5 ms·

"war on cars" ? It's returning the streets to the people! > Late last year, the government removed some 700 parking spaces from the city centre, replacing them

"war on cars" ? It's returning the streets to the people! > Late last year, the government removed some 700 parking spaces from the city centre, replacing them with benches, bicycle docks and more pavement. Great! The average parking space is 2*6 metres, so they've regained 8,400 sqm of public space!

koodiorja 7y ago
Good for people who find the idea of spending their free time in an ugly concrete jungle enjoyable, bad for everyone else. I would rather cut my salary half than move to a city with more than 200k people.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  So stay in a small town. But those of us living in larger towns, with jobs, families, interests, obligations and involvement there, would like a humane living space too. Taking back the public space so thoughtlessly set aside for cars is a part of this.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    I'd like to see that town with 199999 residents.
  - koodiorja 7y ago
    Unfortunately working in a small town might not be an option for everyone in the current job market. Due to that any action that makes private motoring more difficult should only happen with equal investment on public transport connections from outside the city. Nobody should be forced to live in a large city simply because all the jobs are there.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  5 paces out of Oslo city limits and you're surrounded by woodlots and farming. Easy to reach that line by public transit.
choeger 7y ago
Returning? The whole concept of a city rests on the idea of more people traveling into it for various reasons than people living in it. People who want to live in a city profit massively from the availability of services that are economically possible due to the extreme density of customers. If you lock out individual travel (and there might be good reasons to do so) you inevitably transform your city into something else that has not existed before. That is not "returning" or "regaining" nor will the space be necessarily "public". Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen. While I never understood the urge to live in the cities, I do understand the call for more space and in particular less car traffic from those who do live there. But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it.
- elvinyung 7y ago
  I mean, it's not like individual automobiles are the only way to get around...
  - crispyambulance 7y ago
    It might hard for some to believe, but there are huge portions of the USA where every trip begins and ends in a car. The layout of many "cities" in the USA literally requires car transport. Residential is clustered with other residential, retail is clustered into strip malls with a vast stretches of asphalt (for parking), office parks are also clustered in low-density arrangements of flex-space (1-story buildings with a truck dock in the back). All of these places are separated not only by distances that can't be covered on foot, but also pedestrian-hostile highways and utter dismissal of public space. And yes, schools are large and dotted across the landscape. So in addition to getting to work, by car, many families have to juggle transporting their kids to school in one direction, then go a completely different direction to get to work, repeat the process in the afternoon, and go in other directions for shopping, groceries, and other "third places".
- Xylakant 7y ago
  > Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen. All experience with cities that reduced or banned car traffic point in the other direction. Madrid for example reports a 9.5% increase in local business https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits-of-car-free-streets https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits... If you’ve ever been to the Netherlands you’d also see that their city centers are far from deserted wastelands. Quite to the contrary, actually, at least the ones that I’ve been to. > But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it. Living in the suburbs comes with downsides, too. There’s for example no inalienable right to drive your car in the city.
Theodores 7y ago
Rather than it be a 'war' I wish it was a sneaky game of 'musical chairs', reducing a space at a time and turning it over to more sensible use. For instance, the street I am on is one way and lined with these tin silver box things on either side. A fair bit of the traffic is playing the game of musical chairs, as it is driving round and round looking for a space to park. If one side was made into a bike lane then that would be a huge bonus to cyclists who should be able to get into town rather than deflected out onto a horrid ring road. When you count the cars and when you count the bikes being inconvenienced, you wonder how it would work if there was already a bike lane there, used by locals and people on commutes. Would my neighbours be able to petition the council to close down the bike lane in order for them to park their SUV cars there? Nope, and they would not have the organisational ability to get together to petition the council to close down the bike lane. As things stand the car owners have squatters rights. So there is no bike lane, just a continual stream of cyclists holding up traffic by riding slowly on the tarmac remaining between the walls of steel each side of the road. Or there are cyclists bombing down the pavement (sidewalk) to piss off pedestrians. All because some people have a god given right to park their SUVs. So unless there is some revolution the only way to reclaim such space is with a council that sneakily reclaims the spaces. One way this could be done is to mandate more clear road by side junctions for 'safety reasons'. This would benefit motorists as they could see better around the corners. So nobody could object to that. Next, do the same around private drive-ways that join the road, put more double yellow lines down. Then, when there are only a few spots left to park in the council could push the big idea and get a decent cycle lane in so 'kids could safely cycle to school'.

