My favorite Mark Wagenburr video on his channel Markenlei is the video titled Potterstraat, Utrecht (Netherlands).
In it, he describes how the historic city of Utrecht, Netherlands actually went down a similar path that the United States went down in the 40s and 50s. They, too, demolished their historic buildings to make way for a new transportation era dominated by cars. They, too, created grand city plans to endlessly widen streets to make way for the automobile. In fact, the buildings they so carelessly flattened were centuries old rather than decades old like the ones in America. This fact makes me feel a little less embarrassed about our country's car-centric development path.
However, the 1960s and '70s generation of Hollanders chose a drastically different path than ours did. In Utrecht, traffic continued to grow no matter how much they widened their streets. Life in the city center was simply awful, and this created a widespread a change of mind. So in 1965, they decided to ban cars on Saturday afternoons in the city center. It was so successful that in the early 1970s, they banned cars permanently from the city center.
That's right. They did it. They effectively banned cars. And they implemented several other magnificent, yet simple development policies as well. They reconstructed buildings in the right-of-way of roads they had previously widened, narrowing them back to their original width. They created bicycle paths separated from vehicular traffic by large medians with beautiful trees and landscaping in them to narrow streets and prioritize bicycle infrastructure. They lowered speed limits, blocked neighborhood streets to through-traffic, and poured raised pedestrian crosswalks all throughout the city.
They concentrated motor traffic where they wanted it to go, and they took back the streets for the people. We can do that too. We just have to demand it like they did in Utrecht. Perhaps we could start with a pilot project or "experiment" on a busy downtown street like Kennedy Blvd.
In it, he describes how the historic city of Utrecht, Netherlands actually went down a similar path that the United States went down in the 40s and 50s. They, too, demolished their historic buildings to make way for a new transportation era dominated by cars. They, too, created grand city plans to endlessly widen streets to make way for the automobile. In fact, the buildings they so carelessly flattened were centuries old rather than decades old like the ones in America. This fact makes me feel a little less embarrassed about our country's car-centric development path.
However, the 1960s and '70s generation of Hollanders chose a drastically different path than ours did. In Utrecht, traffic continued to grow no matter how much they widened their streets. Life in the city center was simply awful, and this created a widespread a change of mind. So in 1965, they decided to ban cars on Saturday afternoons in the city center. It was so successful that in the early 1970s, they banned cars permanently from the city center.
A little "before" and "after" action for ya. Top pic is from 1965, bottom pic is from 2011.
That's right. They did it. They effectively banned cars. And they implemented several other magnificent, yet simple development policies as well. They reconstructed buildings in the right-of-way of roads they had previously widened, narrowing them back to their original width. They created bicycle paths separated from vehicular traffic by large medians with beautiful trees and landscaping in them to narrow streets and prioritize bicycle infrastructure. They lowered speed limits, blocked neighborhood streets to through-traffic, and poured raised pedestrian crosswalks all throughout the city.
They concentrated motor traffic where they wanted it to go, and they took back the streets for the people. We can do that too. We just have to demand it like they did in Utrecht. Perhaps we could start with a pilot project or "experiment" on a busy downtown street like Kennedy Blvd.