Imagine if, in high density areas like Manhattan, cars were simply not allowed. Wow. The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy.
Would be so awesome.
Would be so awesome.
Cabs are like cars, except more expensive, and they drive around without anyone using them for transport looking for business. Why are they superior?
I'm picking on this example not because I think that list is meant to be complete or perfectly thought out, but because cabs often seem to get exceptions like this (e.g. in HOV lanes) and I really don't understand why. It basically seems like a "I'm rich enough to pay someone to do my driving for me" exception.
(Well, they do, but it's out in my neighborhood in queens.)
Ambulances cover the medically injured. Buses cover normal strictly time regimented use.
A simple scenario: my son has been injured at home and I need to immediately get home or to the hospital. The bus may take far too long depending. That's an example of an urgent need for singular transport.
Of course, once cabs are available, people will use them for convenience rather than the valid reasons. I don't have a solution for this, but I think the valid reasons are strong enough that cabs should be allowed in cities where private cars are banned/strongly discouraged.
I'm sure Manhattan would become very pleasant for those who could still afford to live there.
[0] (Suppose for the sake of argument my preference for commuting was driving,walking,transit (in that order.) With the option of driving eliminated my second preference would be to walk, which means finding housing closer to my workplace in Manhattan.)
Why?
And we recover all that wasted space on roads to build parks and a lot more housing.
I don’t know where you live, but NYC is very different than the rest of the U.S. when it comes to transportation. In NYC, only around half of people own a car (in Manhattan it’s even less: around a quarter).
Areas where before closing for traffic it didn’t make sense to drive anyway because walking is literally faster due to narrow streets, too many cars, etc. I don’t understand why people choose to drive there unless someone explicitly tells them they can’t.
I moved to Manhattan last year, and while there some things I've been annoyed about, it wouldn't have occurred to me to put "cars" on that list. I didn't bring my car here, and having driven a rental a couple times in the city, it's hard for me to imagine why anyone drives here if they don't have to: the experience as a driver is far, far worse than as a pedestrian.
Look at some of “urban plazas” [1] that have replaced short sections of road and witness how much more peaceful and open the city can feel when roads are removed in favor of people. Or, go down to 14th St. I was there this past week and it was wonderful—so much quieter and more open, and buses were moving smoothly.
[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/list-of-plazas.pdf
> The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy.
was the part that made no sense. Cabs are at least as noisy and air-quality-deficient as other cars, and there will be a lot more of them if other cars are banned from some large part of Manhattan.
As a pedestrian (which is every day), I've never felt as threatened by cars as I did when I was driving a rental in NYC, which happened only a couple times.
- UPS already uses natural gas and often hybrid electric
- Prius-es are common as cabs (often lower tco)
2. As for carrying, based on my experience of living in a walkable neighbourhood where thousands of people lived within a kilometer of the central shopping area, a lot of people would bring carts that they would push their groceries home in. If you can push a small wheeled grocery cart through the total 100 meter aisles of the grocery store, then you can push a big wheeled cart the 1000 meter to your house on the sidewalk. Given that I often saw 80 year olds doing that, most healthy people should also be able to do it, no problem.
Buss volume scales with funding and political will with upfront costs and delayed realized benefits. Generally supply is outstripped by demand.
Personal conveyance volume does not appear to have any of these limiting factors. And has terrible demonstrated density.
Once private cars are off the road, busses and trucks would spend less time in traffic. That increases their economic yield, which in turn, makes a gradual electrification mandate economically feasible.
https://www.iwillride.org/what-200-people-look-like-driving-...