Re:Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back fr...
by briandear on Sunday August 07, 2016 @06:11AM
(#12241647)
I live in a small town in France and in the villages, there is often zero parking. The effect on the village? Less economic activity than the ones that have parking. Just eliminating parking does solve a problem, but it creates another problem as people seek convenient alternatives. Taking 3 toddlers with strollers on public transport to go grocery shopping isn't as easy as some single guy jumping on the train to go get a beer. How does one transport things back to their house? Using only public transport means that you can only buy what you can easily carry.
Public transport makes it really difficult to carry any amount of cargo. Ever tried to bring grocery bags into the subway in NYC during rush hour? It's impossible. Now do that with a kid. Now do all that and end up at one of the majority of stations without elevators. No matter how 'good' NYC's public transport it, it still sucks if you are in a wheelchair, with small children, carrying any amount of cargo and traveling at anytime other than 12am.
Public transport has its place, but to suggest a car-free world is madness -- unless we have cargo carrying robots bringing stuff to our doors.
I will say Zurich does a good job -- their trains are super easy to board, they are spacious and uncrowded. The platforms are wide and easy to navigate and have no stairs. Still, even that doesn't solve the problem of cargo. One could use Amazon, but that requires a truck to deliver things, which requires roads and unloading zones.
Public transport makes it really difficult to carry any amount of cargo. Ever tried to bring grocery bags into the subway in NYC during rush hour? It's impossible. Now do that with a kid. Now do all that and end up at one of the majority of stations without elevators. No matter how 'good' NYC's public transport it, it still sucks if you are in a wheelchair, with small children, carrying any amount of cargo and traveling at anytime other than 12am.
Public transport has its place, but to suggest a car-free world is madness -- unless we have cargo carrying robots bringing stuff to our doors.
I will say Zurich does a good job -- their trains are super easy to board, they are spacious and uncrowded. The platforms are wide and easy to navigate and have no stairs. Still, even that doesn't solve the problem of cargo. One could use Amazon, but that requires a truck to deliver things, which requires roads and unloading zones.