Canada and the World

        Current Events with a Canadian Perspective

 

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20 June 2011

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Urban Congestion

 

 

Among the most common city scenes are daily traffic jams. An estimated 10 million Canadians hit the road every day just to go to work. All those vehicles have to park somewhere leading to the paving of vast areas of urban land

 

Walid Hassanein

The morning commute in Cairo, Egypt.

 

Here’s how carfree.com, a group that favours banning private automobiles from city streets, sums up urban congestion:

“The industrialized nations made a terrible mistake when they turned to the automobile as an instrument of improved urban mobility. The car brought with it major unanticipated consequences for urban life and has become a serious cause of environmental, social, and aesthetic problems in cities. The urban automobile:

• Kills street life;
• Damages the social fabric of communities;
• Isolates people;
• Fosters suburban sprawl;
• Endangers other street users;
• Blots the city’s beauty;
• Disturbs people with its noise;
• Causes air pollution;
• Slaughters thousands every year;
• Exacerbates global warming;
• Wastes energy and natural resources;
• Impoverishes nations.

 

“The challenge is to remove cars and trucks from cities while at the same time improving mobility and reducing its total costs.”

 

Cars Banned from City Centres

Dozens of cities around the world have banned cars from downtown neighbourhoods and historic districts: Prague in the Czech Republic doesn’t allow vehicles in its medieval quarter; Venice, Florence, Rome, Siena in Italy (left); Geneva, and Zurich in Switzerland; Freiburg in Germany, Groningen, and Delft in the Netherlands; Paris and Lyon in France; Vienna and Salzburg in Austria; as well as parts of towns and cities in Spain, Portugal, and Greece all have car-free areas.

 

Most of the old heart of Stockholm in Sweden is car-free during the day. In Copenhagen, 80 percent of the movement through the city centre is foot traffic. Over a period of 40 years, the city gradually transformed 100,000 square metres of its core area from a traffic-dominated centre to people-friendly public squares and promenades.

 

British Capital Congestion Eased

London, England has done much to cure its chronic congestion by charging hefty fees for vehicles entering the city centre. In February 2003, the British capital started a controversial experiment to reduce traffic congestion in its core.

 

Grid lock became so bad in the city that average traffic speed in central London was the same as it was in horse-and-buggy days - about 15 kilometres an hour and as slow as two kilometres an hour in places.

 

The city has done a lot to cure its chronic congestion by charging hefty fees for vehicles entering the city centre between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on weekdays. The $12.50-a-day charge - and a $200 fine if the fee isn’t paid - worked.

 

A year later, traffic in the 20-square-kilometre designated area was down by 18 percent during the day. Bus ridership was up by 29,000 passengers a day, a 38 percent jump, and traffic delays were down by about 30 percent.

 

One of the reasons it worked so well is thought to be the massive investment that was made in the bus network at the same time: new buses replaced some of the aging fleet, and bus shelters were updated with electronic displays telling riders when the next bus is due.

 

Traffic Banning in North America

Many cities in North America have also closed off streets to cars or designed pedestrian malls that offer no access to vehicles.

 

In Canada, Calgary has several blocks devoted to a pedestrian mall, and more than 16 km of passages connecting many buildings in the downtown area.

 

Montreal has 30 kilometres of underground car-free passages that link about 60 large commercial, administrative, and apartment buildings in downtown.

 

Toronto has a similar underground network downtown, and Ottawa includes six blocks of pedestrian-only shopping on Sparks Street (left) just south of the Parliament Buildings.

 

In the United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota has eight km of enclosed overhead passageways in the commercial/retail heart of the city. Stanford University in California has designated 16 blocks on campus as car-free during the day, with only pedestrians, bikes, and some buses allowed.

 

Berkeley, California has developed such a good public transportation system that it continues to deliver almost one in five residents to work every day - four times the national and state average. The heart of the commercial district in old downtown Boston, Massachusetts includes several car-free streets. Similarly in New Orleans, Louisiana. Cities in Central America, South America, and Asia all have car-free sections.

 

Bogota, Colombia has a huge network of bicycle paths and the world’s longest corridor of pedestrian streets. The city of seven million people also has an acclaimed transit system in which buses have their own special roadways, outpacing private vehicles for ease and speed.

 

On Sundays, 57 kilometres of major avenues are closed to traffic. Some of Tokyo’s major shopping areas are also closed to auto traffic on Sundays, and these areas have come to be known as “pedestrian paradises.” In addition, the city has a car-free network of underground passages and shopping centres used by an estimated three million people a day.

 

Image credit

Rodrigo Soldon

Salim Virji

 

© Canada and the World, June 2011

All rights reserved

 

In Canada, the Urban Futures Institute estimated that there were more than 16 million vehicles owned by households by 2002.

 

PRIVATE ENCLAVES

 

Some people are not shutting cars out of their neighbourhoods but they’re closing themselves off in what have been dubbed “master-planned communities” run by private housing associations.

 

According to the Community Associations Institute, half the new home sales in big cities in the U.S. are in managed communities (47 million, or one in six, Americans) that target various groups from gun enthusiasts (pun not intended) to retirees.

 

Often, homeowners in these communities pay fees for a variety of services ranging from maintaining roads, and parks, to security.

 

Increasingly, residents have to agree to various rules and regulations that govern everything from the size of dog they can own to the colours they can paint their house.

 

Planned communities in some ways go back to small-town times when people worked, lived, and played within their neighbourhoods.

 

People want to be within 15 minutes of their jobs, or shops, rather than spending hours every day sitting in traffic. But, critics say these communities are only for the affluent, and that because they choose to pay for the services in their private enclaves, they’re no longer inclined to support public services. That eventually will lead to their further decline, and possibly a kind of “caste society,” where poor people are stuck with crumbling public housing, public schools, and public transportation.

 

Other planned communities are more inclusive, and operate on a cooperative basis. Greenbelt, Maryland, for example, was started by the U.S. federal government in 1935 during the Depression when millions of people were homeless and out of work. The city now has a population of about 21,000 and continues to operate as a cooperative venture with a co-op newspaper staffed by volunteers and run by a board made up of Greenbelt residents.

 

The community also has a co-op café, supermarket, nursery school, and bank.

 

Residents include blue-collar workers and university professors living next door to each other. The original town, now known as Old Greenbelt, was designed for residents to be able to go everywhere on foot, and many in the original core still do. The city has expanded on the same principle: newer areas have community centres and neighbourhood associations and other forms of self-government, with committees and organizations that try to involve people from all parts of town.

 

In Canada, Toronto’s St. Lawrence neighbourhood, is a mixed community of subsidized housing, co-ops, and condominium townhouses blended with market-value housing.

 

Social problems in the community are said to be rare compared with other social-housing schemes that segregate assisted housing from the surrounding neighbourhood.

 

What residents of this community worry about is that it could become less diverse and more elitist as it grows in popularity, and attracts luxury developments for the affluent.