I love living in a car free city. I can’t believe America doesn’t build more cities like mine.
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not.
I imagine bikes will be very useful in making US cities walkable. The streets have been built very wide to make space for cars, which would make walking more tedious, but bikes are the perfect solution to this bc they let you cover more (flat) distance with just the power of your legs.
Every two lane road has enough space for four lanes of bicycles (one passing lane for ebikes and one lane for normal bikes going in each direction)
I love living car free with my needs in walking/biking distance. However I feel like the car centric problem runs deeper than basic groceries and transit to work. I live near the gorgeous rocky mountains, but our buses only really run to the ski slopes, and only in winter. It’s a true shame to be so close to nature and have my option for access restricted to a rental car. So naturally there’s a plan to build the worlds largest gondola directly to resorts to address traffic. Cause god forbid we just ran more effective bus service year round.
Gondolas are probably a lot more efficient than busses though, I’d have thought.
But they will not stop at any trailheads, just the resorts. Additionally it is unnecessarily expensive to build and ride. Also the additional environmental impact of building and maintaining it rather than using existing roads. It’s purely being built for convenience to reduce traffic in/out of the canyon.
You have long distance gondalas?
“What seems to work best is a carrot-and-stick approach—creating positive reasons to take a bus or to cycle rather than just making driving harder.”
I guess this is why we shouldn’t only play the “fuck cars” tune but also include melodies like “we love to bike” and “public transport is fun” 😉
Public transport IS fun! Much easier to masturbate on the train than while driving a car
public transport is fun
Unfortunately here public transport is seen as something best left to ‘the market’, instead of treating it as a public commodity which gets its economic value from enabling people to contribute to economy by enabling them to get to work, go shopping etc. So now ticket prices are ridiculous, to the point where taking the car is 2-3 times cheaper. And of course you’ll need to get to said transport first. Need a bus? If you do not live in a city or larger town you’re just shit out of luck after 18:00 or so. Need to be somewhere, somewhat early in the morning? Wel tough luck for you, make sure to have somebody with a car standby to drop you off at the nearest train station. I want to like public transport and consider it fun, but my experience every time I try it is pain, suffering and awkward schedules instead. ☹️
Okay, now factor in car insurance and maintenance costs. I don’t buy your statement “taking the car is 2-3 times cheaper”.
Depends on how badly gouged your “local” prices are…
Where I live some train lines have gotten way better in recent times, others still cost an arm and a leg with unreliable trains and if you allow amortized car costs the car might still be competitive… (although I absolutely grant you that utility factoring in the amount of stuff you can do on a train ride both long and short is way way higher than while driving)
It’s definitely not generally cheaper in Germany if you only need to move regional. But I’m interested in a comparison with any other country. I guess an urban area would be a requirement for a fair comparison.
If you care to look further into this, look for cost per kilometer estimates, factoring all the costs of owning your own vehicle vs. the cost per kilometer of taking public transit.
Can you specify where “here” is?
Show me a car free neighborhood and I’ll show you insane real estate prices due to demand.
Don’t know about other Americans, but I would love to be able to have this kind of lifestyle. It’s just not realistic over here due to the infrastructure. It’s not within my power to make the changes necessary for it though.
It can start by advocating for new pedestrian areas in your city or town, maybe it’s only a block, but it’s a start
I dream of the day I can bike safely to my places. Right now I basically have the supermarket and two bars in distance, and then it’s a mess of double lane roads and highway ramps before I get to any bike friendly paths to go further afield. It really sucks.
I don’t hate the idea. I want a car free city.
Is there a FAQ about living in car free cities? For example, how do you travel to another city? What do you do if the city has high slopes making walking and biking too hard? Or how do elders deal with what other citizens would take for granted in terms of mobility?
how do you travel to another city?
Usually by bus or train.
What do you do if the city has high slopes making walking and biking too hard?
Walking is good for you, biking is not too popular in cities with slopes, but electic bikes are changing that.
Or how do elders deal with what other citizens would take for granted in terms of mobility?
There is definitely less mobility, but that is part of getting older isn’t it? Usually they just walk a bit slower and use busses and taxies.
Or how do elders deal with what other citizens would take for granted in terms of mobility?
Electric mobility scooters as well. I’m sure those are capable of much better range now, and it should keep getting better, and everything they need would ideally be close by
And what about cities with cold winters and tons of snow? 10 minutes outside here is no joke
You dress appropriately for the weather and the city actually bothers to clear the bike path quickly when it snows. Oulu does it that way.
I live in Toronto, and I don’t have a car. I use buses and subways for most of my commute in winter. Along with these options, I use bikeshare (public bicycle rentals) in every other season. There are people who bike even in winter but I’m nowhere close to that hardcore.
I’ve spent maybe $250 on uber in urgent/lazy situations in the last one year - that would’ve been a monthly auto insurance payment.
I waited for a bus for around 20 minutes in -18°C a few weeks back. The biggest problem was that I had overdressed so I started sweating and had to unzip a layer.
