I remember having to do a double take as I exited the Münster Hbf and passed the bike park.

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Success is measured in blood; yours or your enemy's.

I don't like cars, yet, I don't think there can be any general solution. How do you define "city center" for a start ? Where does it start ? In Berlin, for instance, the streets are very large and the city so widespread - besides there is no "city center" in Berlin. It would be quite inappropriate to ban all cars altogether.

Similarly, I wouldn't know what to answer for Paris : in a way the "city center" is everywhere, or there are many city centers.

I think you can start by charging a lot for car parking, as they do in Paris and in Berlin. Believe me, people will think twice before they use their car to go to the "city center". As a next step, maybe you can have a few single streets as "car free". It's not bad for the economy if it's a shopping street, on the contrary !

Whatever solution, it should be left to the individual town to decide.

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The poll results surprise me.

It seems like most people are in favor of keeping cars out of major city downtowns.

Americans would never go for this. We love our cars and we walk as little as is humanly possible.

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Screw Change!! Let's have a Seamless Transition of Power and Policy.. John McSame in 2008!

Actually the correct thread title would have been: Should private cars be banned from all small streets (with only two lanes or less) in the inner parts of large European cities? I guess that would be a little too long.

Private cars should still be allowed to drive on all wide streets (with two or more lanes in each direction) and all parking facilities with no direct access to these wide streets should therefore be shut down. This would increase both mobility and safety for everyone.

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Jesus was a communist!

American cities are different. You can't go anywhere without a car. In Europe, cities were built in a time when people were walking short distances. If you live in the city center, you do not need a car - everything, from coffee house, baker to post office, is close - If you want to travel a longer distance, public transportation are good and fast. Cars are more a burden than a support, they stink, they are noisy, they are dirty.

It has nothing to do with "love". Practicability makes law.

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Two lanes or less? Nearly all streets are two lanes or less (We have a hell of a lot one way streets with an additional parking lane) in the dense parts of Vienna. Not just in the inner districts. You would ban the car nearly from the entire city. Only some of the major high priority connections would remain untouched. But they would be useless if you can't leave them to at least the vicinity of your destination.

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Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

And thats the reason why it should be a priority for city planners to get back to such layouts when planning new districts at least. I mean layouts where practicabillity already demands you to switch to the alternatives of the car and effectively lead therefore to a better quality of life for everyone.

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Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

I am not sure I understand what you mean. Do you mean that cars should be integrated by city planners or not ?

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Europe has pedestrianised areas of the city which is welcomed by most people. IN Dublin the Temple bar area used to be a dump not it is the nightlife area of dublin with viberant scene and this was due to pedestrianation of the streets...

Europe have pedestrianised asmuch as really possible or feasible ...

New York city seems one of the few cities which could pedestrianise more this is due to it's compact size and public transport system.. New York isprobably the city most like european ones in the US...

Average European and American cities look quite different. It's not that the Europeans (at least really not the Germans) don't love their cars. It's just that too many cars in a densely populated inner city area with winding streets are just a pain in the ass for everybody, including the car users. Most European cities started as small towns and villages in a time when cars weren't even invented. The typical European city grew from a small town with a church, a city hall and a market place in it's center, surrounded by a densely populated inner city area with mixed residential and commercial dwellers. Sometimes even city walls. You find restaurants, cafes, cinemas, theaters, churches, museums, banks, shops, etc. These are highly frequented areas but often not with the space and layout to deal with huge amounts of cars. So banning cars from such areas really is more of a necessity than anything else. Though I'm not for a general ban. I think it should be decided by the cities and it's people themselves.

No, I mean that districts should be planned in a way to make them walkable, oriented also towards the public transport system. Thats possible.

I mean if it works within the dense parts of Vienna that more people use the public transport than the car, why should it be impossible in new districts if the districts are planned with having PT and walkability in mind?

Of course cars oriented districts and cities, make it very hard to not use the car. They lead to a significantly lower quality of life, a far larger contribution to the pollution etc.
The times when the car was hailed as solution are over I think. Luckily. I hope that city planners reorient themselves again and plan cities for humans, not for cars.

Having that said, I do not say, we have to ban the car compeletly from the streets. No but we have to make the alternatives to the car more efficient and convenient than the car, at least in the dense cities.

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Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

Yes, I fully agree.

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

You know they do many scandalous things in Vienna when it comes to the issue to build cities for humans, not for investors, but there are some nice and good projects as well.

One of those good projects is the biking quarter. In a centre near development area (former railway station for goods that is now transformed into a new quarter within the next decade(s)) there are already fix plans to build a bunch of new residential complexes with a very intersting concept. They are dedicated to people who prefer the bike as their mean mean of transportation. Therefore a whole lot of parking lots can be safed and transformed in more green space. And there will also be a car sharing centre when a car should be needed once in a while eg for transporting bulky or heavier goods.

It seems this project qets quite much positive feedback and will not have much problems to find the people who want to live there.

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Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

Berlin is obviously the exception among European cities since it was build primary for cars, and therefore it works out rather well there.

It varies a lot from city to city where you would define the city center to begin. I Personally think that a city center usually begins inside of the closest ring road, and so does it Copenhagen and Paris.Something serious needs to be done in Paris and not just a raising of the parking charges/fines and the close down a few streets. The city is a living car hell and have been for the last 20 years.
Even better: It should be left to the people in the city centers to decide in a public voting. That would be the most fair and Im pretty sure that most people would vote yes.

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Jesus was a communist!

I don't think Berlin was originally built for cars. Even in the old town, before the destructions of WWII, some main streets were extremely large.

Yet, I agree with you. Berlin is the exception in Europe, not the rule.

Well, no. Paris and Copenhagen are definitely not comparable. Copenhagen is relatively small and there is one city center. In Paris, there is no "closest" ring road (or do you mean the "boulevards" ? - in which case the entire town should be car-free, yet it is too large for this !)

I think that the only way in Paris is to create several zones in each district which would be car free (as the case for example for the area near the boulevard St-Michel)

The idea of parking charges is precisely to make the city a living car hell. In addition to the parking charges introduced by Chirac, Delanoe has implemented "bus-only-lanes", which makes traffic for cars even tougher !

Most of the Parisians I know don't have any car. My parents gave up their car when they lived in Paris, now they have three that they live in the country (one for my dad, one for my mom, an old one for visitors who need a car ...)

However, I agree with you : parking charges or bus only lanes are not enough ! And it does make life very hard for the few who stick to their car.

Yet, I would be reluctant to implement the London solution. It seems so extreme ...

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn