I don’t hate the idea. I want a car free city.
I don’t think a car-free city actually exists. The article mentions Copenhagen:
“[London] has avoided the kind of outright car bans seen elsewhere in Europe, such as in Copenhagen”
I’ve been to Copenhagen. There are cars throughout the city. There are some cycle-only paths that connect to intersections with cars. I cycled along side cars all over the city. Apparently Wired is calling car-reduced cities and cities with small car-free regions a “car-free city”.
Exceptionally, Brussels is a car-free city but for only one day out of the year. And car-free day falls on a Sunday. On that day it becomes illegal to drive a car in the city center without a special pass after showing you have good reason to use a car on that day. But even on that day, the outer region of Brussels is unaffected.
Not fully, but close enough cities exist: https://blog.dormakaba.com/pedestrian-paradises-top-4-car-free-urban-areas-in-the-world/
I live in Copenhagen and only own a bike. The amount of cars and their size has risen drastically the last 10 years, it sucks. Almost nowhere in the city is actually car-free, but there are bike paths almost everywhere which is nice.
I wanna live in one 😭
Taking suggestions on cities lol!
“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
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”.
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.
Unfortunately it’s easier (say: cheaper) to make driving so expensive and hard that it makes public transport look like the carrot, than actually making public transport more attractive so it actually becomes the carrot.
If you’re interested in theory on this subject I’d recommend looking into “theory of practice”. It’s all about this and, like with every single other good urban planning thing, it’s not at all new. We just pretend like it is so that politicians might finally do something other than build a fucking road.
But then they call you insane because transit very obviously shitty. Like i shill for the alternatives but its barely functional most of the time, much less pleasant
Feel free to spit on the current state of transit; it’s shit in so many places and there’s no pretending otherwise. It’s important to stress that the transit will be unrecognizable from current state if properly funded. If people think I’m talking about them ditching their cars, getting on the existing transit and watching their trip times go up 292%, they’d be right to dismiss me.
Public transport IS fun! Much easier to masturbate on the train than while driving a car
Disneyland is a good comparison for some Americans: imagine having to drive to each ride and restaurant
As French :
Amsterdam my love.Almost no cars at all,
Pure joint, with no tobacco,
No noise,Europeans and their weed with tobacco, smh my head
Tobacco mixed with cannabis seems like a good way to ruin quality weed.
So you don´t like blunts? Why do you even mind how others enjoy their weed, just let people do their thing, smh …
If that’s what people want to do on their own, that’s fine. My issue is when they hand it to you saying it’s a joint, only to be surprised when it’s basically a cigarette with a tiny bit of weed sprinkled in. I hate smoking tobacco.
I’ve quickly learned to always ask what is actually in it before accepting.
My issue is when they hand it to you saying it’s a joint, only to be surprised when it’s basically a cigarette with a tiny bit of weed sprinkled in.
Agreed, that is in fact pretty disgusting. I was thinking of a 1:1 ratio at max, with less tobacco than that it should not be called a joint.
If I use any tobacco at all, its just pure tobacco at the tip as a filter. You dont really smoke it if you dont want to, but it prevents wasted flowers
To be fair, that’s just what’s called a joint in Germany. Maybe a 70/30 ratio of tobacco to weed.
Fortunately, this is an inaccurate generalization.
Well that’s just from my perception in the Rhineland region in the 90s and 2000s.
Of course, we used mainly other terms like Dübel, Tüte or Sportzigarette.
How would you differ?
I did not refer to the name but to the ratio. It very much depends on the scene imo. It reaches from pure weed in the reggae scene, a 1:1 mix in the hiphop scene, to almost pure tobacco in “weekend weed smoker” scenes and also just depends a lot on the individual who rolled. That is of course only my personal experience.
Yeah, I’ve been living in Germany. Learned quite quickly to never trust a “joint”.
Ya’ll should learn the word “spliff”. That’s what it’s for.
