Berlin's Popular Shopping Streets Will Go Car-Free (citylab.com) 160
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CityLab: Berlin is finally getting a fuller taste of the car-free trend that's taking hold in other European cities. This summer, the German capital has announced plans to pedestrianize some vital central streets starting in October. One experiment will ban cars from the main section of Friedrichstrasse, a long, store-filled thoroughfare that, before World War II, was considered the city's main shopping street. Another will test daily closures on Tauentzienstrasse, another key retail street, with a view toward going permanently car-free in 2020.
Since reunification, Friedrichstrasse has almost regained its pre-war reputation as a primary shopping destination, and it's worth watching to see if that actually happens when its department stores and boutiques are accessible only by foot, bike and public transit. Tauentzienstrasse, meanwhile, is one of western Berlin's main competitors to Friedrichstrasse -- a broad boulevard that's home to continental Europe's largest department store. At Tauentzienstrasse, the street is wide enough for a more radical makeover. If it's fully closed for good, it could accommodate cafes and what Germans call "lying meadows" -- lawns intended for lounging and sunbathing -- in its median. Such changes probably make as much sense commercially as they do environmentally. While some stores may worry that restricted vehicle access could deter shoppers, in the age of online shopping, it pays to make the location of your store pleasant enough to lure people who simply want to hang out. There are efforts to go even further by banning cars in inner Berlin by 2030, after an interim congestion charge.
CityLab also notes that this Saturday a group of activists who favor a city-wide car ban "are planning a demonstration intended to temporarily shut down Western Berlin's Sonnenallee, a long avenue bisecting the fast-gentrifying working-class district of Neukolln." The demonstration is hoping to pressure policymakers to free the space from private cars, as traffic can be deafeningly loud.
Since reunification, Friedrichstrasse has almost regained its pre-war reputation as a primary shopping destination, and it's worth watching to see if that actually happens when its department stores and boutiques are accessible only by foot, bike and public transit. Tauentzienstrasse, meanwhile, is one of western Berlin's main competitors to Friedrichstrasse -- a broad boulevard that's home to continental Europe's largest department store. At Tauentzienstrasse, the street is wide enough for a more radical makeover. If it's fully closed for good, it could accommodate cafes and what Germans call "lying meadows" -- lawns intended for lounging and sunbathing -- in its median. Such changes probably make as much sense commercially as they do environmentally. While some stores may worry that restricted vehicle access could deter shoppers, in the age of online shopping, it pays to make the location of your store pleasant enough to lure people who simply want to hang out. There are efforts to go even further by banning cars in inner Berlin by 2030, after an interim congestion charge.
CityLab also notes that this Saturday a group of activists who favor a city-wide car ban "are planning a demonstration intended to temporarily shut down Western Berlin's Sonnenallee, a long avenue bisecting the fast-gentrifying working-class district of Neukolln." The demonstration is hoping to pressure policymakers to free the space from private cars, as traffic can be deafeningly loud.
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Well she did not. And she did not open any borders. This is Schengen area. The borders are open. Merkel just helped Hungary and the refugees, because the Hungarian government was unable and unwilling to comply with the treaty. Therefore, Merkel did the human/christian choice and helped people in need. Western values at its best.
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Who is we. I never heard of that before. Beside that it is rude and dehumanizing terminology.
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There has been 1 in letters ONE incident in years. And that only happened because investigators did not intervene on time. And it was in 2016. No mass shootings or terror attacks in Germany since then. You are 32 more likely to be involved in mass murder events in the US than in any EU country.
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Did those Red Army soldiers take German cars back to Russia?
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France has soldiers? News to me? I thought they just hoist up the white flag at the first sign of trouble, and offer their women to the invaders.
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France did not "try to stop the Nazi machine". They literally just gave up immediately.
Re:Berlin pioneered car free trend (Score:4, Informative)
France did not "try to stop the Nazi machine". They literally just gave up immediately.
The Battle of France [wikipedia.org] lasted for 46 days, from May 10th, 1940. The French Army suffered more than 85,000 killed and over 120,000 more wounded.
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The Battle of France [wikipedia.org] lasted for 46 days, from May 10th, 1940.
It's actually more like 8 months if you include the period between when the war started and when the Germans pushed through the Low Countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Did you actually *read* that article?!
Did you?
Are you seriously defending the French from accusations of cowardice by linking a freaking *Phoney War* wiki link?!
Nope....but I definitely won't defend you from accusations of Anonymous Cowardice.
