
What happens when a city bans cars from its streets? - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191011-what-happens-when-a-city-bans-car-from-its-streets
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brenden2
I'm so happy to see this idea starting to get mainstream attention. I predict
that in 50-100 years we'll look back on the age of the automobile as one of
the biggest mistakes in urban planning.

Automobiles are dangerous, kill thousands of people every year, contribute
significantly to pollution, and cause health problems by discouraging physical
activity. They're expensive, inefficient, and cause more harm than good within
major cities IMO.

My dream is that one day most streets in Manhattan will be closed to car
traffic and replaced with green space full of trees, flowers, children
playing, and usable public space.

~~~
jandrese
The idyllic dream of vendors lugging their wares through the subway and city
streets every day... When construction companies hire armies of people to walk
individual I-beams through the city for every project... Where I get to haul
my garbage a dozen blocks to the nearest accessible trash pickup location...

In the end you still need roads. You don't get to convert all of that space
into a park even if you ban cars.

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opportune
I agree we will still need roads in the foreseeable future, probably the rest
of our lifetimes, but it’s not out of the question for materials to dropped
into a construction site using drones. Maybe even entire prefabbed buildings
or segments of buildings

There are significant benefits to this approach other than not having to use
roads, but of course the tech isn’t there yet

~~~
journalctl
I mean this really nicely: it is 100% out of the question for entire buildings
or even just materials to be dropped into a construction site with drones.
Also, how are you going to get large digging equipment in? Or things like
wrecking balls?

~~~
opportune
Something like an Ibeam could, it would just require something closer in
size/larger than a helicopter. A 50 foot Ibeam is a bit over 2 tons; a small
modern military helicopter would be able to carry that easily. When I say
drone I just mean a remotely controlled copter-thing, not specifically a small
one.

An entire building is less feasible unless it is small, but it could be done
using modular components

~~~
ericd
If building costs go way up, so do rents for normal people (and less gets
built). Just something to consider.

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aeharding
I've dreamt about this. I would immediately move to the first US city that
bans SOV commuters from a significant portion of the city (let's say, a couple
square miles), and establishes superblocks where no vehicles are allowed
whatsoever, with the old streets converted to green space.

Of course, I doubt this will happen in my lifetime.

~~~
jacquesm
Isn't the USA empty enough that you could still start such a city today?

~~~
scarejunba
Are there good city locations still available? (By water, large enough area
available, not actively attempting to kill you)

~~~
bregma
There's a large, ideally-sited flat area just north of Windsor, Ontario that
would be a great location for a large American city. Riverfront access with a
navigable waterway, railroad and highway infrastructure, moderate climate. As
far as I can tell there is no one actually living there right now.

~~~
pchristensen
[https://wompwompwomp.com](https://wompwompwomp.com)

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rb808
It used to be only wealthy people could afford cars and to live in the
suburbs. Now cities are so expensive its poor people who live in the suburbs a
long way from train stations and drive in. Makes sense to ban cars now and
complete the cycle.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Despite the fact I despise cars I can't help feeling poor people are going to
get shafted in this transition.

~~~
sfink
I don't think so. If only poor people use X because wealthier people have Y,
then X will suck. If Y is prevented by law/ordinance, then X will get the
attention and investment it requires to keep the wealthy people happy, and
most but not all of those improvements will be relevant to the poorer people.
(As opposed to the split situation, where X will get the bare minimum
necessary for housekeepers and store clerks from disappearing entirely.)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_If only poor people use X because wealthier people have Y, then X will suck._

That is what happens now, it's the better off buying new cars, poor people get
the hand me downs. This is fine because eight year old cars do the job.

If there are no eight year old cars to buy because the better off stopped
buying new or because they bought electric which only have a practical life of
eight years then they are stuffed.

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ChuckNorris89
Not all cities can ban cars at this point for multiple reasons.

I live for several years in a medium sized wealthy Western European city
that's clogged with traffic. Why?

Well, rich Europeans don't like living in cities with tall ugly blocks a so
they grow outwards by developing cozy low density suburbs.

1) This suburban expansion was possible due to the cheap automobiles that
permitted pretty much everyone to move outside of the cities and away from
their jobs, where they could find properties they could afford, outside of the
coverage of the rail network. It's almost impossible now, when everyone
outside of the city is dependent on their cars to get to
work/supermarket/city, to get them to leave their cars without first
implementing a massive public transport network that would be too expensive to
run profitably so it's much cheaper for the cities to just let people have
their cars as they're the ones bearing the cost instead of the city.

2) It's also heavily political. The party that so much as dares to touch
drivers and their cars will commit political suicide. Especially since my city
is wealthy due to the extensive automotive industry nearby (R&D and
manufacturing). Whenever politicians here propose less cars on the road, the
auto industry threatens with lost jobs and jobs are way more important for a
politician's career than people in the city dying prematurely of air
pollution. And not to mention all the dealerships and service centers that
contribute to political campaigns and public events especially in smaller
cities.

I'd love to see cars banned from this beautiful city, but seeing how
culturally attached the locals are to their cars and suburban lifestyle, I'm
afraid it's just a pipe dream at this point.

