# car-friendly cities? Or not?



## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

There are many ways to indicate if a city or metropolitan area is car-friendly. There are also many stereotypes if a city is car friendly, or not.

Here is a list of US and some European agglomerations sorted by the number of residents per kilometer motorway/expressway/freeway. This is only an *indication* of how car-friendly a city is. 10.000 inhabitants on 1km of 2x3 or 2x5 freeway is quite different. But it shows a bit the attitude of a city towards cars; did they build many possible routes, or are they routing all traffic on one route?

Here's the list. The lower the number of residents per km, the better for cars. 

Hartford, Connecticut 4.206 per km
Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri 4.296 per km
Minneapolis, Minnesota 4.725 per km
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 4.746 per km
Orlando, Florida 5.980 per km
Cleveland, Ohio 6.413 per km
Jacksonville, Florida 6.455 per km
St Louis, Missouri/Illinois 6.685 per km
San Antonio, Texas 6.839 per km
Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas 6.973 per km
Denver, Colorado 6.691 per km
Salt Lake City, Utah 7.026 per km
Copenhagen, Denmark 7.690 per km
Oslo, Norway 7.701 per km
San Diego, California 7.886 per km
Madrid, Spain 7.895 per km
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania/Delaware/New Jersey 8.037 per km
Hampton Roads, Virginia 8.500 per km
San Francisco Bay area, California 8.532 per km
Tampa Bay, Florida 9.176 per km
Seattle, Washington 9.193 per km
Detroit, Massachusetts 9.349 per km
Houston, Texas 10.036 per km
Baltimore, Maryland 10.374 per km
Lisboa, Portugal 10.843 per km
Rhein-Ruhrgebiet, Germany 11.122 per km
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 11.168 per km
Phoenix, Arizona 11.346 per km
Portland, Oregon/Washington 11.810 per km
Greater Los Angeles, California 11.890 per km
Miami, Florida 12.223 per km
Barcelona, Spain 12.252 per km
Randstad, Netherlands 12.326 per km
Sacramento, California 12.599 per km
Boston, Massachusetts 12.732 per km
New York City, New York/New Jersey/Connecticut 12.947 per km
Stockholm, Sweden 13.328 per km
Brussel, Belgium 13.462 per km
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 13.547 per km
Las Vegas, Nevada 13.569 per km
Chicago, Illinois/Indiana 13.918 per km
München, Germany 15.439 per km
Berlin, Germany 16.358 per km
Atlanta, Georgia 16.487 per km
London, United Kingdom 18.261 per km
Milano, Italy 18.766 per km
Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland 19.594 per km
Tucson, Arizona 21.508 per km
Ile de France (Paris), France 22.982 per km
Roma, Italy 25.286 per km


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

What can we say? Well, maybe it's surprising some cities don't have that much freeways compared to the population. Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Phoenix are usually rated as very car-friendly with "many freeways". 

However, some agglomerations differ very much from eachother. Some are very dense, others aren't. The latter needs more freeways to cover an area, resulting into a lower number of inhabitants sharing one kilometer or mile. The Randstad for instance, is a whole lot different as Paris or New York.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

Interesting thread, although I still think there's no accurate formula to say if a city is car-friendlier than another city or not; we have to look at each city separately. But it's a good measurement nevertheless.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

^^ Paris is not car-friendly and is not pedestrian-friendly. 

Are you sure that the data for Paris is right ? It seem me weird that London has less residents per kilometer motorway/expressway/freeway than Paris.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Minato ku said:


> Are you sure that the data for Paris is right ? It seem me weird that London has less residents per kilometer motorway/expressway/freeway than Paris.


It surprised me too. Most if it comes into account from the M25 orbital, which is 191km long. And i counted Paris as a larger city as London, since a lot of London figures includes large rural area's, i only counted urban area's, not entire metropolitan area's.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

Another thing is if a city is car-friendly just in terms of transit, or also in the city itself (and vice-versa).


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

The number of traffic jams might be a good indicator too. 

Compare the Ruhr area to the Randstad Region. The Ruhr ofcourse has traffic jams, but it is nothing compared to the Randstad, while the Rhein-Ruhr is actually a bigger agglomeration in terms of population. 

A car friendly city does not only comes to freeways. Parking spaces, parking fares, urban roads also counts.


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## Bahnsteig4 (Sep 9, 2005)

Perhaps I'm the only one in here who is against car-friendly cities? And supporting public transport?

Sorry, but....


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

davidkunz/VIE said:


> Perhaps I'm the only one in here who is against car-friendly cities? And supporting public transport?
> 
> Sorry, but....


No, you're not the only one here. Cars are murderous to city life.


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## sonysnob (Dec 12, 2004)

Rebasepoiss said:


> No, you're not the only one here. Cars are murderous to city life.


