A City Without Cars – Could Asbury Park Do It?

This NYTIMES article, filled with great graphics and data has evoked many responses from readers, and inspired other opinion pieces like this from StreetsBlog.

What are your thoughts about minimizing or eliminating automobiles in Asbury Park? How do you envision our city in 2 years, 5 years, or 10? We know that real estate has been strong, even during the pandemic, and gradually we will see more condos built on iStar’s lots, meaning more people, and undoubtedly more cars, unless we start now to mitigate car use and parking availability. Within the past couple of weeks traffic we’ve seen traffic escalate back to pre pandemic congestion in the business district and waterfront. Drivers are speeding in every neighborhood in the city.

APCSC believes in a walkable, bikeable, livable Asbury Park where everyone, especially the most vulnerable can access every part of the city without the dangers associated with motor vehicles.

Read on…

I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

Why do American cities waste so much space on cars?

By Farhad Manjoo

NYT Opinion Columnist July 9, 2020

“Automobiles are not just dangerous and bad for the environment; they are also profoundly wasteful of the land around us, taking up way too much physical space to transport too few people. It’s geometry.

In most American cities, wherever you look, you will see a landscape constructed primarily for the movement and storage of automobiles, not for the enjoyment of people: endless wide boulevards and freeways for cars to move swiftly; each road lined with parking spaces for cars at rest; retail establishments ringed with spots for cars…”

What does it take to move 50 people?

50 cars: 55 square feet per person.

One bus: 9 square feet per person

50 bicycles: 15 square feet per person

Read it here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/opinion/sunday/ban-cars-manhattan-cities.html?referringSource=articleShare

October 8, 2019October 7, 2019

Scooters Make Parking Easier in Asbury Park

Over 35,000 people attended the huge Sea.Hear.Now music festival. There was no parking allowed anywhere near the venue, and visitors found ways to get there, parking off site (way off site!), riding thousands of bikes, scooters, jitneys, walking, or using car-share.

The problem in cities all over the US isn’t lack of parking, it’s #toomanycars. Micromobility can solve the problem, in addition to banning cars from city centers entirely, making cities safer/saving lives, and improving business, by creating a people centered environment.

From Alexandria, VA to Barcelona and beyond, the newest microbility option is scooters. Improved infrastructure on streets for bikes and scooters is making Asbury Park a world-class, people-centric city.

Here’s why it’s now easier to find parking in Asbury

Updated Oct 07

https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2019/10/finding-parking-in-asbury-is-getting-easier-you-can-thank-e-scooters-for-that.html

August 9, 2019August 9, 2019

NYC Bans Cars On 14th St – Safer Streets, More Space For People

Banning cars. This is BIG news. Cars banned on 14th St. NYC. In the wake of 18 bicyclist deaths and thousand of pedestrian deaths, the city is finally following lead of cities all over the world where cars are being marginalized in favor of people in pedestrian plazas and on walkable streets. Ever since the era of Robert Moses in the 1930’s we’ve been habituated to the belief that cars should own streets, roads, and highways. But the tide is turning. Asbury Park gets it. #streetsforpeople #toomanycars #VISIONZERO

By Winnie Hu Aug. 8, 2019

Major Traffic Experiment in N.Y.C.: Cars All but Banned on Major Street

The city takes its crackdown on cars to 14th Street, a crosstown route for 21,000 vehicles a day, which will be virtually off limits.

December 18, 2018December 17, 2018

Who Owns The Streets?

Do you drive and feel like people who walk and ride bikes are taking over your city – and you’re losing your privilege? How do you feel about walking in your city? Are you riding a bike for recreation or daily for transportation? Maybe you drive a car when you need to, but also walk and ride a bike whenever you can? Let’s take a look at it…

The Pedestrian Strikes Back

Officials in several countries are getting the message: Cities are about people, not cars. Read about it:

By Richard Conniff Contributing Opinion Writer Dec. 15, 2018

In many of the major cities of the world, it has begun to dawn even on public officials that walking is a highly efficient means of transit, as well as one of the great underrated pleasures in life. A few major cities have even tentatively begun to take back their streets for pedestrians.

