To the Editor:
Re “New York Plan to Unjam Roads Opens a Path for Clogged Peers” (front page, April 2):
The population density of New York City creates the ideal conditions for a car-free zone. Residents can commute by subway and borrow cars for longer trips from shared lots, and defunct light-rail systems (trolleys) could be reinstated. The California Tomorrow Plan, published in the 1970s, lays out clear plans for going car-free.
Lest we think that this change would require too large an investment in infrastructure, consider the changes wrought when cities from New York to Portland, Ore., paved over existing light rail lines (a change facilitated by carmakers).
Madrid just announced that it will go car-free in its city center, and Oslo has committed to ban cars from the city entirely by the end of this year. When a third of Paris went car-free for a day, air and noise pollution was significantly reduced. In America, Minnesotans are eyeing Norway as a potential model.
As Wallace Stegner wrote of the California Tomorrow Plan in 1972, “The aim was nothing less than a plan for the good life within a growing and continuingly industrial state, without the depletion, pollution and deterioration in life-quality that uncontrolled growth has brought.”
Tana Wojczuk
New York
The writer is a historian, journalist and teacher.
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | A Car-Free New York?
Opinion | A Car-Free New York?
To the Editor:
Re “New York Plan to Unjam Roads Opens a Path for Clogged Peers” (front page, April 2):
The population density of New York City creates the ideal conditions for a car-free zone. Residents can commute by subway and borrow cars for longer trips from shared lots, and defunct light-rail systems (trolleys) could be reinstated. The California Tomorrow Plan, published in the 1970s, lays out clear plans for going car-free.
Lest we think that this change would require too large an investment in infrastructure, consider the changes wrought when cities from New York to Portland, Ore., paved over existing light rail lines (a change facilitated by carmakers).
Madrid just announced that it will go car-free in its city center, and Oslo has committed to ban cars from the city entirely by the end of this year. When a third of Paris went car-free for a day, air and noise pollution was significantly reduced. In America, Minnesotans are eyeing Norway as a potential model.
As Wallace Stegner wrote of the California Tomorrow Plan in 1972, “The aim was nothing less than a plan for the good life within a growing and continuingly industrial state, without the depletion, pollution and deterioration in life-quality that uncontrolled growth has brought.”
Tana Wojczuk
New York
The writer is a historian, journalist and teacher.
Source: Read Full Article