7 ms·

The reality is that cities are beginning to understand that the economic 'lifeblood' of a city can be strangled by the private car. Use of space is a huge issu

by awjr 9y ago

The reality is that cities are beginning to understand that the economic 'lifeblood' of a city can be strangled by the private car. Use of space is a huge issue within cities and a liveable approach based around the principle pedestrian first focusing on walkability, bikeability, public transport, and public spaces https://www.knightfoundation.org/features/livable-cities/ https://www.knightfoundation.org/features/livable-cities/ The private car needs to become a 'guest' and not the primary means of moving around a city. Neither should it become unwelcome, just easier to get around by any other mode of transport. https://twitter.com/awjre/status/879963479406411776 https://twitter.com/awjre/status/879963479406411776 Oslo tried to ban cars, but there has been a huge backlash, without the right sort of support some of the most vulnerable (i.e. people with physical disabilities) just cannot live successfully in cities. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jun/13/oslo-ban-cars-backlash-parking https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jun/13/oslo-ban-cars... The reality is that care share, car clubs, and strict city wide parking control are key. Ideas like the Workplace Parking Levy implemented by Nottingham are key to delivering real investment in public transport and cycle infrastructure while reducing unnecessary car journeys http://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/environment/lets-clear-air-national-clean-air-day/15/06/ http://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/environment/lets-clear... On top of that, the cities are politically avoiding the inherent value in on-street parking. In Bath, the going rate for a city centre parking permit on the open market is £3,000 per year, but the permits are sold by the council for £150. Cities need to recognise the huge discounts we give to car owners, while we cut funding for public transport because it is too expensive and people are not using it enough. It's one hell of a viscous circle.

