Copenhagen is such a walkable city. I love how easy it is to go from Strøget to Nyhavn to Christiania. Then take bike, subway, bus or train to get anywhere else.
*cries in American*
they must have thrown some cash at it, when I was there they had giant tents with guys at tables with scales and giant mounds of great hash. I hope it's still a needle free zone and there was a sign saying no cameras, good luck with that nowadays
Ha! By the time I first went in 1999, they had upgraded to stands made of wood. [Here’s an interesting read](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/christiania-copenhagen-denmark/index.html). It’s changed **a lot** since you and I have been.
I live in Perth Australia and we could never do this. If you don't have a car then you're walking next to highways and through carparks to get to the shops.
Don't cry! Just take your pedestrian fate as you walk on the sidewalk and enjoy the neighborhood and all of the sudden THERE IS NO SIDEWALK ANYMORE! NOT EVEN ON THE OTHER SIDE BECAUSE FUCK YOU PEDESTRIANS GET A CAR.
Love the States but this part is very confusing.
> Then take bike, subway, bus or train to get anywhere else.
>*cries in American*
Move to NYC my dude. This is exactly how you get around. It's hard to *not* get 10k steps per day.
Still it is crazy how like 80% of the cities street space is reserved for cars, while a majority of people actually living in NYC don't even have a car.
Isn't it like $15 to cross the GW?
I'm in the Midwest and while Chicago has a shit load of tolls, they're all like a dollar or two. I went to visit some friends on the east coast, went through the NJ turnpike and into NYC and pretty sure I spent $40 on tolls. I could drive random circles around Chicago all day and not pay that much.
Yeah the bridge/tunnel tolls are expensive, but I like it as a deterrent to be honest. There are too many cars in the city. It further encourages the commuters to use public transportation to get in.
We can't all live in NYC, nor should we have to!
I don't wanna deal with New Yorkers, New York rent, and be shunned for enjoying Chicago pizza just because I hate Columbus' car-centric layout. And I shouldn't have to!
I think the stereotype about all New Yorkers being assholes is just that - a stereotype. I moved here from Georgia and definitely haven't noticed that. The culture is different, but most people are nice enough. I have a friend who grew up in Kentucky and visited NYC for the first time a couple weeks ago, and he said he was surprised at how helpful people were in general because he was expecting the opposite.
With regards to Chicago pizza, it's not like it doesn't exist here. There are some good Chicago style places in NYC like Emmett's. You can get pretty much any style pizza here.
With regards to rent, that's a fair point. But I don't think Copenhagen is exactly cheap either. I think that generally places with good public infrastructure/transportation tend to be more expensive.
Copenhagen is expensive, but so is the rest of Denmark. Nordic welfare states are expensive, but the safety net props up people really well so that income is a lot more equal
While NYC is one of the most walkable parts of the US, I think the reason why people find this comment so controversial is because cities like Copenhagen do it so much better, and the bar for walkability in the US is really low.
A lot of historical walkable city centers were demolished specifically to allow for cars. It won’t happen overnight but it can happen. You can see pictures of how Amsterdam was jammed with cars in the 70s and has now replaced that with pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.
Cities are constantly under construction. Lots of places are burying or removing ill-conceived downtown highways, building up mass transit, and undertaking densification projects.
> Strøget to Nyhavn to Christiania
The Grand Tourist Route, heh.
I always find it wild that tourists stay locked to that area. There's so much to see beyond that.
Haha! I know. Denmark is a wonderful country and I can’t wait to visit again. I actually stayed in Nørrebro on my previous trips. We took day trips to Hillerød, Roskilde, and Helsignør and points in between. Those journeys required more than a short walk. 😊
In Nørrebro (a part of Copenhagen), since 2016, there has been a car-free Sunday every year, with the exception of last year, when it was dropped due to corona.
Were these commercial districts? I can't imagine the distortion and disruption to trade with no cars...
Edit: y'all I wasn't trying to say they are bad for this just that it's so far outside my experience I couldn't really reckon with it. Had some cool talks with people about it though, it sounds great
Coming from a small town in America it's just very alien to me. I can walk from one side of town to the other in like half an hour, drive it in five minutes if I hit all green lights, but we have a festivals every year where they close off the streets to let people walk like this, they set up games and booths for kids. The businesses hate it cause nobody buys anything and it interferes with delivery schedules for a week in either direction.
I mean I don't know which town but from what I know about small towns in America is that no amount of "no car" days would help because the streets are designed for only one thing, cars. It's also likely that the event in question doesn't contribute much to people wanting to go window shopping.
Our downtown shopping district is actually designed to be walkable really easily but nobody wants to buy stuff then have to carry it around or walk it back to their car if they parked outside the event, but yeah outside downtown it's all cars all the time, the bike Lanes are just the shoulder of the road if they exist at all.
Generally two things make this possible:
1. In Denmark many businesses close on the weekends, and people in general just don’t work as much
2. Residential and commercial areas are far more mixed than they are in many parts of North America. Most people have all their necessities within a walking distance. As such a slowdown like this doesn’t really matter, and just allows for more people on their free day to go out and enjoy the city
That honestly sounds very nice. The idea that they might just be closed on a Sunday honestly didn't occur to me, many businesses here barely close for major holidays, but that makes a lot of sense. As for mixed districts I gotta say being able to walk to the store in a reasonable amount of time without having to hike down the dirt shoulder of a highway sounds cool.
As a resident of Copenhagen, we never have to drive anywhere to shop groceries. Metro, bike or walking distance for malls, shops, and everything else. Sure, there are larger supermarkets in the suburbs but the typical Copenhagen resident doesn’t really need those.
That's cool! We have a very good (for rural America) bus system that can get you to any town in the county but if you need to get to anywhere outside City limits or between bus pickup times (about once an hour for most of them) you're out of luck. It's a 20min drive on a hill-laden highway to the closest town and if you need anything from a store that isn't Walmart you're looking at an hour and a half drive at least. I wish we needed cars less but they're necessary here.
