
It's time to ban cars from Manhattan? - Reedx
https://ny.curbed.com/2019/10/3/20896837/nyc-traffic-history-pedestrian-cars
======
acd
I think cars should be banned from most densely populated city centers in
general. There is a word describing it "Pedestrianization"

Reasoning: Cars pollute the air which makes the people living and walking in
the city centers sick. Cars pollute with noise. Cars cause pedestrian and
bicycle accidents.

Its nice for peoples health to be able to walk and run in open areas.

Streets which previously was used by cars can be converted to public green
areas and you can also plant trees there. It would open up new green areas for
cafes and restaurants.

Public transport should replace cars in such dense environments. You will thus
ride to the outer part of the city park your car there and take public /
electric bike transport from there.

Here is story about Spanish city Pontevedra which banned cars
[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-
life...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish-
city-banned-cars-pontevedra)

Wikipedia article about Pontevedra, "Pedestrianization" section "As a result,
65% of trips in the city centre are made on foot. Pontevedra was recognized in
2016 as one of the 15 best cycling cities in the world"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontevedra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontevedra)

~~~
izacus
My home city (capital of the country) did exactly that and it brought a huge
amount of life and new businesses to the city center. Not to mention that
tourism exploded as well - the city center is now a very pleasant place to go
out and grab a coffee next to a river or on a street with no loud and smelly
traffic to be seen (picture during summer:
[https://files.stocky.ai/uploads/2019/01/image-Preseren-
squar...](https://files.stocky.ai/uploads/2019/01/image-Preseren-square-
Ljubljana-capital-of-Slovenia.-stocky-ai-14327806.jpg) )

Of course, the locals were throwing an absolute fit when the change came: "We
won't be able to move furniture!", "What will the emergency vehicles do?",
"How will old people cope?", "It will ruin the real-estate market!", "OH the
humanity, who will WALK all the way from a parking spot?!"

Turns out - it worked exceedingly well. We need more of this.

~~~
camillomiller
How are they moving furniture, though? No joke, really curious how they coped
with the downsides.

~~~
Jommi
You just ban the most common forms of car throughput. Moving vans would be
allowed.

~~~
Someone
You can also move most, if not all, furniture that fits through a house’s door
or elevator on a small electric van or even a (three-wheeled) bicycle.

Electric vans also could be the preferred method of supplying shops with
goods. That need not be much more expensive if containers can be moved from
larger vans onto such smaller vans at city boundaries.

If you have furniture that’s so large that you have to hoist it up and get it
into the building through a window, you likely already need a permit to use
the device that hoists up the furniture.

~~~
portlander12345
Can confirm, have moved king-sized mattresses, large dressers and cabinets,
etc via a trailer on an ordinary bicycle. It’s really easy!

Where I’m from there’s a tradition in the bike community called a “bike move”.
When you’re moving, you invite everybody to show up on a certain day with
their trailers and cargo bikes. Everybody packs and moves you in a distributed
manner! All you have to do is provide coffee and donuts in the morning and
pizza and beer for after. Fun, community-building way to move.

~~~
qmmmur
How? I can't feasibly imagine balancing my UK queen in a bicycle.

~~~
foxyv
If you strap the mattress to the box spring to stiffen the mattress you can
set it on its edge and it won't sag. Then just set the box spring and the
mattress on a flat bed bike trailer and you are good to go.

They make trailers like this for big and heavy stuff:
[https://www.bikesatwork.com/bike-trailers](https://www.bikesatwork.com/bike-
trailers)

~~~
qmmmur
Okay, I would consider transporting a mattress on a bike (with a trailer)
easy, not just a bike!

------
Merrill
This seems to ignore freight.

First, since there are no freight railroads into Manhattan; everything
consumed by the residents and the much larger daytime population has to arrive
by truck. Most freight into Manhattan comes via the Hudson River bridges and
tunnels since the container port is in New Jersey and the rail yards are also
there. There is little barge traffic, although I think that garbage is barged
out via an East River pier. Given the density of population in Manhattan,
which doubles to 4 million during the daytime hours, the freight requirements
are large and trucks and vans are a considerable part of the existing traffic
bringing goods to Manhattan and then distributing them around the borough.

