340 European Cities Restrict Usage of Cars (msn.com) 79
Cities in Europe "are dramatically scaling back their relationship with the car," reports the Washington Post:
They are removing parking spaces and creating dedicated bike lanes. They are installing cameras at the perimeter of urban centers and either charging the most-polluting vehicles or preventing them from entering. Some are going so far as to put entire neighborhoods off-limits to vehicles. In Norway, Oslo promotes "car-free livability." Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo touts the "end of car dependence." And while those ideas might sound radical to car-loving Americans, they are fast becoming the norm across the Atlantic, where 340 European cities and towns — home to more than 150 million people — have implemented some kind of restrictions on personal car usage...
[V]irtually every major European city is imposing some kind of rule. Milan has a system similar to New York's, charging for access to the city core — while entirely banning older, highly polluting vehicles. London charges vehicles that don't meet emissions standards, in what it calls the "largest clean-air zone in the world." The programs are not just the purview of liberal Western Europe: Warsaw, Poland, and Sofia, Bulgaria, recently adopted similar schemes. Even little Italian villages have added vehicle restrictions to reinforce their historic feel. And the Netherlands just broke ground on a 12,000-person neighborhood that will be entirely car-free. The neighborhood, known as Merwede, will be connected by public transport to Utrecht, a medium-size city that — perhaps no surprise — has a low-emissions zone of its own...
Perhaps the most elaborate and transformative effort has come in Paris, where Anne Hidalgo was elected mayor in 2014. Since then, Paris has banned the most-polluting vehicles from the city, eliminated 50,000 parking spaces and added hundreds of miles of bike lanes. It turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone, and closed off the famed Rue de Rivoli to traffic... Journeys by car in Paris have dropped by about 45 percent since 1990. The city has now become a source for striking before-and-after photos: of clogged streets that have transitioned into tree-lined areas where people can walk and play.
In London government officials say inhalable particular matter has fallen, according to the article, while combustion-produced nitrogen dioxide "is 53% lower than it would have been without the restrictions."
[V]irtually every major European city is imposing some kind of rule. Milan has a system similar to New York's, charging for access to the city core — while entirely banning older, highly polluting vehicles. London charges vehicles that don't meet emissions standards, in what it calls the "largest clean-air zone in the world." The programs are not just the purview of liberal Western Europe: Warsaw, Poland, and Sofia, Bulgaria, recently adopted similar schemes. Even little Italian villages have added vehicle restrictions to reinforce their historic feel. And the Netherlands just broke ground on a 12,000-person neighborhood that will be entirely car-free. The neighborhood, known as Merwede, will be connected by public transport to Utrecht, a medium-size city that — perhaps no surprise — has a low-emissions zone of its own...
Perhaps the most elaborate and transformative effort has come in Paris, where Anne Hidalgo was elected mayor in 2014. Since then, Paris has banned the most-polluting vehicles from the city, eliminated 50,000 parking spaces and added hundreds of miles of bike lanes. It turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone, and closed off the famed Rue de Rivoli to traffic... Journeys by car in Paris have dropped by about 45 percent since 1990. The city has now become a source for striking before-and-after photos: of clogged streets that have transitioned into tree-lined areas where people can walk and play.
In London government officials say inhalable particular matter has fallen, according to the article, while combustion-produced nitrogen dioxide "is 53% lower than it would have been without the restrictions."
What about cargo? (Score:3)
Bikes and walking are great, for people
Cargo is a different question
Re: What about cargo? (Score:2)
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I am trying to limit in my area even that...
In the last 13 months cargo vans caused 3 accidents withing 1km from my home - 2 dead, 1 wounded.
Re: What about cargo? (Score:3, Informative)
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Emery single time.
Also the conservatives start bleating about the poor and disabled people as some kind of shield and how it will hurt them. Two groups they never spared a thought for and for whom car ownership is strongly under represented compared to the average.
People driving through an area don't stop and spend money. So who do they always worry about reducing through traffic...
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I wonder, why pedestrian zones are able to demand the highest rent from people living there.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. The rich people force offices to be located near the trendy pedestrian areas. So the workers who serve these people are forced to commute for longer and longer. Those waiters in all these nice pedestrian cafes? They have to be there at 7am. By miserable transit (no cars).
