Interesting.

Whenever there is talk about pedestrianizing a street in my town, the usual suspects immediately claim that this will make local businesses go bankrupt since "people can't drive up to them". Never mind that stopping isn't allowed anyway on those streets. I don't understand the logic.

Toronto?

We literally had an outspoken opponent of a traffic reduction program (not even totally car-free) build an ice statue that flipped the bird to passers-by in protest. In the end I think he cost himself business because of his attitude.

You're not alone in not understanding. The program (called the King St Pilot Project here in TO) has made taking that street as a transit user and pedestrian far more palatable.

Here's what the problem was. The King St Project dramatically improved transit. Tens of thousands of people were getting home earlier.

This was good for riders.

However there were a few nice but not noteworthy restaurants that got a lot of evening customers who were people waiting for King St to get moving and decided to give up and have dinner or a few drinks.

Think of it along the lines of airport restaurants suffering due to reduced flight delays and reliably fast security clearance.

That runs counter to the data I’d previously seen. Business owners claimed spending went down when it was reported as going up.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4390635/king-street-pilot-project...

Or see the city’s YoY report, page 16:

https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/8fb5-TS_Ki...

The restaurants that suffered were belonged to the fellow I mentioned and those that aligned themselves with him. He was already a bit of a notorious blowhard.

What you’re describing is what they claimed would happen, but didn’t because more people were encouraged to spend time there.

Even anecdotally I certainly spend more time there after films than I otherwise did because it’s so much better to move through rather than a total blockade of cars every single day rendering it basically a non-consideration—at least on our part.

Amazing. Sounds like a Parks and Recreation episode.

I work in a small town in the UK that is being slowly killed by people driving through the centre either looking for a free parking spot of just because it shortens their journey by a minute or so. And yes, these are the people who believe their freedom to do so is what's keeping the town alive - despite much evidence to the contrary (ie. many closed down businesses).

Americans are really unaware to how cars ruins cities, particularly how much of the cities after urban renewal were demolished instead of improved to make room for the six lane sroads.

This only works in bigger cities, where there is plenty of heavily subsidized public transport such as Berlin. Most smaller towns that went car free killed their businesses or made them move to shopping districts on the outskirts which are still reachable by car. Leading to "dead" inner parts of town and very unhappy citizens. Oh, and skyrocketing rents in the subsidized cities such as Berlin...

It's funny that you are using "heavily subsidized public transport" while using the entierly subsidized road system...

Disclaimer: I've been car free for the past three years.

I agree that roads are public infrastructure, but car owners are heavily taxed in Europe, especially some parts of Europe.

In Italy, excluding fuel taxes (which cover 70% of the cost of the fuel BTW) every car owner pays a mandatory "car owning tax" for each car they own, that totals around 5-6 billions euros/year. And it's only the main one, there are several others.

In the US, it's called a car registration fee, but it's the same thing - a tax on owning a car.

Just about all public road systems are subsidised but are public transport systems?. This will work better in cities with cheap/free public transport

Or if like in some other parts of the world public transit companies can profit off the development around train stations, and then treat the trains as marketing that literally funnels trainloads of people to their profit centers.

> entirely

Forgetting fuel taxes?

Excise tax, Gas Tax, Tolls, Registration Fees, Inspection Fees ... Parking fee's... Cars pay their way to the point of making the country profitable in that regard...

One alternative, if you're not fond of the idea of banning cars altogether, is to do the same thing that you see a lot over here. Basically any street people live on is a dead end, or almost a dead end. Taking a shortcut through a residential street basically doesn't happen.

Take the neighborhood I live in for example, It's all one-directional traffic with tight corners and speed bumps. It has more exiting streets than entering streets. The end result being a decided lack of traffic, while still being able to get a car to your front door when you need it.

Kids can play in the streets safely enough, There's a couple cars an hour most of the day and the few cars that do pass are going slow enough to not hit any kids. The most dangerous time of day is all the parents getting their kid out of school by car.

You sometimes see a commercial vehicle trying out a new shortcut. People only think that to be a good idea once. Going around is faster than going through in any case.

Carless doesn't have to be an absolute. It's a gradient from six lane highways through your neighborhood on one side, and no cars at all on the other. A balance needs to be found.

That is what they claim over here as well. Meanwhile business is booming in the pedestrian zone, with shops actively moving there from other parts, whereas those shopping streets that kept cars are indeed showing some empty spots due to (a) the above, (b) normal churn, with new businesses starting preferring the car free zones as well and (c) stall-wards being trounced by e-commerce.

The same complaints playbook every time in every city (commerce, disabled, deliveries and repairs) with the same success stories each and very time the carfree streets and regions are there.

In smaller cities you can let people park outside and they will be able to walk in within minutes. That's even better than using crowded public transport.

Rents are skyrocketing in Berlin because everybody and their friend wants to visit us or live here. At the same time for decades no new buildings were built. Remember? Supply and demand.

Yet rents are still not as high as in New York, London, Paris, Munich or even Hamburg so that people from everywhere flock here.

Do you have examples of such smaller cities that tried this and failed?

I was wondering this myself. I’ve never heard of this before.

Well yeah, if you get rid of one form of transport there has to be something sufficient to replace it. They could be subways, busses, bikes (think Denmark), etc.

It isn't that nobody thought of busses or trams. Its just that they are always too sparse, slow, limited in times, capacity, safety and comfort. I believe the break-even is of being able to replace cars is somewhere around a 5min schedule over the day and stations in at most 200m walking distance from everywhere.

Oh, and of course being comparable in speed to at least a bike.

That leaves only subways...

Melbourne trams are more convenient than driving and are free in the city centre. It can work just fine.

Many historical inner cities in europe only allow inhabitant and delivery traffic, the latter even limited to certain hours of the day. That applies to smaller ones with <100k inhabitants too.

I would picture a Berlin drug dealer as being perfectly comfortable riding a bicycle.

Most street drug dealers use bicycles, EU and abroad.

More freedom of movement, no license nor plate.

Drug dealers in Berlin populate the parks and subway stations mostly. Easier to hide in the crowds or shrubbery, if they hide at all. Police usually never bother them.

Yeah, but you only mean low level ones who barely earn enough to eat. I don't mean those. I mean the bigger fish.

Wouldn't advice people to consume merchandise from someone that hangs around in parks.

Sounds like Seattle.

You can carry much less on a bike.

Which hardly matters if your product has an excellent price/weight ratio.

My understanding (not being involved in the field in any role) is that even car-based street dealers carry far less product than one could comfortably pack on a bike.

And a cargo bike could probably move a quite respectable quantity even by wholesale dealer standards.

Flip side: if you get caught, it's a lesser crime because you don't have as much on you.

i think crime rate has little to do with "drug dealers driving through". drug dealers live in the cities too, and most of the ones that interact with users don't have cars. i think falling crime rates are more likely due to improve economic vibrancy

Agreed. Particularly in a city like Berlin where cars are worshiped and being pedestrian makes you a second-class citizen (Cars > Bikes > Pedestrian). Car free zones + speed limits will hopefully make the life better overthere for non-BMW owners.