Second, Brooklyn, Queens and the rest of Long Island are also supplied mainly
by trucking crossing Manhattan from the same Hudson River bridges and tunnels,
as well as via the Goethals and Verrazzano bridge or via the Tappan Zee
bridge. Rail freight goes north to near Albany and then back south with only
very limited connections for freight on the Long Island Railroad. Eliminating
truck traffic across Manhattan would substantially increase costs for
Brooklyn, Queens, and the rest of Long Island.

There have been proposals to put a rail freight tunnel under New York Harbor
from roughly Bayonne to Bay Ridge, but there is no perceptible progress. Even
with a tunnel, the LIRR third rail system is incompatible with modern
container well cars and clearances are not adequate without a great deal of
replacement of bridges, etc.

~~~
apaprocki
Worth mentioning that the NYPD does absolutely nothing (in my view) to enforce
existing laws. 53’ trucks routinely barrel down non-truck routes at the same
time as my kids’ school bus. They routinely attempt to turn down the same
street and get stuck, blocking traffic for 15-30 minutes, and no one cares.

POV from someone that lives here: Leave an exception for electric trucks no
bigger than a Sprinter between the hours of 4am (when bars close) - 8am. Force
delivery fleets to innovate and rely more on dispatch software and small
vehicles to get the job done more quickly and efficiently.

~~~
koheripbal
We have this simplistic idea that if we put a huge roadblock in front of small
businesses that they'll innovate around the problem, when in reality they'll
just go out of business, and it will take the market a year or more to figure
out how to deal with the problem - all the while, more small businesses shut
down because they cannot stock their shelves.

I agree with the motivation, but the execution cannot be "simply" banning how
these businesses operate.

These aren't high margin businesses that can handle disruptions like this.
Small business owners have mortgages to pay, and they'll just close-up shop or
"simply" choose to service a different area.

------
speedplane
Banning cars, congestion pricing, Uber and taxi surchages, taxing parking
spots and rental cars ... under the current NYC political consensus, personal
motor vehicles are in the cross-hairs.

I actually would support this if it was part of an honest effort to improve
transportation and livability in the city, but most of these proposals make it
harder to live here, not easier. I suspect the real motivation is a mix of
environmentalism (cars contribute to global warming) and classicism (only the
rich drive cars in NYC).

NYC politicians should be focused on how to move the most amount of people,
the safest and quickest way, for the cheapest cost. If they want to ban cars
due to effects on the environment, they should say that maybe promote electric
vehicles. If they want to tax the rich, they can simply impose a more
progressive income tax structure.

The current muddled response is actually making transportation in the city
more expensive, often causes more emissions due to longer rides, and has an
insignificant effect on the rich while hitting the pocket-books of everyone
else much harder.

~~~
maelito
> If they want to ban cars due to effects on the environment, they should say
> that maybe promote electric vehicles.

Electric vehicules are usually better than thermal ones, but they're still a
big carbon emitter. Except if they're shared. No individual vehicule heavier
than 50kg can be considered good in terms of climate impact.

~~~
gambiting
>>Electric vehicules are usually better than thermal ones, but they're still a
big carbon emitter

My argument here is always that even if all electricity was produced from coal
power plants(it isn't) surely it's much better to have one big carbon emitter
far outside of the city, than thousands of smaller carbon emitters in the
middle of the city. Yes, it is just externalising the emissions, but I think
it's important to improve the air quality where people actually live, no?

~~~
dan_mctree
That would make sense if all things are equal, but there are efficiency issues
here. Having to take the extra step to convert the fossil fuels into
electricity first (plus the later battery storage) means the same fossil fuels
don't deliver as much power to the vehicles. That said, it's probably a wise
move to move to electricity powered vehicles anyway because of the slow shift
to reusables.

~~~
gambiting
That's not the argument I'm making. I'm saying that it's better to have a
pollution-spewing plant outside of the city than drive thousands(millions?) Of
vehicles right next to the areas where people walk and live and work and eat.
A taxi driver idling their shitty diesel outside of my window at 2am wouldn't
be an issue if their vehicle was electric. A major throughway next to a
kindergarten wouldn't be an issue if those vehicles were electric. At least
not due to pollution, there are still other problems regardless of the fuel
used.

