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

[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?

Not you again. Sorry but they DO get used.

[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?

Cycling remains the least popular form of transportation in Washington. So few people tell pollsters they bike that they routinely get thrown into the miscellaneous category.

[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?

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.

Uh huh. Sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

DC has the most green space out of any city in the US I believe. I’ve never heard anyone claim Dc doesn’t have greens and foliage. Check out downtown Houston or Manhattan for a real concrete jungle.

[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?

Not you again. Sorry but they DO get used.

It's true! When I drove to work this morning, I did see someone on a bike. I probably saw several thousand cars on the road over the course of my commute, but, yes, I also saw one cyclist.

[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

Why do we need to close streets when they are parks literally everywhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Why do we need to close streets when they are parks literally everywhere?

This thread is about open streets, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Why do we need to close streets when they are parks literally everywhere?

This thread is about open streets, actually.

I love how people pretend there's no way for kids to play or people to meet if we don't shut streets to car traffic. What? Do you even live here? There are parks on every friggin corner. There is SO MUCH open public space. There aren't many cities on this planet that have public space like we do.

[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?

Not you again. Sorry but they DO get used.

It's true! When I drove to work this morning, I did see someone on a bike. I probably saw several thousand cars on the road over the course of my commute, but, yes, I also saw one cyclist.

I saw quite a few folks bikes this evening when I was downtown. My anecdote cancels yours out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Why do we need to close streets when they are parks literally everywhere?

This thread is about open streets, actually.

I love how people pretend there's no way for kids to play or people to meet if we don't shut streets to car traffic. What? Do you even live here? There are parks on every friggin corner. There is SO MUCH open public space. There aren't many cities on this planet that have public space like we do.

We could say the same thing about transportation, though. "I love how people pretend there's no way for people to get around if we don't devote all of our street space to cars." Although actually I don't love it, at all.

[Anonymous]

Tons of people bike in DC every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The most famous European cities do indeed have lovely center-city areas that are mostly the domain of pedestrians and cyclists. These are the parts of those cities you see on postcards, and the parts that American tourists visit.

But in nearly all of these same cities (especially Amsterdam, the GGW mouth-breather wet-dream of a city), that postcard-perfect center city is completely hemmed in by ugly auto-centric sprawl, and often it's worse sprawl than anything you see in the U.S. But you never see these areas on postcards, and American tourists never visit, so they don't exist in the minds of U.S. visitors because it's outside the quaint 2-square-mile area that they visit.

So can we stop holding up Europe as this paragon of urbanism? It's just not true.

[Anonymous]

You can't. Ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The most famous European cities do indeed have lovely center-city areas that are mostly the domain of pedestrians and cyclists. These are the parts of those cities you see on postcards, and the parts that American tourists visit.

But in nearly all of these same cities (especially Amsterdam, the GGW mouth-breather wet-dream of a city), that postcard-perfect center city is completely hemmed in by ugly auto-centric sprawl, and often it's worse sprawl than anything you see in the U.S. But you never see these areas on postcards, and American tourists never visit, so they don't exist in the minds of U.S. visitors because it's outside the quaint 2-square-mile area that they visit.

So can we stop holding up Europe as this paragon of urbanism? It's just not true.

This is factually incorrect. Yes, not all of the Netherlands is the old city of Amsterdam. Who ever said it was? But the idea that the rest of the Netherlands is just as car-centric as the US, or even more so, is just plain wrong. And it shows in the number of transportation deaths. The number of traffic deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in the Netherlands in 2019 was 3.8 (and decreasing). In the US, it was 11.0 (and increasing).

[Anonymous]

Going to be fun watching cyclists and pediatricians dodging those drones making delivers to all the businesses in the car free zone(s).