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139 Comments
- gills62ca, on 05/13/2009, -2/+36I live in Munich and don't have or need a car. My husband and I get around just fine by bike or walking, and in bad weather on the excellent subway system. It's safe to use a bicyle here because of the dedicated bike lanes (separated from the road). If we want to get out of town, the regional train system is superb and cheap. The city is made for walking, in fact the entire downtown is banned to cars. People are fit and healthy. There are great parks in town and the trains are built to hold bikes so you can easily get out of the city on weekends (if you want) to explore dedicated trails all over the countryside. The only seriously overweight people you see are generally tourists from car-culture land.
This is the way I want to live for the rest of my life, even after I move back to Canada. It's not rocket science, it's a lifestyle that can and does work, and it's a much nicer way to live. - thebananahouse, on 05/12/2009, -2/+31Europe has acted on its imagination - car free is a reality not just a dream. Let's hope that in the future more and more communities choose to use the car a little less. At least that will encourage car manufacturers to make cars that are environmentally friendly and transfer some of their research and development to other sectors.
- Janv1er, on 05/13/2009, -1/+21I guess it would look something like Holland, I've never seen so many bikes and such few cars !
- NoBSMan, on 05/13/2009, -3/+22That kind of act would save the real petrol heads. Imagine a world without ***** moms driving massive SUVs
- cyberdork, on 05/12/2009, -0/+18I live in a medium size town in the Netherlands (population > 150.000). I have a car, but don't need it. Most of the time I go to work by bike and even do the shopping that way. Almost all my colleagues do the same. For most people the distance from home to work is less than 6 miles.
- beautifulbeast, on 05/13/2009, -1/+19I live in Madrid (Spain). Don't have a car or a driving license and I'm happy that way. I don't have to worry about gas prices, traffic jams, insurance, parking, etc... and I know I'm not polluting the environment, wich is my number one reason not to have a car.
Can't figure out why anyone living in a city would want a car, although I realize things must be different in the States. - jverssue, on 05/12/2009, -0/+17A wonderful idea whose time has long been overdue. Sadly, USA will be the last and final battle front for auto-reduced communities.
I like the fact the article was placed in the NYT Environment section highlighting the benefits of decreased ommissions by the autos, but it failed to highlight other benefits of such a community, including pedestrian safety, healthier lifestyles and an increased sense of community and connection to your neighbors. - stubcn75, on 05/13/2009, -1/+17Yes. You can live in most European cities and not need a car at all. Things get more complicated if you live out in the country though. We do have a car, we also have a 1 year old boy so a car is pretty useful. We are seriously thinking about getting rid of the car though. We walk or cycle most places and at the moment we only use the car for big shopping trips or bad weather but I think we can find a way to do all that without the car. My little boy loves riding in his bike seat with me and helps to keep me fit too.
I think it is such a shame how mist big American cities are so spread out and car dependant, it's a real design floor. - CressCrowbits, on 05/13/2009, -1/+14norman: this a problem caused by the lack of investment in public transport and the design of modern communities in the US around the car, which is a shame.
Regarding your point that you need a car to get to work in NYC suggests, in fairness, that you made a poor decision on where you live. - matude, on 05/13/2009, -0/+13Advanced public transport is often faster than car, not 12 times slower like you try to show it.
- Radan, on 05/13/2009, -0/+13Here in Lund, Sweden it's almost impossible to go anywhere by car (except for long range transportation to like Stockholm or similar). Public transportation, bikes or plain walking are what goes here. Most people do not even have cars because it's often results in more trouble than it is worth.
I don't think the car will ever disappear completely, though, but I do think the amount of usage will shrink considerably. - subiedew, on 05/13/2009, -0/+11Actually, it's easier to live without a car in a big city. I have friends in Berlin and Munich that have never owned a car, and don't need one. However, in a large, sprawling American metropolitan, like Detroit, this may not work.
The point here is designing cities so that cars are not necessary. - JohnGalt01, on 05/13/2009, -1/+12A city without cars. Kind of sounds like Detroit.
- skinny01, on 05/13/2009, -1/+11The only bad thing is that not using cars limits some of your options. We need ours to go and get groceries at the cheap place instead of the expensive ones near our home. If you try to make a dense community where everything is within walking distance and you can't really use a car, some marketing types will realize they have a trapped consumer base and can decide to raise prices for food since you're not likely to go and walk 15 miles to the cheaper place.
