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Comment by itsoktocry | Hacker News Reader

>Selfishly, I really want the USA to bring city centers back to livable levels by banning most cars and redesigning them for humans.

I bet if this happened you'd be living in a downtown that's physically walkable, but there's no business left to walk to.

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This has been tried several times in cities and by and large it seems to be profitable for the businesses.

Source? Just curious

Many European cities have walkable downtown streets closed to cars with lots of successful businesses.

Burlington, VT. Boulder, CO. Old Town Arvada, CO. All have very successful pedestrian-only streets in the USA with lots of healthy businesses.

Yeah, tourist-centric destinations can do things like this. We do it where I live too, in the summer. Closing down a few streets is a world away from banning cars from downtown. How many people can actually live in an area like that?

I'm confused about your question.

If I can do everything I want in my city -- exercise, drink, eat, buy groceries, meet up with friends, etc. -- without a car, why wouldn't I be able to live there?

I expect in this situation you'd be able to store your car in a secure garage on the edge of town if you want to own one. Or you could take public transit or bike to rent a car on the edge of town. Or you could take a train to wherever you want to go and use another method of transport once you get there.

Is there some kind of deep intrinsic human need to sit in a car within 1000 feet of your home that I'm not understanding?

I think I’ve seen this in a few places, there’s one source in particular I’m thinking of that I can’t seem to find but here are some:

The positive impact of car-free streets on businesses during COVID: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/the-busin...

Good overview about autoluw streets and the effects they have: https://youtu.be/GlXNVnftaNs

…though as the video states, autoluw doesn’t mean completely car-free. I tend to agree that it’s probably the best balance rather than eliminating all cars from the area.

Boston has recently closed down major roads for pedestrians to great success. Most businesses ended up selling out entire inventories on those days during the weekend because their walk in traffic literally increased exponentially.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/10/metro/jamaica-plains-...

There's been a growing movement to permanently close down certain roads around Back Bay to encourage this behavior as well because restaurants and local shops love the increase in customers.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/open-newbury-street-returns-aug...

Ann Arbor MI closed Main Street for the summer months to allow restaurant patrons to sit outside. I think this began during year 2(?) of covid. This especially makes sense in a college town when the students are away (half the population) and the reduced traffic is relatively easy to shunt around the closed off areas.

Conversely, Kalamazoo MI closed off a major downtown street year-round around 1975 to encourage foot traffic, but found few takers especially in winter. After a decade or so of declining attendance in general (as interest in the downtown also faded) they finally reopened the street to motor traffic.

Oh hey, I grew up in Kalamazoo and went to school in Ann Arbor. It's been so long since I lived there I might be remembering wrong, but I just don't remember that much to do on the street in question (compared to somewhere like Ann Arbor). When I lived there, I think it was open to traffic, but a single one-way lane? Parking never seemed to be a problem if you were willing to park a block away.

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