It's small, but it's a start. Next, remove as many cars as possible (some deliveries, taxis, and emergency vehicles make sense, as well as microcars for people who need them, of course).
I'm appalled at the people here saying you need a car to lead a full life. A car-dependent life is an empty and sad one for many of us. I moved to the Netherlands with my family (two young daughters) and it has been _absolutely fantastic_ to be able to just bike.... everywhere. Or get a train. or bus. Or, sometimes, use a car-share vehicle. It's absolute freedom. And I'm a hell of a lot less worried about my kids being killed by drivers - the leading cause of dead kids in the US.
Even here there's too many Dodge Rams though. And large SUV's - especially electric ones - are increasingly popular.
Having lived in some places around Europe, my quality of life is always increased by owning a motor vehicle. I do not use it daily, I do not commute with it, but there are trips which are far more practical with a personal motor vehicle than otherwise, like fetching people from an airport, taking a pet to a vet, driving further out for a hike, hauling groceries.
Having lived in both Europe and the US, yes you are correct that owning a vehicle does make many things more practical.
On the flip side, being required to drive everywhere because there is no transit option is a negative impact on quality of life, especially in cities.
Ultimately it comes down to how good the transit infrastructure is. Some cities make transit feel effortless and get you anywhere you need to be; others make you battle your way through it and lose a lot of time.
The solution to this is a car sharing programme. You pay your membership and get access to a fleet of cars and vans that you can pickup whenever you like. Tax, insurance, and petrol is all covered in the price (usually) and you can pick the right vehicle size for the trip you're making (no need to own a truck for the rare occasions you need to move large items).
Obviously not a solution for every situation, but if you only need a car occasionally then it would likely work out well.
Personally I only drive once a week at most, but there isn't a car share scheme locally. If one started up that was cost effective and convinient enough then I'd consider it.
Carsharing can be recommended only by somebody who never have to share a car.
- Car won't available when you need it.
- You will come to a car, which will have steering wheel and driver's seat in a setup incompatible with your physique, so you need to waste your time to set it back. Every. Damn. Time.
- Car will be dirty. All the time. Dog hair, food crumbs, trash (i.e. coffee cups, cans). You will take it out and next time it will be back
- If you are sharing with a smoker, I hope that you like smoky smell of your car.
- Car will be always empty (gas, battery) because previous user has no incentive to fill it up.
- Minor accidents will go unreported, and then you will be wondering, where this scratch came from, why is this mirror busted or why I need to hold my steering wheel 10 degrees to the left to drive straight.
- Everybody will try to evade maintenance fees - You want money for winter tires? I don't drive in winter man... 2 weeks later your co-owner will want to drive, because it is his car too!
Carsharing is a dead end and whoever will try it, will quickly revert back to his own car. Less headache.
Carshares don't imply that the end users are liable for the upkeep financially, they just need to flag the issues to the car club, or at least that's how I've seen it be implemented in all the car clubs I've used.
To start off, smoking in the car is not allowed. If they detect dog hair and can deduce who introduced it, the user will be banned. If someone left it with less than either a quarter or a half a tank of fuel, the offender gets reprimanded or ultimately banned. Minor incidents and maintenance items are taken care of on a complaint basis - once a user complains, the company fixes it. Eventually. It's not as bad as you're making it out to be.
It really depends. A road trip in a car share can cost as much as a monthly lease payment, yet due to the way no one user feels responsible for the car, the tire was showing 4 different colors of threads. A trip to ikea can be really burdensome if the front right brake has a soft lock or if the bearing has gone. Or if someone's left the car with barely any fuel in it for that one time when the booking was made to make a tight deadline. For odds and ends, it can be perfectly serviceable, but I've had those three and some other less than savoury anecdotes in my 5 years of using a car share.
owning a car is almost always the convenient option, especially if you disregard all the downsides like the (monetary) cost to one personally and to society at large. i agree that living car-free is not practical for many, mostly those living in rural or suburban areas, but even here the car is part of the problem, having made this possible in the first place for people who shouldn't even live there. we've got to break the self-reinforcing loop on car dependency, starting with the cities. we'll lose a lot of convenience and some things will be unreasonably hard compared to before but i think it's the future and it'll pay off in increased quality of life.
Maybe some sort of distance-dependent taxation on cars may be a more viable option, so that people can enjoy private commutes when they absolutely need it, while still pushing people towards public transport.
If you add a ban on parking on public spaces and remove parking minimums for new construction that starts to make sense. Otherwise you'll still spend 10-20% of your city real estate on cars.
I've said you don't need a car all of my life, but after moving out of capital cities it's actually reality that you do need a car, it's just not practical otherwise regardless of how good public transport infrastructure is.
OK, but what I love about being here is that I, personally, haven't driven a car here in two months. And there has literally never been a time where we said to ourselves "we could do it but only if we had a car" because the rare occasion where that comes up is what car-share (or van-share, etc.) is for.
And that way I don't have to screw around with taking my own car to the shop for (oil changes, tyres, brake jobs, whatever), or having it inspected annually, or shopping around for insurance, etc.
My original comment was about removing cars from the city centre, which is great for people who are _not_ in cars because, of course, drivers kill a lot of people and biking to school with your 6 year old is utterly TERRIFYING when someone decides to cut in front of them in a giant truck. Cars make the world worse for everyone around them (including those who are in _other_ cars!) and it's kinda rude to use one in a city.
The title says "Travel Distance per person day by main travel mode for urban mobility on all days". That is ambiguous, but suggests that the numbers are actually the share of the travel distance for peoples' main mode, meaning that people who need to travel further in a day tend to have cars, to an overwhelming extent.
