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Starting in 2019, Oslo Will Restrict the Use of Vehicles in its City Center (nytimes.com)
If you drive a car into the city center of Oslo next month, you shouldn't plan on staying long: There won't be any parking spots. The Norwegian capital is in the process of eliminating the remaining 700 street parking spots in its city center by the end of 2018 as part of its plan to turn the area into a car-free zone. From a report: "We're doing this to give the streets back to the people," Hanna Elise Marcussen, Oslo's vice mayor for urban development, said during a recent phone interview. "And of course, it's environmentally friendly." (The Scandinavian country, recently recognized as one of the world's most ecologically progressive nations, has plans to become carbon neutral by 2030 and halt the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2025.)
[...] In Oslo, the plan to remove cars from the city began in 2015 when a coalition of progressive political parties called for a city center free from vehicles. Similar plans have been met with resistance in places like Dublin, where local officials have proposed expanding that city's pedestrian zone, and Barcelona. Even in ecologically minded Oslo, it wasn't easy. "There's been quite a bit of public date, and there's been quite a lot of controversy, and it's been quite difficult to do this in a way that businesses and citizens can accept," Ms. Marcussen said.
[...] In Oslo, the plan to remove cars from the city began in 2015 when a coalition of progressive political parties called for a city center free from vehicles. Similar plans have been met with resistance in places like Dublin, where local officials have proposed expanding that city's pedestrian zone, and Barcelona. Even in ecologically minded Oslo, it wasn't easy. "There's been quite a bit of public date, and there's been quite a lot of controversy, and it's been quite difficult to do this in a way that businesses and citizens can accept," Ms. Marcussen said.
Less cars where people are walking all the time??? Holy shit!!! Bourbon street does this all the time though
Not allowing vehicles is not the answer.
Norway is a socialist mess, and stuff like this is WHY it's a mess.
$1000 says that politicians will be granted an exemption and thus be able to use vehicles where other people are not permitted to do so.
These anti car faggots need to be executed.
^^ "Norway is a socialist mess" -lol. I don't know why I envision a fat Rush Limbaugh greasing himself up with lube in a barcalounger, saying that dumb shit into his mic while eating a chicken wing. #Republican expert
R.I.P. TRUMP, AXD_FLORENCE #23-DD70-91 - Buried on site with nearby plots for Junior and Ivanka, co-conspirators
Stop pumping oil and gas out of the North Sea.
Great advice. Of course that doesn't change anything about this decision in Oslo, why are you bringing it up except as a whattabout-distraction? I don't see how this is a threat to Putin or his local affiliate, why the red herring?
How will goods be brought into the city without the use of vehicles? Will they use pack mules? It sounds like a good idea, but all the businesses which provide jobs will have no way to bring in food, and retail merchandise.
You envision Rush Limbaugh because it's more likely than not that you think in dichotomies based on false premises. A libertarian would equally criticize all statists regardless of "right" or "left" leanings. Since the article was specifically about Norway, a reasonable person might then better understand the comment you replied to.
They aren't getting rid of all cars. Republican knee-jerk morons need to slow down and read before they start firing up the tiki torches again, christ you lazy imbeciles are easy to troll without meaning to, lol.
Muslims on ponies?
I can't wait for autonomous vehicles. Get out of your car and just have it circle the block for an hour or so until you are ready to go.
Have gnu, will travel.
As much as it might kind of stink day to day for the people that live there, I can see a number of very popular tourist cities forgoing parking.
That way you can handle a lot more tourists walking around a larger area - better for shops, and even better for tourists until the sheer mass of extra tourist this allows for starts to clog up things like all the good restaurants... but then more will open up if there are people enough to support them.
I think it will be pretty interesting to see how this goes, Oslo was a very nice place and I had wanted to return there someday anyway as my visit there was all too brief. If you do go the Viking museum is nice, but I honestly liked the Fram museum even more for the more technological angle and spirit of exploration. Awesome ship.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How will autonomous cars work in that case? How do you build a society around the idea that our cars are idle if they're all idle at (roughly) the same time?
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Exactly.
It is about restricting the rights of private citizens, and forcing them to use commercial transport instead of what they already have.
A great boost for Taxi services.
Isnt it wonderful when the 'socialists' boost corporate welfare through regulatory capture in the name of the people and environment.. score one for the workers!
I bet the goods delivery parks, taxi stands, and private commercial carparks are not being removed...
Those middle class who bother to own a car, and paid for the roads truly are suckers.
In America we've already started killing and imprisoning nazi faggots. It's working great, Trump is going to be sucking dick in prison shortly. I'm sorry, what were you blathering about you Fox News retard lol? #Traitors hang, Trumptard
So what you're saying is Buffalo NY is full of lazy faggots. Yeah we know, fuck Buffalo. Jealous of NYC's slums, Buffalo is nowhereville. Maybe they should just shut the whole city down, it sucks that bad.
Thankfully places like Oslo aren't full of lazy faggots like Buffalo is. Thanks for your input. Next concerned faggot?
