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I'm perplexed by the comments here. Some cities have seen greater business increases on pedestrian and bike converted through-ways because people in cars weren

• cafxx 6y ago
  I live in Tokyo and I can assure you that living car-free is lovely. I used to love driving, then moved here and stopped caring altogether when I realized that public transport here is significantly faster (and cheaper) than using your car to go from point A to point B.
  • briefcomment 6y ago
    And probably safer
    • cafxx 6y ago
      Quite so. And, I forgot, you can use the time commuting for something that requires your complete attention - like reading, studying, or even just deep thinking - that you simply can't do when you're driving. So not only it's faster, it actually frees up time for other things.
    • 05 6y ago
      Unless you’re a woman
      • KirinDave 6y ago
        Actually that's a very interesting question. Is the rate of sexual assault on Japanese Trains higher or lower than their average auto injury rate?
        • adrianN 6y ago
          It's a lot higher. But I wouldn't be so sure whether chronic back pain from a car crash is better or worse than being groped in a train.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
      • cafxx 6y ago
        The underlying general point you are making is definitely valid, but there are now reserved cars on all trains during rush hours.
  • ekianjo 6y ago
    > I live in Tokyo and I can assure you that living car-free is lovely So you really enjoy packed subways that make you feel like cattle pretty much every time of the day? Sorry but Tokyo is the best example of "best in class public transport" being completely over capacity for the amount of people they have to transport every day.
    • olcor 6y ago
      In my personal opinion, better that than trawling slowly through traffic jams. If their train system is over capacity, more people moving through cars would be even more of a nightmare. The feeling of independence (or not feeling like “cattle“) is substantially reduced in big cities, where you are subjected to a lot of traffic rules, overcrowding of cars, jaywalkers, accidents, potholes, diversions, expensive parking space... I could go on.
      • ekianjo 6y ago
        > In my personal opinion, better that than trawling slowly through traffic jams. I think the best way to describe it is that it sucks either way to commute in Tokyo no matter what means of transports you end up using, except if you can live very close to your office, which is not the experience of 99% of people.
        • TomMarius 6y ago
          It sucks less on a nice heated/cooled chair, with fresh air and nice music and no ------- one around - even in a 10 times less populated city
        • cafxx 6y ago
          As mentioned in my previous comment, it really does sound like you don't know what you're talking about. Commuting in Tokyo is not without problem, but consistently better than commuting anywhere else I've been. Also, you seem to completely ignore the point that the alternative "everyone commutes by car" (or you have other alternatives?) would result in a constant gridlock given Tokyo's scale - so it would be orders of magnitude worse.
  • ollo 6y ago
    Please note that European cities are moving away from traditional public transportation (buses, underground, etc.) in favour of personal transportation such as bikes and scooters.
    • c2h5oh 6y ago
      Not moving away from public transit, but adding more viable alternatives to cars.
      • ollo 6y ago
        Milan, for instance, will dramatically reduce the number of people that can access public transportation.
        • Aachen 6y ago
          ... for covid-19. The reason isn't because PT sucks but to maintain distance between occupants, the article says.
    • bjelkeman-again 6y ago
      I don’t see that happening enough to more than complement the traditional public transport. I do see a lot of people sick of battery powered scooters littering the sidewalks though.
• bootloop 6y ago
  There was so much fear-making in Vienna when they pushed for a pedestrian-first shopping mile in the city center. It would destroy economy.. People wouldn't come anymore with there car to buy stuff.. And what happened? A lot more people came, people going just for walks etc. Business increased substantially and now the chamber of commerce (which was heavily lobbying against it) wants even more "Begegnungszonen" as they clearly improve business for the shops located there!
  • btilly 6y ago
    Reminds me of bars in NYC back when smoking bans were implemented. They all thought they would lose business. They gained it instead as new customers who had been avoiding bars because of the smell of smoke flocked there instead.
    • spodek 6y ago
      Moreover, Hoboken had to ban smoking too to regain its residents preferring smoke-free bars and restaurants in the city -- the opposite of naysayers' expectations. It will happen with cars and plastic here (NYC) too. I hope the polluters don't resist as much.
      • astura 6y ago
        I'm a member of a private club (not in ny) that allowed smoking well past the law disallowed smoking in the public places. Business started struggling several years back, finally, they realized that the problem was they allowed smoking so they voluntary banned it and now business is much better.