That is still a coherent situation in a world where most people don't use cars because their daily travel needs only involve short distances (e.g. because they live in an area where all of their needs are met within a short range).
That is absolutely great. A third of all short trips in the Netherlands are biked. To this North American, this is mental. What a great stat, that I trust the country to make even more impressive.
Take a trip to Utrecht and you'll feel like you've died and gone to heaven. Or Houten (right next to Utrecht) which is one of the best designed suburbs in the world
25% walking
48% biking
5% public transport
18% car
And the thing is - Utrecht is amazing. I don't think people there are bemoaning their sad existence lacking in freedom or mobility. But part of the success of Utrecht and Houten is taking space away from cars and giving it to bikes (and walking and public transport). I'm struggling to find a source but recently Utrecht determined that a street had too much traffic and was clogged with cars so the solution was that obviously it needed more throughput - so it should be made in to a bike route.
I just wish I hadn't needed to move 8,000 km to have this level of freedom.
That 757 traffic deaths in 2022, while tragic, makes it 4 deaths per 100K people in the Netherlands. For comparison, the NHTSA is estimating the US had 42,795 traffic deaths in 2022, which is 13 deaths per 100k people per year. Even a horrifically bad year in the Netherlands is dwarfed by the rate cars kill people in the US.
That's true, but it's also more than in relatively car-oriented Germany, not to mention definitely car-oriented (in European terms) Ireland.
My point being: it's not the mode of personal transport, but approach to safety that ultimately makes the numbers. The Dutch are unwilling to mandate bike helmets, saying that it would reduce cycling.
This begs the question: what's more important really?
I'm ambivalent. I personally think a helmet saved my life when I was riding in Sacramento but I ride much more slowly here in NL (about 8-11 mph). I wouldn't mind if helmets were normalized but (as noted at wikipedia) that makes using OV-fiets, etc. more of a hassle.
Certainly a helmet is a good idea when riding a faster e-bike.
I never liked helmets and refused to wear them even as a young adult, but now that I have a small child I got myself the dorkiest, safest high-vis bike helmet I could find.
The stories I hear how helmets save lives typically don't involve other vehicles - my personal is actually from skiing, as I borrowed a helmet from a friend who had to end his vacation early and I think that saved me from a severe concussion, because a few hours later I fell face-first on compacted snow and couldn't get myself together for a few minutes afterwards.
> that makes using OV-fiets, etc. more of a hassle.
Perhaps, but are we about road safety or are we about popularizing cycling, traffic deaths be damned?
My manager uses a rental bike to commute and he always has his helmet on when phoning in during a break in his commute because he has three kids and no intention of orphaning them.
I see it as a question of priorities. I'm against car-oriented infrastructure because I believe some people(20% at least) really shouldn't drive and I care about safety. Bicycles don't seem to deliver on that front either - at least until we figure out what's causing this increase and why the heck aren't all these seniors using public transport?
It's worth noting that risk compensation [0], where certain safety measures lead to people taking more serious risks, is a thing. In your skiing accident, is it possible you would have made different decisions in the lead-up that decreased your risk? It's entirely possible the same is true of cycling (I know that I catch myself taking more risks when riding with a helmet than without one).
It's also not at all clear that the spike we're discussing is due to helmetless bicycle riders (notice that deaths for car occupants tick up in similar proportion).
To your prioritization point, there's a lot of evidence that increasing the number of cyclists on the road makes interactions with cars safer for all cyclists (because drivers are habituated to looking for them), so any intervention that decreased the number of cyclists to make them "safer" could have inverse consequences.
> I'm appalled at the people here saying you need a car to lead a full life. A car-dependent life is an empty and sad one for many of us.
As someone who loves car-less living in big cities like NYC, I think the position above is an ideological belief rather than a practical one.
Every geography and lifestyle has an optimum mode of transportation. In dense urban environments, it would be a heterogeneous mix of public transit for longer distances, scooters or bikes for last mile/yard, and the occasional taxi for groceries or the like.
But for those of us who have active busy lives and need to meet friends, take classes, go to events, etc. across town, our time is maximized by the use of a car if the geography admits it. I used to live in Chicago where you absolutely did not need a car, but a car saves you time, lets you explore more parts of the city, and lets you pack more activities in 5 work nights than if you had to rely on public transit and transfers between different lines.
> A car-dependent life is an empty and sad one for many of us.
I love cycling and I love to bike within town and it's great that I can get to nearly all basic needs by bike. I wish there was safe bike parking everywhere though, since the lack of it means I often can't bike there if I can't be sure it won't be stolen.
Still, if you want to advocate for more bike friendly places, calling car use an empty and sad life isn't going to win any converts.
Cars are immensely useful for nearly everyone, so merely banning them and hoping for the best won't work. Policies need to make alternatives attractive, at which point people will pick what's most convenient by themselves, no need to ban anything.
"26% of The Netherlands is below sea level, and 59% of The Netherlands is vulnerable to flooding by the sea in case of high tide and severe storms." from:
Instead of hacker banning everything you don't personally like, isn't it better if people do what you did and move to a place where things are as they wish?
Can't you be satisfied that you achieved what works for you and your family and not strive to implement your will onto the entire planet?
I used to live in the outback without electricity or running water, and no cars around. It was lovely and I'll probably do it again in my life. And that is an option each one of us has. If you're sick of the city and traffic, you can go live in the sticks, where you won't have to breathe the exhaust. You can go live in a tropical island where there are no cars and only walking roads. That's not a fantasy, that's an option that exists right now. I used to live on one as well.
But living away from civilization also requires self-sufficiency – something that everybody had before cars.
