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Thread: Banning Cars from Cities

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Default Banning Cars from Cities

    The EU are looking at putting forward legislation that would ban all petrol and diesel cars from city as a way of drastically cutting Carbon emissions. Electric cars and public transport would be exempt from these limits.

    So would this be a good idea, not just from an environmental perspective but also from making the cities a more friendly place for shoppers and tourists alike. In some of the cities, pedestrianising the main shopping areas has made it a much more positive prospect of going to visit. No cars means less smoke and a better atmosphere.

    So, I can understand why banning cars from city centres woud be a good thing, but cities are bigger than just the centre and for somewhere like London, that could be described as anywhere in the M25. At that point, I just cannot see it working especially with the current public transport infrastructure.

    So would banning cars from some areas of the cith be a good idea, whether it is just the centre or perhaps all of it. Or should cars still be allowed into the city regardless?

    More on the proposal here
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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Just to give my opinion on one aspect of making cities more livable. Pedestrianisation sounds like a good idea but, I've noticed that pedestrianised streets seem to feel far less safe at night in cities than those with passing traffic. With all the stores closed they seem really isolated feeling. I've noticed that in Dublin's few pedestrianised streets but also in some British cities. I wonder would it be viable to close traffic on central streets between say 9am-9pm in summer months and let cars travel on them otherwise.

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    Oliphaunt
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    I think it depends on the city. As long as there's good public transportation I think it could work, at least for some areas. I bet the taxi companies would hate such a proposition, though.

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    I got around most of Germany without a car. Public transit is a great thing and not just for colored folk.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    It's going to depend largely on the city and the public transportation available. I lived for years in the Las Vegas metro area without a car and handled it just fine. I worked, went to school, shopped, went out for fun, etc. all without a car. The main issue would be scaling that up. A minority of people traveling without cars and you get a lot of empty seats in public transit. A majority like that and you're going to need a lot more seats.

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Public transit in the greater Dublin area varies from inconvenient to excellent. If you are going from outside the city to the centre it is easy to get public transit links. Or even from one side of the inner city to the other, there are plenty of links. But if you're in one far flung area of the northside and want to get to another area of the Northside, or to West Dublin or the southside, it can be a headache if you have to rely on transit links. I agree with Hobbler that public transit in Germany is excellent. They also have excellent roads and a more pragmatic approach to getting about than in a lot of other countries. Most people seem to have cars there but they also have bikes and will take bikes on short journeys oftentimes, or use trains/buses and leave their car home. Here, it seems to me, that car owners ALWAYS opt to use their car even when it makes little sense to.

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Orual View post
    I think it depends on the city. As long as there's good public transportation I think it could work, at least for some areas. I bet the taxi companies would hate such a proposition, though.
    Why would taxi companies hate it, they should be exempt because they are not private transportation.

    I think it would be a good idea to remove all private transport from inner cities and invest in the public transport to handle it. If you still allow buses and taxis to transport people, you can still have the feeling of the roads being used and not being so empty at night. As a green measure it would cut down on emissions as people have to switch to greener transport to go in.

    It might also make people think twice about using a car in future and if the public transport can be proved to handle it then it can be rolled out further, hopefully reducing people's reliance on always using a car for everything.
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    I've had better days, but I don't care! hatesfreedom's avatar
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    I think it's a good idea as it would force people to buy scooters and motorcycles and that would be AWESOME.

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    Wanna cuddle? RabbitMage's avatar
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    Something like that would only work in very urban areas, though. My lovely city is so full of sprawl that a plan like that wouldn't be practical without re-engineering the entire city. Which might not be a bad idea, but it would never happen.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by RabbitMage View post
    Something like that would only work in very urban areas, though. My lovely city is so full of sprawl that a plan like that wouldn't be practical without re-engineering the entire city. Which might not be a bad idea, but it would never happen.
    This is one of the many reasons why your city sucks.

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    Oliphaunt
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    Quote Originally posted by CatInASuit View post
    Quote Originally posted by Orual View post
    I think it depends on the city. As long as there's good public transportation I think it could work, at least for some areas. I bet the taxi companies would hate such a proposition, though.
    Why would taxi companies hate it, they should be exempt because they are not private transportation.
    Well, your OP said banning cars, not banning privately-owned cars. And anyways, I think it goes against the spirit of the thing. If you don't ban taxis and limo services, then it's just us poor plebs being forbidden the convenience of auto travel.

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    I've had better days, but I don't care! hatesfreedom's avatar
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    I'd throw away my car and get one of these in a stupid awesome second.


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    Oliphaunt
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    Quote Originally posted by RabbitMage View post
    Something like that would only work in very urban areas, though. My lovely city is so full of sprawl that a plan like that wouldn't be practical without re-engineering the entire city. Which might not be a bad idea, but it would never happen.
    This would be a serious problem for a lot of the U.S. Many (most?) cities were designed for car travel.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    It would work for large parts of NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago and SF at least. Vancouver did this decades ago. It works for a small part of Baltimore and DC.

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    Oliphaunt
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    Quote Originally posted by What Exit? View post
    It would work for large parts of NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago and SF at least. Vancouver did this decades ago. It works for a small part of Baltimore and DC.
    Oh, definitely. I have lived a very happy, car-free life in both Boston and San Francisco. The problem for the Bay Area would be commuters: the public transportation gets progressively less reliable the further you get out of the city - BART and MUNI are very good, but SamTrans and CalTrain are pretty wonky.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Orual View post
    Quote Originally posted by What Exit? View post
    It would work for large parts of NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago and SF at least. Vancouver did this decades ago. It works for a small part of Baltimore and DC.
    Oh, definitely. I have lived a very happy, car-free life in both Boston and San Francisco. The problem for the Bay Area would be commuters: the public transportation gets progressively less reliable the further you get out of the city - BART and MUNI are very good, but SamTrans and CalTrain are pretty wonky.
    OK, here's the deal. It is not meant for the entire metro-area, just the dense inner business and shopping parts of a city. Mass Transit to the walking area or drive to parking garages and then the core area of the city is a walking/biking area. In NYC they would probably have a few centers. Lower Manhattan, Central Part, Central Brooklyn and probably a section of Bayridge and a section near Coney Island and a section near the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't think the Bronx has an area really prime for this but there is an area not to far from the Zoo that could work. But the outlying areas, mostly residential areas and burbs would all remain standard car cities.

  17. #17
    Jesus F'ing Christ Glazer's avatar
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    Parking at transit station leading into the city will be a nightmare. If you can't park to get into the city people will just stay out and shop in the 'burbs even more so than now.
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