How can we make DC streets bicycle and pedestrian-only?

[Anonymous]

Would we all have to wear cycling gear and pretend we are being sponsored to race the next TDF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is such a beautifully designed city, with amazing outdoor dining and cafe potential.

But trucks, busses, cars and motorcycles ruin it for us residents.

DC is geographically tiny, so why not make our streets pedestrian and bicycles- only?

Chase all the businesses out with anti-business policies and chase the government workers out with unmanaged crime. Then no one will have any reason to drive into DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love for each neighborhood to have a pedestrian only street - 18th st, 17th st, etc where kids can play in the street and people can mull around. So many cities around the world do that (and we can use smaller trucks and back alleys for deliveries, no one is trying to kill businesses)

We should learn from, and emulate European cities.

But alas, we don’t.

We can't because most of America was designed around cars and the American dream of a single family home.
That's not the case for Europe where most of the cities and villages existed before cars. So they invested in rail infrastructure instead.
DC's plan was inspired by Haussman's in Paris - long vistas to counter any mob / revolutionary activity that could otherwise be hidden in the twisty windy enclaves of ancient organic neighborhoods (think of old parts of London here). This town planning was perfectly suitable to the automobile that came along later.

It really would be great if each neighborhood had a pedestrian only street. Asian cities have night markets where the streets are open to pedestrian activities only. It encourages people to meet, everyone can pursue their various interests (shop here for school stationary, oh I need a new phone cover, grab a bite there - one is not committed to being a patron of a restaurant) rather than get plastered in a pub or tiptoe thru a marble floored mall.
Greens and foliage is important too. One of the most unpleasant things about walking around DC is the huge swathes of concrete and very little shading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:America is baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet and Smith & Wesson. If you want to live a European, New Zealand or Australian lifestyle then move to one of those places and enjoy your life.

I assume that if you think those places should have open immigration for anyone who wants to live there, you think we should too right?

All countries have a right and obligation to protect their borders and to establish appropriate immigration procedures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is such a beautifully designed city, with amazing outdoor dining and cafe potential.

But trucks, busses, cars and motorcycles ruin it for us residents.

DC is geographically tiny, so why not make our streets pedestrian and bicycles- only?

Is it really necessary to point out that most of the bars, restaurants and stores in this city would go out of business if we banned cars?

yeah, if you look around the world, every major city has an a pedestrian only area that is just absolutely dead, without any restaurants, cafes, shops, etc. all the businesses instantly die and plazas sit empty. #sarcasm

I see how in most cities they are beautiful and in ours you are at a high chance of being bricked or urinated upon. Maybe we solve that first?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love for each neighborhood to have a pedestrian only street - 18th st, 17th st, etc where kids can play in the street and people can mull around. So many cities around the world do that (and we can use smaller trucks and back alleys for deliveries, no one is trying to kill businesses)

We should learn from, and emulate European cities.

But alas, we don’t.

Europeans predominating included?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is such a beautifully designed city, with amazing outdoor dining and cafe potential.

But trucks, busses, cars and motorcycles ruin it for us residents.

DC is geographically tiny, so why not make our streets pedestrian and bicycles- only?

This will never happen as long as your Mayor is tantruming about not enough MD/VA workers returning in person to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:America is baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet and Smith & Wesson. If you want to live a European, New Zealand or Australian lifestyle then move to one of those places and enjoy your life.

I assume that if you think those places should have open immigration for anyone who wants to live there, you think we should too right?

All countries have a right and obligation to protect their borders and to establish appropriate immigration procedures.

If someone feels that way and yet demands that people who want change in the US just move to New Zealand then they are an idiot and a hypocrite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love for each neighborhood to have a pedestrian only street - 18th st, 17th st, etc where kids can play in the street and people can mull around. So many cities around the world do that (and we can use smaller trucks and back alleys for deliveries, no one is trying to kill businesses)

we already have places where kids can play and people can hang out. they're called "parks" and we have more of them than any other city in this country. virtually everyone in washington dc lives within a 10 minute walk of a park.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have miles and miles and miles of bike lanes that no one uses. Before commandeering our entire transportation infrastructure, maybe start by sometimes using the lanes we already have?

If by above, you mean we have miles and miles of bike lanes that over half a million trips are taken in every month by the Capital Bikeshare bikes alone, then cool. FIFY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have miles and miles and miles of bike lanes that no one uses. Before commandeering our entire transportation infrastructure, maybe start by sometimes using the lanes we already have?

If by above, you mean we have miles and miles of bike lanes that over half a million trips are taken in every month by the Capital Bikeshare bikes alone, then cool. FIFY.

Yes seriously. The bike lanes are packed, especially these days with the nice weather. PP must not live around here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have miles and miles and miles of bike lanes that no one uses. Before commandeering our entire transportation infrastructure, maybe start by sometimes using the lanes we already have?

If by above, you mean we have miles and miles of bike lanes that over half a million trips are taken in every month by the Capital Bikeshare bikes alone, then cool. FIFY.

Yes seriously. The bike lanes are packed, especially these days with the nice weather. PP must not live around here.

I am not surprised by this take. I got beeped at yesterday, sitting at a traffic light on a bike, because the car in front of me decided to turn right (no signal) and I went around them. The car behind me beeps at me because "I pulled out in front of them". I was already in front of you. There's not pulling out in front. I was literally already in front of you! Some car drivers just don't see/care about cyclists. Blinders on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is such a beautifully designed city, with amazing outdoor dining and cafe potential.

But trucks, busses, cars and motorcycles ruin it for us residents.

DC is geographically tiny, so why not make our streets pedestrian and bicycles- only?

Just for sh!ts and giggles, answer me this question:

You’re moving from somewhere you previously lived to this new car-free utopia called DC. How do you get all your stuff - your furniture, your clothes, your housewares, your library/office, all the “stuff” that people have in a home - how do you get all that stuff to your new digs on the 1300 block of P st NW?

Because moving vans won’t be exempt.

So how are you going to move here - or away - with your stuff?

You better have one hell of a big cargo bike.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:America is baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet and Smith & Wesson. If you want to live a European, New Zealand or Australian lifestyle then move to one of those places and enjoy your life.

I assume that if you think those places should have open immigration for anyone who wants to live there, you think we should too right?

All countries have a right and obligation to protect their borders and to establish appropriate immigration procedures.

All countries EXCEPT the US, you mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is such a beautifully designed city, with amazing outdoor dining and cafe potential.

But trucks, busses, cars and motorcycles ruin it for us residents.

DC is geographically tiny, so why not make our streets pedestrian and bicycles- only?

Just for sh!ts and giggles, answer me this question:

You’re moving from somewhere you previously lived to this new car-free utopia called DC. How do you get all your stuff - your furniture, your clothes, your housewares, your library/office, all the “stuff” that people have in a home - how do you get all that stuff to your new digs on the 1300 block of P st NW?

Because moving vans won’t be exempt.

So how are you going to move here - or away - with your stuff?

You better have one hell of a big cargo bike.

People do move house with cargo bikes. That is a thing people do. Depending on how much stuff you have, it takes multiple trips and/or multiple people. For basically every example of "you can't move X on a bike!" you can think of, there is a photo on the internet of someone moving X on a bike.