Is excluding cars from our living spaces the answer?

American city with no cars

List of car-free places

I’m old enough to remember when kids could play in the street, and I can’t help thinking we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by sacrificing so much space to cars.

Why does personal transportation have to be so space inefficient that it needs so much room?

Needless to say I have a car that’s too big for most of our needs.

I keep waiting for the one person vehicles that Terry Gilliam came up with in Brazil.
No more traffic jams!

FeeFoo – Member
I keep waiting for the one person vehicles that Terry Gilliam came up with in Brazil.
No more traffic jams!

Won’t the jams just be smaller?

See how happy you’d be! 😉

I keep waiting for the one person vehicles that Terry Gilliam came up with in Brazil.
No more traffic jams!

You mean the Messerschmitt? Someone did come up with them 😉

A friend of mine had one – silly fun, especially if you wore a leather Biggles hat…

You’re right! I’d forgotten about them.
Another happy driver:

I’m old enough to remember when kids could play in the street, and I can’t help thinking we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by sacrificing so much space to cars.

Playing in the street. Jumpers for goalposts.

Sobering how much of that has been lost:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-VuB131sFo[/video]

A lot of these car free areas came about not through demand or necessity, but policy. Someone made a decision and stuck to it. And policies are made by politicans who answer to the majority (supposedly), which is why in lazy, selfish Blightly, it’s only going to be old towns where it sticks. I’m not buying the areas cited in the wikipedia list where it’s a shopping centre. That was a commerical decision.

I walk my dog along this road.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=leigh&hl=en&ll=53.510486,-2.535089&spn=0.001303,0.004128&sll=47.73855,12.508828&sspn=48.374973,135.263672&hnear=Leigh,+United+Kingdom&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=53.510486,-2.535089&panoid=lVYQE6dSczgFw7z0-98c5A&cbp=12,123.99,,0,13.04

You’ll see the house owners there don’t have a road immediately in front of their houses. They’ll have to walk…ooooh, 20 yards from their car. Do you think they walk or park on the pavement in front of their house?

I’ve never got this whole big car = better thing.

A lot of my friends have got married then had kids only for them to suddenly need a 4X4/MPV to carry round 2 adults, a kid and a small bag!! My parents love small cars so I grew up being ferried around in Fiat Uno’s (x3), 500’s (old one), and a Nova. Never had a problem getting all our stuff in them. Felt like luxury when we got a 5 door Corsa!! Dad had the option of a Vectra/Mondeo as a company car but much preferred his little runabouts, did large mileage back then too!!

My sister’s just had her first child and everyone wanted to know what MPV she would be buying now that her Colt would be too small. They had a bit of a shock when she said she was keeping it as all the stuff fits in easily and it’s paid for!! It’s not even a 5 door 😆

Milky +1. The people carrier was a clever bit of marketing, leading people to believe they needed one for ferrying the kids around.

What strikes me is films of cities in Edwardian times. You’ll see vehicular and horse traffic, bicycles, and pedestrians all over the road. Everything was at walking pace.

I wonder if the fact that the drivers were not enclosed made a difference.

There are too many cars because standards of living are too high. As we seem incapable of creating a fair income tax system perhaps we should massively increase car tax at point of purchase.

I’m old enough to remember when kids could play in the street, and I can’t help thinking we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by sacrificing so much space to cars.

kids aren’t out playing in the streets now because everyone is scared of their kids getting abducted, they all have x-boxes where they can ‘play’ and their paranoid parents can keep an eye on them. it has very little to do with the amount of space cars demand. IMO.
as you may imagine, i have no kids and very little basis for my views. 😀

Del: watch the video above. The streets are no place for kids to play any more.

I grew up play football, kerbie, kick the can, skateboarding etc in the road with other neighbourhood kids.

The odd car came through, at slow pace, we shouted “Car”, got out the way then carried on playing.

These days the same streets are full of parked cars and the remaining space has frequent cars blitzing through at 40mph.

Milky +1. The people carrier was a clever bit of marketing, leading people to believe they needed one for ferrying the kids around.

The vw camper was the tool for the job in the 70s. The people carrier filled the void that left. Nothing to do with marketing. Bigger is better.

I can’t help thinking we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by sacrificing so much space to cars.

