14 votes

Want safe, bikeable streets? Get rid of free parking, as Amsterdam did

2 comments

  1. [2]
    asep
    Link
    This is also a problem I feel with the design of American cities. They seem so unnecessarily huge that cycling around in anything other than perfect conditions seems so daunting. Moreover I think...

    This is also a problem I feel with the design of American cities. They seem so unnecessarily huge that cycling around in anything other than perfect conditions seems so daunting. Moreover I think that paid parking isn't the solution, it's creating good infrastructure that promotes not even taking your car out. I can cycle from Rotterdam to the Hague if I wanted there's a protected cycling path between the two cities I don't ever have to cycle on the road. But the point is that I wouldn't have to because there's no reason to other than for fun. Where I live everything I really need from day to day is within a 10 minute cycle of my home. If I do need something further away I can just take the train. There's no reason to be driving because nothing is in that middle ground of too far for my bike but too close to take the train for.

    9 votes
    1. alyaza
      Link Parent
      that's the fun of the suburbs and urban development in general in america for the past... i dunno, 80 or so years? one of the better examples of this is this map of cleveland, which shows just how...

      This is also a problem I feel with the design of American cities. They seem so unnecessarily huge that cycling around in anything other than perfect conditions seems so daunting.

      that's the fun of the suburbs and urban development in general in america for the past... i dunno, 80 or so years? one of the better examples of this is this map of cleveland, which shows just how much space has been developed between 1948 and 2002 for what has ultimately become a slight net increase of population. suburbs in particular really fucked up city compactness, but american land use in general when it comes to cities tends toward woefully inefficient and it's going to take massive restructuring across the board for there to be actually usable non-car infrastructure in most cities.

      1 vote