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I think cars should be banned from most densely populated city centers in general. There is a word describing it "Pedestrianization" Reasoning: Cars pollute th
by acd 7y ago
I think cars should be banned from most densely populated city centers in general. There is a word describing it "Pedestrianization"
Reasoning:
Cars pollute the air which makes the people living and walking in the city centers sick.
Cars pollute with noise.
Cars cause pedestrian and bicycle accidents.
Its nice for peoples health to be able to walk and run in open areas.
Streets which previously was used by cars can be converted to public green areas and you can also plant trees there. It would open up new green areas for cafes and restaurants.
Public transport should replace cars in such dense environments. You will thus ride to the outer part of the city park your car there and take public / electric bike transport from there.
Here is story about Spanish city Pontevedra which banned cars
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish-city-banned-cars-pontevedra https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life...
Wikipedia article about Pontevedra, "Pedestrianization" section
"As a result, 65% of trips in the city centre are made on foot. Pontevedra was recognized in 2016 as one of the 15 best cycling cities in the world"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontevedra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontevedra
- afarrell 7y agoWhat does someone do if they twist their ankle badly and are on crutches for a month?
- gambiting 7y agoI see you're getting downvoted but I don't understand why - pretty much exactly this happened to me recently, I had severely reduced mobility in my leg for about 2 months, but I was told that I don't qualify for a blue badge. So while I luckily could drive(left leg affected, automatic car), this was one time in my life where I could actually benefit from being able to 1) get closer to where I need to be 2) park close to the entrance, but because it wasn't a permanent or long term disability I couldn't get the right permit.
- Isinlor 7y agoYou could use "electric mobility scooter"; In Netherlands they are widely available for people with the need. https://www.google.com/search?q=electric+mobility+scooter+disabled+people&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=electric+mobility+scooter+di...
- _delirium 7y agoI saw these all the time when I lived in Copenhagen as well. NYC needs to make its subway be more accessible for this to be a proper solution, though. In Copenhagen it's easy to take your scooter on the Metro or S-Train for longer distances, and then drive in the bike-lane network for shorter distances. But many NYC subway stations are ancient and don't have accessible entrances, so you can't get a mobility scooter from the street onto the train and back up to the street.
- afarrell 7y agoI’ve heard from a dwarven friend in SF that the SFBART elevators are also frequently used as toilets. Is this also true of the existing subway elevators?
- Thlom 7y agoWe see the same thing in Oslo, Norway where the local government is trying to reduce car use in the city. The main concern is from people with disabilities who fear for their disability parking. I believe it is because the main mobility device they have been provided is a car, so they have been used to moving about with a car. That they can use electric mobility scooters, electric trikes and a number of other mobility devices and also public transportation like everyone else doesn't seem to cross any ones mind.
- humanrebar 7y agoIt might work if NYC got better at hauling garbage, clearing snow, and ticketing people for blocking sidewalks in other ways (tables, signs, delivery trucks, etc.).
- pjc50 7y agoI know this sounds like a killer argument, and I don't know Manhattan, but in most of the cities I've been to you can't take a private car direct to a destination, park it nearby, and walk a short distance. The streets are already no-parking zones.
- 4ad 7y agoThe same thing they do in Europe, where cars are banned from almost every city center. We manage just fine.
- megablast 7y ago> where cars are banned from almost every city center I wish that was true.
- ekianjo 7y ago> cars are banned from almost every city center. In which utopia is this?
- 4ad 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places
- ChrisLomont 7y agoAlmost every one of those is a tiny part of a city on order if a few streets or part of a tiny city. Do you have anything substantial, say affecting on order of a million people? Or even an area of 100k people?
- kyberias 7y agoThat list is wildly inaccurate.
- megablast 7y agoWhat everyone who has done this and does not have a car does. Why do people pretend there are situations they can't live without a car, when most people in the world do it, and even a lot of people in your city do it.
- afarrell 7y agoI live without a car and prefer living without a car. I can easily do this because I’m an able bodied person in London. I’m a Software Engineer, so my wife can afford to take Uber and cabs to/from public transport in a pinch. The thing that I like about this particular change they implemented in manhattan is that it notably increases the bus-accessibility of the city. But if we’re widening the conversation to “just ban cars”, we really should look at what impact that would have on plumbers, drummers, and the elderly.
- cagenut 7y agomy theory is its rooted in this: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/13/science/when-the-brain-says-don-t-get-too-close.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/13/science/when-the-brain-sa... people who spend an hour+ a day for years on end in their car have mentally expanded their subconscious definition of themselves, their corporal being, with the skin of the car. this is a necessary mental process to prevent them from clipping mailboxes and 'rubbing paint' with other drivers that they then can't really "turn off". its why road-rage reactions are on a par with being physically assaulted or threatened, and its why whenever we talk about shifting public space and roads from cars to anything else they feel personally threatened and attacked.
- ed312 7y agoThat is an absolutely brilliant explanation of the "personal attack" feeling of road rage. After commuting by foot/subway/bike/scooter for a few years its shocking to see the reactions of my own (educated, professional) friends when someone dares to walk through a sidewalk! Don't even get them started about "those damn bikers".