------
djsumdog
NYC needs to dump a lot of work into their rail system, and not slack off in
the good times. They keep flipping from having one of the best systems in the
US to being plagued by terrible issues, every decade.

Chicago hasn't expanded in a while, but they maintain their tracks, buy new
stock and renovate stations. I don't think people appreciate how incredibly
important all that maintenance is to the city. I hope Chicago can get enough
funding one day to expand and start on the outer loop project, but not at the
expense of keeping what's there in good condition.

~~~
delfinom
Do not mix subway with rail. NYC has a subway system, it more or less
functions independent from NYC's rail network.

NYC's rail network covers 4 boroughs and goes all the way to the end of Long
Island. They are spending $100 million just this year alone building
additional freight transfer points in Brooklyn & Queens and adding more marine
barge terminals explicitly to remove more trucks entering NYC.

NYC's subway network is not owned by NYC but by NYS which is operated by the
MTA, they can't really run it themselves and it's a point of political
fighting.

However, there is tons being done by the MTA while people bitch and moan while
dedicating no effort to educating themselves.

Over 1k new subway cars are on order (and honestly, there hasnt been a time in
the last 2 decades they haven't been, the subway just requires a shit-ton of
them).

There are track geometry scanning trains that run and down the lines at least
once a week per line to scan rails for defects. And they recently acquired
another train to do so as well. This helps reduce unexpected failures.

They have been replacing all wooden ties with concrete ties as they can. They
are also switching out for continuous welded rail as they go as well.

Signal work is disastrous because the amount of track (>700 miles) AND
multiple subway lines intermix meaning every mixed line needs to be replaced
at the same time. All while maintaining 24/7 service, AND DONT YOU DARE
DISCUSS HALTING A TRAIN LINE AT NIGHT TO EXPEDITE WORK LIKE THE REST OF THE
WORLD, you'll be voted out of office.

~~~
ravitation
Significant sections of train lines are selectively closed at night and
modified on weekends all the time for maintenance and improvements.

~~~
jacques_chester
Don't you dare suggest that it was hyperbole.

~~~
ravitation
Will I be voted out of office?

------
baron816
I was once riding in a cab, ranting about how private cars should be banned in
NYC, and the driver spoke up and said that no one who drives in the city
_wants_ to drive there—they do it because they have to. They do it because
many neighbors within the greater metro area aren’t severed by any form of
public transportation.

~~~
_delirium
I'd be interested to see numbers on that (e.g. what percentage of cars are
coming from which locations). There are people poorly served by transit, but
Manhattan also has a _lot_ of fairly wealthy people driving, or even being
chauffeured, on routes that have perfectly usable transit that they'd just
rather not use. Car ownership in NYC (45% overall) is much higher among
wealthier than poorer people, and especially so in Manhattan (22%). Those 22%
of Manhattanites who own cars are also the ones who lobby hardest for pro-car
policies, get angry when street parking is removed to make room for bus lanes
or bike lanes, etc.

~~~
speedplane
> Manhattan also has a lot of fairly wealthy people driving, or even being
> chauffeured, on routes that have perfectly usable transit that they'd just
> rather not use.

The classicist subtext you allude to above has no place in NYC transportation
policy, and will likely make inequality worse. If you want to make the rich
pay their fair share, then raise income or wealth taxes. A multi-millionaire
won't be fazed by a $10 congestion surcharge, they'll keep driving their
Hummer directly through midtown. But the commuters from Queens or Staten
Island, the senior citizens that can't easily walk down subway steps, the
families car-pooling their children to different activities, and the countless
businesses that need to lug equipment and supplies around the city will feel
the pain.

Perversely, congestion pricing will probably benefit the rich. It will clear
the streets of folks that can no longer afford to drive, making their Hummer
joy ride through mid-town much more pleasurable.

~~~
_delirium
The proposal in the linked article isn't a congestion charge, but to just
pedestrianize many roads in Manhattan. I agree with you that congestion
charges aren't an ideal solution for a bunch of reasons, one being that
affluent people can just pay their $10 and drive through, as you note. Another
problem with them is that congestion charges don't really make roads safe for
non-automobile road users, in the way that pedestrianization does.

What annoys me personally about rich Manhattan types with cars is mostly their
political influence. Fewer than a quarter of Manhattanites own cars, but the
ones that do have historically been disproportionately well connected in local
Democratic machine politics.

