Cities around the world that are reducing car access

A walk around Paris streets showing some of alternate uses for space as they remove 50% of street parking by 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYh5er9-Es8

Seth Brundle

So cars can go in cycle lanes then?

https://twitter.com/CargoCycle_/status/1726195691498971445?t=t91WTtDbSI9FPalK2OT4yA&s=19

Seth Brundle

THERE ARE “TOO many cars” on our roads and Dublin needs to “go on a car diet”, the CEO of Dublin Bus will tell the Oireachtas Transport Committee today. 

...

“Dublin is our capital city and Dublin simply will not work with buses stuck in traffic gridlock,” he will say, adding that there are “too many cars” in the city centre.

He will tell the committee that car ownership doubled between 1995 and 2015 in Ireland, with more than 2.2 million cars now on our roads.

“We need to move from a city of brakes lights to a city of buses, bikes and boulevards, just like some of our European peers such as Amsterdam and Paris,” he will say.

“We need to create more priority for public transport.”

He will state that there are not enough priority bus corridors in the city, and of the existing bus lanes, he will say that too many are not designated 24/7 and are often used by private vehicles.

“This is an easy fix and could be implemented very quickly. This would help simplify bus lane enforcement and improve journey times.”

https://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-bus-transport-committee-nta-go-ahead-6234584-Nov2023/

I must resist the temptaition to look at the comments on Facebook!

Zebra3

Need to start clearing streets (and footpaths) of parked cars as well.

Insanity of council providing subsidied car parking spots for residents has to end.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121429296#Comment_121429296

Hear, hear - previous Dublin Bus CEOs seemed to be remarkably reticent to state the obvious, so fair play to Billy. Hopefully he will note the large number of commercial vans and trucks blocking bus lanes in rush hour.

cgcsb

If the city centre transport strategy is implemented that could be a huge part of the problem resolved.

But we need ENFORCEMENT. And despite new laws on camera enforcement we don't seem to be any closer than when the camera on Blackhall place was installed and then switched off a decade ago.

GHendrix

When they build the train station in my town and improve the awful bus service, people might be tempted away from the car journeys.

But both things seem to be years away.

hans aus dtschl

Yeah when they improve the bus service that's stuck behind my car, then I'll stop using my car.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121431982#Comment_121431982

How about we unstick the bus by removing your car?

riddlinrussell

Bus gates are the absolute no brainer win for cities. Anywhere you have a street that is too restricted for bus lanes, put a bus gate in at the point it narrows, he'll there are a lot of streets in Dublin that they should take away the bus lane to give to pedestrians and put in bus gates IMO. Human scale streets shouldn't have 4+ lanes of traffic to cross, that's effectively a motorway between each side of a city street.

alentejo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432024#Comment_121432024

Rathmines Road Lower should have a bus gate from 7am till 10am. This would drastically improve bus times. This could be done tomorrow if there was political will!

OEP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432171#Comment_121432171

What will the poor kids at St. Mary's do?

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432017#Comment_121432017

That's wild crazy talk.

Every bit of public transport and sustainable transport infrastructure needs to be absolutely perfect before we start any measures towards removing any priority for cars whatsoever.

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432171#Comment_121432171

We can't do this en mass across the city because then we'd end up with about 70% of the journey time savings of bus connects without spending €2bn or paying any consultants or having 6 years of consultation and planning. It'd just be too cheap and too easy with too many benefits, infact if we mixed camera enforcement in it might even make a profit for the coffers and be delivered in weeks instead of decades, that just wouldn't do.

They slipped up in covid and demonstrated that pedestrian and cyclist priority could be built overnight for almost free, so there's no longer any technical barrier to rapid build bus priority

Podge_irl

A lot of the cost of BC is in new transport stock and the actual physical infrastructure that is needed in places. There are a lot of plans for busgates (surprise, they are always deeply unpopular with a small, but strong and loud core of people) but in some places actual physical road-widening is going to be needed.

The whole debacle around the College Green Plaza shows that you can't just make significant changes without a long time with consultation and planning. The real test for BC will be pushing through with the bus gates etc when the time comes.

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432833#Comment_121432833

Agreed but we could have bus gates now and enforcement now if the decision was made to do so, which would bring many of the benefits of busconnects especially on the narrower corridors that currently suffer the most delay

CatInABox

Just an FYI, the Dublin City Transport plan is out for consultation, and will be ending tomorrow. As this plan is actually a pretty significant reduction in car usage in Dublin, you can bet your ass that there's going to be significant push back on it. I'd recommend putting in a submission, just to make your opinion heard.