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lasted for 46 days....suffered more than 85,000 killed and over 120,000 more wounded.
I guess some people calculate this to "literally immediately." Not quite sure where they learned math. Seems pretty fun though!
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The USSR had thousands of km of inhospitable terrain, which had to be slogged through to get to anything valuable (Moscow). This gave the Russians defence in depth, and a chance to mobilize, and build up their industry.
The French, on the other hand had to deal with a surprise attack which bypassed most of their defences and brought artillery in range of Paris within days. With their capital over a barrel, surrender was the only thing they could do to avoid the slaughter of millions of civilians.
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Where by "inhospitable terrain" you basically mean the country of Belarus, which they burned to the ground with Belarussians locked inside barns.
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You are an idiot. But I'm not allowed to point that out anymore. I have to find a better word, hm, perhaps yiu are an "no nothing"? But that is to long ...
It's been nearly two decades since 911 (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought they just hoist up the white flag at the first sign of trouble, and offer their women to the invaders.
Okay, we understand. You were pretty pissed that France (and several other of our Europan countries) were against you waging war upon Iraq.
So you needed some stupid meme to bash the French and came up with this "surrender monkey" stuff, to complement your retardation about s/french/freedom/ on {fries,kisses} etc.
It's been nearly two decades now, everybody has seen how much your invasion was a great idea (hint: it was not) and valid the excuse about WMD was (hint: was neither).
I think you can drop the meme.
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Or, you know, the fact that France immediately surrendered to the Nazis might have something to do with the "surrender monkey" meme, which is a bit older than the Gulf War.
Glossing over details (Score:2)
Or, you know, the fact that France immediately surrendered to the Nazis
I won't point out that it's absurdly ignoring some facts [wikipedia.org] (length of time, casualties involved. It's not exactly as if french government immediately surrendering right after Germany declares war), other have already mentioned it in this thread.
might have something to do with the "surrender monkey" meme, which is a bit older than the Gulf War.
The depiction of French people as eager to surrender certainly rose tremendously in popularity around the same time as the freedom fries, freedom toast and freedom kisses non-sense. (at least in the online experience I had back then, Europhobia rose quite a bit the mom
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Why would it ever be better to stop mocking the French? What nonsense. That's our "special relationship" with the French.
Jokes like "for sale: French military rifle, never fired, dropped once" go back to the 40s.
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So you needed some stupid meme to bash the French and came up with this "surrender monkey" stuff, to complement your retardation about s/french/freedom/ on {fries,kisses} etc.
The notion that the French are prone to quick surrender (accuracy aside) long pre-dates 9/11. My grandpa, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, told me the joke about getting a good deal on a French battle rifle ("Never fired, only dropped once") in the late 1970s.
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In the book "33 laws of war" by Robert Green there is a statement that the French army is the most successful one in history. Of course one can argue about the metrics of such claim. In this case it was battles fought vs. battles won/lost with a side dish of fatalities ratio inflicted by both sides.
Surrendered the women? Yhea, kind off....many of those women gathered vital intelligence for the guerilla fighters and participated in setting ambushes, or even killing high ranking German officers, you know. Wom
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And how did you get that stupid idea?
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France has soldiers? News to me? I thought they just hoist up the white flag at the first sign of trouble, and offer their women to the invaders.
If it wasn't for the French, Seppoland, sorry USA, would still be in the Commonwealth.
Then you might have gotten involved in ww2 much earlier when the war was much harder to fight, instead of only doing something much later because you were afraid that if Russia beat the Germans, they would have gone all the way to France and Wall St. would have lost a lot of money.
Single streets (Score:2)
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That hard to believe. Berlin is just a few hours from where I live, I’m there often for business and leisure and I have yet to meet a person being terrified that someone would drive a car into a crowd.
That would be no Berlin reaction.
I can imagine that someone in the Black Forest or Thüringen has those fears, though, but those are the people who vote for Nazis in an area without any immigrants.
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As Bruce Schneier has long said, "terrorists don't hate airplanes". They don't hate shopping crowds either. They just do whatever's easiest to make a splash, and no matter what you do, there will always be something easiest.
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That terrified guy (or your conclusion about feelings of safety) sound rather far from reality.
As far as actual safety is concerned, I suspect it's probably the opposite:
Just because (most) cars aren't allowed somewhere at some times of the day, doesn't mean that it's impossible to go there by car (for example, shopping street means delivery vans will need access).