~~~
speedplane
> What annoys me personally about rich Manhattan types with cars is mostly
> their political influence. Fewer than a quarter of Manhattanites own cars,
> but the ones that do have historically been disproportionately well
> connected in local Democratic machine politics.

I've lived in Manhattan pretty much forever and don't own a car. Most "rich"
people I know in this borough are rich because they bought an apartment in the
1970s and are now millionaires on paper based on their apartments current
value. They may have outsized influence, but they've also lived here for a
long time. While I can understand your irritation, they are not exactly an
insignificant constituency (22% of a population is not trivial).

The super rich have always been in NYC, and will be able to get around however
they want. Transportation policy should not mix with classicism on either
side.

------
andybp85
This sounds like it would suck big time for musicians and the like who have to
transport gear to bars and whatnot, which I've done plenty of times since high
school (I live just outside the city in NJ). Having to carry all my gear like
10 NYC blocks (or more) after having to pay tens of dollars to park in a
garage (what would availability even be?) would definitely make me think twice
about trying to get gigs there. My girlfriend's an artist and does shows there
occasionally, and she'd be in the same boat.

Obviously I'm not saying "there'll be no art or live music in NYC if this
happens!" I have a car and unless I have a damn good reason I don't drive into
the city, especially during the crazy traffic hours (the PATH trains run all
night). I think we need to consider what other damn good reasons people have
for driving into Manhattan before we consider something as radical as this.

~~~
thawaway1837
“No street would need to be completely cut off from vehicular traffic;
emergency services could get through and transport for the disabled, just as
they do in places like Ghent, Belgium, where the city center has been car-free
since 2017.”

Every street is still accessible by car. You simply wouldn’t want to go on the
pedestrian streets until you absolutely have to because like in car free
European cities today, you’d be intermingling with pedestrians with a speed
limit of like 5mph.

You’d simply drive the vast majority of the way on the car streets, and then
the last 20-30m on the 5mph street so you can take your stuff up to your
doorstep.

~~~
kijin
If that's what you're proposing, there's no need to use clickbait words like
"ban cars from Manhattan". You're just shifting the incentive structure so
that people will be less inclined to use a car.

~~~
badfrog
Yes, the article is horribly misnamed.

------
pentae
I believe our governments should designate a new class of Urban car, similar
to the Japanese "Kei cars".

The "Urban EV" would have to meet strict requirements: Electric Vehicles only,
within a small size of footprint (smart car sized) and have pedestrian anti
collision safety features.

The EVs could have cargo trays as well for deliveries.

Pedestrian zones with Urban EV access (scooters, ebikes included) could
utilise a small bike lane sized road down the middle of the pedestrian areas
with dotted lines to keep the EV traffic moving efficiently. Despite this,
pedestrians and vehicles will be maneuvering around each other. Of course,
EV's would be expected to give way to pedestrians by law.

Urban EV zones could eventually also be linked together with bike lanes and
tunnels.

This would simultaneously make for more cyclist friendly cities while
accommodating and making far more modern, social and interesting urban
environments.

~~~
jacques_chester
Freeing road space with smaller cars are equivalent to adding roads. You wind
up with the same induced demand problems and it is still stupendously less
efficient than buses, trains and pedestrian space. The same goes for folks
waving self-driving cars as a magical talisman that will "fix" car traffic.
You can't fix car traffic. You can only replace it with different modes of
transport.

~~~
pentae
You make good points but its not ‘all or nothing’. Small, efficient modes of
transport like bicycles, ebikes and scooters attached to sharing apps is a
correct step forward in urban mobility.

If we zoned cities pedestrians first with smart public transport we have
plenty of room for ‘ev bike lanes’ for small personal mobility vehicles across
huge areas (think 14 x 14 city blocks) it would look vastly different to the
congestion you are describing from cars owning the spaces

~~~
peterwwillis
Yes!! There is no one-size-fits-all transportation method.

And some people - notably, those with disabilities - are at a disadvantage
with most options. It shouldn't be a requirement, for example, to spend
multiple hours on buses just to run one errand because it's the only
accessible solution.

