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Comment by ericmcer | Hacker News Reader

Car free cities are super obtainable but seem like a total impossibility. We will never trade safety, health and solitude for convenience.

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I don't think car-free cities are easily obtainable. I can't think of one that currently exists.

Even cities with world-class mass transit, e.g. Tokyo and London, are full of cars, and taxis are still a better option for some trips -- even though there are also surface trains, subways, and buses to choose from.

In those places, step 1 has already been solved: convince the population that mass transit is desirable and should be well funded. London even charges congestion fees for cars. But they still can't achieve car-free cities.

This is an interesting observation but I'd argue there certainly cities where cycling is a norm (Amsterdam, Copenhagen) and cities that are increasingly turning to 2 wheels as a way to solve density (Paris, Berlin, Oslo). I think the UK, like the US, suffers from the idea of cars being a status symbol. I've no idea how this works in Tokyo for example, would be good to know their approach to cycling as an alternative, but pedestrianisation of areas and city centres are what we should certainly strive for.

Nobody drives in those cities; there is too much traffic.

Somebody has to be driving, otherwise the traffic would just be a bunch of empty cars.

But I agree the majority of locals don’t drive.

The person you're responding to was paraphrasing a famous comedic observation. To quote Yogi Berra: "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

Venice and Siena come to mind

Anecdotally last time I was in central London I counted the vehicles going past parliament. About 1 in 10 was an unmarked car, the rest were commercial vehicles or taxis

I don’t know for London, I wouldn’t describe Tokyo as full of cars.

There are major axes to accross the city with constant traffic and most bigger blocks are accessible by car (even just for deliveries). But there are pretty large areas with no car entry, and small residential parts are often shared car/bike/pedestrian zones were cars are not privileged.

I also think the goal shouldn’t be car-free, but to have clear separation of the “liveable” space with shops, parks, administrations, schools etc., and the “transportation” space with the trains, cars, cans and trucks. Speaking of Tokyo it often layers the two, with lower level streets/buses/truck roads and upper level walkable space. Seems to be the best compromise, albeit more expensive to build.

That layering takes place only in the densest urban core, primarily around significant train junctions. In the rest of the sprawl, there's no separation, some parts of residental greater Tokyo (particularly those still using pre-war streets) don't even have sidewalks.

Tokyo's residential neighbourhoods without pavements are great - it makes the whole road a shared space rather than one that belongs exclusively to cars.

A lack of sidewalks combined with narrow streets forces drivers to slow down and pay attention, which is ideal if you want to see fewer injuries and deaths caused by vehicle traffic on a stretch of road.

> Even cities with world-class mass transit, e.g. Tokyo and London, are full of cars

I've found Tokyo had surprisingly few cars for a massive city with high population density. Also, virtually no street parking, which makes the cityscape much nicer, and many side-alleys that are largely car-free.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places

That's mostly islands, here are a few cities: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/car-free-cities-of-the-w...

I'm trying to find the city in Brazil (I think is is) where they recently went car-free.

> safety, health and solitude

Funny, those are 3 of the main reasons I live way out in the nearly-rural suburbs instead of in downtown San Francisco.

It seems like some of us have made that trade, just not in the direction you're hoping for.

>Funny, those are 3 of the main reasons I live way out in the nearly-rural suburbs instead of in downtown San Francisco.

And this is precisely the problem: automotive culture presently represents a massive subsidy to rural and suburban areas at the expensive of urban dwellers.

I can't possibly blame people for making that trade. But the observation is that it's sweetened by externalities that ex-urban areas don't have to bear.

We don't have to trade convenience. We have to trade houses for apartments. Cars are largely what make having a house in the middle of nowhere largely possible.

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