An important fact that people who have only ever lived in suburbs miss is that you don’t have to commute thaaat far thaaat often when you live in walkable cities. My cousin who lives in a suburb, drives for ~20 minutes to get to the closest big box store. I have 5 options for groceries in a 1 km radius and one of them is just one block over. So, I don’t even need a bus for groceries, let alone a car. We have seniors who definitely shouldn’t be driving walking around with grocery carts on the sidewalks. So, reducing car dependency improves mobility - not the opposite.
I drove from Dallas to Toronto in 2017 (you know, for fun), and I was amazed not only at how trim almost everyone looked but also at how many fucking people were on bicycles. Coming from the concrete jungle that is DFW, it was genuinely inspiring.
I’m happy to report that the number is cyclists is increasing every year with the addition of more bike lanes and a growing network of bikeshare stations. :)
I’m going to let you in on a secret, even though our Canadian cities are shit for people with a car there are still thousands of people in every city who get by year after year without one, because they can’t afford to buy one.
Not having a car sucks, but it is not a death sentence and would be a hell of a lot better if our cities didn’t assume everyone had one.
Something like this?
https://ebikehaul.com/products/q-runner-all-weather-4-wheel-mobility-electric-scooter
It’s still speed limited, it’s not a car.
Edit: that is a tad expensive though, would need to get costs down
Also “car free” doesn’t have to mean literally zero cars allowed, but just build and layout the city so you never have to use one for daily errands.
I live next to a grocery store and it’s literally the best thing ever, grocery trips take 10 minutes max, I only end up using the car on weekends for hobbies or to visit family and friends.
“Car-free cities” gave the wrong idea. I’d call them walk-friendly cities instead, but I guess that ship has already sailed. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and first-hand experience.
I live in suburbia and the grocery store on the edge of my neighborhood is accessible via a dirt desire path. This beats so many of my friends neighborhoods, but these numbskulls couldn’t pour the 20 feet of sidewalk to connect the commercial to the residential, even though the sidewalk has a 2 foot long spur where it should be. 100% car brained.
Still, running to the store on my bike is just as fast as driving, if not a few mins faster.
how do you travel to another city
Car co-ops is one way.
I have a car, but I’m also in one as it gives me access to different vehicle types that I sometimes need.
To get some places here I also need to take a ferry, and walking on and renting a car on the other end can be situationally cheaper.
I lived across the street from a department store, a grocery, some pizza places, a “smoke” shop, video game stores, and everything else I could want on a normal day. It was amazing. I walked everywhere except to work. I miss living there. The main downside was that it was in Florida.
St Augustine?
Nah, it was Orlando, but not the city proper, more like one of the smaller areas around the actual city. Trying not to give too much away, but it was near Altamonte Springs.
Sorry wasn’t trying to have you dox yourself, I actually do know Orlando pretty well so I think I know where you mean
lol, no prob.
I wouldn’t mind being able to give up my car and truck. But since I’m out in rural parts. It wouldn’t workout too well when it came to other needs.
I lived in rural places without a car. This is an American problem because of policy not because you are rural.
I have trailers I use haul firewood and such. I burn about 3 quarts a year.
Normal people outside of America in rural places live in communities that can arrange for firewood delivery. The only reason you need your own truck is because you don’t have any semblance of infrastructure, community or mutual aid. This is a policy choice and a failure of your culture.
Well thank you! So if everyone relied on the same service for firewood. It be like Amazon where it’ll take 3 days minimum to get it. Plus I pay next to nothing. My land has trees. I cut them down, and then replant new quarter grown trees. Not everything is delivery like some are thinking.
I’ve lived in a rural area and my neighbors were always happy to lend me something if I needed it. If I needed a truck to haul wood I could just borrow one, or even get it delivered.
So if I didn’t have a truck and you don’t have a truck. Nobody 20 miles around you doesn’t have a truck. What you do now? What you’re saying is you rely on others. Thats nice and all, but at some point you need to do stuff “Yourself”.
Cord of wood for anyone interested or just hasn’t visualized how much for wood a cord is
We don’t just want “car-free cities” for the sake of it… We want walkable cities with infrastructure and proximity to needs/wants built with pedestrians in mind
My 2 cents: Living in a climate that gets all the seasons, a car makes things much easier in the winter for numerous reasons. Also, as someone that lives with chronic pain issues, walking or biking places on a daily is quite difficult for me, again, having a car resolves this.
Yeah, I hate the term “car-free”. That said, even for someone who primarily uses a car, advocating for bike lanes and public transit makes sense, as the fewer people there are taking up road space and parking, the easier it is for you to drive / park.
Good quality public transit can solve those issues as well. We should have a variety of options available for a variety of people who need them.
I understand you may not have lived carefree but here’s two places with extreme weather that do fine without cars (provided people invest the minimum amount to establish public transport):
Winter (Norway, way below freezing): https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
Summer (Taiwan, 36C+): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dBk7lq8o1Y
I think the term “car free” is a misnomer, more like “car as a non primary form of transport for most people most of the time” is more accurate but doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.
There are a lot of people with mobility issues in such cities that are serviced in different ways, a lot of times with specially licensed cars etc.
I’m almost there… The area I live in basically all my needs are within 3 miles
I’ve already warmed up to the idea that we’d have to force positives changes through in the dead of night. With all things said and done, watch those who’d rail against it say they’ve always been in favor of it.