From a driving-a-car-into-a-crowd point of view, this sounds more like creating another worthwhile target unless
Re: Single streets (Score:2)
Re:Single streets (Score:5, Informative)
Most german cities have pedestrian only zones.
Berlin has plenty, too.
They are just adding another one.
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I think we should close all city streets and turn the parkways into actual parkways. The only place left to drive will be driveways. Next up will be separating apartments.
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Nah, freeways are the opposite of toll roads, and highways are roads built up to be straight and level. All these words originally meant what they say, you know. Just as most English words are spelled exactly as they sound (when they entered the language),
Re: Single streets (Score:2)
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While shopping is possible there, much of it also is bars, cafes, and restaurants.
This is what happens when you start to block of too large an area from private vehicles. It becomes more attractive as a party zone and less so for retail business.
Back to my Amsterdam example: the 'pedestrian mall', Nieuwendijk, is bordered by major roads a block on either side with parking and transit access. This makes it attractive to shoppers. 1 km to the East, the neighborhood is so old, with narrow roads and bridges that it is effectively 'no vehicles'. That area is given over to the bars, coffee sh
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Vienna and Bratislava also have nice pedestrian only areas.
Re:Single streets (Score:5, Interesting)
Vienna and Bratislava also have nice pedestrian only areas.
Most European cities have, but it's quite interesting to point out Vienna. There was a massive uproar a few years back when they declared Mariahilferstrasse a pedestrian zone. People acted as if the world was going to end. Shops lobbied against it saying that people will no longer visit the street and everyone will go bust.
The reality was the exact opposite. There's more patronage in that street now than there ever was and that is helped a good deal by the fact the street (quite a long one) has 2 metro stops allowing people to easily access it.
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Exactly. It is far more pleasant to have stroll through a city center when there are no cars blocking half the sidewalk and the sidewalks themselves aren't as crowded.
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Chicago had the reverse experience. The main shopping street (State Street) was turned into a pedestrian mall and it essentially destroyed the city center. State Street wasn't an important traffic route (Michigan Avenue is a far larger and more important north/south street and only a few blocks away) but something about the lack of traffic made the area feel like a bad suburban mall rather than a vital part of the city. The major retail outlets eventually failed (part of this was due to larger trends in ret
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Single streets aren't a big deal once the change has been made and people are used to it. Single streets are a big deal when a change is being proposed.
Only good things will ultimately come of it, but there will be quite a bit of disruption in the process.
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Re:PPH is a liar in defense of a Chi-Com spying ar (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck FUD bitches who lie as if there's no consequence. Fuck you for defending that. Capiche? Get fucked.
I knew it! You are looking for a cigar!
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European countries have far less fear of nudity than us English-speaking nations
We are importing that fear. North African immigrants are deeply ashamed of their own nudity, but they aren't shy to comment or stare at others. The result: at schools, boys are taking showers in their underwear now. Topless sunbathing at beaches was once fairly common but no one does it anymore. Billboards with half naked ladies are defaced regularly, and don;t be mistaken to think that Londons mayor banned such posters out of modern notions about women in society, that was fundamentalist religion riding th
it's about effecting time. (Score:4, Informative)
Germans ate about as crazy about their cars as USians about their guns. Decisions like these take eons.
Unlike USians we do have strict license requirements. That's why we can go without speed limit on 60% of the autobahn and still have measurably less death in traffic than in the USA.
However, congestion is insane in some places such as the cities. Germans spend 4.7 billion man hours in traffic jams per year.
This Berlin decision is long overdue.
My 2 eurocents.
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I love driving on the Autobahn. Not because of the lack of a speed limit, but because most Germans seem to be decent, considerate and competent drivers, and driving there is a relaxing experience. For those who think German drivers are nothing of the kind: come on down to the Netherlands for a day to compare...
My weekly commute takes me between the Netherlands and Germany. To be honest there's not much difference other than Germans get out of the way earlier due to a fear of being rear ended. In both cases the typical driver is courteous to get out of the lane while at the same time being a raging tailgating arsehole if they themselves are blocked by someone in front of them. Though the Dutch are far more likely to cut you off.
To be honest though I find highway driving more relaxing in the Netherlands compared to
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Germans ate about as crazy about their cars as USians about their guns.
Errr no they really aren't. Germans are crazy for german cars and fast cars should they find the need to own a car, but in major cities there's no larger car ownership rate than any other non German city (a few special cases such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen excepted off course.
Car sharing companies are big in Germany and many cities have excellent cycling / public transport infrastructure making owning a car superfluous.
