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Mayor Lores says,
“The historical centre was dead,” he says. “There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars – it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn’t come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars.”
I doubt that we could ban cars from ITP Atlanta, but what about setting up zones like this in various areas?
Mayor Lores says,
“The historical centre was dead,” he says. “There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars – it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn’t come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars.”
I doubt that we could ban cars from ITP Atlanta, but what about setting up zones like this in various areas?
There would have to be gigantically huge parking garages all over the place outside of the no-car areas!
Mayor Lores says,
“The historical centre was dead,” he says. “There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars – it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn’t come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars.”
I doubt that we could ban cars from ITP Atlanta, but what about setting up zones like this in various areas?
Comparing this to making the entire ITP car-free is a pretty large stretch. According to the article, the "city that banned cars" closed off about 300,000 square meters, or about 0.11 square miles. That's about a quarter mile square. ITP is literally 2500 times larger than that.
But, making a few pedestrian zones like that in places should be easy. After all, it's only slightly larger than the meadow of Piedmont Park, or about two Atlantic Stations...much smaller than downtown.
Didn't Barcelona do something similar at a larger scale? If we had more of a grid, it could work, but there are too many cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets in the city to provide alternative routes. And have you tried to walk anywhere in this city? The sidewalks are either non-existant, crumbling or end abruptly.
This is totally doable. It's all in the wording....... "banning cars" sounds so much more negative and drastic than saying "we're building a pedestrian mall." In a very small sense, places like boulder, CO Iowa City, Minneapolis, and Denver all have Pedestrian only streets. The key is making it enough of a destination that people want to walk there.
This would be way too extreme, and would not make sense for most of the City of Atlanta which is built for cars, like it or not.
However, I'd be very down to meet you halfway:
-Ban/reduce total # of parking spaces in Downtown and Midtown by 75%, replacing all that parking decks/lots with urban development
-Ban/reduce # of parking spaces in the rest of the city limits by 50% (and the mostly ITP MARTA rail-connected suburbs like Brookhaven, etc), creating more development, green space, pedestrian plazas, pop up food trucks, etc etc.
-Any road in the city that's more than 4 lanes (2 in each direction), reduce it down to 4 lanes, and add the remainder to extra-wide pedestrian mall style sidewalks. That would slow cars down and make it less intimidating/dangerous to cross.
Those changes would be enough. There would still be a lot of cars, but most of them would be ride share.
Should be a 4/4 avenue with no turn lane (should be no turn lanes in the city), and add that 12' feet of space or whatever, to the sidewalk experience. Make them wide pedestrian plazas.
Then the city will become more like a city, with more people walking.
I will say this, though. If the city hypothetically did ban cars, I can think of one HUGE, immediate benefit.
Every single MARTA bus route in the entire city, could become a fancy new BRT line. Very quickly and easily and cheaply. You'd just need to improve the buses and capacity, frequency, and the quality of the stops, and reduce the # of stops, etc.
And we are talking Gold standard BRT, since there would be zero traffic. And in fact they could get rid of traffic lights in the city. Just have 4-way stops at all intersections, for bikes and buses.
Think we need to start building and incrementally expending pedestrian zones.
And it doesn't even have to be "no cars" on all streets but just reclaiming some of the streets for higher capacity uses (such as walking, biking, and transit).
Re-doing the surface, removing signs and markings, and creating a shared street can work wonders on improving safety and increasing vibrancy:
Comparing this to making the entire ITP car-free is a pretty large stretch. According to the article, the "city that banned cars" closed off about 300,000 square meters, or about 0.11 square miles. That's about a quarter mile square. ITP is literally 2500 times larger than that.
But, making a few pedestrian zones like that in places should be easy. After all, it's only slightly larger than the meadow of Piedmont Park, or about two Atlantic Stations...much smaller than downtown.
I think Atlanta could definitely turn certain small areas into car-free zones. Some pretty busy big European cities have done so successfully. Or even Denver with it's 16th Street "Mall". I would start with the Woodruff Park area, personally. The Streetcar would benefit from not having to be in traffic for those few blocks, and the area has a TON of pedestrians and cyclists already, thanks to GSU and the corporate high rises that rely heavily on MARTA commuters.
I'm there are other good areas for it, but that's one I'm near regularly.
Last edited by autolycus25; 09-19-2018 at 02:01 PM..
Reason: 16th Street, not 14th as I'd originally typed
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