Thats a pretty bold statement. Nowadays people seem pretty quick to bash cars, saying that everyone should use public transit ... this of course ignores why people abandoned public transit for cars in the first place ...


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

I think it's interesting to look how some cities are handling it. 

Take Kansas City. A metropolitan area of 2 million inhabitants, the only public transportation are buses, and a huge urban sprawl, the most miles of freeway per capita of all US cities and a low density.

However, this didn't turn out bad. There aren't so many traffic jams, and the traffic volumes are exceptionally low for an agglomeration of this size. The highest AADT's are 161.000 on the I-35 near Overland Park, and 135.000 on the I-70 east of Downtown. 
Despite the lack of public transportation, Kansas City is often voted most livable city.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

davidkunz/VIE said:


> Perhaps I'm the only one in here who is against car-friendly cities? And supporting public transport?
> 
> Sorry, but....


Car-unfriendly cities are often very congested. Not very livable. That's no good either. Public transport can never totally replace a car, PT and private transport are often 2 different needs, which cannot be replaced by the other. So i think it's about a good balance. The problem is often money. Sometimes, the government gives priority to public transportation while there are huge problems with traffic congestion. Others build numerous freeways while there isn't almost a public transportation. Some have a lot of money, and can do it both, but that's rare.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

sonysnob said:


> Thats a pretty bold statement. Nowadays people seem pretty quick to bash cars, saying that everyone should use public transit ... this of course ignores why people abandoned public transit for cars in the first place ...


Because people were too lazy to make a few steps? 
I can tell from my own experience that the most livable places in cities are those where there are no cars or few space for cars and lots of space for people. I have nothing against using cars in sparely populated areas because there public transport just doesn't work, but building huge roads in city centres is silly. That's why I think park & ride system is great.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

Rebasepoiss said:


> I can tell from my own experience that the most livable places in cities are those where there are no cars or few space for cars and lots of space for people.


I agree. But only in places with a lot of people and a lot of things to do, like city centers. Imagine car-free suburbs; I think they would be pretty boring.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

It's also about how visible cars are in the streetscene. 

In the Netherlands, they are building huge new suburbs, but all cars have to be parked in the streets. Everywhere you look are cars. Ofcourse there is a huge shortage of parking space, so cars are often parked in the greenery. I don't think that helps the image of a city.

A better solution is, more carparks in downtown, and parking garages in suburbs. 

A street with congestion is not very nice, but a major street without traffic would be very boring.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

Chriszwolle said:


> A street with congestion is not very nice, but a major street without traffic would be very boring.


Let's say it wouldn't be for some people. But even then I think it would be boring b/c people just wouldn't walk huge distances. And as we know the (un)effectiveness of PT, it still wouldn't be nice.


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## Bahnsteig4 (Sep 9, 2005)

City govs should try to make cars unnecessary between center and suburbs and within the city, while at the same time offering affordable alternatives, ie not like in Vienna, where, at the same time, parking fares and PT fares were raised.... :bash:


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

^^ They tried that in the Netherlands. Making unlogic routes, preferring public transportation & bicycling. 

What was the result? Ever growing traffic jams. 

I think they shouldn't keep going this way, it obvious isn't the right solution. 

They now build new neighborhoods near every larger city, but too far from the city center to take the bicycle (Dutch average is that over 7km, people prefer the car over bicycle). This generates a lot of car traffic, since buses are very slow and inefficient. 
In a lot of cities, taking the bus to the city center costs 20 - 30 minutes for 5 - 10km. People don't do that. 

You have to be realistic. Suburb to city center or office parks with public transportation is almost always slower then with the car, especially in the US with it's low-density suburbs. 

Public transportation has only a high ridership in very dense cities, like Paris, New York or Tokyo. Not in 100.000 - 500.000 cities. 

The only real efficient public transportation is the subway in my opinion. Fast, reliable and always on time due to the 5 - 10 minute intervals. However, subways are too expensive to build in cities with less than 1 million in the metropolitan area. 

And also with subways, you have the problem with low densities. Imagine how many miles of subway would be necessary to serve the Los Angeles agglomeration properly... That would be so extremely expensive.


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## TheCat (Apr 21, 2006)

I think freeways are hardly the main measurement of car friendliness, although they are a part of it. In North American standards, Toronto is considered to be quite car friendly, even though our freeway system, while developed, is incomplete due to citizens' protests against building a massive system some decades ago. And possibly that's a good thing. However, the car friendliness of Toronto is mostly in the fact that our streets are generally very wide - in downtown 2x2 is very common, and in the outer neighbourhoods (still not suburbia!) 3x3+centre turning lane are very common.

The suburbs of Toronto are basically designed for car use, which can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. Our highways are generally very jammed all the time, but it's often possible to find streets that are actually much faster than freeways in rush hours.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

> Public transportation has only a high ridership in very dense cities, like Paris, New York or Tokyo. Not in 100.000 - 500.000 cities.


