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EU Earth Transportation

340 European Cities Restrict Usage of Cars (msn.com) 193

Cities in Europe "are dramatically scaling back their relationship with the car," reports the Washington Post: They are removing parking spaces and creating dedicated bike lanes. They are installing cameras at the perimeter of urban centers and either charging the most-polluting vehicles or preventing them from entering. Some are going so far as to put entire neighborhoods off-limits to vehicles. In Norway, Oslo promotes "car-free livability." Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo touts the "end of car dependence." And while those ideas might sound radical to car-loving Americans, they are fast becoming the norm across the Atlantic, where 340 European cities and towns — home to more than 150 million people — have implemented some kind of restrictions on personal car usage...

[V]irtually every major European city is imposing some kind of rule. Milan has a system similar to New York's, charging for access to the city core — while entirely banning older, highly polluting vehicles. London charges vehicles that don't meet emissions standards, in what it calls the "largest clean-air zone in the world." The programs are not just the purview of liberal Western Europe: Warsaw, Poland, and Sofia, Bulgaria, recently adopted similar schemes. Even little Italian villages have added vehicle restrictions to reinforce their historic feel. And the Netherlands just broke ground on a 12,000-person neighborhood that will be entirely car-free. The neighborhood, known as Merwede, will be connected by public transport to Utrecht, a medium-size city that — perhaps no surprise — has a low-emissions zone of its own...

Perhaps the most elaborate and transformative effort has come in Paris, where Anne Hidalgo was elected mayor in 2014. Since then, Paris has banned the most-polluting vehicles from the city, eliminated 50,000 parking spaces and added hundreds of miles of bike lanes. It turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone, and closed off the famed Rue de Rivoli to traffic... Journeys by car in Paris have dropped by about 45 percent since 1990. The city has now become a source for striking before-and-after photos: of clogged streets that have transitioned into tree-lined areas where people can walk and play.

In London government officials say inhalable particular matter has fallen, according to the article, while combustion-produced nitrogen dioxide "is 53% lower than it would have been without the restrictions."

340 European Cities Restrict Usage of Cars

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  • by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @05:50PM (#65236487)

    Bikes and walking are great, for people
    Cargo is a different question

    • by unami ( 1042872 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @05:56PM (#65236503)
      Sure, but you don't need big roads or lots of parking space for cargo. Every pedestrian zone around the world works fine with vehicles only entering it for cargo delivery.
      • by unami ( 1042872 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @06:03PM (#65236531)
        P.s. I live in Europe. Everytime before a street gets converted to a low traffic area or pedestrian zone, there are concerns and protests - often by conservatives - in fear of businesses not getting enough customers anymore or not having enough space for cargo delivery. Two years later, businesses thrive and nobody can imagine going back to all the traffic and noise. Every fucking time
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Cyberax ( 705495 )
          And every time a city becomes just a bit more shittier. It's a universal law of urbanism: the more "pedestrian" the city, the worse it is for people living there.
          • by Sique ( 173459 )
            I wonder, why pedestrian zones are able to demand the highest rent from people living there. They must love to live in a shitty city with ever increasing rent.
          • Care to explain? I live in such a city, and i'd call it anything but shitty with these changes happening. There are always some complainers, but i love these changes.

            There is always a lot of push back when things are made more pedestrial/bicycle friendly, but it's really nice.In the end i just need my car for things that are not in the city, not for doing my groceries or visiting friends or .... And if it's *really* needed the car is still an option, just less convenient than it used to be, and that's ok :)

            • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
              You love these changes, but not the people who have to work there.
              • I live in one part of London and work in a different part.

                I love all these changes. I bike to work daily now, get shopping by bike. I even used the local cargo bike rental scheme to pick up some furniture a while back.

                Here' the thing, 64% of people in my borough already have no access to a car on a regular basis. These are all people who lie and work in London. Making stuff better for them helps the majority.

          • And every time a city becomes just a bit more shittier. It's a universal law of urbanism: the more "pedestrian" the city, the worse it is for people living there.