Why even allow taxis? They should only be allowed for very limited purposes. Like those with mobility restrictions and non-critical healthcare. Anything else complete ban.
I think you're reading too much into your parent's comment.
I personally am pro limiting cars. But, if you have to go further than 10km or move a load of stuff around, go ahead, by all means.
My personal experience with cars is daily hours of gridlock hell, with drivers screaming, cutting you off, and being generally nasty. Car sickness from the stop start stop start as bonus. I much rather take the train, do some laptop stuff or read a book, and end up 20 minutes later. I do think we in western europe overoptimized for cars, to the detriment of our children and our health. I do think an SUV generally is a sign of someone being dangerous for everybody else, with not much upside.
But hollywood movies show huge roads with, presumably, hours of absolutely nothing. I don't think I've ever seen more than 1 whole km with nothing but roads and fields, but I can't blame anyone for owning a car in that kind of landscape.
People have vastly different experiences, and equally different needs. Car fanatics, car haters, and everyone in between should try to acknowledge and respect that.
I mostly agree with what you say, but for your last point about respect, I was essentially making the same argument, that one shouldn't flatly dismiss a certain practice because they themselves don't have a reason for it.
I have no problem at all with urban dwellers (or anyone) who choose not to own or drive cars. It's their choice and perfectly valid for their own reasons and needs. The same courtesy should go the other way too though.
By all means, those who are downvoting, explain the specific thing that's wrong about what I commented. Deciding from specific, circumstantial privilege about the wrongness or rightness of others necessities in the wider world is indeed an inherently shitty habit. So too is ignoring one's own hypocrisy in deriding certain broadly used things.
And why should it be? The silly HN "taboo" about mentioning downvotes is just that, silly. It's a tacit means of sidelining someone who might often have valid reasons for questioning why certain hivemind tendencies simply downvote valid points, with no reasoned counterargument, apparently because they emotionally dislike what they're reading. It's very common on this site and absolutely worth calling out in many cases, instead of automatically being considered shitty. Don't want people to complain about downvotes occasionally? Don't have them on the site.
First of all, maybe they are. Not everyone who dirves in a city lives in that city, and might have all sorts of practical reasons for having to drive inside it regardless of where they live.
Secondly, my response was to the other comment's general disdain for cars and their owners, without specifying that they were referring to city-living car owners.
It's such a shame. Walking through the no-car areas that popped up during covid was soooooooooo nice. I didn't even have to think about the possibility of getting hit by a giant truck! Oh well, the 3 inch curb will keep me safe I guess.
In Boston I feel like we didn't really get much of that, there was just less traffic.
Or I just didn't know about it? But I am honestly jealous. Being able to walk, not worry about cars and have plenty of room to not need to weave through slow walkers is amazing. And my health benefits from the extra walking.
That's where the rest of us come in. I for one would much sooner take a grocery delivery job if it's a critical service for the elderly and disabled rather than midnight pizzas for potheads.
The idea that a car is the only lifeline for people with physical disabilities bespeaks broader social ills.
That is where exceptions come into play. Yes people with disabilities (which could include elderly people) will need a different form of transportation.
But exceptions to allow those that need it to drive or other services (like grocery delivery) can take care of that while still allowing for a pedestrian focused city.
There is also the fact that if a city is properly designed ideally you may only need to walk a couple blocks for groceries and your basic needs, and instead of doing big shopping you buy just a few things at a time.
If you're physically unfit for an electric tricycle (or even a scooter without pedals...), I kinda don't want you drive a 2t+ vehicle at 50km/h or more.
It's pretty expensive for the city to do that. Tons of signage needs to be removed and replaced with every expansion, and if you choose automated enforcement you need to install lots of new cameras and posts too.
Easier to start with one big zone over the whole city, and keep making the requirements stricter automatically. Eg. Take the cars age, add the current year, subtract the cars rated mpg, add 10 if it's a diesel. If the result is 2050 or more, there is a fine of $20/day if you drive it.
> Easier to start with one big zone over the whole city, and keep making the requirements stricter automatically.
Good luck getting your average person to not only understand this but being able to actually do the calculations. And it'll be impossible to enforce efficiently.
No need for everyone to understand. "Whats your registration number?" "The computer says you can drive that till 2026."
It can either be enforced at registration renewal (Put a star on the reg plate to indicate they're allowed in the city), or by ANPR cameras on the main roads in/out of the city.
The expansion is part of the official road map. Next year the first zone will be put in practice (stage one), and part of the second half next year the expanded zone is set to be drafted and a new date set for the deployment of stage 2. It is planned that stage 2 should be deployed no later than 2026.
The whole city already has a congestion tax with cameras reading number plates, and of course a variable congestion fee with much higher fees at rush hours.
The simplest way forward I think would be to just double the fees for ICE cars, and cutting them for EV's. It would be a software only solution, so cheap-ish. It would only be possible to do for the whole inner city though. Can't do it for half the city.
Also; it is not a residential area. There are mostly office buildings and shopping centers there. It will require delivery trucks to be at least hybrids.
> The study found that children who grow up on roads in the capital with particularly high emissions have worse-than-average lung capacity when compared to other children, from as early as six months old.
This will only accelerate the move to the suburbs of the families having children themselves and who can't yet afford an EV, leaving the cities themselves (as I suspect similar moves will be applied elsewhere here in Europe) to young people without kids, to immigrant people with kids but not-interested in having a full Western-life experience (which necessitates having a car) and to the "pied-a-terres" of the few upper-middle class people who will afford to have EVs (who will also own property in the suburbs, for that matter).