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And it's considered normal, which is why those who drive in Europe tend to be those that want to drive, and not need to drive.
In the US, driving is mandatory pretty much. You can't really get anywhere far otherwise. So you have a population forced to do something they don't really want to do, hence all the distracted driving.
In Europe, if you don't want to drive,
Re: it's about effecting time. (Score:2)
Does it though? I was US citizen myself and I don't think it sounds condescending.
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I promise you that nobody outside of the United States of America is calling themselves Americans. Nobody is being mislead. The endonym for someone from the United States of America is "American". In the English language, there is no confusion as to it's meaning. If you think that term "American" also includes someone from Canada or Brazil, well I don't know what to say beyond stop being so obtuse.
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What alternative that is less stupid could we use?
"American" is the de facto standard, but clearly incorrect.
"Yankee" and "Gringo" is derogatory in some cases and too casual for many occasions.
In my first language, we do use "north-americans" but it is still incorrect and a bit of a mouthful. So ... stick with the stupid and incorrect standard?
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I'd suggest "dipshits". Easy to say, and everyone will know who you mean.
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Yankee is derogatory if you live in the southern US, because it refers to people who live in the north east... you know, the ones who made the southerners give up their slaves. Internationally, "Yankee", or more often "Yank" is used to refer to USians, but it's not really accurate either.
Liguistics: -an/-ian (Score:2)
stop using the word USian. It makes you sound stupid and/or condescending.
What is condescending in using USian, please explain ?
-an/-ian are pretty common suffix for demonyms [wikipedia.org] (name for people who come from some place). .
See Europe an , Austri an , Itali an Bulgari an even Americ an (!).
Heck, in French the accepted demonym is litteraly états-unien
What's wrong with using USian ?!?
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What's wrong with using USian ?!?
It is conflicting with his dreams about a greater America!
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The endonym that the people of the United States use for themselves is "American". We'd generally preferred to be referred to as such, is that so hard to understand?
As for the term that is used in French, that's fine, it's a different language and is in common usage. English certainly has enough exonyms for places and people as well. Even so, most people are amenable to referring to places by their preferred endonyms when informed about it.
It sounds wrong to an American's
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In Spain everybody says "estadounidense" ("Unitedstatian" roughly), because "american" is ambiguous. Also USA calling itself "America" is considered unjustified imperialist nationalism as America is a continent, not a country.
People from the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (Mexican United States) point out that estadounidense is also ambiguous, since they are also estadounidenses. And also Americanos / Americans. And also Norteamericanos / North Americans.
But, really, this is just pedantry. If you say "American" or "USian", everyone knows what you mean.
Nice but not a major policy change. (Score:1)
I'm actually surprised Berlin was such a car city, at least the Western side. The city has a good public transport system that makes local driving less of a necessity, and I'd have expected the bureaucratic annoyance of driving through East Germany to get to the rest of West Germany would have made cars less useful.
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There were Americans involved in the post-war reconstruction planning. They couldn't conceive of a city not dominated by the car and got their way, to a degree.
Once they are done... (Score:2, Insightful)
Once they are done banning cars from cities because of the environment, most cars will be electric, and all that is gone is your right for personal transportation.
They say it's for the environment, but then all you have to do is wait for electric cars to take over.
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I like to walk to the shop, i work from home and there are shops 10 mins walk away. I generally go to the shop and back to get out the house at lunchtime and will buy enough food for the day and tomorrow's breakfast (ie i don't keep lots of food, i buy fresh regularly)...
But the shop has other ideas, they keep sending me vouchers like "10% off if you spend more than $80". If i walk to the shop, i simply cannot carry $80 worth of items so in order to take advantage of these offers i have to drive. Similarly
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Ever heard of a backpack, or a small shopping cart or something?
I regularly do the weekly non-refrigerated goods shopping from a store a couple of kilometres away, with either a backpack or a cart. Nice walk, and some mild excercise. My parents are in their 70's, and they do the same thing, regularly hauling home 25-30kg loads in their carts, in part to save money, but mostly for the excercise, even with their injuries and age-related problems.
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I do have and use a backpack, a cart would be somewhat inconvenient given the route i take.
But the fact is i don't want to go once a week and haul 30kg of goods, i want to go daily... The store operates a loyalty program which knows exactly what you've bought so they could automatically apply discounts as while i may not exceed their discount threshold in a single transaction, over the course of a week i certainly do.