No I don’t. I’ll take hemp wraps though.
Makes sense, enjoy!
You too! 😎
Ah ah you know it. For real.
PS : for the anecdote, tobacco is forbidden inside a coffee shop there.
My friend went to France back in the day and blew people’s minds when he rolled a tobacco free joint
Never really put tobacco in a joint, but i do love to spliff my blunts. The tobacco really smooths out the weed and is calming.
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.
Ebikes.
People absolutely be going the e bike route.
The only thing keeping me from regularly using bikes or ebikes for short distance travel are the cars and trucks sharing the same space that ignore bike lanes and try to get as close as they can to you when they pass you, and if I try to use the largely unused sidewalks and dip into the street to avoid the occasional pedestrians I get a ticket.
ignore bike lanes and try to get as close as they can to you when they pass you
That’s why protected bike lanes are the ideal, preferably grade separated from the road. Remove the problem via infrastructure, and more people will bike.
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 this. It’s a simple way to train an open-minded carbrain that there are easy ways to convert existing infrastructure on the cheap!
Due to the pandemic, people needed more outdoor space in cities (since its unsafe to eg eat indoors), so NYC closed roads to cars and turned them into basically public parks.
When the shops started opening again, they city got a lot of pressure and they made a campaign to close I think 25% of the city’s roads to cars in some years
Unfortunately, still not car free
Pressure from businesses and the auto industry lobbyists, I presume.
Imagine if NYC didn’t give in! Imagine if we didn’t give in to corporate interests on the regular. Imagine if we came together to fight for good community-building things…
A return to trolleys would also be lovely. A lot of American cities are already laid out with trolleycars in mind.
Oh, I didn’t know this
Yeah, cities in America from around 1870 to 1920 had extensive trolleycar networks. They were so widespread you could hop between them and even travel across state lines. Every major city had them and they were the primary mode of urban transportation. Now cities only have trolleycars as a novelty, like San Francisco still has theirs. New Orleans has beautiful streetcar lines. They’re mostly used for tourists, but if they were made more extensive and modernized then New Orleans could have very functional mass transit.
Most of the trolley networks were ripped up to make room for extra lanes or parking lots. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be possible to repurpose existing roads for trams/trolleys. I really believe this.
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 can actually work as public transit. Depending on terrain they are actually a very efficient solution. You can find them in a few cities.
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.
Bullshit. I wanted and haven’t found one.
yeah, car-free cities dont exist. what does exist is cities where you can live a normal life without a driving license. though even there this is restricted to parts of the city i think, where the public transport network is dense enough.
There are major cities that have “less car” zones in their center. Basically they just charge huge fees to bring a car into the area. It is definitely a step forward, but it would be nice if it wasn’t “no cars for thee but, yes, cars for me” from the rich.
There are, in fact, some car-free places. But it’s largely due to logistic issues (middle of a rain forest or on an island without a bridge. or stupid narrow streets)
Totalled my car three years ago. Never bothered buying a new one. I save a lot of money and accepting my faith when relying on public transport has given me so much mental freedom. I take the train to work and the last part of the route is by shared bikes. Love it.
It’s crazy to see how the city centre of Ghent (Belgium) changed when they banned non-emergency cars from people not living/working in the centre. It went from some huge carparks with a few people walking between them to large squares filled with people enjoying the city and people who live here.
Every day I bike besides the Coupure channel to the train station and in the city I work in, I walk to the office besides the Dender river. Good infrastructure is basically keeping my mental health afloat.
This conforms to my own experience. I first got on the “anti cars” train back when I was a lib, and I got on that train precisely because I worked a job in a place where I wasn’t allowed to have a car, but there was a bus that took me directly to work in the morning and everything else was walkable/busable and occasionally I would take a price-controlled taxi.
