Serious Look at this FAT PMD CUNT.
- Thread starter Valium
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She should ride a fat scooter
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sf market street will be car-free soon. only trams, buses, bicycles, pmds, and occasional service trucks are allowed.
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An excellent move. More and more cities around the world are banning cars in downtown areas. Singapore is making the mistake of trying to buck the trend but sooner or later the sinkie transport minister is going to realise that he made the wrong call.
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not the entire street but the busiest section. at least, it's a great start to the new year. very soon, other sillycon valley cities will follow.
https://www.sfgate.com/commute/arti...reet-officially-has-a-start-date-14947731.php
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The tide is turning as more and more cities realise that cars are nothing but a liability and that roads separate communities rather than bring them together.
I'm all for cars when it comes to inter city commutes but in downtown areas they actually hinder the commute and make travel slower than ever.
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Many modern urban areas have been built around cars, with huge amounts of space set aside for roads and parking. But what happens when you take them out of the equation?
By Len Williams
16th October 2019
P
Picture children playing games of football on major urban thoroughfares. Tourists stood in the middle of the street nonchalantly taking photos. Restaurants spilling out onto small squares – and not a car, moped or bus in sight.
Such are my memories of Venice, the only car-free city I have ever been to, when a friend and I visited during a student hitch-hiking summer holiday. The Italian city is, of course, unique in that it is built on a series of small islands – yet it is a refreshing experience being able to wander around without dodging in and out of traffic.
For the last 100 years, the car has come to dominate the urban landscape. Streets have been widened in many cities to accommodate automobiles, and huge amounts of space are given over to parking them. Private vehicles have revolutionised mobility, but they have also introduced many ills, from air pollution to traffic accidents. And today a small but growing number of cities are trying to design the car out of the urban landscape altogether.
Both Oslo in Norway and the Spanish capital Madrid have made headlines in recent years for their plans to ban cars from their centres – although neither have entirely got rid of them yet.
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“Our main objective is to give the streets back to people,'' says Hanna Marcussen, Oslo’s vice mayor for urban development. “It is about how we want to use our streets and what the streets should be for. For us, the street should be where you meet people, eat at outdoor restaurants, where kids play, and where art is exhibited.” To do this, Oslo has closed off certain streets in the centre to cars entirely. They have also removed almost all parking spots and replaced them with cycling lanes, benches and miniature parks.
The Norwegian capital Oslo is making a concerted effort to remove cars from central streets (Credit: Getty Images)
There is also an environmental aspect. Oslo is built in a geological bowl, which during winter in particular, causes the city to suffer from serious air pollution problems. Data from the local government shows a marked decline in air pollution over the past decade. There has also been a drop in trips made by car – from 35% of journeys in 2009 to 27% in 2018 – with a parallel rise in people either walking or using bicycles or public transport.
JH Crawford is perhaps the world's leading voice on car free cities and an author of two books on the topic. “Besides the well-documented problems of air pollution and the millions of deaths caused by traffic every year, the largest effect cars have on society is the tremendous damage they do to social spaces,” he says.
Crawford's argument is that cars significantly reduce social interaction. “The places that are most popular in cities are always the spaces with no cars,” he says. They may be parks, squares or pedestrianised areas. He says that in US cities like Houston and Dallas, as much as 70% of urban land is given over to parking. “Today's housing crisis stems from a lack of land. Get rid of cars and the problem is solved immediately.”
Car-free controversy
A city without cars sounds like a nice idea but is it possible – or even desirable? What about emergency services? Or people who have mobility problems? And what about sprawling suburbs; is the notion of going car free only relevant to young professionals who wish to live in compact city centres?
“The quickest way to make a city centre die is to stop people getting in there,” says Hugh Bladen of the Association for British Drivers. Britain’s declining high streets won’t be helped by restrictions on driving, he argues, "otherwise town centres just get full of druggies and drunks". He acknowledges that “some towns and cities get clogged up but that's just because of poor planning; they should have better parking options”.
If you prevent people coming to a city centre, it dies, but with the right alternative forms of transport, a car ban can lead areas to thrive (Credit: Getty Images)
Ransford Acheampong, an urban planning researcher at the University of Manchester, says that removing cars would be helpful to reduce pollution and could improve public health “but if you take cars away from people, you need to be able to provide an alternative”. Even in Europe, which has relatively good public transport, many people’s commutes and lifestyles just wouldn't be possible without a private car.
This is the concept of the last mile, which is the connection between public transport and the final part of a person’s journey. Until public transport can make this gap smaller, people will still want to drive cars.
While Oslo’s Marcussen appreciates the argument that taking away someone's car is to interfere in their freedom, she argues that “in many ways not restricting cars is limiting freedom of other people. Cars make it more difficult for children to play in the street or elderly people to cross the road. Oslo also has an air pollution problem – you could argue that cars are restricting the freedom of people with asthma who sometimes have to stay indoors when it gets too bad.”