And have you considered what happened to people who lived there before? They are displaced into shittier areas. The people from shittier areas are displaced into even shittier areas. The total a
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The reason poor renters are expelled from city centers is landlords literally expelling them to put the place on more lucrative tourist rentals (Airbnb). Related to cars I have the same experience as in TFS about the before/after pictures. I live in a small/mid city. Mayor decided to build bike lanes. My street in particular was reduced from two-ways/tow lanes to one-way/one lane as a result. People complain that the pavement stones (for pedestrians) aren't of great quality, but they don't complain about fe
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Plus new shops are now opening. A fruit lady who sells products from her family farm; an immigrant men's barber, a music shop, an optician. People now *walk* in my street and that's a massive advantage for shop owners.
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The reason poor renters are expelled from city centers is landlords literally expelling them to put the place on more lucrative tourist rentals (Airbnb).
BS. AirBnB even in New York was less than 1% of the total housing (it peaked at around 38k, out of the total 3.8m), it's even more negligible in places like Seattle or SF. The reason poor people are displaced is called "economics". If the landlords can rent at higher cost, they will.
And before you mention it, rent control to force landlords to keep renting at below-market prices, only makes the matters worse.
And the mayor got re-elected. After effectively living there, people see the advantage of fewer cars.
Yeah, not having to rub elbows with _regular_ people. That barista? Screw them. They can live in t
Re: What about cargo? (Score:2)
Re: What about cargo? (Score:2)
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"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave""
And you like it that way? Being literally imprisoned in a small area, unable to ever leave?
Being European, I supposed you do.
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People live in these areas own a car, keep it some hundred meters away, outside the pedestrian area or underground park.
When moving from a small town (where cars are very useful due to larger distances) to a bigger city, the question of the car will arise, and friends will tell you to not take the car with you: there will be no need for it, and it will bring unnecessary inconveniences. In some cities, waiting for the next bus is faster and closer to home than driving around the neighbourhood in circles unti
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As soon as the parking spots are vanishing, the cars disappear, and people walk.
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We are not getting rid of them, they did not exist in the first place. Most streets and currently standing building in cities like Paris predate motorized transportation.
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Sure, but you don't need big roads or lots of parking space for cargo. Every pedestrian zone around the world works fine with vehicles only entering it for cargo delivery.
I'm always amazed when I go to cities that predate the automobile by hundreds of years just how well they manage with deliveries to thousands of businesses inside their city centres.
Point in short, this is not an issue as Europe hasn't had to knock down its historic cities to accommodate cargo transport.
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If only cargo bikes existed.
Central London is now full of pedal powered delivery vehicles. There's a local landscaper around my way (zone 2/3) who has a cargo bike with a trailer holding a dumpy bag.
Sure got big enough deliveries, you need a motor vehicle, but it's not like those are banned. Turns out they're is a middle ground between a complete free for all and a compete ban.
Watch the YouTuber Adam Something (Score:1)
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Personal automobiles are a blight on our civilization that only exist to enrich car companies.
Personal vehicles are one of the greatest contributors to individual freedom in human history.
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Personal automobiles are a blight on our civilization
Nah. Urbanists are a blight on the civilization. All they can do is to sabotage and destroy the infrastructure that was left to them by the ancestors. They are completely useless and clueless to the damage they do to the fabric of society.
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Deliver at night?
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Cargo traffic can be carried as normal. 99% of the traffic is non-cargo after all. Shops get deliveries overnight and during the day it's customer traffic. Most shops also only get deliveries once a week or so, except maybe supermarkets which get deliveries daily.
One cargo van per shop per week is hardly any traffic anyone cares about. Especially when it happens at quiet times. Many cities often have rules that say deliveries must take place between midnight ant 6AM, for example to avoid cargo vans from clo
Re: Beautiful! Go 4 it! (Score:2)
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Maybe it's not the banning of cars that's the root of the problem.
True. It's the banning of crime. Which the local politicians (Seattle) have resisted.
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Even more reductions in traffic cascade from all the failed business's that depended on actual customers in the downtown core.
There are fundamental differences.
1) In my understanding, US cities of the West coast (you cite Seattle) have downtown entirely depending on visitors coming by car. To contrast, European cities (and maybe US cities on the East coast) have their core densely populated and therefore depend a bit less on external visitors.
