For all of you who moan about the car-free areas, congestion charges, ZTL, Fussgängerzone or whatever in cities, and the fines you have to pay if you breach them, read this BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-35475318
Quotes: "Cyclists will outnumber car drivers entering central London in rush hour in the next few years, ....."
"The number of car drivers fell from 137,000 in 2000 to 64,000 in 2014, while those of cyclists trebled from 12,000 to 36,000 over the same period."
Yes, banning cars does work.
Posted by
Bainbridge Island
3287 posts
That is great news! Wish we could do more of that here in the US.
Seattle had a short (2-block) pedestrian zone downtown near 5th and Pine some years back, but the nearby stores demanded that the city open the area to cars, and won. Pedestrians and cyclists lost.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33837 posts
I think it might be good to dig under those numbers.
That story is basically one headline with no supporting analysis, unusual for the BBC.
Frankly I don't believe it. Just 2 days ago I was reading a story in the Times that said that because of the Uber effect the number of cars in central London had grown by - off the top of my head - something like 23,000 in the last year.
I did notice that the BBC story talked about car drivers, not the number of cars.