Re: [pf] Imagine a future with car-free cities

At 07:21 1/3/2001 -0800, Tom Wheeler sent-on
 an article from the Seattle Times which included:

>Just imagine, Crawford suggests, the possibilities for people and enhanced
>civic places that could be created if an American city excluded cars. 
· and:
>One doesn't need to advocate a car-free society, my colleague Curtis Johnson
>argues, to want to escape the bondage of zero choices. 
· and:
> we need to reverse the slave-master relationship [with cars]." 
>Europeans, he notes, love cars too - they buy expensive ones, spend what
for us would be outrageously high sums on gas.
>"But they use autos for specialized purposes. They support a government that
>balances road and transit investments. They love their cars, but they're not
>slaves to them."
>

· It's not necessary to ban cars from cities. I'm afraid too many
alternatives are presented as either/or (at least by Americans).

· That's only one choice of many; it's suitable for certain streets, at
certain times of the day and week.

· The picture is more complex than black/white, yes/no, good/bad. After
all, it's part of life, and that's extraordinarily complex.

· In yesterday's world news section of our NZ National Radio, there was a
report on the 3-year-old decision by the City Council in Hasselt, Belgium
(50_56N, 5_20E, near Maastricht on the Maas river) to make public transit
free. Two points made were: already 2/3 of the cost is paid out of tax so
paying the other third as well would enable a much better service with far
higher ridership, and: "why should the rich not have to pay? (since they
get free bus and train travel like everyone else)" is answered by looking
at the fact that the rich pay a bigger fraction of the total tax bill than
others, so they effectively pay more per trip than others.

· So I'm guessing that there are now much fewer cars being used in Hasselt
than before.

· If the goal is to make a large reduction in car use, I think many
different strategies all in action together, is more likely to do the job,
rather than (over)simply: "ban cars!".

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davdd.geo/index.html#top
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