That alone tells you this is the right path. All that infrastructure and work for cars to not actually allow anyone to travel fast.
9mph is very very slow even for the weakest/most timid cyclist.
* Some people have mobility issues and can't bike or walk but can drive.
* Cars give you environment isolation when it's freezing, sweltering, or pouring rain.
* Cars isolate you from other people, which can be important especially for groups that are more likely to be on the receiving end of unwanted interactions.
* Cars make it much easier to haul stuff around.
* You are much safer being in a car when hit by another car than when not being in a car. This is something a lot of bike commute advocates sweep under the rug. They talk about how biking is overall safe, but then you ask them if they've ever had an accident and so many have been hit by cars and broken bones.
I fully support more people biking and walking. But I think the optimal solution is multi-modal. Cars aren't bad, they're just one piece of the puzzle.
(The reason I'm not a bike commuter right now is because I slipped in a puddle biking to work and destroyed my ankle. Non-fatal accident statistics for cycle are actually pretty scary when you dig into them. People always point out that overall mortality statistics are better for cyclists, but you can still have a really fucking bad time without dying.)
A simple bullet, but with many nuances buried. There is no single answer. Below are several observations. No one of these is intended to be an answer. But there are a panoply of choices a city can make that improve access and mobility for all.
Yes, and good bike/ped infra is good for them, too. Everything that makes a good bike lane (smooth pavement, wide enough for passing, minimal bumps and potholes, at grade without having to go up and down to cross streets) also makes a great place for a mobility scooters.
Not everyone uses a mobility scooter. Cities with extensive pedestrianized areas typically do not close these to deliveries, and many leave them open for pick-up/drop-off for those with mobility issues.
The items mentioned above are about stopping general car traffic either in portions of a street or on a whole street.
Not all traffic reduction necessarily means a reduction of car-navigable streets. Traffic reduction can take the form of reducing through-traffic. There are many implementation mechanisms for this. One mechanism is a modal filter, which allows through-traffic for non-motor vehicles, but prevents through-traffic for motor vehicles (side note, such filters can be constructed such that emergency vehicles can still pass through). Thus through-traffic is prevented, but door-to-door vehicle traffic is still possible.
But modal filters can make routes more circuitous. Yes. Optimizing a city does not mean optimizing just the transport infrastructure, and optimizing transport infrastructure does not mean just prioritizing a single mode above all others. That said, generally reducing traffic improves driving experience and reduces times, because there is less traffic. A more circuitous route can be made faster with sufficient traffic reduction.
But circuitous routes increase emissions. They increase emissions for those cars which make the trip, but save emissions based on all trips that are shifted to other forms of transportation. Even those marginally longer trips for the remaining cars may be emission-neutral (or at least not as bad as naively expected) based on reduced idling time and smoother travel.
Nothing above is to say cars should be banned. Just observations about design choices that are routinely made around the globe that are generally considered good urbanism and have not led to major negative outcomes. Nothing to stop you or any individual to choose a car, just design decisions that do not prioritize cars above all else.
> * Cars give you environment isolation when it's freezing, sweltering, or pouring rain.
Yes, so do all forms of public transit. Shelters are routine in good transit systems, and any form of metro or rail will typically have buildings or underground stations.
There is, of course, wait time for transit, which is all the more reason to optimize a system for frequent service with dedicated rights of way or grade-separation. Frequency is also one of the greatest drivers of ridership.
In urban areas it is common that a vehicle is not directly outside your front door or in a covered garage. Similarly, that parking at the destination may be some distance from the door of the destination. This is analogous to the walk to a transit station. Obviously this varies by person and situation.
Cars avoid the dwell time at a station, emphasizing the value of shelters and facilities at transit stations.
Certainly a car is more convenient than transit in inclement weather. This is not a reason to design transportation infrastructure optimizing solely for personal vehicles.
> * Cars make it much easier to haul stuff around.
The vast majority of day-to-day trips do not require hauling, unless that is part of your job. Certainly, if it is part of your job, you either have such a vehicle or it is provided by your employer.
Such hauling-based jobs are vastly improved by traffic reduction measures. Less traffic means better delivery times, and more importantly, more reliable time estimates for delivery. I know of no one in logistics who would decline to trade a small fee for improved times and reliability.