Not having to pay insurance or buy gas, not having to find parking, not having to wait in traffic, being able to read or use my phone during my commute - it’s all so nice, I got converted before I had ever heard the word “urbanism” and before anyone had invented the term “fifteen minute 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?
public transport of course. buses go uphill you know.
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.
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.
Wouldn’t the elderly be a huge benefiter of a car free city? You get old enough or frail enough that you can’t drive. Then what?
I like in a city that provides free busses and trains to those aged 65+ if they ride in off peak hours, and it’s heavily used. This is in a city designed around cars.
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
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.
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 rideshare (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 for dire 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 groceries in a 1km 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. :)
Why Canadians Can’t Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
Basically, proper bike infrastructure and snow-clearing make a world of difference. It’s not nearly as bad as it seems if you just put on a coat and get going.
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.
The term “city” can actually be confusing too since it might mean the most central district of a metropolitan area, or it could mean the whole metropolitan area. There is some desire to make the most central parts car free in the way you thought (usually street by street in the centre of the CBD etc), but generally the broader area will not be.
From what I’ve seen from Not Just Bikes, there’s also car-sharing. There are services to make it super easy to borrow a car for as little as a few hours if you just need to lug some furniture or something.
It’s cool and all, but trains have fixed routes that can’t take you almost everywhere. Of course I’d prefer trains over highways, just stating the current fact. Take for example every city I’ve lived in Mexico: trains never were an option to travel between cities. That’s changing, fortunately.
PEVs are still not very common around here, but that answers some questions. Thanks for your reply.
sensible places have enough railways that trains can practically take you everywhere, used to be that here in sweden we had railways even to teensy tiny villages a lot of the time.
Trains can take you most places and busses will take you pretty much anywhere trains don’t. Taxis fill the gap on everything else.
Just go travel somewhere like China or Japan or a lot of Europe and you’ll see for yourself.
For example, how do you travel to another city?
Train or car. Car free mostly refers to inner city trips, for special occasions it’s totally fine to use a car (e.g. moving, buying something big, a weekend trip, etc)
What do you do if the city has high slopes making walking and biking too hard?
Bus, ebikes, other types of electric assist stuff, walking. Crazy steep slopes do put a limit on exclusively human powered mobility (i.e. walking and cycling), but those places are incredibly rare.
Or how do elders deal with what other citizens would take for granted in terms of mobility?
A walkable city features amenities close by, plenty of benches to rest, and a solid bus system. There are absolutely no issues for people with restricted mobility. This applies to people with disabilities as well btw.
In fact I would turn that question around: how do elders deal with the requirement to drive a car to get groceries, etc? Isn’t that like super duper dangerous?
Thank you for your detailed reply. I was under the impression that cars and buses were out of the question. This clarifies a lot. Ebikes and electric devices, however, sound to me like something futuristic, probably because I live in latinamerica.
Steep-slope places are not the norm almost anywhere, but they are not really that scarce here. We probably would need to make some technological catch up.
About elders driving, well, it’s common that they have cars although they can’t/shouldn’t drive them. Some younger ones can step in and volunteer, usually family members, but not only. An arrangement can always be made when young people hardly owns a car.
Steep-slope places are not the norm almost anywhere, but they are not really that scarce here. We probably would need to make some technological catch up.
No worries Switzerland and Austria have you covered. Gondolas are only suitable for people and lighter loads, but funiculars can carry a ton of weight and can be built quite steep indeed, Chile has quite a few of them. In less extreme cases there’s good old rack railways. Funiculars are actually the oldest type of public transport in the world, invented before the industrial revolution, back then operated by water power (fill a tank in the top car, it will pull the bottom car up), and rack rail isn’t exactly new. The oldest were built to get stuff up and down from castles. Gondolas of the Mi Teleficero type are quite a bit newer and can reach quite impressive throughput numbers as the gondolas are unhooked from the wire in stations to make it possible to have a fast wire while not having to sprint when getting on (usually they move about at like 1/2 walking pace in the stations but you can also stop them completely for the elderly).
