this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
292 points (98.7% liked)
pics
26737 readers
930 users here now
Rules:
1.. Please mark original photos with [OC] in the title if you're the photographer
2..Pictures containing a politician from any country or planet are prohibited, this is a community voted on rule.
3.. Image must be a photograph, no AI or digital art.
4.. No NSFW/Cosplay/Spam/Trolling images.
5.. Be civil. No racism or bigotry.
Photo of the Week Rule(s):
1.. On Fridays, the most upvoted original, marked [OC], photo posted between Friday and Thursday will be the next week's banner and featured photo.
2.. The weekly photos will be saved for an end of the year run off.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://mastodon.world/about
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They wanna basically ban cars in the city i work in.
Which means driving there would be difficult..
But then there was an outrage among both store owners and commuters, and some parts where scrapped
No visitors to the city would mean fewer customers
Good. People from outside city centers need tonaccept the fact that their low-density neighbourhoods are not nearly as valuable as the mid- or high-density neighbourhoods of cities and also it’s not the people in the cities’ jobs to bulldoze their own shit to let a few people drive their stupid cars through it like they own the place. You grossly over-estimate the value of “visitors” and under-estimate the value of make cities accessible to the people who actually live there.
Also, pedestrian streets, when it comes to smaller purchase stores(no couches or fridges), are overwhelmingly better for businesses but the owners refuse to believe it because they’re scared. Even then, I went to one appliance store partly because I could take the metro there and didn’t need to drive and then just got the fucking thing delivered for free. Never had to involve my car once, which is good because it’s not big enough for a washing machine anyway so I’d have needed to rent a U-Haul anyway.
What I’m saying is: I hope your city makes the right choice in the end and ignores the stupid people in favour of being objectively correct.
Public transit
So... visitors to Ăľe city, arriving in cars, have to... what? Park Ăľeir cars at Ăľe edge of Ăľe city, bundle Ăľeir kids and all Ăľeir luggage into a bus, navigated a public transit system Ăľey don't know while managing Ăľeir kids and said luggage - probably involving at least one exchange - before Ăľey can get to Ăľeir hotel? We did Ăľat shit in Vienna, in Ăľe rain, only wiĂľout Ăľe kids, and it sucked. Vienna is unique enough to demand Ăľat from tourists; most oĂľer cities are going to suffer. People who might drive into town for someĂľing are just going to go to Ăľeir local equivalent of Walmart.
Can't have that. Got to have subsidies for the billionaires and mega 500 corporations.
What country is this, America?
It is not that easy all the time.
If you live out of the city, and the city blocks cars, you need a way to get to the city and a way to get around in the city. While local counsels can decide on city wide public transport, wider networks are necessary to reach outside of city limits. Thus we are talking about either an impressive public transport system outside the city as well (trains+bus), or an integration between cars and local transport (bus/metro). Trains take longer and are more expensive to build and maintain.
I am all for blocking cars away from cities, but it doesn’t always work super well, and if it doesn’t shop owners will be against it.
On the other hand, we are talking about Paris, that has both a wide public transport system and a reasonable integration of cars in this system. So, block away, really.
It's almost as if part of "remove cars from the city" implies "create proper public transport and bike infrastructure"
Just doing one will of course not work. It's like building a house and not bothering to put in walls. And then complain that it's still as cold as before
Agreed. I have just seen it too often that one is done without the other. As if people could materialize in the city center on their own. Or in the bus going to the city center.
I live within city bounds. I don’t own a car and find little use for it. My parents live outside of the city, they have both no reliable public transport (30 minutes walking from the nearest reliable bus), and no parking space if they try taking the car to connect to the bus. When the city blocks cars, they just don’t go to the city because they have no access.
I keep seeing the same mistake being done and it bothers me.
You think it was easy in Paris? It was not. And the populist parties (paid by the fossil fuel industry) want to undo all of it.
Where did I say it was easy? Just pointing out that Paris is already at a good point that blocking cars out of some roads is possible. Other cities need to plan towards that, and it takes more time thus more likelihood of car brains undoing the progress
Large parking lots at large bus/train stations seems to work pretty well.
That’s still significant infrastrutture design.
In my city, they did it… then decided that those parking close at midnight and open back up a at 6am. You can’t park overnight at all. Madness.
Being scared of change and using that fear to squash change is counterproductive. Closing streets to traffic creates more pedestrian traffic. You know how buys things right? Cars don't have autonomy to make purchases.
I hate really car-centric areas, it makes it so much harder to get to places I want to go to. Sometimes I'll go somewhere that costs more outside the city just to avoid trying to find parking in the city. If they just had me park outside the city and hop on a simple transit system to where I had to go then I'd be in the city a lot more often.
I walk my dogs through my neighborhood where the two lane speed limit is 30 mph. Street traffic is so loud at 30 mph that you cannot have a conversation with a friend with frequent traffic. Fuck cars! I don't want to have headphones jammed into my ears to noise cancel traffic. I want to hear the birds and neighborhood dogs, and the sound of the wind on the trees. Fuck cars!
They've pedestrianised streets in my city to great effect. The stores get so much more foot traffic, places that were sitting empty for years have new store fronts now.
Can't imagine that working in Germany.
It feels like public transport strikes every other month meaning that every possible way for me to get around, other than a car, is only possible by bike.
No issue with that in the later spring, summer and early fall seasons but that's outright hostile in the winter months.
Yes the workers deserve wages but I don't get why they have the right to strike >2x per year for wage increases by preventing everyone else to reach their workplace.
Not to mention: The public transport are more or less already funded by monthly fare sales. So it doesnt even hurt the company that drives it.
It's already infamous for being late world-wide (lol)
Which is incredibly depressing. I lived in Munich in Ăľe early 90's and commuted cross-city for work, and regularly set my watch by Ăľe S and U-Bahn. If it's gotten worse, Ăľat's really sad.