4 ms·

IMO the most realistic way to achieve this in the US is to build up some central no-car area that has ample parking around it. This may be composed of parks, ma

IMO the most realistic way to achieve this in the US is to build up some central no-car area that has ample parking around it. This may be composed of parks, malls, and closed streets that never made much sense to drive on anyway. As it becomes more desirable to go there, more people choose to live within walking or biking distance, and it expands. Meanwhile people from suburbs can still drive to there, park outside, and support those businesses. There are some good examples of this already. What doesn't work is taking an existing car-centric city and making it more annoying for cars. That doesn't shrink the distances for bikes or encourage growth around a focal point. Paris wasn't built around cars, though.

lmm 3y ago
> What doesn't work is taking an existing car-centric city and making it more annoying for cars. It may not work alone, but it's an important part of the process. Both the Netherlands and more recently Paris have found that carrot-only approaches don't work, you have to be prepared to make private car use worse, because otherwise most of the time a private car wins for the individual even as it causes a tragedy of the commons in terms of congestion.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  The suggestion isn't carrot-only. Instead of making the whole city more annoying for cars, it's making part of it completely unusable by cars and leaving the rest alone, subject to change as the no-car area grows. It's like a crystal; you need a seed, not just saturation.
piva00 3y ago
> What doesn't work is taking an existing car-centric city and making it more annoying for cars. That doesn't shrink the distances for bikes or encourage growth around a focal point. Paris wasn't built around cars, though. Amsterdam was very car-centric in the 70s [0][1][2] even if the city was not built for cars. Over the decades it was reclaimed from cars and back into a pedestrian-friendly city, taking space/lanes away from cars to build cycling infrastructure, better separation between traffic (enlarged sidewalks in major streets, separate bike lanes, raised sidewalks for pedestrians on intersections, etc.). American cities have a lot more space to be taken away from cars, instead of stroads you could have bike lanes with pedestrian boulevards with vegetation/trees as separation from traffic, better public transportation with trams and busses on the same streets as cars to lower the speed, better connection to the transportation network for people coming from suburbs so they could switch to the cities' mass transportation; it's, to me, a very low hanging fruit on how to improve American cities urbanism but it takes political will and a change of culture, unfortunately I feel that the change of culture is the hardest part in the USA with its hyper-individualism. [0] https://i.pinimg.com/736x/09/d4/9f/09d49fbe98e46797d45e8c1774269302.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/736x/09/d4/9f/09d49fbe98e46797d45e8c177... [1] https://international.fhwa.dot.gov/pubs/pl18004/index_files/image012.png https://international.fhwa.dot.gov/pubs/pl18004/index_files/... [2] https://i.redd.it/vujg495x71l61.jpg https://i.redd.it/vujg495x71l61.jpg
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Amsterdam wasn't built around cars, that's the key. Especially an oversized American road converted to big tree-dotted lanes wouldn't be particularly useful for people if everything is still so far apart, like Dearborn, MI. Also, if you start with a small central area in an already dense city, you will find a lot more political support from residents and business-owners because there's a clear and immediate benefit to them. Rather than telling an entire city you're "fixing" their way of life and it'll take a long time to pay off.

lmm 3y ago

> What doesn't work is taking an existing car-centric city and making it more annoying for cars. It may not work alone, but it's an important part of the process. Both the Netherlands and more recently Paris have found that carrot-only approaches don't work, you have to be prepared to make private car use worse, because otherwise most of the time a private car wins for the individual even as it causes a tragedy of the commons in terms of congestion.

hot_gril 3y ago
The suggestion isn't carrot-only. Instead of making the whole city more annoying for cars, it's making part of it completely unusable by cars and leaving the rest alone, subject to change as the no-car area grows. It's like a crystal; you need a seed, not just saturation.

piva00 3y ago

> What doesn't work is taking an existing car-centric city and making it more annoying for cars. That doesn't shrink the distances for bikes or encourage growth around a focal point. Paris wasn't built around cars, though. Amsterdam was very car-centric in the 70s [0][1][2] even if the city was not built for cars. Over the decades it was reclaimed from cars and back into a pedestrian-friendly city, taking space/lanes away from cars to build cycling infrastructure, better separation between traffic (enlarged sidewalks in major streets, separate bike lanes, raised sidewalks for pedestrians on intersections, etc.). American cities have a lot more space to be taken away from cars, instead of stroads you could have bike lanes with pedestrian boulevards with vegetation/trees as separation from traffic, better public transportation with trams and busses on the same streets as cars to lower the speed, better connection to the transportation network for people coming from suburbs so they could switch to the cities' mass transportation; it's, to me, a very low hanging fruit on how to improve American cities urbanism but it takes political will and a change of culture, unfortunately I feel that the change of culture is the hardest part in the USA with its hyper-individualism. [0] https://i.pinimg.com/736x/09/d4/9f/09d49fbe98e46797d45e8c1774269302.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/736x/09/d4/9f/09d49fbe98e46797d45e8c177... [1] https://international.fhwa.dot.gov/pubs/pl18004/index_files/image012.png https://international.fhwa.dot.gov/pubs/pl18004/index_files/... [2] https://i.redd.it/vujg495x71l61.jpg https://i.redd.it/vujg495x71l61.jpg

hot_gril 3y ago
Amsterdam wasn't built around cars, that's the key. Especially an oversized American road converted to big tree-dotted lanes wouldn't be particularly useful for people if everything is still so far apart, like Dearborn, MI. Also, if you start with a small central area in an already dense city, you will find a lot more political support from residents and business-owners because there's a clear and immediate benefit to them. Rather than telling an entire city you're "fixing" their way of life and it'll take a long time to pay off.