    • epx 6y ago
      Impossible not to cite https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-02-26 https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-02-26
    • 2019-nCoV 6y ago
      That analogy breaks down as smokers had no alternative. After bars banned smoking they lost few (if any) smoking customers while relishing in troves from the non-smoking demographic. Car-centric Viennese can still avoid Begegnungszonen.
• KozmoNau7 6y ago
  I think some people are commenting from a perspective of a society/environment where a car is basically mandatory, where you cannot really go anywhere or do anything without a car, or where it is at least hopelessly cumbersome to use public transit and dangerous to ride a bicycle. Not just in this discussion, but whenever the subject of transportation and public transit come up. If you asked me ~10 years ago, I could not have imagined not having a car. I finally sold mine 3 years ago and started biking and taking public transit everywhere, and it works just fine. On the rare occasions where I have needed a car (moving apartments, a wedding in the middle of nowhere), rental cars covered my needs. The amount of money I save by not having a car is not trivial. When we go visit my girlfriend's family in southern Germany, renting a car is completely mandatory, it's more or less impossible to do anything without one. So I absolutely understand where people are coming from, you need an environment where public transit and walkability are prioritized for this to work.
  • AshamedCaptain 6y ago
    I have done the opposite direction. I moved from a big city where I just would not even think about getting a car -- it would be just a huge expense that would sit there gathering dust and depreciating faster than I can sneeze. I would spent more time walking to whether I parked it (and finding a place to park it) than I would ever save by driving instead of walking. Then I moved to a smaller city with a larger suburb area. Within 6 months I had bought the car. The last straw was having had to wait an hour for the bus, carrying grocery bags. At the same time, you find parking spots almost everywhere, and walking was not that easy, with longer distances and in many places not even sidewalks. It's just two different worlds, really.
  • dzhiurgis 6y ago
    Why not have both!? Surely you can have city centres (especially old towns) without cars and people living in suburbs, with special needs or whatever to own a car. I'd love to drive to a city centre and then have a walk without the traffic noise! I'd hate taking 90 minutes of bus instead of 20 minute drive.
    • 6y ago
• Proven 6y ago
  > Some cities have seen greater business increases on pedestrian and bike converted through-ways because people in cars weren't just passing by. First, a person doesn't buy a car but 100 pedestrians buy an ice cream and you think that's a triumph of superior central planning. Second: so what? Since when does greater business justify fascist government behavior?
• Barrin92 6y ago
  I never even got a drivers license and have lived just fine so I'm also always shocked by the comments here in transport-related threads when people talk about not having a car as if this is somehow a fantasy utopian vision. And this also I might add includes families with children. While I don't have any I know a lot of parents who don't rely on cars either.
  • mrpopo 6y ago
    I got a drivers licence as I was pushed by my parents to, but I hated it. The thought that a small mistake of mine would end up killing someone. Now I'm married with children, living car-free and I'm loving it. My children can't stand being in a car, and since they are not used to it they puke anytime they have to drive more than 5 min. I can't imagine how many children are forced to ride a car and get sick until they just "suck it up".
    • Aachen 6y ago
      I have not heard of kids commonly getting sick until they're used to it, but I also haven't been around that many so if it's one in ten or less, odds are I've just never encountered someone who had this (as kid or with their kids) and mentioned it. But I'd feel confident saying this isn't normal, as in a majority doesn't have this.
      • gpderetta 6y ago
        Anodoctally I would say thay most kid do get nauseous in a car drive, but they do get used to it (some less quickly than others).
  • ghaff 6y ago
    I have zero trouble understanding that owning a personal car may not make economic sense in many cities. I have more trouble really grokking the no driver license. So many trips associated with both work and vacation experiences--or even weekend activities outside of a city--require renting a car. I guess you can consciously avoid those situations but it seems very limiting. (Certainly I couldn't really have done jobs I've had without being able to drive a car and would have missed out on many, many travel experiences including just visiting family.)
