Even if you ban regular cars you're still gonna have to deal with commercial/emergency vehicles (ambulances, moving vans, delivery trucks for local businesses.
Yes, but they still need roads. Lots of these plans seem to include re-purposing the roadways, without considering the remaining vehicles that still need roads.
No, not at least what I have seen. Even in the thread you are now answering in, there is examples (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life...) where a mostly-car street turned into a mostly-pedestrian street, with still the option for vehicle to travel if they must.
Same if you take a look at the Superilles (Superblocks) in Barcelona (http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/superilles/es/), they still have a way for vehicles to navigate, but the space for them is much smaller and has a lower limit of speed.
Many streets in Japanese cities fit this. There is only one loosely defined car lane and no sidewalks. So it's a pain to drive because if someone is driving the opposite way, someone has to pull over and yield.
The lack of sidewalks makes it so that the road's primary users are pedestrians, so cars are forced to drive carefully (slow) at all times, making these roads even less desirable for drivers.
The "soft pressure" leads to cars mostly using car-friendly roads unless they absolutely have to use the pedestrian ones.
Manhattan is different in that it connects New Jersey and Brooklyn into a super region, they are dependent on each other to thrive. Banning cars would be an absurd nightmare at least in this situation.
I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn, and my office overlooks the Holland Tunnel (connection to New Jersey). Roads are a backlogged mess every evening, where "evening" on Friday seems to start at noon. Traffic cops are in a half-dozen intersections around the Holland Tunnel entrance manually restricting flow and more importantly rerouting cars to keep all the possible entrance routes roughly balanced.
The vast majority of this traffic is from Manhattan - otherwise it wouldn't be spread across so many routes. If you want to designate a cars-ok route in Manhattan between the Battery Tunnel (to Brooklyn) and the Holland Tunnel and let that back up, you could do that and it would be less of a mess than the status quo: it would stay on West Side Highway out of the way and it would have less traffic.
One time I took a taxi from Newark to my home in Brooklyn, and the taxi driver dropped me off right after getting out of the Holland Tunnel (next to a subway stop) saying he didn't want to deal with more traffic. There is no effective vehicular link between New Jersey and Brooklyn right now. There is a moderately effective link between each of those and Manhattan, that's it.
It’s mind boggling how much affordable parking there is in Manhattan. I was doing some work in Staten Island and had an appointment in Manhattan later in the day, leaving via NJ, so I drove and was able to find parking for less than $50 in the financial district.
This should have been impossible, and I should have been forced to leave my car where it was, take a bus to St. George, and get on the ferry.
If you convert to monthly at that daily rate, parking costs $1550/month. If you figure your car’s share of the space in the garage is on the order of ~250 sq ft (the space itself plus a portion of the lanes in the garage), that seems about inline with what studio apartment housing goes for (quick google search turned up 500 sf studios in the $2500-$3000 range)
I’m just loosely estimating here but $50/day for vehicle storage seems like about what I would expect it to cost based on other land use in Manhattan. But of course none of it would be possible without a massive subsidy in the form of public road access.
Yes, because when you factor in the cost of transit and the schedules its either cheaper or the same to drive in dollar terms or way cheaper in terms of time.
Everyone gushes about how awesome transit is, but that’s only true for a few areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn. If you need to take a trip that isn’t in the happy path, a car is way better.
Uber gets me from the Upper East Side to LGA in 20-25 minutes. Public transit takes over an hour, requires changing from bus to train to train to train.
Lots of Holland tunnel traffic comes from Long Islanders avoiding the hefty toll on the Verrazano. It is also backed up because of poor traffic controls on the New Jersey side and ongoing construction projects.
Sounds fine too me. I’m not saying there should be no wheelchair accessible stations, but seeing that they are a miniscule minority, I don’t think that my tax dollars be paying to make everything accessible to them. It’s not possible, anyways, without incurring massive costs. Imagine what would happen to rents if the government mandated that all apartments and houses to be wheelchair accessible. It would be a total disaster.
Subway stations in many systems around the world are accessible. It doesn't take much for a minimum viable product - drop a 5m diameter tube for a single elevator from street level down to platform level, put separate ticket gates on it. Impact on surface infrastructure is much less than that 5m. Retrofit it in a few stations a year over the next couple decades.
Your take seems rather shallow. Accessible infrastructure includes curb cuts (originally designed for wheelchairs, also make sidewalks useable by the elderly, strollers, etc who have issues with a 6" step), audible crossing signals (meant for visually impaired, also alert those who are looking at their phones), bike lanes (meant for cyclists, improve the conditions for pedestrians and residents too), .... The list goes on and on where minor improvements in infrastructure design create massive improvements in public spaces.
The "miniscule minority" served by ramps includes pregnant women, the elderly, anyone with so much as a twisted ankle or pushing a stroller.
I'm raising this in the context of the elimination of cars. The current infrastructure pushes a lot of people into taxis. So if you eliminate cars you either have to expand accommodations or just declare the island inhospitable to anyone that doesn't pass a fitness test.
You can support effectively restricting the wealthiest hub of our largest city to just people who are like you and in your life situation, but it's not going to be a widely held position.
What’s wrong with NJ Transit? Besides everything of course, but at least most of NJ is connected to NYC through Secaucus. I can’t even imagine what people did before that station.
Holland Tunnel is a problem every day. I can see it every day.
My taxi story is an anecdote, sure, but it goes to show there isn't reliable NJ/Brooklyn transportation via Manhattan streets. If I had been going towards the airport I would have missed my flight. Or put another way - right now on Google Maps, getting from where I am in Brooklyn to EWR would be faster via Staten Island than via Manhattan. If the argument is that X is reliable, examples of X being unreliable once in a while are in fact evidence against it and not just anecdotes.
