Heavy usage of cars and trucks is detrimental to urban communities; we should implement policies that reduce car-based access to city centers and other densely populated areas. This is mainly focused on the USA.
Some points:
- Cars interfere with the movement of pedestrians and small vehicles (bikes, scooters), making dense urban areas less usable.
- Cars require a lot of space, both for roads and parking. This competes with housing and green-spaces in cities, making urban areas less accessible and pleasant.
- Cars are dangerous and dirty - especially when at high densities, such as in cities.
To address this, a variety of changes may be instituted:
- Traffic arteries (e.g. expressways going to the city center) should be slowed and narrowed as it approaches the city center, so that passenger cars/trucks do not use it. Instead, they should be reserved mainly for motorcycles, buses, single-point delivery trucks (e.g. stores or to transfer packages, not trucks that will drive to each residence), and vehicles required for the disabled.
- A portion of city roads should be closed to most cars, either by making barriers that they cannot pass through, or resurfacing and shaping them to be pedestrian focused rather than car-focused. It is especially important that side roads do not allow access towards the city center (so that commuters don’t just drive on side roads when main roads are over-capacity).
- Space reclaimed from cars should be re-engineered for greenspace, trees, mass-transit (trolleys), and pedestrians.
- Cities should stop subsidizing the construction of massive attractions (e.g. pro sports stadiums), or at least move them to more peripheral locations that are accessible from suburbs while assuring good mass transit from the city center.
- For situations where individuals feel that cars are essential, congestion fees should be charged and hefty penalties should be levied on traffic violations within dense urban areas – including prohibition on driving in those areas.
- Suburban communities will be told that if they wish to enjoy the ammenities of the central city, they will have to support the expansion of mass-transit networks into the suburbs. We will no longer tolerate the double standard where they insist on having access to urban neighborhoods via cars but intentionally block carless urban residents from accessing their neighborhoods.
It’s tough to approach this materially when most of us are from nations with cities designed around car transport; not just the road layout but where buildings are located and such, which makes cars seem like a good solution to a world designed around them. Add on top of that the social aspects other users mentioned, such as ‘freedoms’ culture in USA, and the impressions given by their current public transport making it unpopular or even seen as a ‘poor person’ thing, I consider cars a status icon in most countries.
As a case study, Beijing has some restrictions on road space, such as [wiki] “restriction of cars that could enter common road space based upon the last digits of the license number on certain established days during certain periods in Beijing. The main objective of this restraint policy in Beijing is to reduce the amount of exhaust gas generated by motor vehicles.”, which were apparently successful, even if temporarily.
This kind of system, even though it’s not really what you described, is also being done similarly in other countries wiki: Road space rationing which lists:
- Athens, Greece
- Bogotá, Columbia
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- Mexico City, Mexico
- San José, Costa Rica
- Santiago, Chile
- São Paulo, Brazil
Along with other cities doing temporary schemes, mostly in Europe.
I know it’s a bit of a non-answer, and doesn’t approach the redesigning/sectoring you discuss, but food for thought on society and not driving cars in urban areas.
Thanks. It seems to have the same big-picture effect as congestion fees, though it may be easier to administer and more egalitarian (at the expense of flexibility).