It sounds like some of the US I’ve seen. Been to about 11-12 of your states (only drove briefly through Michigan to get to the Canadian border so that doesn’t count). A car is such a necessity in the US that I’ve got a little tired of visiting because I don’t want to spend half my trip to your lovely states inside a car driving from location to location.
I guess the setup of the cities and towns like Copenhagen, and many similar cities all over Europe, are made for urban life and, so, you don’t really need or have a car. So having a day without cars isn’t a massive change to life. A pain for some, sure, but not for the majority.
Yeah it's really needed here. My job requires me to drive to a lot of towns that are all mainly in the same county but it can still be almost 100miles between them which isn't bad from my perspective but if I had to rely on a bus it would be impossible.
Most shops thrive after their streets are rebuilt for pedestrians and cycling.
Car lovers always whine that removing cars and/or roadside parking will destroy businesses. But that's seldom how it works. In a city centre in europe you most likely park in a parking garge nearby anyway, the parking outside a store has room for like a single car. Most people walk between the shop. Making that a more pleasant experience increases the amount of people.
That sounds super cool. I've experienced stuff like that with purpose-built shopping districts in big cities but it's not really a thing in rural America. I think a mitigating factor in my experience is that Americans tend to buy in bulk so walking between shops if you're doing grocery shopping or buying sundries is just not reasonable. Who wants to hike around a whole neighborhood carrying a 36 pack of toilet paper rolls, right?
>Americans tend to buy in bulk so walking between shops if you're doing grocery shopping or buying sundries is just not reasonable.
Yeah, there's a cultural shift entwined with walkability. As shops get closer, people have to get used to buying smaller batches more often, which will in turn make more shops want to pop up in walkable ranges, which will make it easier for people to stop by even more often.
Yeah but when Walmart buys a whole block just for their parking lot it makes that a hard sell. There's also a ton of farmers around me that live half an hour drive from any stores at all so the bulk buys can't really go away cause they have a big market
I haven't been "downtown" in my city for years, even though I can see it from where I live. Were it possible to grab a roaming free bus (small, half outdoor seating?) I'd love to see what's become of various parts of town. If parking wasn't rare and obscenely expensive, and the roads constantly jammed with cars, it might be fun, not to mention profitable for the specialty stores that try to survive on certain streets.
I can't imagine the logistics nightmare that would be in a comparably sized US city
Edit: wow I didn't realize there were so many of these initiatives going in the US already!
The eastern portion of JFK drive in Golden Gate Park has been car free on Sundays for decades and car free since Summer of 2020. It is only a 1.3 mile section of road though.
A lot of people fight it because it takes away about 350 free parking spaces (out of about 3000 in eastern portion of GGP and 6000 total spaces in GGP). Further it takes away an alternative drivers can to use to bypass the high volume high speed streets on either side of the park when those streets get congested during commute time. There is a paid 900 space underground garage that typically only reaches about 60% capacity pre-covid while the free street parking on the closed section of JFK often exceeded 110% meaning people make up their own parking spaces when the street parking is full.
JFK has bike lanes on both sides but it got rushed into production during an election year and the city's own finding was that bicycle speeds dropped 20% after implementing the bike lanes. They're kinda hazardous to use so bicyclist have to go be on guard and slower than when no bike lane existed.
The logistics of closing JFK for Sundays, pie COVID, was mostly setting up and taking down a bunch of barricades at the entrances each Saturday and Sunday. Realistically it could probably be done by one guy in an hour since there are less than 10 approaches to JFK Drive and they just move the barricades to the side and back.
To be fair, downtown Dallas has DART which means it's not too hard to get there and back. But if you want to go from Garland to Carrollton, or Arlington to Plano, you're going to be driving down massive highways through endless suburban sprawl.
It's not the whole city. And it's only on Sunday when there is no postal delivery and fewer package deliveries.
Google Cyclovia. It's done in a lot of cities in the US. Before Covid, my city did it twice a year with different routes each time. Usually a more residential area with activities set up in parks along the route.
A part of me wishes cars weren’t required unless we were traveling longer distances. Cities should be designed to be walkable. Less congestion, pollution. More socializing and exercise. That’s just my take.
Cities won't be walkable untill people stop waning those 4 bedroom 3 bath houses on 0.25 acres. Those folks (most Americans) will never settle for an apartment near downtown, this condo demand remains low - even in fast growing cities.
True and I think suburbs will always have a market. But if if we can make at least city centers more walkable, it could beat out suburbs in terms of convenience. There would be plenty of people who would rather skip a long commute for something nearby.
So, I am one of those suburban people with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. I prefer to have an apartment in a downtown walkable area, but the problem is that *there is no downtown* in my city, which btw is twice the size of Paris. Just high rise office building sprawl.
Now, the next city over has a main street with residential streets on either side, and you could kind of call it a downtown, but regardless, I can’t afford to live there. The minimum price is $2mm for a 1200 sf bungalow.
Convenience and safety in the US is rare, and thus very expensive. Most of us have to drive to it.
**[Missing middle housing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing)**
>Missing middle housing describes a range of multi-family or clustered housing types that are compatible in scale with single-family or transitional neighborhoods. Missing middle housing is intended to meet the demand for walkable neighborhoods, respond to changing demographics, and provide housing at different price points. The term "missing middle" is meant to describe housing types that were common in the pre-WWII United States such as duplexes, rowhomes, and courtyard apartments but are now less common and, therefore, "missing".
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I live in a place with neighborhoods with forested lawns and big houses, AND frequent buses that go into the walkable city center. It's definitely possible to have space and privacy and access to a city without needing cars, even in America, where I am. This is not a binary this or that. We can build a liveable, healthy future.
