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

[Anonymous]

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

Why would you use a drone, inefficiently, when you can use a cargo e-bike, efficiently?

https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2023/pedal-assist-cargo-bikes.shtml

[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?

Please move downtown if you want this lifestyle. It’s already there. Stop screwing up the single family neighborhoods with this nonsense. We like our car lifestyle just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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).

Car ownership in the Netherlands is at an all-time high:

https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2019/08/the-car-free-myth-netherlands-is-great.html

"In 1992, 42% of Dutch households were car-free. By 2016 this had dropped to about a quarter. Car ownership has continued to increase since then."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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).

Car ownership in the Netherlands is at an all-time high:

https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2019/08/the-car-free-myth-netherlands-is-great.html

"In 1992, 42% of Dutch households were car-free. By 2016 this had dropped to about a quarter. Car ownership has continued to increase since then."

Motor vehicles per 1,000 people in the US: 908
Motor vehicles per 1,000 people in the Netherlands: 588

But honestly I have no idea what point you're trying to make. By every measure, people in the Netherlands have more transportation options, drive less, and are injured or killed on the road less. If we in the US were as car-dependent as the Netherlands, it would be enormous progress for us.

[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.

Amazon, Door Dash, and other low carbon lifestyle-enabling service providers would have a special exception.

[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.

Amazon, Door Dash, and other low carbon lifestyle-enabling service providers would have a special exception.

Amazon, Door Dash, and others can - and do - use e-bikes for deliveries.

[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?

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.

+1

[Anonymous]

Most bike riders in the city are complete assh01es about it, riding on sidewalks super fast expecting pedestrians to go out of their way, not obeying traffic signals, not stopping for pedestrians to cross. I would a 100% support a bill to outlaw bikes in most of the city. don't even get me started on the electric scooters. Until people in the city can pass a strict course on etiquette on how to ride bikes and scooters, they should use busses/metro and walk.

[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 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.

In Europe they are at least receptive to fixing some of the obvious flaws. For some reason we wear it as a badge of honor to do things in a way that makes everyone miserable.

[Anonymous]

All this feeding is going to make the OP troll fat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most bike riders in the city are complete assh01es about it, riding on sidewalks super fast expecting pedestrians to go out of their way, not obeying traffic signals, not stopping for pedestrians to cross. I would a 100% support a bill to outlaw bikes in most of the city. don't even get me started on the electric scooters. Until people in the city can pass a strict course on etiquette on how to ride bikes and scooters, they should use busses/metro and walk.

So you support the OP in wanting streets with no cars on them. Buses/Metro or walk, only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most bike riders in the city are complete assh01es about it, riding on sidewalks super fast expecting pedestrians to go out of their way, not obeying traffic signals, not stopping for pedestrians to cross. I would a 100% support a bill to outlaw bikes in most of the city. don't even get me started on the electric scooters. Until people in the city can pass a strict course on etiquette on how to ride bikes and scooters, they should use busses/metro and walk.

So you support the OP in wanting streets with no cars on them. Buses/Metro or walk, only.

I actually don't care about cars so much. I just hate bikes and scooters. I walk everywhere and cars usually stop at traffic lights and don't try to run me over on the sidewalk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most bike riders in the city are complete assh01es about it, riding on sidewalks super fast expecting pedestrians to go out of their way, not obeying traffic signals, not stopping for pedestrians to cross. I would a 100% support a bill to outlaw bikes in most of the city. don't even get me started on the electric scooters. Until people in the city can pass a strict course on etiquette on how to ride bikes and scooters, they should use busses/metro and walk.

So you support the OP in wanting streets with no cars on them. Buses/Metro or walk, only.

I actually don't care about cars so much. I just hate bikes and scooters. I walk everywhere and cars usually stop at traffic lights and don't try to run me over on the sidewalk.

Oh, you again. Worrying about the hangnail instead of the arterial bleeding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most bike riders in the city are complete assh01es about it, riding on sidewalks super fast expecting pedestrians to go out of their way, not obeying traffic signals, not stopping for pedestrians to cross. I would a 100% support a bill to outlaw bikes in most of the city. don't even get me started on the electric scooters. Until people in the city can pass a strict course on etiquette on how to ride bikes and scooters, they should use busses/metro and walk.

So you support the OP in wanting streets with no cars on them. Buses/Metro or walk, only.

I actually don't care about cars so much. I just hate bikes and scooters. I walk everywhere and cars usually stop at traffic lights and don't try to run me over on the sidewalk.

Oh, you again. Worrying about the hangnail instead of the arterial bleeding.

Oh you're just a d&&k on a scooter passing me on the sidewalk going 45mph and telling me to get out of the way. I will vote for anyone who vows to get those things off the streets and sidewalks.

[Anonymous]

From the New York Times:

As Bikers Throng the Streets, ‘It’s Like Paris Is in Anarchy’

PARIS — On a recent afternoon, the Rue de Rivoli looked like this: Cyclists blowing through red lights in two directions. Delivery bike riders fixating on their cellphones. Electric scooters careening across lanes. Jaywalkers and nervous pedestrians scrambling as if in a video game.

Sarah Famery, a 20-year resident of the Marais neighborhood, braced for the tumult. She looked left, then right, then left and right again before venturing into a crosswalk, only to break into a rant-laden sprint as two cyclists came within inches of grazing her.

“It’s chaos!” exclaimed Ms. Famery, shaking a fist at the swarm of bikes that have displaced cars on the Rue de Rivoli ever since it was remade into a multilane highway for cyclists last year. “Politicians want to make Paris a cycling city, but no one is following any rules,” she said. “It’s becoming risky just to cross the street!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/world/europe/paris-bicyles-france.html