Cars are designed for high speed, multi-use, multi-environment, safety-
critical use cases, that are a byproduct of the environment cars have to drive
in, and how they are operated. Take out most of those requirements and we'd
have lightweight, cheap, tiny contraptions that fit cities better. You can
even build cars that fit in bike lanes!

------
spodek
Future citizens will look back at objections to banning cars from Manhattan
like we look back at objections to smoking in New York bars and restaurants --
like throwbacks to a dirty, barbaric era we would be horrified to return to.

I remember showering after getting home from bars and the smell of smoke
coming out of my hair. People claimed we'd lose business to Hoboken bars where
people could still smoke.

Within a couple years, Hoboken had to ban smoking in bars and restaurants to
stop losing business to Manhattan.

------
roca
For months after 9/11/01, everywhere below Canal St was closed to most
vehicles. It was wonderful to wander around there.

~~~
cagenut
there were a couple days after sandy like that too, it was lovely.

------
rayiner
I agree in concept. But it’s time to whip MTA into shape and get an efficient,
punctual subway and bus system before it’s time to ban cars.

Give me European style efficiency and punctuality in public transit before
telling me about European-style plans that make me use public transit.

------
Freak_NL
Can the title be amended to reflect that of the linked article? That is,
please drop the nonsensical question mark.

------
3stripe
The American worldview on (the necessity of) cars is going to be hard to
shift, but boy oh boy would it change your country for the better.

Sincerely,

A European.

~~~
ekianjo
When you go to the US you will see that apart from very dense city centers
there are a lot of people living pretty far away from the next town with
nothing in between. There is no practical way, right now, to live without a
car if you are in such a situation.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
That doesn't excuse doing nothing in the cities.

~~~
ekianjo
Sure, but it will not solve the problem that most people will need cars to get
around.

------
dawg-
Get cars out of all city centers, not just the big ones. I live in a small
town pop. 15,000. Our little main street is clogged with parking spaces and
cars. For 15,000 people! Instead they could rip out the asphalt and make it a
pedestrian zone with lots of green space...and the downtown business owners
would probably reap the benefits. But nobody is willing to do anything
drastic.

------
baby
I freaking love public/pedestrian streets. Wish there were more of them at
least.

------
peterwwillis
Has anyone calculated how fast you could go from downtown to uptown with a
bicycle and no traffic? Maybe the best way to galvanize public opinion is with
hope: show them things can be much better, and they will want it.

You could plan a day to shut down some street for 100 blocks and do a series
of stunts. Mock up bus and bike lanes, and do trial runs all day of bikes and
buses moving up and down the corridor. Then run the results in the paper with
the title "the future is here".

~~~
koheripbal
There are a lot of elderly people living in the city that cannot ride a
bicycle. ...and what about when there's a foot of snow on the ground? Or
pouring rain? Should everyone resign themselves to suffering?

------
markbnj
Please do ban cars from Manhattan. Went in to have dinner the other night on
the lower east side, and yes we drove and it's craziness. I stress out like
mad every time I have to contemplate doing it. I'd rather never do it again,
but if they really want to ban cars from the island the transit lines from NJ
and CT would need to add a lot of capacity, especially on weekends.

------
lifeisstillgood
Cars work because they solve for the first and last mile (50yards) problem.
Public transport is great - but it is coarser than private cars. Even
timetabled buses cannot drive down every road

The "right" solution is presumably "sharing" car stack (no not Uber style
sharing).

But boy I am not sure the politics or even economics stack up.

~~~
mattmanser
Your legs also solve the first and last mile problem.

~~~
bluescrn
Not everyone has a fit and healthy pair of legs

~~~
megablast
What percentage of people do not? 1%?

~~~
bluescrn
Probably 10%+ if you include the elderly and others who can’t comfortably walk
a mile or two

------
jborichevskiy
A nice writeup about the recent NYC 14th street closure by Signal Problems
[https://signalproblems.substack.com/p/miracle-on-14th-
street](https://signalproblems.substack.com/p/miracle-on-14th-street)

------
alkonaut
You still need ambulance access everywhere and delivery access almost
everywhere. So you need a lot of vehicle infrastructure even though it’s
mostly unused, and vehicles must suddenly share the space with pedestrians
instead of pedestrians having sidewalks and designated crossings. Pedestrian
streets exist in most cities but the problem of making each street a safe
place for pedestrians while ambulances and delivery trucks can still access
them isn’t a solved problem. A couple of vehicle terrorist attacks in Europe
in recent years highlighted this issue.

~~~
MrMoenty
The common solution found in European cities is to have one street reserved
entirely for pedestrians, and to allow delivery access from the two adjacent,
parallel streets. But of course this requires a certain amount of
infrastructure within the buildings.