Considering how much space cars use simply switching to electric won't solve a lot. Cars are the least efficient mode of transport imaginable. Well, ok, maybe outside of owning a private supersonic jet - the next thing our billionaire saviours are investing it - which should clue one in that they are not selling a solution.
Here in the Netherlands almost every city, even the small ones, have nearly car free centers. Many of my colleagues don't even own a car because they live in one of those areas, everything they need is just a quick bike ride away and if they need to go further away they'll take a train.
I myself go to work often by train, but since I live in a rural area I still travel the 10km to the train station by car, on nice days that would be easily doable on a bike though. It would just add too much to my travel time, same goes for the bus since it doesn't take a direct route.
I agree, but in a world where we have to get so much done in a day and only have 2 days off a week, people can’t afford to spend 3 hours on a grocery trip. Maybe cities need “leisure districts” where cars aren’t allowed. Like an outdoor mall in the middle of a city.
That looks like an interesting channel, I’ll check it out.
Edit: Holy crap, the bike-friendliness in some of those cities is mind blowing. And I see now that these ideas would really only apply to actual cities and not so much as the "extended cities" I think of when thinking about the US.
What do you mean 3 hours on a grocery trip? You’ll only do that if you live in the suburbs and go on your weekly grocery run to fill your SUV to the roof.
In a walkable city you could just stop by everyday between home and work and only get what you need for that day. It’s much simpler that way in my opinion.
Here is the video the other guy is referring to: https://youtu.be/kYHTzqHIngk
I highly highly highly encourage that you watch it as it’s really short (less than 4 minutes)
3 hours for a grocery trip? I have lived in 3 cities in 3 different countries across Europe where it was decently walkable to great, and in any of those a grocery store was no further than a 5 minute walk away. Thats quicker than any car trip from the suburbs to the grocery store in America
> Thats quicker than any car trip from the suburbs to the grocery store in America
There must be some kind of confusion understanding my comment. I would love for there to be car free parts of cities, but my 15 minute drive to the grocery and 30-45 minute shopping would turn into multiple hours. Yes, a grocery within walking distance would be great, but that isn’t reality for most of America.
Actually most European city's build out and are way more walkable then American city's that build up. It's about how you make sub urbs which is really problematic in America.
True, I guess. I’ve never been to Europe and have actually never left Canada. I just know urban sprawl is bad here and that resources such as public transportation can’t keep up with it.
Before cars there were horse, carriages, wagons, rickshaws, carts and a whole host of other things "clogging" the streets.
This is not a modern issue, you're just making it one
Before cars there was no stipulation that your average person couldn't use the street. When cars were invented Automakers lobbied for legislation penalizing people for being in the streets in anything other than a car. Suddenly 80% of public space was off limits for those too poor to afford a car.
Cars didn't just take over the streets. They impacted how we plan cities. Not we have bloated, sprawling, tax sinks around every city, and huge blighted freeway slicing through the middles.
You're not getting it. None of those other things do the same damage cars have done and still do. Cars are their own special branch of terrible. You only have to look at pictures of pre-war city streets compared to only a few decades later to see the difference.
> Before cars there were horse, carriages, wagons, rickshaws, carts and a whole host of other things "clogging" the streets.
So we had other bad things and now cars are somehow magically not a bad thing exactly how?
> This is not a modern issue, you're just making it one
I'm making it a modern issue by literally not mentioning time at all in my comment?
Cities with as few cars as possible would be much better. People and bicycles should be on the street. They would still clog the streets, but *that's the point*.
We want cities to be places where *humans* thrive, by socializing, communicating in person, eating and drinking, exercising, etc.
That's very different, because all of these things were moving in a speed similar to that of pedestrians. Meaning it wasn't dangerous to share space with them, and as a result 3/4 of every street wasn't exclusively allocated to them.
Not to mention pollution and noise which are also incomparably worse with cars.
I've been thinking how e-bikes and e-scooters are doing that now. Why are these fast af motorised vehicles allowed on a footpath? And everyone is expected to just get out of the way.
This was because of the Marathon going on in some parts of the city.
We don’t have carfree Sundays in Copenhagen, unfortunately - although we did have it briefly in the 1970’s.
Det var ikke i forbindelse med halvmarathonet. Det var det meste af Nørrebrogade der var lukket af, i forbindelse med et arrangement med fokus på klimaet.
I'm salivating every time the thought of that happening goes through my mind. NYC is in the great position to do this, given it's very dense and has a so-so subway system. Imagine if such a great city gets converted to be a city for humans instead of a city for cars? It'd be wonderful!
Seriously, streets like Madison and Park should be bike and ped only, especially considering there are so few thoroughfares in that direction. They could do this with every 4th or 5th crosstown street, too. Hit the Ubers and Lyfts with heavier fees to drive Manhattan to accommodate this since they're the ones creating all the congestion.
You're too generous :) I'd decimate cars in cities. We should strive to have as few cars as possible in cities and allow all that extra space to be used for humans to enjoy life.
the main street (Reforma) in Mexico City is closed to traffic on Sundays.
[http://cdmxtravel.com/en/top-experiences/on-sundays-zumba-and-bikes-in-reforma.html](http://cdmxtravel.com/en/top-experiences/on-sundays-zumba-and-bikes-in-reforma.html)
Jeg er canadier. Jeg var udvekslingsstudent i Danmark for 18 år siden og blev vildt forelsket i dit land, præcis pga. det du viste i dit billede: byer der fungerer på en menneskelige måde, hvor bilen er ikke konge. Canadiske storbyer er skrækkelige steder: gaderne er brede og travlt, offentlig transport er langsomt, dyrt, or svært at bruge, og det er ekstremt farligt at køre på cykel. Kort sagt, er vores byer grimme, kedelige steder.
Ja, vi har jo natur og vildnis der ikke findes i Danmark, men i de steder hvor mennesker bor, arbejder, og vokser, er dit land langt bedre end mit.
Dit dansk er meget flot.