geezerjay 9y ago
> Oslo tried to ban cars, but there has been a huge backlash, without the right sort of support some of the most vulnerable (i.e. people with physical disabilities) just cannot live successfully in cities. That's the main problem with the approach taken by local governments to ban cars: they always fall short of actually solving the mobility problem which cars have been solving for decades. Governments are shortsighted and focus on reaching their goals (get rid of cars), but in the process they fail to provide alternatives such as improving and extending the reach of mass transit services.
- revelation 9y ago
  Many people with disabilities can easier ride a handcycle or just an electronically powered wheelchair than they can use a car. Of course they can't in cities today because nobody wants to play sitting duck in 50mph traffic.
  - moron4hire 9y ago
    I'm the rain? Across town? Cars aren't just means of transportation. They also provide shelter and comfort.
  - pacaro 9y ago
    This is also a very narrow view of "disability", there are many reasons why someone may not be willing or able to ride a bike, not all of them are met by suggesting that those people should use a hand cycle or electric wheelchair.
    - revelation 9y ago
      And you are suggesting their needs are better met by buying a transporter that they then have to entirely rejig for a cost in excess of $30k and telling everyone who wants to get around by handcycle or electric wheelchair to fuck off? It's hard to see this as any more than a thinly veiled "but I need my car!" by people who have likely never in their life met a disabled person.
      - pacaro 9y ago
        I am suggesting that there is no "one size fits all" solution. This isn't a problem that is amenable to simplistic solutions. Be careful with your presumptions, we're all strangers here.
  - geezerjay 9y ago
    > Many people with disabilities can easier ride a handcycle or just an electronically powered wheelchair than they can use a car. If that was true then they would be riding handycles instead of a car. Moreover, I fail to see the relevance of your point. Local and central governments are invested in eliminating the best options available to a significant portion of society, and are failing to even consider introducing any alternative services. Claiming that people with disabilities could use another means of transportation fails to address the issue.
chrisseaton 9y ago
> not the primary means of moving around a city Are private cars the primary means of getting around any city today? I would have thought it was already totally impossible to 'get around' a city like San Francisco, London or New York by car. Where on earth would you park securely at each stop? I can't imagine ever even attempting to drive into a major city. Maybe if I had a very specific plan of getting to a particular hotel that I knew had a car park with spaces that had enough headroom for my car, etc. But driving into a city to just 'get around' without a plan? Surely that's suicide? I don't think any of the vehicles in a city are private cars - aren't they almost all taxis and commercial vehicles making deliveries?
- odonnellryan 9y ago
  > Are private cars the primary means of getting around any city today? Guess it depends how you define city. I like in a town that is on the top-100 list of "most densely populated cities in the US" and I'm right next to #1, #2, and #3 most densely populated. (Manhattan and others aren't on this list, but "NYC" is). My city, yeah people definitely use private cars to get around. There are cars literally parked on both sides of EVERY street!
- sokoloff 9y ago
  > Are private cars the primary means of getting around any city today? There are a lot more cities (and a lot more total people in them) like Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, Detroit, Phoenix, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, Columbus, etc where cars are the primary means of getting around. It is San Francisco, London, and New York that are the outliers.
  - Thimothy 9y ago
    >It is San Francisco, London, and New York that are the outliers. You should have limited that list to the US, in Europe many other capitals and big cities have extensive public transportation networks that are used as primary means of transport in the city by a wide range of the population, in a wide range of journeys.
- awjr 9y ago
phicoh 9y ago
Suppose that parking a car takes about 10 square meters. Then you can easily compute what parking should cost in a certain area. There probably are places where 10 m2 costs around £3,000 per year, but they are relatively rare. Traditionally having all car owners share all parking space makes sure that when you drive your car somewhere, for example to visit a friend, you can actually park there. If all parking space is privately owned that model tends to break down. The problem is that to have a functioning city (as opposed to a suburb) you need to have a high enough population density. And you cannot have a high population density if you have to reserve a huge amount of space for cars. The tricky thing is to design a city (or set policies to move in a certain direction) such that it is not one-size-fits-all. Slowly banning cars slowly from the parts of a city with the highest densities allows people who like to live without cars to move in and people who need a car to move to areas with a lower population density.
- adrianN 9y ago
  Eh, 10m² parking instead of more room for a building with three stories is already 30m² of wasted space. 3000 pounds per year is then about 8 pounds/m²/month. That's really cheap for urban space.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    In fairness, it's cheaper to build a parking spot than a three-story building...
  - phicoh 9y ago
    Looking at data from the city of Amsterdam, which has specific reasons for keeping track of the value of land, then a reasonable price for a piece of land in a good location is about EUR 3000 per m2. So for 10 m2 you would expect to pay EUR 30,000 to buy it. That would make the main annual costs the interest of a mortgage for this amount. Currently in the Netherlands that would be around EUR 900 per year. (Amsterdam keeps track of the price of land because basically the city rents out land and doesn't sell it. Price real estate owners pay is based on the estimated price of the land)
  - 9y ago
99_00 9y ago
Public transportation costs to build and operate, which means more taxes which are politically difficult. On the other hand people have shown again and again that they are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars every year for what the car gives them.
- mgbmtl 9y ago
  Private car transportation is also massively subsidized. Near my neighbourhood, they are rebuilding a highway exchange for more than 3.6 B$CAD (2.7 USD). A few blocks from there, they have to rebuild a bridge, another 4.2 B$CAD. It's not even old infra. It was built in the 60s, but it didn't last (harsh winters, bad concrete, too much traffic).
  - 99_00 9y ago
    And that's why they have gas taxes. Canada has a federal one, and maybe your province has an additional tax. In Vancouver, public transportation gets half it's funding from property tax and fuel tax. And more than 70% of commuters drive. So not only are car drivers funding roads, they're also funding public transportation. http://buzzer.translink.ca/2013/03/translink-101-where-does-translink-get-its-funding-and-how-do-we-spend-it/ http://buzzer.translink.ca/2013/03/translink-101-where-does-... Then what happens if people stop driving and take public transportation? Their costs go up and revenue goes down. Double whammy.
    - mgbmtl 9y ago
      For Quebec, according to some numbers I found, in 2013-2014 (when gaz prices were high), the provincial government made 2.2 B$ from gaz taxes that year. If that's the case, it's not that much compared to all the infra that needs overhaul.
    - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
      Private transportation doesn't fund the roads, only about half of it on average. 'Use' taxes only cover about 1/3 to 2/3rds of road expenditures (in the US). https://taxfoundation.org/how-your-state-s-road-spending-funded-2016/ https://taxfoundation.org/how-your-state-s-road-spending-fun... If everyone used public transportation, all the property taxes and so forth used on roads could go to public trans instead.
h3st 9y ago
> Oslo tried to ban cars, but there has been a huge backlash, without the right sort of support some of the most vulnerable (i.e. people with physical disabilities) just cannot live successfully in cities. The backlash is pretty dishonest, though. The car-free area (a small part of downtown) will have more handicap parking spots than it does now, sidewalks are being improved so they're larger and universally accessible, and the disabled benefit from cycling infra too—I see people riding mobility scooters in bike lanes in Oslo, much as in this video, but not so many specialty bikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGx3HSjKDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGx3HSjKDo It's generally the Joe Schmoes who cry "but what about the disabled" and "but what about people who NEED to use cars for their work?", blithely ignoring the points above, and the fact that trade and service unions welcome the change because they'll be allowed too, just like in pedestrian streets, and they'll have an easier time of getting around when they're not trapped in car traffic by people who drive through downtown just because they can and they don't want to use the tunnels.