What would it take to make a city carless?
In the Great City Chengdu Master Plan, everything is walkable. There are no cul-de-sacs and there is a high number of intersections which make it very easy to get around by foot or bicycle. There is also vertical connectivity, with bridges between high rises. The Great City suburb, which was designed to house 100,000 people, is only one square kilometre across and it would never take more than 10 minutes to walk from one point to another.
Unfortunately it never got built, explains Chris Drew of SmithGill, the US architecture firm that was commissioned to design the suburb close to on the outskirts of Chengdu in 2012. Nonetheless, the blueprint shows how an urban area could be designed to function without cars.
“We wanted it to be a live, work, play environment, where children could get to school without the need for a car, where people didn't have to travel great distances to work,” says Drew. With two rail connections to the rest of the city, no resident would need to drive anywhere.
Abu Dhabi's Masdar City was originally supposed to be off-limits to cars (Credit: Getty Images)
There are a couple of other examples of new cities which have more or less designed cars out. In a previous role, Drew worked on the UAE’s Masdar City, which was originally designed to be entirely car free, although vehicles can now be found roaming its streets. SmithGill also helped design the Legacy Masterplan for Dubai's 2020 World Fair. The area is intended to be entirely walkable and largely free of cars on completion.
Given a blank slate, Crawford describes a city of interconnected nodes, each of which would have a central tram stop or light rail surrounded by dense housing, shops and offices – residents would never live more than five minutes’ walk from public transport. In his theoretical design, the most time it would take to cross the city would be just over half an hour.
But what about retrofitting existing cities, where most people live today? Hanna Marcussen explains the approach that Oslo took: “We began with pilots to let people see what it would be like and we began making changes little by little. For example one of the nicest squares in Oslo is outside the town hall but until recently it was full of cars. When we closed it off about a year ago, people thought it was strange – but now they think it was weird that we ever allowed cars to drive through there at all.”
A car-free future?
“If you take the optimistic view, then this is a trend that is likely to continue,” says Acheampong. “If you look at the statistics, we seem to have gone beyond ‘peak car’ ownership, and driving now seems to be in the decline. There is also a big generational difference between millennials and baby boomers,” he says, with youngsters turning away from private ownership. All of which suggests cars’ current dominance may gradually phase out of its own accord.
Not all cities can be as car-free as Venice - but their planners can bring pedestrians and cyclists to the forefront (Credit: Getty Images)
That said, he also points out there is growing demand for new convenient mobility options; services such as Uber and Lyft are drawing people away from public transport, as may autonomous vehicles. “In the end, they're still cars,” he adds. He also notes that in much of the developing world car ownership is on the rise and governments are mainly prioritising car ownership over other forms of transport.
A lot of journeys also happen in metro areas that are nowhere near the centre of the city – think of London's M25, or Beijing, which has seven concentric ring roads. It is also relatively easy for old European cities, which existed for centuries without cars to get rid of them, but not so much elsewhere.
How far the trend for car free cities goes is yet to be seen. But when I left the car-free islands of Venice on my student hitch hiking holiday, the only way to journey onwards was to stand by the highway – and wait for a car.
--
By Len Williams
16th October 2019
P
Picture children playing games of football on major urban thoroughfares. Tourists stood in the middle of the street nonchalantly taking photos. Restaurants spilling out onto small squares – and not a car, moped or bus in sight.
Such are my memories of Venice, the only car-free city I have ever been to, when a friend and I visited during a student hitch-hiking summer holiday. The Italian city is, of course, unique in that it is built on a series of small islands – yet it is a refreshing experience being able to wander around without dodging in and out of traffic.
For the last 100 years, the car has come to dominate the urban landscape. Streets have been widened in many cities to accommodate automobiles, and huge amounts of space are given over to parking them. Private vehicles have revolutionised mobility, but they have also introduced many ills, from air pollution to traffic accidents. And today a small but growing number of cities are trying to design the car out of the urban landscape altogether.
Both Oslo in Norway and the Spanish capital Madrid have made headlines in recent years for their plans to ban cars from their centres – although neither have entirely got rid of them yet.
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“Our main objective is to give the streets back to people,'' says Hanna Marcussen, Oslo’s vice mayor for urban development. “It is about how we want to use our streets and what the streets should be for. For us, the street should be where you meet people, eat at outdoor restaurants, where kids play, and where art is exhibited.” To do this, Oslo has closed off certain streets in the centre to cars entirely. They have also removed almost all parking spots and replaced them with cycling lanes, benches and miniature parks.
The Norwegian capital Oslo is making a concerted effort to remove cars from central streets (Credit: Getty Images)
There is also an environmental aspect. Oslo is built in a geological bowl, which during winter in particular, causes the city to suffer from serious air pollution problems. Data from the local government shows a marked decline in air pollution over the past decade. There has also been a drop in trips made by car – from 35% of journeys in 2009 to 27% in 2018 – with a parallel rise in people either walking or using bicycles or public transport.