^ this
We seem to design modern life around the flipping things – car parks in front of schools so kids walk through to get to school, every building designed around the roads (not solar gain), roads through every bit of countryside, car drivers that resent anyone else on the road, choosing to live 2 hours from where you work, obesity and pollution based health issues, 5 people a day dead on roads in UK etc etc.

(I own two, and would dearly like to get rid of one)

MPVs aren’t much bigger if at all compared to your average saloon which is what many people had in yesteryear. They’re just boxier making the most of the height above the wheel base. Good fuel economy compared to those older cars as well, I easily get 55mpg in our seven seat Touran.

The real issue as above is planners, Manchester missed an amazing opportunity to become pedestrianised after the IRA bombing when everyone was used to the roads being closed.

Another big issue is people parking on residential streets instead of using their drives, and then of course there’s speed, our estate is now a 20 zone whichin principle is great, in reality the signswere a waste of money, most people do sub 20 because the roads are windy and there’s (ironically) lots of parked cars. Those that did more than 20 still do, some signs didn’t make any difference.

Good point.
Average family of 2+2 = 4 cars because they absolutely have to have one right? That’s often in front of houses with designed for one car 😕

I’ve never got this whole big car = better thing.

On STW? Really? Don’t you need a big car to fit 4 bikes in? I owned a big car well before I had kids as it made it a lot easier carrying my sports stuff around when I went to do fun things, and nowadays it means I can fit in a bike or two (along with kayak kit etc.) when we go on family holidays. Mind you, my big car is a Mondeo estate, as I don’t see any advantage to MPV type things in terms of the amount of usable space (at least not until you go to really big Galaxy size things).

All completely irrelevant to the point of this thread though, as it’s the number of cars (and the attitude towards their use) which is the problem, not the size of vehicle in use. My big car takes up far less average road space than most small ones as it spends most of its time on my drive.

One of the great things about where we live is that kids can still play out in the street – sadly not many places like this around. This video gives an idea of the space available.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qXOyH8R6V0[/video]

The car as we know it now will soon be gone, within the lifetime of most readers of this forum cars will be self driving appliances. This will remove the need for ownership, you’ll be hiring your ICar with a swipe of debit card.

Biggest problem will be how will people establish their social status without a car?

I’d happily drive around in a modern version of that Messerschmidt. I’d want the Tiger version of course.

They were however the next biggest impediment to impulsive passion after the invention of tights. (That no longer is a major concern to me. 🙂 )

There are too many cars because standards of living are too high. As we seem incapable of creating a fair income tax system perhaps we should massively increase car tax at point of purchase.

I take it you live in a city and/or are single (or no kids)?

Where I live without a car it’d be a 15 mins walk to a bus stop with limited buses. The nearest town is two buses away, depending on time. The nearest railway is 40 miles away, although by 2015 we’ll have one 5 miles (and two buses away). And before you suggest it’s only 5 miles, that includes a 500ft ascent or a trunkroad of 8 miles.

And no buses on a Sunday, and limited early/late services.

No offence b r, but people seem to lack so much imagination when ideas like this are discussed. There seems to be a collective refusal to wonder at just what the implications of a change such as largely removing private cars from our society might be.

Maybe we could fund far more buses, amazing and safe cycleways, extend the train network, compress and diversify cities, removing the zoning concept that creates the epic commute. Maybe we could localise energy production and democratise public transport, de-privatising it and reinvest all that money that subsidises motorways. Maybe children could safely walk to school on their own, empowering parents to work more, levelling gender inequality. Maybe there would be less of a discrepancy between poverty in urban and rural areas, as the cost of private motoring wouldn’t be unduly forced on the rural dwellers.

Call me a dreamer, but my god, it could be amazing!

/\ this.. Your car is a letter about to meet an email.

No offence b r, but people seem to lack so much imagination when ideas like this are discussed. There seems to be a collective refusal to wonder at just what the implications of a change such as largely removing private cars from our society might be.

Yes, because what you are asking for is to somehow change the last 100 years, in a short period. Therefore it would cause chaos, with a majority losing and few winning.

Well, no, I never mentioned changing things in a short period, you said that.

Of course, it is my opinion that the majority would win, and only a minority lose, if you want to put it in such competitive terms. Everyone would benefit in terms of air pollution alone!

