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Meanwhile in Utrech, NL: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/motorway-removed-to-bring-back-original-water/ https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01

Meanwhile in Utrech, NL: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/motorway-removed-to-bring-back-original-water/ https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/motorway-remov...

ascagnel_ 11y ago
Car-free shopping districts are an interesting choice, but you still need to make some concessions to mass transit (eg delivery hours for trucks, right-of-way or other lanes for buses or expensive construction of subways, etc), and Europe generally doesn't have the sprawling suburbia of the eastern United States that would require massive ring-roads to handle traffic that isn't feasible to serve via mass transit (although mass transit park-and-ride facilities can help to mitigate that).
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Utrecht is fairly sprawly: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/52.1307/5.1605 http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/52.1307/5.1605 My experience of the trains was that it would be very reasonable to live in Hilversum and work in Utrecht.
- Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
  >Car-free shopping districts are an interesting choice, but you still need to make some concessions to mass transit (eg delivery hours for trucks, right-of-way or other lanes for buses or expensive construction of subways, etc), Car free shopping districts and streets are common worldwide. Even the US has them. Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House is open only to foot traffic and bikes. The only cars in there are emergency vehicles. Charlottesville, Virginia has a pedestrian mall. >Europe generally doesn't have the sprawling suburbia of the eastern United States that would require massive ring-roads to handle traffic that isn't feasible to serve via mass transit The sprawling suburbia of the US comes from poor land use policies that do things like require single family housing. This is true even in cities which are famous for not having zoning, like Houston. Before we engaged in the Great Suburban Experiment the US was one of the world leaders in public transit. LA had one of the largest public transit systems in the entire world. Loosening certain land use controls would slowly repair this problem amongst many others. Lately these laws have attracted a lot of attention in the press, with economists from Paul Krugman on down commenting on land use controls, mostly negatively. Cities are slowly reforming these laws, or attempting to reform these laws, and I suspect that the America of the future will be much more walkable nationally than today's America. Even LA's leadership has realized that the car doesn't scale.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    Suburbia - When tech books are written in a 100 years the disaster of Suburbia will be in all of them. I live in a city and walk to work and enjoy the life here (120,000 people). My city (Allentown, PA) is just now turning around from the "White Flight" we had int he 1980s. To me Suburbia = Center City destroying, inconvenient, isolating and depressing and is maybe the reason why drug use is so rampant in these areas. http://articles.philly.com/2007-02-08/news/25238943_1_drug-overdoses-drug-abuse-drug-treatment-centers http://articles.philly.com/2007-02-08/news/25238943_1_drug-o...
    - criddell 11y ago
      Hey now, some of us love living out in the burbs. When self-driving cars are available, I'll buy one and move even further out.
      - UVB-76 11y ago
        Exactly. Self-driving cars will be the suburbs' renaissance.
        criddell 11y ago
        When I was younger (in my 20's), I thought I would never move from the city center. I loved having lots of stuff close by. Getting up and taking a short walk to get some coffee and meet friends was awesome. The crowds and options were exciting and I loved my life. Then my wife and I decided to have kids and so when our lease was up on our apartment, we took the plunge and bought a house in the 'burbs. We had two kids and I adjusted to living on the edge of the city. The unthinkable happened - I love it in the suburbs. I don't think I could live in an apartment again.
        baldfat 11y ago
        I have 5 kids and live in the city. I think Burbs need to go away. People should either go City or Country but mixing both has not shown to be a successful model.
        11y ago
Sharlin 11y ago
Wow, that stub of a motorway has to have been useless from day one. Only built because at one point of time it seemed "modern".
- BozeWolf 11y ago
  You are actually right! In the 70s the state decided to restructure Utrecht. A horrible, horrible decision. Lot's of uglyness was built back then. Im a citizen of Utrecht(living in Lombok area). Lombok is on the west of utrecht and big parts of this side of the city are ugly as hell. Lots of concrete. Lot's of ugly buildings which should not have been there. The other side of Utrecht is actually beautiful (although lombok sure is nice as well nowadays!). It still annoys me the first thing you see when entering the city area is all this uglyness. Can't wait until this huge project is finished somewhere in 2020. (The project is called CU2030, but it is a marketing term, which means something like: CU Too in 030. WTF) The current project restores water but also removed some ugly buildings. They also rebuild the central train station, which is much better now. I hope we still like (most) of the new architecture after 30 years (or will history repeat?).
  - Sharlin 11y ago
    I hear you; the same sort of "modernization" occurred in my hometown Turku, Finland in the 70s.
  - Gmo 11y ago
    I've lived for 7 years 50 km east of Utrecht and my main point of entrance was 90% of the time the Central Station. I always found it ugly indeed (the whole district around actually) and not welcoming at all. Now I come back there once or twice a year and I can't wait that they are finished with the work to see how it will look like :)
BozeWolf 11y ago
Try driving a car through the citycenter of utrecht in rush hour. Will take 25 minutes to complete the 3 km from west to east if you're lucky. Tip: don't try it. Get the bike or take the recommended huge detour :)
- revelation 11y ago
  That is .. entirely the point.