JH Crawford is perhaps the world's leading voice on car free cities and an author of two books on the topic. “Besides the well-documented problems of air pollution and the millions of deaths caused by traffic every year, the largest effect cars have on society is the tremendous damage they do to social spaces,” he says.
Crawford's argument is that cars significantly reduce social interaction. “The places that are most popular in cities are always the spaces with no cars,” he says. They may be parks, squares or pedestrianised areas. He says that in US cities like Houston and Dallas, as much as 70% of urban land is given over to parking. “Today's housing crisis stems from a lack of land. Get rid of cars and the problem is solved immediately.”
Car-free controversy
A city without cars sounds like a nice idea but is it possible – or even desirable? What about emergency services? Or people who have mobility problems? And what about sprawling suburbs; is the notion of going car free only relevant to young professionals who wish to live in compact city centres?
“The quickest way to make a city centre die is to stop people getting in there,” says Hugh Bladen of the Association for British Drivers. Britain’s declining high streets won’t be helped by restrictions on driving, he argues, "otherwise town centres just get full of druggies and drunks". He acknowledges that “some towns and cities get clogged up but that's just because of poor planning; they should have better parking options”.
If you prevent people coming to a city centre, it dies, but with the right alternative forms of transport, a car ban can lead areas to thrive (Credit: Getty Images)
Ransford Acheampong, an urban planning researcher at the University of Manchester, says that removing cars would be helpful to reduce pollution and could improve public health “but if you take cars away from people, you need to be able to provide an alternative”. Even in Europe, which has relatively good public transport, many people’s commutes and lifestyles just wouldn't be possible without a private car.
This is the concept of the last mile, which is the connection between public transport and the final part of a person’s journey. Until public transport can make this gap smaller, people will still want to drive cars.
While Oslo’s Marcussen appreciates the argument that taking away someone's car is to interfere in their freedom, she argues that “in many ways not restricting cars is limiting freedom of other people. Cars make it more difficult for children to play in the street or elderly people to cross the road. Oslo also has an air pollution problem – you could argue that cars are restricting the freedom of people with asthma who sometimes have to stay indoors when it gets too bad.”
What would it take to make a city carless?
In the Great City Chengdu Master Plan, everything is walkable. There are no cul-de-sacs and there is a high number of intersections which make it very easy to get around by foot or bicycle. There is also vertical connectivity, with bridges between high rises. The Great City suburb, which was designed to house 100,000 people, is only one square kilometre across and it would never take more than 10 minutes to walk from one point to another.
Unfortunately it never got built, explains Chris Drew of SmithGill, the US architecture firm that was commissioned to design the suburb close to on the outskirts of Chengdu in 2012. Nonetheless, the blueprint shows how an urban area could be designed to function without cars.
“We wanted it to be a live, work, play environment, where children could get to school without the need for a car, where people didn't have to travel great distances to work,” says Drew. With two rail connections to the rest of the city, no resident would need to drive anywhere.
Abu Dhabi's Masdar City was originally supposed to be off-limits to cars (Credit: Getty Images)
There are a couple of other examples of new cities which have more or less designed cars out. In a previous role, Drew worked on the UAE’s Masdar City, which was originally designed to be entirely car free, although vehicles can now be found roaming its streets. SmithGill also helped design the Legacy Masterplan for Dubai's 2020 World Fair. The area is intended to be entirely walkable and largely free of cars on completion.
Given a blank slate, Crawford describes a city of interconnected nodes, each of which would have a central tram stop or light rail surrounded by dense housing, shops and offices – residents would never live more than five minutes’ walk from public transport. In his theoretical design, the most time it would take to cross the city would be just over half an hour.
But what about retrofitting existing cities, where most people live today? Hanna Marcussen explains the approach that Oslo took: “We began with pilots to let people see what it would be like and we began making changes little by little. For example one of the nicest squares in Oslo is outside the town hall but until recently it was full of cars. When we closed it off about a year ago, people thought it was strange – but now they think it was weird that we ever allowed cars to drive through there at all.”
A car-free future?
“If you take the optimistic view, then this is a trend that is likely to continue,” says Acheampong. “If you look at the statistics, we seem to have gone beyond ‘peak car’ ownership, and driving now seems to be in the decline. There is also a big generational difference between millennials and baby boomers,” he says, with youngsters turning away from private ownership. All of which suggests cars’ current dominance may gradually phase out of its own accord.
Not all cities can be as car-free as Venice - but their planners can bring pedestrians and cyclists to the forefront (Credit: Getty Images)
That said, he also points out there is growing demand for new convenient mobility options; services such as Uber and Lyft are drawing people away from public transport, as may autonomous vehicles. “In the end, they're still cars,” he adds. He also notes that in much of the developing world car ownership is on the rise and governments are mainly prioritising car ownership over other forms of transport.
