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We don’t just need electric cars, we need fewer cars - Greenpeace International (www.greenpeace.org)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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Though progress is often slow, city planners and politicians are gradually waking up to the fact that when cities offer safe and affordable alternatives to cars, we start to travel differently.

More and more young people are choosing bicycles, buses and trains over owning a car out of the sheer cost. In Berlin, it’s public transport, not cars, which is the coolest way of getting around.

In Copenhagen, a city that has a long held reputation for being bike-friendly, a whopping 62% of people choose to cycle their commute.

In the French city of Lyon, the number of cars entering the city has fallen by 20% compared to just a decade ago. As the city’s network of bike hire stations continues to grow, town planners are hoping for a further 20% decline.

In London, where cycle super-highways are becoming popular, the share of journeys made by car has fallen by a quarter since 1990.

Car free days are rising in popularity in many of the world’s largest cities, giving people a taste of what it’s like to live with less noise, traffic and pollution. Bogota was one of the first cities to introduce a car free day, and it’s now become so popular that it’s been extended to a full week.

Bogotá's Ciclovía is fantastic! I was there in the mid-nineties and they closed a major artery, the Carretera Séptima, on Sundays. Here some pictures.

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[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 15 points 3 days ago (14 children)

It's all fine and dandy that they only think about the big cities, but the problem is that the focus on public transport seem to be exclusively focused on big cities while those of us who live in rural areas are starved for public transport options.

I see they pick Copenhsgen among the places to praise public transport. Psh. Cool. I live in Jutland and my household was literally forced to buy a car after they cut the public transport budget in our city - again - and as a result, my boyfriend was forced to get up at 3 in the morning to be at work at 8. So, we bought a car because it was literally killing him and the limited time we had as a couple already, was pretty much eradicated.

Getting a car not only did wonders for his health, it also gave us our relationship a much needed boost because now he had the energy to actually be awake and do things with me, when he got home from work.

There are zero signs that public transport is a priority where we live and we aren't going back now. We did everything to depend on public transport and save the expense of having a car until we were in our 30s and the only reason we ended up buckling was because public transport was cut from our area. It wasn't only his bus route that was fucked with, btw. When I wanted to go see friends and family, the busses I used to take had been cut too and I suddenly had to take three trains and two busses to go see people who lived two to three hours away by car took me something around 6 hours to go on a 2 hours ride anywhere. One time they flat out canceled my bus home and I was stuck on a train station in Aarhus at midnight Nad would have to wait until 4 in the morning to get home. My boyfriend came and picked me up in the car and told me that from now on he'd drive me when I went because the last few trips I had taken had been disasters and this one had been the worst one yet. I had left for home, btw, at around 5 in the afternoon and wasn't home until 2 in the morning. That trio would have taken me 3 hours by car. Public transport forced me to be on the go for 9 hours and that is only because my boyfriend picked me up. If he hadn't done that, it would have been 13 hours.

That is unacceptable. And from what I have been told recently, public transport has only gotten worse in Denmark since. But I'm so happy for people in Copenhagen that they get to have busses, trains and metro that arrive every two minutes and take them anywhere they need to go. Must be nice.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 5 points 3 days ago (11 children)

while those of us who live in rural areas are starved for public transport options.

Those could elect politicans who improve their situation. Otherwise, it just looks like people have chosen a non-sustainable way of life, do nothing to improve that, but moan when they are bitten by consequences. I even know about a community outside of Munich where people oppose to set up bus connection (apparently they fear that poorer people move there).

And of course, poor people should receive help - but come on, not everyone who moved to a large house in the middle of nowhere is poor.

Apart from that, by far most the population lives in cities, suburbia, and metropolitan areas. Here is where improvements help in the quickest way, and often are most efficient.

[–] the_q@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You really like putting the onus on people who are held captive by systems they have very little control over.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I thought the US is a free and democratic country? What happened?

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