> not-interested in having a full Western-life experience (which necessitates having a car)
American life experience, you mean? It's totally OK to live in Stockholm, as well as in many other cities in Europe, without a car. Besides, you make it sound like EVs are more expensive than ICE cars. They surely are, but the difference is not that much and subsidies cover a part of it.
Interesting, can you elaborate? What part of the city or surrounds do you find this to be true? I've found the reliability and mix of routes via tunnelbana, pendeltåg, trams, buses, and boats to be really good and know many Stockholmers without cars. Of course, road trips and moving large items become more of a hassle without a car, but can often be worked around with rentals/delivery srevices. Further, the more remote you get, the density of public transport options do become sparse, if an option at all. But within the radius of the tunnelbana, living without a car is very achievable. [edit: saw your other comment about further out areas, late night journeys and MTR, which are fair points. Cars are super convenient in many ways, no argument there.]
I've lived in central Stockholm for 10 years with kids, it's amazing, but perhaps not for everyone. I also lived the car dependent life in the US and it made me mildly depressed.
Why is what's "required" a consideration? Almost nothing in modern life is required. You don't need AC, heat, refrigeration, video games, movies etc. NONE of that is a requirement and it all contributes to climate change.
Part of living in a free society is that you get to have things that aren't required. IF I want to buy the biggest gas guzzling truck there is, I should have the right to do so since I'll be spending my $80k+ of money on it.
This feels like a weird thing to have to explain to someone, but like, the whole purpose of government and regulations is to provide a framework to peacefully resolve conflicts when one person's decisions affect another person. It's kind of how civilization works, you know? Your decision to drive a battletank on public roads affects more than just yourself.
You're free to do so if you also buy your own exclusive air supply that never touches our air. And never drive on public roads that everyone else pays for and uses - because then you are contributing to road wear and higher accident rates. Otherwise the rest of us retain the right to put limits on your "freedom".
Ah yes because sounding like you're casting a Harry Potter spell is a good rebuttal. You could have just admitted you got caught swimming in cognitive dissonance.
You seem to think "If you're so worried about climate change why do you participate in _____" is some kind of gotcha winning card to play in any climate-related argument. Taken to its logical, absurd conclusion, anyone that doesn't kill themselves immediately is equally responsible for climate change as someone emitting millions of tons of carbon a year.
The people placing power in the hands of representatives through democratic elections, choosing not to have the biggest gas guzzling trucks on their inner city streets.
You have obviously not been to Stockholm during morning rush. Stockholm have an extensive subway, as well as buses. Or just using the (often quite wide) sidewalks to walk. The amount of kids moving around (themselves) to get to their schools is almost overwhelming.
Oh, and the best schools are really in the downtown area. Which is why children, kids, teenagers use the public transport from all around the metro area by themselves to get to the schools.
And since you comment further below about winter - yes, of course the kids move around like this in the winter too.
Yeah, seeing 7 year olds taking the subway with their parents, just to change two stations later like any other commuter, is always a fun and cool thing to see.
I take my 6 year old on the train all the time a few stops living in London and have since she was much smaller whats wrong with kids on trains (small children are keen on trains and buses btw).
Back the dqy, my parenrs had 1 hour commutes on foot through some woods to catch a bus for another hour to go to school, and back. Nobody cared, it was normal. Now it is normal for kids to take busses and trains themselves to go to school in cities. Times change.
> Most kids know how to use the public transportation
Not kids from age 3-10, and from then on really just a simple one bus or tram route. There's no point pretending this isn't a big issue. You might say it's worth those people leaving the city to make it happen, but saying it's not life-changing for them is doing them a massive disservice.
I can assure you that somewhere around the 6-7 year mark, it is completely normal for kids to take public transport to go to school. It is where I live, it is in Munich (always fun to end up in the school rush hour sharing the subway with all those little ones riding the train like a pro). It is simply normal for those and nothing even remotely special or weird.
The UK is weird about kids. In the 80s I started travelling as a young kid to school on the bus on my own but it's less common now.
+ After a while of my mum taking me on the train to London I just asked her to send me on my own where I could get picked up at the other end, it was fine.
Next time you are in Munich, take public transport of any kind between 7 and 7:30 in the morning on a normal school day, there are sometimes morw school kids of all ages in a given subway car than adults. Pretty funny to witness, seeing the little ones behaving like all the adult commuters, head phones and all until they meet their friends.
I started taking the bus to school from first grade, as did most of my classmates. I'd usually meet a couple of them on the bus and we used to time to copy homework :)
What are the much better schools in the center of Stockholm that you're thinking of?
I think the level of education is really good in most Swedish schools, so if you want one that's farther away for reasons... electric car or public transport
A lot private schools in the US don't offer transportation services. Many school districts in the US won't do transportation if you're trying to go to any school that you're not originally zoned for. So if you want to send your kids to a nicer private school or if the school you're zoned for is trash, you're in charge of getting them to school.
You mean like basically all kids in Munich do, just as an example? Regarding this "better school" thing, that seems to be an almost exclusive US problem.
That all the public schools I know in Europe, either directly or indirectly, are pretty much of the same quality (differences for specific teachers not withstanding).
Sending kids to a different school comes down to personal preferences, ranging from available languages to a school being along the commute of a parent or simple preference of tue kid in question. Selecting where to life based on school quality is simply not a thing I know. I do hear a ton of that from the US so.
> That all the public schools I know in Europe, either directly or indirectly, are pretty much of the same quality
That is definitely not the case here in Romania.
One of my personal projects involves mapping the results of Romania's National Exams for pupils at the end of 8th grade (in here [1] are the results for Bucharest), and as you can see on the linked map/link there are definetly better (colored with green, with average school grade higher than the average for Bucharest) and worse schools (colored with red). Going back to 2015, let's say (meaning at this link [2]), one can see that the schools colored green have remained pretty much the same, and the same goes for the red/worst schools.
