Europe’s cities deprioritize car travel

[Detroitnerd]

June 26, 2011


Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
ZURICH — While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.
Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.
Likeminded cities welcome new shopping malls and apartment buildings but severely restrict the allowable number of parking spaces. On-street parking is vanishing. In recent years, even former car capitals like Munich have evolved into “walkers’ paradises,” said Lee Schipper, a senior research engineer at Stanford University who specializes in sustainable transportation.
“In the United States, there has been much more of a tendency to adapt cities to accommodate driving,” said Peder Jensen, head of the Energy and Transport Group at the European Environment Agency. “Here there has been more movement to make cities more livable for people, to get cities relatively free of cars.”
To that end, the municipal Traffic Planning Department here in Zurich has been working overtime in recent years to torment drivers. Closely spaced red lights have been added on roads into town, causing delays and angst for commuters. Pedestrian underpasses that once allowed traffic to flow freely across major intersections have been removed. Operators in the city’s ever expanding tram system can turn traffic lights in their favor as they approach, forcing cars to halt.
Around Löwenplatz, one of Zurich’s busiest squares, cars are now banned on many blocks. Where permitted, their speed is limited to a snail’s pace so that crosswalks and crossing signs can be removed entirely, giving people on foot the right to cross anywhere they like at any time.
As he stood watching a few cars inch through a mass of bicycles and pedestrians, the city’s chief traffic planner, Andy Fellmann, smiled. “Driving is a stop-and-go experience,” he said. “That’s what we like! Our goal is to reconquer public space for pedestrians, not to make it easy for drivers.”
While some American cities — notably San Francisco, which has “pedestrianized” parts of Market Street — have made similar efforts, they are still the exception in the United States, where it has been difficult to get people to imagine a life where cars are not entrenched, Dr. Schipper said.
Europe’s cities generally have stronger incentives to act. Built for the most part before the advent of cars, their narrow roads are poor at handling heavy traffic. Public transportation is generally better in Europe than in the United States, and gas often costs over $8 a gallon, contributing to driving costs that are two to three times greater per mile than in the United States, Dr. Schipper said.
What is more, European Union countries probably cannot meet a commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions unless they curb driving. The United States never ratified that pact.
Globally, emissions from transportation continue a relentless rise, with half of them coming from personal cars. Yet an important impulse behind Europe’s traffic reforms will be familiar to mayors in Los Angeles and Vienna alike: to make cities more inviting, with cleaner air and less traffic.
Michael Kodransky, global research manager at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in New York, which works with cities to reduce transport emissions, said that Europe was previously “on the same trajectory as the United States, with more people wanting to own more cars.” But in the past decade, there had been “a conscious shift in thinking, and firm policy,” he said. And it is having an effect.
After two decades of car ownership, Hans Von Matt, 52, who works in the insurance industry, sold his vehicle and now gets around Zurich by tram or bicycle, using a car-sharing service for trips out of the city. Carless households have increased from 40 to 45 percent in the last decade, and car owners use their vehicles less, city statistics show.
“There were big fights over whether to close this road or not — but now it is closed, and people got used to it,” he said, alighting from his bicycle on Limmatquai, a riverside pedestrian zone lined with cafes that used to be two lanes of gridlock. Each major road closing has to be approved in a referendum.
Today 91 percent of the delegates to the Swiss Parliament take the tram to work.
Still, there is grumbling. “There are all these zones where you can only drive 20 or 30 kilometers per hour [about 12 to 18 miles an hour], which is rather stressful,” Thomas Rickli, a consultant, said as he parked his Jaguar in a lot at the edge of town. “It’s useless.”
Urban planners generally agree that a rise in car commuting is not desirable for cities anywhere.
Mr. Fellmann calculated that a person using a car took up 115 cubic meters [[roughly 4,000 cubic feet) of urban space in Zurich while a pedestrian took three. “So it’s not really fair to everyone else if you take the car,” he said.
European cities also realized they could not meet increasingly strict World Health Organization guidelines for fine-particulate air pollution if cars continued to reign. Many American cities are likewise in “nonattainment” of their Clean Air Act requirements, but that fact “is just accepted here,” said Mr. Kodransky of the New York-based transportation institute.