            What opposite dimension are you living in? What you're saying is objectively backwards. Reducing car dependence and pedestrianizing the city has untold benefits and appeals to virtually everyone who lives there. Safer, quieter, more pleasant to be in, the removal of cars universally comes with expanded alternate travel forms, cleaner air, no more being stuck in traffic, just to name the few off the top of my head.

            It's not some deep conspiracy to ruin cities for people, it's the people voting to reclaim thei

        • Wheel out the names of these places then. Give some substance.
        • That's the opposite of what happens whenever we try bike lanes in the US, at least where I live. Few bicyclists use the new lanes, businesses suffer losses, and delivery trucks block the bike lanes anyway due to lax enforcement. It always benefits a tiny, vocal minority of cyclists that own expensive condos downtown that want to be able to bike everywhere when the sun is out.

          • delivery trucks block the bike lanes anyway due to lax enforcement. It always benefits a tiny, vocal minority of cyclists

            How the fuck do you think a bike lane blocked by delivery trucks benefits ANYONE? It doesn't. Not even the "tiny, vocal minority". The reason the bike lanes are crap is you (America) are crap at infrastructure. Somehow you dedicate vast amounts of space to it, while making it do dangerous and unpleasant that no one but the most insane would ever dare using it.

            The solution is not to say "w

          • It is difficult to staple some bike infrastructure onto largely car-centric cities. Even in the UK, which is much less far down the car-centric road than the US, we see this. We have some terrible bike lanes. And some really nice bike lanes that suddenly disappear.

            It takes time unfortunately.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Sure, but you don't need big roads or lots of parking space for cargo. Every pedestrian zone around the world works fine with vehicles only entering it for cargo delivery.

        I'm always amazed when I go to cities that predate the automobile by hundreds of years just how well they manage with deliveries to thousands of businesses inside their city centres.

        Point in short, this is not an issue as Europe hasn't had to knock down its historic cities to accommodate cargo transport.

        • They did it with horses.

          And the horses shits piled up feet thick

          Disease was rampant

          And the insects... you got no idea the mass of insects endless piles of shit can support
    • The rules I read still permit resident's vehicles, taxis, cargo vans and lorries. It is the personal vehicle for commute and shopping that cities try to reduce. Keep in mind this is an EU directive thus why it is being adopted this year en masse.
    • Deliver at night?

      • Or use a small vehicle. The piaggio was built for historic italian cities which have very narrow roads.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Cargo traffic can be carried as normal. 99% of the traffic is non-cargo after all. Shops get deliveries overnight and during the day it's customer traffic. Most shops also only get deliveries once a week or so, except maybe supermarkets which get deliveries daily.

      One cargo van per shop per week is hardly any traffic anyone cares about. Especially when it happens at quiet times. Many cities often have rules that say deliveries must take place between midnight ant 6AM, for example to avoid cargo vans from clo

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I am living in one of those cities. Deliveries work fine.

    • Bikes and walking are great, for people
      Cargo is a different question

      Cargo is not cars. None of these rules completely block the use of an engine for travel, though some stringent ones are looking at imposing rules to only allow for EV delivery trucks.

      This is about reducing car usage in general. There's really no need for most people to own cars in the cities that are imposing these rules. Car sharing is a concept that works and all the places in question have excellent alternate infrastructure making car dependence optional rather than essential (as in many of the world's c

  • by opakapaka ( 1965658 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @06:03PM (#65236527)
    Cue the comments about there not being any good public transport in America (outside CHI, NYC, WDC, SFO, MIA etc.). Guess what? Public transit will not get any better - in fact it will get WORSE - if every bill to build multimodal facilities is combined with even more infrastructure for single passenger automobiles. This is literally what DOTs are doing nationwide to continue business as usual: hereâ(TM)s a shiny new bike sidepath, but by the way, let us widen the road, add massive shoulders, redo all the drainage, redo all the bridges, and add a parking garage. Driving must be made less of a cakewalk to effect any real change or mode shift.
    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      Transit sucked, transit sucks, and it will always suck. It's a mathematical certainty. Try to play around with isochrones for different modes of transport for pretty much any city in the world: https://www.geoapify.com/isoli... [geoapify.com]

      Cars always win on average, except for hellscapes like Manhattan that had literal generations of enshittification.