by awjr 9y ago

geezerjay 9y ago

> Oslo tried to ban cars, but there has been a huge backlash, without the right sort of support some of the most vulnerable (i.e. people with physical disabilities) just cannot live successfully in cities. That's the main problem with the approach taken by local governments to ban cars: they always fall short of actually solving the mobility problem which cars have been solving for decades. Governments are shortsighted and focus on reaching their goals (get rid of cars), but in the process they fail to provide alternatives such as improving and extending the reach of mass transit services.

revelation 9y ago
Many people with disabilities can easier ride a handcycle or just an electronically powered wheelchair than they can use a car. Of course they can't in cities today because nobody wants to play sitting duck in 50mph traffic.
- moron4hire 9y ago
  I'm the rain? Across town? Cars aren't just means of transportation. They also provide shelter and comfort.
- pacaro 9y ago
  This is also a very narrow view of "disability", there are many reasons why someone may not be willing or able to ride a bike, not all of them are met by suggesting that those people should use a hand cycle or electric wheelchair.
  - revelation 9y ago
    And you are suggesting their needs are better met by buying a transporter that they then have to entirely rejig for a cost in excess of $30k and telling everyone who wants to get around by handcycle or electric wheelchair to fuck off? It's hard to see this as any more than a thinly veiled "but I need my car!" by people who have likely never in their life met a disabled person.
    - pacaro 9y ago
      I am suggesting that there is no "one size fits all" solution. This isn't a problem that is amenable to simplistic solutions. Be careful with your presumptions, we're all strangers here.
- geezerjay 9y ago
  > Many people with disabilities can easier ride a handcycle or just an electronically powered wheelchair than they can use a car. If that was true then they would be riding handycles instead of a car. Moreover, I fail to see the relevance of your point. Local and central governments are invested in eliminating the best options available to a significant portion of society, and are failing to even consider introducing any alternative services. Claiming that people with disabilities could use another means of transportation fails to address the issue.

chrisseaton 9y ago

> not the primary means of moving around a city Are private cars the primary means of getting around any city today? I would have thought it was already totally impossible to 'get around' a city like San Francisco, London or New York by car. Where on earth would you park securely at each stop? I can't imagine ever even attempting to drive into a major city. Maybe if I had a very specific plan of getting to a particular hotel that I knew had a car park with spaces that had enough headroom for my car, etc. But driving into a city to just 'get around' without a plan? Surely that's suicide? I don't think any of the vehicles in a city are private cars - aren't they almost all taxis and commercial vehicles making deliveries?

odonnellryan 9y ago
> Are private cars the primary means of getting around any city today? Guess it depends how you define city. I like in a town that is on the top-100 list of "most densely populated cities in the US" and I'm right next to #1, #2, and #3 most densely populated. (Manhattan and others aren't on this list, but "NYC" is). My city, yeah people definitely use private cars to get around. There are cars literally parked on both sides of EVERY street!
sokoloff 9y ago
> Are private cars the primary means of getting around any city today? There are a lot more cities (and a lot more total people in them) like Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, Detroit, Phoenix, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, Columbus, etc where cars are the primary means of getting around. It is San Francisco, London, and New York that are the outliers.
- Thimothy 9y ago
  >It is San Francisco, London, and New York that are the outliers. You should have limited that list to the US, in Europe many other capitals and big cities have extensive public transportation networks that are used as primary means of transport in the city by a wide range of the population, in a wide range of journeys.
awjr 9y ago

