gerv 

We often talk about going either completely car free or leaving the car in the driveway and calling it "car light". This means that, as individuals, we no longer own cars. But we still have to deal with the all the time.

I'm reading authors like JH Crawford who think that going carfree could be a serious goal for a city. Indeed, there are cities, like Venice and others in Italy, that have banished the automobile to the outskirts and seem to survive quite nicely.

If, for any particular reason, it became impossible to drive cars in your city, what would it be like? What would emerge for transportation? How would society evolve quickly to meet the demands of car freedom?

Roody

Well obviously I think it would be great if cities were carfree. Crawford has some good ideas, but he calls for totally redesigning cities. I think current cities could gradually (over 30 years, maybe) adapt to being carfree without discomforting anybody or messing up the economy.

It's hard to know what transportation systems would arise. A nice idea would be electric subways underground for rapid transit and cargo. This would leave the surface free for bikes and peds. Without streets and parking lots, there would be room for both denser housing and more greenspace.

daven1986

In London, UK, I think we could survive without cars - unless you need to go outside of the city. There are pretty decent transport links in and around the centre. To properly work as car-free you would need more transport links and also provisions for disabled people and those who wish to journey outside the city. It could work, I'd like it, but I don't see it happening! Although having a cycling mayor helps A LOT! He is doing a lot for cycling in London which is great and hopefully it encourages people to ride more

Roody

Based on recent news reports, I wouldn't be surprised if London becomes the first major city to become carfree. My other guess would be Jakarta.

daven1986

Either car-free or complete gridlock! I don't mind gridlock though -I'll just sail through the middle!

Ekdog

Seville was supposed to have banned most vehicles in the center by now (taxis, buses, motorcycles and vehicles owned by city center residents were to have been excepted), but our local politicians have been putting it off, bowing to pressure from wealthy interests (the owners of parking lots, et al). I think it could work well here as there is really no need for most people to drive downtown.

mustang1

London, and many cities like it, will not become car free. Cars bring in too much revenue for the government. Tax on car sales, tax on fuel, tax on congestion charges and numerous other taxes, industries built around cars (workshops, MOT stations, parts, sales, the list goes on). What incentive does the government have to remove cars from the road? People will not be able to get to where they need to (no, bikes do not make good alternative transport, and the alternative public transport investment needs to come from somewhere, where will this come from?).

The money that comes from cars is not enough to create the roads we need (both in quantity and road surface irregularities (pot holes any one?). So where would the money come from to invest in public transport? Are we saying the government doesn't have neough money right now to even start a moderate scheme, or is the money frittered away in bureaucracy? In a democracy, well, in the UK, the term of governance is 4 years (can be 5). In those 4 years, the governers need to make a name for themselves. They have no incentive to see what's happening 10, 20, 30 years from now; they need to line their own pockets.

But imagine a city built without cars in mind. We still need roads. Where will the investment for that come from? From you? The cyclist? Do you wanna pay the annual fee just to ride your road in traffic free London (or choose your city)? There will be no advantage to riding the bike. There will be bike traffic jams as witnessed in other European and far eastern cities. Right now there is an advantage to riding bikes as we can sail (slowly) past gridlocked cars. When the bikes themselves have traffic, there will be no where to go but to wait in the traffic. Getting to your destination will take just as lone (I'm speaking from experience your mileage may vary). If I need to get othe office late in the evenings, it's far quicker and more convenient on the car.

Nossir, for me biking is a pleasure thing, and I'm glad cars and gridlock are out there. The only real, REAL, problem with gridlock is allowing hte emergency services to get through because those guys do a job for which they are extremely underpaid. We live in a society where mediocrity is rewarded, or making money is rewarded. And CARS MAKE MONEY.

The mayors (eg Boris) are making great in roads (started by Ken) but they are not designed to over take cars, quite frankly it's a token gesture but I'm glad they're doing it, I just hope they dont end up charging the poor cyclist for the privilege.

daven1986

What I can see happening in London is that the main shopping area (Oxford Street and surrounding areas) are made car free - entry only to buses and taxis and residents. Then this slowly spreading outwards as people realise they can get in without using their car.

daven1986

See this is my problem. At the moment one of the best things for me about riding my bike, is that no one else really does! They are all stuck in cars / on buses so I can nip through nice and quickly and my odd traffic violation is overlooked. If everyone began cycling then enforcement would be stricter and yes there would be bike jams! However one can argue that in those bike jams there would be over 5 times as many bikes as there could be cars in that space, and the environmental benefits too.

