7 ms·

My dream is for my section of my town to ban cars. It’s already heavy pedestrian but if the cars went away (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scoot

by bix6 1y ago

My dream is for my section of my town to ban cars. It’s already heavy pedestrian but if the cars went away (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) it would be a utopia. Sure there’d be some issues to address and frustrations but we’d figure it out. The net would be amazingly positive.

genter 1y ago
How would people be able to "express their personality" by removing their muffler or putting a two foot lift on their truck?
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Unusual and inventive walking styles?
  - johannes1234321 1y ago
    https://youtu.be/iV2ViNJFZC8 https://youtu.be/iV2ViNJFZC8 (Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks)
- lurk2 1y ago
  [flagged]
- jplrssn 1y ago
  Walking around in platform shoes as a substitute for driving around in a lifted truck, maybe?
  - pavel_lishin 1y ago
    Yeah, but how do you modify platform shoes to hit children?
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      You can just kick the little shits whenever you want
    - 9dev 1y ago
      Put spikes on 'em and yeet the brats to oblivion!
- xnx 1y ago
  Modify their leaf blower to "roll coal"
  - tonyedgecombe 1y ago
    I think I hate leaf blowers more than I hate cars.
HEmanZ 1y ago
How would you get groceries tho? Everyone would starve! (Ive had multiple family members who said this after I mentioned I didn’t have a car for 4 years while living in a major city)
- dingnuts 1y ago
  [flagged]
- cpursley 1y ago
  When traveling in Eastern Europe I did my best to explain that you literally can't buy groceries without owning a car in most places in North America; people were legit confused by the logistics of it (even villages and single family house neighborhoods have corner grocery stores in walking distances and bus stops).
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    I wonder how much surplus calorie intake in the US is related to weekly grocery trips where you store hundreds of thousands of calories in your house at any time. It's one of the first things that stick out when I live somewhere walkable where I can walk to the corner shop for a can of beans and avocados on demand, and I can keep my fridge/pantry quite barren of perishable food. For example, in the US, even buying a bag of ten apples from Costco means I'm probably going to eat five apples today. Versus picking up one apple on my walk back home when I feel for an apple.
    - cpursley 1y ago
      Between that and not burning extra calories walking between places, possibly.
- 9dev 1y ago
  From a life in a European city without even owning a car, I can tell you with confidence that I did not starve yet. You just go get groceries a few times a week, in smaller hauls, with the upside that you get fresh vegetables and fruits all the time. For family needs, get an e-cargo bike, and for the fringe cases where you must transport furniture or something, it’s still cheaper to rent a car or hail a cab.
CalRobert 1y ago
There's very few places that do this (most are car-lite) but the center of Utrecht is great in this regard. Here's a new housing development which does indeed ban cars, I'm very curious to see how it proceeds. https://www.bloom-merwede.nl/ https://www.bloom-merwede.nl/
zhivota 1y ago
I love the European model of retractable bollards that are down overnight and then go up in the morning and stay up until late in the evening. Allows for night time delivery vehicle access while preserving a car free space for the whole day for residents and visitors.
- hypertele-Xii 1y ago
  My anecdotal observation from my home city is that these are almost all broken. Could be an issue with city bureaucracy, or an inherent weakness.
Aurornis 1y ago
> (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) E-bikes are very popular where I live. At first it was great to see people of all ages out biking everywhere. But now everyone has started modifying their e-bikes to be overpowered and not require any pedaling. A lot of the cheap e-bikes have trivial procedures to unlock the power limit. Anyone who can search Reddit can figure out what to buy and how to do it quickly. There's a multi-use pedestrian and bike path that parallels a road on my way to the office. In the mornings I commonly see e-bikes on the bike path going faster than the 30mph road traffic. I've been clipped by multiple e-bike riders who blew through stop signs or jumped from sidewalk to road. Last week I had to jump out of the way of an older woman on an e-bike who zoomed through a red light and turned right because she didn't see me in the crosswalk somehow. A lot of these things are illegal, of course, but enforcement is non-existent. It's weird to see it play out like this, though I should have seen it coming. I think even a small threat of enforcement and having modified bikes confiscated if used on public roads would make a lot of people think twice. For now, it feels like it's just an electric motorcycle free for all wherever we have a dedicated pedestrian and bike area.
- sdenton4 1y ago
  Get the cars out of the streets and the (possibly modified) ebikes onto them... They have a literally smaller footprint, and are a huge improvement over cars.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  The problem is people not cars or bikes because we rarely take into account how what we do affects other people. Riding my bike, I try to always consider the delta in speed between me and other folks. Sure I can speed along the walkway if there's no one else but as soon as there are or could be people around, I better slow down. Not only for safety but also to reduce stress on whoever is slower. Maybe we're too focussed on ourselves, maybe our community has broken down, maybe we don't consider each other real fellow humans.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    > Maybe we're too focussed on ourselves, maybe our community has broken down, maybe we don't consider each other real fellow humans. I think this is unquestionably a problem in modern society. Too many interactions are purely transactional. People are isolated and lonely. Many people are only out for themselves. Community has definitely broken down I don't know how to fix this and I'm definitely part of the problem, but I think it is a very big problem
CGMthrowaway 1y ago
We don't need to "ban" cars, removing parking minimums effectively does this in a friendlier way while allowing for some vehicles (only the most necessary) and vehicles where they are most needed (businesses will still build parking, just not a "required" excessive amount). In fact removing parking minimums would probably do 50% of the work of this whole list. Combine that with mixed-use zoning, more units per lot (including reducing FAR/height limits) and narrower streets, and dare I say you are 80-90% of the way there. It only takes a few high-impact changes.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  Since they specify a section of their city, I think they just mean fully pedestrianizing that section by blocking off some streets with bollards, letting people roam the full street, letting restaurants put out tables. While you're talking about how to transform a city more systemically. It is kinda crazy to see parts of cities where hundreds of people are confined to sidewalks on a Friday night waiting to cross a street for the convenience of a tiny fraction of people who insist on driving. Every city has at least a few blocks that make sense to block off from cars.
  - CGMthrowaway 1y ago
    >fully pedestrianizing that section by blocking off some streets with bollards, letting people roam the full street, letting restaurants put out tables. Which is nice, but having experienced that in multiple cities, doesnt truly contribute in a larger meaningful way to "making it easier to build beautiful and walkable places" in the same way
thegrim33 1y ago
For the young people, 20 years ago the line was "nobody is coming for your cars you stupid conspiracy theorist", etc. Now such people, including actual politicians, have absolutely no issue openly advocating for the straight up banning of cars. It's not specific to the car issue either, it's many issues. They lie to your face and gaslight you for years on end as to their true motivations, while they slowly pry the door further and further open for their ideology, until they've finally garnered enough support that they can switch phases and now be open about their true goals. I'm not quite sure what the end plan is, since they're forever burning bridges with people like me. I guess they plan on the newest generations having the viewpoint forced on them from a young age, overriding people like me who are quite disgruntled.