I have a close friend who's a math highschool teacher in the French Education system and he confirmed to me that a similar situation takes place in France (the Paris area, to be more exact).
By doing a very detailed due dilligence of schools in Bavaria, the rest of Germany, Austria, France and Sweden, using the most advanced data science methodologies, including all available for money social studies as summarized by Chat-GPT (which reminds to run that again now that version 4 is out) and having the results put into a picture drawn by Dall-E and vetted by the social science PhD I met as my taxi driver (I don't take Ubers).
Generally people with children dont live in the center of Stockholm and a high % already drive electric. Biggest change is that delivery/transport services have to find alternatives and Im really happy about that, everyone benifit from removing "heavy loud polluting traffic" in the city.
yeah, that's great but.. Modern engines are already pretty "clean", significant proportion (if not the majority?) of PM 2.5 and PM 0.1 particles come from breaks and tires so EV are not really the solution for inner city pollution.
(and the effect on CO2 emissions is immaterial in this case)
2) For the record EV use 99% regenerative braking so at least that source is practically zero
3) Decoupling CO2 emissions from the car means you can upgrade your power grid to be greener without having to replace all the cars already circulating. It's an enormous advantage which should be given due consideration. Also, it's easier to manage the emission of all the CO2 in one place, and mandate better filters/capture systems there, than just spew it out of every individual exhaust pipe, where many capture systems are not feasible due to cost, size or other consideration.
But, most importantly, let me repeat:
Really, really, don't let perfect be the enemy of good, please.
> For the record EV use 99% regenerative braking so at least that source is practically zero
99% or "practically zero" are hugely overexaggerated claims but yes it's an improvement
> Really, really, don't let perfect be the enemy of good, please.
That's an awful reason to not talk about something. Yes it's an improvement but switching to EVs won't magically eliminate car related pollution in cities (not even remotely close to that) which is something some people seem to believe (and they really shouldn't)
> 99% or "practically zero" are hugely overexaggerated claims but yes it's an improvement
A lot of cars support "one-pedal driving" where only regenerative braking is used. The brake pedal is literally just used in case of emergencies. As this becomes the default on more models, yes, I fully expect we will achieve that "practically zero".
I'm wondering what can be done for the tires (not just for EVs, also for ICEs and especially for heavier vehicles), where I think tire manufacturers ultimately have the opposite incentive (if your tires shed more material, they have to be replaced sooner, which increases their recurring revenues, so maybe they didn't spend too much R&D in that direction....)
> That's an awful reason to not talk about something. Yes it's an improvement but switching to EVs won't magically eliminate car related pollution in cities (not even remotely close to that) which is something some people seem to believe (and they really shouldn't)
I really have to disagree here. EVs are silent (so silent they had to be fitted with a noisemaker to make them more detectable by pedestrians), they don't pollute the air with combustion products make the air terrible (some of this pollution is happening elsewhere when fossil fuels are used - that's on a downward trend and I want to argue it's still a net win, not happening right next to where a lot of people breathe), they produce "practically zero" (yeah I insist) PM2.5 - PM1.0 particles from braking, there is almost only tire wear pollution.
It may not be perfect, but it's a pretty strong improvement in quality of life compared to the actual situation - have you "tasted" the air in Paris on a busy winter evening while walking through the city? It's awful. In the future we will look at this stuff like we are finally starting to look at cigarette smoke. And the noise... just terrible.
Do you have a better proposal which can be realistically (yeah banning all cars ain't gonna cut it, people won't, and will vote out politicians who try) applied to the situation, with results available on the same timescale of the EV transition - which is already happening by itself? If yes, let us know, and let's discussing moving all the EV incentives towards your better solution.
> Generally people with children dont live in the center of Stockholm and a high % already drive electri
So I guess the process was already under way, as it already is too expensive to have a typical Western life in downtown-ish Stockholm. I fail to see how moves like this one would help with those expenses.
So, Stockholm is a modern vity, O hope we can agree on that. Also, Sweden, and thus Stockholm, is in the West, making Stockholm a modern, western city. And it seems people in Stockholm are not living in abysmal conditions. Meaning everyone living in Stockholm right now is living a "modern, western lifestyle", by definition. It is, of course, an urban one, but there are more ways than one living ypur life. And nobody is trying to take that away from you or anyone else.
> not-interested in having a full Western-life experience (which necessitates having a car)
Wait, what's this "Western-life experience" I'm missing out on by not having a car? Having lived in Western Europe all my life, I seem to have missed the memo about this.
Unfortunately, in my experience, to people who are concerned about “immigrant people with kids but not-interested in having a full Western-life experience (which necessitates having a car)”, this is what counts as a logical complaint.
I'm already seeing that flight to the suburbs happening here in Bucharest, yes. And, yes, the most recent census has confirmed that flight to the suburbs, that is for your "non-evidence rant" part of your comment.
I don't think this deserves to be downvoted. Alas the "you'll own nothing and you'll like it" / "you'll go where we say according to our schedules and you'll like it" crowd is strong here.
You're right of course that not having a car self-evidently limits the things you can do (yes even in your country that has flawless transit that is free and goes "everywhere"), and is even worse if you have children. Want to go to the country to relax? You're limited to the places you can get by transit. Kid wants to do something that isn't near a transit stop? Too bad. Visiting relatives outside the city? Better hope you can get a ride from the nearest transit stop. The list goes on and on.
Being able to walk places is desirable, but it's best when you can walk/bike and drive a car if you need to.