Population has nothing to do with density(look at Anaheim,CA for example). What if 100,00-500,000 cities are just as dense? Same with inner suburbs.



> And also with subways, you have the problem with low densities. Imagine how many miles of subway would be necessary to serve the Los Angeles agglomeration properly... That would be so extremely expensive.


What choice do they have? They can't build more freeways and upgrading them will taking a very long time.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

I'm sure Hartford would rank low on that list, a lot of our highways planned were canceled.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Hartford is actually one of the highest, if not the highest, with 4.206 inhabitants per kilometer.


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## ØlandDK (May 29, 2005)

Don't understand why Copenhagen is that high on the list - the highst European city...


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

^^ The suburban area is counted, not only city proper. 

I didn't count far away commuter towns, but i did count those who are in the build-up area of the main city. So Søllerød, Ballerup, Greve and Køge are counted, but not Helsingborg, Holbæk or Hillerød.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

Chriszwolle said:


> Public transportation has only a high ridership in very dense cities, like Paris, New York or Tokyo. Not in 100.000 - 500.000 cities.
> 
> The only real efficient public transportation is the subway in my opinion. Fast, reliable and always on time due to the 5 - 10 minute intervals. However, subways are too expensive to build in cities with less than 1 million in the metropolitan area.


But how could they do it in Oslo then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_metro . And Oslo's metro population is only around 700 000 people.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

^^ I only counted US 1 million+ agglomerations, and some European ones to compare. 

But i could see what Oslo has


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Oslo has 109km of expressway in the greater Oslo region (Asker - Oslo - Oppegard - Lillestrøm). On a agglomeration of 839.423 makes it 7.701 inhabitants per km.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

To compare: Greater Stockholm has 1.9 million inhabitants and 146 km of expressway/motorway, making 13.238 inhabitants per km. Almost twice as Oslo's. 

For the record; Oslo, Stockholm & Copenhagen have a very american style of suburban sprawl.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

We have 250,000 inh. ÷ 40 km = 6,250 inh./km.


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## KIWIKAAS (May 13, 2003)

Some estimates from downunder.
Arguably the most Americanised part of the world outside North America. Good for a comparison.

Sydney 20800
Melbourne 15350
Brisbane 12900
Perth 17500
Auckland 12200
Adelaide 45000

Btw. The above stats are only for freeways. Expressways havent been included.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

^^ I think Ljubljana is a bit too small to compare properly.

Coastal cities are often lower in the list, because it is hard to make a good beltway in coastal areas, those beltways are a considerable length of the total freeway system. 

London, for instance, would drop from 18.261 per km to 29.229 if the orbital isn't counted. Berlin would drop from 16.358 per km to 48.431 if the Berliner Ring isn't counted. Rome would drop from 25.286 to 73.124 if the Grande Raccordo Annulare isn't counted.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

Are you sure Brisbane stands higher than Melbourne? I know Sidney sucks though.


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## KIWIKAAS (May 13, 2003)

^^
Yeah. Pretty sure. Brisbane has a population of about 1.8 million and 8 urban motorways/freeways. More on the way too. I did'nt include motorways under construction in the list so Melbourne is missing about 45km of freeway due to be opened next year.
Adelaide stands very low in the list as no expressways have been included.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Are expressways being included in the European statistics? I know for example that there are a few "freeway" grade areas in Auckland which wouldn't be included in the statistic. Roads like South Eastern Highway would be one example to add a wee bit to the Auckland total and I know that Aussie cities have quite extensive expressways.


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## KIWIKAAS (May 13, 2003)

^^
Yeah. I think the European stats rely heavily on expressway counts.
For Auckland I just counted the Northern Motorway to Albany, the Southern to Drury, the Northwestern, and the Southwestern as it is now. No proposed or sections under construction included. Apart from the eastern highway auckland does'nt really have expressways. It's either a normal road or it's a motorway generally speaking


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Atlanta in particular surprised me, from looking at it on Google Earth I see a multitude of large "freeways" radiating in all directions!


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

Best "scoring" European city :happy:

If looking aside from the car prices and parking fees Copenhagen is a pretty car friendly place - although parking can be hard to find at times in the old town.. but no car has nothing to do there anyway..

The lack of the block system also means you have main roads that doesn't have many large crossing streets so you have have "green light zones" with a high average speed making getting around town fast and convienient..

I do have something to complain over though - we need more lanes on some of our freeways - it is being done on some but it's 10-20 years too late imo!


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

KIWIKAAS said:


> ^^
> Yeah. I think the European stats rely heavily on expressway counts.


Paris & London rely indeed heavily on expressways. Madrid, Copenhagen and Barcelona don't have expressways. 

However, i only counted expressways with motorway standards. 



> although parking can be hard to find at times in the old town.. but no car has nothing to do there anyway..


Yeah, that's almost everywere the case. 



