Cities vs. cars

[lpetrich]

Over the last half-century and more, politicians and activists have tried to resist what they consider excessive encroachments of cars in cities. This lead to the freeway revolts of half a century ago, and this has continued more recently, with freeway removals, bicycle lanes, congestion prices, banning cars from city centers, and now, superblocks.

These are sets of city blocks where the streets between them are reserved for pedestrians and cyclists. The only vehicles allowed are residents' vehicles and delivery vehicles, and those must travel slowly there. Politicians and officials in Barcelona, Spain, have turned some city-block sets into superblocks, and they plan to do more.

Superblocks: Barcelona’s radical urban plan to take back streets from cars - Vox
New walkable public spaces in Barcelona - Vox
1. Barcelona, Spain, urban planning: a city’s vision to dig out from cars - Vox
2. Barcelona, Spain, urban planning: what the city learned from the first superblocks - Vox
3. Barcelona, Spain‘s urban plan to build superblocks: the 2 biggest challenges ahead - Vox
4. Barcelona and urban planning: the ultimate potential of superblocks - Vox
5. Barcelona, Spain’s urban plan: could superblocks work in the United States? - Vox
Barcelona, Spain urban planning: a remarkable history of rebirth and transformation - Vox

 

[lpetrich]

Half a century ago, "freeway revolts" by local citizens resulted in the shortening and cancelling of several of these roads:
 Highway revolt,  Highway revolts in the United States,  Road protest in the United Kingdom

Most recently, this had gone even further, with some urban freeways removed and plans to remove more:
 Freeway removal
Among those removed:

• The Embarcadero and Central Freeways of San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 (I-880 in West Oakland was rebuilt southward and westward of its original route)
• Harbor Drive on the west shore of the Willamette River in Portland, OR
• The Central Artery of Boston MA, relocated underground
• The Alaskan Way of Seattle WA, relocated underground

What If a City Decides It Can Live Without a Freeway? - "Inside the push to tear down an Oakland freeway", I-980 in downtown Oakland.

The reasons to build inner-city highways seemed obvious in the 1950s, the golden age of the automobile. They allowed thousands of cars to flow through big cities without slowing down and clogging up streets. Like TV dinners, Tang, and dishwashers, they made things convenient.

Today, however, city politicians and community organizers have started talking about reasons to remove them. They pepper nearby neighborhoods with soot; they break up cities, making it harder to walk across town; they take up acres of space that could go to parks, houses, and public transit.

...
“Freeway construction was a disaster for city neighborhoods in the 20th Century,” the report said. “Many neighborhoods were divided in two — their main streets demolished and businesses closed, disproportionately in minority communities.”

Even so, it has been tough going, and part of the difficulty is in finding funds for the removal of that bit of freeway.

Freeways Without Futures 2019 | CNU

• Claiborne Expressway (I-10), New Orleans, Louisiana
• I-275, Tampa, Florida
• I-345, Dallas, Texas
• I-35, Austin, Texas
• I-5, Portland, Oregon
• I-64, Louisville, Kentucky
• I-70, Denver, Colorado
• I-81, Syracuse, New York
• I-980, Oakland, California
• Kensington and Scajaquada Expressways, Buffalo, New York

I-5 in Portland? It would be the downtown segment, the segment paralleled by I-405 there. So I-405 could get renamed I-5 as a result.

 

[lpetrich]

Barcelona, Spain, urban planning: a city’s vision to dig out from cars - Vox

Listing some cities that have tried to restrict or ban cars from parts of them. Oslo Norway, Madrid Spain, Pontevedra Spain, London, Hamburg Germany, Montreal Quebec, Helsinki Finland, Bogota Colombia, New York City, Detroit... "New York City has pushed cars out of Central Park and has an annual car-free Earth Day. In March, it announced a plan for congestion pricing in lower Manhattan, starting in 2021."

Many cities now have lots of  Bike lanes to make life easier for cyclists.

 

[Sarpedon]

Another strategy that works is to have streets available for deliveries at certain hours, then close them to all but pedestrians during the most appropriate times for that. I believe this is done in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, for one example.

In Minneapolis we converted a major street to a pedestrian plaza, with a narrow 2 lanes for buses, bicycles and emergency vehicles only. It has been very successful, I wish they'd do it for a few other streets.

 

[Rhea]

I like this trend.

 

[PyramidHead]

I've often wondered what society would be like in terms of mental health, like depression and anxiety and stress, if civilian ownership of cars in major urban centers were outlawed. It would force walkable, bike-able, and linked spaces to be thoughtfully arranged and connected by reliable public transportation, which when you think about it is the whole point of living in a city. Having everybody in a small, crowded area sitting in their own vehicle defeats the purpose of cramming all that stuff so close together. There's no benefit to living 2 miles away from the supermarket instead of 20 miles away when it still takes a half hour to get there in the afternoon. I say make the roads in cities primarily for walking or self-propelled personal vehicles like bicycles or scooters, with enough room for emergency vehicles and delivery trucks as needed. Maybe have a public car rental service for those times in everybody's routine where a car would come in handy, like for transporting boxes of stuff. I feel like most people would just be happier and less frustrated, but it would never happen because there's too much of a business interest in people driving to places they can't easily access by foot.