Re:Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law
by wtetzner on Thursday April 11, 2019 @04:42PM
(#19638969)
Park & ride is a fine idea, but Massachusetts needs to invest in that sort of infrastructure before it will become viable for commuters.
Currently there's the commuter rail, which is hard to get to from many areas, is quite expensive, and doesn't run very frequently. It's not good enough to get people to stop driving.
Re:Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law
by jessaustin on Thursday April 11, 2019 @08:27PM
(#19640724)
If the commuter rail is not convenient they could park at the end of the T, e.g. Alewife, BC etc.
Re:Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law
by gregmac on Thursday April 11, 2019 @09:36PM
(#19641138)
But now they need to pay for the car anyway, so you're left balancing the comparatively small cost of parking + extra gas + extra mileage against inconvenience of switching transit methods + cost of transit.
There's many other factors, too, which could influence things in either way: total time spent commuting, whether you hate crowded spaces and prefer to sit alone in your car, whether you can be productive (eg: phone call, working on laptop, doing email on phone etc) or want to be able to read.
Having all your commuters drive their car into the city is not at all a good idea. I lived for years at one heavy intersection in one of Germanys biggest cities and I can tell you, if you watch the traffic for half an hour you will see maybe one or two cars with more than one person in them.
I moved from their because the dust and the noise were having a huge impact on my health.
I don't think it is about banning cars from city centers totally. It is about finding acceptable solutions that work without forcing people. Encourage them. Have a working public transport system. Make it cheap. Make it so cheap that driving a car will cost you. Include all problems cars cause in a urban space in some kind of toll or tax.