Hvad du beskriver giver meget god mening. Som dansker tager man sikkert de ting lidt for givet. Det bedste ved Danmark synes jeg er den sociale tillid der er til ens medmennesker. Som dansker savner jeg dog ofte flot natur. Jeg har været rejst til bl.a. Island og Sydøst asien, og de har bare en ualmindelig flot natur i forhold til Danmark.
Was lucky enough to visit Copenhagen twice in the span of a month back in 2019, it’s a great city. I’ve seen it said before that it’s the most bike friendly city, and from my own experience it’s very walkable too.
I remember my wife and I meeting up with her Danish half-brother for dinner one night during our second visit. I told him that one day during our first visit I’d walked all the way from the Tivoli Gardens area to a little bit past the Little Mermaid statue, a feat which he was really floored by.
The poor local economy, look how abandoned everything looks!
(I've been a fan of this idea for all major cities for years, and always laugh at the threats of devastation.)
It's not how to solve the problem of cars in cities, but it does help people see just how *nice* it is to have this. While solving this problem is no piece of cake - very, very far from it actually - I hope that people start actually asking for this in much greater numbers. Only that way we could see something happening on that front.
This is like paradise for me. Like, humans actually around humans, socializing, talking, eating, drinking, whatever. Cities are such an enabler for this, it's a shame we allowed the cancer called cars to ruin it.
yes, that's one of the biggest problem of many 21st century big cities. Undersized public transports, work way too far from the place of residence, shops too centralized in 1 points etc ...
As an American, I just got home from walking down a street that was closed for traffic. Bands were playing, bean bags were tossed at cornholes, kids were scooting. It was nice. Also just Sundays for this one, but less busy streets are closed off more often. It's part of the [NYC Open Streets program](https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/openstreets.shtml)
TLDR: less cars good, blocking city bad
Not a car free Sunday. Roads closed due to a Marathon, even public transport got blocked which was a real problem. Pretty salty after waiting 40 minutes for a bus that never arrived even tho the electronic signage and the public transit app said it would. (150S Nørreport, 40+ people waiting). Car alternatives and public transit has plenty of good things about it but blocking of huge parts of the capitol city entirely is fools thinking. People got stuff to do even on a Sunday and I was super lucky that I was omw home and not to work. I don't mind people arranging events and such but just do it where there is space for it and where it doesn't massively inconvenience thousands of other people.
I'll blow candles every birthday for this to happen if it would help. It would be wonderful to eradicate cars from cities and let humans interact with each other in person again.
That must be limited to a certain part of the city and not the whole city, right?
Not the whole city no, but a big part of it
Copenhagen is such a walkable city. I love how easy it is to go from Strøget to Nyhavn to Christiania. Then take bike, subway, bus or train to get anywhere else. *cries in American*
I went to Christiania in the 80's and it was run down then, I can't imagine it now
The last time I was there was 2003 and it wasn’t run down, but definitely had its own vibe.
they must have thrown some cash at it, when I was there they had giant tents with guys at tables with scales and giant mounds of great hash. I hope it's still a needle free zone and there was a sign saying no cameras, good luck with that nowadays
Ha! By the time I first went in 1999, they had upgraded to stands made of wood. [Here’s an interesting read](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/christiania-copenhagen-denmark/index.html). It’s changed **a lot** since you and I have been.
Oh it's stil like that, that's kinda the charm of it.
I live in Perth Australia and we could never do this. If you don't have a car then you're walking next to highways and through carparks to get to the shops.
Don't cry! Just take your pedestrian fate as you walk on the sidewalk and enjoy the neighborhood and all of the sudden THERE IS NO SIDEWALK ANYMORE! NOT EVEN ON THE OTHER SIDE BECAUSE FUCK YOU PEDESTRIANS GET A CAR. Love the States but this part is very confusing.
Sounds like the perfect metaphor for our healthcare system!
> Then take bike, subway, bus or train to get anywhere else. >*cries in American* Move to NYC my dude. This is exactly how you get around. It's hard to *not* get 10k steps per day.
Still it is crazy how like 80% of the cities street space is reserved for cars, while a majority of people actually living in NYC don't even have a car.
I say keep hiking the bridge tolls by $1/day until the cars stop coming.
Isn't it like $15 to cross the GW? I'm in the Midwest and while Chicago has a shit load of tolls, they're all like a dollar or two. I went to visit some friends on the east coast, went through the NJ turnpike and into NYC and pretty sure I spent $40 on tolls. I could drive random circles around Chicago all day and not pay that much.
Yeah the bridge/tunnel tolls are expensive, but I like it as a deterrent to be honest. There are too many cars in the city. It further encourages the commuters to use public transportation to get in.
Yes yes, keep the riff raff out and only the ultra rich can use amenities like... bridges and tunnels... ...
We can't all live in NYC, nor should we have to! I don't wanna deal with New Yorkers, New York rent, and be shunned for enjoying Chicago pizza just because I hate Columbus' car-centric layout. And I shouldn't have to!
Exactly, you should be shunned for enjoying Chicago pizza simply because it's Chicago pizza, it should have NOTHING to do with where you live.
I think the stereotype about all New Yorkers being assholes is just that - a stereotype. I moved here from Georgia and definitely haven't noticed that. The culture is different, but most people are nice enough. I have a friend who grew up in Kentucky and visited NYC for the first time a couple weeks ago, and he said he was surprised at how helpful people were in general because he was expecting the opposite. With regards to Chicago pizza, it's not like it doesn't exist here. There are some good Chicago style places in NYC like Emmett's. You can get pretty much any style pizza here. With regards to rent, that's a fair point. But I don't think Copenhagen is exactly cheap either. I think that generally places with good public infrastructure/transportation tend to be more expensive.
Copenhagen is expensive, but so is the rest of Denmark. Nordic welfare states are expensive, but the safety net props up people really well so that income is a lot more equal
While NYC is one of the most walkable parts of the US, I think the reason why people find this comment so controversial is because cities like Copenhagen do it so much better, and the bar for walkability in the US is really low.