~~~
jacquesm
If Bogota can do it then rich European cities can do it.

Think of it this way: whatever the cost to society of cheap and plentiful
public transport it will be a small fraction of the cost of car based
transportation.

Parking, the cost of producing and maintaining the vehicles themselves, the
pollution , the accidents, it all really adds up.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Sorry, but there's no way you can convince Herr Schmidt who lives in the
suburbs and just bought a 80.000 Euro Mercedes to take the bus to the city.

At least the inner city center is car free on some shopping streets so we got
that.

~~~
pwinnski
Generally it start with charging a high daily congestion fee to drive into the
city center. From there you expand the area. An 80k car that costs another
2-3k per year to drive into the city center, and maybe another 2-3k per year
to park, at some point most people find it worthwhile to save the car for
driving outside the city center.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Can't do that. The low and middle class here are also dependent on their
banged up hatckbacks to get to work as they live very far from their jobs. If
you make parking super expensive it's gonna hurt the Volkswagen man first and
way harder than the Mercedes man.

~~~
pwinnski
Can't do what other cities have already done? How did those other cities do
it, then?

If parking starts to carry its cost, rather than being subsidized by
government regulation, then it quite likely becomes more economical to rely on
mass transit than banged-up hatchbacks. But yes, changing from horribly-
designed cities spread out over vast areas that depend on cars to navigate to
human-oriented cities with effective mass transit is a huge project, and would
require thinking about solutions that take into account the currently-hidden
costs of the current designs.

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choeger
Does anyone really think children will play on the streets when buses, trams,
bicycles, emergency services, garbage trucks, and delivery vans still need
that space? Does anyone really believe the "empty" parking lots will become
public space?

Consider two things: First, every apartment block in a city needs access by
road for the emergency services. Second, a more livable city will attract more
citizens. This in turn increases the residual traffic.

A city is, by definition, a place where space is at a premium. Banning cars
does not change that. And traffic can be solved by offering better
alternatives to commuters and managing through-traffic.

~~~
Symbiote
> Does anyone really think children will play on the streets

Yes, absolutely -- unless something like fearful parents prevent it. I work
close to some of the central pedestrian streets in Copenhagen. If the weather
is reasonable, children will play in three places around the building:

\- (Mostly) boys around 10-14 years old play with skateboards where the road
leads up to the start of the pedestrian street. Naturally, very few vehicles
want to go this way during daytime.

\- Children (4-8-ish?) with their parents or nursery staff play in the actual
play area (swings etc). This area is fenced off.

\- Some slightly older children (8-12?), especially with rollerskates or kick
scooters, play _around_ the play area, including in the street. This is a
through route for cars on one side, and access to the pedestrian streets on
the other sides.

The buses are 100m away, people riding bicycles will be particularly careful
if children are playing, and people driving will wait until the children move
out of the way, then proceed slowly. I can't remember the last time an
emergency vehicle needed to go through, I assume all the children would
quickly move out of the way. (Far, far more quickly and effectively than a
line of cars in traffic would be able to!)

Most other streets in and around the pedestrian area have fewer children
playing, but more adults using the street. There are many cafes, bars and
restaurants with tables on the street.

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WiseWeasel
The article's most prominent example of an idyllic, walkable, “car-free” city
is Venice, Italy, whose residents do have motor vehicles with full access to
the city; they just happen to run on separate waterways.

This would imply that the optimal land-based city could have cars, but they'd
have to have their infrastructure more sequestered from pedestrians.