Not everyone against this sort of shit is a far-right night job. Shut the fuck up, you do the left more harm than good.
We’be been doing that for forty years in the Netherlands and finally other countries see the light.
-- Cheers!
I took a ferry to the Fram, pretty sure that was free - if you are getting rid of parking that probably does mean free shuttles around the city and to parking on the outskirts. Even if not though, it would still be cheaper than parking in most cities...
As for the disabled person, maybe they will still be able to park with a valid handicapped tag - or maybe they will just have to rely on special accommodations.
But It's not like the city center of Oslo has much besides tourist shops anyway. If they are going to see a doctor it's very probably not in the zone under consideration - and the city will be easier to drive through to reach an appointment as a result.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How do you build a society around the idea that our cars are idle if they're all idle at (roughly) the same time?
Autonomous carpooling. Take it one step further and you end up with autonomous fixed route bus service.
Driving is for poor people. If you don't live in a walkable city, get your money up and move off the fucking farm already.
and OSLO is fucking RICH A F, especially downtown lol. It's like New York if New York had old money and was still on the gold standard. (ducks flying green bankers lamp)
The strongest opposition came from local business owners who were worried that fewer cars would mean fewer customers. So the city came up with a compromise: Instead of an outright ban, they would enact regulations that would allow as few vehicles as possible in the city center. The city designated certain streets for pedestrians or public transit only, restricted the ability of nonresidents to drive through the center, and removed hundreds of parking spots from city streets while creating designated parking spots for disabled citizens and businesses that require a car.
SMOKED ANOTHER DISHONEST REPUBLICAN RETARD, THROW IT ON THE CORPSE FIRE NEXT TO TRUMP.
Dreamland...put down the joint long enough to realize that's never going to happen.
And what's the obsession with you people and "Trump sucking dick"? Sounds like a mental illness you might want to get some help for.
for a pickup. Also one of the major things that makes buses suck is all the stops. That's what takes a 30 minute drive and turns it into 90 minutes.
Don't get me wrong, I really, really want a world where I don't have to own a car. I hate the damn things. I'm just not sure if this'll work.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The strongest opposition came from local business owners who were worried that fewer cars would mean fewer customers. So the city came up with a compromise: Instead of an outright ban, they would enact regulations that would allow as few vehicles as possible in the city center. The city designated certain streets for pedestrians or public transit only, restricted the ability of nonresidents to drive through the center, and removed hundreds of parking spots from city streets while creating designated parking spots for disabled citizens and businesses that require a car.
SMOKED ANOTHER DISHONEST REPUBLICAN RETARD, THROW IT ON THE CORPSE FIRE NEXT TO TRUMP
"Republican crybaby blows his little eyes out over Oslo, Norway decision, news at 11" Honestly, you're in the top 3 of crybaby Republican faggots of all time. Congratulations?
The strongest opposition came from local business owners who were worried that fewer cars would mean fewer customers. So the city came up with a compromise: Instead of an outright ban, they would enact regulations that would allow as few vehicles as possible in the city center. The city designated certain streets for pedestrians or public transit only, restricted the ability of nonresidents to drive through the center, and removed hundreds of parking spots from city streets while creating designated parking spots for disabled citizens and businesses that require a car.
THROW IT ON THE CORPSE FIRE NEXT TO TRUMP.
im sorry i pissed in your cherios
Even if you dont care about climate change, this is great for pedestrians and having an active city centre.
My city in the Netherlands is mostly car free.
i assume Oslo will still allow deliveey trucks, or will they force out shops as well?
Imho thwy can ban both. Living in a car free city is great, especially when you own a parking spot.
parking un my city is reserved for people who live there, or you have to pay to park on the outskirts.
the center is car free except for delivery trucks.
it means you can actually walk around relaxed.
I think some of the logic of the anti-car urban factions in urban areas with poor public transit is:
1: Make driving a car difficult through reduced parking, more expensive parking, and street closures which worsen auto traffic
2: This forces drivers onto public transit.
3: The low quality public transit as the only alternative creates political pressure for better transit
It's a risky gambit, because public transit can't be made superior overnight. Really good subways and trains are the result of either legacy dumb luck from 100 years ago or once-in-a-millennium rebuilding due to war or other catastrophe. Games played with road networks to restrict cars can wind up hurting buses, which are the cheapest and fastest way to improve public transit since they require almost no fixed infrastructure.
If the larger region surrounding the car-restricted urban area is car dependent (which is nearly all of the US), the odds of a huge financial windfall to improve transit are pretty low -- people won't want to pay for massive transit upgrades.
Rather than trying to create these car-free utopias, maybe there's some better solution -- like very large parking areas on the city outskirts, combined with really fast and high quality "last mile" trams or express buses that take people to their final destination. Park and ride lots are kind of like this, but they're almost always located way out in the suburbs and aren't useful outside of explicit commuting.
and besides, this is norway. don't people ski and snowshoe to work 9 months out of the year?
