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Comment by imoverclocked | Hacker News Reader

This article goes too far and yet not far enough. By trying to build more buildings that increase parking in yet smaller footprints and then charge for the added expense of all of that, why not just eliminate cars in these districts altogether. Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within the city. Now you aren't trying to extract value from the simple act of wanting to exist in a space leaving more value to core economic goods and services.

We need to attack The Modern Moloch (99pi).

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In a large metro with an extant, functional, mass transit system, sure. But do this in a cold place with no existing mass transit, and all you'll do is kill off downtown businesses and reduce property values to 0.

This experiment was kind of done in Buffalo in the 70s. They blocked off large swathes of downtown to build the above ground section of metro rail. This encouraged business to close downtown locations and move to suburban malls. That kind of retail never came back to downtown in the roughly 1 decade after completion of the metro. So you had a mass transit system that went effectively from nowhere to nowhere, and managed to kill the downtown retail corridor.

I think someone should try banning absolutely everything but emergency vehicles. No cars, no taxis, no vans, no trucks. Only cargo bikes, hand carts and maybe palanquins. Add some sort of uber type platform where you can hire someone to push wheelchair around. Limit speeds of mopeds and bicycles to say 10 or 15 km/h for pedestrian safety. This should make extremely liveable city if those promoting these things are right.

My city, Utrecht, in the Netherlands is quite close this. No cars in the city center, no diesel vans for delivery, only busses and taxis can drive in certain roads in the center, bikes have priority on most roads cars can drive outside the center, mow they are reducing the speed limit to 30km/h everywhere in the city (following Amsterdam on this), and they are building a new car-free neighborhood for 40k people with no parking spaces and car roads.

Good first steps. Next is to get rid of those busses and taxis too. And truly open all roads to be freely used by pedestrians. Or even densification. You could fit buildings there for more people to live in. Then gradually expand this area so you have some reasonable like 40 km super block with no vehicles.

>I think someone should try banning absolutely everything but emergency vehicles. No cars, no taxis, no vans, no trucks. Only cargo bikes, hand carts and maybe palanquins.

This is honestly crazy. No modern city in the world could function this way. How is cargo going to get moved around? You can't stock a supermarket with cargo bikes, and even in a dense, walkable city like Tokyo where I live, lots of cargo needs to be moved around, especially to stores, but also for cargo deliveries to other businesses and homes. And with no trucks or vans, how do you do stuff like building construction and repair?

Sure, you could get rid of private cars, and even taxis, and reduce 75-95% of the traffic on the roads, then make the roads narrower, add bike lanes, etc., but you can't just keep out cargo vehicles. No one's going to build a skyscraper or large apartment building using cargo bikes and hand carts.

Large swaths of many European cities are like this. Copenhagen has a huge pedestrianized shopping area and it's amazing.

There’d be a revolt. You might be able to get away with doing this in some small area, maybe a city block or two. But anything more than that is just begging for a backlash from the local population.

There's this - bloommerwede.nl - it looks awesome.

Look like there is still at least two bridges to block entirely. I think you could maybe build some sort of permanent market place on them.

I mean that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it. All the downsides of a car with all the downsides of a bus.

The solution, which has done in my city to genuinely smashing success is to nationalize the parking garages meaning government builds them, maintains them, and they're free forever. Dot them around a dense mixed use area and quite literally watch the money pour in. Everything is within grandpa walking distance of at least one garage, they're specced to over capacity so each one is never full, and it provides parking to the workers and apartments.

That sounds like a recipe for getting a ton of cars into your city. Think of parking garages as "traffic generators". If you cater to cars you shouldn't be surprised if what you get is more cars. It's literally sending the signal to people that it's fine (and encouraged) to drive cars everywhere. After all, your tax dollars are paying for all that infrastructure

Maybe some people are fully car-pilled, but many people want to live in an area that isn't so car-dependent, it tends to make everything more spread out, noisy, polluted, and congested. It also imposes very large personal costs.

I mean yeah… getting cars into your city is like the whole point. Cars are filled with people and people work and spend money. Specifically outside money. This is a city that has no subway or rail, vehicles are the only means of moving people. If you rip out the parking you won't get a vibrant walkable downtown, people won't start taking the bus, demand rail or move downtown because "the downtown area" just isn't that valuable of a destination. You will get a dead downtown. In a sad twist of fate when your "business district" doesn't have the capacity to absorb workers commuting or people going out on nights and weekends you'll see commercial buildings spread out even more to areas that can. Little pockets of nightlife and office space crop up next to newly built 5 over 1 apartments with plenty of parking built adjacent to major suburbs.

> Cars are filled with people and people work and spend money.

You're conflating people with cars. You want people and you're assuming that all those people must be attached to a car. There are other ways to get people to be populate an area which brings me to my second point...

