y agoRoll on self-drive cars!
- tomjen3 11y agoIts Paris, cars there get burned pretty often. It already can't be cheap or easy to have a car in Paris, people probably have them because they are worth it, which means the alternatives suck. Make them not suck.
- elros 11y ago> It already can't be cheap or easy to have a car in Paris, people probably have them because they are worth it, which means the alternatives suck. The public transportation system in Paris is excellent, maybe the best in Europe. Using a car in Paris, in the city center, has a lot more to do with status. It's harder to fix that.
- melling 11y agoI sure many cities (European) have realized this for quite some time. London has had a congestion charge for over a decade, for example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge In Europe gas has been made expensive and mass transit has always been recommended. In the US only one major city has sufficient mass transit so you don't need a car.
- afarrell 11y agoI suspect there are more cities than just Boston where you can get around without a car. What about NYC?
- melling 11y agoI meant NYC.
- tomjen3 11y agoDane here. We have the most expensive gas in the world and the most expensive cars in the world. We still mostly drive (we do bicycle a lot compared to the US, yes, but we still drive a ton), just in older or smaller cars. Why? Because cars are awesome. They go exactly from where you want to where you want to go, when you want, 24h a day and you can always get a seat, if music is being played, it is your choice of music. That is basically everything public transportation is not. Given how little time people think they have, they will always prefer cars.
- Symbiote 11y ago> We have the most expensive gas in the world No you don't. It's currently more expensive in Germany, Britain, Ireland, Norway, ... Car tax is very high, but I think it's even higher in Vietnam -- around 150%. http://benzinpreis.de/international.phtml?kontinent=EU&s=2 http://benzinpreis.de/international.phtml?kontinent=EU&s=2
- dingaling 11y agoThere is an unfortunate difference between theory and practice, however. My local council keeps promoting healthy commuting and walking for leisure. At the same time the roads service, which operates at a national level, just 'upgraded' a local intersection and replaced one single pedestrian crossing across the road with three, each independent and spanning a short gap between islands. Until all agencies are coordinated in promoting pedestrianism, walkers will continue to feel third-class.
- awjr 11y agoAlso you'll note that when you push the button as a pedestrian it can take up to 3 minutes for it to change. I find this exceptionally inefficient. You get pedestrians chancing to cross and then the lights change.
- wil421 11y agoAtlanta has started doing something similar on Peachtree called Atlanta Streets Alive [1]. There is also a BeltLine project to connect the city for pedestrians and bikes plus they have festivals along it from time to time. Its built from an old railroad line [2]. Even though our public transportation isn't robust if you live close like I do its easy to get downtown on the train. [1] http://www.atlantastreetsalive.com http://www.atlantastreetsalive.com [2] http://beltline.org/about/the-atlanta-beltline-project/atlanta-beltline-overview/ http://beltline.org/about/the-atlanta-beltline-project/atlan...
- placeybordeaux 11y agoStreets alive moves around the city, not just on peachtree. Really cool project in my opinion.
- technofiend 11y agoHouston does this every year in the Fall; we close a street or two off to cars for a few hours one Sunday a month. There are food trucks and vendors and from personal experience I'd say attendance is moderate at one or two thousand, not tens of thousands a street festival will enjoy. If a car-crazy town like Houston can do it surely Paris with their amazing metro could do so much better. Considering the effect a single day of no cars has on their air quality and the allegation that diesel cars are much more polluting and fuel consuming than previously thought, perhaps Paris will moot electric only cars in the core? Houston's Streets. October 4 -- Washington Avenue, 12 to 4 p.m., Washington Ave between Heights Blvd. and Westcott Street November 1 -- Museum Park, 12 to 4 p.m., Caroline between Binz and Wentworth and Binz between Caroline and Chenevert December 13 -- Midtown, 12 to 4 p.m., Smith between Elgin and West Gray and West Gray between Smith and Valentine