If EVERYONE had a bike then we wouldn't really need roads, only dirt tracks - everyone could have a cross bikes or a MTB!

I also agree with your comments about the UK term of Government, if only the voters were educated enough to know that any improvement takes time and money and there will be a decrease in quality while the changeover happens then we will get a big increase in quality of service.

The difference between Boris and Ken (I hated Ken!) is that although Boris still makes cycle lanes (which I also hate!) he is a cyclist himself and therefore also does useful things like (hopefully) make it ok to turn left on a red light. Unfortunately a lot of the things the Government does for cyclists are just for show - cycle lanes in particular. We need our own section of laws for riding which are different to car laws and more suited to us. However to get that we need more cyclists.

If we look at it from the other side - if the motorcar had never been invented as a personal vehicle - i.e. we still had lorries etc. then we could happily have car-free cities as we wouldn't have this huge infrastructure relying on the motorcar. Like everything else a change to car-free will take a huge amount of time, I'm just glad, in one sense, that it won't happen in my lifetime!

gerv 

My initial premise in this thread was that it would become impossible to use cars in a city. This could happen for any number of reasons. But what comes to mind first is a scenario where gasoline shortages or some other disaster prevented the car from being a practical solution. Services would centralize in nodes that we might call neighbourhoods and these nodes would be fairly dense groupings of stores, apartments, clinics, schools, businesses that would leave little room for anything resembling a strip mall or a parking lot.

These nodes would also become hubs for bus systems or perhaps more formal transit infrastructure like light rail or Bus Rapid Transit. First rather scattered transit would emerge, then formal systems would evolve.

I think key features of this type of restructuring is that the automobile would be forced out of major areas of these nodes. With densification, there would actually be little room for parking. So what might happen is like Ekdog's Seville. If you owned a car and could privately park it... OK. But the grocery store could not afford to provide parking for all its customers.

A key feature of this type of development is that citizens get the experience of living without the noise and pollution of automobiles. I used to live in a small Italian city (Perugia) where the center of the city used to be pretty much off-limits for cars. There was a small area where they could park in the large piazza and adjoining streets, but you could pretty much roam anywhere in the middle of a street without worrying about being run over. Folks used the piazza for long, relaxed strolls... interrupted perhaps for a little coffee or an appertivo, It was a great place to be seen and an even greater place to hang around.

mustang1

I agree generally about the environment benefit but we would also need a lot more buses. These run on diesel and I dont know if you've noticed lately, diesel REALLY stinks. It's bad enough as it is but have they just changed the fuel blend or something? Diesel fuel is another pet peeve of mine. Not trying to hijack the subject, but it's all related. Diesel does indeed reduce CO2 emissions, but the crap that comes out of diesel cars and trucks is just, YEWK. And wth is diesel MORE expensive at the pumps when it costs LESS than petrol (gasoline to my american friends) to make (it's less refined)?

I didn't like Ken when he brought out the congestion charge. Back in those days I never cycled and I distinctly remember him phasing the traffic lights to create MORE traffic jams to the days coming up to Congestion Charge Initiation Day, when all the lights were phased back to normal and the traffic mysteriously disappeared. Of course it didn't really disappear, it's still there. I see a long line of trucks and buses, taxis, cars and all sorts stuck in one ig line, spewing out their deisel crap, stuff in, congestion. This congestion charge was just another dumb charge they imposed on us for 'congestion' which later they tried to change into a gas-guzzler charge (I guess that was always their intention).

The 2nd point in bold "more cyclists required before we create specific laws for them" [I paraphrased your comments], and I say this with tongue-in-cheek, but shouldn't we wait for more drug users before we impose drug restriction laws on them? The only laws we need against cyclists are to stop them using mobile phones while cycling, to use lights at night (and to get rid of those brake-less bikes, I know that will annoy the ssfg guys, and I too like the elegance of a ss without brakes, but guys, you need to stop on a dime).

daven1986

By laws for cyclists I mean something cycle specific, for example, being able to turn on red lights, being able to go on pedestrian green lights etc. Just something that shows that they realise that we are more pedestrian than we are motorcar! Obviously things like mobile phones, lights at night and having brakes are common sense - and there should be laws against them, but I meant laws that give cyclists more freedom so we aren't restricted by the laws for motor vehicles.

