Can a city really ban cars from its streets?

[hunter]

Jack Stewart, BBC - Future

After decades of car-filled streets, can a modern metropolis really turn its back on the automobile? One city is hoping that it can.

The German city of Hamburg has announced plans to become car-free within the next two decades. It is an ambitious idea, but city officials obviously feel that the personal motorcar does not fulfill a function that walking, biking and taking public transport cannot.

The goal of Hamburg’s project is to replace roads with a “gruenes netz” or a green network of interconnected open areas covering 40% of the city. According to the official website, parks, playgrounds, sports fields, allotments and cemeteries will be connected to form a network, which will allow people to navigate through the city without the use of cars.

Banishing the car from urban areas is becoming a common trend in many European cities. London imposes a “congestion charge” on private vehicles entering the city centre during peak hours. The Danish capital Copenhagen is building bicycle superhighways radiating out from the city centre.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140204-can-a-city-really-go-car-free

I like to think so.

It would also benefit wildlife if we could make cities "islands" in the wilderness connected only by elevated roads or by tunnels, so that wildlife could migrate freely.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Yes

From 2007 :

Drivers flouting traffic restrictions in Oxford's historic High Street will be fined £60 when new spy cameras 'go live' this month.

The cameras - first promised six years ago - will catch drivers who ignore the daily ban on city centre traffic between 7.30am and 6.30pm by recording the registration numbers of outlawed vehicles.

Fixed penalties will start to be imposed when the system goes live on Monday, February 26.

Bus gate restriction points were introduced in city centre locations when the Oxford Transport Strategy was launched in 1999, and only buses, taxis and licensed private hire vehicles are allowed through during the day. But drivers have been given a free rein to ignore the ban - because a legal loophole meant no-one could be prosecuted using CCTV footage.

A recent change in legislation has now made enforcement possible for the first time.

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1169008.cameras_will_finally_enforce_city_car_ban/

[Warpy]

2. If they can, it will be a pilot program for all older cities on the planet

I had a car the last few years in Boston, but I used it to get out of the city. Driving in Boston is challenging, to say the least, and spending time on the subway was a lot more pleasant.

They'll just need to improve public transit so that there are rapid transit options on the edge of town for the ring of suburbs and exurbs to use.

[Iterate]

3. Hamburg just voted to buy back their energy grid

Voted in September and the negotiations were just completed with Vattenfall. The mayor was against it because of the debt, but the final price wasn't as bad as expected. Bought back their community heating district too. Vattenfall was too invested in the big centralized plants and was blocking community efforts, and wasn't getting rid of coal fast enough.

Vattenfall also used normally permitted advertising money to be used in the campaign to stop the buyout, and that's illegal. Stupid and arrogant, it probably cost them just enough votes to get the buyout passed.

On September 22nd, citizens in Hamburg, Germany’s second biggest city, not only re-elected Angela Merkel as chancellor but also gave their electoral mandate to the city authority to buy back the energy grid in their Hanseatic city. Why? Because they concluded that the private sector cannot be trusted with public services – and that community ownership and participatory governance is the way to go, notes Anna Leidreiter.



The Hamburg-based civil society-led alliance “Our Hamburg – Our Grid” reminded citizens of a German federal law stipulating that municipal authorities invite bids from new companies, including communities, who wish to run the local grid once the contract term of 20 years ends. This alliance not only reminded citizens but actually called for action and campaigned for years for the buyback of the energy grid in the city.

And success: 50.9% of the population voted to re-communalize electricity, gas and district heating networks which are currently in the hands of multinational energy companies Vattenfall and Eon.

The motivation for Hamburg citizens? That energy supply is a basic public service that should not serve profit motives. They concluded that Vattenfall and Eon – the current grid operators – don’t act in the best interest of the people and are delaying Germany’s shift to renewable energy.
http://energytransition.de/2013/10/hamburg-citizens-buy-back-energy-grid/

The workers keep their jobs. Early adopters of the repair cafe too: http://www.repaircafe-sasel.de/ It all fits together.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. Over two decades, with lots of money, the city could be reenginered

so that cars are unnecessary for modern life in a city . The limitation is time and money.

[hunter]

5. Plenty of suburbs grew quickly, from empty fields to fully populated within a few years.

There's no reason cities couldn't rearrange themselves just as quickly.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. Hamburg has an extensive public transportation system, that could be expanded to handle

the increased requirements.

Only a relative few American cities have an adequate public transportation. The average commute distance n my neighborhood is 22 miles. There is no public transportation that will handle that in less than 2 hours. I can ride a bicycle in less than 40 minutes, and drive it in 15 on a good day.