Meanwhile in Utrech, NL: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/motorway-removed-to-bring-back-original-water/ https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/motorway-remov...

ascagnel_ 11y ago

Car-free shopping districts are an interesting choice, but you still need to make some concessions to mass transit (eg delivery hours for trucks, right-of-way or other lanes for buses or expensive construction of subways, etc), and Europe generally doesn't have the sprawling suburbia of the eastern United States that would require massive ring-roads to handle traffic that isn't feasible to serve via mass transit (although mass transit park-and-ride facilities can help to mitigate that).

maxerickson 11y ago
Utrecht is fairly sprawly: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/52.1307/5.1605 http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/52.1307/5.1605 My experience of the trains was that it would be very reasonable to live in Hilversum and work in Utrecht.
Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
>Car-free shopping districts are an interesting choice, but you still need to make some concessions to mass transit (eg delivery hours for trucks, right-of-way or other lanes for buses or expensive construction of subways, etc), Car free shopping districts and streets are common worldwide. Even the US has them. Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House is open only to foot traffic and bikes. The only cars in there are emergency vehicles. Charlottesville, Virginia has a pedestrian mall. >Europe generally doesn't have the sprawling suburbia of the eastern United States that would require massive ring-roads to handle traffic that isn't feasible to serve via mass transit The sprawling suburbia of the US comes from poor land use policies that do things like require single family housing. This is true even in cities which are famous for not having zoning, like Houston. Before we engaged in the Great Suburban Experiment the US was one of the world leaders in public transit. LA had one of the largest public transit systems in the entire world. Loosening certain land use controls would slowly repair this problem amongst many others. Lately these laws have attracted a lot of attention in the press, with economists from Paul Krugman on down commenting on land use controls, mostly negatively. Cities are slowly reforming these laws, or attempting to reform these laws, and I suspect that the America of the future will be much more walkable nationally than today's America. Even LA's leadership has realized that the car doesn't scale.
- baldfat 11y ago
  Suburbia - When tech books are written in a 100 years the disaster of Suburbia will be in all of them. I live in a city and walk to work and enjoy the life here (120,000 people). My city (Allentown, PA) is just now turning around from the "White Flight" we had int he 1980s. To me Suburbia = Center City destroying, inconvenient, isolating and depressing and is maybe the reason why drug use is so rampant in these areas. http://articles.philly.com/2007-02-08/news/25238943_1_drug-overdoses-drug-abuse-drug-treatment-centers http://articles.philly.com/2007-02-08/news/25238943_1_drug-o...
  - criddell 11y ago
    Hey now, some of us love living out in the burbs. When self-driving cars are available, I'll buy one and move even further out.
    - UVB-76 11y ago
      Exactly. Self-driving cars will be the suburbs' renaissance.
      - criddell 11y ago
        When I was younger (in my 20's), I thought I would never move from the city center. I loved having lots of stuff close by. Getting up and taking a short walk to get some coffee and meet friends was awesome. The crowds and options were exciting and I loved my life. Then my wife and I decided to have kids and so when our lease was up on our apartment, we took the plunge and bought a house in the 'burbs. We had two kids and I adjusted to living on the edge of the city. The unthinkable happened - I love it in the suburbs. I don't think I could live in an apartment again.
      - baldfat 11y ago
        I have 5 kids and live in the city. I think Burbs need to go away. People should either go City or Country but mixing both has not shown to be a successful model.
      - 11y ago

Sharlin 11y ago

Wow, that stub of a motorway has to have been useless from day one. Only built because at one point of time it seemed "modern".

BozeWolf 11y ago
You are actually right! In the 70s the state decided to restructure Utrecht. A horrible, horrible decision. Lot's of uglyness was built back then. Im a citizen of Utrecht(living in Lombok area). Lombok is on the west of utrecht and big parts of this side of the city are ugly as hell. Lots of concrete. Lot's of ugly buildings which should not have been there. The other side of Utrecht is actually beautiful (although lombok sure is nice as well nowadays!). It still annoys me the first thing you see when entering the city area is all this uglyness. Can't wait until this huge project is finished somewhere in 2020. (The project is called CU2030, but it is a marketing term, which means something like: CU Too in 030. WTF) The current project restores water but also removed some ugly buildings. They also rebuild the central train station, which is much better now. I hope we still like (most) of the new architecture after 30 years (or will history repeat?).
- Sharlin 11y ago
  I hear you; the same sort of "modernization" occurred in my hometown Turku, Finland in the 70s.
- Gmo 11y ago
  I've lived for 7 years 50 km east of Utrecht and my main point of entrance was 90% of the time the Central Station. I always found it ugly indeed (the whole district around actually) and not welcoming at all. Now I come back there once or twice a year and I can't wait that they are finished with the work to see how it will look like :)

BozeWolf 11y ago

Try driving a car through the citycenter of utrecht in rush hour. Will take 25 minutes to complete the 3 km from west to east if you're lucky. Tip: don't try it. Get the bike or take the recommended huge detour :)

revelation 11y ago
That is .. entirely the point.