340 European Cities Restrict Usage of Cars (msn.com)
- Reference: 0176725589
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/056253/340-european-cities-restrict-usage-of-cars
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-europe-is-going-car-free/ar-AA1AKWP2
> 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...
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> [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...
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> 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 [2]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."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-europe-is-going-car-free/ar-AA1AKWP2
[2] https://urban-mobility-observatory.transport.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/actions-taken-paris-deliver-cars-are-leaving-city-2022-10-17_en
Re: Beautiful! Go 4 it! (Score:2)
Works fine over here in Europe. But we don't have the crime rates you have - and often quite good public transport. Maybe it's not the banning of cars that's the root of the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
> 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.
Re: (Score:2)
> 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
Public transport in America (Score:4, Informative)
Cue the comments about there not being any good public transport in America (outside CHI, NYC, WDC, SFO, MIA etc.). Guess what? Public transit will not get any better - in fact it will get WORSE - if every bill to build multimodal facilities is combined with even more infrastructure for single passenger automobiles. This is literally what DOTs are doing nationwide to continue business as usual: hereâ(TM)s a shiny new bike sidepath, but by the way, let us widen the road, add massive shoulders, redo all the drainage, redo all the bridges, and add a parking garage. Driving must be made less of a cakewalk to effect any real change or mode shift.
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)
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)
Yet virtually everywhere these measures are adopted, there are explicit exceptions carved out for handicapped transport...
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 cargo? (Score:2)
Bikes and walking are great, for people
Cargo is a different question
Re: What about cargo? (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
P.s. I live in Europe. Everytime before a street gets converted to a low traffic area or pedestrian zone, there are concerns and protests - often by conservatives - in fear of businesses not getting enough customers anymore or not having enough space for cargo delivery. Two years later, businesses thrive and nobody can imagine going back to all the traffic and noise. Every fucking time
Re: (Score:1)
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...
Re: What about cargo? (Score:2)
Only the few-hundreds, I've been to, which, admittedly, are mostly in Europe. But yes, those are.
Re: (Score:2)
> 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.
Re: (Score:2)
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:2)
The address is this in his urban planning videos which are way more abusing than they have any right to be. The short answer is you still have cargo vehicles all over the place to move cargo but not people. Personal automobiles are a blight on our civilization that only exist to enrich car companies. Hell they're going to be self-driving soon and you're not even going to have the option to drive where you want. If you honestly think insurance companies are going to let you keep driving the car yourself once