Quote:
Originally Posted by Gort
Sucre I think the ring, or as we call it the outerbelt, does in fact make sense. Look at maps of all of our larger cities and you will find a situation just like Paris. There may be one older center city section, but newer center city clusters have sprung up everywhere. We have built outerbelts with them in mind. St. Louis for example has at least two outerbelts. The original one is fairly close to the city center and the newer ones ring the city closer to the suburbs. There are good roads connecting all of them together.
It can be done, but I will admit it is easier here because we have more space to play with and are willing to tear down older structures to make way for progress.
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The point is I think do we want it to be done that way?
Let suppose theoretically that we have a choice to either have a system where the car dominates everything else, or a system where the car is pushed back everywhere with accepted alternatives.
I would not want to choose the former one, I want the latter one. And in fact, this mindset has become the dominating one in Europe. In the 60's we exactly wanted that kind of "progress" you described. Tearing down old to make place for heavy trafficked highways and high priority streets.
Already 3 decades ago the first voices started to criticize this mindset. It was the time when the pedestrian zones were invented. In Europe a huge success in the US a terrible failure in most places. (It would probably fill another thread to discuss this different outcome). In the decades to come it increased, the very streets that were built in the post war time in the name of "progress" where teared away again, and replaced with smaller and nicer looking roads again, especially in the town centers etc often with slow down sections that force cars to really slow down, with getting all the green back that was annihilated in the name of "progress" and also with proclaiming a new rule: The Pedestrian stands above the car driver in the street design hierarchy.
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If I had to choose between a city like Vienna with clogged streets at the rush hour but a very efficient and massive public transport system. (Where more people actually take the PT(34%) than the car(33%)). And a city with an ultra efficient highway street layout that lacks a tight or efficient PT system. I dont need a single second to choose the former.
Americans might choose the latter, I don't know.