4 ms·

Cities were designed around cars. It’s time for a change.

by baxtr 7y ago

jacquesm 7y ago
Very few cities were. Cities for the most part were designed around horse drawn carriages and tons of foot traffic.
- elgenie 7y ago
  Not in the US, though. Even the city centers that predated the widespread adoption of automobiles were by and large redesigned towards cars. Then in the 50s and 60s whole city neighborhoods were razed for interstates.
- baxtr 7y ago
  That's a very narrow way to read my comment. Cities are rebuilt all the time. My city now invest heavily into bike lanes reducing the number of car lanes from 2 to 1 and replacing them by bike lanes. That is a choice, which can be made every year by any city.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Of course there is no reason to leave things as they are. But any city older than 120 years - and that's the bulk of them near where I live - will have had horses and carriages as the bulk carriers of their time. Except for those parts where boats were used, but that requires some pretty rare conditions (Venice, Amsterdam, Bruges). Getting rid of cars is a good thing, let's hope we get rid of them in inner cities before electrics take over and rob us of that chance. The pollution caused by cars is one of the main drivers of getting rid of them, if that reason is dealt with then it will be much harder to marshal the forces required to see this through.
cryptonector 7y ago
New York wasn't.
- kunai 7y ago
  Until Robert Moses came along, after which every borough outside of Manhattan got royally screwed with noisy and polluting elevated freeways, demolishing thousands of housing units in the BX and black and brown neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. Things change over time. It's never too late to reverse that painful legacy, and this 14th St. project is but the first step.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    Pedantically speaking, many of the freeways are actually at-grade or sunken: e.g., Cross-Bronx, Grand Central, Major Deegan. Still had massive deleterious effects on their neighborhoods, though.

Cities were designed around cars. It’s time for a change.

by baxtr 7y ago

Cities were designed around cars. It’s time for a change.

jacquesm 7y ago

Very few cities were. Cities for the most part were designed around horse drawn carriages and tons of foot traffic.

elgenie 7y ago
Not in the US, though. Even the city centers that predated the widespread adoption of automobiles were by and large redesigned towards cars. Then in the 50s and 60s whole city neighborhoods were razed for interstates.
baxtr 7y ago
That's a very narrow way to read my comment. Cities are rebuilt all the time. My city now invest heavily into bike lanes reducing the number of car lanes from 2 to 1 and replacing them by bike lanes. That is a choice, which can be made every year by any city.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Of course there is no reason to leave things as they are. But any city older than 120 years - and that's the bulk of them near where I live - will have had horses and carriages as the bulk carriers of their time. Except for those parts where boats were used, but that requires some pretty rare conditions (Venice, Amsterdam, Bruges). Getting rid of cars is a good thing, let's hope we get rid of them in inner cities before electrics take over and rob us of that chance. The pollution caused by cars is one of the main drivers of getting rid of them, if that reason is dealt with then it will be much harder to marshal the forces required to see this through.

cryptonector 7y ago

New York wasn't.

kunai 7y ago
Until Robert Moses came along, after which every borough outside of Manhattan got royally screwed with noisy and polluting elevated freeways, demolishing thousands of housing units in the BX and black and brown neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. Things change over time. It's never too late to reverse that painful legacy, and this 14th St. project is but the first step.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Pedantically speaking, many of the freeways are actually at-grade or sunken: e.g., Cross-Bronx, Grand Central, Major Deegan. Still had massive deleterious effects on their neighborhoods, though.