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Comment by disantlor | Hacker News Reader

I am biased but why do we even need cars in the city center, or at the very least why should they be convenient? Could there not be a situation where you walk to the edges of the city center to pick up your car and leave from there? There are specific accessibility concerns that certainly need to be accounted for, but the idea that the average driver loses 20 minutes on a trip that should be 5-10 minutes doesn't seem like inherently an issue in this context.

edit-add: biased in the sense that I really dislike cars and live in NYC in large part because you do not need one here

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I was waiting for this response. As someone who doesn’t live in the city center, and has no easy means of mass transportation to get there, my response is: fine I just won’t go then. You lose my money.

In NYC or Chicago that’s probably not a big deal. In the vast majority of the rest of the US, that’s how you kill a city center. I can tell you in my case, given the homelessness issue that’s been getting worse the last decade, if you make it harder to get to the downtown area it will become a ghost town.

Lol, have you been to the Midwest? In small and medium sized cites there downtowns are often dead, including the small city I grew up in. All of them easily accessible by car. Dead city centres in North America more have to do with the post war experiment of subsidizing inefficient sprawling car dependent suburbs. If you want to actually understand this read more from the advocacy group Strong Towns[0] they also have a great YouTube channel. Now compare small Midwest cities to small cities in the Netherlands like Leiden or Haarlem and you’ll see limiting traffic from downtowns has little to do with how well they do economically.

[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/

That’s not as true as it used to be, but I don’t disagree with the wider point.

I agree it’s improving from the 90s, but when I go back to the Midwest from Western Europe, the difference is dramatic simply in the number of people downtown in public spaces for cites with the same population.

That’s an extreme comparison! I bet only a few US cities would approach what you see in Berlin or Paris.

I’m not talking about Berlin or Paris. I’m taking about small European cities I’m familiar with that have vibrant walkable downtowns. Off the top of my head, Leiden Netherlands, Haarlem Netherlands, Peacara Italy, or Zug Switzerland.

If you ban cars they will be even more dead.

Not true. Go to Leiden Netherlands and see how economically vibrant a small city can become if it incentives efficient land use and limits traffic in city centre in favour of pedestrian paths an public transit.

I think you're overselling Leiden as an example of this here, isn't traffic blocked from just one main shopping street and one other (steenstraat) made somewhat hard to access?

I'm not sure I would say the latter change, which was recent-ish, made a big difference versus just the general cleanup of the inner city (better train station, spruced up Beestenmarkt square etc).

Sure, there are still plenty of places you can drive in Leiden. I guess the point I’m trying to make is small cities in North America favour car transportation to an extreme. It is to the point where it’s physically dangerous to walk to some places because their aren’t even sidewalks and traffic travels much faster inside the cities than you’d ever see in the Netherlands.

Compared to small cities in North America, Leiden infrastructure is amazing — as is a lot of Dutch towns. It not that you have to completely block off all roads either. It’s just that everywhere there are roads for cars, there’s also equal space for bike and pedestrians and public transit is invested in much more. If you want to see a video series that compares the two look up the YouTube channel notjustbikes

Nice to see my town mentioned! I hope we remove even more of the current traffic roads in the center, it is great.

The Unites States is not the Netherlands. If the downtown is already dying, banning cars will finish it off.

It certainly isn't any more, but before the 70s the Netherlands was looking at America when it came to modern infrastructure. Lots of cars, huge roads, pedestrian hostile intersections, massive amounts of and ridiculous highways (Just look at this crazy thing: https://mobile.twitter.com/notjustbikes/status/1176840020751...). It didn't kill the downtown in the Netherlands and they were in much the same position.

> that’s how you kill a city center.

This is a function of American cities being poorly designed. You are expected to arrive by car from the sprawling suburbs. I agree with your exceptions, NYC, Chicago: but I'd add, almost every city in Europe, such as the grandparent was talking about.

If this poor design is killed, hopefully something better can arise.

Honestly, your money is not worth the congestion, noise and air pollution it requires. It’s a real shame your locality does not provide good rail connections.

One thing to remember about NYC's crazy tolls and congestion pricing plans is that there are not many reasons why visitors should need to drive in. There's NJTransit, PATH, light rail to Hudson valley and CT, LIRR, Amtrak, so many regional bus routes and frequent shuttles to EWR and other popular places, where most of these have park-and-ride options. And then of course once in the city there are subway and buses. Other cities that want to copy the car-discouraging policies should think about what the alternatives are.

It was cheaper and faster for me to drive 25 miles into Manhattan than take the train in from a walkable station. Then getting back out doesn't have to be at the mercy of the train schedule which is often every two hours for the line in question.

> As someone who doesn’t live in the city center, and has no easy means of mass transportation to get there, my response is: fine I just won’t go then. You lose my money.