~~~
alkonaut
Yes, and obviously it only makes it possible to make half the streets
pedestrian streets in an area. To make every street in an area pedestrian-only
you’d need a different solution. Deliveries can often be handled in early
mornings for example.

------
jshaqaw
As real not snarky rhetorical questions - how does an aging populace get
around a city without cabs? When I injured my leg last year I found just how
unviable it was to commute by crowded subway during rush hours on crutches. It
gave me sympathy for the disabled and elderly. For all their faults, Uber and
Lyft were the lifeline which let me get my kids to school and get myself to
work until I healed.

------
SomeHacker44
To interested readers: the title references a few paragraphs in the beginning
and end of the article. The article mostly concerns itself with a history of
NYC and streets, which I personally found irrelevant and boring.

I work a few blocks from 14th St and, man, the place was eerie this week. I
really liked it and support the concept of banning cars, even as I own one
because I live in the far reaches of an outer borough.

------
grepthisab
Yes, it is time to ban personal transport vehicles from Manhattan. Leave buses
and delivery vehicles since everything is stocked by them, and work vehicles
like police perhaps. The problem is this will never get implemented on any non
geologic timescale. We need a clear vision like this, but also a non-racist
version of Robert Moses to just make it all happen.

~~~
smileysteve
> vehicles like police perhaps

Policing itself changes significantly when much of the population isn't in a
car. And police may be able to see crime in action rather than reaction.

------
mrfusion
Wouldn’t you still have to allow delivery trucks? Otherwise how would business
get packages and pet stores get pets?

------
coldtea
Ban cars from Manhattan?

Yes, provided you have peripheral routes (the circle around Manhattan),
improve the medieval-like subway conditions, and have a good (preferably
electric) bus system that's still allowed.

------
rb808
To me its crazy that parking in Manhattan is so cheap that a family on the
Train would cost more than parking (in cheap buildings). On Sunday street
parking is free!

------
magwa101
YES. Ebikes in tunnels.

------
investologia
It can really change the vibe of the city

------
JDiculous
No, just do what countries like Singapore, Japan, and Korea have done.

~~~
ajmurmann
What do they do?

Of the countries you listed I’ve only been to japan. Besides great public
transit street parking is mostly prohibited and many streets naturally aren’t
well suited for cars at all, turning them into something very similar to
German pedestrian zones.

~~~
JDiculous
Yes Japan and Korea have fantastic public transportation, and walkable streets
that aren't dominated by cars like those pedestrian zones you're referring to.

Singapore restricts the number of cars.

------
Whatarethese
I didn't read the whole article but would this include banning trucks that
bring in goods? What about trucks that help residents move to and from the
city?

~~~
L_Rahman
Not at all. The plan is to ban private vehicles and through traffic within the
cross town streets (East-West direction, numbered roads) in Manhattan.

Larger cross-town streets like 14th, 23rd and 42nd would remain open to all
traffic. The smaller streets is where the ban would go into a place making
them a single grade mixing zone for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles.
Service vehicles (delivery, garbage, taxis) can access these smaller streets
but at a <10MPH speed.

~~~
reustle
> Larger cross-town streets like 14th, 23rd and 42nd would remain open to all
> traffic.

Wasn't 14th just closed to cars starting this week?
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/nyregion/car-ban-14th-
str...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/nyregion/car-ban-14th-street-
manhattan.html)

~~~
L_Rahman
Yes, but that’s to manage L train shut down problems.

There’s a meaningful difference between a stop gap plan to address immediate
problems and larger change in how we think about transportation within New
York

------
HenryKissinger
Unfortunately, New York City was built at a time when people rode horses, and
its streets reflect that. And you can't just widen a street, certainly not in
a city like NYC. You would have to destroy every building on one side of a
street, and build new buildings, all for a gain of a few feet.