In some countries, every single house or business is either walking distance from a transit stop, or for the few exceptions there is a taxpayer funded 'bus' service that operates like a taxi.
Interesting that this bans PHEVs, because that is a substantial share of the EVs sold in Sweden, being about a third of EV sales and a fifth of total car sales recently. It seems like this will help kill the category.
Can't speak to Sweden, but it is a shame what has happened with the PHEV category generally. I drive a Volt and it's a fantastic car in that it's really more like "electric car that also has a gas engine" vs the bulk of PHEVs on the market which are really "hybrid that can be plugged in to get a few miles of somewhat-gas free driving."
The latter seem to have been designed and sold mainly to skirt some regulations and take advantage of subsidies; along with a sometimes-hefty price increase.
We also own a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV and while it's a fine SUV and family mover, it uses the ICE constantly, while I drive my Volt for months without ever using the combustion engine (to the point where it has to run a "maintenance cycle" to stop the gas from going bad).
Meanwhile the Volt was killed off by GM. It's a shame because I feel like consumers would have responded more positively to electrification if more cars like this had been rolled out and the engineering (and marketing and sales) had been taken more seriously on them.
Around here the Clarity PHEV are seen daily (I own one). I don't know if that was because of subsidies/incentives or what. In my use case the ~35 mile EV range is perfect and like you I experience the engine running only when the computer commands maintenance cycles, or if I take a long trip and it flips into HV mode. Considering the embodied energy of a full EV especially in the year that I bought the Clarity, I still think it was the right choice at the time.
Yeah the Clarity was only really produced in volume as a compliance car in states that mandated it, though. It never really showed up around here (Ontario) for example.
Whereas GM rolled out the Volt across all their dealerships everywhere -- though obviously sales only really happened in places with incentives.
Technically on paper the Clarity PHEV looks on par with the Volt; but Honda didn't really want to sell it ... and GM killed the Volt. So that category of vehicle (range assisted EV instead of "PHEV") seems DOA.
However small it is, it seems far preferable to Berlin's approach of building a highway down the middle while simultaneously refusing to even consider the 2035 target.
Kraków is a low emission zone, not a zero emission zone which is what Stockholm is doing. It not the first EU initiative for ZEZ, but it seems more often that ZEZ get implemented by making it a car-free area.
To add more context:
"The first phase of the Krakow LEZ will restrict vehicles with EU exhaust emission standards Euro 1 petrol and Euro 2 diesel vehicles, before tightening restrictions further in 2026. After then, only cars with a minimum norm Euro 3 for petrol and Euro 5 for diesel will be allowed in the city (20% of the current fleet will be affected). "
Are you talking about the Low Emission Zone? That seems to be a reduction of high emission cars and not really a total ban as described in the article.
The reactions to this absolutely minimum possible move - "don't drive a specific kind of car in this tiny high street area unless you really need to" - are ranging from disingenuous to genuinely unhinged. I have no remaining hope for transit policy.
I think it's absolutely crazy that our society is OK with car drivers polluting the air with carcinogenic particles. I hope more cities around the world implement similar bans soon.
EVs are not the solution for that, brake and tire wear contribute to as much or more PM2.5 and 2-3 times more PM10 pollution than modern ICEs. Also while there will be some improvement it will be possibly partially outweighed by the fact the EVs generally weight more.
Of course we can just ignore that which is not at all crazy...
Edit: I'm certainly not using this as argument to not ban ICE vehicles in city centers. However switching to EVs is not a good longterm solution. e.g. there won't be any incentives for massively increasing investment into public transport because everyone can just drive a "clean" EV.
*I'm not saying that brake and tire wear is that much higher for EVs, rather that if we only look at ICE vehicles tires/breaks are as big a source of PM 2.5 as the engine itself.
Yeah, the obvious solution is to make smaller lighter vehicles. We’ve built EVs in the image of ICE vehicles, so they’re big and heavy.
There are a lot of people who are driving an EV with several hundred miles of range to work less than 20 miles away. That extra order of magnitude of battery capacity is a lot of extra weight. Imagine I’d you could instead rent a battery trailer for those occasional long trips?
I think e-bikes are the way to go, tho perhaps we can define a new and smaller class of vehicles with cabins and/or inherent stability for those unable to ride.
Yes, I wonder which vested interests pushed the whole "range anxiety" and now they benefit from the cars being heavy in that they can point out the pollution.
All cars need to get smaller again, EVs should have automatic charging when parked and when waiting in traffic jams.
This is the funny thing every time hackers discuss vehicles and traffic, always gives me a chuckle.
The smaller and lighter vehicles you all are trying to invent, already exist in the hundreds of millions! And have existed for almost as long as cars. They are cheap to buy, cheap to ride, release very little exhaust, doesn't need decaying batteries or rare-earth minerals to make, won't run over your kids and won't make traffic jams.
Also they can get you to where you're going faster than any EV or SUV.
They're called motorcycles.
Edit: Not to mention that electric motorcycles are great rides.
EVs don't use brakes as much as ICE vehicles because of automatic regenerative braking. This converts your forward momentum back into electricity. ICE vehicles use engine braking or brake pads. Both of those are much worse in more ways than one.
You might want to cross that off your list of things to complain about when talking about EVs.
The instant torque does blow through tires though. Maybe twice as fast as a typical ICE vehicle? The acceleration on a Tesla is like very, very premium ICE cars that few people have (>300HP). This could easily be tuned out, but that would cripple the thrill, i.e., bad for sales.
Powerful ICE cars have this same problem. One of my cars is turbocharged and has a torque spike at 2500 RPMs that with shred the tires even in higher gears if the throttle pedal is to the floor when the engine crosses over that rev band. And my other one has a V8 that will squeal the tires anytime I am remotely aggressive with the throttle.