> I do have something to complain over though - we need more lanes on some of our freeways - it is being done on some but it's 10-20 years too late imo!


What are they doing on the E20 Køge - København? Widening to 2x4 lanes? During rushhour, i drove from Malmö to Roskilde, pretty busy, a short traffic jam too.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

KIWIKAAS said:


> ^^
> Yeah. Pretty sure. Brisbane has a population of about 1.8 million and 8 urban motorways/freeways. More on the way too. I did'nt include motorways under construction in the list so Melbourne is missing about 45km of freeway due to be opened next year.
> Adelaide stands very low in the list as no expressways have been included.


You're right, Melbourne has many and long motorways leading to different parts of Victoria (unlike Brisbane), but the city itself is not so full of them.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Chriszwolle said:


> Hartford is actually one of the highest, if not the highest, with 4.206 inhabitants per kilometer.












But that actually kind of shocks me. Large swaths of the Hartford area have no highways of any kind. The entire northwest suburban area, which is the richest part of the metro, have no highway. You have do go down simple roads. And considering that we have a high density now, since most of the freeways proposed were cancelled. 

Imagine how high it would be if we built them all?


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## czm3 (Dec 4, 2004)

What an odd thread. To harp on ONE statistic to show car friendlyness is silly. What about surface streets (much more important in DTs than some belt road) But most importantly, PARKING!


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Oh, when it comes to Parking, Hartford is definitely NOT car-friendly.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

czm3 said:


> What an odd thread. To harp on ONE statistic to show car friendlyness is silly.


I don't know if you read the first post properly, but i said it was an *indication*


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## czm3 (Dec 4, 2004)

Chriszwolle said:


> I don't know if you read the first post properly, but i said it was an *indication*



Fair enough, I can see where you wrote that. However, the thread has taken a course of its own and it makes the impression that this stat is the only one that matters. You, if anybody, could find the number of parking spots in any given city. Any ideas? It think it would be interesting.


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## Magnus Brage (Jun 9, 2006)

Car-friendlyness must be a city with wide streets, plenty of parking-lots, no speed-bumps, no tolls, few pedestrian-zones, no roundabouts, no bicycle-paths, few oneway streets, lots of motorways, service-stations and drivethroughs.

I like to drive but I don't want to live in a such city.

I see no russian city on that list.

Russian cities like St petersburg & Moscow are car-friendly, to the extent that so many people choose their car which results in endless traffic-jams and road rage.

A city like St Petersburg has few roundabouts, no speed-bumps, few pedestrian-zones, no tolls and no bicycle-paths, as a pedestrian you feel very unsafe crossing the street, especially if there are no traffic lights. I have never seen any bicycles at all in St Petersburg, maybe its because high risk of theft.


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## Arab countries 4life (Nov 17, 2010)

The most car unfriendly city in the world most be Fes, Morocco!


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

of capitals I think the most car-frieldy must be berlin.


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## Magnus Brage (Jun 9, 2006)

Arab countries 4life said:


> The most car unfriendly city in the world most be Fes, Morocco!


ok, lots of speed bumps and road tolls in Fes, Morocco.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Car friendly does not equal pedestrian / bicycle unfriendly in my opinion...


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

^^ Care to name any real life examples?

I am having trouble coming up with cities that are both pedestrian and car friendly (although maybe Toronto and Chicago could be a few examples I guess aside from parking).


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## I-275westcoastfl (Feb 15, 2005)

I do not consider my metro of Tampa Bay to be very car friendly, the lack of freeways, too much placement of traffic lights, and funneling too much traffic onto few major routes makes driving around a pain, dangerous, inefficient, and unfriendly. Dallas, Texas has to be the most car friendly city I've seen.


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

Actually I would say that pretty much all of Tampa Bay is pretty car friendly despite the lack of freeways.










I mean I don't really see anything in this photo that is unfriendly to cars (and I would say this scene is pretty typical of the Tampa Bay Area overall).


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Magnus Brage said:


> Car-friendlyness must be a city with wide streets, plenty of parking-lots, no speed-bumps, no tolls, few pedestrian-zones, no roundabouts, no bicycle-paths, few oneway streets, lots of motorways, service-stations and drivethroughs.


I have a slightly different vision of what does it mean to be car-friendly and I disagree with you in some assessments:

- *wide streets*: sure we need them. Yet, flow management is way more important than only the number of lanes in a given area (in terms of streets, not highways or thoroughfares). Both London and Rome are cities that weren't massively renovated with boulevards like Madrid or Paris. Both have a maze of narrow streets leading downtown. Yet, irrespective of the Congestion Charge in London or the ZTL in Rome, traffic flows way better in London because the flow there is better organized.

- *parking lots*: in residential areas, car-friendliness is measured by parking available in the property. However, sometimes is more traffic-efficient to have a parking garage in a corner of two busy streets than a lot of street parking activity going on (people driving slowly to find a spot, people interrupting traffic to maneuver in and out street parking etc.)