2) Several cities mentioned are big metropolises, which in Europe are impractical for cars unless you already live there and have no other choice. Those big cities have long built underground
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Is this like the time you Fox News-ers insisted that Portland was an active warzone?
Public transport in America (Score:3, Informative)
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Cars always win on average, except for hellscapes like Manhattan that had literal generations of enshittification.
The good news is that all this transit nonsense will die within a decade, when self-driving cars become common.
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From my experience, the fastest in Berlin is the bicycle for short distances, and the S-Bahn for long distances. Cars are only fast after 8 p.m. or before 6 a.m.. Dresden, the city I was born, is slightly better with cars, but for short distances, bicycle still wins. As a child, I often did this as a private competition. For my current place, Innsbruck, Austria, bicycle wins every time. I was working as a field
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Cars are only fast after 8 p.m. or before 6 a.m..
I lived in Berlin. Cars are faster, when you factor in the time to walk to the station. And Berlin is probably the best transit-enabled city, but its average commute still can't match the commute time in car-enabled American cities. Houston, TX has faster average commutes than ANY large European city.
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Public transit in Europe is fantastic. Much more convenient than a car, frequent, clean and reliable. Just because the USA can't get its act together doesn't mean the rest of the world can't.
And if self-driving cars become ubiquitous, cities will be absolute hellscapes [youtube.com].
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Public transit in Europe is fantastic.
Nope. It's less stinky than in the US, but it's getting there steadily. That's the fate of all transit. And yes, I lived in Europe. Got my first car at the age of 30.
And if self-driving cars become ubiquitous, cities will be absolute hellscapes [youtube.com].
Yeah. Just imagine going from any point of a city to any point, at any time. Without having to wait for hours for transit. Horrible. Utterly horrible. And it makes all those bikebro lanes useless, because pretty much nobody _likes_ biking for commutes. Disaster.
"NotJustBikesButAlsoCompleteMorons" is a propaganda channel, nothing more.
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If you are waiting hours for transit, your city does not have decent public transportation. And so that is not the type of city that would restrict car usage.
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Correct. We will "fix traffic" and end traffic congestion & traffic jams only when there are viable alternatives to driving.
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That's the stick approach. The carrot approach is to run buses that don't get stuck in traffic [youtu.be] so people use them unless they absolutely must drive. This frees up a LOT of road space [imgur.com] and reduces traffic for everyone.
Re: Public transport in America (Score:1)
Europeans must have this idea of American metro areas as being identical in layout to European cities except there's no cars.
It ain't like that.
Outside the urban core in almost every major city, it's single family homes on 1/4 acre lots or bigger, organized into subdivisions of at most a few hundred properties, either tiled out as far as the eye can see or else separated by vast tracts of undeveloped land.
Point-to-point or otherwise densely networked transit just doesn't make sense there.
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Perhaps organizing cities like that was a huge mistake?
Re: Public transport in America (Score:1)
Nah. I like it. Lets me have a private yard and not have to listen to other people's noise at all hours.
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Nothing does [streetsblog.org], TBH.
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Indeed, a European style public transportation network doesn't ake sense the way american cities are built, outside older American cities (NYC, Chi, DC, ...) that have the population density to justify the infrastructure.
And the reason cities are built the way they are is mostly historical. European cities are built dense because they developed before cars. I live now in a North American city that developed mostly after cars were invented. So the city is developed assuming longer transport are easy. So it
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Public transport sucked in the USSR, it sucks now.
Then again, maybe it will improve and gain these features:
1. My car is close to my home.
2. My car does not have a schedule, it is there when I need it and on zero notice (though I could tolerate 5 minute notice). In fact I do not need any plans at all, I can start driving to place A, change my mind and go to place B.
3. I can drive to my destination or very close to it. Right now buses have routes and there may be no bus that goes from my home to my destinati
Re: Public transport in America (Score:1)
And the few who did also owned a backup handcrank to insert into a slot under the front license plate for when it wouldn't start on its own because of superior Soviet engineering prowess.
Ah...good old days...not like now when I get in, push a button and it just fucking works.
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And the few who did also owned a backup handcrank to insert into a slot under the front license plate for when it wouldn't start on its own because of superior Soviet engineering prowess.