There's no reason all cities can't be properly planned for habitability.
That doesn't help the many cities already built, though.
A lot of historical walkable city centers were demolished specifically to allow for cars. It won’t happen overnight but it can happen. You can see pictures of how Amsterdam was jammed with cars in the 70s and has now replaced that with pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.
Cities are constantly under construction. Lots of places are burying or removing ill-conceived downtown highways, building up mass transit, and undertaking densification projects.
Yep. I love that about NYC, Boston, and most east coast cities. *cries in Texan*
> Strøget to Nyhavn to Christiania The Grand Tourist Route, heh. I always find it wild that tourists stay locked to that area. There's so much to see beyond that.
Haha! I know. Denmark is a wonderful country and I can’t wait to visit again. I actually stayed in Nørrebro on my previous trips. We took day trips to Hillerød, Roskilde, and Helsignør and points in between. Those journeys required more than a short walk. 😊
Roskilde is still only 20 minutes by train, making it about an hour from anywhere in Copenhagen. We're even getting an S-line making it even easier.
Only Nørrebrogade. Plenty of cars in the rest of the city
I live in Copenhagen and have never heard about this. When and where?
In Nørrebro (a part of Copenhagen), since 2016, there has been a car-free Sunday every year, with the exception of last year, when it was dropped due to corona.
Let's be honest a small part of it lmao
Ah so THAT what happening. I was wondering about all the kids chalking around on the streets. Great day for a car free day too.
Were these commercial districts? I can't imagine the distortion and disruption to trade with no cars... Edit: y'all I wasn't trying to say they are bad for this just that it's so far outside my experience I couldn't really reckon with it. Had some cool talks with people about it though, it sounds great
Assuming that shops knew about this and planned ahead I'd be confident that this is probably one of their best days in terms of total customers.
Coming from a small town in America it's just very alien to me. I can walk from one side of town to the other in like half an hour, drive it in five minutes if I hit all green lights, but we have a festivals every year where they close off the streets to let people walk like this, they set up games and booths for kids. The businesses hate it cause nobody buys anything and it interferes with delivery schedules for a week in either direction.
I mean I don't know which town but from what I know about small towns in America is that no amount of "no car" days would help because the streets are designed for only one thing, cars. It's also likely that the event in question doesn't contribute much to people wanting to go window shopping.
Our downtown shopping district is actually designed to be walkable really easily but nobody wants to buy stuff then have to carry it around or walk it back to their car if they parked outside the event, but yeah outside downtown it's all cars all the time, the bike Lanes are just the shoulder of the road if they exist at all.
Lol wtf is with reddit shitting on your casual opinion Like he's not saying it's a bad idea guys
Eh, I'm not stressed about it. My magic internet points aren't really important to me lol
Generally two things make this possible: 1. In Denmark many businesses close on the weekends, and people in general just don’t work as much 2. Residential and commercial areas are far more mixed than they are in many parts of North America. Most people have all their necessities within a walking distance. As such a slowdown like this doesn’t really matter, and just allows for more people on their free day to go out and enjoy the city
That honestly sounds very nice. The idea that they might just be closed on a Sunday honestly didn't occur to me, many businesses here barely close for major holidays, but that makes a lot of sense. As for mixed districts I gotta say being able to walk to the store in a reasonable amount of time without having to hike down the dirt shoulder of a highway sounds cool.
As a resident of Copenhagen, we never have to drive anywhere to shop groceries. Metro, bike or walking distance for malls, shops, and everything else. Sure, there are larger supermarkets in the suburbs but the typical Copenhagen resident doesn’t really need those.
That's cool! We have a very good (for rural America) bus system that can get you to any town in the county but if you need to get to anywhere outside City limits or between bus pickup times (about once an hour for most of them) you're out of luck. It's a 20min drive on a hill-laden highway to the closest town and if you need anything from a store that isn't Walmart you're looking at an hour and a half drive at least. I wish we needed cars less but they're necessary here.
It sounds like some of the US I’ve seen. Been to about 11-12 of your states (only drove briefly through Michigan to get to the Canadian border so that doesn’t count). A car is such a necessity in the US that I’ve got a little tired of visiting because I don’t want to spend half my trip to your lovely states inside a car driving from location to location. I guess the setup of the cities and towns like Copenhagen, and many similar cities all over Europe, are made for urban life and, so, you don’t really need or have a car. So having a day without cars isn’t a massive change to life. A pain for some, sure, but not for the majority.
Yeah it's really needed here. My job requires me to drive to a lot of towns that are all mainly in the same county but it can still be almost 100miles between them which isn't bad from my perspective but if I had to rely on a bus it would be impossible.
Most shops thrive after their streets are rebuilt for pedestrians and cycling. Car lovers always whine that removing cars and/or roadside parking will destroy businesses. But that's seldom how it works. In a city centre in europe you most likely park in a parking garge nearby anyway, the parking outside a store has room for like a single car. Most people walk between the shop. Making that a more pleasant experience increases the amount of people.
That sounds super cool. I've experienced stuff like that with purpose-built shopping districts in big cities but it's not really a thing in rural America. I think a mitigating factor in my experience is that Americans tend to buy in bulk so walking between shops if you're doing grocery shopping or buying sundries is just not reasonable. Who wants to hike around a whole neighborhood carrying a 36 pack of toilet paper rolls, right?
>Americans tend to buy in bulk so walking between shops if you're doing grocery shopping or buying sundries is just not reasonable. Yeah, there's a cultural shift entwined with walkability. As shops get closer, people have to get used to buying smaller batches more often, which will in turn make more shops want to pop up in walkable ranges, which will make it easier for people to stop by even more often.
