Comments on: The Car-free Community

By: caitlin13

caitlin13 — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:31:09 +0000

I’d absolutely be down for this. Cars and driving is a big source of stress.

By: JustinButNotTHATJustin

JustinButNotTHATJustin — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:18:31 +0000

We can thank GM for some of the reasons modern American cities demand that you drive everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Streetcar_Scandal

And also Robert Moses. Toronto has a Jane Jacobs day to celebrate the champion of the walkable city.

There’s a really good/depressing book about why contemporary American cities are the way they are called The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:02:48 +0000

I once bought a house within walking distance of my workplace. Then the workplace up and moved several miles out of town! The next house I bought was in walking distance of the kids’ school, since I work at home. I still have to drive to buy groceries, now that all the mom and pop shops downtown are gone.

By: silversand

silversand — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:00:01 +0000

I grew up in Freiburg and I can tell you that the public transport system there is fantastic. Even before building Vauban the tram and bus system in Freiburg supported leaving your car outside the city and get in by tram (parking lots outside city = free, parking in city = hard to find and VERY expensive). Trust me, you don’t need a car in Freiburg, not even in other parts of the city. You can go even skiing in winter by train and bus in the black forest, no car needed at all.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:53:55 +0000

Where I live, the community is not laid out tightly enough and the jobs and shops aren’t close enough to the homes to make it work very well for most people. Car free would work in tightly packed communities,like urban areas or places that are very close to a source of a bunch of jobs, like next to a couple of big factories.

By: LisaL

LisaL — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:40:38 +0000

I wouldn’t mind living in that type of place if shops and such were in walking distance, or a decent distance for a bike or something.
But most of the shops and such are so spaced out and far from eachother with little to no public transport… it’s almost impossible to get anywhere without a car.
The side of town I live in, it’s middle-upper class.. and absolutely no public transportation in this area.
In the area we used to live in, there were bus stops, but a lot of those are being shut down due to lack of money.

By: Goober

Goober — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:28:57 +0000

Anybody who thinks there is any question about whether or not (southern) Californians will give up their cars has never ridden a bus for three hours to go ten miles (ten or fifteen minutes in a car). After having to wipe bum urine off the seat before sitting down.

Pouplation densities aren’t high enough in southern California for mass transit to make any sense. There aren’t high enough concentrations of people living close together, or high enough concentrations of jobs close together, for it to pay for itself. Everyone I know who uses public transportation drives their car to the Park-N-Ride.

By: Briannana

Briannana — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:01:41 +0000

I spent some time in Berlin doing an intensive music composition course during a summer, and public transportation kicked a whole lot of ass. You could always count on it to be on time, and you could go anywhere in and out of the city with enough planning.

To get to school, I walked half a mile to my bus stop, caught a bus to the West Lichteshire train station, and then took the train to a main city center. From there, I caught a subway, got onto another train, and then finally caught a bus to my school. And that was if I wasn’t on the off campus building, which meant I caught 2 more buses in order to get to that one. That said, the one time I got a ride into the school it took about 35 minutes to get there.

I didn’t mind the pace, but I know that many Americans just simply wouldn’t have it.

By: meg

meg — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:45:43 +0000

That doesn’t seem so bad if there are shops and jobs within walking distance. It just seems like in america there would be a distinct difficulty getting to jobs without walking/biking for quite a while, given the lack of public transportation in many suburbs.

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:29:52 +0000

Thanks, zav! Fixed.

By: zav

zav — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:26:44 +0000

“Most resident do not own a car.”

Residents, not resident.