A lot of journeys also happen in metro areas that are nowhere near the centre of the city – think of London's M25, or Beijing, which has seven concentric ring roads. It is also relatively easy for old European cities, which existed for centuries without cars to get rid of them, but not so much elsewhere.
How far the trend for car free cities goes is yet to be seen. But when I left the car-free islands of Venice on my student hitch hiking holiday, the only way to journey onwards was to stand by the highway – and wait for a car.
--
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latest road safety report indicates over 69% of road fatalities are a result of automobiles, mainly cars and suvs, colliding with pedestrians, cyclists, other vehicles.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2008
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- 65,742
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TECH INSIDER
13 cities that are starting to ban cars
LEANNA GARFIELD
NOV 29, 2017, 10:29 AM
PixabaySchlossplatzfest Pavilion in Stuttgart, Germany.
Starting in November, Madrid will bar non-resident vehicles from driving anywhere in the city center. The only cars that will be allowed downtown will be those that belong to locals, zero-emissions delivery vehicles, taxis, and public transit like buses.
While this goal may seem ambitious, Madrid seems to have been inching away from car dependency over the past decade. In 2005, the city set up its first pedestrian-only zone in the dense neighbourhood of Las Letras.
Madrid is not the only city getting ready to take the car-free plunge. Urban planners and policy makers around the world have started to brainstorm ways that cities can create more space for pedestrians and lower CO2 emissions from diesel.
RELATED VIDEO
Volume 0%
FASTEST STREET-LEGAL CARS OF THE DECADE
Here are 13 cities leading the car-free movement.
Oslo, Norway will implement its car ban by 2019.
George Rex / FlickrOslo.
Oslo plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019 – six years before Norway’s country-wide ban would go into effect.
The Norwegian capital will invest heavily in public transportation and replace 35 miles of roads previously dominated by cars with bike lanes.
“The fact that Oslo is moving forward so rapidly is encouraging, and I think it will be inspiring if they are successful,” said Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an organisation that supports bikers in New York City and advocates for car-free cities.
Madrid’s planned ban is even more extensive.
Calvin SmithMadrid’s subway.
Madrid plans to ban cars from 500 acres of its city center by 2020, with urban planners redesigning 24 of the city’s busiest streets for walking rather than driving.
The initiative is part of the Spanish capital’s “sustainable mobility plan,” which aims to reduce daily car usage from 29% to 23%. Drivers who ignore the new regulations will pay a fine of at least $US100. And the most polluting cars will pay more to park.
“In neighbourhoods, you can do a lot with small interventions,” Mateus Porto and Verónica Martínez, who are both architects and urban planners from the local pedestrian advocacy group A PIE, told Fast Company. “We believe that regardless of what the General Plan says about the future of the city, many things can be done today, if there is political will.”
In late May, the city also confirmed that it will prohibit non-resident vehicles from its downtown starting in November. CityLab reports that the new initiative could encourage people to driving less in the wider metro area as well.
People in Chengdu, China will be able to walk anywhere in 15 minutes or less.
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
Chicago-based architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill designed a new residential area for the Chinese city. The layout makes it easier to walk than drive, with streets designed so that people can walk anywhere in 15 minutes.
While Chengdu won’t completely ban cars, only half the roads in the 80,000-person city will allow vehicles. The firm originally planned to make this happen by 2020, but zoning issues are delaying the deadline.
Hamburg is making it easier not to drive.
Carsten Frenzl/FlickrHamburg.
The German city plans to make walking and biking its dominant mode of transport. Within the next two decades, Hamburg will reduce the number of cars by only allowing pedestrians and bikers to enter certain areas.
The project calls for a gruenes netz, or a “green network,” of connected spaces that people can access without cars. By 2035, the network will cover 40% of Hamburg and will include parks, playgrounds, sports fields, and cemeteries.
In February, Germany’s highest administrative court also ruled that, in an effort to improve urban air quality, cities can ban cars from some streets. As The New York Times notes, the ruling could open the floodgates for cities around the country to go car-free.
Stuttgart and Düsseldorf – German cities with high pollution levels – will likely enact the first bans in the fall. Stuttgart, home to Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, has recently favoured such bans. In 2017, Stuttgart announced that starting this year, it will keep diesel vehicles that don’t meet emissions standards from entering the city on high-pollution days.
Bikes continue to rule the road in Copenhagen.
Flickr/Martin FischCopenhagen.
Today, over half of Copenhagen’s population bikes to work every day, thanks to the city’s effort to introduce pedestrian-only zones starting in the 1960s. The Danish capital now boasts more than 200 miles of bike lanes and has one of the lowest percentages of car ownership in Europe.
The latest goal is to build a superhighway for bikes that will stretch to surrounding suburbs. The first of 28 planned routes opened in 2014, and 11 more will be completed by the end of 2018. The city has also pledged to become completely carbon-neutral by 2025.
