8 ms·

Of which there are orders of magnitude fewer, though.

nightfly 7y ago
Yes, 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 ago
  No, 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 ago
    Manhattan 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 ago
      This 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.
      - badfrog 7y ago
        > Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That only works well if your origin or destination is in Manhattan. To go from Union City NJ to Belmont Park on a weekend is a 45 minute drive or > 90 minutes on transit consisting of bus, subway, LIRR, another bus. There are similar examples even within NYC, like Red Hook to Jackson Heights.
      - ThomPete 7y ago
        How will it become more efficient to force more people onto the trains? You haven't traveled with the L train recently.
    - geofft 7y ago
      I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn, and my office overlooks the Holland Tunnel (connection to New Jersey). Roads are a backlogged mess every evening, where "evening" on Friday seems to start at noon. Traffic cops are in a half-dozen intersections around the Holland Tunnel entrance manually restricting flow and more importantly rerouting cars to keep all the possible entrance routes roughly balanced. The vast majority of this traffic is from Manhattan - otherwise it wouldn't be spread across so many routes. If you want to designate a cars-ok route in Manhattan between the Battery Tunnel (to Brooklyn) and the Holland Tunnel and let that back up, you could do that and it would be less of a mess than the status quo: it would stay on West Side Highway out of the way and it would have less traffic. One time I took a taxi from Newark to my home in Brooklyn, and the taxi driver dropped me off right after getting out of the Holland Tunnel (next to a subway stop) saying he didn't want to deal with more traffic. There is no effective vehicular link between New Jersey and Brooklyn right now. There is a moderately effective link between each of those and Manhattan, that's it.
      - melling 7y ago
        We need a lot more subways. And they need to extend into NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension
        brownbat 7y ago
        And more of them should be accessible by wheelchair. Currently it's only around one in five stations.
        mruts 7y ago
        Sounds fine too me. I’m not saying there should be no wheelchair accessible stations, but seeing that they are a miniscule minority, I don’t think that my tax dollars be paying to make everything accessible to them. It’s not possible, anyways, without incurring massive costs. Imagine what would happen to rents if the government mandated that all apartments and houses to be wheelchair accessible. It would be a total disaster.
  - elif 7y ago
    Many streets in Japanese cities fit this. There is only one loosely defined car lane and no sidewalks. So it's a pain to drive because if someone is driving the opposite way, someone has to pull over and yield. The lack of sidewalks makes it so that the road's primary users are pedestrians, so cars are forced to drive carefully (slow) at all times, making these roads even less desirable for drivers. The "soft pressure" leads to cars mostly using car-friendly roads unless they absolutely have to use the pedestrian ones.
- atoav 7y ago
  You need a way to reach your goal by car this must not necessarily look like a traditional road. It is essentially a inversion of priorities: instead of having roads with pedestrians and cyclists allowed, you make it a pedestrian area with cyclists and cars allowed.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  There will still be roads. They are needed for pedestrians and bicyclists. But they are not commonly open for car traffic. Here in Munich, there are large pure pedestrian zones. But some of them a free for bicyclists after 9pm in the evening and in the morning hours (like 8-10) delivery traffic is allowed. And the police and ambulance cars can drive it any time it is needed.
  - Merrill 7y ago
    Pedestrian and bicycle roads aren't necessarily built to support 25000 kilo trucks, e.g. a concrete mixer truck on the way to a construction site.
    - _ph_ 7y ago
      Well, the roads still could be built to support the load of an occasional heavy truck, whatever the traffic limitations on that road are. And in most places, there are existing roads which carry the necessary loads. The repurposing would at most affect the topmost layer.
throwaway122378 7y ago
Throw in taxis, Uber, lyft and you have all your cars again. A city like Manhattan would not make it without taxis
- izacus 7y ago
  Why not? Aren't people capable of walking for a few blocks?
  - emidln 7y ago
    Not all people.
    - izacus 7y ago
      Sure, but in my city that was supplemented by (free) electric vehicles for people who can't walk. Why isn't that possible in rich US hosting companies like Uber and Lyft? Aren't they capable of providing zero EV transport in closed enclaves?
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      >99% of vehicle traffic is people who can walk. If we truly limit cars to just those who need them for reasons of accessibility then we've basically solved the problem.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    Fuck everyone with disabilities yeah? ALS? Just walk a few blocks! Parkinson's? Just walk a few blocks! Dystrophy? Just walk a few blocks! Life isn't hard enough for these individuals so let's kick it up a notch by rolling out exclusively ableist transportation.
    - telchar 7y ago
      You say that like electric wheelchairs and scooters don't exist. People too disabled to even use those already require assistance anyway, so they're no worse off requiring assistance in a (nearly) car-free environment.