It would be nice, but only if everyone in the community is on board, but that rarely happens. The world would already be a utopia if people could do that and not be greedy. - waspbr, on 05/13/2009, -0/+10Well, not quite, I live 80Km away from amsterdam, whenever I need to go there due to work I really dead taking the car, specially during the rush hour. Traffic jams are still a very big nuisance and sometimes you can expect to be stuck for more than one hour. With the Train there's no traffic jam, I just leave a bicycle at the station in amsterdam and another at the station in my city. it saves me a lot of time and hastle to take public transportation.
the thing is that in public transportation is very well implemented in the Netherlands - theOster, on 05/13/2009, -0/+9i live in new york and have been sans car for 7 years. i absolutely love it. i used to live in florida and the daily commute would drive me nuts (pun may or may not be intended). letting someone else do the driving (if i take the train) is so much more relaxing - just sit back, read, do a crossword, sleep, whatever. it's really great. if i'm not on the subway, i'm either walking or biking. i think alot of america could benefit from moving closer to the urban hub.
- CressCrowbits, on 05/13/2009, -1/+10"You won't be able to get it delivered to your door either". Why not? Tesco does home delivery.
Norman - you've got this the wrong way round. People commuting between small towns find it difficult to rely on public transport. Your assertion that public transport replacing the car in large cities doesn't work is completely the wrong way round. Most large cities have excellent public transport that makes getting around far more convenient than the car, especially in rush hour. I used to live in deep suburban London and travelled to work in 'the city' - the main financial center. Would take me about 40 minutes by tube - the same journey by car in rush hour, lets forget the huge cost of the congestion charge, parking, and fuel costs involved in stop and starting so much, would take well over an hour, and would be totally unpredictable.
Hardly anyone commutes into London by car, except those that use 'park and ride' schemes where you park the car at the nearest public transport hub. - CressCrowbits, on 05/13/2009, -0/+9I'm 30 years old and have had little interest in owning a car. I worked out that there are instances where regular public transport is inadequate in making my journey, but it would overall be a lot cheaper to get a cab on those rare occasions. If the public transport was better, I wouldn't even need that.
- taox, on 05/13/2009, -0/+8http://www.christianiabikes.com/images/websidebill ...
- stubcn75, on 05/13/2009, -3/+11You can't have a car AND be eco-friendly, can you?
- Rudegar, on 05/13/2009, -1/+8elect me as dictator of the EU and it will be hover-bikes for everybody!
note: hover-biking for too long may cause drowsiness - Frostek, on 05/13/2009, -0/+7London disagrees.
- 8085ta, on 05/13/2009, -1/+8I live in Nottingham in the UK. I work in Sheffield. Public transport does not work for me in it's current state in this country. It's actually cheaper for me to run a diesel car to do the 90 mile round trip every day! In the car it takes about 1 hour 15 mins each way. By train, I would have to get up even earlier, walk two miles to the train station, or I could get a bus two thirds of the way there (at extra cost) and walk the rest, pay for an over-priced train ticket and get on a cramped, over-crowded, dirty train when it eventually arrives (late), then change to another train after waiting about 35 mins for the connection, then when I eventually arrived at the nearest station to the office, I would still have to walk another 2 miles to the office. Total time? Over 3 hours each way. NOT CONVENIENT, or cheap!
And no, I can't afford to move either! :( - norman619, on 05/13/2009, -0/+6Do you have Zcar there? It's a pretty cool idea. You share a pool of cars with other members of the service. Gas and insurance are included in your anual fee. So you can have access to a car when you need one w/o the large added expence of owning the thing. It's just starting out here in the US so they don't have many cars in their pool yet. I hope services like this take off because I would rather take advantage of this than own my own car which I don't use very much yet still have to pay to register and pay much more than the cost of this service to insure it every month. A service like this combined with public transportation would go a long way to cutting down on unnecessary driving and save people a ton of money.