Paris will ban diesel cars and double the number of bike lanes.
Moyan BrennParis.
When Paris banned cars with even-numbered plates for a day in 2014, pollution dropped by 30%. Now, the city wants to discourage cars from driving in the city center at all.
As of July 2016, all drivers with cars made before 1997 are not permitted to drive in the city center on weekdays. If they do, they will be fined, though they can drive there freely on the weekends.
The mayor says Paris also plans to double its bike lanes and limit select streets to electric cars by 2020. The city also continues to make smaller, short-term efforts to curb emissions – its first car-free day was in 2015, and it instated a car-free Sundays rule in 2016.
London asks drivers to pay a congestion charge.
Kosala Bandara/FlickrLondon.
Just like Paris, the mayor of London says the city will ban diesel cars by 2020.
Currently, the city discourages the use of diesel engines in some areas of the city by charging a fee of $US12.50 per day for diesel cars that enter during peak hours. They call it a “congestion charge.”
“London is already talking about an ultra low emission zone, banning all sorts of diesel vehicles,” Stephen Joseph from the Campaign for Better Transport told The Telegraph. “This is not unlikely that they will be banned altogether in the same way Paris has done.”
In July 2017, Britain as a whole announced that it would ban sales of new diesel and gas cars by 2040. The goal is to combat Britain’s growing air pollution crisis, according to The Guardian.
Brussels, Belgium features the largest car-free area in Europe.
Stephane Mignon/FlickrTerrasse au Vaudeville in Brussels, Belgium.
Most streets that surround Brussels’ city square, stock exchange, and Rue Neuve (a major shopping street) have always been pedestrian-only. The roads make up the second largest car-free zone in Europe, behind Copenhagen.
In 2002, Brussels launched its first “Mobility Week,” which was meant to encourage public transportation over private transport. And for one day every September, all cars are banned from the entire city center.
The city is looking for more ways to expand its car-free zones – one proposal would turn a popular four-lane boulevard into a pedestrian-only area. In January, Brussels started banning diesel cars made prior to 1998. And this summer, the city will make public transport free on high-air-pollution days, according to The Guardian.
Berlin is building bike super-highways.
Shutterstock/katjen
In 2008, the German capital created a low-emission zone banning all gas and diesel vehicles that fail to meet national emission standards. The area covers about 34 square miles in the city center and affect approximately one-third of Berlin’s residents, according to Curbed.
Berlin also announced a plan in March 2017 to build a dozen bike super-highways, which will each stretch at least 13 feet wide and be blocked off from cars. The city began construction in late 2017.
Mexico City hopes to ban about two million cars from the city center.
Tristan Higbee/Flickr
In April 2016, Mexico City’s local government decided to prohibit a portion of cars from driving into the city center two days every work week and two Saturdays per month. It determines which cars can drive on a given day using a rotating system based on licence plate numbers.
According to the Associated Press, the policy applies to an estimated two million cars and helps to mitigate the city’s high smog levels.
Bogotá has been working to kick cars off the streets since 1974.
ShuttershockThe skyline of Bogotá, Colombia, on November 12, 2016.
In Bogotá, Colombia, over 75 miles of roads close to vehicles one day every week in an event that began in 1974, called Ciclovía. The city now has over 200 miles of bike-only lanes, too.
In 2013, the local government also implemented the Pico y Placa (Peak and Plate) program, which certain bans from driving during the peak traffic hour. The restriction applies to certain licence plates on certain days of the week, depending if they are even or odd.
San Francisco wants to ban cars on one of its busiest streets.
In August 2017, San Francisco announced its plan to ban cars and add bike lanes on 2.2 miles of Market Street, one of the city’s busiest boulevards, SF Gate reported. Throughout the city, there 125 miles of bike lanes total.
Eight years in the making, the $US604 million plan aims to make Market Street more pedestrian-friendly. The project will take several years, but construction of the first phase started in early 2018.
New York City is decreasing car traffic in small doses.
Flickr User TheasijtsmaThe pedestrian and bike lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC.
While New York City isn’t planning a car ban anytime soon, it is increasing the number of pedestrian areas, along with bike share, subway, and bus options.
Strips of land in popular areas like Times Square, Herald Square, and Madison Square Park are permanently pedestrian-only. On three Saturdays every August, hundreds of thousands of people take advantage of Summer Streets, an annual event that prohibits cars from driving on a major thoroughfare connecting Central Park to the Brooklyn Bridge, and opens roads for pedestrians.
Transportation Alternatives, based in NYC, also hopes to work with the city to create more pedestrian plazas. White said urban planners are no longer trying to optimise NYC and other places for drivers, and are instead thinking about cities differently.
“This is what everyday life could look like as if people mattered,” White said. “The worst thing as an urban dweller is to be stuck with the auto as your only option.”
