An area does not become walkable because there are no cars. First you have to ensure that journey distances are within walking range. That means having stores, work locations, and living locations all within a kilometer or two at most (not everyone is capable of riding a bike at race speeds every day). Paris, at least some parts of Paris, might have that in place. So too maybe NYC or SF. But a great many places are not setup that way and don't have mass transit infrastructure to convert quickly.

With eBikes the number of folks who can go at bike race speeds is incredible. I also know a lot of disable folks who can use eBikes but cannot drive. It’s an incredible technology.

I think people seriously underrate the safety benefits of micro cars, and the necessity of car like vehicles for older people.

encouraging most people 80+ to stay behind the wheel to shop and socialize is a pretty bad plan. maybe waymo and uber changes this..

But yeah motorcycles are probably an order of magnitude more dangerous then cars... Specially with cars around.

Pony is yes even at lower speeds collisions can be dangerous.

It would only be incredible if that number is higher than 0. An ebike has higher friction than a racing bicycle and even the fastest ones have a top speed of 45 km/h (30 mph). "Bike race speeds" (road races) are up to 65 km/h, so 40 mph. I don't think even a Tour de France-level cyclist could reach bike race speeds on an eBike.

During the summer months it's great though.

According to wikipedia, average lows in Oslo are about -5. That's pretty warm. Salt still melts snow at those temperatures. Even sunlight will melt snow on pavement at -5. But below around -10/-15 salt stops melting ice, vastly increasing the manpower needed to clear roads/sidewalks. Clearing ice at proper winter temperatures requires mechanical means, hammers, if not propane torches.

Biking was practically impossible (and very dangerous), and sometimes even walking a few blocks was a challenge. That being said, I’d still advocate for places like Edmonton being “15-min” cities, and in-fact it would make it much easier in the winter when transportation is more limited.

In heavy bike using cultures, people have gear ready to go. Spending a minute to put it on is not really a barrier, an inconvenience. If there is a practice. If your environment supports it, by having plowed routes for bikes, bike parking.

I think we overrate the convenience & comfort factor. Don't knock it till you be tried it. You might like it! There is some real difficulty when your society self selects to only support & assist one mode of transit, doesn't have bike parking readily available, doesn't have safe paths for biking. And trying to embrace biking on your own, learn how to do it comfortably & safely, when few others do, that's hard. But I think the inherent comfort g convenience of cars is somewhat/greatly overrated. The mindset is that biking is inconvenient, but so many who successfully live it will tell you, it's easy & it feels great.

there's also the issue of those with pre-dawn and night commutes, these people are disproportionately lower income and live farther and farther away from gentrified city centers. it is not uncommon to see as much as a 20+ degree drop once the sun goes down and you'd better hope there's no windchill on top of that.

It's good to have warm clothes for your extremities, but your core gets surprisingly warm when you bike with any kind of coat on. I often just wear a think goretex jacket till it's in the single digits fahrenheit. I wear winter boots, warm gloves or mittens (depending on how cold it is), and a balaclava or gaiter. Also ski goggles for really cold/windy weather. If you don't start off feeling somewhat cold, you've overdressed.

I tried studded tires, but found they didn't help much. Black ice is rare here compared to layers of snow and slush, which don't give studs much to bite into. For me, three inch tires with an open tread pattern at low pressure -- plus an upright riding position that distributes weight evenly between the wheels -- gives me the most confidence.

Regarding the cold, I'd say windproofing is most important, and expedition-style mittens are well worth the investment. You won't need much insulation (except maybe at the extremities) once you start generating body heat. Multiple top layers, each with their own full length zipper, will let you regulate your temperature without getting off the bike. That's especially helpful if you have long climbs and long descents.

Cars are a tool to overcome that in the same way that air conditioning allows businesses to operate in Arizona summers.

Which places are you thinking about? I'm from a place that's quite cold during the winter (-15C some days) plus can have quite a bit of snow.

I don't find cold places to be as unwalkable as hot ones. You get used to the cold, the snow/ice are generally cleared after a few days.

If anything, walkability is frequently about how a place looks and winter time can look quite nice with all the snow.

I now live on the other extreme in Phoenix, AZ and during the summer, you'll see 115F (46C) or higher for ~2 months a year with no cloud cover. That's hot enough that you don't even really sweat while walking; it evaporates so quickly that it can't do its job. We've had people at my office go for walks during lunch and collapse after 15 minutes due to it. And Phoenix is one of the most unwalkable places to live imaginable from a layout/distance standpoint to boot.

But I will admit both of those are in the extremes and most of the country isn't like that, although many areas will have quite a few days that go subzero (-17C) and over 100F (38C) each year. I think a big thing the US needs to do is start rezoning areas and rely less on everyone living on a half acre of land 2 miles from the nearest non-residential building. Unless that happens, much of the US won't be able to realistically implement policies like Paris is.

> If anything, walkability is frequently about how a place looks and winter time can look quite nice with all the snow.

Why do you walk? Is it to go for a purposeless, leisurely afternoon stroll? Or to on a daily basis, go to your job, the grocery, to the dentist, the hairdresser?