koodiorja 7y ago

Good for people who find the idea of spending their free time in an ugly concrete jungle enjoyable, bad for everyone else. I would rather cut my salary half than move to a city with more than 200k people.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
So stay in a small town. But those of us living in larger towns, with jobs, families, interests, obligations and involvement there, would like a humane living space too. Taking back the public space so thoughtlessly set aside for cars is a part of this.
- imtringued 7y ago
  I'd like to see that town with 199999 residents.
- koodiorja 7y ago
  Unfortunately working in a small town might not be an option for everyone in the current job market. Due to that any action that makes private motoring more difficult should only happen with equal investment on public transport connections from outside the city. Nobody should be forced to live in a large city simply because all the jobs are there.
ocschwar 7y ago
5 paces out of Oslo city limits and you're surrounded by woodlots and farming. Easy to reach that line by public transit.

choeger 7y ago

Returning? The whole concept of a city rests on the idea of more people traveling into it for various reasons than people living in it. People who want to live in a city profit massively from the availability of services that are economically possible due to the extreme density of customers. If you lock out individual travel (and there might be good reasons to do so) you inevitably transform your city into something else that has not existed before. That is not "returning" or "regaining" nor will the space be necessarily "public". Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen. While I never understood the urge to live in the cities, I do understand the call for more space and in particular less car traffic from those who do live there. But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it.

elvinyung 7y ago
I mean, it's not like individual automobiles are the only way to get around...
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  It might hard for some to believe, but there are huge portions of the USA where every trip begins and ends in a car. The layout of many "cities" in the USA literally requires car transport. Residential is clustered with other residential, retail is clustered into strip malls with a vast stretches of asphalt (for parking), office parks are also clustered in low-density arrangements of flex-space (1-story buildings with a truck dock in the back). All of these places are separated not only by distances that can't be covered on foot, but also pedestrian-hostile highways and utter dismissal of public space. And yes, schools are large and dotted across the landscape. So in addition to getting to work, by car, many families have to juggle transporting their kids to school in one direction, then go a completely different direction to get to work, repeat the process in the afternoon, and go in other directions for shopping, groceries, and other "third places".
Xylakant 7y ago
> Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen. All experience with cities that reduced or banned car traffic point in the other direction. Madrid for example reports a 9.5% increase in local business https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits-of-car-free-streets https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits... If you’ve ever been to the Netherlands you’d also see that their city centers are far from deserted wastelands. Quite to the contrary, actually, at least the ones that I’ve been to. > But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it. Living in the suburbs comes with downsides, too. There’s for example no inalienable right to drive your car in the city.

Theodores 7y ago

Rather than it be a 'war' I wish it was a sneaky game of 'musical chairs', reducing a space at a time and turning it over to more sensible use. For instance, the street I am on is one way and lined with these tin silver box things on either side. A fair bit of the traffic is playing the game of musical chairs, as it is driving round and round looking for a space to park. If one side was made into a bike lane then that would be a huge bonus to cyclists who should be able to get into town rather than deflected out onto a horrid ring road. When you count the cars and when you count the bikes being inconvenienced, you wonder how it would work if there was already a bike lane there, used by locals and people on commutes. Would my neighbours be able to petition the council to close down the bike lane in order for them to park their SUV cars there? Nope, and they would not have the organisational ability to get together to petition the council to close down the bike lane. As things stand the car owners have squatters rights. So there is no bike lane, just a continual stream of cyclists holding up traffic by riding slowly on the tarmac remaining between the walls of steel each side of the road. Or there are cyclists bombing down the pavement (sidewalk) to piss off pedestrians. All because some people have a god given right to park their SUVs. So unless there is some revolution the only way to reclaim such space is with a council that sneakily reclaims the spaces. One way this could be done is to mandate more clear road by side junctions for 'safety reasons'. This would benefit motorists as they could see better around the corners. So nobody could object to that. Next, do the same around private drive-ways that join the road, put more double yellow lines down. Then, when there are only a few spots left to park in the council could push the big idea and get a decent cycle lane in so 'kids could safely cycle to school'.