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Comment by JackFr | Hacker News Reader

What will the businesses sell? Air dropped supplies?

This argument has the same line of reasoning that the businesses originally tried to use when the city did put in buffered bike lines - that removing unfettered automobile / truck access was the death knell to commerce

(Like these: http://gothamist.com/2011/07/14/post_blames_bike_lanes_for_b... http://www.villagevoice.com/news/new-east-village-bike-lanes...).

In the case of the bike lanes, this is the furthest from the truth (have a Google for lots of arguments about the merit of increased bike traffic).

I'm not sure what the solution is, but there certainly is one that would support a few car/truck free avenues.

I believe he meant that trucks need access to the business so the business can receive its stock

If this is the concern, then it's a misplaced one, especially for streetcars. It's totally common in European cities for the busiest streets (with shops etc) to be exclusively lanes of recessed rail. Trucks have no problem delivering supplies; in fact, it looked a lot more pleasant than trying to weave in and out of traffic and hope to god loading area parking isn't blocked a la busy streets in US cities...

I'm suggesting closing the avenues during the daytime, especially rush hours. Deliveries and garbage pickup can happen early morning or in the evening (which is already the case for garbage pickup).

They will just drive the truck from the next avenue over to the avenue that is closed and carry it from there. I don't think this wouldn't add that much delivery time.

As another commenter said, this setup is totally normal in most old European cities. Not a big deal at all.

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