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.
I wouldn’t mind a lack of a door-to-door solution if there was a safe, reliable, means of traveling the first/last mile. Something sheltered from the elements, that could be safely driven in places that actually experience seasons. Probably something communal (think like the bikes or the scooters that you can pick up and rent anywhere), but more like a small golf cart or a covered ATV/trike.
Not everyone can bike everywhere. And many people that (physically) could, are dissuaded from it, because of road conditions, distance, climate, or having to share said road with blind idiots in cars.
Hell, I have a sweat gland condition…if I stand still in the sun for 10 minutes on an 80 degree day then take of my shirt, it’ll make a “thump” when it hits the ground. Going out for a casual stoll in the summertime, itself, is embarrassing. No way in hell am I going to be walking in the office after biking even a mile to the bus stop (but my nearest bus stop is actually 5 miles).
I went in one day, and the A/C on the train was broken. I spent my first half of the day working from a crashcart in the cold aisle of the datacenter…not because I needed to be there, but because I needed to be isolated from people and frozen to the bone.
This, exactly, is the point we have to change. For example by building safe cycleways and reducing speed limits in all shared streets to 30km/h (20 mph).
P.S.
Regarding seasons, elements, Winter and so on: Did you hear of Oulu, Finland? It is close to the polar circle, and people cycle there in Winter.
And… Did you hear of the Netherlands? People cycle there a lot. And it is normally a rainy and windy country.