13 cities that are starting to ban cars
LEANNA GARFIELD
NOV 29, 2017, 10:29 AM
PixabaySchlossplatzfest Pavilion in Stuttgart, Germany.Starting in November, Madrid will bar non-resident vehicles from driving anywhere in the city center. The only cars that will be allowed downtown will be those that belong to locals, zero-emissions delivery vehicles, taxis, and public transit like buses.
While this goal may seem ambitious, Madrid seems to have been inching away from car dependency over the past decade. In 2005, the city set up its first pedestrian-only zone in the dense neighbourhood of Las Letras.
Madrid is not the only city getting ready to take the car-free plunge. Urban planners and policy makers around the world have started to brainstorm ways that cities can create more space for pedestrians and lower CO2 emissions from diesel.
RELATED VIDEO
Volume 0%
FASTEST STREET-LEGAL CARS OF THE DECADE
Here are 13 cities leading the car-free movement.
Oslo, Norway will implement its car ban by 2019.
George Rex / FlickrOslo.Oslo plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019 – six years before Norway’s country-wide ban would go into effect.
The Norwegian capital will invest heavily in public transportation and replace 35 miles of roads previously dominated by cars with bike lanes.
“The fact that Oslo is moving forward so rapidly is encouraging, and I think it will be inspiring if they are successful,” said Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an organisation that supports bikers in New York City and advocates for car-free cities.
Madrid’s planned ban is even more extensive.
Calvin SmithMadrid’s subway.Madrid plans to ban cars from 500 acres of its city center by 2020, with urban planners redesigning 24 of the city’s busiest streets for walking rather than driving.
The initiative is part of the Spanish capital’s “sustainable mobility plan,” which aims to reduce daily car usage from 29% to 23%. Drivers who ignore the new regulations will pay a fine of at least $US100. And the most polluting cars will pay more to park.
“In neighbourhoods, you can do a lot with small interventions,” Mateus Porto and Verónica Martínez, who are both architects and urban planners from the local pedestrian advocacy group A PIE, told Fast Company. “We believe that regardless of what the General Plan says about the future of the city, many things can be done today, if there is political will.”
In late May, the city also confirmed that it will prohibit non-resident vehicles from its downtown starting in November. CityLab reports that the new initiative could encourage people to driving less in the wider metro area as well.
People in Chengdu, China will be able to walk anywhere in 15 minutes or less.
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill ArchitectureChicago-based architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill designed a new residential area for the Chinese city. The layout makes it easier to walk than drive, with streets designed so that people can walk anywhere in 15 minutes.
While Chengdu won’t completely ban cars, only half the roads in the 80,000-person city will allow vehicles. The firm originally planned to make this happen by 2020, but zoning issues are delaying the deadline.
Hamburg is making it easier not to drive.
Carsten Frenzl/FlickrHamburg.The German city plans to make walking and biking its dominant mode of transport. Within the next two decades, Hamburg will reduce the number of cars by only allowing pedestrians and bikers to enter certain areas.
The project calls for a gruenes netz, or a “green network,” of connected spaces that people can access without cars. By 2035, the network will cover 40% of Hamburg and will include parks, playgrounds, sports fields, and cemeteries.
In February, Germany’s highest administrative court also ruled that, in an effort to improve urban air quality, cities can ban cars from some streets. As The New York Times notes, the ruling could open the floodgates for cities around the country to go car-free.
Stuttgart and Düsseldorf – German cities with high pollution levels – will likely enact the first bans in the fall. Stuttgart, home to Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, has recently favoured such bans. In 2017, Stuttgart announced that starting this year, it will keep diesel vehicles that don’t meet emissions standards from entering the city on high-pollution days.
Bikes continue to rule the road in Copenhagen.
Flickr/Martin FischCopenhagen.Today, over half of Copenhagen’s population bikes to work every day, thanks to the city’s effort to introduce pedestrian-only zones starting in the 1960s. The Danish capital now boasts more than 200 miles of bike lanes and has one of the lowest percentages of car ownership in Europe.
The latest goal is to build a superhighway for bikes that will stretch to surrounding suburbs. The first of 28 planned routes opened in 2014, and 11 more will be completed by the end of 2018. The city has also pledged to become completely carbon-neutral by 2025.
Paris will ban diesel cars and double the number of bike lanes.
Moyan BrennParis.When Paris banned cars with even-numbered plates for a day in 2014, pollution dropped by 30%. Now, the city wants to discourage cars from driving in the city center at all.
As of July 2016, all drivers with cars made before 1997 are not permitted to drive in the city center on weekdays. If they do, they will be fined, though they can drive there freely on the weekends.
The mayor says Paris also plans to double its bike lanes and limit select streets to electric cars by 2020. The city also continues to make smaller, short-term efforts to curb emissions – its first car-free day was in 2015, and it instated a car-free Sundays rule in 2016.