Ebikes and electric devices, however, sound to me like something futuristic
There are kits enabling you to convert a muscle bike (push bike) into an e-bike. If you get one with a torque sensor, then it will detect how hard you push on the pedals and drive the motor proportional to that force. So you still must pedal but it amplifies your effort which preserves the natural feel and control of pedaling. It essentially makes the hills go away; a hilly place becomes a flat place.
how do elders deal with the requirement to drive a car to get groceries, etc? Isn’t that like super duper dangerous?
Judging by some folks I’ve seen driving around with oxygen tubes in their noses: They just drive. And, yes, it is dangerous.
Or how do elders deal with what other citizens would take for granted in terms of mobility?
Currently they alll use little electric mobility scooters, in cycle lanes when available, bacause its too dangerous to be any where there are cars here in Australia.
How do those with epilepsy get around, they can’t drive at least they can’t here in Australia. One lady with epilepsy I knew rode a little electric scoot, she loved having her independence.
What happens to people when they loose thier license in the US ?
I couldn’t tell. Barely know the US and it’s been a long time. Those were questions over the top of my head, out of curiosity, and coming from the wrong assumption that these cities were totally car-free with the only exception of emergency vehicles.
What do you do if the city has high slopes making walking and biking too hard?
E-bikes and regular bikes with good gearing. And walking up slopes generally isn’t too challenging it’s just slow. Infrastructure can help here too by making sure there are paths that don’t go up hills unnecessarily. Fast and frequent public transport provides another option where walking and biking is less viable.
For example, how do you travel to another city?
Trains and buses. Car as a last resort (preferably one that is hired rather than owned, and preferably electric rather than an ICE).
Or how do elders deal with what other citizens would take for granted in terms of mobility?
Elderly people can’t (or shouldn’t) drive either so better walkability = better for the elderly since it gives options to get around without relying on a car. Good infrastructure design can help with disability access, and many disabled people can’t drive anyway.
how do you travel to another city?
Train, bus, electrical bike, rideshares for the last mile maybe.
What do you do if the city has high slopes making walking and biking too hard?
Get off and walk, use a bike with electrical assistance, use a different type of mobility assistance if i am very physically impaired.
how do elders deal with what other citizens would take for granted in terms of mobility?
See above + Elders are typically more physically able due to having lived a life of regular everyday exery + their everyday destinations are not several miles away + “car free” doesn’t paradoxically mean free of cars, just almost all cars - ambulances are still needed for example - as such if a person is so impaired that no mobility assistance is enough to get them to their destination, then they can still be taxied by help.
What do you do if the city has high slopes making walking and biking too hard?
You shift to a lower gear and go up the hill
What do you do if the city has high slopes making walking and biking too hard?
skill issue. i live in a very hilly area and when i reach a steep slope i simply bike harder.
this is ableist as hell tbh
There’s wheelchair accessible bikes, but you are actually correct. Good urbanism requires us to take into account not just those who conform to society, but all it’s people. Interestingly an inclusive and accommodating city is also an economically strong one - in the long run more productive potential is freed and less resources are spent on patch-fixing a broken structure.
This is your reminder to read Invisible Women by Criado Perez
There’s wheelchair accessible bikes
oh damn that’s cool as hell. as a general statement i’m not anti-bike or anything, i am just annoyed at how little care some people here have for those who are less able than they are
Good urbanism requires us to take into account not just those who conform to society, but all it’s people
100% agreed, and i think our rhetoric should reflect that inclusiveness rather than just defaulting to “can’t do it? fuck you”
Yeah the bikes are super cool, there’s lots of different ones too. I once got overtaken by a guy who pedalled with his arms, made me feel like a scrub.
It is a big issue when we don’t plan for those that don’t fit into our ideal of a “normal” person, because when we default to that we default to planning for men - and really planning for no one.