by bix6 1y ago

genter 1y ago

How would people be able to "express their personality" by removing their muffler or putting a two foot lift on their truck?

ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
Unusual and inventive walking styles?
- johannes1234321 1y ago
  https://youtu.be/iV2ViNJFZC8 https://youtu.be/iV2ViNJFZC8 (Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks)
lurk2 1y ago
[flagged]
jplrssn 1y ago
Walking around in platform shoes as a substitute for driving around in a lifted truck, maybe?
- pavel_lishin 1y ago
  Yeah, but how do you modify platform shoes to hit children?
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    You can just kick the little shits whenever you want
  - 9dev 1y ago
    Put spikes on 'em and yeet the brats to oblivion!
xnx 1y ago
Modify their leaf blower to "roll coal"
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  I think I hate leaf blowers more than I hate cars.

HEmanZ 1y ago

How would you get groceries tho? Everyone would starve! (Ive had multiple family members who said this after I mentioned I didn’t have a car for 4 years while living in a major city)

dingnuts 1y ago
[flagged]
cpursley 1y ago
When traveling in Eastern Europe I did my best to explain that you literally can't buy groceries without owning a car in most places in North America; people were legit confused by the logistics of it (even villages and single family house neighborhoods have corner grocery stores in walking distances and bus stops).
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  I wonder how much surplus calorie intake in the US is related to weekly grocery trips where you store hundreds of thousands of calories in your house at any time. It's one of the first things that stick out when I live somewhere walkable where I can walk to the corner shop for a can of beans and avocados on demand, and I can keep my fridge/pantry quite barren of perishable food. For example, in the US, even buying a bag of ten apples from Costco means I'm probably going to eat five apples today. Versus picking up one apple on my walk back home when I feel for an apple.
  - cpursley 1y ago
    Between that and not burning extra calories walking between places, possibly.
9dev 1y ago
From a life in a European city without even owning a car, I can tell you with confidence that I did not starve yet. You just go get groceries a few times a week, in smaller hauls, with the upside that you get fresh vegetables and fruits all the time. For family needs, get an e-cargo bike, and for the fringe cases where you must transport furniture or something, it’s still cheaper to rent a car or hail a cab.

