
Let’s cut traffic by road rationing, Italian style - curtis
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/lets-cut-traffic-by-road-rationing-italian-style/
======
winterismute
I grew up in one of the Italian cities that adopted the "limited traffic zone"
approach many years ago (Bologna). The fact is that many Italian cities were
designed basically in the middle age and they have not changed much since
then, hence they have very narrow streets, crossings, and sometimes wide
sidewalks. They are simply not made for cars. Anyway, in the last years, the
new administration additionally decided to completely "ban" cars from the main
streets during weekends and public holidays: no cars of no type, no taxis, bus
routes changed to only reach the beginning of the closed roads but they did
introduce a small bus line that goes around the closed down zone. The idea was
highly criticized at the beginning mainly by the business owners located
there, who were afraid of seeing a sharp decline of customers. Instead, after
a first period, those "T days" became a success: people re-discovered the
pleasure of just walking everywhere on the streets, more and more events were
organized, and also shops saw an increase in revenue, and in fact now they are
asking to extend this ban to more days. Personally, I think we should start
realizing that cars have put high cost on society in terms of pollution,
safety, low efficiency in the use of resources (fuel), stress related to jams
(which is a clear alienating experience). Maybe banning them from everywhere
is not the solution, but at least the idea that every family must own (at
least) a car should be publicly questioned.

~~~
jakobegger
It's the same story everytime a pedestrian zone is introduced in some town in
Austria. Shop owners complain loudly that they'll lose customers, but as soon
as cars are banned pedestrian traffic explodes, revenue increases, and a
lively city center emerges.

Yet it takes years (often decades) of discussion for a single road to become a
pedestrian zone, because all those people fail to see how benefitial
pedestrian zones have been every time that they were introduced. I don't even
think it's only because people love their cars, I think it's just a general
fear of change.

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nemo44x
So many cities/regions in the USA are simply broken by design in terms of
having central business locations and urban sprawl living locations. Too many
cities optimized around the highway which let greedy developers and poor urban
planners dictate the present conditions of impossible congestion and the
inability to have an effective mass transit system due to lack of population
density.

Simply put, that model doesn't scale and we are now seeing it affect more and
more cities. Not to mention that urban sprawl is expensive to maintain in
terms of roads, highways, sewers and utilities being consumed by people living
so far apart and in low density areas.

I propose we begin building planned cities focused on population density and
mass transit that people actually want to use. Build up, not out. Share spaces
like parks and have lots of little ones. Essentially, inherit from NYC where
you don't have to, or even want to, own a car.

~~~
hueving
Lots of families in the US aren't interested in dumping their house with a
yard and garage for an apartment. If what you described is what the majority
of people really wanted, nobody would live in the suburbs.

~~~
nick_urban
Anyone I've talked to who commutes in rush hour traffic absolutely hates it,
yet most of them don't move or change jobs.

I suspect it's mostly fear and not love that keeps people commuting from the
suburbs -- fear of other people's judgments, because living in an apartment is
often considered a lower status indicator than owning a home.

~~~
woofyman
It's also money. The mortgage and taxes on a suburban house are cheaper than
renting an urban apartment.

~~~
eru
If we had more supply in the cities, prices could drop.

~~~
CalRobert
If we even had more supply in close-in suburbs, this would be improved. The
bay is weird in that you have low-density suburb running quite close to SF;
you'd think it would be a more gradual shift. I don't necessarily need to live
in the absolute middle of the city, but far too often the only options are
"city core that existed before cars" and "suburb 15 miles out". Not always,
but often.

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aaronbrethorst
It's actually 1) a testament to how awful traffic in certain Seattle
neighborhoods is, and 2) still really crazy to me that anyone at the Seattle
Times would ever publicly endorse any measure that is anti-car[0].

The Seattle Times is notoriously anti-public transit, as evinced by articles
like this one:
[http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/04/05/seattle...](http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/04/05/seattle-
times-endorses-slashing-metro-buses)

Notably, this article also appeared a couple days after Seattle saw its worst
traffic meltdown[1] since an ice storm crippled the city and cost then-Mayor
Nickels his job[2]

[0] Proper context: I'm an 11 year Seattleite, and walk, bus, car2go, and uber
everywhere. I hope that, someday, my city has a decent public transit system.
I am also the maintainer of the iOS version of OneBusAway, for which I receive
literally zero compensation.