For personal use cases, as I mentioned hauling is rare. For the vast majority of people, the justification of hauling is better met financially by a van or truck rental as needed than by owning and maintaining a vehicle full time.
To be 100% clear, I am not saying, "you should not have a car, because vans are good at hauling." I am saying that "I occasionally need to haul things, so I need a car" is a specious argument. I am not saying you or anyone else should not have a car. I am simply pointing out that "occasional hauling" is not a good reason to own a car. If you want a car, have a car! If someone else wants a car, let them have a car! If you value the convenience of using your own vehicle for hauling at a per-use rate that is a large multiple of the rate of renting a van/truck, that is your own value judgment and you are welcome to it.
This is simply an observation that for the vast majority of people, the financial analysis suggests not a car, but a van/truck rental for hauling purposes. If you are not part of this majority, then please recognized that I am not trying to say that you are.
Hauling is a totally valid use case for vehicles and I've never seen anyone make an argument that the transportation of goods and stuff should be forbidden. Certainly I hope no one interprets my statements above as such an argument. The need to transport things, again, is not a good reason to build an entire transportation system in a city to optimize always for personal vehicles.
Again, a very common feature of reduced traffic, and even traffic-forbidden areas in cities is that they are close to most traffic, but still allow deliveries and mobility assistance vehicles.
And also, again, a reduction in traffic is a boon for those use cases.
> * You are much safer being in a car when hit by another car than when not being in a car. This is something a lot of bike commute advocates sweep under the rug. They talk about how biking is overall safe, but then you ask them if they've ever had an accident and so many have been hit by cars and broken bones.
And you are much safer not having an accident in the first place. If we want to observe the world, there are cities that have done a great job at reducing all vehicle related fatalities and injuries: those injuries to drivers and passengers in any vehicle involved, and also those injuries to anyone outside of the vehicle.
There are two commonalities in these cities: 1) they have many viable options for transportation, including high quality bike infra, pedestrian areas, trains, buses, metros, trams, and personal vehicles; and 2) they reduce traffic and speed in all areas where personal vehicles are potentially in conflict with other forms of transportation.
You'll recognize in the first point the same refrain I have been repeating: optimizing a transportation system does not mean optimizing primarily on just one mode of transit. It's not about forcing one mode or banning another. It is about options. There is a near universal observation about transit times within and into/out of urban areas that the time for car travel tends toward the time for public transit. This is generally understood to be because humans optimize their transport, and if one option is faster or more convenient, enough people choose that until it is not.
The second thing those cities do, though, is the leading cause for the reduction in accident frequency, lethality, and severity of injury: the reduction in traffic quantity and speed.
The road-street distinction is very important here. If you are not familiar with it, the distinction is this: roads are high speed connections between places, optimizing for vehicle throughput; streets are complex environments where a wide assortment of destinations are, where living is done, businesses exist, and the general activities of life and city happen. If you want more detail, this video is a good primer (linked to a relevant portion: https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=536); the video is coming from a very strong place of opinion. I am not asking you to accept all the opinions, but am simply sharing the video, because it provides lots of good real-world examples in laying out the distinction.
It is essential that, within a city, there are affordances for people out of cars and people in cars. This is simple reality. If we recognize this reality, and we understand that humans are imperfect and prone to failure, then the conclusion is that if we want to reduce the injuries and deaths associated with traffic, we must build systems that tend toward this outcome. The practical implementations of such systems that are proven to be effective in achieving this outcome are:
1. separate through-traffic 2. ensure mixed-mode areas force low volumes and speeds of cars
The first is by designing transportation networks that force through-traffic to roads designed for it.
The second takes many forms, generally known as traffic calming. I have mentioned a few already. You can search for more. The other side of this is recognizing that cities are for people (the people in the cars and the people out of the cars, though at some points the people in the cars become people out of cars). There must be areas where people want to go. And those areas where people are must minimize the risk of negative interactions with vehicles. Again, traffic calming and pedestrianizing.
Regarding injury: the most likely cause of death and severe injury for a shockingly wide swath of adults in the US is a car accident, whether in the car or out of it. I do not make this as an argument against cars. I make this as an argument for design of car infrastructure in ways that makes me safer regardless of which side of the steel I am on.