4 ms·

I think he means most people don't live close enough to the city that they could reasonably ride a bike to get where they need to go.

atoav 8y ago
That is why you have park & ride concepts and trains. In many european cities you have places just outside the city where you can park your car or hop of and take your bike and take the last mile by bike or public transport. Having all your commuters drive their car into the city is not at all a good idea. I lived for years at one heavy intersection in one of Germanys biggest cities and I can tell you, if you watch the traffic for half an hour you will see maybe one or two cars with more than one person in them. I moved from their because the dust and the noise were having a huge impact on my health. I don't think it is about banning cars from city centers totally. It is about finding acceptable solutions that work without forcing people. Encourage them. Have a working public transport system. Make it cheap. Make it so cheap that driving a car will cost you. Include all problems cars cause in a urban space in some kind of toll or tax.
- wtetzner 8y ago
  Park & ride is a fine idea, but Massachusetts needs to invest in that sort of infrastructure before it will become viable for commuters. Currently there's the commuter rail, which is hard to get to from many areas, is quite expensive, and doesn't run very frequently. It's not good enough to get people to stop driving.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    If the commuter rail is not convenient they could park at the end of the T, e.g. Alewife, BC etc.
    - gregmac 8y ago
      But now they need to pay for the car anyway, so you're left balancing the comparatively small cost of parking + extra gas + extra mileage against inconvenience of switching transit methods + cost of transit. There's many other factors, too, which could influence things in either way: total time spent commuting, whether you hate crowded spaces and prefer to sit alone in your car, whether you can be productive (eg: phone call, working on laptop, doing email on phone etc) or want to be able to read.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
But can they bike from a train station in the city? Can they bike around the suburb they live in? Yes, they probably can.
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  Can they find a parking spot in the train station? No, no they can't.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    Many suburbs in Europe are set up with either lots of parking at the station, or such that people even in the suburb are within walking/biking distance of the station. I can show you examples if you're interested.
    - wtetzner 8y ago
      I don't think it's a problem that can't be solved. But Massachusetts needs to invest in that infrastructure before it will become viable. Just making the city more navigable by bikes doesn't solve the problem.
      - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        > Massachusetts needs to invest in that infrastructure And that is the crux of the problem. Cities across the US don't have enough funding to maintain the infrastructure they currently have, let alone try to build anything new. Their only hope is to get a grant from the state or federal government. None of this is sustainable.
      - TulliusCicero 8y ago
        If you always wait for complementary infrastructure, you'll never do anything. Sometimes a half-assed compromise is just an intermediary step on the way to a full-assed solution.

atoav 8y ago

That is why you have park & ride concepts and trains. In many european cities you have places just outside the city where you can park your car or hop of and take your bike and take the last mile by bike or public transport. Having all your commuters drive their car into the city is not at all a good idea. I lived for years at one heavy intersection in one of Germanys biggest cities and I can tell you, if you watch the traffic for half an hour you will see maybe one or two cars with more than one person in them. I moved from their because the dust and the noise were having a huge impact on my health. I don't think it is about banning cars from city centers totally. It is about finding acceptable solutions that work without forcing people. Encourage them. Have a working public transport system. Make it cheap. Make it so cheap that driving a car will cost you. Include all problems cars cause in a urban space in some kind of toll or tax.

wtetzner 8y ago
Park & ride is a fine idea, but Massachusetts needs to invest in that sort of infrastructure before it will become viable for commuters. Currently there's the commuter rail, which is hard to get to from many areas, is quite expensive, and doesn't run very frequently. It's not good enough to get people to stop driving.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  If the commuter rail is not convenient they could park at the end of the T, e.g. Alewife, BC etc.
  - gregmac 8y ago
    But now they need to pay for the car anyway, so you're left balancing the comparatively small cost of parking + extra gas + extra mileage against inconvenience of switching transit methods + cost of transit. There's many other factors, too, which could influence things in either way: total time spent commuting, whether you hate crowded spaces and prefer to sit alone in your car, whether you can be productive (eg: phone call, working on laptop, doing email on phone etc) or want to be able to read.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

But can they bike from a train station in the city? Can they bike around the suburb they live in? Yes, they probably can.

cannonedhamster 8y ago
Can they find a parking spot in the train station? No, no they can't.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  Many suburbs in Europe are set up with either lots of parking at the station, or such that people even in the suburb are within walking/biking distance of the station. I can show you examples if you're interested.
  - wtetzner 8y ago
    I don't think it's a problem that can't be solved. But Massachusetts needs to invest in that infrastructure before it will become viable. Just making the city more navigable by bikes doesn't solve the problem.
    - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
      > Massachusetts needs to invest in that infrastructure And that is the crux of the problem. Cities across the US don't have enough funding to maintain the infrastructure they currently have, let alone try to build anything new. Their only hope is to get a grant from the state or federal government. None of this is sustainable.
    - TulliusCicero 8y ago
      If you always wait for complementary infrastructure, you'll never do anything. Sometimes a half-assed compromise is just an intermediary step on the way to a full-assed solution.