Let's Piss Off All Drivers!

[CG6468]

Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy
Christoph Bangert for The New York Times

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: June 26, 2011

ZURICH — While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.

Likeminded cities welcome new shopping malls and apartment buildings but severely restrict the allowable number of parking spaces. On-street parking is vanishing. In recent years, even former car capitals like Munich have evolved into “walkers’ paradises,” said Lee Schipper, a senior research engineer at Stanford University who specializes in sustainable transportation.

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LINK from - SURPRISE! - The NYT

[Ptarmigan]

Lot of nutbag comments.

ekeizer4
Oregon
June 27th, 2011
2:10 am
#1: "Lets keep European ideas and implementation of Traffic in Europe where they belongs. Don't import these ideas and plans to this country. I don't want a Nanny government to dictate how I travel and what modes of travel I use."

The government here "dictates" our travel modes just as European governments do, except here the scales are tilted in favor of cars. Being a pedestrian in most major US cities is as difficult as it is to drive in most European ones. People who whine about the "Nanny State" aren't afraid of government control; they're just afraid of government control they don't like. And that's a sad, narrow-minded point of view.

Many leftists are just as narrow minded and hateful. Leftists are the most hateful and bitter people I have seen.

Jim Fischer
Brooklyn, NY
June 27th, 2011
9:00 am
We just moved from (somewhat) bicycle friendly Brooklyn to Jersey City. Night and day. Everyone on our block has three cars. No one wants to park more than ten steps from their front door (which, for us from Brooklyn, is a boon, as many spots are just a block and a half away). Boy do I get looks when I take out my bicycle! And do I get any road respect? Not! Drivers here don't even respect the rules of the road for other drivers. So that makes me chopped liver. Let gas prices go high and teach these people a lesson.

Another dumb leftist.

CD
NYC
June 27th, 2011
1:50 am
It's quite telling that these articles appear, then disappear, then reappear a few years later as some sort of revelation. The oil, auto and road construction industry barons own our government, and their doublespeak defines 'freedom' as the right to drive. Even if we accept the logic of mass transit vs the private car, we are so heavily invested in this illusion and presently is such economic shambles , thanks to those same pigs, that changing the system is presented as close to impossible. Sadly, we've missed the opportunity to refashion our infrastructure while at the same time improve our economy. It would require strong central leadership similar to FDR during the depression. But the right screams for smaller government and convinces the oppressed middle class that unions are the problem. We have returned to the gilded age of the late 1890's, thanks to Raegan, Bush, and a culture of collective amnesia which replaces education and involvement with instantaneous, mindless entertainment.

Huh? How about unions?

John H.
New York
June 27th, 2011
8:20 am
And these countries also provide healthcare for their citizens. God save me from American exceptionalism.

Their health care system is broken. Look at UK and Canada. In fact Europe is in a sorry state.  Stupid is strong in this one!

Paul Rosenberger
Manhattan Beach, Ca
June 27th, 2011
8:20 am
Having visited European cities with good public transportation, Paris and Munich come to mind, I can only endorse the idea whole heartedly. I went to the opera in Munich with friends who lived in the rural outskirts of the city, we took the subway to the center of the city which deposited use within half a block of the opera. We had a nice dinner nearby, enjoyed the opera and then took the subway back home. It was a relaxing, enjoyable experience, devoid of the tension that one feels in Los Angeles where one has to worry about where to park, whether it is OK to have an extra glass of wine for dinner, or what traffic will be like on he way home.

This does not mean that my friends did not have a car, they did, but they much preferred and appreciated the availability of public transportation for forays into the city. They have the best of both worlds, the freedom that a car offers when the situation is right and the availability of good public transportation when the situation calls for it.

We should learn from the Europeans in that regard, but I guess we never will. We are too convinced of the superiority of our way of doing things, that we could never accept the notion of perhaps learning something from these effete Europeans.

Europe and America are not the same thing. European cities are compact, older, and denser. Also, they have smaller land area.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Europe and America are not the same thing. European cities are compact, older, and denser. Also, they have smaller land area.

Exactly correct, Ptarmy.  And if anyone thinks taxes are ridiculous in major metro areas now, add the cost of the additional public transportation infrastructure and personnel it would take to replace all those cars and watch the fun ensue.

[thundley4]

Oh look !  The DUmmies support this idea coming to the US.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1381103

[Freeper]

Oh look !  The DUmmies support this idea coming to the US.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1381103

Of course they do. They love everything they do in Europe. I swear the DUmmies must be descendants of the people who were loyal to the crown in the late 1700s.

[compaqxp]

Maybe this makes sense for European cities, but it sure doesn't in North America. For one our cities are often more spread out,and European cars are often smaller and need less room.

Let gas prices go high and teach these people a lesson.

These people piss me off. Do they not realise some of our jobs depend on our cars? That we can't work without them and how much high gas prices hurt us?

And cyclists aren't any better then your average driver because they're often rude, inconsiderate and what's worse is so many have this idea that they're better then the car driver.

I slow down to pass them and move over, but if they knew my driving record I'm sure they'd decide to move over too, something which would make it safer for everyone.