- waspbr, on 05/13/2009, -0/+6There is nothing wrong with having a car, I live in the Netherlands and I own a car, tho I barely use it. If I need to go somewhere in the city I will use a bicycle, if I need to go to other cities or places a little further away I can take public transportation (train/tram/bus). Tho sometimes the car is handy but not essential.
that being said, I went to southern France (Ariege) for a little while and it is very difficult not to have a car there, mostly because you have to go from village to village and the public transport there is not very well developed. - inactive, on 05/13/2009, -2/+8Do you even read what you wrote:
"the city is made for walking"
Because, you know, European cities were created in an era where all people could do is walk, not like America which was built around buggy wagons and open expansive land to settle on. - joerad010, on 05/13/2009, -1/+7From the USAs standpoint....speaking as someone who lives in the Detroit-Metro. We used to have a trolley moving up Woodward Ave (a major road going from inner-city to the outer-suburbs) and the car companies lobbied to have it removed back in the 60s.
Recently the state is trying to get some additional trains setup on Woodward, as well as a few between Detroit and the other major cities near it, like Ann Arbor, and even Chicago, IL.
Trouble is, the massive amount of cost in getting even the most basic passenger rail setup in the US. Its exorbitant, and the process drags on for decades. The way this place is setup, there is simply no way to live really close to your job. I live 20 miles out form my job, and thats out of financial necessity, as all the apartments closer into to where I work are nearly double the price of the place I got further out.
In the USA, reform of the transportation system, ultimately, needs to be whole-scale urban reform, and unfortunately, we as a nation don't have the stomach for it. So, the market will do it for us over the next 20 years, and the outer-ring suburbs grow to expensive, are abandoned, and everyone moves closer in. The result....its be a frakking mess, as entire sections of our country shut down, and everyone crowds into a poorly designed urban centers.
Change must come, and it must be planned, but damn, we are so paranoid of doing anything right here. Oh well... - Redzin, on 05/13/2009, -0/+5Most, if not all, major European cities disagree. It's not just London.
Really, you should try taking a trip outside the US. - toekneebullard, on 05/13/2009, -1/+6by themselves 95% of the time.
- athinnes, on 10/01/2009, -1/+6I love living without a car. When I moved to Chicago, it was just the logical thing to do. The problem is there are only a handful of US cities that let you do this comfortably: NYC, Chicago, Philly, DC, Boston and San Fran. I couldn't imagine living in a US suburb without a car. Nightmare.
- subtrafusel, on 05/13/2009, -0/+5Lay off the bad acid.
- turniptornado, on 05/13/2009, -1/+6You've missed the point. When you live in a walkable city, you don't need to get everything in one massive trip.
- ivlianvs, on 05/13/2009, -0/+5"The cities in Europe were built that way from the beginning of civilization"
Actually, 95% of the buildings in Europe dates from after WWII, and most urban planning in the 60's to the 80's had the car as the transportation of choice.
My guess is that this US problem dates from the anti-communism era:
- The reds had no God? We need to be the most pious contry in the world!
- The reds had a good public transportation system? We get rid of ours and push the individual cars!
It's just plain politics and endoctrination. - Nitrogliserin, on 05/13/2009, -1/+6just 6 years left. It will happen
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Back ... - toekneebullard, on 05/13/2009, -0/+4Norman, do you think Holland just started out how it was? In the 60s and 70s the Dutch main hard decisions to CREATE the environment they have now. There's no reason why we can't do that same. (heck, a recession is a great time to make hard/nation changing decisions)
- skztr, on 05/13/2009, -0/+4When did you last check? I just did:
Europe: 10,180,000 km²
United States: 9,826,630 km²
Try a different map projection.
It's not possible to easily "get around" without a car, from city to city. But within a single city (which is the point of this article) it's quite possible to get by without a car. It's quite possible to build cities, towns, whatever, in such a way that you don't need to drive just to pick up a gallon of milk.
I now live under three minutes from work, without using a car. It's not some "I'm saving the planet!" *****, but it's certainly convenient - Elohir, on 05/13/2009, -2/+6Yup. I've never had to own a car. Feet FTW.
- gills62ca, on 05/13/2009, -1/+5The point is, the transit system could and should be as good as the one here in Munich. There is no reason why not, it just requires the political will and it must be made a priority.
- rabidbob, on 05/13/2009, -1/+5You raise an important issue: public transport. This, much needed, strategy to reduce pollution and oil consumption is impossible without a well run, well organised and reasonably costed public transport system. It is a shame because this is not a difficult thing to achieve, but the government (here in the UK anyway) seems to be fatally addicted to the tax from petrol sales. Combine that with a poorly privatised public transport system (read: massively over priced to the consumer and delivering very poor service) and I fear we'll never shake off the shackles of the automobile. I suspect the problems you face in the US and Canada are broadly similar.