[1] [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/transportation/over...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/transportation/overturned-fish-truck-creates-highway-99-rush-hour-
debacle/)

[2] [http://www.seattletimes.com/politics/after-storm-of-
criticis...](http://www.seattletimes.com/politics/after-storm-of-criticism-
seattle-mayor-reverses-no-salt-policy-for-snow/)

~~~
javiramos
Thanks for your work! There are thousands of happy public transit users thanks
to apps (like OneBusAway) that make public transit more tolerable.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Thanks! Also, depending on your skill set/free time/inclination, I'd always
love another pair of hands, or eyes, or anything else you can spare. We can
always use more people raising issues to us on GitHub, or—even better—pull
requests: [https://github.com/onebusaway/onebusaway-
iphone](https://github.com/onebusaway/onebusaway-iphone)

------
goodcanadian
If you want to get cars off the road, you need to provide some real
alternatives. Build walkable communities. Build bike lanes. Build rapid
transit that doesn't suck. I have seen all of these things elsewhere in the
world, so I know it's possible.

~~~
kuujo
I totally agree. I recently moved to LA for a job. A couple of months before
moving I had bought a nice road bike. Even though I live 2.5 miles from work
now, that road bike still sits in my closet every day. I would love to ride it
to work, but LA doesn't even have enough lanes to support both driving and
parking, let alone biking. The roads are full of traffic and impatient drivers
and I value my life too much to risk riding my bike on the couple feet of
shoulder that might exist on those roads.

~~~
ptaipale
I sympathize and hope you could find out how to cycle to work; as a side note,
however, a "nice road bike" is not very good for commuting 2.5 miles to work.

1) road bikes are not good for taking you and a laptop a short distance to
work; they are optimized for doing long journeys on free roads, not city
traffic. What you want is a bike where you sit upright and which enables you
to look around more conveniently, a bike with no clip pedals which enables you
to stop at traffic lights at ease, and a bike with a rack which enables you to
put your bag on it, etc.

2) a nice bike will be stolen in no time unless you keep it in closet (even
here, and my country/city has actually very little crime).

That said, I understand your problem if roads are too scary. Where I live I
have a dedicated bike/pedestrian lane 98 % of my work commute (10 km) and I
mostly use a cyclocross bike which is almost like a road bike (slightly more
agile, because there are many turns and crossings on the way, but I do use
clip pedals).

Too often people buy "fashionable" bikes for commute (a carbon-fibre road
bike, a BMX or downhill bike, or a fat bike) when the best one would be a
cheap, general-purpose hybrid bike that rolls relatively easily but can take
you across stone slabs or grit without puncture, and has a relatively upright
sitting position with efficient access to pedals.

------
mschuster91
The problem with introducing traffic-rationed zones is that the areas
surrounding those areas are going to be _swamped_ with cars not allowed in
(e.g. carsharing meetups as close to the border as possible).

That happened in Munich when areas in the inner city first got parking
restrictions (before, parking was free, and now you have to pay iirc
20ct/10min) and then the entire area surrounded by the Mittlerer Ring got
caught up in "Umweltzone" (environment protection area, where cars with too
bad emission values are locked out; this only affects diesel cars, as petrol
engines don't have fine-particulate problems)...

The entire border areas to those with pay-parking as well as anything outside
the Mittlerer Ring is essentially so much swamped with outside cars that the
locals don't get a parking spot any more.

Edit: The solution of Munich is to just put more and more border zones under
parking restriction too (and the locals have to pay for their parking spots
which used to be free, and it's anything but cheap). And the Umweltzone...
well, if you manage to avoid parking anywhere in public, then cops don't
really care.

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evanpw
I don't get it. Congestion pricing is bad, because it gouges the poor. But if
we make the price much higher and call it a fine, then everything's okay.

