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Cities around the world that are reducing car access

MJohnston

I thought this would be an interesting thread to track the efforts of various cities to reduce the amount of car access, and thereby improve either the public realm, transport infrastructure, or just the local environment.

Today Paris won a court case which will allow them to proceed with banning cars from the banks of the Seine:

https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/1055442830892654594

https://phys.org/news/2016-09-paris-cars-river-seine.html

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McGrath5

MJohnston wrote: »

I'd accept continuing to improve road connectivity to the north west of the island, because I think the environmental costs of that are massively outweighed by the societal benefits.

But we're not far off from that.

The Cork - Limerick motorway is one that should be built in my view, they are 2 major urban centers on the island that have a outdated and unsafe road connection ATM. However, roads like the Galway ring road that only serve to encourage urban sprawl and car dependency should not be green lit.

[Deleted User]

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Wales doesn't have an extensive motorway network.

'cause there is a huge mountain range running across the middle of it?

MJohnston

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Wales doesn't have an extensive motorway network.

Well I said "intercity" specifically, but I was also using "motorway" as shorthand for any road that's 2+2 or better. In that regard, I think it's about as extensive as is physically possible.

MJohnston

McGrath5 wrote: »

The Cork - Limerick motorway is one that should be built in my view, they are 2 major urban centers on the island that have a outdated and unsafe road connection ATM. However, roads like the Galway ring road that only serve to encourage urban sprawl and car dependency should not be green lit.

Yeah ring roads are an utter waste of time. I agree on Cork to Limerick, and I think the N5 upgrade should be done.

Better connections for Sligo, Letterkenny, and Killarney/Tralee are worthwhile too.

But that should be basically it for major road projects in Ireland imo.

I'm sure the Rural group will continue to push for the Atlantic Corridor, but there's massively diminishing returns from that.

Strumms

magicbastarder wrote: »

https://twitter.com/carltonreid/status/1403671480664268800

If I lived in a city with fit for purpose public transport I’d not have a car...

When I lived in Paris I didn’t have one because I didn’t need one... Metro, RER, Trams, Trains, Taxis...

It took me 45 minutes on public transport to go 14 kilometers with one metro change.

Here with a car 14 kilometers can take as long or longer in rush hour...

loyatemu

McGrath5 wrote: »

The Cork - Limerick motorway is one that should be built in my view, they are 2 major urban centers on the island that have a outdated and unsafe road connection ATM. However, roads like the Galway ring road that only serve to encourage urban sprawl and car dependency should not be green lit.

the M20 may have merit from an economic and road safety point of view, but it absolutely will also encourage urban sprawl and car dependency. Virtually all major road project do this.

Sam Russell

loyatemu wrote: »

the M20 may have merit from an economic and road safety point of view, but it absolutely will also encourage urban sprawl and car dependency. Virtually all major road project do this.

Planning permission can deal with urban sprawl. There are many headings where one off houses can be curtailed - zoning, sewage provision, water provision, broadband provision, ESB provision, environmental concerns, plus ones that I forget.

And that is before residency or need is taken into account - many counties insist only locals who have lived in the area can get planning permission for new houses.

The provision of roads is not the only driving (pardon the pun) force in urban sprawl.

Pete_Cavan

loyatemu wrote: »

the M20 may have merit from an economic and road safety point of view, but it absolutely will also encourage urban sprawl and car dependency. Virtually all major road project do this.

Roads may encourage urban sprawl and car dependency but that can only happen if it is allowed to. Sound planning policies will simply not approve low density sprawl. The issue is not the road itself, rather planning policy. With proper planning policies, that isn't a reason for not building an otherwise needed road.

I am not in favour of building motorways for the sake of it but it is required in some instances. Personally I think the N/M20 should be motorway at either end and 2+2 in the middle where traffic levels are low.

gjim

Sam Russell wrote: »

Planning permission can deal with urban sprawl. There are many headings where one off houses can be curtailed - zoning, sewage provision, water provision, broadband provision, ESB provision, environmental concerns, plus ones that I forget.

And that is before residency or need is taken into account - many counties insist only locals who have lived in the area can get planning permission for new houses.

The provision of roads is not the only driving (pardon the pun) force in urban sprawl.

The problem is that you are relying on local authorities - ultimately reporting to local councillors - to take a strategic approach to planning. But LAs have an atrocious record in this regard.