- *no roundabouts*: in crossings with not much traffic, a roundabout is quite efficient.

- *few one-way streets*: depending on the street pattern, a one-way street improves traffic flow by reducing flow interference from cars crossing to the left (right in UK/Australia) to enter driveways or so.



> Russian cities like St petersburg & Moscow are car-friendly, to the extent that so many people choose their car which results in endless traffic-jams and road rage.


Road rage has nothing to do with traffic jams, but with civility and public behavior.


diablo234 said:


> ^^ Care to name any real life examples?
> 
> I am having trouble coming up with cities that are both pedestrian and car friendly (although maybe Toronto and Chicago could be a few examples I guess aside from parking).


Rotterdam immediately comes to mind. Berlin is also another example for me. Even New York (Manhattan included) is quite car friendly. People like to praise Manhattan as a transit paradise, and it might be true for Downtown and Midtown. However, it is incredibly easy to drive a car in Manhattan, except for the very streets near Ground Zero and NYSE, which is barricaded on all corners. Other than that, you have one urban highway on the East River and other partial expressway by the Hudson River. Manhattan has only one issue: parking prices. Once you are willing to pay US$ 40/day, you can easily find parking even in the most densely served area and arguably the most densely occupied neighborhood in the developed world.



hofburg said:


> of capitals I think the most car-frieldy must be berlin.


For me, Berlin is a very car-accessible city. So is Stockholm and so is, to a lesser extent, Helsinki. Wien is a mixed city, some specific routes are not good (too many tram tracks or bus lanes, too large sidewalks), but in general it does well either.

On the other hand, Roma is a hell, less because anti-car policies, most because of the augmentation of Italian driving habits on our capital :lol:


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## Magnus Brage (Jun 9, 2006)

Suburbanist said:


> Road rage has nothing to do with traffic jams, but with civility and public behavior.:


Road rage is a result of mass-motorism, people tend to get more annoyed in a stressful situation, they take risks, they try to get ahead out of the queue at the expense of others. Beeing stuck in a traffic jam makes normal people go nuts, rather than if the road is clear.

The origin of the term came from USA, where vehicles per capita
is 842 per 1000 people. The highest in the world.




Suburbanist said:


> For me, Berlin is a very car-accessible city. So is Stockholm and so is, to a lesser extent, Helsinki. Wien is a mixed city, some specific routes are not good (too many tram tracks or bus lanes, too large sidewalks), but in general it does well either.
> 
> On the other hand, Roma is a hell, less because anti-car policies, most because of the augmentation of Italian driving habits on our capital :lol:


*Berlin* has wide avenues and no medevial centre, so I can imagine driving is easy there, much due to the fact that the city was ruined by the brits and americans during the war.

*Stockholm* hno: I have been working as a taxidriver for 6 years i Stockholm. 
Its accesible in the suburbs, outside the innercity gates, but the innercity is well-known for its anti-automobilism. 

*Its a mission impossible to find a parking lot.
* Some parts of town are built like a maze of oneway and deadend streets especialy "Östermalm". Still after 6 years of taxidriving it was difficult finding my way through there.
*The Old Town: No motortraffic allowed at all.


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## Fuzzy Llama (Jan 24, 2009)

Magnus Brage said:


> *Berlin* has wide avenues and no medevial centre, so I can imagine driving is easy there, much due to the fact that the city was ruined by the brits and americans during the war.


It is not. 
There are some major throughways, but once you get off one it's pretty much like in every Western city. In Mitte there are cyclists EVERYWHERE and they ride like every one of them posses whole street. It may not be a full-blown case of Dutch cyclists, but I found driving in Copenhagen less stresful and demanding than driving in Berlin.


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## Magnus Brage (Jun 9, 2006)

This is a very car unfriendly city, only a few streets on the map are allowed to use for motorvehicles. Parkingspace is sparse.










But car unfriendly means pedestrian friendly. 

I claim there is no city which is both car and pedestrianfriendly. Either the motorists have advantage or the pedestrians.

So is there a city which is completely closed to motor-traffic at all times? Probably Venice, Italy. I did'nt see any cars there but motorboats, even the carpenters, bricklayers and other handymen took their equipment by gondolas, it was very pleasant to walk in a city without any cars at all. I wonder if there are any ambulance-boats there.










I think To much cars in the city centres creates an anonomous feeling among people. You see only windscreens and no faces.

Just wondering what is the most pedestrianfriendly city (city with fewest cars and most pedestrian-zones) in North America? Is it Quebec City or Boston?

Quebec City looks like a difficult city for drivers. A skein of Narrow streets is always a deterrant for drivers. 









Boston seems to have lots of small narrowstreets which makes driving complicated.









But DownTown Houston has only straight streets forming a squarelike city centre. This is probably the easiest and most pleasant city for driving, but not a place where you want to take a stroll on a sunday afternoon.