It’s coming, I’m sure, one way or another. IanW, I love that man!

Sadly living in the epitome of car owning la la land, no shops within 2 mile radius, local school mayhem at start & end of day, twisty country roads with no pavements & few safe options for adults let alone kids, stupid big spiteful Insignia company car even though I asked for something smaller 👿 at least I’m only renting & will be moving to back to walk to shop land one day soon … and breath

anyone able to get the fuel delivery drivers to go on strike again, pretty please

To the OP. Did I wave to you in a small highland village earlier today or was it someone looking like you in a car looking like yours? :O) I saw heaps of folk I know out in the middle of nowhere today.

martinxyz – Member
To the OP…

Someone waved – didn’t notice in time.

IanW – Member
/\ this.. Your car is a letter about to meet an email.

I think we can hang on to them a bit longer if we reduce the size, especially the width. EG the Messerschmidt may look comical to modern eyes but it could do the job just as well as the average 1,500kg car. The Tigers were enormous fun (think go kart).

Narrower cars mean more fit into car parks and on the road so less public money spent on road assets. Smaller cars mean less pollution and fuel consumption. If the cities placed a restriction on the width of private cars allowed like the Japanese did, we’d soon have a plentiful supply of suitable bolides.

The USA will solve any fuel crisis and retain the personal automobile.
Seriously – I have never seen anywhere so utterly reliant upon the car. The available space and the 50s suburban dream have ensured that. The place amazes me.

Where I live without a car it’d be a 15 mins walk to a bus stop with limited buses.

That’s because you all have cars and there is no demand. If you all have no car there will be demand and the service will be increased to meet it (or you’ll move closer to work).

In a similar vein the railway network may well have to expand to meet the need as car use/ownership declines.

The people carrier was a clever bit of marketing, leading people to believe they needed one for ferrying the kids around.

Don’t need one, but I can assure you my Megane Scenic is a lot more pleasant to use as a family car than the Focus it replaced.

Aye, it looked like you turning to see who it was! Cromarty was nice and warm.

The people carrier was a clever bit of marketing, leading people to believe they needed one for ferrying the kids around.

I’ve got one, and have no kids.

You can however fit a double mattress in the back with kneeling head height 😛

From the guy who brought the world this:

http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/index.php

If we threw out all our current transport (personal and freight) overnight and adopted much more innovative and efficient vehicles we could make this country a lot nicer place to live in.

Biggest problem will be how will people establish their social status without a car?

Same way they did it for 50,000 years before the car was invented 🙂

If you all have no car there will be demand and the service will be increased to meet it (or you’ll move closer to work).

Who’s going to pay for that? Public transport becomes incredibly expensive when you have to cover every house. And even if we oculd all move closer to work, that’d create urban overcrowding and destroy countryside life fairly effectively.

Anyone see that programme about trams the other day on BBC4? More effective and flexible transport transformed our cities for the better.

I don’t think the car will disappear. What needs to disappear is commuting. Far easier to get rid of a lot of commuting, leaving the roads clear for traffic that we actually need – goods, tradespeople, services etc.

Surely the LEZ is a step in this direction; doubtless in cities and built up urban areas, cars are not needed to the extent they are currently relied upon for personal transport, though access would still be required for deliveries and services such as rubbish collection.

The thing is though, it’s big business and has a vast impact on the economy, albeit at the detriment of the environment.

That said, the refinement of traffic regulations over the years is probably a good thing: 😀

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NINOxRxze9k[/video]

Kids play in my street all the time. When they see a car they shout “car” and let it past, it’s never moving very fast.

As for city centres, you need to provide park and ride and park cycle that is as easy as just driving in. If you simply make driving in harder then everyone will go to the out of town shopping centre with massive efficient access and free parking instead. (Maybe that’s what we need to move to, maybe city centres should die, or out of town shopping is the new city centre.)

As for why we base our lives around cars, well we base them around running water and electricity too – because these things are BRILLIANT.

Trams, great idea. Cyclists campaign against them all the time.

molgrips – Member

Who’s going to pay for that? Public transport becomes incredibly expensive when you have to cover every house.

Cutting car use would save a lot of money though- individual costs, road costs, healthcare costs etc etc. Cost neutral? Don’t know.