If you’re interested you should look up “gendermainstreaming”. Vienna has a very good manual on it.I think people here get defensive about bikes because they’re used to arguing against carbrained folks all the time. It should also be noted a city designed for bikes and walkability will be easier to travel in for those who have trouble walking, than a city designed for cars, even if concessions aren’t made.
Use an ebike?
Consider people who are physically impaired instead of dismissing real problems?
There are many forms of personal mobility devices (some are even like speed limited, miniature, single person EVs) that make navigating a car free city easy for someone with impaired mobility.
Getting cars out of the way makes it easier to accommodate many levels of movement ability, not harder.
Yes we agree. So the response is not “its not an issue” the response is that there are alternatives to bikes. I perceived your response as a sort of sarcastic dismissal and I see now I misread the tone and content, sorry.
no, he’s right
- you’re right, not everyone can use bikes so telling people to use bikes is ableist. genius. you’re a real thinker. they’ll be reading about you in the history books centuries from now
no, saying skill issue to people who aren’t able to bike up steep hills when there are other options such as pedal assist is unhelpful and ableist. it doesn’t take being a ‘thinker’ to deduce that.
this is such a silly non-issue to whine at a comrade for. it’s not ableist. obviously if you have a medical condition preventing you from riding up a hill then my comment doesn’t fucking apply to you, idiot
just a friendly heads up, I think you misgendered the person you were referring to.
oh shit! i feel like an asshole. my bad, i am fixing it
I’m living a car-free lifestyle, despite holding a license to drive. It’s more freedom than I’ve ever had.
Been there at times. It’s great not having to pay and worry about a car (done that at times as well). Yet, if you need to move house or get somewhere difficult, you can lease or borrow a car or van. And you can be an extra driver on trips.
I sometimes make the mistake of driving to college because it’s faster. I’m always way less happy and focused (and sad cause of having to pay for parking). Ebikes are the shit. It’s about 15 minutes driving and a 25-30 minute bike ride.
Removing cars from urban areas means lower carbon emissions, less air pollution, and fewer road traffic accidents
Not to mention how much quieter it is.
I love living in a car free city. I can’t believe America doesn’t build more cities like mine.
What city?
san francisco
What, I had no idea it was car free! That’s wesome!
That’s ridiculous. SF is not car free at all!
Lots of cyclists get hit by cars in SF. How is that possible if it’s car free?
Exactly, no one drives in New York City also, who wanna drive in that traffic?
So do you still utilize Uber or driving services? If so you’re still dependent.
SF and Oakland aren’t car-free, they are car outsourced. You don’t drive, you have someone drive you. Other then a very narrow stretch of Down Town SF to Oakland, most of that metro area isn’t served by public transit. Unlike say NYC where most of the metro area IS served by public transit. (It’s still not car free though.)
Huh, weird that when I was there, there were literally thousands of cars. Probably just hallucinated it
That’s not really what car free means.
For years I’ve somehow missed this. Cars driving on nearly every street and somehow that “car-free”, yeah makes perfect sense.
I guess that’s one way to understand that word.
Colloquially it is used to refer to the capability of a place that allows its inhabitants to live car free.
Completely banning cars is rarely a demand because it makes no sense. A car is not a problem, hundreds of them are. Especially if they are used and required for everyday mundane tasks.
I think it’s because the bar is so low, just the ability to choose to walk for everyday commuting, errands, and leisure qualifies as car free. Ie, you can choose to be car free if you want.
Yeah I don’t understand that at all. I thought car free meant a place, usually a part of town, where cars are not allowed. Those places exist. So to call places nothing like that “car free” seems pretty useless imo
Oh. So you mean the places where you have to be rich to live at a nice place, while everyone else has to live in a tiny apartment in a huge building that’s been borderline uninhabitable since the 1970’s?
I would make every city Macinac Island if I could, minus the horses.
The only city that I know of that fits that definition is Venice, Italy. I’ve been able to live car free in SF for 10 years.