• renewiltord 6y ago
  American cities are not capable of running good public transit because they mostly use it as a combination of a jobs program and a poor-people access program. I was car-free for seven years in San Francisco (supposedly one of the relatively high performers) but my standard of living jumped significantly after I bought my car. Overall, I think I might even come out ahead. I don't think I'm going to take public transit in San Francisco ever again. They are missing: * Speed - BART is relatively fast, all Muni is very slow * Frequency - BART is low frequency, Muni is also low frequency * Coverage - BART coverage in SF is limited, Muni coverage is reasonably extensive * Reliability - BART unannounced delays and breakdowns were a frequent occurrence. Unlike Tube delays (which were also frequent) I could not route alternatively because there is only one BART tube in SF. Muni does not have arrival times. * Usability - You cannot tell before you pass the turnstiles at a BART station whether the lines are delayed or when they will arrive. One exception I know if is Montgomery St. Station but that's the only one.
  • simongray 6y ago
    Maybe you can explain what BART and Muni is for those of us that don't live in your local area?
    • arcticbull 6y ago
      In SF there are 3 "major" rail links. 1. Caltrain which connects downtown SF to San Jose and Gilroy, notably bypassing both SFO and SJC airport [1]. This is a low frequency, mid-long distance commuter rail link that runs almost exclusively outside SF. 2. BART which connects SF to the East Bay, notably serving both SFO and OAK [2]. This is a medium frequency, larger train - think a hybrid of commuter and light rail. It's fast, long trains that run medium distances. 3. Muni Metro which is the SF subway and light-rail service. In the downtown corridor, all the major stations (from Civic Center to the Embarcadero) overlap with BART, but the trains continue out west into the Sunset [3]. This is high-ish frequency, smaller trains that (outside the downtown corridor) run overland. [1] http://www.caltrain.com/stations/systemmap.html http://www.caltrain.com/stations/systemmap.html [2] https://www.bart.gov/system-map https://www.bart.gov/system-map [3] https://www.sfmta.com/maps/muni-metro-map https://www.sfmta.com/maps/muni-metro-map
• ekianjo 6y ago
  > where I can live car-free and hope more cities accelerate plans like this. You seriously want to live in a car-free society after COVID19? The subway in NY was a major source of infection in the city.
  • barry-cotter 6y ago
    > Conversely, as I will show, data show that local infections were negatively correlated with subway use, even when controlling for demographic data. Although this correlation study does not establish causation, it more reliably characterizes the spread of the virus than the intuitions and visual inspections that Harris relies on. https://marketurbanism.com/2020/04/19/automobiles-seeded-the-massive-coronavirus-epidemic-in-new-york-city/ https://marketurbanism.com/2020/04/19/automobiles-seeded-the... > New York and other subways > In multiple other countries, one cannot see the transit cities in the virus infection rates. In Germany the rates in the largest cities are collectively the same as in the rest of the country. In South Korea, the infection is centered on Daegu; Seoul’s density and high transit usage are compatible with an infection rate of about 700 in a city of 9.5 million, about 1.5 orders of magnitude less per capita than in most Western countries and 2.5 orders of magnitude less than in New York. In Taipei, the MRT remains crowded, with weekday ridership in February and March down by 15-16%. In Italy, car usage is high outside a handful of very large cities like Milan, and Milan’s infection rate isn’t high by the standards of the rest of Lombardy. > However, rest-of-world evidence does not mean that the New York City Subway is safe. The Taipei MRT has mandatory mask usage and very frequent cleaning. German U- and S-Bahn networks are a lot dirtier than anything I’ve seen in Asia, but much cleaner than anything I’ve seen in New York, and also have much less peak crowding than New York. New York uniquely has turnstiles requiring pushing with one’s hands or bodies, and the only other city I know of with such fare barriers is Paris, whose infection rates are far below New York’s but still high by French standards. > So the question is not whether rapid transit systems are inherently unsafe for riders, which they are not. It’s whether New York, with all of its repeated failings killing tens of workers from exposure to the virus, has an unsafe rapid transit system. Nonetheless, the answer appears to be negative: no evidence exists that the subway is leading to higher infection rates, and the paper does not introduce any. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/04/15/the-subway-is-probably-not-why-new-york-is-a-disaster-zone/?fbclid=IwAR0f5Xb06Ie7cLNZCZ7n2Dg3lnk1TUGnjQAxcnvbQ8bFBGTJcHOICna8plM https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/04/15/the-subway-is-...