Sometimes I think, we should ban private vehicles (excludes emergency vehicles, taxis, possibly Ubers, etc) inside cities. Of course, you'd need good public transport first, but often to get that, you'd need to force the issue such as by banning cars.
Having been to Asia where you could get anywhere with public transport, it's wild to see the dichotomy in many western countries.
Many Asian transit systems are also ultra clean, ultra safe, and ultra reliable compared to the U.S. The first two might not be achievable in the US due to socio-political reasons.
It’s ironic that many of the people most in favor of aggressively promoting transit (I.e. via aggressive measures like banning cars) are also the same that impede the safety and clean parts from happening. Instead they just handwave peoples’ concerns saying “oh that crazy psycho raving about murdering everyone in the subway car is really harmless. You should be worried about the thousands of people cars murder every day instead!”
Also, despite their amazing transit systems, many people in Asia still aspire to own a private car.
Many Asian transit systems are also ultra clean, ultra safe, and ultra reliable compared to the U.S. The first two might not be achievable in the US due to socio-political reasons.
Between 07:00 and 18:00 Monday-Friday, and 12:00-18:00 Saturday-Sunday, it costs £15 to drive into central London. Delivery vehicles and so on must also pay.
Restricting all vehicles except some/all during some part of the morning is often how pedestrian streets operate in Europe, but this is usually a much smaller area.
Note that this article is about NYC trying to add the exact same thing for Manhattan roughly south of Central Park (so incorporating the Midtown and Lower Manhattan CBDs, but not including Upper Manhattan).
Comments
Sometimes I think, we should ban private vehicles (excludes emergency vehicles, taxis, possibly Ubers, etc) inside cities. Of course, you'd need good public transport first, but often to get that, you'd need to force the issue such as by banning cars.
Having been to Asia where you could get anywhere with public transport, it's wild to see the dichotomy in many western countries.
Many Asian transit systems are also ultra clean, ultra safe, and ultra reliable compared to the U.S. The first two might not be achievable in the US due to socio-political reasons.
It’s ironic that many of the people most in favor of aggressively promoting transit (I.e. via aggressive measures like banning cars) are also the same that impede the safety and clean parts from happening. Instead they just handwave peoples’ concerns saying “oh that crazy psycho raving about murdering everyone in the subway car is really harmless. You should be worried about the thousands of people cars murder every day instead!”
Also, despite their amazing transit systems, many people in Asia still aspire to own a private car.
Nor the third!
A similar approach is to ban vehicles during certain hours.
Allow only delivery vans to operate between say 4am - 10am.
With rest of the time for cafes, bars, restaurants etc to open on the streets.
Didn't London do something like that?
Between 07:00 and 18:00 Monday-Friday, and 12:00-18:00 Saturday-Sunday, it costs £15 to drive into central London. Delivery vehicles and so on must also pay.
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge
Restricting all vehicles except some/all during some part of the morning is often how pedestrian streets operate in Europe, but this is usually a much smaller area.
Note that this article is about NYC trying to add the exact same thing for Manhattan roughly south of Central Park (so incorporating the Midtown and Lower Manhattan CBDs, but not including Upper Manhattan).