Reply to D.C. needs to get a lot more car friendly

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are many European cities where you cannot bring your personal car into the downtown area or have limited schedules where it's allowed, as measures to reduce rush hour congestion, improve safety, improve air quality and promote bicycling, pedestrian and mass transit.  They've been doing it for decades.  And they are not "cratering" as a result.[/quote]
This is false. [/quote]

It is not at all false.  I lived in Europe for 10 years.  Many countries and cities have had various types of urban vehicle access restrictions for years.  Berlin, Brussels, Paris, London etc.  Here is a map that captures some of the types of restrictions.  https://urbanaccessregulations.eu/userhome/map[/quote]
This is an example of making false equivalence. Characteristically a lot of cities in Europe have separate historic city center and business districts. Restricting vehicle access to historic city centers is not the same as restricting access to the newer, glass central business districts.

In the places I am aware of where there are access restrictions in CBDs, it is typically just one block of a street that abuts a central plaza where there is a high density of buses and pedestrians. Not widespread road (or even lane) closures.

What cities like Paris and Barcelona are doing right now is a 2 year old experiment that has not been fully tested in “normal”, non-pandemic situation and nobody knows how it’s going to turn out. But it’s also important to understand that what they are doing is very different to what DC is doing. These cities are not trying to restrict access to their CBDs. They are trying to reduce vehicles in mixed use neighborhoods. This is not what DC is doing.

If DC wanted to follow Barcelona’s lead with Eixample they would close roads around DuPont Circle. Barcelona isn’t closing or reducing lanes around their business district, Les Corts. DC instead is doing the exact opposite. Closing lanes downtown while not doing anything in the mixed use neighborhoods.

So this is why the details matter and just screaming “Europe” is not as impressive as you think. [/quote]

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