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Since this discussion is mainly US-centric, and not NZ centric, I feel at liberty to ask this question even if it's not strictly about the article: I understan

Since this discussion is mainly US-centric, and not NZ centric, I feel at liberty to ask this question even if it's not strictly about the article: I understand the argument that the U.S. is reliant on cars, because it is so spread out, and spread out because it is reliant on cars. This may be due to an alliance by automakers, marketers, and the government. Stipulated. But given that that it is already the case, how would a plan to get people to ditch their cars actually work? Is there a plan that describes how to consolidate a sprawling population of hundreds of millions of people, who already own houses and property all over a massive country? Do the people in suburbs who drive everywhere just demolish their homes and move into apartments in the city? I say demolish, because in this scenario there are enough disincentives that nobody chooses to live in the suburbs anymore, like they have historical, so all these homes would lose their value. Maybe we still have those suburbs, but we imagine a mass transit infrastructure that replaces cars. That could work, but we don't have it, and it seems hand-wavey to me. Does anybody (not in this thread, just anywhere) actually have a detailed plan for how it would work? And the answer isn't "yeah: Europe!" because, as stipulated, the U.S. is currently laid out radically differently, in a way that just wanting it to be like Europe won't solve. I'm not arguing that cars are great, I'm just trying to figure out to what extent this is based on wishful thinking / science fiction, versus whether there's a serious plan behind it.

belval 5y ago
It's a process that will take 50-100 years+. Like it or not there is no real incentive for people to stop living like they currently do. All you can do is tax fuel/carbon and stop adding car lanes to make people converge closer to the city. In practice though, this is where remote work can help. Most traffic in a city isn't people going shopping. It's people going to work. If we push for remote work as an alternative, and improve the quality of transit, the situation will improve.
kitkat_new 5y ago
Here a comparison is outlined between to ways of making cities less car centric: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk still, probably not as extreme as US standard...
potatochup 5y ago
I'm from NZ, but live in the USA. The same car-centric issue talked about in the article is common both many USA cities as well as Auckland. The most pragmatic proposals I've seen revolve around optimizing for the most common trips, rather than trying to completely eliminate cars. Optimizing for the easiest 80%, if you will. For most households, the easiest 80% to mode-change would look something like: - schools within walking distance - shops/cafes/restaurants within walking distance (either by removing euclidean zoning, or creating new, small retail zones) - better public transport specifically targeting the most common destinations (e.g. a central business district) - improving walking/cycling infrastructure so people aren't risking their lives when doing shorter trips People are still going to want/need cars to go to the beach, home improvement store, etc, but that's fine, because these make up a minority of total trips taken. Auckland is very suburban outside the center, but the older and newer suburbs have mixed use zoning which manages to support a few cafes, restaurants, shops per suburb. The middle-age suburbs are the worst for walkability. The population of NZ is increasing, and most of the cities are expected to increase in density, rather than size, which should mean more retail can be supported within a shorter distance to everyone. It remains to be seen enough mixed-use/retail zoning gets allocated in existing suburbs though. I'm not sure how this would play out if the population was stable though. Possibly then like belval says, it would take 50-100+ years as housing stock gets rebuilt in different configurations.

belval 5y ago

It's a process that will take 50-100 years+. Like it or not there is no real incentive for people to stop living like they currently do. All you can do is tax fuel/carbon and stop adding car lanes to make people converge closer to the city. In practice though, this is where remote work can help. Most traffic in a city isn't people going shopping. It's people going to work. If we push for remote work as an alternative, and improve the quality of transit, the situation will improve.

kitkat_new 5y ago

Here a comparison is outlined between to ways of making cities less car centric: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk still, probably not as extreme as US standard...

potatochup 5y ago

I'm from NZ, but live in the USA. The same car-centric issue talked about in the article is common both many USA cities as well as Auckland. The most pragmatic proposals I've seen revolve around optimizing for the most common trips, rather than trying to completely eliminate cars. Optimizing for the easiest 80%, if you will. For most households, the easiest 80% to mode-change would look something like: - schools within walking distance - shops/cafes/restaurants within walking distance (either by removing euclidean zoning, or creating new, small retail zones) - better public transport specifically targeting the most common destinations (e.g. a central business district) - improving walking/cycling infrastructure so people aren't risking their lives when doing shorter trips People are still going to want/need cars to go to the beach, home improvement store, etc, but that's fine, because these make up a minority of total trips taken. Auckland is very suburban outside the center, but the older and newer suburbs have mixed use zoning which manages to support a few cafes, restaurants, shops per suburb. The middle-age suburbs are the worst for walkability. The population of NZ is increasing, and most of the cities are expected to increase in density, rather than size, which should mean more retail can be supported within a shorter distance to everyone. It remains to be seen enough mixed-use/retail zoning gets allocated in existing suburbs though. I'm not sure how this would play out if the population was stable though. Possibly then like belval says, it would take 50-100+ years as housing stock gets rebuilt in different configurations.