More at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/sc...ffic.html?_r=1

[rb336]

And this is news? de-autofying cities has been going on for a couple of decades

[Detroitnerd]

And this is news? de-autofying cities has been going on for a couple of decades

It's news to the New York Times. It's news to many Americans.

[Gistok]

Pedestrian zones in the USA seem to be death knells to businesses in American cities, but not to Europe though... I remember back in 1972 when the town in Germany where I was born... they decided to close the medieval quarter to pedestrians only... the business folks freaked out... only to their pleasant surprise commercial and shopping businesses boomed.

However Americans, unlike Europeans don't care much for walking.. they look for the closest spot to the mall entrance, and will wait for it.

Europeans on the other hand probably walk 2 to 3 times as much as Americans.

In the dozen times I've traveled back to Europe, I generally get in shape by walking at least a mile a day 2-3 months before I actually visit. And I also practice climbing. I used to climb our 4 story office building stairs [[here) about 10 times a day... to get into shape for the hills and castles of Europe.

To an unconditioned American visitor... Europe can be exhausting....

[rb336]

In the dozen times I've traveled back to Europe, I generally get in shape by walking at least a mile a day 2-3 months before I actually visit. And I also practice climbing. I used to climb our 4 story office building stairs [[here) about 10 times a day... to get into shape for the hills and castles of Europe.

To an unconditioned American visitor... Europe can be exhausting....

great advice!

[oladub]

Belgium's fourth largest city, Hasselt, decided to experiment by offering free bus service on one line instead of building another road around the city. It was such a success that additional free service was instituted. The additional road did not have to be built and because so many riders were using the free line, it improved business and rental rates along it's route. This allowed the city to increase property taxes along this now more valuable stretch of real estate to pay some of the costs free bus service. Private development followed free bus service. This reduced the 'need' for taxpayer supported development. Financially, it seems to have made sense. More government in one area, providing free busses, bus lanes, etc., was offset by fewer roads and development expenses.

I wonder how this same approach would work within Detroit City limits along Woodward for starters with busses scheduled every ten minutes.

more:
Public transport in Hasselt
Free transit system a success for Belgium city

[rb336]

Belgium's fourth largest city, Hasselt, decided to experiment by offering free bus service on one line instead of building another road around the city. It was such a success that additional free service was instituted. The additional road did not have to be built and because so many riders were using the free line, it improved business and rental rates along it's route. This allowed the city to increase property taxes along this now more valuable stretch of real estate to pay some of the costs free bus service. Private development followed free bus service. This reduced the 'need' for taxpayer supported development. Financially, it seems to have made sense. More government in one area, providing free busses, bus lanes, etc., was offset by fewer roads and development expenses.

I wonder how this same approach would work within Detroit City limits along Woodward for starters with busses scheduled every ten minutes.

more:
Public transport in Hasselt
Free transit system a success for Belgium city

That's an interesting idea. We have to get over our "transitphobia" first. Ideally, transit SHOULD spur development. All these "it never pays for itself" arguments are absurd -- of course it doesn't, not directly. Its the related devo income that more than pays for it [[although I fail to see how NYC's billion-dollar 2nd ave line is going to spur developmen...)

[Detroitnerd]

However Americans, unlike Europeans don't care much for walking.. they look for the closest spot to the mall entrance, and will wait for it.

Europeans on the other hand probably walk 2 to 3 times as much as Americans.

Well, let's not paint with too broad a brush. When you say "Americans" I hear "Midwesterners." I believe there are about 8 million Americans who walk 2 to 3 times as much as Midwesterners: New Yorkers.

Also, might the fact that Midwesterners dislike walking have something to do with the painfully ugly environments we have to walk through here? Parking lots? Places without sidewalks? Pinched between high-speed traffic and railings along garbage-strewn roadsides? Without other people to look at? Without shop windows to peer in or any street life at all?

Let's be more careful when talking about who wants to walk -- and where...

[Papasito]

Our mass transit sucks. It takes a week to go by Greyhound to do what it takes you 2 days to do in your own car.

