Cars are by now a hard to reverse environmental and urban planning disaster across the world. We are stuck with them. As a mode of transport it has grown uncontrollably at the expense of all others (except the airplane) and practically everything has been shaped to accomodate it.
Reversing that development, limiting car traffic to where its really needed is like trying to perform a complete heart and arteries transplant on a living person. Even if there was a will (which there is not) it is not clear if there is a way.
In the best scenario it will be an excruciatingly long transformation (~50 yr) as car oriented cities (or city sections) get slowly deprecated and the car-free or car-lite segments become more desirable, more livable.
This is what the car lobby wants you to think. The transformation to a better and more livable city free from overwhelming car traffic is closer and faster than you imagine. The primary challenge is the power of the car-industrial complex both inside and outside government and the continued work to destroy and hobble other forms of transit.
The city I live in is modest in size, 250k-300k depending on who you ask. It will never be a walkable city. Throughout much of the year, that's asking to die of heatstroke or something. It will never have a subway. Hell, there's only one or two buildings that are more than 5 stories tall. It is hundreds of miles away from any city of comparable size. My in-laws live in a township of about 6000 an hour away.
Are we supposed to give up cars? I have a 6 minute ride to work in the morning if I hit the stop lights wrong. Why would I ride the piss-stinking bus, when it'd add 20 minutes of irritation to my day?
It's not a car-industrial complex that is an obstacle to your imagined utopia. It's that there are people like myself who don't want to make our lives more difficult so that yours gets better. I'd be shocked if there's a non-coastal city or town anywhere in North America that supports your vision.
One could say the same about Singapore yet they find ways to make it work.
> It will never have a subway.
250k-300k is about the right size for a small tram network - compare e.g. Ghent.
> Hell, there's only one or two buildings that are more than 5 stories tall.
That's fine if there's no need for them.
> It is hundreds of miles away from any city of comparable size.
Sounds like banning cars from the centres of bigger cities won't really inconvenience you then.
> Are we supposed to give up cars? I have a 6 minute ride to work in the morning if I hit the stop lights wrong.
If traffic isn't a problem then there's no reason to give up cars. But generally as cities grow they reach a point where space is at a premium and cars take up too much of it. Again if we look at Ghent as a good example for a city that size, they have a car-free zone but it's only a few blocks around the very centre (there's a larger zone around it where cars are permitted but subject to emission requirements). It works well, makes for a really nice city centre that you can actually live in.
> Why would I ride the piss-stinking bus
What if I told you it was possible to have busses that don't stink of piss?
> It's not a car-industrial complex that is an obstacle to your imagined utopia. It's that there are people like myself who don't want to make our lives more difficult so that yours gets better.
Why do you think any change must be about making your life more difficult? Your whole post seems to be about looking for every possible problem and not making the slightest effort to look for solutions to them.
My city can't time-travel back 100 years and get a do-over. This point of yours is purely asinine.
>> Hell, there's only one or two buildings that are more than 5 stories tall.
>That's fine if there's no need for them.
So you're just incapable of comprehending simple things, or is it a refusal to understand them when doing so would be inconvenient for your argument?
This is a rough description of density. For any half-assed New Yorker scheme to be even marginally viable, I would have had to have described a far different density. Something like Some Sim City 2000 arcology.
> Sounds like banning cars from the centres of bigger cities won't really inconvenience you then.
So go for it. Literally none of the rest of us care. Build a gigantic wall around those big cities too. 500ft tall, topped with razor wire. Tell all the inhabitants that it's to keep us rednecks out.
We'll thank you for it.
> If traffic isn't a problem then there's no reason to give up cars.
Every third comment here is about how they want to get rid of cars far beyond whatever traffic problems it might cause you. I doubt the intention of your movement, such as it is, to only ban them in city centers. Just a year ago, we saw this movement pop up out of nowhere, and I have my doubts that it arose organically.
> What if I told you it was possible to have busses that don't stink of piss?
How do you propose that? Any anti-piss-stink policy would subvert your other social policies.
> Why do you think any change must be about making your life more difficult?
Because this is all so transparent.
> Your whole post seems to be about looking for every possible problem a
I wish I lived in a reality where purposely ignoring every possible problem was not only expected but celebrated.
> and not making the slightest effort to look for solutions to them.
I have zero interest in trying to solve the intractable problems your wishful thinking has dreamed up. I have even less interest than that in doing so for free. Offer me salary of $250,000/year with well-defined bonuses, and I can grind through at least a few of them.
It id curious you seem entirely convinced that a car free "them" is necessarily taking from you. When your home town grows to be double the size and experiences gridlock, following the example of other cities, there are other ways to do it (and perhaps those ways aren't negative for you at all)
"We're not coming for your X!" is the lead-in. They need to be entrenched first, before they let anyone know the real play (if indeed they ever do). Plenty of useful idiots who truly believe in the PR spin too... so when they repeat it to you, in their own heads they're not lying. Just telling you a beautiful truth. And if you ever do catch one of the cynical ones who will tell you like it is...
They can be denounced. Or even dismissed as an obvious false flag. "We're the good guys, we'd never say that!"
I did speak for myself. I explained why this doesn't work for me, why I have no interest in it, and how there are millions of other people who will agree with me unless you find a way to deceive them.
Your condescending comment though doesn't make me feel bad for what I've said, it's expected. I'm actually a little amazed about how a group of semi-unorganized humans can do these things without coordination and succeed so often. You're all like some slime mold... no gigantic brain yanking on the marionette strings. And yet the puppet still dances.
> It id curious you seem entirely convinced that a car free "them" is necessarily taking from you.
It's pretty transparent. This won't be pursued in NYC council, this won't be pursued in the NY state legislature. It's a car free "everyone" masquerading as a car free "just them".
And with the onslaught underway, the only possibly opposition strategy with a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding is to throw up every roadblock, aggravate every irritation, stall every effort. Chances are we're not going to be friends, I think.
Concrete jungles where there is a giant parking lot and you drive to get from one end to the other is what is at discussion. Perhaps those could be built differently. Towns that are built along a highway and become a giant strip mall, and the good parts are the "old town" where you don't have to walk a mile to simply cross the street. I mean, car culture has won, and it's not at all - all good. The fact you see "conspiracy" and that this is a "grift" I feel says more about your entrenched views than much else.
I did not mean to be condescending. Though, your comments DO violate this communities code of conduct for discussions.