Our cities are built from the ground up to use private automobiles. It would require a massive change in infrastructure in every city in America. Suburbs exist because of automobile transportation. Without it, we would need to build more compact cities.

On good by product would be a lot less urban sprawl. The center of cities, where the work is, would be built up higher to put homes closer to work.

[Iterate]

10. That's not the only model, the only possibility.

Forcing everyone back into dense city center towerblocks is a dystopian view (for an American anyway) and is is often used to discredit the entire notion of living in more dense communities.

A more practical vision which doesn't call for the entire landscape to be rebuilt has individual suburbs concentrating and then being connected like pearls on a string with a city still at the hub. Denser neighborhoods, 3-5 stories max, with all necessities and train or tram within a short walk -add greenspace and it's a very livable town. At worst, people would be driving to a rail station rather across state lines for a job.

It's also cheaper. This is interesting:
Nationwide data show how transportation costs hurt families, better planning can help
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/nationwide_data_show_transportation_costs.html

You'd think that within a few minutes I could look up just how much the US auto-highway road system costs per year in total and be able to show how putting down a pair of steel rails within anyone's 15 minute walk could be practical. I couldn't find it quickly. I do see that there are 3,980,817 miles of roads: four million miles. I don't recall a lot of whinging about how impossible it would be to build such a a thing.

Probably the best thing to do for the moment would be to simply stop building more roads and suburban/exurban developments. As in prohibit, as in outlaw new developments that don't meet a density/transit standard. Hey I'd sign up for that for the entertainment value alone. Agenda21!!11!

[Agnosticsherbet]

11. Here in San Diego, I've advocated an expansion of our light rail system.

up the Highway 15 corridor. they put in commuter lanes with a gigantic price tag. Would have made more sense to put in light rail in that space. I do believe that America's love affair with the automobile is starting to come to an end. But it will be a while.

[kristopher]

12. "outlaw new developments"

It would never pass the constitutional challenge even if it were to become a federal law.

[Iterate]

13. Local density zoning?

Once you build it, the road and land use, land ownership pattern stays for centuries, at least. Surely any government can make a case that its long-term interests and responsibilities trump the narrow interests and property rights of a developer. And city planners already work hand and glove with developers.

I was overstating for effect to finish that post, but was also thinking that as we go down with the ship, someone, the last one with wet feet, might realize that the artificial constraints we have placed on ourselves, like the sanctity of the free market or property rights without civic obligation, were probably not worth the cost.

[kristopher]

14. It isn't any of those - it is the constitution

As I read your first post it was a blanket proposal for the entire nation - meaning national level legislation.

Once you leave that unachievable thought behind, then possibilities such as you now speak of begin to emerge. At the level where planning actually occurs here I think there are a lot of informed jurisdictions that will find solutions designed around livability, sustainability and affordability.

Breaking the grip of the 1% is the key national objective we need to pursue in order to allow well intentioned long term planning for development.

[Iterate]

15. The whole thread is about thinking of what is possible and imagining a better city.

Rather than such thoughts being "left behind" to consider an actual, workable plan, I think they are necessary first step even if they are unachievable in pure form -as long as it's not mere consumerist fantasizing.

What I see daily on DU is a "North American universe" that is thought of as inescapable, inevitable, and often doomed to failure. To the doubtful degree that I have any coherent message at all it would be that such a thing is not true; other people don't live that way and alternatives are there if you build them. Without first imagining a city without cars, there will be none. I'll happily toss in an outrageous, barely legal statement or two if it gets anyone down the road of thinking about life without shackles.

So is national-level land use, zoning standards, and four-bin recycling possible? Why not? If not, why not at a state and local level? Does your town even have a transportation plan? If not, that's the place for people to start. If the plan is "more wide streets", just suggesting narrower streets and slower speeds will rattle cages. "No more parking lots" will cause a revolution.

Then comes the time for a workable plan. Such plans are inevitably imperfect and disappointing, but that's fine. Only children will be dissuaded; keep the original vision in mind and try again. Somewhere down that metaphorical road, activists will hit the real limits, not the invented ones. Then the fun begins, because no one has made a truly "car free" city.

I'm not telling anyone anything they don't already know there, but sometimes it helps just to write it out.

Very windy day today in Germany, even down in the valleys. It's a day that gives the Magritte Group ulcers. Good.

[kristopher]

16. I don't think it's "consumerist fantasizing" to ground recommendations the real world

And any proposal that national level legislation be used to affect local zoning in the US is simply not grounded in the real world.