In order for a place to be walkable, you should be able to safely, and predictably, with 99% confidence, be able to purposefully walk to that job, that grocery, that dentist, and that hairdresser, at any time of day - not just on a sunny weekend afternoon, after all the snow has been shoveled.

Any place with snow on the ground for 4-5 months out of the year is a misery of walkability. Maybe your job starts at 7 am, and walking to it sucks, because the snow hasn't been shoveled yet. Sometimes, you need to avoid patches of black ice (Good luck when you're carrying heavy bags of groceries). For weeks, at the start, and the end of the season, you are dealing with absolutely atrocious slush, that has a habit of freezing over-night.

I don't really care about the cold - I can solve that problem by putting on more clothes. I do care about all the other problems of walking in snow.

I now live in a mild climate, where snow isn't an issue. I can, with full confidence, walk anywhere I want on any day of the year, any time of day, and predictably get there at a good pace. I couldn't say the same for when I lived in a cold climate.

You have to be a lot below freezing before mere temperature makes a city unwalkable. Very few places actually get that cold with any regularity. If sidewalks are maintained and it isn't crazy windy, you really don't need to change your walking behaviour much at all.

Heat is in practice often worse for walkability, especially when combined with humidity.

I've heard that this is already true of everywhere except the US, and the main reason it's not true of the US is zoning laws.

Lived there 12 years ... 120k miles less gas & maintenance. Miss it a lot now (one bus, nearest stores 2 miles, nearest transit station is a 15 min ride away. Perfect for Covid I guess.)

Except that most people cannot live in Paris because it's too expensive and need to commute every day. And using the RER which is dirty, smells like piss and full of graffitis, overcrowded at peak hours and often on strike is so unreliable that it is hardly an enticing option.

Public transports are extensive, but they're overcrowded and perpetually strained to the limit of breakage. This week, a 400 tons concrete beam fell on RER C tracks. I suppose it will be weeks before it runs normally again. This sort of problems happens constantly.

Paris resident are only about 30% to own a car (a constantly dwindling number). Most cars in Paris come from the suburbs, therefore making motorists miserable isn't a problem for the mayor as most motorists vote elsewhere. This has the very unfortunate effect that nobody is really interested in solving the problem at its root.

At the moment, it costs a lot more inconvenience+money to use SNCF/RER than driving for many people.

If someone stabs you in the kidney, and someone stabs you in kidney and chest.

You don't thank the former.

Plenty of areas you can only move either with own car or calling taxi.

The next bus stop is a couple of kilometres down the road and only crosses a couple of times per day.

Yes, and it still sucks. Now imagine how much it sucks in other regions.

Except on rainy days in car I arrive at work warm and dry. On eBike I arrive wet, cold and miserable.

I jumped on the eBike ship very early but I simply can't leave it anywhere.

When people are out for a $5-$10 return for crack at 4AM, nothing is safe.

On the other hand, if anybody has any info if this will be a thing in Germany, please let me know! It's surely better than nothing.

Besides, removing cars from the road means that busses will be more reliable (less traffic jams) so you can avoid the trains in more situations.

I was surprised that the RER doesn’t have bathrooms on-board. In Ontario Canada, we have similar double-decker commuter trains and they have them. They’re about airline-style in terms of size (barring 1 “accessible” one per train), but they do the job.

The first reason is obviously cultural, but forbidding workers from striking would have some knock-on effects that the rest of society may not appreciate. The second reason, at least in Germany, has a lot to do with the semi-privatization of our train system which doesn't have inventives to invest in it's infrastructure and due it's cozy market position enabling rent-seeking.

The first problem, at least in the cities, could be solved with grade 4 automated metro according to the example of Copenhagen. The trains even drive much better than human drivers there, with no abrupt stops.

This would create unemployment, but it wouldn't infringe on people's rights.

The second problem we would have to solve by replacing the politicians that enable this. A much more difficult undertaking.

Also bomb defusing. F* you World-War 2, even for all the wrong reasons!

How can we use capital to create meaningful work, rather than the status quo oscillation left<-->right?

Using capital just automate for the sake of excluding workers is (IMO) silly. Improving safety and reliability, fine. But capital is also needed to start new labour intensive jobs, and anti-labour capitalism has a blind spot for this, and it leads to more political unrest.

I mean, that's the bazillion-euro question, right?

I would love to apply stochastic principles to it, using random choice to break deadlocks and force choice.

See also, models of collaboration between companies: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3679737

I’m sorry, when did we start talking about BART

Maybe, but seeing how Western nation's personal transport being way down due to COVID having little effect on CO2 leads me believe the real issue for the future is China's manufacturing sector, which will not go down.

The politcal view is "can't do that, price of cheap imported tat will increase and people would have to buy locally, which would be awful"

Yes this is key, as otherwise it's just outsourcing to others and hiding under carpet at the expense of local jobs.

With gas being 1 "badness" per 100KWh, oil being 2 and coal being 3, this would mean avoiding 1 unit locally, but getting importing 5 units.

The beauty of a carbon tax is that it satisfies those on both the environmental side ("the left") and the localism side ("the right"). The only ones not liking it are globalists that don't care about the environment.