I would like that in my car. If the battery is discharged (because I forgot to turn off the lights or because I did not drive anywhere for a while) or the starter fails (I had that happen) it would be a good backup.
Which matter? (Score:2)
"...inhalable particular matter has fallen..."
Which particular matter are we talking about? Possibly the particulate matter that is particular to some cities?
Fuck disabled people (Score:1, Flamebait)
Yep. Go ahead and fuck disabled people.
Can't ride a bike? Fuck you! Stay home!
Or just as bad, consign such people to dependence on "public services" to cart them around, making them dependent on everyone else's schedule and availability, while adding costs.
Yeah. Fuck all those people.
Re: Fuck disabled people (Score:2)
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To get there, handicapped people do the same as everyone else, they take the bus or metro. It's what happens next that is a problem. Streets and small shops weren't designed with handicapped people in mind. Many small shops have a step at the door preventing people circulating in wheelchair from entering by themselves (or even narrow doors or crowded spaces that prevent wheelchairs altogether).
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What about electric bicycles or motorcycles?
I wish them well (Score:2)
Just one thing: Please stay inside your containment zones once they are built. Don't even think about your carbon footprint as you travel out into the countryside to enjoy the great outdoors.
What about the weather (Score:2)
Pedestrians and cyclists will need covered walk/bike-ways.
(underground may work in some places. and skyways in others)
Cities suck for many people (Score:2)
Forcing everyone to city mode is no better than forcing everyone to suburb mode.
I for one like having a private yard and not having to hear busy street noise and/or night life when I'm trying to sleep or concentrate on something. So, it seems, do hundreds of millions of my fellow suburbanites.
You don't like it? Fine, *you* live in the city. Don't make me do the same.
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Forcing everyone to city mode
You don't have to live in the city. Just pack up your corporate HQ, break the lease on your city center high rise and move your operations out to a suburban business park.
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Leases are for a fixed time. Just leave at the end of it. Been there, done that.
IT did whine as first they had to connect and serve the building at the plant and the expansion office, then they had to pack up and relocate when the expansion office was closed down.
Re: Cities suck for many people (Score:1)
Vestiges of a pre-industrial times where everyone had to live within walking distance of the mine/factory/office. They'll diffuse out.
Encourage People Never Go More Than 20km From Home (Score:2)
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I think, this reverse NIMBY-ism is not for the benefit of everyone else. We-can't-start-since-it-won't-work-elsewhere is the shittiest excuse for your selfishness.
Translation: Whiny rich person equates not having cars with not having highways and heavy-transport logistics.
New York just implemented surge-pricing and everyone is admiring the empty streets that make driving around the city so easy.
Contrast that with gated communities and HOA suburbs that have a single connector road into the city: No co
Restricting cars is shit. Removing cars is good (Score:2)
REMOVING cars means the roads return to use by the people of a city and EVERYONE benefits from the new free, green space.
Political parties pretending to be green who only restrict cars are NOT GREEN. They are working only to help their rich chums drive faster and park more easily.
Fuck car restrictions. Ban cars.
Re: Restricting cars is shit. Removing cars is goo (Score:2)
Thank you. Someone had to say that.
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access to cheap public transportation
I mean you're right in that this is the crux of it, or rather, people need access to some form of transportation to be productive in society, the question is which is most desirable which has a lot of answers depending on the circumstances. I would say any major city should have a robust mass transit system for obvious reasons, the whole idea is more people in closer proximity and cars are just very inefficient in almost every way to move a person around, this is just factual. I would absolutely say in a c
No thanks (Score:2)
A couple decades ago I spent a few months in a large city and went everywhere on foot even wheeled carts to the local supermarket and didn't much mind it.
Recently I spent a few days mostly on foot in a different city and absolutely hated it. It would be one thing if being a pedestrian meant walking on your own damn two feet. With all the electric scooters I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder to avoid being hit/surprised by randos blowing past me. I'll never do that again.
Practice what you preach. (Score:2)
The people who postulate and legislate banning cars, the politicians, should try our insufferable, dirty, always-late and unreliable public transport themselves first. Meanwhile, they are being driven around everywhere in their comfortable, massive SUVs. Practice what you preach and you'll change your view on things pretty fucking quickly.