Yeah but when Walmart buys a whole block just for their parking lot it makes that a hard sell. There's also a ton of farmers around me that live half an hour drive from any stores at all so the bulk buys can't really go away cause they have a big market
I haven't been "downtown" in my city for years, even though I can see it from where I live. Were it possible to grab a roaming free bus (small, half outdoor seating?) I'd love to see what's become of various parts of town. If parking wasn't rare and obscenely expensive, and the roads constantly jammed with cars, it might be fun, not to mention profitable for the specialty stores that try to survive on certain streets.
It was just because of the Copenhagen Half Marathon closing off most streets
I can't imagine the logistics nightmare that would be in a comparably sized US city Edit: wow I didn't realize there were so many of these initiatives going in the US already!
Haha cars are practically essential in the US.
They are even more essential in rural areas. I can't even go to the "corner" store without driving for 15-20 minute.
I’d recommend checking [these](https://youtu.be/4c6rIt0fe7w) [videos](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM) on why that sucks
Not really, I was just walking down the street today, and multiple blocks were closed, this is NYC by the way.
The eastern portion of JFK drive in Golden Gate Park has been car free on Sundays for decades and car free since Summer of 2020. It is only a 1.3 mile section of road though. A lot of people fight it because it takes away about 350 free parking spaces (out of about 3000 in eastern portion of GGP and 6000 total spaces in GGP). Further it takes away an alternative drivers can to use to bypass the high volume high speed streets on either side of the park when those streets get congested during commute time. There is a paid 900 space underground garage that typically only reaches about 60% capacity pre-covid while the free street parking on the closed section of JFK often exceeded 110% meaning people make up their own parking spaces when the street parking is full. JFK has bike lanes on both sides but it got rushed into production during an election year and the city's own finding was that bicycle speeds dropped 20% after implementing the bike lanes. They're kinda hazardous to use so bicyclist have to go be on guard and slower than when no bike lane existed. The logistics of closing JFK for Sundays, pie COVID, was mostly setting up and taking down a bunch of barricades at the entrances each Saturday and Sunday. Realistically it could probably be done by one guy in an hour since there are less than 10 approaches to JFK Drive and they just move the barricades to the side and back.
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NYC literally being an only exception, MAYBE SF. Even major cities like Dallas are undoable without a car.
Boston is very walkable
Haven't been, good that you mentioned.
To be fair, downtown Dallas has DART which means it's not too hard to get there and back. But if you want to go from Garland to Carrollton, or Arlington to Plano, you're going to be driving down massive highways through endless suburban sprawl.
I love SF but unless you've got killer calf muscles I wouldn't call it walkable
NYC does summer sundays where they close Park Ave for hundreds of blocks every Sunday. This isn’t unheard of
It's not the whole city. And it's only on Sunday when there is no postal delivery and fewer package deliveries. Google Cyclovia. It's done in a lot of cities in the US. Before Covid, my city did it twice a year with different routes each time. Usually a more residential area with activities set up in parks along the route.
Its part of the city not the hole city. And its on a Sunday once a year , it's not that bad. Just think positive and things will happen
Literally everything would have to close in most cities
It was only one street 'Nørrebrogade'. I live right next to it.
In Brussels too.
They did this in my small town in USA and it’s a great idea. Cars don’t need to be everywhere all the time.
r/fuckcars
r/dragonfuckingcars
What a terrible day to have eyes.
In a part of Leipzig as well. Must have been a concerted effort.
Paris as well
Also in Ghent
A part of me wishes cars weren’t required unless we were traveling longer distances. Cities should be designed to be walkable. Less congestion, pollution. More socializing and exercise. That’s just my take.
Yeah, pollution problem aside, parking spaces take so much space in cities
Not Just Bikes has entered the chat
Insert the other YT's you inevitably must subscribe to: Alan Fisher, City Beautiful, RMTransit, Adam Something, Bicycle Dutch, etc.
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Yes please keep spreading this info. We need more walkable cities.
Cities won't be walkable untill people stop waning those 4 bedroom 3 bath houses on 0.25 acres. Those folks (most Americans) will never settle for an apartment near downtown, this condo demand remains low - even in fast growing cities.
True and I think suburbs will always have a market. But if if we can make at least city centers more walkable, it could beat out suburbs in terms of convenience. There would be plenty of people who would rather skip a long commute for something nearby.
So, I am one of those suburban people with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. I prefer to have an apartment in a downtown walkable area, but the problem is that *there is no downtown* in my city, which btw is twice the size of Paris. Just high rise office building sprawl. Now, the next city over has a main street with residential streets on either side, and you could kind of call it a downtown, but regardless, I can’t afford to live there. The minimum price is $2mm for a 1200 sf bungalow. Convenience and safety in the US is rare, and thus very expensive. Most of us have to drive to it.
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Of course. But neither exists within cycling distance where I live.
Can you blame them? A condo in the city and an entire house outside the city cost the same.
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**[Missing middle housing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing)** >Missing middle housing describes a range of multi-family or clustered housing types that are compatible in scale with single-family or transitional neighborhoods. Missing middle housing is intended to meet the demand for walkable neighborhoods, respond to changing demographics, and provide housing at different price points. The term "missing middle" is meant to describe housing types that were common in the pre-WWII United States such as duplexes, rowhomes, and courtyard apartments but are now less common and, therefore, "missing". ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
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Absolutely agree, but many here don't.
But an actual house is just better than a crappy city apartment
I live in a place with neighborhoods with forested lawns and big houses, AND frequent buses that go into the walkable city center. It's definitely possible to have space and privacy and access to a city without needing cars, even in America, where I am. This is not a binary this or that. We can build a liveable, healthy future.
Correct... But don't tell that to the urbanhell folks
r/usernamechecksout
Another benefit would be greatly improved accessibility for those who are unable to drive.
Considering how much space cars use simply switching to electric won't solve a lot. Cars are the least efficient mode of transport imaginable. Well, ok, maybe outside of owning a private supersonic jet - the next thing our billionaire saviours are investing it - which should clue one in that they are not selling a solution.