Car companies can tune the EVs to damp torque spikes, but there's no way around the fundamental fact that hard acceleration uses up tires. EVs accelerate hard, but they don't have to. That just happens to be a major selling point for most of them.
AWD works in their favor here though, since it's distributing the torque across four wheels, and traction control on EVs can be incredibly effective.
I'd be surprised if people in Model 3 Performances went through tires at nearly the rate that I do in similarly powerful ICE cars (~8-10k for driven wheels).
There is absolutely no way that brake wear is higher for EVs. I can practically drive my entire morning commute without braking a single time in my Bolt. Any study that says otherwise is seriously flawed or ignoring one pedal driving.
Electric cars are good for both aggressive driving (lots acceleration and brake use), and also for energy-efficient driving (almost no use of brakes, slow down by converting speed back to electricity). I wonder which one dominates in city driving in practice?
What if EVs (actually, any cars) were programmed for geofencing where acceleration is limited in pedestrian-focused areas based on municipal ordinances? Braking wouldn't be limited (so this is more directly reducing tire particles than brake dust) but I think a lot of city braking would naturally fall off a cliff without excessive acceleration.
You probably don't need to go crazy with stuff like that. Speed cameras seem like effective deterrents. When I drove around the UK, speed cameras were everywhere and people generally all did the speed limit or below.
The USA has a weird cultural obsession with being able to break certain laws. We need to rethink that. If we aren't enforcing laws, then we need to get rid of them, if we don't want to get rid of them, then we need to enforce them.
At city speeds, pollution from tire/brake wear is not a function of speed. It's a function of friction (acceleration/deceleration and vehicle mass), which has no posted limits or camera enforcement. The closest thing would be if a cop happens to hear you burn out and cite reckless driving, but I'm not even talking about that level of acceleration here.
That's probably true if you only look at the cars themselves, but don't forget that getting petrol in cars requires a huge petrochemical industry, from oil wells to refineries, pipelines and pumping stations. Each of those steps also emits all kinds of crap. The same is true for electricity from many sources, but overall I suspect EVs come out somewhat better than petrol cars.
Of course, cars are generally too big, too heavy, and too fast. Addressing those issues would benefit everyone, regardless of fuel source.
Regenerative braking drastically reduces brake pad wear. At full regenerative braking, some EVs can decelerate at ~0.4G using only the engine.
Another (expensive) solution would be carbon ceramic brakes. These used to be for "race cars" but people found that they are too expensive to replace if you track the car, so people use iron brakes on the track, and carbon ceramics on the street. Carbon ceramics will last 100k+ miles under normal street use and they keep the wheels free of brake dust.
This is a common misinformation campaign against EVs. First of all, EVs use far less brake material than gas cars. E.g. Most Teslas run the same pads for 100k+ miles due to strong regenerative braking, for me it was triple the longevity of brake pads on my Audi.
As for the tire emissions, you are likely quoting the worst case scenario that was devised by emissionsanalytics. The reality is, that was a worst case scenario, if you actually saw tire wear that was significantly more polluting than traditional cars you would have tires that go bald in a very short period of time.
For example, the Micheline Pilot Sport all seasons that come on the Tesla Model 3 are rated for 45k miles, but typically get around 35-40k miles depending on driving habits. That is only 13-26% more tread loss depending on driving style. So how is it possible the tires are losing significantly more tread (and as a consequence, polluting more) but also lasting a long time?
> So how is it possible the tires are losing significantly more tread (and as a consequence, polluting more) but also lasting a long time?
Sorry, I probably phrased it in a confusing way, I was comparing the ratio between tire/brake and ICE PM 2.5 emissions for normal cars not saying that EVs are that much worse (the part about weight is just speculation).
EVs use primarily regen for braking, so they contribute almost no brake wear. And that isn't even a problem.
It matters what is emitted. Tire wear particles are relatively large, and don't stay in the air.
Anti-EV disinformation uses the trick of counting pollution by weight, which completely discounts gaseous emissions, which is the real pollution that people breathe in.
Please make your substantive points without internet tropes like "whataboutism" and "disinformation", which are really just forms of name-calling at this point. Your comment would be fine without those bits.
Do you not realize how much of modern society relies on cars and trucks as a mode of transport? It's asinine to think you can just get rid of them in most parts of the world and continue life as usual.
Yep, considering they have good public transport especially in center, this measure is logical. Imo they should ban any car except service/delivery/etc in center but I guess small steps are better than none
As a Swede born and raised in Stockholm but no longer live there I wonder if delivery trucks and people working (carpenters etc) will be excempt from these rules? This is a serious question because the changes comes (mainly) from a radical left wing political party that had deliveries on the subway as a serious solution to banning car traffic.
Personally I don't really care since I don't live in Stockholm anymore but that city is very hostile against car traffic in general (which is stupid in my opinion). Finding a parking space in the outskirts of the city is very hard and I have searched for a spot in like an hour when visiting my family. They build a lot of housing but no parking spaces for residents. Sometimes if you're lucky they'll build like 1 parking space per 20 residents when in reality 19 of these residents have a car. I know personally some areas close to my mother where they have taken areas for parking and built housing there making the actual parking spaces go negative.
Fine if you want to get rid of petrol/diesel but there are alternatives and you don't have to make things shitty for people with electric cars as well.
I think people will start moving from Stockholm because who wants to live in a city where housing is 3-4 times the national avg, people being shot all the time and even blown up when in bed in your own home. Then the politicians responsible cares more about making it more expensive for you to go to work which all seems more meaningless since you pay so much in taxes that goes to immigration and people not contributing to society.