The bussiest city centers tend to be the least car and most pedestrian friendly ones. Park the car at the border of the center, then walk into the center.

When you say "then walk into the center", you do realize you are talking about a (edit) 20-30 minute walk one-way. A car could cut that in 2 minutes.

In my lifetime I was a driver in a city where it took exactly 5 minutes door-to-door from my home to ANY location in the city (at night). During the day it was maybe 8 minutes.

Then some years went by.

I now live in a city where at night it's 20 minutes, and during the day it's 45-60 minutes.

From 5/8 minutes to 20/45-60 minutes.

It's the same city.

Things change, I get it. It just feels like things are getting worse and worse and yeah, it elicits serious questions like "is this going to be my last car, ever?" etc. :)

Don't you ever use public transportation? Most larger European cities have quite acceptable transportation. Also one of the reasons it takes longer is probably that there far more cars on the road and everybody is using their car even for short trips.

Park + ride at the outer edges of the city center. But most American cities are probably a lost cause.

homelessness is a big issue in NYC, it doesn’t seem clear to me that cars have much to do with it, compared to, say, lack of affordable housing. perhaps we could reclaim all the parking space to build more housing

This is what mid-sized American cities have been saying for about 75 years, most of which adopted this plan with zeal. And it's been a total failure. It turns out you can't save Downtown by making it easier for suburbanites to get there. Whatever you think of that approach from first principles, the evidence at this point is overwhelming. It does not work.

Moreover, suburbanites largely don't want to visit the city, they either do by necessity or for special occasions like a big game or a designated social event.

I see this in Seattle so much. People complain about their version of what they think my city is, swarm in for a big football game or whatever and have a great time once every few months, then swarm out to complain more about a city they’re not even in

> In the vast majority of the rest of the US

The cities in these places don't generally have the problems that the GP was talking about: the streets are mostly planned and overall car-friendly, and if you miss one turn there's likely a close opportunity to correct your route.

You could replace cars with public transport rather than just moving the cars. If you don't want to build too much infrastructure then buses and bus lanes work well.

In my town you have largely 4 options: - walk - drive - take a bus/tram - bike

Walking is too slow and cumbersome for most people (e.g. 6-8 km one way to work seems like too much to do every day), and impossible if you want to go shopping anywhere except on your way to work.

Public transport is really slow and not as flexible as you want (many places without good connections, wait times 15-20 minutes, transit times 20-50 minutes).

So you are left really with bike (flexible, constant travel time regardless of traffic, keeps you fit -- but very susceptible to bad weather) and car (flexible, fast, great for transporting items -- but very susceptible to traffic).

Biking is not that susceptible to weather imho. When it rains you can wear a rain coat and rain trousers. When it's cold you can wear any outdoor jacket (gore tex is great even if maybe not healthy). When it snows you have to work a bit harder. When there is ice you can use tires with spikes for great grip. The worst is hot weather, since you can only shed so much clothing. An ebike helps here, but that reduces the health benefits.

Sure if you are super motivated you can bike in any weather. But for 95% of people they will only be willing to bike if it is nice out.

The average person is not going to go out and buy a fat bike or spiked tires for the winter. And they probably shouldn't, biking in winter is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. And sure I could wear a full rain suite and bike in the rain, but that is far less convenient than just driving and wearing a light jacket. So sure it is possible to bike in all weather, in the same way that it is possible to walk 5k, just no one wants to.

Biking in the rain is such a laughable idea to me. I wear glasses, walking in the rain is a pain in the ass as I can't see shit, it would be impossible for me to ride a bike in the rain.

That's just a first order problem for me. Drainage in a lot of city roads is pretty awful so bicyclists have a pretty good chance of getting swamped at intersections or knocked over if a bus or truck sends a wall of rain water their way.

I guess if you don't need glasses and live in the suburbs biking in the rain might not be too terrible. I couldn't imagine it in the city center of any city I've ever been to though.

Dublin, which is crap for cycling infrastructure and weather in the winter, has about a 25% higher cycle count for summer months, according to the 2019 data (the last year unaffected by covid).

Cycling in the rain is only a huge problem when the infrastructure is crap. Riding in a flooded gutter, getting splashed by passing motorists and being left-hooked by people who can’t see clearly through a wet windshield is dangerous and unpleasant. Cycling on a dedicated bike path with good drainage, mud guards and a waterproof is fine, imo.

It still sucks if you have to look (and smell) presentable at work. Even if you bike at a leisurely pace you and your suit will be drenched if you bike to work in a rain coat and rain trousers.

Anytime I want to spend time in DC, I definitely just drive to Greenbelt, park, and take the metro to whatever part of the city I’m trying to go to. It’s a sanity-saver over trying to find parking.

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