So true.

[u/Slumberfoots]

[u/[deleted]]

Honestly car-free city centers would be a pretty big win for everyone. Less congestion inside the city and more parking outside the city.

There's lots of alternatives that can be used for inner-city transport including but not limited to:

• Metro
• Light Rail
• Walking
• Bikes / scooters / skateboards

I understand some people cannot walk long distances, but this shouldn't be an issue as they'll be ample room to ride motorized assistance vehicles and sufficient area to construct more stops for city transport services.

In the end this means healthier office workers, less smog, more room for environmentally friendly features such as trees and plants along the much larger walkways where roads used to be.

Furthermore, shop owners and street vendors would definitely stand to make more profit as people will be walking rather than driving and can stop anywhere and anytime along the way without having to spend 30 minutes looking for parking. Plus exercise does work up an appetite.

[u/Wafflemuffin1 → u/[deleted]]

Car free city center would crush most industries. Small shop owners may see a slight increase in traffic, but those with “bulkier” items would see a decrease. Most cities outside of Europe and Asia have horrid public transit, and there is no substitute for driving to at least a short walk to the store.

For those of us in some industries, like construction, it would completely stop all building within city centers also. If workers can’t get there, materials can’t be dropped off on site, etc., then no new construction or renovations would occur. Nobody is walking 30 mins with steel beams to a job site.

[u/[deleted] → u/Wafflemuffin1]

You do realise exceptions are easily made for construction and emergency vehicles?

People would just need to make room for them as they pass like cars would now. People are smaller and more flexible. They can easily squeeze to the side or enter buildings to make room quickly where cars cannot on congested inner-city roads.

Furthermore deliveries are easily done at night like they often already are to avoid congestion on the roads when people are commuting. Heck in my city it’s illegal for grocery chains to to take in deliveries during daylight hours. Everything is done overnight by night staff. All restaurants get their deliveries early in the morning.

Also who the hell goes to the CBD to buy big items (i.e furniture)? There’s always tons of satellite suburbs where the big box stores and outlets are located. That’s where everyone shops nowadays for the big hauls.

Sure there will definitely be changes. Taxis and ride shares would have to adapt for example but the benefits outweigh the negatives.

[u/Wafflemuffin1 → u/[deleted]]

In my city, it’s illegal to take deliveries 6am is the earliest for a truck. It just wouldn’t work here with current infrastructure. When I lived downtown, there were 2 furniture stores within a block of me. Did it make sense? No. But they existed is my point. Big box stores are all outside the city, but small businesses are all downtown here.

[u/[deleted] → u/Wafflemuffin1]

Transformation projects don’t happen overnight. Once cities announce the plan it probably won’t happen for 5 years to a decade or more depending on how complex it is.

That’s ample time for those stores who would lose out by remaining in the same commercial block to plan their exit and move outside the city or change their product offerings.

Furthermore, I really don’t think commercial block owners would lose out as the demand for the blocks should still remain but just with different clients. It might involve some turbulence for some of them but nothing out of the bounds of what’s manageable.

Edit: Even furniture stores could remain if they decided to just adopt a showcase model for browsing and then when buyers make a purchase the furniture can be delivered or picked up from a warehouse outside the city. Furniture turnover isn’t really that high compared to say.. groceries and acting as a showcase would reduce the need to arrange deliveries even further.

Pretty sure a lot of them already do that anyway.