- 7y ago
- CydeWeys 7y agoI live and work in Manhattan and I broke my ankle in a bike accident for about 4 years ago, and I was hobbling around on crutches for about two months in total before I could start (gingerly) biking again. I've never owned a car here, so I made it work. Fortunately there's buses, and buses are quite accessible. I don't really understand your question? People who live here generally don't own cars anyway, so what alternative besides public transportation exactly are you expecting? Keep in mind that traffic is so congested during commuting hours that the subway is typically faster, and also, two taxi/Lyft rides per day is quite expensive and beyond the reach of most people. It is true that the MTA needs to do a better job of retrofitting elevators onto the stations that don't have them yet.
- nightfly 7y agoEven if you ban regular cars you're still gonna have to deal with commercial/emergency vehicles (ambulances, moving vans, delivery trucks for local businesses.
- kachnuv_ocasek 7y agoOf which there are orders of magnitude fewer, though.
- nightfly 7y agoYes, but they still need roads. Lots of these plans seem to include re-purposing the roadways, without considering the remaining vehicles that still need roads.
- capableweb 7y agoNo, not at least what I have seen. Even in the thread you are now answering in, there is examples (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish-city-banned-cars-pontevedra https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life...) where a mostly-car street turned into a mostly-pedestrian street, with still the option for vehicle to travel if they must. Same if you take a look at the Superilles (Superblocks) in Barcelona (http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/superilles/es/ http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/superilles/es/), they still have a way for vehicles to navigate, but the space for them is much smaller and has a lower limit of speed.
- ThomPete 7y agoManhattan is different in that it connects New Jersey and Brooklyn into a super region, they are dependent on each other to thrive. Banning cars would be an absurd nightmare at least in this situation.
- mobilefriendly 7y agoThis isn't an actual argument against severely limiting cars. Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That will become easier and more efficient without private cars.
- ekianjo 7y ago> Reasoning: Cars pollute the air which makes the people living and walking in the city centers sick. Cars pollute with noise. Cars cause pedestrian and bicycle accidents. So this means that densely populated areas are not welcome for older people, like the ones who can't really walk as much anymore? Interesting way to discriminate.
- nannal 7y agoThere was an allowance for public transport (busses, trams etc)
- romwell 7y agoI have two words for you: mobility scooters. If you want more words, let's look into "public transportation", "paratransit", "vehicles that are not cars", "walking canes", and "false dichotomy". In other words, the answer to your question is "no", and the proposed solution is friendlier towards people who are old enough to have difficulty walking (and some of whom maybe shouldn't drive anyway).
- msla 7y agoSo you're going to allow people to run delivery services in busses? Because how else can you deliver to the housebound? Bikes are out: They're not allowed on pedestrian areas, and you can't haul much on one anyway. Electric scooters are out for the same reasons, as are "mobility" scooters. I suppose there's no law saying you have to allow the housebound to live in a region.
- jogjayr 7y ago> you can't haul much on [a bike] anyway. I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. Here's someone moving a fridge (!) on a bike trailer.[1] And that's on a regular bike, not an e-bike. 1. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/06/23/how-to-carry-major-appliances-on-your-bike/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/06/23/how-to-carry-majo...
- 7y ago
- izacus 7y agoMy home city (capital of the country) did exactly that and it brought a huge amount of life and new businesses to the city center. Not to mention that tourism exploded as well - the city center is now a very pleasant place to go out and grab a coffee next to a river or on a street with no loud and smelly traffic to be seen (picture during summer: https://files.stocky.ai/uploads/2019/01/image-Preseren-square-Ljubljana-capital-of-Slovenia.-stocky-ai-14327806.jpg https://files.stocky.ai/uploads/2019/01/image-Preseren-squar... ) Of course, the locals were throwing an absolute fit when the change came: "We won't be able to move furniture!", "What will the emergency vehicles do?", "How will old people cope?", "It will ruin the real-estate market!", "OH the humanity, who will WALK all the way from a parking spot?!" Turns out - it worked exceedingly well. We need more of this.
- zxcvbn4038 7y agoUnfortunately in the US most of the major cities have essentially been designed (or redesigned) around private vehicles, so banning them is not going to happen. However you are absolutely correct - walking through Times Square in NYC is a pleasure (aside from all the guys in Batman costumes) with traffic removed compared to turn of the millennia. I don’t care to bike but the bike lanes squeezing out all the auto traffic have been a benefit also. But would it work in Houston or Denver? Not unless they built a massive public transportation infrastructure and moved the businesses and housing closer together, essentially rebuilding the cities.
- CydeWeys 7y agoThe most recent part of Manhattan to be designed was still over two centuries ago in 1811, so we're not going to have that problem at least. But I think you're over-estimating how hard it would be to get rid of traffic in many other urban cores in the US. You don't need to do the entire city; you can just do the densest parts. It's not that hard to beef up a city's existing bus services and use them to totally replace cars.
- suchow 7y agoFYI, Battery Park City is part of Manhattan and was designed in the 1960s to 1980s, with the land created during excavation for the World Trade Center.
- msla 7y agoI suppose there's nothing saying the city has to be accessible to the housebound, as destroying car transit would surely destroy home delivery.