What Happened When They Banned Cars

every city has its main street you know the street that's most likely to host a parade in san francisco that's market street market street is a straight shot from the ferry building an embarcadero along the waterfront to the hills in the center of the city it's also unique because it serves as the scene between two different urban grids it's been a busy and sometimes chaotic street for over a century this footage taken mere weeks before the san francisco earthquake of 1906 shows the bustling street complete with cars transit and pedestrians all jostling for space other archival footage shows essentially the same traffic but in different eras here's the street 1941 and here it is again in 1955. main streets like this are meant to be busy and bustling but traffic can make it so that all users regardless of mode find it hard to use that's what happened with market street and over the years numerous attempts were made to solve the congestion problems one 1960 proposal called for a monorail to run along the street the bart metro system opened along the corridor in 1972 but traffic issues lingered even while market street went into a decline city residents were moving to the suburbs and stores and offices went with them finally in 2009 the city began a program known as better market street to improve traffic and help provide the iconic corridor between 2009 and 2020 the city began restricting private vehicle movement along parts of the street to reduce congestion and conflicts between transit vehicles pedestrians cyclists and cars and in january 2021 almost exactly a year ago the city prohibited private vehicles on market street how did it go well car traffic did not get worse on adjacent streets and transit vehicles are able to move through the corridor faster and on-time performance jumped market street is just one example of a street that got better once the city banned cars and while the city's making physical changes to the street to better accommodate this new transportation mix it doesn't really take much more than some signage and paint to get started let's take a tour of some streets that have simply removed private cars and seen some impressive benefits after the bike belt before we check out another us-based example we must first make the requisite tour of superior urbanism abroad it's not uncommon for high streets in england to restrict private vehicles and only allow delivery vehicles in transit it's incredibly common to see streets in europe meant for trams and people and bikes and europe doesn't have a monopoly on nice tram streets george street in sydney is another great example of the genre just look at that tram isn't it great a lot of these european and australian examples look like they've been designed or redesigned to perfectly accommodate transit and people they've taken a street that looks like it was designed for cars just without cars to something we in the us would classify as a transit mall these are streets where the transit is the number one priority and is designed to reflect that fact here in the united states some cities operate transit malls too let's take a look at the spectrum of car use on streets for a second i think pedestrian malls or plazas and transit malls are the final evolution of streets they've been purposely designed for their mode and they don't allow cars on them they are amazing on the other end of the spectrum are the suburban arterials that are outright hostile to anyone not in a car in fact they're even dangerous for people in cars with their high speeds in multiple lanes in between we have a variety of safer streets that accommodate a mix of modes i want to focus on the spot in the spectrum or market street is it's still designed to be a fairly normal street but there are no cars allowed functionally it may be about the same as many transit malls but it still hasn't grown into that evolution from a design perspective it's still an ivysaur waiting to become a venusaur if you know what i mean though the metaphor doesn't really work because bulbasaurs are adorable and suburban arterials are terrible anyway let's go look at a particularly nice ivysaur in madison wisconsin state street runs between the campus of the university of wisconsin-madison and the country's nicest state capitol right in the middle of capitol square at first glance it may look like a normal street it's got your normal sidewalk curb gutter and street trees but what it doesn't have is private vehicles in 1974 cars were banned madison did redesign the street but their primary change was making the sidewalks wider while keeping the curb and gutter today the roadway can be used by buses delivery vehicles and emergency vehicles and that's about it pedestrians tend to stay on the sidewalks as vehicles come often enough to keep them out but the lack of cars makes it a really pleasant street it's quieter and calmer state street proves that removing cars can work on a major street just like market street in san francisco if there are two things that people know about madison is that it's the wisconsin state capitol and the home of uw-madison if there are two more things people should know it's that it has a soccer team with one of the best crests ever and it's one of my favorite cities i mean look at that isthmus but the point is that state street connects the capital and the university two major job centers that's the kind of situation where you'd expect a lot of traffic yet by banning cars altogether state street sidesteps that issue and the great thing about banning cars on streets is that spillover traffic to other parallel streets either doesn't happen or happens in small numbers it's sort of like the opposite