~~~
martinald
It also doesn't work very well. Rich people just end up buying two cars.

~~~
raldi
Note: By "it", the parent post is referring to even/odd restrictions, not
congestion pricing.

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markvdb
Multiply throughput. Do it the Copenhagen way. Make it a bicycle first city.
Reorganise urban planning around this. Build the infrastructure.

Almost as many people commute by bicycle in greater Copenhagen as do those who
cycle to work in the entire United States.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Copenhagen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Copenhagen)

~~~
iwwr
Copenhagen and most European cities are high density and were largely built
before the car or zoning was invented. Most people there live within bike-
commute distance, which isn't the case for the US.

~~~
tormeh
Also, Denmark is completely flat. Like, you won't believe how flat it is.
Denmarks highest point is "The Sky Mountain" and it's 147 m (482 ft) high.
That's how flat Denmark is. The utility of a bike increases a lot when you
only have to pedal equal to the rolling resistance.

~~~
prawn
Many American cities seem pretty flat to me. I don't remember huge inclines in
NY, coastal LA, etc.

------
forrestthewoods
Meh. This article is way too hyper focused on one tiny corner of the city. Any
and all traffic proposals must consider the greater region. I-5 into the city,
405 into Bellevue, within the city, 90/520 across the lake, etc. Almost 100%
of people in the greater Seattle area care a lot of about traffic. It affects
us all. Only a tiny handful care about South Lake Union specifically.

The severe lack of arterials in our region is insane. The fact that there is
no reasonable way to get from Ballard/Freemont to I-5 is mind boggling.
Everyone loves to bitch about the gentrification of Capitol Hill/Central
District. If there was more than one tiny land mass that allowed you to get
across the lake it'd be less of an issue. If 520 was accessible by Freemont,
Ballard, Queen Anne, and Magnolia the area that could live on the west side
and commute to the east would increase by at least 8x.

~~~
markvdb
"If 520 was accessible by Freemont, Ballard, Queen Anne, and Magnolia the area
that could live on the west side and commute to the east would increase by at
least 8x."

Looks like the perfect reason _not_ to increase road capacity from Freemont,
Ballard, Queen Anne and Magnolia to 520. That would encourage "live on the
west side, commute to the east", and a complete standstill in the long run.

~~~
forrestthewoods
We could pass a law saying you must live within 1 mile or your job. I don't
think that'd be a good idea. Or legal. But it would improve traffic!

------
Klinky
Perhaps we should considerably increase incentives for telecommuting. A lot of
gridlock is from office workers who probably could do their job from home.
This might also foster improved community development and less suburban
sprawl, as people spend more time in their communities.

Public transportation needs to dramatically improve. In a lot of places public
transportation is expensive, takes longer, isn't as convenient and still stuck
in the same traffic jams that other cars are. Setting aside single lanes for
HOV or broken public transit seems incredibly inefficient.

The simple fact is that moving people around a city is expensive and time
consuming. The real solution is not having to move people in the first place.

~~~
bequanna
> Public transportation needs to dramatically improve. In a lot of places
> public transportation is expensive, takes longer, isn't as convenient and
> still stuck in the same traffic jams that other cars are. Setting aside
> single lanes for HOV or transit seems incredibly inefficient.

And sometimes it is just a really bad experience. When I first moved to the
Bay Area, I would always take BART into the city. Now, I'm willing to deal
with the traffic and drive into the city.

I don't need something as posh as the Leap Transit solution, but it would be
nice to ride public transportation without worrying about dealing with
antisocial people urinating in train cars, etc.

~~~
SSLy
> antisocial people urinating in train cars,

What? I live in second-world country, and even there the most gross thing you
could stumble upon in a tram are hobos that stink.

WTF is wrong with BART?

~~~
reustle
It isn't uncommon (later in the evening) to come across sleeping homeless
people in the NYC subway who also smell absolutely terrible. You often will
see a few jam packed train cars, and then 1 empty car, and more jam packed
cars. It is empty for a reason.

~~~
SSLy
Then why there are no... bouncers to eject them?

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orasis
So, the author doesn't like congestion pricing because it is regressive. This
is another strong argument for Basic Income - proper market solutions can be
used for public problems without worrying about gouging the poor.

------
andrewchoi
Also has happened in China:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_space_rationing_in_Beijing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_space_rationing_in_Beijing)

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powera
I seriously don't know if that article is being sarcastic or not.