phicoh 9y ago

Suppose that parking a car takes about 10 square meters. Then you can easily compute what parking should cost in a certain area. There probably are places where 10 m2 costs around £3,000 per year, but they are relatively rare. Traditionally having all car owners share all parking space makes sure that when you drive your car somewhere, for example to visit a friend, you can actually park there. If all parking space is privately owned that model tends to break down. The problem is that to have a functioning city (as opposed to a suburb) you need to have a high enough population density. And you cannot have a high population density if you have to reserve a huge amount of space for cars. The tricky thing is to design a city (or set policies to move in a certain direction) such that it is not one-size-fits-all. Slowly banning cars slowly from the parts of a city with the highest densities allows people who like to live without cars to move in and people who need a car to move to areas with a lower population density.

adrianN 9y ago
Eh, 10m² parking instead of more room for a building with three stories is already 30m² of wasted space. 3000 pounds per year is then about 8 pounds/m²/month. That's really cheap for urban space.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  In fairness, it's cheaper to build a parking spot than a three-story building...
- phicoh 9y ago
  Looking at data from the city of Amsterdam, which has specific reasons for keeping track of the value of land, then a reasonable price for a piece of land in a good location is about EUR 3000 per m2. So for 10 m2 you would expect to pay EUR 30,000 to buy it. That would make the main annual costs the interest of a mortgage for this amount. Currently in the Netherlands that would be around EUR 900 per year. (Amsterdam keeps track of the price of land because basically the city rents out land and doesn't sell it. Price real estate owners pay is based on the estimated price of the land)
- 9y ago

99_00 9y ago

Public transportation costs to build and operate, which means more taxes which are politically difficult. On the other hand people have shown again and again that they are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars every year for what the car gives them.

mgbmtl 9y ago
Private car transportation is also massively subsidized. Near my neighbourhood, they are rebuilding a highway exchange for more than 3.6 B$CAD (2.7 USD). A few blocks from there, they have to rebuild a bridge, another 4.2 B$CAD. It's not even old infra. It was built in the 60s, but it didn't last (harsh winters, bad concrete, too much traffic).
- 99_00 9y ago
  And that's why they have gas taxes. Canada has a federal one, and maybe your province has an additional tax. In Vancouver, public transportation gets half it's funding from property tax and fuel tax. And more than 70% of commuters drive. So not only are car drivers funding roads, they're also funding public transportation. http://buzzer.translink.ca/2013/03/translink-101-where-does-translink-get-its-funding-and-how-do-we-spend-it/ http://buzzer.translink.ca/2013/03/translink-101-where-does-... Then what happens if people stop driving and take public transportation? Their costs go up and revenue goes down. Double whammy.
  - mgbmtl 9y ago
    For Quebec, according to some numbers I found, in 2013-2014 (when gaz prices were high), the provincial government made 2.2 B$ from gaz taxes that year. If that's the case, it's not that much compared to all the infra that needs overhaul.
  - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
    Private transportation doesn't fund the roads, only about half of it on average. 'Use' taxes only cover about 1/3 to 2/3rds of road expenditures (in the US). https://taxfoundation.org/how-your-state-s-road-spending-funded-2016/ https://taxfoundation.org/how-your-state-s-road-spending-fun... If everyone used public transportation, all the property taxes and so forth used on roads could go to public trans instead.

h3st 9y ago

> Oslo tried to ban cars, but there has been a huge backlash, without the right sort of support some of the most vulnerable (i.e. people with physical disabilities) just cannot live successfully in cities. The backlash is pretty dishonest, though. The car-free area (a small part of downtown) will have more handicap parking spots than it does now, sidewalks are being improved so they're larger and universally accessible, and the disabled benefit from cycling infra too—I see people riding mobility scooters in bike lanes in Oslo, much as in this video, but not so many specialty bikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGx3HSjKDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGx3HSjKDo It's generally the Joe Schmoes who cry "but what about the disabled" and "but what about people who NEED to use cars for their work?", blithely ignoring the points above, and the fact that trade and service unions welcome the change because they'll be allowed too, just like in pedestrian streets, and they'll have an easier time of getting around when they're not trapped in car traffic by people who drive through downtown just because they can and they don't want to use the tunnels.