of induced demand if adding lanes on a highway encourages more people to drive on it reducing car lanes downtown discourages people from driving there it also shows that retail can survive without cars state street has been a mix of quirky local restaurants and shops mixed with national chains for as long as i can remember even in the cold cold wisconsin winters people are okay with braving the elements on foot to shop or dine in fact a study of retail businesses on the corridor found that it was losing shops in the post-war years to suburban shopping centers and removing cars actually brought businesses back now many of those people might be college students who might be more able-bodied and robust than the rest of us and indeed having a high residential density nearby like college students and dorms certainly helps businesses and the viability of a car free street having two major anchors at either end of a relatively short street only 1.2 kilometers also helps but madison isn't the only city in the united states with a busy street in a dense area there are plenty of state streets waiting to happen in cities around the country there's another great more recent example of banning cars this time on the east coast the 14th street busway in manhattan began as a pilot in 2019 and was made permanent in 2020 14th street forms the northern boundary of lower manhattan and runs by union square the busway is designated between 3rd and 9th avenues it's a major transit corridor the l train runs underneath the street and many of new york city's subway lines connect along 14th i know that the term busway makes it sound suspiciously like a transit mall but we're still in ivysaur territory here the city simply painted bus truck only on red paint at every intersection cars making local trips are still allowed and it's open to all traffic between 10 pm and 6 am though small changes though have made a big difference the m14 select bus service new york's version of express buses now runs nine minutes faster on the corridor while traffic on parallel streets barely runs slower ridership is up too which is no surprise now that the bus is extra express as a bonus cycling is also increased market street state street and 14th street are all proof that you don't need to do much to ban cars and for a little effort you can see some outcomes ranging from not much change to big improvements let's head back to san francisco to see what they did to make market street car free and how they plan to take their ivysaur into venusaur territory the city conducted a survey of road users after they initially closed market street to private vehicles one of the primary concerns voiced was not about eliminating cars but not doing enough to make it safe to bike it's not enough just to get rid of private cars when bikes still have to share lanes with taxis and trucks people called for a dedicated curb lane for bikes and the city largely agreed the fully redesigned market street would go curbless like many of those european tram streets and have dedicated lanes for trolley buses and buses and there's the dedicated curbside bike lanes market street sidewalks are already quite wide but would receive amenity upgrades like better lighting and street furnishings the overall goal is to create a cohesive design for the corridor designed with the idea that there would no longer be private cars on it but the beauty of san francisco's approach is that they started the same way the 14th street busway started with some science and paint their quick build project proved that removing cars from a busy main street was not only possible but preferable the city has his eye on major upgrades to the street to make it san francisco's challenge but finding it harder to accomplish than originally thought but the public seems to fundamentally agree that no cars is the right move and can benefit from that decision while the city figures out how to evolve the corridor i hope that market tree can rival some of the best streets in europe someday one of those fancy tram streets i talked about at the beginning but if you want to hear even more about european trams i have you covered i've uploaded a bonus video on the fascinating history of european tram streets over on nebula and if you're not interested in trams well i might still have you covered i have six other videos not available on youtube and i add a new one each month i also have 16 videos with bonus content not available on youtube there are tons of other exclusive videos on nebula 2 from real life lore mustard and more and as another bonus there aren't any ads like this on nebula the deal gets even better because nebula is bundled with curiosity stream curiosity stream is the source for high quality engaging documentaries you'll love the cities of tomorrow series that tackles topics like vertical farming smart cities and the process of creating brand new cities it's the perfect series for someone interested in cities like you probably are we have a great deal where if you sign up for curiosity stream using the link below you get nebula for free it's not a free trial but free as long as you're a curiosity stream member and they're running a special deal where you can get an entire year for 26 off that's less than 15 a year for curiosity stream and nebula signing up is a great way of supporting this channel as well as the dozens of other great creators working to make nebula a success it's just a really overall great deal too so click on the link on the screen and get 26 percent off you

Channel: City Beautiful

Views: 1,407,021

Keywords: city planning, town planning, urban planning, urban design

Id: JcgGiHZoWBc

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 22 2022