~~~
megaremote
> whose residents do have motor vehicles with full access to the city; they
> just happen to run on separate waterways.

You think everyone in Venice has a boat? No.

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Scapeghost
What's with all the anti-car articles lately? It's pointless to try having any
discussion about it because any comment that even remotely suggests the
situational necessity of cars is downvoted out of visibility.

Might as well disable comments and just tell everyone what to think in the
title. Drop the pretense of not being an echo chamber by this point.

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damnyou
So I totally support improving public transit, reducing the space allotted for
cars, etc etc.

But after 15 years living a car-free in city apartments, I live in a suburb
with roommates now and _love it_. Our home is bigger, we have a lovely
backyard where we can sunbathe at whatever nudity level we're comfortable
with, we have a nursery for herbs in it, and we can go outside at night and
walk the dog without being catcalled. I'm still less than a 20 minute drive
away from most of the things I care about. Car dependence is a minor loss
compared to the major gains to my quality of life.

Whenever you look at countries that have great public transportation, they
usually end up sacrificing space to achieve that. Homes in Japan are much
smaller than in the US for example.

How does this square up?

~~~
yohannparis
The article mention cities, you are talking about suburbs. Nobody wants to
remove cars from the suburbs because it is the backbone of it. Remove the cars
=> no more suburbs.

~~~
damnyou
Yes, but less auto dependence means less suburbs right? "Sprawl" is criticized
a lot. A transit oriented suburb would be like Japan. The houses would be less
big, there would be less space to suspend the normal rules of society around
things like nudity, and so on.

I get why cities are great, but suburb living leads to a very different — and
for me vastly better — quality of life.

~~~
zaphod4prez
I'm not sure why "less auto dependence [would mean] less suburbs."

Here's one alternative: If we get rid of cars in cities, have commuter rail
from the city to each surrounding suburb, and allow cars in the suburb?
Then... there you go. This is called a "hub and spoke" pattern iirc

There are plenty of suburbs in the US that operate like this— where most
people who work in the city commute via rail, but most families also have
cars, and there is a spread-out spacious feel (some towns in NJ come to mind).

~~~
damnyou
You're describing the BART model, and parking is slowly being removed from it
in favor of apartments.

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8bitsrule
Then narrow corridors can open up for tiny, induction-powered, two-person
electric 'trams' that move at a walking pace, and follow sensor-detected
'tracks' to the requested destination.

If I need to get somewhere 'downtown' that's 12-40 blocks away, that buses
don't go, that's a long walk. I predict that the space and demand for sane
transport options will remain.

~~~
adrianN
There shouldn't be locations more than a few blocks away that busses don't go
to. In Berlin's, London's, or Tokyo's center for example you'd be hard pressed
to find a place more than a few minutes walk from public transport.

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eloycoto
Sad to see this article does not mention Pontevedra(Spain), years living
without cars in the city center.

~~~
kitx
Pontevedra is mentioned in the fifth paragraph, but unfortunately not much
detail is given.

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mac_was
Answer: people are late to work because the communication system cannot
possibly handle that amount of people unless we are talking about a small
village... Maybe one day it will happen

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dpflan
"Today's housing crisis stems from a lack of land – get rid of cars and the
problem is solved immediately – JH Crawford"

When the situation is simplified, yes.

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larrywright
Sure this works in a major city, but what about the smaller cities, and the
suburbs?