There's a lot of work on urban planning being done, but getting those plans implemented is a jurisdiction by jurisdiction battle. It is also a temporal battle as events and new technologies change the options and designs that are seen as most beneficial. Go back in time 40 years and the visions of what a desirable tomorrow looks like are as radically different from those of today as those of today will be from the visions emerging 40 years from now.

As for the specific premise of a car free city, maybe it will emerge but I doubt it will happen anytime in the near future. I think it's far more likely that in the next 40 years we'll see radical changes in the nature of the machine we now call the 'car' and that these changes will function to make them part of a far more effective urban transportation network than either the current automobiles or the current vision of public transportation.

And for the record, I've lived more than 10 years in Tokyo so I don't think I'm particularly limited by a N. American centric view of the world.

[hunter]

18. The "real world" of today's economic theory is entirely disconnected from the real world of nature.

Cargo cult like faith in "Money" and "Capital" and "Productivity" is poisonous everywhere.

We live within a cargo cult. Appease the proper gods and you will be "successful!"

North America, Asia, almost anywhere these days...

[kristopher]

20. No it isn't.

You say "economic theory" as if that has some sort of overarching meaning. For purposes of this reply I'll assume you mean the toolkit of proven research techniques that are used to mine for knowledge about human behavior.

Economics are entirely capable of incorporating the "real world of nature" (whatever the fuck that is) if the people looking for understanding want it to. Your claims are, as is common with your remarks, based on an apparently unlimited pool of false information.

You might start by learning:
the difference between normative economics and positive economics;
the difference between micro and macro economics;
what natural resource economics deals with;
what environmental economics deals with.

You are confusing an ideology of greed with a universally applicable tool that emerged concurrently with the ascendency of that ideology. Your view is like saying the idea of a sharp cutting edge is only useful for chopping off heads.

[hunter]

21. Well then...

... say "hi" to Lovins for me.

[kristopher]

22. That's like complaining about modern technology over the internet

But I suppose that when you don't have something meaningful to say, resorting to nonsense and bullpucky is all you have left.

[hunter]

23. ?

Got nothing material to sell, and no money to buy with.

But friends and family stay free.

[One_Life_To_Give]

7. For most people Car in Urban environment is a luxury

Healthy adults can go about their lives in cities without the need of a personal automobile. It's the unhealthy, the emergency services and supply of goods that need a transportation infrastructure. Given the current obesity problems many of us could stand to walk a few more miles every day.

[cprise]

8. A book on the car-free concept:

http://www.carfree.com/book/

The info on the website is interesting, too.

[hunter]

9. Thanks!

I imagine rural and semi-rural areas without cars too.

Maybe not so rural as my great grandparent's cattle ranch, which was (and still is) far, far away from the nearest grocery store. When my mom's family established the homestead there were no cars. No phones or electricity either. If something really bad happened, especially in the winter, people just died. Cars, rural electrification and telephones made it a much easier place to live. Still, my grandma moved to the big city. (My mom's cousin still owns the homestead.)

But in the modern world, with our excellent communication technologies, and advances in fabrication technologies, even a small town could be a lively cosmopolitan place without cars. I tend to think cars actually interfere with the formation of cosmopolitan small towns. It's too easy to drive away from Dullsville, too difficult to contemplate the sorts of changes that might make a small town Not-Dullsville.

[Fumesucker]

17. People lived in small towns before cars

They were pretty much Dullsville combined with Peyton Place.

[hunter]

19. I think high speed internet changes that.

"Art" or "Foreign" movies that would never be shown in the local cinema available on Netflix. Discussion boards too.

The eccentric, gay, minority, etc., kids in town learned they are not alone, as did their peers.

I think open communication was a big part of the revolution in my own "Big Ag" community. A stagnant backwater became thoroughly cosmopolitan.

My grandfather freaked out that I was marrying, in his words, "a Mexican girl." People in his White Wild West pseudo-Protestant family just didn't do that.

My grandpa was advanced for his generation, he "tolerated" all sorts; homosexuals, people who were not white, Catholics, Jews, Muslims... everyone was welcome at his dinner table. During World War II he was the handsome Army Air Force officer with a big car and enlisted driver carrying the "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for various misfits deemed essential to the war effort. He had black and gay and Asian friends and coworkers, Stephen Colbert style.

But when it came to family he wasn't quit there until he was ninety years old. He eventually got over it and loved my wife. But before he'd figured it all out he decided not to attend my own Big Catholic Irish-Mexican-Native-American wedding.

I've never quite figured him out. The great family crisis in his parent's and his grandparent's generation were the boys marrying "Irish girls." He was part Irish Catholic, which is how and why his own ancestors ended up in America. But he never acknowledged that.