Denver, for instance, is proposing a plan to invest $1.2 billion in sidewalks, and, at far greater cost, bring frequent public transit within a quarter-mile of most of its residents. In Europe, where clean, safe, punctual public transit is already widely available, Oslo plans to ban all cars from its city center beginning next year. Madrid is banning cars owned by nonresidents, and is also redesigning 24 major downtown avenues to take them back for pedestrians. Paris has banned vehicles from a road along the Seine, and plans to rebuild it for bicycle and pedestrian use.

Yes, car owners are furious. That’s because they have mistaken their century-long domination over pedestrians for a right rather than a privilege. The truth is that cities are not doing nearly enough to restore streets for pedestrian use, and it’s the pedestrians who should be furious.

Read about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/opinion/sunday/cars-pedestrians-cities.html

October 18, 2018October 17, 2018

London To Ban Cars In City Center

With this plan cars would be banned from half of all roads in the city center, and vehicles passing through on access roads would be limited to 15 mph. The ban is intended both to improve cyclist and pedestrian safety, and reduce emissions.

This line in the article pops out: “…future-proofing the Square Mile”. The area of the entire city of Asbury Park is 1.4 square miles, and almost one-third of all households in Asbury Park are zero-car households. If London can make this work for the currently 480,000 people who work there, and for another 90,000 expected to join over the next decade, it’s possible that a city with a population of only 16,000 can do it. American cities and cities all over the world are dealing with the same issues regarding cars: human and environmental health, deaths and injuries, traffic congestion, parking, and speeding. All of these issues can be alleviated by eliminating or at least drastically reducing numbers of vehicles.

The City of London is kicking cars off half its roads

As the need to reduce carbon emissions from cities becomes ever more clear, London sets itself on a path to ban cars from half the streets in its city center.

BY EILLIE ANZILOTTI 10.11.18

“Top of mind for the City of London Corporation is ensuring that people will be able to navigate the district in the future. Chris Hayward, the City’s chair of planning and transportation, called it “future-proofing the Square Mile,” where currently, 480,000 people work, with another 90,000 expected to join over the next decade. To Hayward, prioritizing walking, cycling, and public transit over private cars is a matter of pure geometry. According to a report from the City, over 600 square meters of street space is needed to move 80 people in 55 cars or taxis; the same number of people traveling in five buses need 170 square meters, and 160 if traveling by bicycle.”

“If the City moves forward with the plans, which are up for a vote later this fall, it will not be the first step the district takes toward creating a more human-scale and sustainable streetscape: Over the summer, the local parking authority began adjusting parking fees in accordance with a vehicle’s emissions, and its also considered banning high-emission vehicles altogether from some streets (Central London is notorious for terrible air quality). It also falls in line with policies under way in other cities. Oslo, for instance, is moving toward a car-free city center next year, and Madridplans to outlaw cars from 500 acres of its city center by 2020.”

October 17, 2018October 15, 2018

Banning Cars

There are only 2 American cities among this list of 13 taking steps to reduce use of automotive vehicles. The US is in love with cars, particularly BIG cars, despite emissions and damage to the environment, and the fact that they are responsible for most pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and deaths. Take a look at these cities without cars. Thriving businesses and restaurants, people walking and on bikes, and few if any vehicles. Wow, where do their delivery trucks park?

13 cities that are starting to ban cars

02 Mar 2018 Leanna Garfield

Germany’s highest administrative court ruled that, in an effort to improve urban air quality, cities can ban cars from some streets.

As the NYTimes notes, the ruling could open the floodgates for cities around the country to go car-free.

But German cities are not the only ones getting ready to take the car-free plunge. Urban planners and policy makers around the world have started to brainstorm ways that cities can create more space for pedestrians and lower CO2 emissions from diesel.

Here are 13 cities leading the car-free movement.

Oslo plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019 — six years before Norway’s country-wide ban would go into effect.

June 30, 2018June 28, 2018

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.