Old 04-02-15, 10:29 AM
  #164  
Roody
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Originally Posted by Machka
Little bit confused about the conversation with Roody late last night ... but maybe I was too tired.

Anyway, my point regarding work vehicles was this ...

Traffic is made up of:

-- commuters
-- people running errands
-- people going to events
-- people visiting each other
-- people travelling
-- probably several other reasons for driving

And also work vehicles. If you observe traffic on the busier roads in your area, you'll notice a lot of work vehicles out there. I made some observations on my way into work today.

First observation ... there were fewer vehicles because of the Easter holiday. However, there were a lot of electrical company vehicles (passenger van size). Next up were plumbing vehicles. There were several utes that looked like they were employed in construction in some way. There was a small car from a sign company. There was at least one homecare worker ... there might have been more of these, but the decal is so small, I only caught a glimpse of one. There was a Council vehicle. A cement truck. An ambulance. A few cabs.

The commute is really only one element of traffic.

This is why I suggest that if a town is going to go carfree, probably the best bet would be a small tourist town. One that wouldn't need a whole lot of work vehicles (except on occasion). One where walking to shop would be easy. One where there's a sports and fitness mentality already.

Or possibly sections of larger cities. Already many suburbs are well set up for it, almost as small towns with a shopping area, churches, libraries and everything you'd need within walking distance. You'd just need to make sure the suburb you choose for such an experiment is populated by healthy sports and fitness minded people, so that the right mindset is there. And that there is a good public transportation within and to other suburbs.
My assumption has been that a carfree city would not ban work vehicles. If anything, you would need more work vehicles to deliver some of the goods and services that are no longer picked up by customers in their cars.

Ideally, I think a carfree city would eventually develop some kind of freight delivery system that was less intrusive. Maybe small-scale underground trains that would deliver directly to buildings? Maybe monorail trucks that would share elevated tracks with public transit cars?
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