Yes, 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 ago
No, 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 ago
  Manhattan 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 ago
    This 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.
    - badfrog 7y ago
      > Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That only works well if your origin or destination is in Manhattan. To go from Union City NJ to Belmont Park on a weekend is a 45 minute drive or > 90 minutes on transit consisting of bus, subway, LIRR, another bus. There are similar examples even within NYC, like Red Hook to Jackson Heights.
    - ThomPete 7y ago
      How will it become more efficient to force more people onto the trains? You haven't traveled with the L train recently.
  - geofft 7y ago
    I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn, and my office overlooks the Holland Tunnel (connection to New Jersey). Roads are a backlogged mess every evening, where "evening" on Friday seems to start at noon. Traffic cops are in a half-dozen intersections around the Holland Tunnel entrance manually restricting flow and more importantly rerouting cars to keep all the possible entrance routes roughly balanced. The vast majority of this traffic is from Manhattan - otherwise it wouldn't be spread across so many routes. If you want to designate a cars-ok route in Manhattan between the Battery Tunnel (to Brooklyn) and the Holland Tunnel and let that back up, you could do that and it would be less of a mess than the status quo: it would stay on West Side Highway out of the way and it would have less traffic. One time I took a taxi from Newark to my home in Brooklyn, and the taxi driver dropped me off right after getting out of the Holland Tunnel (next to a subway stop) saying he didn't want to deal with more traffic. There is no effective vehicular link between New Jersey and Brooklyn right now. There is a moderately effective link between each of those and Manhattan, that's it.
    - melling 7y ago
      We need a lot more subways. And they need to extend into NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension
      - brownbat 7y ago
        And more of them should be accessible by wheelchair. Currently it's only around one in five stations.
        mruts 7y ago
        Sounds fine too me. I’m not saying there should be no wheelchair accessible stations, but seeing that they are a miniscule minority, I don’t think that my tax dollars be paying to make everything accessible to them. It’s not possible, anyways, without incurring massive costs. Imagine what would happen to rents if the government mandated that all apartments and houses to be wheelchair accessible. It would be a total disaster.
- elif 7y ago
  Many streets in Japanese cities fit this. There is only one loosely defined car lane and no sidewalks. So it's a pain to drive because if someone is driving the opposite way, someone has to pull over and yield. The lack of sidewalks makes it so that the road's primary users are pedestrians, so cars are forced to drive carefully (slow) at all times, making these roads even less desirable for drivers. The "soft pressure" leads to cars mostly using car-friendly roads unless they absolutely have to use the pedestrian ones.
atoav 7y ago
You need a way to reach your goal by car this must not necessarily look like a traditional road. It is essentially a inversion of priorities: instead of having roads with pedestrians and cyclists allowed, you make it a pedestrian area with cyclists and cars allowed.
_ph_ 7y ago
There will still be roads. They are needed for pedestrians and bicyclists. But they are not commonly open for car traffic. Here in Munich, there are large pure pedestrian zones. But some of them a free for bicyclists after 9pm in the evening and in the morning hours (like 8-10) delivery traffic is allowed. And the police and ambulance cars can drive it any time it is needed.
- Merrill 7y ago
  Pedestrian and bicycle roads aren't necessarily built to support 25000 kilo trucks, e.g. a concrete mixer truck on the way to a construction site.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    Well, the roads still could be built to support the load of an occasional heavy truck, whatever the traffic limitations on that road are. And in most places, there are existing roads which carry the necessary loads. The repurposing would at most affect the topmost layer.

throwaway122378 7y ago

Throw in taxis, Uber, lyft and you have all your cars again. A city like Manhattan would not make it without taxis

izacus 7y ago
Why not? Aren't people capable of walking for a few blocks?
- emidln 7y ago
  Not all people.
  - izacus 7y ago
    Sure, but in my city that was supplemented by (free) electric vehicles for people who can't walk. Why isn't that possible in rich US hosting companies like Uber and Lyft? Aren't they capable of providing zero EV transport in closed enclaves?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    >99% of vehicle traffic is people who can walk. If we truly limit cars to just those who need them for reasons of accessibility then we've basically solved the problem.
- missosoup 7y ago
  Fuck everyone with disabilities yeah? ALS? Just walk a few blocks! Parkinson's? Just walk a few blocks! Dystrophy? Just walk a few blocks! Life isn't hard enough for these individuals so let's kick it up a notch by rolling out exclusively ableist transportation.
  - telchar 7y ago
    You say that like electric wheelchairs and scooters don't exist. People too disabled to even use those already require assistance anyway, so they're no worse off requiring assistance in a (nearly) car-free environment.