8 ms·

The thing that struck me was the lack of traffic jams on the section over the street, compared to today's Wuppertal. What happened to all the traffic? Okay, th

The thing that struck me was the lack of traffic jams on the section over the street, compared to today's Wuppertal. What happened to all the traffic? Okay, that's easy: population increased. But before I accept that as an answer, I want to know how a city with population low enough to have essenstially no traffic managed to have enough ability to construct and run such a difficult traffic project? Whereas today, given a town with the same size and amount of trafic as 1902 Wuppertal, the towns I know tend to close bus lines instead of maintaining regular ones. I have a sad hunch this has something to do with cars and no one caring, but can't really come up with anything real.

fhars 6y ago
The population hasn't grown that much, Wuppertal has a bit over 350k inhabitants now, Barmen and Elberfeld (which became Wuppertal in 1929) had a combined population of slightly under 300k in 1900. The traffic jams are mostly the result of lifestyle choices.
db48x 6y ago
It's less about the number of people and more about the percentage of them that can afford a vehicle. Horses are expensive (lots of upkeep). Cars are expensive too, but not as expensive as a pair of horses. Society is today quite a lot wealthier than it was a hundred years ago partly because cars are so inexpensive, but it does mean that the roads are more crowded.
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  Now that I think about it, I don't quite remember the number of pedestrians on the streets this century. I think it is slightly higher now compared to then, but the total number of people outside is definitely higher. Reading the sibling comment, with constant population, this probably boils down to lifestyle choices. Do people live farther away from workplaces now? Are businesses more centralized/spread out? What would have to change to recover the lost freedom from traffic while keeping the population content?

fhars 6y ago

The population hasn't grown that much, Wuppertal has a bit over 350k inhabitants now, Barmen and Elberfeld (which became Wuppertal in 1929) had a combined population of slightly under 300k in 1900. The traffic jams are mostly the result of lifestyle choices.

db48x 6y ago

It's less about the number of people and more about the percentage of them that can afford a vehicle. Horses are expensive (lots of upkeep). Cars are expensive too, but not as expensive as a pair of horses. Society is today quite a lot wealthier than it was a hundred years ago partly because cars are so inexpensive, but it does mean that the roads are more crowded.

rhn_mk1 6y ago
Now that I think about it, I don't quite remember the number of pedestrians on the streets this century. I think it is slightly higher now compared to then, but the total number of people outside is definitely higher. Reading the sibling comment, with constant population, this probably boils down to lifestyle choices. Do people live farther away from workplaces now? Are businesses more centralized/spread out? What would have to change to recover the lost freedom from traffic while keeping the population content?