Comment by bobby322
10 days ago
As a European (dutch), why are our roads so small, that normal sized cars look like "monsters". I have often thought, that Europe will have a problem in the future with roads, as they are just too small, and expanding and making them more safe, is unlikely to ever happen and often times impossible. Not everyone can get by with a small little hatchback, some of us need a big pickup (I own a building company). And for the people that do not need it from a commercial point of view, have you ever considered that people have hobbies and some hobbies needs a fair amount of space in a car? Or families with multiple kids doing sport need the space for all the gear? I am worried that in the future, more and more european cities will just address the problem with a disguised "we are making the cities car free, and thus greener and safer". What that means for the average citizen out there is, that any building related work, will just become more expensive, as people will just charge more to get over the hassle of getting into the cities then.
I'm glad the roads are small. Smaller roads cause slower driving (well researched). As for the cities, it is unsustainable to use cars as the primary mode of transportation within cities. We do want to make cities greener and largely car-free, because cars for individuals simply do not make any sense in a city. We still need roads for deliveries and occasional transportation of heavy or large goods, but transporting yourself within a city should rarely be done in a car. See Tokyo for an example of a large metropolis which functions well and which would completely break down if everybody tried to use a car to get somewhere.
an families with multiple kids? They should do what? Come now.
I grew up in a family of 5, albeit a decade after my siblings.
When I visited London with my parents, we went by train. When I was in the cub scouts, one of my memories was a group trip by train. When I went to middle school (years 4-6), it was easy enough for me to walk alone at the end, though mum did go with me at the start; when I went to secondary school (7-11) there was a bus, though eventually I found I liked the (3 mile!) walk.
Today, I find that my local bus route within Berlin to a nearby mall takes me past 2 schools, and at certain times of day the bus will fill with kids and adult supervisors. Sometimes I see people taking Kinderwagen on the bus.
Walk? Bike? Take the bus? People had kids for years before cars were invented.
2 replies →
A visit to Tokyo does wonders for broadening one's world views :-)
What I've observed, is that 90% of journeys people make can be done without a car.
Designing a city that helps people make those journeys car free, makes it better for the 10% of journeys that do need to be made with a car.
Can and want to or being efficient are different things. I "can" travel around in a city using public transport with 3 kids and all their sporting equipment, do I want to, no. Would any sane person want to? No.
Maybe consider a sports club that's in walking -- or cycling -- distance. But I guess that's also insane.
Unless you're going surfing, 3 kids and their sporting equipment fit in a small hatchback, with room to spare.
3 replies →
That’s a bit of a strawman argument. Most journeys don’t consist of three children and all their sporting equipment.
As a practical example, in the UK, on average a young g child lives 1.7miles away from their school.
That is an easily walkable distance for most children, yet lots of parents choose to drive it because they feel the streets aren’t safe to walk on in rush hour.
If by redesigning streets to make active travel more appealing, you could reduce the number of cars on the school run by 10%; it would improve the traffic situation for the ones who still need to drive. Win-win
Some people need more space, but the road problem is something that can't be retrofitted without demolishing buildings.
As a Dutch person, surely you've seen that Amsterdam decided that the city's car problem in the 70s was unfixable and decided to switch to cycling. The building and delivery problem is real, but I don't think even a 10 euro/day charge for work vehicles would register given how expensive building work is already.
Land in cities is very expensive. Why should vehicles get to use more of it for free?