Plus when you cram lots of goods into a backpack and haul them a few kilometers, there is a
Re: Once they are done... (Score:2)
But the fact is i don't want to go once a week and haul 30kg of goods, i want to go daily... The store operates a loyalty program which knows exactly what you've bought so they could automatically apply discounts as while i may not exceed their discount threshold in a single transaction, over the course of a week i certainly do.
I live in the UK... If I want to do a big shop I drive to the supermarket in the suburbs or on the edge of town. Not into the city centre.
Large supermarkets generally don't live in city centres here.
City centres ok n European towns and cities often do not just predate the automobile, but thourghfares themselves. Given the kinds of stores that occupy these centres more pedestrian traffic is preferable to better car access for businesses.
I love driving and love my car... But if I'm going into central L
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Cars cause a lot more problems for cities than pollution.
Personally, I'd love to live in a city with great public transport and reasonably priced parking garages on the outskirts for personal vehicles used for road trips.
And soon, the man with a red flag (Score:1)
Closing a few streets is about reducing NO pollution, and seems worthwhile, but it will have zero effect of global warming. Pollution is worst in stop-go city driving; it would be much better with in-city autobahns/motorways/freeways (which also reduce greenhouse gas emissions because driving at constant speed needs much less fuel than accelerating), but nobody's going to build them now.
The trouble is we're getting the opposite of sense - imposing slower speeds, such as 20mph in towns. Eventually, we'll b
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No, this is wrong. Putting in lots of in-city freeways means that cars travel faster. So, they produce more pollution (because cars make more pollution as they get faster) and there will be more cars travelling. It's called induced demand or "build it and they will come".
There are solutions -- make cities friendly to forms of transport that take less space and produce less pollution than cars with one person in them. That's pretty much every other form of transport, actually.
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Incorrect. Cars make more pollution the slower they move, in urban areas. That little thing known as "gears".
If you're moving at 20mph, you're likely using second gear (out of a likely 5). Given the rate of fuel travelling through the engine, you're probably burning as much fuel to go 20 as you would to go 50 (or more).
The optimum for fuel efficiency is to have cars traveling at a higher gear ratio while eliminating stop and start (obstacles in the road, traffic light stops) where feasible. When this ha
Self destruct... (Score:4, Interesting)
There has been a big shift away from city center retail, and towards out of town big box stores and malls... Why? because these big stores are easily accessible by road, have plenty of parking and are open at times when the potential customer base aren't at work themselves.
And retailers are encouraging it, offering volume based discounts - buy one get one free etc, all of this encourages customers to go shopping by car so they can carry the large quantities home easily.
Meanwhile city centers become difficult to access by car and expensive to park.
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Those big box stores have plenty of parking only because cities force them to provide more of it than the market wants.
The stores are easily accessible by road only because the roads are subsidized with sales taxes.
Further, suburban sprawl is subsidized by inner city areas [strongtowns.org]. If you live in a neighborhood of single family detached homes, you're enjoying welfare paid by people poorer than you.
Meanwhile, cities don't budget for infrastructure repairs [strongtowns.org], so those big-box stores represent an illusion of wealth. A p
Sense (Score:1)
Such changes probably make as much sense commercially as they do environmentally
That is, none at all.
Snacks, beverages, and online orders only? (Score:2)
They are obviously talking about building coffee shops, planting lawns and such on those closed streets, so it's not like those will just disappear at night for trucks with inventory, and of course they will not be bringing inventory on foot, so maybe it will be stores for online orders only, you go to the store, you order online at a terminal. It would help with carrying the stuff home - many wouldn't be too keen to have to carry large items (or large amount of small items) home via public transit.
Don't stores need products to arrive? (Score:2)
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It's easy enough. You allow delivery vehicles in at defined times during the day, normally early.
Car access? (Score:2)
While some stores may worry that restricted vehicle access could deter shoppers
I've never been to Germany, but I still have to think that the nature of the street in front of the store has nothing to do with vehicle access.
Youth around the worrd ask: (Score:2)
What is a 'shopping street'?
carrier bikes (Score:2)
there have been some cities that turned the core city car free.
what i have seen is that carrier bike usage increases a lot, the biggest of these can haul a lot of stuff or a single big item easily (most of the time they are equiped with an electric motor to aid cycling when loaded).
the problem is that these bikes are big and once outside the city core the bicycle infrastucture is no longer up to the task of handling these big bikes.
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One experiment will ban cars from the main section of Friedrichstrasse
It's OK, you're still allowed to drive an M48 tank down Friedrichstrasse [researchgate.net].