I work 2 cities away from my home and city busses don't go from city to city. If they did, by the time they stop at every bus stop on the way, and from hopping from bus to bus as needed, it would take an hour and a half to do what I do myself in 3O minutes.

America is bigger and more spread out than Europe is.
What works there doesn't necessarily work here.


Europe made Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, the bubonic plague and thousands of years of wars, death, famine and plague. Why the hell would we want to be like them, when the very founding of America was NOT to be like them?

[rb336]

Our mass transit sucks....

America is bigger and more spread out than Europe is. What works there doesn't necessarily work here.

out in the dakotas, wyomings, etc of the country, no, rails wouldn't make much sense. from boston to St Louis to dallas to Atlanta To Detroit and chicago, it sure would make sense

Europe made Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, the bubonic plague and thousands of years of wars, death, famine and plague. Why the hell would we want to be like them, when the very founding of America was NOT to be like them?

So you are comparing decent transit to the plague, il duce and adolph? talk about taking reductio ad hitlerum to a new extreme!

[ghettopalmetto]

Europe made Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, the bubonic plague and thousands of years of wars, death, famine and plague. Why the hell would we want to be like them, when the very founding of America was NOT to be like them?

Just when you think you've seen the stupidest thing you've ever read....

Papasito, you're aware that the American colonies were under British rule for nearly 170 years, yes? It *must* be because they didn't want to be like the Europeans, huh?

My goodness.

With that said, Ohio has the same population density as France. Clearly, the United States is far too "spread out" to have a good rail system. Never mind that our rail system was once the envy of the world, when we had less than half the population living in the same area of land....

Never mind that the article is focusing on individual cities--not continent-wide swaths of land. I suppose the fact that the vast majority of a place like downtown Detroit consists of roads, parking lots, and parking garages is a function of how "big" America is, and our "freedom", right?

Less television and internet, Papasito. More books. You might surprise yourself by learning something you didn't think you already knew.

[maxx]

Papasito:
Europe made Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, the bubonic plague and thousands of years of wars, death, famine and plague. Why the hell would we want to be like them, when the very founding of America was NOT to be like them?

Our Revolution was about not having a monarchy for our government. Europe has been without meaningful monarchs for over a century. The U.S. has "made" Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman and Glen Beck. The U.S. oversaw the genocide of most native American tribes here. And we have had our share of war and disease.

[HistoryNotHisStory]

Europeans and Asians are constantly making good long plans with their infrastructure and public transportation.

Americans are short sighted and likewise require their politicians to be short-sighted. Therefore, when gasoline prices becomes highly unaffordable. Then Americans why cry and whine for a quick fix. There are no quick fixes to infrastructure needs and transporation, only good long term planning.

Americans overall lacks the mental capacity to comprehend this.

[maxx]

A lot of our political leaders don't make many long-term policies because they are led by corporate powers who are mainly interested in short-term gains.

[GUSHI]

$7-10 gallon of gas, Europeans use trains and buses alot more then we do, and most cars overthere are diesels. my uncle got a mustang cobra in Europe and its like 130-140 to fill it up. My cusion got some kind of opel deasel over there and you can drive and drive and the fuel gage doesnt seem to move, were the mustang burn thru fuel like crazy.

[Gistok]

Europe made Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, the bubonic plague and thousands of years of wars, death, famine and plague. Why the hell would we want to be like them, when the very founding of America was NOT to be like them?

ROFLMAO.... gotta agree with GhettoPalmetto... that has to be the least well thought out paragraph posted on this forum in a long time...

So the plague was concocted in some test tube in Europe? We've never had plagues or pandemics in the USA? And there have been no wars here? And no famine?

So you don't want to be like Europeans eh?? No Christmas Trees, rule of law, architecture, enlightenment, literature, philosophy, logic, reasoning, science, astronomy, physics,etc...

You go back into your teepee and think about what you just posted..... [[Gazhekwe, no disrespect intended).

[Gistok]

DetroitNerd.... what percentage of Americans do you think prefer to walk, rather than drive to their destinations.... I was referring to [[not Manhattanites) a majority of urban Americans. There's always exceptions to the rule.

I may be painting with too broad of a brush.... but I'd say I'm not far off... all we'd have to do is yank out a few dozen bristles....