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My family (child, spouse) and I live car free in Oslo, Norway. It’s amazing. We used to own two vehicles when we lived in the States. I did take public transpo

My family (child, spouse) and I live car free in Oslo, Norway. It’s amazing. We used to own two vehicles when we lived in the States. I did take public transportation during the week, but still had to drive almost everywhere else. When everything is designed around cars, it can be extremely difficult to try and go without. Oslo was mostly built before cars, so roads are smaller and highways go below or around the city. Oslo is slowly making it harder for cars to be within the city, and actually changing streets to be car-free. Having a car here is not a need, but a want. I like that.

jononor 6y ago
The highways today mostly go below the city. But that is a quite recent thing, the last parts of the Opera tunnel for example was opened only 10 years ago. Car traffic was a big problem in the 1970-2000. Making modern Oslo nocar-friendly and Oslo center pedestrian/bicyclist friendly is the result of massive investments in infrastructure over several decades.
- adreamingsoul 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing. It is impressive to me that a city of Oslo's size was able to achieve that. I know of one similar sized city in the States that has similar high-level plans to re-route major roads and highways, but they never make much progress beyond committee meetings.
jeltz 6y ago
Hm, I think most of Oslo was actually built after cars. Oslo has about twice the population today as it had in 1950.
- doktrin 6y ago
  > Oslo has about twice the population today as it had in 1950. That's a weird supporting argument. Can you name any urban centers that have not seen significant population growth since 1950?
  - jeltz 6y ago
    I think you missed my point. If more than half of Oslo was built after 1950 it kinda invalidates that the city was built before cars. Oslo, like most cities, expanded heavily in an era where cars existed. So it has less to do with when cities were built and more to do with what urban planning policies different cities had. Different cities went with different paths despite all of them expanding at the same time. But the answer your question: Vienna. Vienna has smaller population today than it did in 1910.
    - doktrin 6y ago
      > I think you missed my point. If more than half of Oslo was built after 1950 it kinda invalidates that the city was built before cars. You're missing the more germane point that the relevant metric for "built" in this context are roads, not living accommodations. More people live in Oslo than in the 50s, but the roads and city blocks within ring 3 are what they are from prewar times, i.e. tons of small 1-way streets and the like. Case in point : many, if not most, of the apartment buildings in "Gamle Oslo" (literally "Old Oslo" - the downtown area to the east of the railway station) were built in the 1980s or later, but the roads around those new constructions are still narrow 1-way prewar streets. To my mind the parents point was pretty clear - Oslo is an older city, particularly from an American perspective, and you have to travel pretty far out from the city center to find an urban infrastructure that accommodates cars in the way the younger and generally more modern cities in the US (outside the northeast) do. This is 100% related to the city center being built before the dawn of ubiquitous private vehicles, and not to choosing some arbitrarily different urban planning "path". Another comment mentioned the underground highways that have in fact done wonders to move traffic away from the over-congested city streets, which only reenforces the idea that the city proper was not designed to accommodate even a modest volume of car traffic. > But the answer your question: Vienna. Vienna has smaller population today than it did in 1910. That's interesting, but it's noteworthy that it has a higher population today than it did in 1950, so yours is an incomplete answer. The geopolitical reasons for Vienna's population in 1910 are unique, what with being the capital of a sprawling trans-national empire that ceased to exist.
    - adreamingsoul 6y ago

jononor 6y ago

The highways today mostly go below the city. But that is a quite recent thing, the last parts of the Opera tunnel for example was opened only 10 years ago. Car traffic was a big problem in the 1970-2000. Making modern Oslo nocar-friendly and Oslo center pedestrian/bicyclist friendly is the result of massive investments in infrastructure over several decades.

adreamingsoul 6y ago
Thanks for sharing. It is impressive to me that a city of Oslo's size was able to achieve that. I know of one similar sized city in the States that has similar high-level plans to re-route major roads and highways, but they never make much progress beyond committee meetings.

jeltz 6y ago

Hm, I think most of Oslo was actually built after cars. Oslo has about twice the population today as it had in 1950.

doktrin 6y ago
> Oslo has about twice the population today as it had in 1950. That's a weird supporting argument. Can you name any urban centers that have not seen significant population growth since 1950?
- jeltz 6y ago
  I think you missed my point. If more than half of Oslo was built after 1950 it kinda invalidates that the city was built before cars. Oslo, like most cities, expanded heavily in an era where cars existed. So it has less to do with when cities were built and more to do with what urban planning policies different cities had. Different cities went with different paths despite all of them expanding at the same time. But the answer your question: Vienna. Vienna has smaller population today than it did in 1910.
  - doktrin 6y ago
    > I think you missed my point. If more than half of Oslo was built after 1950 it kinda invalidates that the city was built before cars. You're missing the more germane point that the relevant metric for "built" in this context are roads, not living accommodations. More people live in Oslo than in the 50s, but the roads and city blocks within ring 3 are what they are from prewar times, i.e. tons of small 1-way streets and the like. Case in point : many, if not most, of the apartment buildings in "Gamle Oslo" (literally "Old Oslo" - the downtown area to the east of the railway station) were built in the 1980s or later, but the roads around those new constructions are still narrow 1-way prewar streets. To my mind the parents point was pretty clear - Oslo is an older city, particularly from an American perspective, and you have to travel pretty far out from the city center to find an urban infrastructure that accommodates cars in the way the younger and generally more modern cities in the US (outside the northeast) do. This is 100% related to the city center being built before the dawn of ubiquitous private vehicles, and not to choosing some arbitrarily different urban planning "path". Another comment mentioned the underground highways that have in fact done wonders to move traffic away from the over-congested city streets, which only reenforces the idea that the city proper was not designed to accommodate even a modest volume of car traffic. > But the answer your question: Vienna. Vienna has smaller population today than it did in 1910. That's interesting, but it's noteworthy that it has a higher population today than it did in 1950, so yours is an incomplete answer. The geopolitical reasons for Vienna's population in 1910 are unique, what with being the capital of a sprawling trans-national empire that ceased to exist.
  - adreamingsoul 6y ago