The incentives are all wrong - the costs of major roads (and other infrastructure - water, broadband, etc.) are paid for centrally - while local authorities directly benefit from being as lax as possible with planning enforcement. They benefit directly from increased rates (or indirectly with increased population).

Given the way the incentives are missaligned, I think it's naive to think that your model would lead to good outcomes.

You'd need to centralise all planning authorities and remove all local power over planning decisions for this to work. Maybe this would make sense but I'd imagine it would be very unpopular and would just look like a Dublin power grab.

Alternatively push the authority and responsibility down to the local level. So for example, if Galway CoCo want a commuter ring road around the city, then let them attempt to finance it themselves. Then the would be highly incentivised to protect their investment with careful planning decisions.

Sam Russell

gjim wrote: »

The problem is that you are relying on local authorities - ultimately reporting to local councillors - to take a strategic approach to planning. But LAs have an atrocious record in this regard.

The incentives are all wrong - the costs of major roads (and other infrastructure - water, broadband, etc.) are paid for centrally - while local authorities directly benefit from being as lax as possible with planning enforcement. They benefit directly from increased rates (or indirectly with increased population).

Given the way the incentives are missaligned, I think it's naive to think that your model would lead to good outcomes.

You'd need to centralise all planning authorities and remove all local power over planning decisions for this to work. Maybe this would make sense but I'd imagine it would be very unpopular and would just look like a Dublin power grab.

Alternatively push the authority and responsibility down to the local level. So for example, if Galway CoCo want a commuter ring road around the city, then let them attempt to finance it themselves. Then the would be highly incentivised to protect their investment with careful planning decisions.

Yes, but you do not need to have a central planning authority, but some would say An Bord Pleanála is already that.

However a regionalised planning board could be broader in the application of local planning, particularly wrt housing.

The current arrangement of local authorities is just too small to make broad planning decisions. Galway City Council, Galway County Council, and Clare County Council are all small planning bodies that need to be talking to each other. The same applies to Limerick, and most other local authorities.

There needs to be vigilance. Local politics is just too local.

loyatemu

there is some national guidance - DLRCC recently got told to reduce the amount of housing in their plan:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/d%C3%BAn-laoghaire-rathdown-told-to-scale-back-housing-plans-1.4546039

but the guidance changes and a new govt can introduce new targets. Regardless of what controls are in place at national/regional level, once a road is built the temptation to start building housing further out will be irresistible. IDK, maybe the Climate bill will do something to legally oblige councils to assess the climate impact of road projects.

I'm not saying the M20 shouldn't be built, but there's probably a good case to do the absolute minimum to make the route safe & get through traffic out of the intervening towns, and no more. Projects like the N11 and N3 widening schemes, forget it, they're not remotely justifiable.

Thelonious Monk

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Roads may encourage urban sprawl and car dependency but that can only happen if it is allowed to. Sound planning policies will simply not approve low density sprawl. The issue is not the road itself, rather planning policy. With proper planning policies, that isn't a reason for not building an otherwise needed road.

The thing is rural TDs and rural Ireland want one offs and low density sprawl, and they continue to build them, that isn't going to change any time soon.
23.9% of all planning permission given for dwelling units in the first quarter of 2021 were for one off housing. Crazy.

gjim

Sam Russell wrote: »

Yes, but you do not need to have a central planning authority, but some would say An Bord Pleanála is already that.

However a regionalised planning board could be broader in the application of local planning, particularly wrt housing.

The current arrangement of local authorities is just too small to make broad planning decisions. Galway City Council, Galway County Council, and Clare County Council are all small planning bodies that need to be talking to each other. The same applies to Limerick, and most other local authorities.

There needs to be vigilance. Local politics is just too local.

I think we agree then? I.e. that the current planning system will not work to protect the country from a by-pass (for example) being used as mechanism to open up land for inappropriate development.

The reform required to fix it is going to effectively impossible - whether increasing the size of the planning bodies (it took decades to fix the Limerick city/county split, for example, even though it so obviously the correct thing to do) or taking away planning authority from the LAs (ABP is not a centralised planning authority and is not set up to be one - 99% of planning decisions never get to ABP). Neither the public nor any politicians are going to go for solutions like this.

The easiest thing is to err on the side of caution and avoid building commuter motorways around cities. Sure Cork, Limerick and Dublin have motorways that look a bit like this but they are fundamentally different I would argue as in these cases the motorways connect major pieces of national infrastructure or constitute segments of a larger motorway network that connects significant population centres. Galway's bypass doesn't fit these criteria so I don't think is should be built.