London asks drivers to pay a congestion charge.
Kosala Bandara/FlickrLondon.Just like Paris, the mayor of London says the city will ban diesel cars by 2020.
Currently, the city discourages the use of diesel engines in some areas of the city by charging a fee of $US12.50 per day for diesel cars that enter during peak hours. They call it a “congestion charge.”
“London is already talking about an ultra low emission zone, banning all sorts of diesel vehicles,” Stephen Joseph from the Campaign for Better Transport told The Telegraph. “This is not unlikely that they will be banned altogether in the same way Paris has done.”
In July 2017, Britain as a whole announced that it would ban sales of new diesel and gas cars by 2040. The goal is to combat Britain’s growing air pollution crisis, according to The Guardian.
Brussels, Belgium features the largest car-free area in Europe.
Stephane Mignon/FlickrTerrasse au Vaudeville in Brussels, Belgium.Most streets that surround Brussels’ city square, stock exchange, and Rue Neuve (a major shopping street) have always been pedestrian-only. The roads make up the second largest car-free zone in Europe, behind Copenhagen.
In 2002, Brussels launched its first “Mobility Week,” which was meant to encourage public transportation over private transport. And for one day every September, all cars are banned from the entire city center.
The city is looking for more ways to expand its car-free zones – one proposal would turn a popular four-lane boulevard into a pedestrian-only area. In January, Brussels started banning diesel cars made prior to 1998. And this summer, the city will make public transport free on high-air-pollution days, according to The Guardian.
Berlin is building bike super-highways.
Shutterstock/katjenIn 2008, the German capital created a low-emission zone banning all gas and diesel vehicles that fail to meet national emission standards. The area covers about 34 square miles in the city center and affect approximately one-third of Berlin’s residents, according to Curbed.
Berlin also announced a plan in March 2017 to build a dozen bike super-highways, which will each stretch at least 13 feet wide and be blocked off from cars. The city began construction in late 2017.
Mexico City hopes to ban about two million cars from the city center.
Tristan Higbee/FlickrIn April 2016, Mexico City’s local government decided to prohibit a portion of cars from driving into the city center two days every work week and two Saturdays per month. It determines which cars can drive on a given day using a rotating system based on licence plate numbers.
According to the Associated Press, the policy applies to an estimated two million cars and helps to mitigate the city’s high smog levels.
Bogotá has been working to kick cars off the streets since 1974.
ShuttershockThe skyline of Bogotá, Colombia, on November 12, 2016.In Bogotá, Colombia, over 75 miles of roads close to vehicles one day every week in an event that began in 1974, called Ciclovía. The city now has over 200 miles of bike-only lanes, too.
In 2013, the local government also implemented the Pico y Placa (Peak and Plate) program, which certain bans from driving during the peak traffic hour. The restriction applies to certain licence plates on certain days of the week, depending if they are even or odd.
San Francisco wants to ban cars on one of its busiest streets.
In August 2017, San Francisco announced its plan to ban cars and add bike lanes on 2.2 miles of Market Street, one of the city’s busiest boulevards, SF Gate reported. Throughout the city, there 125 miles of bike lanes total.
Eight years in the making, the $US604 million plan aims to make Market Street more pedestrian-friendly. The project will take several years, but construction of the first phase started in early 2018.
New York City is decreasing car traffic in small doses.
Flickr User TheasijtsmaThe pedestrian and bike lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC.While New York City isn’t planning a car ban anytime soon, it is increasing the number of pedestrian areas, along with bike share, subway, and bus options.
Strips of land in popular areas like Times Square, Herald Square, and Madison Square Park are permanently pedestrian-only. On three Saturdays every August, hundreds of thousands of people take advantage of Summer Streets, an annual event that prohibits cars from driving on a major thoroughfare connecting Central Park to the Brooklyn Bridge, and opens roads for pedestrians.
Transportation Alternatives, based in NYC, also hopes to work with the city to create more pedestrian plazas. White said urban planners are no longer trying to optimise NYC and other places for drivers, and are instead thinking about cities differently.
“This is what everyday life could look like as if people mattered,” White said. “The worst thing as an urban dweller is to be stuck with the auto as your only option.”
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Oslo: The city that's banned cars
By Andrew Lund • State Political Reporter
6:00pm Jun 30, 2019
Not so long ago, crossing the road to reach Oslo’s imposing City Hall required navigating parked vehicles and passing cars.
But now the main obstacle is people.
They’re sitting on chairs or playing in pop-up parks, in areas that were once used as car parks.
Mayor Marianne Borgen couldn’t be happier.
“What we are doing is to reduce the number of private cars in the city centre area,” she said.
“We are giving, in a way, the city back to the people.”
No cars here. (9News)
For the past few years, Oslo has been actively trying to discourage the use of private vehicles, as it grapples with growing concerns about traffic and the environment.
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More than 700 car parks have been removed from city streets, while some roads have been closed to traffic altogether.
