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I’m not sure why “it can’t work here”, even if it’s what every city says. It did not work in the Netherlands either; in fact, after WW2, they imported “traffic

I’m not sure why “it can’t work here”, even if it’s what every city says. It did not work in the Netherlands either; in fact, after WW2, they imported “traffic planners”, i.e. people who want — and create! — traffic from the US, and set out to destroying their old city centers to create highways etc, until people said: enough! To a greater or lesser degree, similar solutions work in Copenhagen, and in some German cities, and are starting to work in Paris, once one of the most car-crazed cities in Europe, and in other places. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just saying that it can be done. It sure takes a lot of work, but it can be done.

throwaway11460 3y ago
All these cities are very different from NYC. To be clear, I'm not saying preserve the status quo. I just don't think the changes the cities you listed made have any chance to work in NYC. Most notably, all of these cities existed way before NYC and we're built with limitations of medieval technology. All the changes you mention are just rollbacks to last working state. NYC is a new city built with comparatively godlike tech applied without restraint. The NYC-style solution "I guess I'll just commute by helicopter, no problem putting another skyscraper right here" was incomprehensible to the rich people who built the European cities - they had to go a little further away if they wanted their quiet comfortable life.
AlecSchueler 3y ago
Don't you know America is, like, exceptional, man.
- throwaway11460 3y ago
  Which European country has a city with nearly 10M people on 300km2? America is exceptional - in the literal sense, it's an exception compared to organically grown cities that existed for hundreds of years. It doesn't mean it's better, it's just very different and so naturally the solutions are going to be very different too.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    > Which European country has a city with nearly 10M people on 300km2? I have no idea, can you share specifically why you think autoluw only works for certain levels of population per square kilometer? To the point that the lessons couldn't be adapted and would have to be "very different?"
    - throwaway11460 3y ago
      Much more people on that extremely small area actually need to drive - because they have reduced mobility, because they are carrying a lot of stuff, goods, materials or tools... Reducing NYC to one lane would stop all life in the city. You can drive through Amsterdam too in these cases - it works because incomparably less people need to. There's also the problem of mass transit - you can't simply have enough bus/tram lines to cover people's needs if you have so many people who need to go everywhere around the city at one place. You'd have to build an incredibly number of subway lines like Chinese cities have, which is a huge investment.

throwaway11460 3y ago

All these cities are very different from NYC. To be clear, I'm not saying preserve the status quo. I just don't think the changes the cities you listed made have any chance to work in NYC. Most notably, all of these cities existed way before NYC and we're built with limitations of medieval technology. All the changes you mention are just rollbacks to last working state. NYC is a new city built with comparatively godlike tech applied without restraint. The NYC-style solution "I guess I'll just commute by helicopter, no problem putting another skyscraper right here" was incomprehensible to the rich people who built the European cities - they had to go a little further away if they wanted their quiet comfortable life.

AlecSchueler 3y ago

Don't you know America is, like, exceptional, man.

throwaway11460 3y ago
Which European country has a city with nearly 10M people on 300km2? America is exceptional - in the literal sense, it's an exception compared to organically grown cities that existed for hundreds of years. It doesn't mean it's better, it's just very different and so naturally the solutions are going to be very different too.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  > Which European country has a city with nearly 10M people on 300km2? I have no idea, can you share specifically why you think autoluw only works for certain levels of population per square kilometer? To the point that the lessons couldn't be adapted and would have to be "very different?"
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    Much more people on that extremely small area actually need to drive - because they have reduced mobility, because they are carrying a lot of stuff, goods, materials or tools... Reducing NYC to one lane would stop all life in the city. You can drive through Amsterdam too in these cases - it works because incomparably less people need to. There's also the problem of mass transit - you can't simply have enough bus/tram lines to cover people's needs if you have so many people who need to go everywhere around the city at one place. You'd have to build an incredibly number of subway lines like Chinese cities have, which is a huge investment.