- CaptMonkey, on 05/13/2009, -0/+4Going without a car is a fine idea, if there is available public transportation. However, in the US that usually only exists in large cities. When I've visited places like Washington D.C. with a fine assortment of public transport, I never even considered using a car, I'd just hop on a bus or the metro. But back at home (and in the majority of the US) it's not an option. We don't have any form of public transportation.
And the excuse of the US being "too large" has some validity. Due to the size of the country, most of us are fairly spread out, leaving our population density so low that it's not economically feasible to run public transportation in most of the country. Germany has 232 people per square km and the UK has 246 while the US only has 31. - EarlOfLade, on 05/13/2009, -0/+3Did you also notice that most of the people are not obese lard mountains too?
Here in the US, you drive to the fast food restaurant and pick up your "food" in the drive-through so you don't have to leave the car, then you drive to the bank to pay some bills and use the banks drive-through after which you drive to get the car cleaned in a drive-through car wash for later to pick up some medication at the drive-through pick-up window and then since it's your wife's birthday, you pick up some flowers from the drive-through florist!
There is no wonder that over 30% of Americans are morbidly obese!
At the theme parks here in Central Florida, you can see, on a daily basis, otherwise healthy Americans, driving around the park in rental hover-rounds because they are too damn fat to walk! - toekneebullard, on 05/13/2009, -0/+3You seem to think that the Nuclear Family is inherently wasteful. I can point you to plenty of farm families with 8 kids that use every last thing to it's very end. The Nuclear Family is not the problem, it's the culture. Let's try and limit our use of cars, if that is successful, maybe, JUAT MAYBE, we can start thinking about marrying everyon in our neighborhood.
(Who picks up the check when you're taking 27 people out on a date?) - norman619, on 05/13/2009, -3/+6And pink elephants will be plentiful as well in this future of yours.
- DiggRage, on 05/13/2009, -2/+5bjzq8, then pave your own roads. I'm tired of other's coercive "policies" forcing me to pay for a ridiculous paved road infrastructure to support a bunch of hicks living cheaply out in the boondocks getting to work 30 miles away.
- raada, on 05/13/2009, -1/+4US is not too large and no you don't need your car to go to work... Most of your travel is to work. That could easily be coordinated with other people. When I lived in Europe I had a car for a while and then got rid of it cause I never used it. Taking the subway to work is faster, cheaper and more efficient. And more environment-friendly. The problem is that there is not enough investments and many public transport's planning is horrible or expensive here in the US. In CA it was cheap but impossible to use. On the east coast it was expensive and hard to use.
People are usually too stingy to add some extra tax to get the basic infrastructure in the US.
In NYC it works pretty well. Don't know about the cost though. - mjrpj, on 05/13/2009, -4/+7"Sure we can deliver this couch to your house. How do you get there?"
"...ok, so go to the parking garage....no, I mean how do we get to your house? What street do you live on?"
"...no road? What do you mean no road?"
"a half mile? Are you kidding me? FREE DELIVERY DENIED!" *click* - toekneebullard, on 05/13/2009, -1/+4How often to you buy new couches?
You should always drive a moving truck everywhere you go because one day you will buy a couch. - apetrie, on 05/13/2009, -0/+3Its pretty easy and much cheaper to live without a car in Toronto, Canada. Its handy for groceries and the like, but commuting to and from work and to entertainment etc. can easily be done by public transit, and its often as fast if not faster anyway.
- toekneebullard, on 05/13/2009, -1/+4Except that's not how it works. Spend the extra money near your home, and build your community. "marketing types " won't take over your grocery stores. Instead you'll have a store owner who knows, respects, and needs his customers, and they'll treat their customers well.
Driving far out for cheaper groceries is why cities have ghettos. No local business people can thrive, because they have to be more expensive (can't deal in volume). If you go outside your community for business, then you're community is nothing but housing, and that just grows into more sprawl. But the advantage of spending your money within your community is that it builds a better, stronger community that fosters healthier living. - athinnes, on 10/01/2009, -0/+3I moved from Cincinnati to Chicago about 15 months ago and sold my car. Don't need it, don't want it, life is good.
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