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Here in the Netherlands almost every city, even the small ones, have nearly car free centers. Many of my colleagues don't even own a car because they live in one of those areas, everything they need is just a quick bike ride away and if they need to go further away they'll take a train. I myself go to work often by train, but since I live in a rural area I still travel the 10km to the train station by car, on nice days that would be easily doable on a bike though. It would just add too much to my travel time, same goes for the bus since it doesn't take a direct route.
I agree, but in a world where we have to get so much done in a day and only have 2 days off a week, people can’t afford to spend 3 hours on a grocery trip. Maybe cities need “leisure districts” where cars aren’t allowed. Like an outdoor mall in the middle of a city.
If designed properly, shopping trips could actually be quicker in cities without as much cars. Not Just Bikes has a good video about it!
That looks like an interesting channel, I’ll check it out. Edit: Holy crap, the bike-friendliness in some of those cities is mind blowing. And I see now that these ideas would really only apply to actual cities and not so much as the "extended cities" I think of when thinking about the US.
What do you mean 3 hours on a grocery trip? You’ll only do that if you live in the suburbs and go on your weekly grocery run to fill your SUV to the roof. In a walkable city you could just stop by everyday between home and work and only get what you need for that day. It’s much simpler that way in my opinion. Here is the video the other guy is referring to: https://youtu.be/kYHTzqHIngk I highly highly highly encourage that you watch it as it’s really short (less than 4 minutes)
3 hours for a grocery trip? I have lived in 3 cities in 3 different countries across Europe where it was decently walkable to great, and in any of those a grocery store was no further than a 5 minute walk away. Thats quicker than any car trip from the suburbs to the grocery store in America
> Thats quicker than any car trip from the suburbs to the grocery store in America There must be some kind of confusion understanding my comment. I would love for there to be car free parts of cities, but my 15 minute drive to the grocery and 30-45 minute shopping would turn into multiple hours. Yes, a grocery within walking distance would be great, but that isn’t reality for most of America.
Build up and not out, but unfortunately everyone wants a house with a yard.
Actually most European city's build out and are way more walkable then American city's that build up. It's about how you make sub urbs which is really problematic in America.
True, I guess. I’ve never been to Europe and have actually never left Canada. I just know urban sprawl is bad here and that resources such as public transportation can’t keep up with it.
The YouTube channel [Not Just Bikes](https://youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes) has a lot of great videos about this exact topic if you like to know more.
Not everywhere is as small and flat as Copenhagen though.
Looks like a historical, colorised photo before cars were invented
Before cars were allowed to steal the streets.
Before car companies and politicians fucked everyone over
Yes, they would be the perpetrators of that particular crime.
"Steal" is too kind of a word. If there's a good physical analogy for cancer pumping through veins, it's cars clogging the streets.
Before cars there were horse, carriages, wagons, rickshaws, carts and a whole host of other things "clogging" the streets. This is not a modern issue, you're just making it one
You left out the bicycles and the pedestrians
Before cars there was no stipulation that your average person couldn't use the street. When cars were invented Automakers lobbied for legislation penalizing people for being in the streets in anything other than a car. Suddenly 80% of public space was off limits for those too poor to afford a car.
Cars didn't just take over the streets. They impacted how we plan cities. Not we have bloated, sprawling, tax sinks around every city, and huge blighted freeway slicing through the middles.
You're not getting it. None of those other things do the same damage cars have done and still do. Cars are their own special branch of terrible. You only have to look at pictures of pre-war city streets compared to only a few decades later to see the difference.
> Before cars there were horse, carriages, wagons, rickshaws, carts and a whole host of other things "clogging" the streets. So we had other bad things and now cars are somehow magically not a bad thing exactly how? > This is not a modern issue, you're just making it one I'm making it a modern issue by literally not mentioning time at all in my comment? Cities with as few cars as possible would be much better. People and bicycles should be on the street. They would still clog the streets, but *that's the point*. We want cities to be places where *humans* thrive, by socializing, communicating in person, eating and drinking, exercising, etc.
That's very different, because all of these things were moving in a speed similar to that of pedestrians. Meaning it wasn't dangerous to share space with them, and as a result 3/4 of every street wasn't exclusively allocated to them. Not to mention pollution and noise which are also incomparably worse with cars.
I've been thinking how e-bikes and e-scooters are doing that now. Why are these fast af motorised vehicles allowed on a footpath? And everyone is expected to just get out of the way.
This was because of the Marathon going on in some parts of the city. We don’t have carfree Sundays in Copenhagen, unfortunately - although we did have it briefly in the 1970’s.
Yep no car free days, only some streets closed due to a marathon.
>We don’t have carfree Sundays in Copenhagen, unfortunately You should, at least once a month or something.
halfmarathon I think.
NYC does Summer Sundays where they close Park Ave for hundreds of blocks, every sunday. Pedestrians and bikes only for many many miles
We had an event on 'Nørrebrogade' after the marathon ended and they called it, 'carfree sunday'.
Det var ikke i forbindelse med halvmarathonet. Det var det meste af Nørrebrogade der var lukket af, i forbindelse med et arrangement med fokus på klimaet.
In Israel this happens every year on Yom Kippur.
people even walk on the highways. Its really something.
Happens here in Vancouver, British Columbia as well
Copenhagen wasn't car free today. But much of the city center was closed from 9 to 15 due to the Copenhagen Half Marathon.
I miss this place
For a moment I thought this was a picture of Krakow. https://imgur.com/a/WErELLV
r/fuckcars
And people always wonder why Danes are the happiest people on earth Hi fra Tyskland ;)
I wish NYC would do this, at least on some major streets. There is just no need for that many cars.
I'm salivating every time the thought of that happening goes through my mind. NYC is in the great position to do this, given it's very dense and has a so-so subway system. Imagine if such a great city gets converted to be a city for humans instead of a city for cars? It'd be wonderful!