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## hoosier (Apr 11, 2007)

sonysnob said:


> Thats a pretty bold statement. Nowadays people seem pretty quick to bash cars, saying that everyone should use public transit ... this of course ignores why people abandoned public transit for cars in the first place ...


Government enforced land use policies and massive subsidies to roads?

It seems that the government forced people to use cars as opposed to some market-driven shift.


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## Surel (May 5, 2010)

The cities should be in the first people friendly. If the people sit in their cars or not is the second issue. IMHO these cities that had huge boulevard with many lanes were same full with cars but much more uglier than the cities with narrow streets also full with cars. Anyway, there has to be some compromise to the both.

Thus. All the traffic that just transits through the center should be eliminated, or moved underground into the tunnels. Traffic that originates out of the center should take either these tunnels or very few radial freeways that stop where the real center starts. There should be available parking lots in public parking facilities. The enterance to the city center should be available, however limited. This is simple to do with either some sort of id gates for the supplying traffic and proffesions that have to attend the site of their work with car. Further traffic in the city center is unnecessary as most city centers are easily doable either on feet or with few stops of public transport within the city center limits. There is no reason why all should drive to the front of their work doors. The permits might be granted to these that prove private parking facilities within their job sites. Also if there are shopping facilities that require car acces for customers they should be equipped with private parking facilities, shopping on the site would also work as permit through the city center gates. Overall the complete number of cars that are allowed in the city center could be easily controlled in this way.

The nicest cities and places inside them are car less and mostly pedestrian zones. This comes from the simple fact. People are much smaller than cars. Therefore the space that they require to feel coasy and naturall is of much smaller proportions than that of cars. Therefore, the whole idea of car friendly city evolves from false consideration of the human psychology. On the other side, if we take the city not as a social place where we live and do our daily wherebouts but only as a place where we have to travel from place A where we live to the place B where we work and place C where we shop and then back, moreover, if we consider ourselves divided from the society (by social status, culture, whatever) and prefer our car as a protection shell accomodating this movement, then we can hypothesize about the car friendly cities.

Freeway will allways split the city community unless it is somewhere underground or somewhere above the roofs.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ I'm a little busy to rebuff this idea that cities should be made only considering humans (we could build cities ignoring the needs for electricity systems (artificial and un-human lifts?), or telecommunications (ugly cell antennas?), or sewer or whatever.

However, I dare to say about Venice: it might be a "lovely" place to visit and spend a weekend, but a hell of a place to live, where everything costs 30% more than in the continent 4km away, where you could easily have to pay € 80 for a boat to deliver you a new fridge or € 200 if you are building a new set of sofas and puffs for you room. Not surprisingly, population in Venice has been declining since WW-1.


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

Magnus Brage said:


> So is there a city which is completely closed to motor-traffic at all times? Probably Venice, Italy. I did'nt see any cars there but motorboats, even the carpenters, bricklayers and other handymen took their equipment by gondolas, it was very pleasant to walk in a city without any cars at all. I wonder if there are any ambulance-boats there.


Of course, ambulances, police, taxis, all run by boat.

Venice is not forbidden to cars: it is impossible for cars to get in simply because there are no roads.


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## Arab countries 4life (Nov 17, 2010)

Magnus Brage said:


> ok, lots of speed bumps and road tolls in Fes, Morocco.


No! It' s just a really old city! The medina has no streets, only small pedestrian streets! And I am talking about Fez only, not whole Morocco


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## Surel (May 5, 2010)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ I'm a little busy to rebuff this idea that cities should be made only considering humans (we could build cities ignoring the needs for electricity systems (artificial and un-human lifts?), or telecommunications (ugly cell antennas?), or sewer or whatever.


What is here so hard to understand? We don"t talk about power grid friendly cities, neither elevator friendly buildings, let alone sewer friendly urban areas. All these things have something in common, they serve the people that are using them and are made for people. The same thing hold for cars. The cars are just tools and means that serve the people and should make their lives easier, merrier, etc. The problem comes when we abandon this basic notion and we come with the concept, that the car is and should be the main subject of any urban planning. This is the utmost nonsence. The subject of urban planning should be the human being, whether he is using this or that to easen his life. 

Imagine building city around the idea of a car being the citizen... You would first create system of freeways and than build everything around these freeways in such a manner that every road would be dimensioned with the amount of cars that could use it at the same time at certain point.

Imagine such a city. We start with a dead end road 1x1 around which there are around 1000 garages. On the open end thus it must widen to the 2x2 to accomodate all 1000 cars in peak hour. When already 50 such streets enter this road, it has to widen to 3x3 and so on and on. The central ring road that simply hubs all other roads would habe to be of ridiculous dimensions. Just imagine (this in the people's dimensions, not car's) about why the squeres exists and how big they are and why... 