I only started cycling due to a lack of transport options! I live in south london and had to commute to canary wharf last summer (and will do again in feb) and I either had to walk for 10/20/30 mins (depending on which station I went to) and get a crowded train to london bridge, and then get an even more crowded train to canary wharf. Or I could cycle in 45-50mins and have a nice shower at work. It sparked my interest and I am still cycling wish I had started sooner.

With regards to diesel emissions I would assume that more environmentally friendly option would be investigated such as electricity or maybe gas or even hydrogen. Those options too will take time to implement.

If I had a choice between a car-free city or a city with cars that respected bicycles but used hydrogen fuel cells, I'd choose the latter.

Metzinger

The density of the neighbourhood in which I live is such that perhaps only one resident in five has a place to park a car.
Many cars on my street only move on weekends, I'm guessing typically for out-of-town trips or to IKEA.

The city's system of trams and buses flows seamlessly into regional, national, and international train networks.
It wouldn't be a huge chore to move a lot of those regularly dormant cars to parkades in the outskirts.
Every month, it seems a new restriction has been imposed on automobile traffic. And a new bike lane or off-street ROW created or improved.

It seems a slow evolution. The transformation is not sudden.

At this stage, I can report no authoritarian crackdown on riders, or bike jams, as per Daven's predicted dystopia.

daven1986

Glad to hear that - hope it never happens! In London I see many people have trouble finding parking spaces at their house or when at the shops. Also streets become so crowded with parked cars that only 1 lane of traffic can move down the road. It was quite amusing once to see 2 cars have to reverse down a road as they were faced by oncoming traffic while I sailed by! Park and ride schemes would be a good first step to a car-free city, these can then slowly be moved further and further away from the centre.

Jude

A city that grew naturally with the knowledge that it would be car-free could be really nice. It would develop in a way such that things could all be reached by walking; there would be much less space taken up by streets (just a bike lane each way, I assume, and maybe that only in major thoroughfares) and so things could be more compact as well. No big old freeways all over the place. If you were going to have buses and trolleys as opposed to els or subways I guess you'd have to have some big avenues for them.

Actually, limiting car traffic to main avenues is maybe more doable, although if people can't drive to where they live, it sort of defeats the purpose.

Roody

I wonder what it would be like in the opposite case-- if no cars were allowed on the main streets and boulevards, but they were allowed on the smaller streets?

gerv 

An interesting twist on this is the way many Italian cities seem to have dealt with the automobile in their historic centers. You will see cars, but they do not dominate the environment. Since streets are very narrow and usually filled with pedestrians, cars often have to creep along at < 10mph. This makes a big difference in the livability of these areas. Cars are not roaring up and down the streets all night.

I believe the Dutch have formally implemented this type of approach for cars. I think the term is "Woonerf"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf

Roody

I read somewhere that even New York City is doing something like this on a major avenue. Does anybody know anything abput this?

TomM

I kind of like the mileage tax concept:

https://green.autoblog.com/2009/11/16...the-netherlan/

daven1986

I like that too - was saying to my mother the other day that on the busiest roads in London there should be a charge per mile - i.e. not the current congestion charge we have now - and it should be expanded to the suburbs too.

metro2005

I live in the netherlands and we pay taxes on gasoline up to 80 eurocents per litre (!) and it doesn't really help to reduce the traffic jams. Almost no one leaves the car in the driveway because they charge big time on automobiles. We have excellent bike paths here, we have reasonable public transportation and yet everyday we see almost 300 to 400km of cars in a traffic jam. (pretty bad since we only have about 1500km highway in total)

The biggest problem in the netherlands is the design of the country. Cities are to small for good public transport (only the three major cities (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht) have decent subway systems), towns and villages are built to far apart for a good public transport system and yet built too close to each other for a decent highway system. We have an exit on the highway for EVERY village there is which makes driving on the highways a disaster, every 2 miles or so you have traffic coming on the road or leaving it which frustrates traffic flows.
We also have these nice 'vinexwijken' or suburbs which have no public transportation whatsoever. Only a single road which leads to the highway.