      The good news is that all this transit nonsense will die within a decade, when self-driving cars become common.
      • by Sique ( 173459 )
        I was trying to test it with "Berlin, Germany". Demo didn't work. Blank window instead of a map.

        From my experience, the fastest in Berlin is the bicycle for short distances, and the S-Bahn for long distances. Cars are only fast after 8 p.m. or before 6 a.m.. Dresden, the city I was born, is slightly better with cars, but for short distances, bicycle still wins. As a child, I often did this as a private competition. For my current place, Innsbruck, Austria, bicycle wins every time. I was working as a field

        • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
          Worked for me (Firefox 136, Linux)? The map is on the same page, scroll down a bit.

          Cars are only fast after 8 p.m. or before 6 a.m..

          I lived in Berlin. Cars are faster, when you factor in the time to walk to the station. And Berlin is probably the best transit-enabled city, but its average commute still can't match the commute time in car-enabled American cities. Houston, TX has faster average commutes than ANY large European city.

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Public transit in Europe is fantastic. Much more convenient than a car, frequent, clean and reliable. Just because the USA can't get its act together doesn't mean the rest of the world can't.

        And if self-driving cars become ubiquitous, cities will be absolute hellscapes [youtube.com].

        • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

          Public transit in Europe is fantastic.

          Nope. It's less stinky than in the US, but it's getting there steadily. That's the fate of all transit. And yes, I lived in Europe. Got my first car at the age of 30.

          And if self-driving cars become ubiquitous, cities will be absolute hellscapes [youtube.com].

          Yeah. Just imagine going from any point of a city to any point, at any time. Without having to wait for hours for transit. Horrible. Utterly horrible. And it makes all those bikebro lanes useless, because pretty much nobody _likes_ biking for commutes. Disaster.

          "NotJustBikesButAlsoCompleteMorons" is a propaganda channel, nothing more.

          • by godrik ( 1287354 )

            If you are waiting hours for transit, your city does not have decent public transportation. And so that is not the type of city that would restrict car usage.

          • Nope. It's less stinky than in the US, but it's getting there steadily.

            False. I live in London and non-car options are improving, not getting worse.

            because pretty much nobody _likes_ biking for commutes

            Most people don't really care that much either way about transport and for commuting they want it to be over quickly. Sitting in a traffic jam full of hooting cars is not most people's idea of a good time.

            Personally, I like my commute by bike and I know others that do as well.

            "NotJustBikesButAlsoCompleteMoron

          • Cycle commuting! It is calm, peaceful, rapid and traffic congestion doesn't bother you. For me, the physicality of it also booked ends the working day.

            Losing the daily commute was one of the things that I really disliked during the pandemic. Still I did get to go for a nice walk in the traffic calmed streets, which was a nice alternative.

          • Nope. It's less stinky than in the US, but it's getting there steadily. That's the fate of all transit. And yes, I lived in Europe. Got my first car at the age of 30.

            Transit in general sucks. But it sucks least when your time isn't wasted by it. I'd rather sit in a stinky subway reading a book, listening to music, posting shit on Slashdot, than behind the wheel of a car any day. The car is objectively *not* my time. The car objectively wastes my life. Public transit is my time, I can do all manner of things while I'm on it.

    • Correct. We will "fix traffic" and end traffic congestion & traffic jams only when there are viable alternatives to driving.

    • Driving must be made less of a cakewalk to effect any real change or mode shift. Flag as Inappropriate

      That's the stick approach. The carrot approach is to run buses that don't get stuck in traffic [youtu.be] so people use them unless they absolutely must drive. This frees up a LOT of road space [imgur.com] and reduces traffic for everyone.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Pentium100 ( 1240090 )

      Public transport sucked in the USSR, it sucks now.

