this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You dont want to force people away from cars u want to make public transport a better more appealing alternative

It really depends on what you mean by "force". Certainly we don't want to just ban cars, but in order to make public and active transport appealing, some restrictions on driving are necessary.

For example, at the moment you can drive from anywhere, to anywhere, via almost any route. This makes even local streets unnecessarily dangerous because people end up driving through unrelated local streets when that ends up being faster than sticking to main roads. Which in itself is making walking and cycling more dangerous, causing more people to drive instead.

If instead we used modal filters—sections of local streets that you can't drive through but can walk or ride through—that would definitely make driving seem "worse" because rat running would no longer be possible and access to local streets would be possible only via one route instead of 4 different ones, but it would also make walking and cycling better, too. It would make them safer, and would mean for some trips they can literally take a shorter journey.

This is just one example of good design. There are a number of other ways things can be designed better that might both help public and active transport users and hinder car use. Ironically, if done well, even all this would actually make driving better, because the number one problem for drivers at the moment is other drivers. And if you design well, you can reduce the number of other drivers, so anyone who continues to drive will have a better experience.

It's not about "forcing" anything. But it is about incentivising and disincentivising things to arrive at a better overall transport network.