Further we have a government that doesn't really invest in good infrastructure. The highway and freeway layouts are still the same as in the 1960's, built for the amount of cars in the 60's. Don't need to tell you that the amount of cars have tripled since then. To solve this issue we get to pay even more! starting from 2012 we get to pay a kilometer charge, and on top of that we get to pay the trafficjam tax. Isn't that great! It will be around 3 cents a kilometer, climbing to almost 7 cents a kilometer by the year 2016. That is just insane! It means that if i wanted to drive 100 km in my car (which does 14km a litre) i have to pay 7 euro's in kmcharge and almost 6 euro's worth of gastaxes. That's just crazy. 13 euro's for 100 km in taxes alone!

But even then i think the car will still be the number one choice here in the netherlands, because, if taxing cars would help bringing the amount of cars back then why is the number of cars on the roads still growing every year. certainly If you consider that we are the second most expensive country to drive a car in the whole WORLD allready....

Although i'm a big bike fan and i do like to see the amount of cars on the roads reduced big time i'm 100% sure charging cars will NOT make a difference. Our country is living proof.

gerv 

Interesting post!
Perhaps your government understands the problem better than you realize. In North America, we have discovered that investing continuously in automobile infrastructure does little to improve traffic congestion. Many larger cities have given up on the idea for this very reason. These investments in infrastructure also have the effect of leaving the cities divided and marred by huge freeway infrastructure that just brings more noise and pollution... even if you are not using them. It also eats up considerable space, leaving less room for parks, sidewalks and other human-centered activities.

I've noticed the same effect in Canada, where gas is taxed more heavily than in the US. People still drive huge and inefficient vehicles... largely just pissing away their money on gasoline. The largest city, Toronto, features a large number of scary, congested freeways. Yet, in spite of what many people seem to want to spend their money on, Toronto is also making considerable effort on improving public transportation. I'm guessing that at a certain point... what they call a "tipping point"... people will suddenly become conscious of the amount of time they are spending behind the wheel of a car... and just what that entails.

Roody

Here in the US, when gas prices briefly went above $4 a gallon ($1 a liter) driving dropped by one or two percent. (Similar effects were seen from the recession, when gas prices were about $2.50 but people had less money.) In a normal year, driving goes up by one or two per cent, so net changes from higher priced gas were about 3 or 4 percent.

I think more expensive gas can help reduce driving, but the real answer has to be something more systemic, like fleet changes (electric cars) and infrastructure changes (shared streets and public transit).

metro2005

That's only a temporary change. When gas prices here rise by 10 or 20 cents people drive less but only for a short period. When people are used to those prices (and have cut on other expenses to afford gas) they will start driving again in their old pattern.

I will sum up the taxes we have on cars here:

A tax when you buy a car, called BPM. It raises the price of a new car by 40 % (!)

A tax when the car you buy isn't fuel efficient (our government thinks no car is fuel efficient execept for the cars that you can wear ) , the so called guzzler tax, this will add another 20 to 40% to the price

Then we have to pay 19% standard taxes (standard on every luxery good, which is everything except groceries)

When you finally bought the car you will start paying road taxed, a standard fee to be able to use the roads. This can be 10 euros a month for a small shoebox sized car up to 100 euros a month for a big diesel powered car. For an average car it will be around 40 to 50 euros a month for a standard petrol powerd car.

Then you have to fill up. The standard price for a litre petrol is around 40 cents, the government ads around 80 to 90 cents on taxes and we have to also pay the 19% standard tax. A litre of petrol costs around 1 euro 50 at the moment. A litre diesel will set you back around 1 euro.

And on top of that we get to pay kilometer charge in 2012, which will add an additional 3 cents per kilometer on avarage up to 7 cents by the year 2016. (and that's average, depends on the car. An big SUV will costs 19 to 40 cent PER KILOMETER ! ). And if that's not enough they will also charge an additional fee during rush hour (around 5 to 10 cents per kilometer)

That's not discouraging people to not drive their car anymore, that's taxing it so high that nobody can afford it anymore.

daven1986

Exactly, sometimes you NEED to drive. The idea is to change the culture of driving everywhere, which unfortunately is much harder than just upping the taxes!