Quote:
|
I think it depends on the city and its particulars. This was done in Galway in Ireland in the early 1990s where the downtown section was pedestrianised. The streets were narrow and traffic had always blocked up and cluttered the whole area. Closing it to traffic and pedestrianising it did wonders for making the downtown very sporty and trendy for business and culture and helped make the city a very popular place to live, work and visit.
|
I am completely torn on this subject. O'Sullivans photos of Galway city couldn t be more different to tailbacks and rush hour traffic in Dublin.
There are 2 sides to Dublin on the one hand There are plenty of streets that are for pedestrians and i love that part of it. Its nice to walk in peace and not to be worried about someone running you over.
However the streets into town can be scary with all the cars who don t seem to notice or care about pedestrians.
On the one hand I d love to see city traffic banned forever and be able to walk on the street without having cars hooting and having to run for your life across the road.
However the public transport and road size are not good enough. I live in the suburbs only 7km from the city centre. On a bad day it takes me 1 and 1/2 hours to get home. Why? traffic jams going on for miles.
You can get really fed up of it. However at X mas when I started back early it took me 15 mins. Why because there was no traffic.
In the end me and my mum who works in town as well decided to drive in and we get in 25 minutes because we take back roads
Normally I would agree be completely against people using their cars to go into town as well. That is until I finished college and started working in town.
But try telling that to a girl (myself) who queued for 30 minutes, has seen 3 buses fly by her, soaked to the skin, crammed standing on a bus 1 hour 45 minutes. It was that particular day that made us change our mind and start bring in the car.
I have to say its huge improvement. Can you blame people for wanting to avoid the bus and public transport hell???
I would only agree with cars being blocked from town if they gave us a perfect transport system with enough room for every one. How many towns in Europe are prepared to offer us that?