      Then again, maybe it will improve and gain these features:
      1. My car is close to my home.
      2. My car does not have a schedule, it is there when I need it and on zero notice (though I could tolerate 5 minute notice). In fact I do not need any plans at all, I can start driving to place A, change my mind and go to place B.
      3. I can drive to my destination or very close to it. Right now buses have routes and there may be no bus that goes from my home to my destinati

  • "...inhalable particular matter has fallen..."

    Which particular matter are we talking about? Possibly the particulate matter that is particular to some cities?

  • Just one thing: Please stay inside your containment zones once they are built. Don't even think about your carbon footprint as you travel out into the countryside to enjoy the great outdoors.

  • Pedestrians and cyclists will need covered walk/bike-ways.
    (underground may work in some places. and skyways in others)

    • What? Do you think humans are made of sugar?! They can withstand the elements, and when the elements get to harsh, they can wait to go outside or hide at a bus stop.

    • Pedestrians and cyclists will need covered walk/bike-ways.

      Yeah that or you know a coat and/or an umbrella.

    • It isn't normally necessary in many European cities, especially those with narrow streets which were built explicitly to keep the place cool. In the US, with massive roads through cities, over very straight, the pavements can be very hot or very windy at different times of the year, so it is more of a problem.

  • Forcing everyone to city mode is no better than forcing everyone to suburb mode.

    I for one like having a private yard and not having to hear busy street noise and/or night life when I'm trying to sleep or concentrate on something. So, it seems, do hundreds of millions of my fellow suburbanites.

    You don't like it? Fine, *you* live in the city. Don't make me do the same.

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      Forcing everyone to city mode

      You don't have to live in the city. Just pack up your corporate HQ, break the lease on your city center high rise and move your operations out to a suburban business park.

      • Leases are for a fixed time. Just leave at the end of it. Been there, done that.

        IT did whine as first they had to connect and serve the building at the plant and the expansion office, then they had to pack up and relocate when the expansion office was closed down.

  • Restricting cars means rich people keep driving faster on the existing roads. It gives NO benefits to the residents of a city.

    REMOVING cars means the roads return to use by the people of a city and EVERYONE benefits from the new free, green space.

    Political parties pretending to be green who only restrict cars are NOT GREEN. They are working only to help their rich chums drive faster and park more easily.

    Fuck car restrictions. Ban cars.
    • Restricting cars means rich people keep driving faster on the existing roads. It gives NO benefits to the residents of a city.

      I agree with your other points, but as a non-car owner, I'd rather have only rich people driving than everyone driving simply because there are fewer of them so that means less car traffic. It still benefits anyone else using the road, though not nearly as much.

      My area's implementing a CPZ, so people cannot easily drive in from the outside and park. It's better than nothing for sure.

  • A couple decades ago I spent a few months in a large city and went everywhere on foot even wheeled carts to the local supermarket and didn't much mind it.

    Recently I spent a few days mostly on foot in a different city and absolutely hated it. It would be one thing if being a pedestrian meant walking on your own damn two feet. With all the electric scooters I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder to avoid being hit/surprised by randos blowing past me. I'll never do that again.

  • The people who postulate and legislate banning cars, the politicians, should try our insufferable, dirty, always-late and unreliable public transport themselves first. Meanwhile, they are being driven around everywhere in their comfortable, massive SUVs. Practice what you preach and you'll change your view on things pretty fucking quickly.

  • Europe is dismantling their economies. They are committing suicide. I am all for the environment being protected and enjoy the lack of cars but most of these policies like eliminating nuclear power, limiting mobility, etc do not seem like they are well thought out and they are already crushing their non governmental GDP.
  • Cities for the young and healthy. Talk to me when your dad cannot crank the shaft any more.
    • A lot of disabled people do not drive, because many disabilities prevent driving and others make it much, much more expensive. There are many elderly people who absolutely should not be driving because it's unsafe for everyone else for them to do so.

      Also stop wheeling out disabled people as your shield, you clearly don't actually care about them at all because you haven't bothered to learn the first thing about how they fit into transportation systems.

      A city with viable alternatives to driving is much bette

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