CalRobert 1y ago

There's very few places that do this (most are car-lite) but the center of Utrecht is great in this regard. Here's a new housing development which does indeed ban cars, I'm very curious to see how it proceeds. https://www.bloom-merwede.nl/ https://www.bloom-merwede.nl/

zhivota 1y ago

I love the European model of retractable bollards that are down overnight and then go up in the morning and stay up until late in the evening. Allows for night time delivery vehicle access while preserving a car free space for the whole day for residents and visitors.

hypertele-Xii 1y ago
My anecdotal observation from my home city is that these are almost all broken. Could be an issue with city bureaucracy, or an inherent weakness.

Aurornis 1y ago

> (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) E-bikes are very popular where I live. At first it was great to see people of all ages out biking everywhere. But now everyone has started modifying their e-bikes to be overpowered and not require any pedaling. A lot of the cheap e-bikes have trivial procedures to unlock the power limit. Anyone who can search Reddit can figure out what to buy and how to do it quickly. There's a multi-use pedestrian and bike path that parallels a road on my way to the office. In the mornings I commonly see e-bikes on the bike path going faster than the 30mph road traffic. I've been clipped by multiple e-bike riders who blew through stop signs or jumped from sidewalk to road. Last week I had to jump out of the way of an older woman on an e-bike who zoomed through a red light and turned right because she didn't see me in the crosswalk somehow. A lot of these things are illegal, of course, but enforcement is non-existent. It's weird to see it play out like this, though I should have seen it coming. I think even a small threat of enforcement and having modified bikes confiscated if used on public roads would make a lot of people think twice. For now, it feels like it's just an electric motorcycle free for all wherever we have a dedicated pedestrian and bike area.

sdenton4 1y ago
Get the cars out of the streets and the (possibly modified) ebikes onto them... They have a literally smaller footprint, and are a huge improvement over cars.
barbazoo 1y ago
The problem is people not cars or bikes because we rarely take into account how what we do affects other people. Riding my bike, I try to always consider the delta in speed between me and other folks. Sure I can speed along the walkway if there's no one else but as soon as there are or could be people around, I better slow down. Not only for safety but also to reduce stress on whoever is slower. Maybe we're too focussed on ourselves, maybe our community has broken down, maybe we don't consider each other real fellow humans.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  > Maybe we're too focussed on ourselves, maybe our community has broken down, maybe we don't consider each other real fellow humans. I think this is unquestionably a problem in modern society. Too many interactions are purely transactional. People are isolated and lonely. Many people are only out for themselves. Community has definitely broken down I don't know how to fix this and I'm definitely part of the problem, but I think it is a very big problem

CGMthrowaway 1y ago

We don't need to "ban" cars, removing parking minimums effectively does this in a friendlier way while allowing for some vehicles (only the most necessary) and vehicles where they are most needed (businesses will still build parking, just not a "required" excessive amount). In fact removing parking minimums would probably do 50% of the work of this whole list. Combine that with mixed-use zoning, more units per lot (including reducing FAR/height limits) and narrower streets, and dare I say you are 80-90% of the way there. It only takes a few high-impact changes.

hombre_fatal 1y ago
Since they specify a section of their city, I think they just mean fully pedestrianizing that section by blocking off some streets with bollards, letting people roam the full street, letting restaurants put out tables. While you're talking about how to transform a city more systemically. It is kinda crazy to see parts of cities where hundreds of people are confined to sidewalks on a Friday night waiting to cross a street for the convenience of a tiny fraction of people who insist on driving. Every city has at least a few blocks that make sense to block off from cars.
- CGMthrowaway 1y ago
  >fully pedestrianizing that section by blocking off some streets with bollards, letting people roam the full street, letting restaurants put out tables. Which is nice, but having experienced that in multiple cities, doesnt truly contribute in a larger meaningful way to "making it easier to build beautiful and walkable places" in the same way

thegrim33 1y ago

For the young people, 20 years ago the line was "nobody is coming for your cars you stupid conspiracy theorist", etc. Now such people, including actual politicians, have absolutely no issue openly advocating for the straight up banning of cars. It's not specific to the car issue either, it's many issues. They lie to your face and gaslight you for years on end as to their true motivations, while they slowly pry the door further and further open for their ideology, until they've finally garnered enough support that they can switch phases and now be open about their true goals. I'm not quite sure what the end plan is, since they're forever burning bridges with people like me. I guess they plan on the newest generations having the viewpoint forced on them from a young age, overriding people like me who are quite disgruntled.