I, for one, wholeheartedly approve of the plans, and would love for them to go ahead, and my submission today was along those lines. I think that there's 8 questions in total, so it's not hard.

https://consultation.dublincity.ie/traffic-and-transport/draft-dublin-city-centre-transport-plan/

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432302#Comment_121432302

Get the bus.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432885#Comment_121432885

I agree it would help, for the record. But you can not just wave a magic wand and implement bus gates. You actually do have to do consultations and studies first anyway (again, look at the CG plaza). Now, some of the new legislation allowing trials without in-depth consultations could be useful in this regard.

But also, these things rely hugely on the councils on the ground, and local councillors are always, always opposed to them because their current constituents hate change. It is a toxic environment to do anything in. It is an area where a directly elected executive mayor of the GDA would make a big difference. Prime example being Hidalgo in Paris who was able to override the exact same objections to all her plans and was handsomely re-elected for it and generally viewed very positively.

People in "the city" agree these things need to be done, but the people in Rathmines, Terenure, etc etc don't want it done in their area and their local councillors hop on to this and cause havoc. And no one really has the overall mandate to try and push through past these objections.

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121435518#Comment_121435518

In the case of bus gates, we've had 5 years of public consultation so a rapid build solution is more than possible.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121438947#Comment_121438947

In the case of the 12 CBCs, they are all the subject of formal planning applications that are lodged with ABP now though - I suspect that you’d be opening a massive legal hornet’s nest if you started trying to implement things such as you claim they could in that circumstance.

magicbastarder

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorials/2023/11/30/the-irish-times-view-on-dublins-traffic-plans-finding-a-way-through-the-gridlock/

...

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121440844#Comment_121440844

The really annoying thing about the Irish Times writing about this kind of public transport infrastructure change is how hypocritical they are. You'll read the "Irish Times view on" about any project in Dublin, and they'll be like "CPOing an apartment block is a tough first step towards the metro system Dublin needs and deserves". Then for a year and a half afterwards, you'll get articles and commentators pushing pieces like "CPO of dingy pub's front gates is an unconstitutional land grab from our wannabe socialist fascist bus anoraks"

Zebra3

Cork GAA official giving his full backing to motorists breaking the law.

Absolutely astounding.

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/parking-and-access-issues-threaten-viability-of-corks-two-prime-gaa-venues/a867363693.html

Bebra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121471481#Comment_121471481

It's not really astounding though, is it? It's a normalised mentality I would say.

hans aus dtschl

It's almost like the City Council (and everyone else) hadn't repeatedly and forcefully told Cork GAA that their traffic management plans were badly formed, and it's almost like Cork GAA repeatedly said there was no issue with their traffic management plans. Almost.

This gang have repeatedly fought tooth and nail to say their entire traffic plans are not based on dragging thousands of cars into the city centre. And now they're complaining about (checks notes) removal of parking spaces in an effort to improve the bus service to their pitch.

As recently as during their recent attempt down at the marina in the last few months they were saying "we might try to comply with the planning conditions on active transport THIS TIME" (they haven't been compliant to-date since the refurb of the stadium.

What will it take to drag these jokers into the 21st century?

magicbastarder

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/08/paris-mayor-plans-to-triple-suv-parking-tariffs-cut-air-pollution?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

There will be quite a few ICE or hybrid cars weighing more than 1.6 tonnes.

KrisW1001

Saying "SUV" muddies the message here.. it's not helpful (or particularly rational) to villify a body shape, especially as this seems to be a charge based purely on kerb weight. Top trims of cars like VW Passat well be just over 1600 kg, but a small SUV like the Jeep Renegade won't.

(raising the limit by 33% for EVs is exactly in line with the typical weight difference between ICE and EV versions of a car).

magicbastarder

This is such a load of bull****. We can't police our cities enough without taxi drivers providing some sort of extra background noise? Was there even any suggestion this was a factor, or is a factor anywhere else?

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2023/12/11/dublins-pedestrian-plans-to-be-reassessed-following-city-riots/

Curb Your Enthusiasm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121471481#Comment_121471481

Gas to read this from Cork GAA

They have shown time and time again that they cannot manage access to the stadium, particularly during busy event days.

Footpath parking, cycle lane parking everywhere, no traffic mgmt plans, they even failed to deliver bike parking which was part of their planning conditions for the new stadium years ago!

They don't care about the community nor sustainability. They are very much part of the problem.