You mean global warming has gotten that worse that now the time of the year when people are snowed in and can't even leave their homes has shrunken to 3 months only ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
One of the best public transit systems I've ever seen and that was years ago.
And the parkingspots on the street that will be removed, is owned by the city. There are still private parkingspots, and many multistorey car parks for many thousand cars.
europe is just failing countries now because of socialist policees and open borders letting blacks and muslims degrade rhe local more pure christian races that created western civilization. maybe one day they will return to christ, our lord, and the plan he put in place for the final salvation of His chosen race.
Trying really hard to find a good way for huge amounts of people to commute. There is no good way. Commuting is the problem.
How business friendly is this arrangement though?
"Driving is not a right, driving is a privilege"
bullshit propaganda. fuck the government and fuck you. justice is coming for these socialist scum that think every human activity needs to have a license.
Figures are rounded off. Current price of gasoline in Paris is 1.50 Euro per liter. So 3.8 liters in a gallon. 3.8 * 1.50 = 5.7 Euros per gallon. So 5.7 Euros = 6.50 USD . Is gas in SF really 6.50/gal? Seems too pricey -- even for SF. Let's check.....GIYF -- SF has the highest gas prices in the US at $3.80 per gallon. $6.50 -$3.80 = $2.70. So Paris is $2.70 more expensive than SF. I leave it to you to check diesel prices.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
A lot of us drive EVs. About 50% of new cars sold are EVs.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
The problem is that Oslo is:
1. Central administration of Norway, bringing a lot of jobs, boolstering its size and economy
2. A small county in size, meaning there is limited place
3. Various centralization policies have lead to every single national company setting up HQ in Oslo, again making its economy bigger. This has been going on since the railroad and phone lines where properly expanded.
4. Oslo has retained its original "city borders".
So if you combine this, and get cynical you could argue Oslo stretches between Råholt, Skarnes, Askin, Halden, Moss, Tønsberg, Drammen and Hønefoss.
This is a area of 7 022,33 km^2 while Oslo county/city/fylke is 480.76 km^2.
The problem is that Oslo builds infrastructure insides its border, while feeding jobs and commuting to a area thats 15 times larger. In European or American or Asian measurements this is not a big area, with a lot of residents. But the denial of what Oslo is and its infrastructure is leading to some severe congestion that needs to be solved somehow.
Oslo banning cars is not going to fix this. Railroads, commute stations in other counties and buss networks are not built out to a level where the congestion can solve itself. Oslo county is not cooperating with its surrounding counties to solve long term infrastructure problems or decentralize the economy enough to stop everyone from setting up HQ in Oslo for historical reasons.
Banning cars will essentially "delay" the problem for as long as it takes to fill up the new free real estate, and maybe it gets a little better as walking/biking is somewhat effective to increase population density.
But the issue will remain as long as people setup HQ in Oslo or corporation, and then their workers need to commute from a nearby county without the infrastructure to just painless go there.
It's a risky gambit, because public transit can't be made superior overnight
Public transit can be made significantly better immediately, by making buses frequent rather than infrequent. Once that is done, it can be made significantly better once again by painting bus-only lanes on the street - which makes buses faster and cars possibly slower, leading to more bus ridership, a virtuous cycle. It works great if you can get the political willpower to take away a car lane.
Really good subways and trains are the result of either legacy dumb luck from 100 years ago or once-in-a-millennium rebuilding due to war or other catastrophe.
All it takes is a steady building program over a couple decades. NYC's subway was almost entirely build between 1900 and 1930, almost none has been built since then. Shanghai's subway, which carries nearly twice as many people as NYC's, was build between 1997 and 2018 (it is still rapidly expanding). Madrid has the second largest subway in Europe, about half of it was built between 1998-2007. None of these cities had rebuilding due to catastrophes. They just had the political willpower to invest in this. (Arguably, they also had political systems that were less dysfunctional than the US is in 2018.)
Muslims should be kicked out from all of Europe.
Let them build up their own countries. They cant?
"justice is coming for these socialist scum that think every human activity needs to have a license."
So you mean for no one then.
Don't forget the commuting enables labor mobility which is a massive boost to economic productivity. It'd be great if there was no commuting but you either need to have reduced labor mobility (ie, keeping less productive people in jobs) or greatly increased housing liquidity so people can move if they change jobs.
You can make buses more efficient without even increasing the number of buses by simply restricting where they will stop, say every 5 blocks vs. every block. This forces an extra 2 block walk, max, for every commuter.
Increasing buses definitely helps, but it's also expensive in terms of capital investment and fuel consumption.
Building subways was significantly easier 1900-1930 as they could use more intrusive construction like trench excavation and labor costs were a lot lower, in addition to lower costs for land acquisition.
Shanghai is an outlier because its subway was a byproduct of both crazy Chinese construction growth and a political system where there was not really room for opposition. I don't know the details of Madrid's expansion, but I suspect that it had a lot to do with cheap foreign loans that affected the Spanish economy and probably a long-term deficit in infrastructure development, which contributed to the political will.
I just don't see any of those factors leading to a massive subway system being built in the US anytime soon.