Large megapolises like NYC need to start exploring the concept of 3D streets.
Instead of having a single street level, on the ground, start building skyways
between skyscrapers, where both cars and pedestrians can move. Take 45th
Street. You could build a second street 20m above the ground, straddling the
buildings on the eastern side of the street. You build ramps at both ends, and
you build your aerial street through the buildings. This would require heavy
modifications, if not outright reconstruction, of the buildings in question,
but this is the way of the future for large, dense cities in this millenium.
Our current approach to city design is primitive, and quite frankly medieval.
We still build cities the way we built them in the Middle Ages: independent of
one another, standing next to each other. But as NYC's traffic woes show, this
is not enough anymore. If you want to reduce traffic in large cities, without
restricting car ownership, then you need to make way for more cars.

Or you could go underground. But I don't know if that's a viable option in a
city with a subway, and straddled by rivers. You would need to protect your
underground highways from water infiltration. And you can't hollow the ground
below your city too much, lest the millions of tons of steel and cement and
glass above the ground start collapsing.

Tl;dr we need to start building Coruscant.

~~~
Pfhreak
When has building more roads for cars ever resulted in fixing traffic. The
solution isn't to try and make the city more car friendly, it's to remove the
cars entirely. Move to streetcars, subways, trains, busses, anything that
moves crowds of people rather than 1-5 people.

Cars are such an incredibly inefficient model for moving people around in
dense areas -- every person gets their own engine, several chairs, storage
areas, and a couple tons of metal?

> If you want to reduce traffic in large cities, without restricting car
> ownership.

You don't have to restrict car ownership to make people stop owning cars. Just
make the alternative much better -- why would I need to own a car if public
transit served my every need and I could take a zipcar/car2go/taxi for those
rare, rare cases when I needed my own vehicle?

~~~
speedplane
> why would I need to own a car if public transit served my every need and I
> could take a zipcar/car2go/taxi for those rare, rare cases when I needed my
> own vehicle?

Many kids growing up in NYC rarely get to leave the city. They don't get to go
upstate, see real nature and open spaces, go camping, hike a big mountain,
swim in a natural lake, or experience the things that a large city cannot
offer. Many never get a drivers license, rendering them immobile outside a
major city, locking them in place.

For families in NYC that do not own a car, the only way to access these
experiences is by renting a vehicle. Yet, New York charges a 20% tax on rental
cars, and another 20% tax on paid parking spots, driving up the cost of
renting a car to over $120/day, out of reach for many families that want to
escape the city for a day or experience nature.

If NYC really cared about reducing inequality, and providing families access
to experiences that everyone should be able to enjoy, they would eliminate
these taxes and make car rentals/shares easier and far less expensive.

~~~
geofft
Can't you take Metro-North for a bit and then rent a car outside NYC (and its
surcharges and taxes)?

Is it really faster to drive a rental car from NYC than to take a train out,
especially on a Friday evening?

Also, one reasonable approach to this particular problem is to permit cars on
West Side Highway and FDR Drive but not otherwise in Manhattan. You can go
_around_ the city core but not _through_ it.

~~~
CydeWeys
Ideally, the West Hide Highway and FDR would be torn up, buried, etc. They're
ruining almost the entire waterfront for most of Lower Manhattan.

~~~
speedplane
> Ideally, the West Hide Highway and FDR would be torn up, buried

If you lived the thrill of driving down either of those highways, with their
amazing views, tightly packed cars, so close to the water, you may disagree.

------
ThomPete
Thats the most selfish idea ever. As a single you can live in on manhattan
without any cars sure, but got a family, need to do summer camps in jersey but
live in brooklyn.

It would make life so much more difficult, and for what? Some wellmeaning but
regressive environmentalists who dont need a car. In copenhagen its a disaster
imo, and thats a small city.

Big cities are big for a reason, a lot of activity. If you want less car
exhaust there are many amazing areas less than 30 minutes from manhattan.

This honestly sounds like political overreaching. We dont need it, especially
when there is no actual alternative.

~~~
1986
I don't understand the Brooklyn - Jersey rationale, you can already make that
trip by car quite easily without needing to drive through Manhattan (eg via
Staten Island)

~~~
ThomPete
Yes today, because manhattan takes som of the traffic. Forcing it around would
increase congestion.