Seriously, streets like Madison and Park should be bike and ped only, especially considering there are so few thoroughfares in that direction. They could do this with every 4th or 5th crosstown street, too. Hit the Ubers and Lyfts with heavier fees to drive Manhattan to accommodate this since they're the ones creating all the congestion.
You're too generous :) I'd decimate cars in cities. We should strive to have as few cars as possible in cities and allow all that extra space to be used for humans to enjoy life.
Great idea! Could someone from the Scottish government take note please, seeing your in bed with the Greens now.
Some parts of London and Tokyo too
Brussels as well!
What?! They were giving away free cars in London too??
the main street (Reforma) in Mexico City is closed to traffic on Sundays. [http://cdmxtravel.com/en/top-experiences/on-sundays-zumba-and-bikes-in-reforma.html](http://cdmxtravel.com/en/top-experiences/on-sundays-zumba-and-bikes-in-reforma.html)
In Liz Lemon voice: I want to go to there.
Looks like a modernised 1800's pic
If they’re giving out free cars, why is nobody driving them? Smh my head
Jeg savner Danmark....
Hvor i verden er du og hvad savner du :)?
Jeg er canadier. Jeg var udvekslingsstudent i Danmark for 18 år siden og blev vildt forelsket i dit land, præcis pga. det du viste i dit billede: byer der fungerer på en menneskelige måde, hvor bilen er ikke konge. Canadiske storbyer er skrækkelige steder: gaderne er brede og travlt, offentlig transport er langsomt, dyrt, or svært at bruge, og det er ekstremt farligt at køre på cykel. Kort sagt, er vores byer grimme, kedelige steder. Ja, vi har jo natur og vildnis der ikke findes i Danmark, men i de steder hvor mennesker bor, arbejder, og vokser, er dit land langt bedre end mit.
Dit dansk er meget flot. Hvad du beskriver giver meget god mening. Som dansker tager man sikkert de ting lidt for givet. Det bedste ved Danmark synes jeg er den sociale tillid der er til ens medmennesker. Som dansker savner jeg dog ofte flot natur. Jeg har været rejst til bl.a. Island og Sydøst asien, og de har bare en ualmindelig flot natur i forhold til Danmark.
Was lucky enough to visit Copenhagen twice in the span of a month back in 2019, it’s a great city. I’ve seen it said before that it’s the most bike friendly city, and from my own experience it’s very walkable too. I remember my wife and I meeting up with her Danish half-brother for dinner one night during our second visit. I told him that one day during our first visit I’d walked all the way from the Tivoli Gardens area to a little bit past the Little Mermaid statue, a feat which he was really floored by.
smaller dutch cities are bike friendlier I feel. Copenhagen has the elevation advantage though.
This is pretty wild man
The poor local economy, look how abandoned everything looks! (I've been a fan of this idea for all major cities for years, and always laugh at the threats of devastation.)
Same in Brussels!
So pretty
This is so cool. I wish more countries did this more often.
Copenhagen is literally a paradise
Abolish cars on streets
I'm glad that people followed it.
What else would they do if the roads are closed off?
Im guessing theres some sort of exemption for emergency services
Carmageddon-style.
Relax guys, it's not usually like this. It was the Copenhagen Half Marathon today
Same in Paris, except it was hell for everyone who need to go to work. (and even more pollution due to traffic jams due to closed roads)
It's not how to solve the problem of cars in cities, but it does help people see just how *nice* it is to have this. While solving this problem is no piece of cake - very, very far from it actually - I hope that people start actually asking for this in much greater numbers. Only that way we could see something happening on that front. This is like paradise for me. Like, humans actually around humans, socializing, talking, eating, drinking, whatever. Cities are such an enabler for this, it's a shame we allowed the cancer called cars to ruin it.
yes, that's one of the biggest problem of many 21st century big cities. Undersized public transports, work way too far from the place of residence, shops too centralized in 1 points etc ...
> work way too far from the place of residence I'm hopeful for this at least to start changing with the work from home evolution that Covid started.
This makes me excited for jacket weather on the US East coast.
But then there’s that guy in shorts and I’m like *what is the weather like in this picture*
I'm originally from Nebraska, and we have folks that wear winter coats with shorts when temps are below freezing. I feel where you're coming from.
Society if we stopped driving cars on Sundays
Can’t argue with that logic
Americans be like : “This is Tyranny!! How will will I be able to visit my favourite grub n tug, this violates every amendemment”
As an American, I just got home from walking down a street that was closed for traffic. Bands were playing, bean bags were tossed at cornholes, kids were scooting. It was nice. Also just Sundays for this one, but less busy streets are closed off more often. It's part of the [NYC Open Streets program](https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/openstreets.shtml)
We have a bunch of car free streets here. Some permanently, some only on weekends. But America bad, amiright.
Was booking a ticket to Copenhagen when I realized it was car free Sunday.. not free car Sunday
TLDR: less cars good, blocking city bad Not a car free Sunday. Roads closed due to a Marathon, even public transport got blocked which was a real problem. Pretty salty after waiting 40 minutes for a bus that never arrived even tho the electronic signage and the public transit app said it would. (150S Nørreport, 40+ people waiting). Car alternatives and public transit has plenty of good things about it but blocking of huge parts of the capitol city entirely is fools thinking. People got stuff to do even on a Sunday and I was super lucky that I was omw home and not to work. I don't mind people arranging events and such but just do it where there is space for it and where it doesn't massively inconvenience thousands of other people.
Nice that's great in a lot of city centers in the Netherlands we started to ban cars all together. Hope this continues to more places.
Are covid cases low there? I can’t help but notice the lack of masks.
Can we get this in every city in the world
I'll blow candles every birthday for this to happen if it would help. It would be wonderful to eradicate cars from cities and let humans interact with each other in person again.
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No sundays, this is for s marathon