Or maybe the transportation and power generation sectors pollute far more than what I read and believed?

Or maybe clothing manufacture? Or food?

Who knows? But it's made me really curious about what it is out there that hasn't gone down during COVID? (And not just because I want to make a fast buck. It's genuine curiosity.)

The EPA knows! [0]

    Global greenhouse gas emissions can also be broken down by the economic activities that lead to their production.[1]
        25% is from electricity and heat production;
        14% from transport;
        6% from residential and commercial buildings;
        21% from industry;
        24% from agriculture, forestry and other land use;
        10% from other energy uses.Source: IPCC (2014);

So it is power generation and farming.

That makes sense. Thanks.

So as a species, our big gains against global warming are going to be made by reducing CO2 output from the power generation and food production sectors.

https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#energy-electr...

There is no single factor that contributed. Perhaps it is more efficient if everybody drives to one big parking, perhaps people overall started to use cars less, perhaps rash hour became more spread in time leading to lesser max car density and smaller jams. Whatever the reason, it was win-win.

There are a group of people that are hurt but those people aren't around to complain.

The same with this. The people who need a car and can't get a space have to move out. Now it's true that population could be zero but to the extent it's more then zero you probably won't hear from them because they aren't in Paris.

It is not. On a CO2 per mile bases cars emit less than non-vegan humans, because it takes a lot of energy to grow food. If you put 2 people in the car it's not even close.

https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2014/07/22/walking-can...

http://web.mit.edu/2.813/www/readings/DrivingVsWalking.pdf

> but after it takes place everyone agrees things are much much better with less cars and no one wants to go back.

Speak for yourself. Every place that has done that is basically a place I will never go to. Since I'm not there anymore I can't complain, right?

It's especially stupid when a downtown of a large city does that - God help anyone who needs city services and lives in the suburbs. (Are you expected to walk for 3 hours? Spend a ton of money on a taxi? There is no bus.) What ends up happening is the city and the surrounding area mentally split into two, and they fight politically.

This is Paris in the EU. Home to the densest (most stations per square mile) metro system in the world.

Trust me, you don’t need a bus, nor will you walk for 3 hours.

Don’t assume that every city in the world lacks resent public transport. That seems to be a uniquely American thing.

Also, I've taken public transport in major EU cities. It's a miserable experience compared to less dense city with a car.

It basically discourages me from living in a large city, it's such a terrible experience. Which is, of course, my choice.

But I think lots of people are going to start making that choice.....

If we take the bottom table, "US Diet, typical", it looks like it is 1000 for driving, 230 for walking. That is more than 4x lower GHG emission by walking, per mile.

Which numbers from that article are you comparing?

What's really motivating policies like this is an aesthetic aversion to cars from a few loud people who think they can socially engineer a beautiful shining future for humanity whether we want it or not.

I like cars. I'm perfectly happy to talk about emissions, but I'm not willing to give up my car on some new urbanist's say-so.

You're right about one thing though: we should all expect a lot more of this top down meddling with our lives.

I know people talk about it — I talk about it, semi-seriously — but I don't see any comments here mentioning banning cars (except yours), and it's not in the article.

When people argue for the rights of cars, they are really talking about their own personal rights to large movement (grocery shopping is far easier with a car than by public transpo and foot as a quick example).

And as the caveat, yes I do believe we need to take steps to solving our pollution generation. In the same breath, I dont believe in taking away personal freedoms or independent abilities. Paris is literally an archaic city. The design is archaic and what city planners have to deal with are hacks due to legacy design. Then again, French culture is rather archaic as well. They still refuse to adopt loaner words as an example, something the rest of the world has been doing for the past few hundred years at least. Using them as a poster child for what the rest of the modern world should do to fix pollution problems is like trusting an Italian engineering firm to build a bridge... it's going to collapse :P Add to that, banning anything is a very buercratical answer to a complex problem. Tell me the last time banning/prohibition has worked well and never had 2nd or 3rd order severe consequences. Historical speaking, they're pulling ideas out of their ass and are going to regret this decision regardless if its "for the greater good".

Living in London I travel on my schedule everywhere on public transport. That because a bus or a train turns up at every station or stop every 4 mins. Very little need to wait, never any need to plan.

I live in flat with a parking space (and paid a hefty premium for it) but still don’t have a car. Not because I can’t afford one, but because it just doesn’t make sense. It quicker, easier and cheaper to take public transport everywhere than it is to drive. Trains don’t get stuck in traffic, and there’s more train crossings over the river than there is car crossings, making most trips more direct by public transport.

You view cars as personal freedom. I see them as noisy pollution machines that try kill me when I walk and cycle. Why the hell should i give up my personal freedoms to walk and cycle, just so you can drive?

That there is some public transport rather than none doesn't make it 'excellent'.

Soon it’s gonna be even better with Crossrail.

Of course, depending on timetables/connections the train could be a bit slower, and if one has a lot of luggage door-to-door by taxi might be better. But for me it would be hard to argue that fighting through London traffic in a car or taxi is superior to public transport.

Most people have never experienced a good transport system. Even in Europe most have not. Paris is good for some people, but not even everyone in Paris. It is even worse in the US.