Sam Russell

I agree that planning as exercised in todays Ireland is not stopping one off houses.

I do not want to get into the Galway Bypass as it has its own thread.

Thelonious Monk

If you had to put money on it you'd have to say the Galway ring road will happen sooner or later, I would anyway, populism and the love of one offs and cars in that area will win out. And then we're just making the whole situation worse with more sprawl and isolated housing.

Pete_Cavan

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

The thing is rural TDs and rural Ireland want one offs and low density sprawl, and they continue to build them, that isn't going to change any time soon.
23.9% of all planning permission given for dwelling units in the first quarter of 2021 were for one off housing. Crazy.

That could be a meaningless statistic depending on the definition of a one off house. Individual houses built on infill sites in urban areas or knocking an old house to build a new one would likely fall under the definition. There is a big push to build houses on corner sites or large gardens in existing estates in Dublin as these are very valuable now given the shortage of houses. My house is in a 1960s estate in Dublin and there are several modern houses plus more where the owner applied for planning for a new house on their large garden before they sell the site.

The other thing is the percentage of planning applications for single houses as a percentage of total applications doesn't really tell you much. That 23.9% of applications might only represent little more than 100 units (as each is only for one unit), while the other 76.1% could represent tens of thousands of units (as each is for anything between 2 and 500+ units). That stat is more likely to reflect a very low proportion of low density rural houses than it initially appears.

Seth Brundle

https://twitter.com/urbanthoughts11/status/1407595494239580161

Sam Russell

Seth Brundle wrote: »

https://twitter.com/urbanthoughts11/status/1407595494239580161

Add to that that each cardboard box costs the owner €30,000 up to €100,000 plus Motor tax, insurance, NCT, plus maintenance, and is left on the side of the road or in front of one's home for the vast majority of the time, and that €30,000 plus gently but rapidly descends to no value after a decade of ownership. Add to that, one has to find a place to park it in the city and that can be difficult to find and can be very expensive. Who thought that owning a car was a good idea? Owning an aircraft has not caught on in the same way at all.

Only yachts in marinas are more expensive and less used in modern life. Who wants a yacht - oh, how I do not! (Cole Porter - Who wants to be a millionaire).

p_haugh

https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters/status/1408011725727752192?s=19

Thelonious Monk

https://twitter.com/Kerrys_Eye/status/1407783143294242818

I found this amusing. We all know they'll never vote for TDs wanting car restrictions and walking/cycling infrastructure so it's just going to keep getting worse and worse. I was in Killarney last year and it feels like a sprawling housing estate along all the roads out of it, I don't know why they allow this to happen so that 2 cars per household is a requirement.

magicbastarder

this just highlights the farce in london where you can legally hire an e-scooter, but you cannot use your own.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-57609088

donvito99

I have seen two DB drivers in a week using electric scooters on their way home from/to the depot. Slowish progress in the grand scheme of things but so quick over a couple of kilometres.

That's as sure a sign as any that these yokes are the future. Slapping a whole pile of regs on these things is a joke.

magicbastarder

yeah, have seen lads on fiidos too heading to or from the harristown depot.

Sam Russell

I think electric scooters will be a complete game changer for commuting. For short distances up to 3 km, they are very quick. For longer commutes, drive to within 5 or so, then electric scooter from the boot and away you go.

Electric cars not so much as they will get stuck in traffic.

tDw6u1bj

Sam Russell wrote: »

Electric cars not so much as they will get stuck in traffic.

I expect they'll cause a huge change in air-quality and noise levels.

Other than that though...

donvito99

tDw6u1bj wrote: »

I expect they'll cause a huge change in air-quality and noise levels.

Other than that though...

HyPErLOoP

tDw6u1bj

donvito99 wrote: »

HyPErLOoP

One of those things where the more you read about it the worse it gets.

donvito99

tDw6u1bj wrote: »

One of those things where the more you read about it the worse it gets.

I'd take Denis Naughton's "let electric cars fill up the bus lanes" idea over hyperloop any day of the week.

magicbastarder

tDw6u1bj wrote: »

I expect they'll cause a huge change in ... noise levels.

only in slow moving traffic though; AFAIK most car noise at speed comes from the tyres.

tDw6u1bj

magicbastarder wrote: »

only in slow moving traffic though; AFAIK most car noise at speed comes from the tyres.

Rolling and air resistance definitely significant.

Just think of how much noise revving a car in the driveway makes. Take that out of the mix, it makes a big difference and I'll take that.