Getting Rid of Cars in City Center

Idea for Asbury Park’s Business District? Tactical Urbanism taken to a new level.  It won’t happen easily, but we’re on the way to reducing parking congestion and building infrastructure and options for reducing cars.

BY EILLIE ANZILOTTI

Sneaky.  If You Can’t Ban Cars–Take Away Parking Spaces

Oslo had a plan to lower its emissions by drastically limit car travel in its center. Now you can drive, but it might not be worth it.

Instead of an outright car ban, Oslo has now announced a tactical-urbanism approach to limiting vehicle movement through the city center. [Photo: Nanisimova/iStock]

For those businesses owners concerned that the lack of parking in the central district will hamper their sales, a study of a Toronto neighborhood, previously covered by Fast Company, should give them some peace of mind. The study found that business owners drastically overestimated the percentage of their customers who arrived by car, and as such, voiced opposition to eliminating street parking in favor of more pedestrian routes and bike lanes. Visitors to the shops, on the other hand, far preferred the more humanized streets, and pedestrians and cyclists, as it turns out, were far more loyal customers, lingering longer in the shops, buying more, and exploring more outlets in the district instead of beelining back to their cars.

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