Your own definition of a problem perhaps not mine or the millions who use it every year. Its faster to go around now because manhattan takes some of the traffic, if it didnt do that what do you think will happen with that traffic.
This isn't an actual argument against severely limiting cars. Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That will become easier and more efficient without private cars.
> Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses.
That only works well if your origin or destination is in Manhattan. To go from Union City NJ to Belmont Park on a weekend is a 45 minute drive or > 90 minutes on transit consisting of bus, subway, LIRR, another bus.
There are similar examples even within NYC, like Red Hook to Jackson Heights.
There will still be roads. They are needed for pedestrians and bicyclists. But they are not commonly open for car traffic. Here in Munich, there are large pure pedestrian zones. But some of them a free for bicyclists after 9pm in the evening and in the morning hours (like 8-10) delivery traffic is allowed. And the police and ambulance cars can drive it any time it is needed.
Well, the roads still could be built to support the load of an occasional heavy truck, whatever the traffic limitations on that road are. And in most places, there are existing roads which carry the necessary loads. The repurposing would at most affect the topmost layer.
You need a way to reach your goal by car this must not necessarily look like a traditional road.
It is essentially a inversion of priorities: instead of having roads with pedestrians and cyclists allowed, you make it a pedestrian area with cyclists and cars allowed.
No, you definitely don't have exceptions for taxis.
Why are you saying that we wouldn't survive without taxis?? I almost never take them except to the airport, and I'm easily willing to give that up if it means I don't have to tangle with horrible congested car traffic on a daily basis.
Do you live in Manhattan? What makes you so sure we couldn't survive without taxis, given that we have the densest subway network in the United States, even more bus lines than that, and Citibike?
> What makes you so sure we couldn't survive without taxis, given that we have the densest subway network in the United States, even more bus lines than that, and Citibike?
lmao imagine high paid consultants politicians and tv celebrities on Citibike.
> I almost never take them except to the airport...
And you probably have functioning limbs, respiratory system, eyes, etc.
> ...the densest subway network in the United States...
Manhattan is not very accessible. The stations do not have elevators in most cases. The platforms are narrow and often dangerously crowded at peak hours.
As an experiment, I suggest you push a bad of flour around in a stroller for a week or two. Be sure to have a bag with at least a diaper, wipes, and a bottle with you.
After the experiment, imagine doing it after recovering from a recent surgery.
Most people have functioning limbs, respiratory systems, etc. We shouldn't design a system that allows everyone to drive just because a much smaller minority has a harder time taking alternatives. We already have paratransit for the elderly and handicapped in NYC. My 97-year-old great aunt uses it. And those people will benefit from getting rid of most of the rest of the vehicles, as it will reduce congestion (and thus travel times) for them, and increase the availability of curb-side pickup/dropoff, which is currently severely choked by private cars parked everywhere, typically for free!
So if you truly care about helping the disabled, then it definitely makes sense to get rid of most of the rest of the vehicles off the road.
As for kids, yeah, lots of people without cars in NYC have them. Given how rare/expensive parking is, it's definitely more hassle to try to use a car for those trips than to not use one.
You keep insisting that it's essentially impossible to raise a kid without having a car. This is flat out untrue, especially in New York City or any other place with good mass transit. Many, many people who don't own cars raise kids.
I didn't say it was completely impossible. I am insisting removing access to cars makes a hardship even worse in general and, yes, impossible in some cases. Keep in mind that some people get special license plates because doctors do not believe they are capable of walking across parking lots to get to their destinations.
At any rate, people with babies and mobility problems don't take elevators to the subway platforms because generally they don't exist or they double as outhouses.
In Manhattan, these people spend a lot of money on delivery services or rent for walkable neighborhoods (because the subway won't cut it, as I explained). It is a luxury to live this way. People with these concerns generally move out of places like this.
In outer borroughs, there is bus service, but one doesn't wait 10-30 minutes each way (not an exaggeration) in freezing weather for a bus with a baby or a heart condition. And the bus stop that probably wasn't accessible to stroller or walker due to unshoveled sidewalks and berms of trash-pepoered ice.
I am not saying it's impossible to live this way. People somehow do it, though I suspect they are shut in for large portions of the winter. I am saying it takes various forms or privilege or hardship to make it work. It's flippant for able bodied and financially well off people to hand wave about how walkable New York is without trying it out with their own canes and wallets.
It's a bit like saying, "let them eat cake" to be honest. It's just lacking a sense of experience and practicality.
Aren't you assuming that they would be replaced by nothing? As an example you can then add more buses with more predictable timelines, electric bycicles, etc...
>99% of vehicle traffic is people who can walk. If we truly limit cars to just those who need them for reasons of accessibility then we've basically solved the problem.
Sure, but in my city that was supplemented by (free) electric vehicles for people who can't walk. Why isn't that possible in rich US hosting companies like Uber and Lyft? Aren't they capable of providing zero EV transport in closed enclaves?
You say that like electric wheelchairs and scooters don't exist. People too disabled to even use those already require assistance anyway, so they're no worse off requiring assistance in a (nearly) car-free environment.
As someone who suffers one of the above and uses taxi services on a daily basis, that's a load of crap and such a change would make my life significantly worse. I'm not n=1, I'm a member of an entire demographic that clearly know nothing about but feel confident enough to make broad sweeping nonsense claims.
All benefits above are still true if you allow this. Actually they did just this in several busy streets in vienna where i live. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than before.
Those are much fewer than cars and without them blocking the road emergency vehicles can move much faster and without a thick layer of parking lining every street, commercial vehicles can have designated spots.
