Originally Posted by Maelochs

What you are suggesting is unrealistic in a lot of situations. It would be a Very expensive alteration in a lot of cases.

Half the country is dangerously cold for cycling half the year and half dangerously hot for cycling half the year. Many people have multiple children. Many people need to shop for many people. In a lot of areas, distances between dwellings and stores is too far for any but the strongest cyclists. In some cases, people need to use available free time to run multiple errands at physically distant locations and trying to do all that on a bike, even towing a trailer, would be impractical for a very strong cyclist and impossible for most people.


Could some downtown areas be redesigned to be car-free? Yes, and this has been done in some places. However, this generally only affects a very small part of a city, and only the wealthier citizens. Think about people who have to go to Walmart, Ross or some other clothes outlet, some grocery store and maybe some other store, all of which are in strip malls located on busy urban streets .... There is no place where all the stores are conveniently grouped to buy cheap necessities .... the "downtown boutique" sort of shops and restaurants which frequently surround "car-free" downtown spaces carer to wealthier clientele and those tend to be a smaller percentage of the populace, so while those downtown or cit-center sites are a lot more pleasant, the rest of the city is unchanged.

Also, a lot of cities take an hour to cross by bike even for an experienced commuter ... even if there were no cars on the road, a mother of three with two toddlers trying to haul two kids and all her groceries all around town ..... think of the care, and feeding of the children, towed around out of doors in a trailer all day ... exposed to the weather, getting hungry and irritable, while the mother also has to take care of her own health ....

Actually a lot of road congestion problems could be alleviated significantly if every city had really good public transit and people wanted to use it ... but usually the first thing people do when they have the financial means is buy a car. No one wants to ride the bus, even if it is free or cheap, and convenient.