Sure, this was brought to extreme and we could take averages, possible routing habits and routing potentials, etc, into account. But this was brought up to ilustrate that the people and their needs, inside and outside of the cars, are the forming mechanism of any traffic, not the cars themselves.


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## Magnus Brage (Jun 9, 2006)

g.spinoza said:


> Of course, ambulances, police, taxis, all run by boat.
> 
> Venice is not forbidden to cars: it is impossible for cars to get in simply because there are no roads.


Of course Venice is overpriced and crowded with tourists, but despite that it's wonderful to experience a city without any cars. 

But didn't any truck or car ever enter Venice?

Around The Piazza San Marco there are some streets which could be used for motortraffic if cars were allowed, but in that case they had to take them there on a boat. 

About the Great City of Houston, it was founded in 1836 long before the debute of the automobiles. Still it's downtown is very adapted to motortraffic, it consists of very squarelike streets and freeways crossing the very core of the city.

Did authorities tear down the old parts of the city to free up space to automobiles when that era came?

The wonderful historic *City of Boston* was founded in 1630, 200 years before Houston, and 73 years before St Petersburg, Russia, but only 80 years after Helsinki, Finland. 

_BOSTON_-Probably the oldest (now existing) City in America?, did they adapt Boston to automobiles or does the old part of town still consist of narrow alleys and streets originally not built for cars but for walking people and horse carts ?


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

The grid system many American cities possess was introduced decades before the introduction of the automobile. It was just considered the best land-usage pattern in the 19th century.

Houston, 1873:


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

Magnus Brage said:


> Of course Venice is overpriced and crowded with tourists, but despite that it's wonderful to experience a city without any cars.
> 
> But didn't any truck or car ever enter Venice?


No, never. The farthest they can go is Piazzale Roma:

http://maps.google.de/maps?q=piazza...,+30135+Venedig,+Venetien,+Italien&gl=de&z=16



> Around The Piazza San Marco there are some streets which could be used for motortraffic if cars were allowed, but in that case they had to take them there on a boat.


To my knowledge, there aren't.
http://maps.google.de/maps?q=piazza...34413,12.34005&spn=0.004653,0.008256&t=h&z=18

Moreover, a motor road is not just a road in which cars fit. It's a road to go _somewhere_ with a car. Where would you go, by car, in Venice?



ChrisZwolle said:


> The grid system many American cities possess was introduced decades before the introduction of the automobile. It was just considered the best land-usage pattern in the 19th century.


The grid system was introduced by the Romans some 2500 years ago: they called it cardo-decumanus system.


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## Magnus Brage (Jun 9, 2006)

ChrisZwolle said:


> The grid system many American cities possess was introduced decades before the introduction of the automobile. It was just considered the best land-usage pattern in the 19th century.


There is probably a difference between midwest cities and cities along the east-coast.

Boston and Salem MA do not look like this, no such square-pattern, probably because other type of terrain but also because those cities are older.

Also lot of older cities changed in the 19th century, small houses were tore down to make place for grand buildings and memorials of victories in wars. Narrow streets and alleys were replaced with wide avenues, although there were no cars invented yet.

But still automobiles have changed the centre of cities more than any war.


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## Magnus Brage (Jun 9, 2006)

g.spinoza said:


> No, never. The farthest they can go is Piazzale Roma:
> 
> .


Do you need a permit to go to Piazzale Roma? Is it possible to drop off passengers there, must be crowded place for cars if this is the only spot in Venice where all the cars have to park ?

Also Probably costs a fortune to park there, I´m glad I arrived by train, when I visited Venice in 2008.


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

Magnus Brage said:


> Do you need a permit to go to Piazzale Roma? Is it possible to drop off passengers there, must be crowded place for cars if this is the only spot in Venice where all the cars have to park ?
> 
> Also Probably costs a fortune to park there, I´m glad I arrived by train, when I visited Venice in 2008.


No special permit, just park and pay your parking 
It is expensive, though, more or less 30 euro per day. 

Piazzale Roma isn't the only spot to park your car, a whole artificial island is devoted to this: it's Tronchetto Island, where a big indoor parking is located (and it's cheaper too, "only" 21 euro per day).


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## Surel (May 5, 2010)

Many of these wide boulevards were introduced before the automobilism, sure. However, the chariots were used at those times in huge quantities already. These are even bigger than average car.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Wide boulevards were very practical in case of city fires.


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## Surel (May 5, 2010)

Lets look at the metamorphosis of one square in Prague (Václavské náměstí).

Middle ages: The New Prague"s Town is just founded (cca 1350) as an extension to the Old Town on the right side of the river Vltava. The square I am talking about is the long line in the right middle, ending with "Koňská brána" meaning the Horse's gate, the square served and was named as a Horse market.









1720:









???:









1890???









????:









???:









1920:









2000:









Future???