Productive will move to the country side where they can safely drive to work and work less because working hard is just not worth it in Sweden.
The article indicates there will be some exceptions:
> While it is primarily intended to allow for only fully electric cars, bigger vans with plug-in hybrid engines will also be allowed, and exceptions will be made for ambulances and police cars, as well as cars in which the driver or passenger has a documented disability
So I guess the imported soy lattes of those who made the rule changes are going to have a price increase due to delivery companies that need to upgrade their fleet. ;D
Amazon Logistics is in the process of going fully electric, as are others. The supply of EV and hybrid vans is there, the demand as well as soon as tze existing fleets are going to be replaced as usual.
You obviously don't know Sweden because Amazon is a very small player that just entered the market there and I don't think they make their own deliveries but rather uses already established delivery companies.
Belive me, I know the long story of Amazon and Scandinavia quite well. I took it more general, and used Amazon as proof that last mile deliveries are perfectly possible with EV vans.
I believe you and I think most last mile deliveries already is done with EV vans in Stockholm so maybe that is less of an issue, my answer was mostly a joke anyway.
I have nothing against EVs, in fact the opposite. But it's not the EVs that is the main issue with Stockholm. It's that you don't feel safe travelling in the public transport anymore and they are doing basically nothing to combat it.
The party is hardly "radical" by any standard means of measure, and there is not a single indicator that population growth in Stockholm will come to a halt. You're merely making the mistake of assuming that others are like you.
What standard means of measure are you referring to exactly?
I guess time will tell, but if you look at statistics many country side smaller cities are growing when in the past they were shrinking for a really long time. The wind is vänding.
Usually because they are too small but that will also force everyone to buy new cars which isn't exactly ideal for the climate or the economy of these people affected. Cars in Sweden already cost like the double amount of a car in the US.
I live quite far from Stockholm and commute there by train. My office is just outside of the zone.
Most people I know at work own a car, but no one drives to work. Why would they?
Seems like people driving in downtown Stockholm are the kind of people that can afford EVs anyway. (Of course, disabled people etc. But they are also covered by the new rules.)
It's complicated for non-millionaries follow some rules. Not everybody can afford to have EV and some people depend of a car to carry tools to go to work.
Yes, some people do. Way fewer than who actually use cars, though. It's crazy how much of city real estate that oftentimes get dedicated to cars being driven or parked.
Maybe focus on building out a competent public transport system first, rather than halving the capacity of the commuter rail. Or fix the several islands (both literal and metaphorical) that are effectively cut off from the main system.
It's like these people live in a parallel reality where nobody needs to get in our out of the inner city.
In my experience, the public transport system in Stockholm is pretty fine, is there a specific qualm you have with it? You don't have to be able to drive your car directly into the heart of the city.
Can you explain how changing pollution standards for a few bocks around NK has anything to do with the massive loss of public transport ridership that is triggering the cuts in service?
Not at all. Anywhere further out like Nacka or Täby are nightmares to get to. Or if neither start nor destination is in the inner city. Or if it's after ~1AM. Or if service in your area is havily reduced (or shut down entirely!) because MTR can't be bothered to respect their drivers. Or if you're in an Arriva area, period.
Maybe it looks brilliant if you're used to some US shithole. But even at its best it can't hold a candle to somewhere like the Copenhagen metro. And even that pales when compared to the trusty car that will take you from anywhere, to anywhere, whenever you want.
Source: lived in Stockholm for 8 years so far, half of which were carless.
The people in nordic countries seem so naive to me. They trust their governments, their authorities to do this stuff, to both determine the greater good and then implement it. The political class couldn't possibly act immorally, for their own benefit, apparently.
Whereas the reality is that these actions are preplanned internationally and designed (by opaque agencies such the club of Rome and the UN) in order for individuals to have less control over their lives - shifting that control to the governance structure. Did anyone discuss the transfer of control, agree to it, vote on it?
It's quite amazing to me that people are going to lose freedom of movement, will pay more etc and be happy to do so. Turkeys voting for Christmas.
> The people in nordic countries seem so naive to me. They trust their governments, their authorities to do this stuff, to both determine the greater good and then implement it. The political class couldn't possibly act immorally, for their own benefit, apparently.
Not everyone is happy with this change, if that makes you feel better.
Also, this is implemented by the city, by real people (yes, politicians are people) that Stockholmers voted for.
Political class as a concept doesn't make much sense in Sweden, just FYI.
US seems to be an exception in the developed world with such high distrust of the government.
It's probably a self-fulfilling expectation: the government can't be effective without trust. Without support, it can't pass strong regulations that make a difference. So you get an ineffective government, and watered-down lobbied laws that easily fall to regulatory capture, and you can say "told you so!"
I guess, though there’s a lot more money at stake. The US federal government is probably the most powerful bureaucracy in human history (and certainly among the biggest). I trust my local and state governments way more. But I wouldn’t trust them to run the whole country. Scale seems to matter a lot.
It depends a little bit on what you're counting. Prospecting and extracting oil is illegal as of july last year (SFS 2022:728), but Sweden is exporting a fair amount of refined petroleum.
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I'm appalled at the people here saying you need a car to lead a full life. A car-dependent life is an empty and sad one for many of us. I moved to the Netherlands with my family (two young daughters) and it has been _absolutely fantastic_ to be able to just bike.... everywhere. Or get a train. or bus. Or, sometimes, use a car-share vehicle. It's absolute freedom. And I'm a hell of a lot less worried about my kids being killed by drivers - the leading cause of dead kids in the US.
Even here there's too many Dodge Rams though. And large SUV's - especially electric ones - are increasingly popular.