At the same time, work has started on construction of extra bike lanes, although cyclists like Lars Engbretsen told 9News more needs to be done.
“We’re still lacking bicycle lanes on lots of roads, but it’s coming along,” he said.
“Accessibility for bicycles has been much better, traffic has been more regulated, and it’s easy to get around.”
Without cars, cyclists, scooters and public transport run the streets. (9News)
Walking around the city during the morning peak hour, the lack of cars is obvious. But there’s another difference that takes a while to pinpoint; the lack of background engine noise.
It makes the morning stroll for coffee a somewhat soothing experience; but that’s not to say the roads aren’t busy.
They hum with bicycles, electric scooters, trams and pedestrians.
Speaking to 9News the mayor said some city traders were initially concerned the car ban would ruin their business.
“They were a little bit worried that if you take away the possibility to park, if you take away the possibility to drive your own car, the shops will have less customers, but that has not happened”, she said.
“There’s more people going around in the streets, and they are using their money both for restaurants and for shopping”.
Providing adequate public transport is key to the car-free city operating successfully. (9News)
She likens it to the introduction of anti-smoking laws.
“When they started to say that it was forbidden in Oslo to smoke inside restaurants and shops and offices, people thought that the city would die out,” she said.
“When they see what they got in return, you know, healthier restaurants and a better environment, they were very happy about it.
“I think that we have to show people what they can get in return; and that is healthier cities, more space for people to walk around in the city, more green spaces, and an even more efficient public transport system.”
Public transport has been a key factor in Oslo’s transformation, with city officials conscious of the need to provide people with alternatives to driving.
The city is investing heavily in upgrades of its tram and bus network and is converting all its buses and ferries to electric power.
Many residents comment that they’ve noticed an improvement in air quality, particularly during the colder winter months.
And while Oslo is encouraging other cities to follow its lead, the big test for the car ban could come later this year, with local elections set down for September.
By Andrew Lund • State Political Reporter
6:00pm Jun 30, 2019
Not so long ago, crossing the road to reach Oslo’s imposing City Hall required navigating parked vehicles and passing cars.
But now the main obstacle is people.
They’re sitting on chairs or playing in pop-up parks, in areas that were once used as car parks.
Mayor Marianne Borgen couldn’t be happier.
“What we are doing is to reduce the number of private cars in the city centre area,” she said.
“We are giving, in a way, the city back to the people.”
No cars here. (9News)
For the past few years, Oslo has been actively trying to discourage the use of private vehicles, as it grapples with growing concerns about traffic and the environment.
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More than 700 car parks have been removed from city streets, while some roads have been closed to traffic altogether.
At the same time, work has started on construction of extra bike lanes, although cyclists like Lars Engbretsen told 9News more needs to be done.
“We’re still lacking bicycle lanes on lots of roads, but it’s coming along,” he said.
“Accessibility for bicycles has been much better, traffic has been more regulated, and it’s easy to get around.”
Without cars, cyclists, scooters and public transport run the streets. (9News)
Walking around the city during the morning peak hour, the lack of cars is obvious. But there’s another difference that takes a while to pinpoint; the lack of background engine noise.
It makes the morning stroll for coffee a somewhat soothing experience; but that’s not to say the roads aren’t busy.
They hum with bicycles, electric scooters, trams and pedestrians.
Speaking to 9News the mayor said some city traders were initially concerned the car ban would ruin their business.
“They were a little bit worried that if you take away the possibility to park, if you take away the possibility to drive your own car, the shops will have less customers, but that has not happened”, she said.
“There’s more people going around in the streets, and they are using their money both for restaurants and for shopping”.
Providing adequate public transport is key to the car-free city operating successfully. (9News)
She likens it to the introduction of anti-smoking laws.
“When they started to say that it was forbidden in Oslo to smoke inside restaurants and shops and offices, people thought that the city would die out,” she said.
“When they see what they got in return, you know, healthier restaurants and a better environment, they were very happy about it.
“I think that we have to show people what they can get in return; and that is healthier cities, more space for people to walk around in the city, more green spaces, and an even more efficient public transport system.”
Public transport has been a key factor in Oslo’s transformation, with city officials conscious of the need to provide people with alternatives to driving.
The city is investing heavily in upgrades of its tram and bus network and is converting all its buses and ferries to electric power.
Many residents comment that they’ve noticed an improvement in air quality, particularly during the colder winter months.
And while Oslo is encouraging other cities to follow its lead, the big test for the car ban could come later this year, with local elections set down for September.
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We should all strive to be like oslo!
The days of of having to buy and own a car is ending in city centres.
School kids can easily operate a pmd to schools and wherever.
The days of of having to buy and own a car is ending in city centres.
School kids can easily operate a pmd to schools and wherever.
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landwhale belongs to the sea nonetheless.. what disgusting fat slob
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Poor pmd
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