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

ChrisZwolle said:


> Wide boulevards were very practical in case of city fires.


But so were stone buildings and firewalls.


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## nanar (Apr 12, 2005)

Suburbanist said:


> However, I dare to say about Venice: it might be a "lovely" place to visit and spend a weekend, but a hell of a place to live, where everything costs 30% more than in the continent 4km away, where you could easily have to pay € 80 for a boat to deliver you a new fridge or € 200 if you are building a new set of sofas and puffs for you room.


Yes, everybody needs absolutely to change the fridge or new set of sofas many times each year. (_I keep mine more than 10 years_)
In the opposite, average cost of standard car in Europe (except in Venice) is around 4 or 5000 euros per year.


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

nanar said:


> Yes, everybody needs absolutely to change the fridge or new set of sofas many times each year. (_I keep mine more than 10 years_)
> In the opposite, average cost of standard car in Europe (except in Venice) is around 4 or 5000 euros per year.


Yes, but Venetians substitute cars with private boats... which are costly, too.


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## link_road_17/7 (Aug 16, 2007)

I'd say Milton Keynes is both car-friendly and pedestrian/cyclist friendly.

CMK (the CBD) has plenty of parking (some of which is still cheap/free) and pedestrians/cyclists are segregated from fast-flowing traffic by a network of underpasses and footpaths. Pedestrians are protected from rain/wind by a network of pagoda/roof structures along these.

Outside the CBD, each suburb/district is boxed in by fast-flowing grid roads, meaning through traffic is removed. This makes for a more pleasant, lower speed residential areas. Cyclists and pedestrians are catered for by a segregated 'Redway' network of cycleways and footpaths, again avoiding fast traffic. Speed limits for vehicles generally are 40-60-70mph on grid roads. Within the districts 20-30mph is the norm.

Wayfinding is easy with a street pattern based on H (horizontal) and V (vertical) numbers.


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## flierfy (Mar 4, 2008)

link_road_17/7 said:


> I'd say Milton Keynes is both car-friendly and pedestrian/cyclist friendly.


I doubt that. The distances in MK are far too great to be pedestrian friendly. And there is just one town centre to walk to.


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## Tom 958 (Apr 24, 2007)

flierfy said:


> I doubt that. The distances in MK are far too great to be pedestrian friendly. And there is just one town centre to walk to.


Yeah, but this thread is about car-friendly cities.  And Milton Keynes was designed to be one.

What about some of the other British New Towns? Washington? Runcorn? It's known for its busway, but its main roads are all essentially motorways, and at a network density that'd give Wendell Cox a boner. Even Cumbernauld has an elaborate high-speed road system, though that's not its, uh, claim to fame.


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## Snowguy716 (Apr 10, 2009)

The Twin Cities are very "high" on the list, in 3rd place. This is because Minneapolis and St. Paul have a very high number of freeways... but none of them are particularly huge like Houston or Dallas or Los Angeles.

Many are now being upgraded to 2x3... but many still remain 2x2 and the highest AADT is just under 200,000 on 35W just south of downtown Minneapolis which is now 2x5.


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## hammersklavier (Jan 29, 2010)

Road width is important.

For instance, Philadelphia is organized as a grid, which has historically been considered the most optimal way of laying out a city. So is Houston. But Philadelphia streets have a width of only 50 ft.* (lot line to lot line), with 10 ft. on either side reserved for sidewalks, leaving only 30 ft. of carriageway space. Most streets in the city are thus either one through lane and two parking lanes, or two through lanes and one parking lane. This makes the streets in the city core quite difficult to travel by car, even though the grid network maximizes interconnectivity for all modes of travel. Center City Philadelphia is best walked.**

*Except Market and Broad Streets (100 ft.), and other crosstown boulevards (Spring Garden, Lehigh, Washington, etc.), with varying widths.

**Among other things, this makes light rail (as opposed to trolleys) in Philadelphia impractical.


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## maniei (Sep 22, 2009)

I live in Germany, where most of the destroyed cities where rebuilt as car-friendly cities after WW2. They followed the American example.

Today I can tell you in all seriousness that all the ugly cities I know here, happen to be cities that were made car friendly after the war.

All the beautiful cities are those with the old city pattern still intact, and the city-centers being large pedestrain zones with only public transport having entrance to them. To keep the cars away, car-friendliness only exists with a good distance around the city-center. 

And in my opinion thats the best way you can do it.

Declare a city center and keep it sacred.
Only permit public transport entrance to it (and the suppliers for the stores of course)
If possible, build a ring around the center, as the closest cars can get, and build parkings along that ring.
Provide park & ride systems outside the ring, so that from every district of the city people can access the center.

>>>And you have the perfect foundation for a great city!


I have so got used to this system, that I won't accept anything less anymore.
Its really irritating for me when I'm out for shopping, want to relax or enjoy some culture, I have cars passing me and have to swallow their noise.


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