> If you rip out the parking you won't get a vibrant walkable downtown

You will if you build a lot more housing in that area. If thousands more people are able to live right there then of course it'll become more vibrant. That parking garage could be home to hundreds of people. Instead it's temporary storage for cars. The problem is that suburbanites are going to fight tooth-and-nail to bring their cars. So what you get is cars.

If that's what you want, so be it. That doesn't sound like a vibrant place if everybody has to drive a car to get there, though. It's traffic by design.

> because "the downtown area" just isn't that valuable of a destination

This is another point people miss - 50 maybe 75 years ago the downtown area was a valuable destination because stores were smaller and what you needed could only be found at one or two places in a city; often downtown.

Cities are much bigger, but so are stores - you can go for months shopping nowhere but a SuperTarget or Walmart; and half the remainder can be delivered.

You make downtown desirable and then begin fixing the traffic problems. It takes 20+ years, but it can be done.

> that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it

... do people hate park and rides? Where I'm from (suburbs outside a US city) it's completely standard to park outside the city (in a garage or big lot at a train station) and take the train in. I find it quite comfortable personally.

It sounds like yours is specifically for buses, but I think it's that people generally don't like buses, they're slow and uncomfortable. The park and ride is fine when you can walk from it to a subway/train.

Parking at a train station or even a subway entrance sounds like heaven compared to ours which is a surface lot with a bus stop. But I'm not sure if "just have a subway or train network" is going to work for cities like Syracuse that don't already have them.

That's fair, yeah.

I do think parking garages are a pretty good solution, though obviously expensive (but cheaper than building out trains, like you said)

It is not convenient. It's freezing cold and icy, no walk, no bike, no scooter. Use mass-transit, sure, when you don't care about your life, when it's working, when it's coming regularly, when i don't have to exchange stations, but still, walking from home to a station and back, nah, it all sucks.

Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote.

That giant 5-level parking lot monstrocity could be a transport hub instead that has a warm metro stop, much better lighting and safety and perhaps even some light convenience retail.

> Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote.

They already have this. It's called a metro.

Cars aren’t remotely cozy. They are incredibly stressful to drive, are a huge cost, and are dangerous to those inside and out.

Every complain about public transit being unsafe is twice as true about cars

Nope. The first thing i do in the warm car, is to turn the music on, making a stop at my favourite coffee shop and then i hit the road, humming my favourite songs. I barely drive anyways, its all automatic.

In mass-transit facilities all the people look at their screens, using headphones, waiting to be coughed on, scared to be not talked to, anxiety all around. Nope, not for me. Never looking into a dirty public toilet again, while the society yells: "but its free!".

Progress, folx, not regress. Come out of your bubbles, ignore the voices, that tell ya, hundreds of human bodies efficiently transported in an iron can is progress! Live! Expand! Use everything!

You should like a scary driver to share the road with. Your whole description of the “joy” of driving is all about how little attention you are spending on the actual driving part.

When you drive you are responsible for a massive complex device moving at high speeds. It must take your full focus

An unfortunate side effect of car dependence is people forgetting how to dress outside in the place they live, a skill humans had for thousands of years but apparently lost some time in the last ~100.

Don't be silly. Humans haven't forgotten this, only Americans have.

> Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within

Very telling how these arguments are always the most ableist shit you've ever heard and yet people seem to think they're Very Progressive for making them.

People with disabilities disproportionately rely on transit. Many disabilities preclude driving all together, or require expensive modified vehicles.

Before using "ableist" as a cudgel, consider whether you know the first thing about the people you think you're defending.

I am the person I'm defending.

It's not a bad thing to make places more accessible to children and senior citizens who can't (or shouldn't) be driving.

Cars suck for anybody who doesn’t have all of their faculties in order. Broke a leg, trains were my saviour.

Cars are great for people who do have all their limbs but lack the stamina to walk long distances, stand for long periods of time, carry large weights, etc.

Enabling and incentivizing able-bodied people to do things other than drive reduces traffic and parking pressure, expanding access for the people who are unable to function without cars (and long-term will, contrary to your concerns, reduce the portion of people whose physical condition prevents them from functioning without a car).

Dense cities mean you only need to walk short distances, and doing that often enough builds the stamina for long distances.

I see you've never had chronic respiratory issues or you would know that's not true.

Sorry the poster didn't put a specific, individualized carve out for all of the disabled groups of people who would obviously be allowed to use whatever method in whatever imagined, hypothetical future, and not kicked to the curb like trash.

It is generally more productive to assume charity in the people you are talking to, that of course no one is going to ignore that some people need cars to get around.

If they don't want to be replied to like they believe in absolutes then they should not speak in absolutes. I'm so tired of having to “““assume””” that people would be inclusive of me and my needs when they outright say the opposite. Do better.

Says the ableist who doesn't care about people who are physically or mentally unable to drive a car.

... and yet, a place that is built for humans first instead of cars first would likely do just that.

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