I was referring to the large ring-boulevard (I guess you can call it) which surrounds the inner city and have a diameter of about 10-12 kilometers. Banning all private cars from small streets inside of that area would do a lot more good than harm. It would also mean that buses (since there would be no parked cars anymore) could use the small streets as alternate routes without getting stuck in traffic.

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Jesus was a communist!

It would mean the Inner London solution.

I prsonally think Paris is much too large for such a solution. It is larger than inner London.

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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

Sucre in fact this is not true. There are plenty of people for example that live in downtown Chicago and do not even own a car. There are also plenty of suburbinites that take the Metra into Chicago to go to work each day. A lot of our big cities have PT systems, although not as well developed as Europes but that is changing.

Yes we do have a love affair with our cars. I personally would prefer to drive somewhere as opposed to having to rely on PT, but that doesn't mean when it makes sense to use PT I won't.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

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 universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

I disagree. The solution is high capacity parking garages (either as towers or underground) directly connected to the large city streets where cars are still allowed to drive. In addition - free of charge parking lots/garages (where possible) near the S-Bahn stations in the suburbs.

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Jesus was a communist!

You mean Park & Ride? Thats here plentiful in Vienna. The problem however is that its not really that cheap. Like all garage buildings are not really cheap.

Making them cheap or even free of charge could foster the demand for them and the PT for sure. But I think that the Wiener Linien do not want that, as the number of customers is rising anyways, even though it has already a higher share in city transportation than most of the other PT owners in other cities.


A cool system might be a "city toll" like in London that finances the park and ride and makes it for free among others.

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

yes it's a good idea, I suppose it's the reason why it has already be done

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.

...

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.

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

Yet, you cannot compare "downtown" of an American town and the city center of a European. Most people don't want to live downtown in the US while cities centers are extremely looked after in Europe.

On the whole, it is nightmare if you don't have a car in the USA, even in a large town with relatively good PT like in Boston for instance . Not so in Europe and "the not as well developed" makes the difference.

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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

Sucre on the whole you can't make that generalized statement. Look at large cities like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, San Diego, and a number of others. In fact the verticle housing boom is going great guns in those cities. Why? Because people do in fact want to live there. Now in cities like St. Louis and the next tier of smaller cities you are correct, but then again they do not offer the excitement or amenities that the larger cities offer in their downtown areas.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

You are correct, but that was not the main point Sucre pointed at as far as I can see it. The main point was that simply because European cities have different priorities and are not entirely circling around the imperative of the car, that they are less developed. Their transportation infrastructure can be as developed or even more more than in American cities without having such a large car infrastructure. Simply because the car is not the sole means of transport, and if we are honest it is the one with the largest disadvantages for the quality of life within a city.

Yes, of course most European cities have a different heritage, and have an easier game to rely more on different things than the the car, but thats another story.

In short, the level of development of a cities transport infrastructure is not a direct result from the number of its highways. (or all the other roads)

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

In New York, Chicago and San Diego, the cities I know best, there are good PT systems in place and they still have made it accessible to vehicles. In Chicago and New York there are even very good PT systems to get from the burbs to the city. In fact both can be accomodated. Whether you want them to or not is the question not whether it can be done.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

I doubt they have the share of PT users for example Vienna has.

Its of course possible to have both, an extremely extensive PT infrastructure as well as car infrastructure. But its stupid to build infrastructure in way that it supersedes the overall demand a few times. After all you have an overall demand, and you have to serve it somehow. You can choose between car and PT. (among others like bikes, pedestrian movement that should be not underestimated in its potential etc). To build both in dimensions that they could nearly serve the complete demand or at least 2/3 of it alone (what you need in order to reach Viennese PT dimensions), would mean you have a huge overcapacity what would be in fact nothing else than wasting gigantic amounts of city space and money for infrastructure that would be thousand times better spent for other purposes the city might lack.

And to your last paragraph. Yes thats really the point. If we should want that kind of a thing. And thats what I said. I can not see how there are many in Europe who would want such an extensive city road network US cities have. And there are lot of very good reasons why they don't want it.

Just because something is possible does not mean that its really "progress". In Vienna cars only have a share of 33% of the total traffic and I dont see this as lack of developement, no, I am damn proud on this number. Its not a lack of progress, its quite the opposite, it IS the progress.

PS:
You should not get a wrong picture. Vienna is of course also accessible by car as well. Even though only insanes for example enter the 1st district by car without living their or a very good other reason. But you would not drive with your car through Disneyland either, would you?

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

Lets be honest the main reason in europe is space. We have it you do not. There is no reason why cities that have decided to invest in their light rail or subway or commuter train systems can't also have extensive highway systems for those that do not want to be at the mercy of the PT system.

You keep talking about Vienna as if it were something for cities in the US to aspire to. Some will some will not. For me I do not really like PT and will always prefer to drive. You do not feel the same, I understand that. Part of the difference is the environments we were raised in. I lived in Germany from 11 to 16. We came back after school was over when I was 16 years old, and since at that time Americans mainly got their licenses through school sponsored drivers ed it meant I had to wait for 6 months before I could get my license. I hated it because all my friends were already driving. Slarti I am sure you had nothing like that. Environment has a lot to do with how you feel about this issue. Don't get me wrong it would not bother me to see the end of SUV's and much more efficient cars, but in the end I still want to be able to drive whereever I want to. When my wife and I visit Europe hopefully later this year, we will rent a car for most of the time. We will take the train once or twice just so she can experience it, but for the most part we will drive so we can go where we want when we want on no one elses schedule.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Of course there are reasons why European cities look different than American ones. I would not overestimte the space argument however. I think the historical developement is far more important. Its not like most European cities would not have plenty of space to grow miles over miles into the backland. But its true Europeans have a fundamentally different concept of "space" than you have. In Europe also land not used by man has a value (with unused land I do not mean a national park, I mean boring totally normal meadows or woods were not the slightest special thing is obvious at first sight, nor any special protection thing exists). Using them for different purposes must be legitimated with good reasons. Creating road overcapacities will be rejected by most people as legitimate reason, ie considered "waste of space". Even if we don't need that space for something else. Its because the non-human purpose the space served before (->eg as "boring" meadow) is more important than the not necessarely needed road capacities.

There are reasons, and I do not see in how far roads should be more reliable than the PT system, in fact they are less reliable. That does not stop many American cities to live quite well without a PT system that is worth that name. So why should we be dependent on a huge "back-up" road system? If many American cities dont have a PT "back up"?

But we could of course talk ages about reasons etc. I think we have already before anyway.

True, some car geeks might hate Vienna, and also that I surpass them easily with my bike at rush hour...
Well, they live in the wrong city. But most of these people who think so, are also hypocrite as much as they can as they for sure do not want that people pass the own home in huge numbers by car as well.
I do understand the way you think. But I think driving car is asocial. Its the peak of egoism. Its wasting city space, ruining environment, producing unnecessary noise etc just for the very own comfort. I think thats bad. And it doesn't get together with my own principles I have. Of course, there are people who have no alternative, where using the PT would mean an extreme disadvantage that can not be expected