Can a city really ban cars from its streets? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140204-can-a-city-really-go-car-free
I personal don't believe it will be possible to stop using cars in the near future. Even with a span of 20 years I find it unlikely that a big city (Hamburg) will be car less. For several reasons (both personal and no-personal) will make this an impossible (or at least a very hard) goal to have. the first thing that comes to my mind is time and money; how much is it possible to invest in whats basically gonna be rebuilding an either city. The article says that parks, playgrounds, sport fields etc will from networks, I don't know if its means that all will be with in walking distance or if its just going to be easier get around everything by walking. Either way it feels like an extremely amount of money is necessary. Not to criticise anyone but fixing a round can take weeks if not months to fix, how long time will be needed to fix the whole city?The car has and will be among other things a feeling of freedom, Its hard to think that all people simple just gonna give the up. No its more likely that the people will go against this proposal, and I can't really blame them. Image a oversleeping a morning, if you go by bus, use the bike or walk ever day this is the day you will be using the car just to save those precious minutes. Or if your sick and have to go buying groceries? Take the bus doesn't really sound appealing.
Now lets say we have a city with no cars: how will it work out if someone from another city drove here? Can this person drive in the city or will he/she be forced to leave the car at the city limits? If you want to go from the cars less city to anywhere else, are you obligated to take a bus or train?
Will the public transportation be free of charge, or will the price go up/down. I can imagine that the public transport sector has to expand due to more people will depend on it. But it's feels unfair if the bus tickets will cost e.g twice as much if you have no other choices.
To me it feels like this questions will be a factor in the success (or failure) of this project.
Now I know I been negative about the whole thing, trust me as an student with major in energy and environmental I could not be happier if this was every city's plan. The car is one big environmental
problem. Not to say that ride the bike every day to work would be good for most people and so on. Even if more households don't have cars, it will take a long time before the norm will be not having one.
Hopefully I'm wrong and this will be something the world will use as a standard in two decades.
