I think quite a few European cities are on their way to being car free, but they have good public transport, bike ways, pavements, public support etc.
School buses or kids walk or bike to school like they used to. It would be an easy solution.
As for the rest, do things in your neighborhood which you can walk to. Everything you mentioned if usually available in any neighborhood in Taipei.
I come from Vancouver. Most people who live downtown do not use cars for anything other than getting out of the city. Walk kids to school. Walk to supermarkets or have things delivered. Piano teacher comes to house or you walk to her house. And Vancouver is a lot less dense than Taipei.
I doubt you would need to spend more than NT$200 a day on average using taxis and public transport. A car runs you NT$10,000 a month on average not including the initial cost.
It’s unfortunate, but things aren’t like they used to be. Even in the sleepy, isolated northern Canadian town I grew up in, parents will rarely let their kids go to school by themselves in 2013. We walked about 1km to school when we started kindergarten. We did have a bus from Nov-March.
I think most people cling to their cars because it is a time saver. You don’t have to walk the 5-10 minutes to the bus/train or stand at the curb waiting for an empty cab. Of course, in the absence of cars, these things would improve, but no one wants to be part of the transition.
In Taipei, would a congestion charge, as in downtown London and a few other cities, be a possibility? Would there be any benefit from it? To me, it seems like a good first step.
Cars don’t save time (in Taipei at least), but they do give you the illusion that you have some iota of control over your pitiful mortal life so that rush hour can take that away from you.
True that, especially when you factor in various time-consuming tasks like repairs/maintenance, annual checkups, and cleaning. In the UK I used to work about 1 mile from my workplace near the town centre. If I drove, it took 10-15 minutes to get from my door to my desk. If I walked, it was 20-25 minutes. Yes, technically, that’s twice as long; in absolute terms, it meant I had to wake up 10 minutes earlier. No big deal. Of course, winter was a different story …
We are having this debate about carfree cities at different levels at the same time: individually, collectively, politically, etc. My answer to your comments would depend on which level we are talking about.
Individually speaking, whether to give up one’s care really depends on many factors, not least which city one lives in. It also depends on lifestyle choices, personal convictions, kids, distance from home to schools and workplaces, convenience of public transportation. If I understand well, you live in Taichung. In that case, nobody can blame you for relying on your car. Taichung public transportation are a disgrace!
Collectively speaking, most of the infrastructure to live in a carfree city already exists. Even in Taichung City, it wouldn’t be expensive at all to start implementing a comprehensive policy aiming at improving bus services and reducing the number of cars on the city streets.
The problem really is at the political level: there is a complete lack of political will. Politicians are not going to propose a policy when the following three conditions are met at the same time:
- they wouldn’t benefit from this policy electorally (political considerations).
- they wouldn’t benefit from this policy financially (personal interests, lobbying, bribes by concerned industries).
- total lack of pressure from the electorate: given the lack of motivation by the politician themselves, if the electorate does not demand it, we can be sure we will not get it! Thus, the biggest hurdle is really public awareness.
Oh, Yes!
That’s were we started. Mick was the one to bring the topic of Global Warming. I immediately thought of the air pollution caused by cars and presented the idea of carfree cities in reply.
Precisely.
The population does not care at all. There is a complete lack of awareness on the topic. This is where we must act: invite our taiwanese friends to use their imagination and see how they themselves could benefit from a carfree policy!
how long did you say you’d lived in Taiwan now? 
I think it’s important to realise that in Taiwan, a car is not primarily for transport. It’s a status symbol. That’s why tiny women buy huuuge SUVs even though they can barely see over the steering wheel, can’t navigate them through Taiwan’s tiny alleyways, and can’t actually afford the repayments without taking a second job. Simply having a car will get you laid (if you’re single), get you approval from the parents-in-law (if you’re married), and generally provide you with lots of Face. Even if your car spends most of its time sitting on its expensive parking spot, those benefits still accrue.
Similar story in many countries, of course. Many years ago, my dad bought his parents a VW car to give them face. They lived on a tea plantation in the middle of the fucking mountains in Kandy. It eventually rusted away without (AFAIK) ever having moved an inch.
Point is, you’d need to find an alternative method to provide people with all the other benefits that cars provide - sex, bribes, votes, etc.
how long did you say you’d lived in Taiwan now? [/quote]
Haha! I think I know what you’re implying…
16 years… that’s why I believe what was said upthread: human will be living on Mars before we have carfree cities in Taiwan!
I know we are facing a long uphill battle on this topic. But, hey! I still think You Banfa!!
It’s true , cars are the big status symbol here. If you are in business they really like to judge you on your car. Like Finley said, if you don’t have a car forget about getting laid or getting married.
To be honest it’s not that different in the west, you should see the cars of management in UK. Very obvious what is going on. It’s some type of human preening but it’s a destructive habit. It’s because cars are so obvious, whereas how else would you show off your wealth, success etc?
All this being said, many people would give up the cars if they cost too much and alternatives are available.
In Taiwan scooters can be as bad as cars due to their poor pollution control features and their sheer number.
On second thoughts, I think I want a car, now…
Not to splash water on your momentum here because I honestly do agree with most of what you guys are saying. However there will always be people like me who do actually need a car, so I think the goal should be a major reduction of cars, not elimination of them entirely.
Ever tried getting to a golf course without a car? I’m a guilty SUV driver, and besides the usual 4 adults / 4 sets of golf clubs I also regularly use it to carry larger things around. I’ll agree most people don’t need a car let alone an SUV, but some people actually do. Also, taiwan is beautiful once you leave the city and drive up to the mountains and surrounding areas. Sure you can technically do it without a car, but trust me my day spent exploring the country side is a lot more enjoyable in my car compared to whoever is trying to do the same things on a scooter or public transportation.
Lastly, I LOVE cars. Not for status, not for face, not for impressing girls, but for me. I like driving, and I really enjoy having my car. It’s definitely expensive and I could certainly use the money elsewhere, but as long as I can afford one I’ll probably have one.
I think car free zones would work a lot better than car free cities.
Well I think it would be foolish and impossible to eliminate all vehicles from cities , although keeping zone free from cars is a great idea like you said.
I also agree cars are pretty useful and often necessary in the outskirts.
I would propose some areas of every city are made car, truck and scooter free, and that a policy is put in place to reduce gas powered vehicles all over the island.
A place that was vehicle free would be very attractive for my family to live in (as long as it wasn’t a night market or commercial market) but I’d need to be able to go to business meetings and take my family out of the city too, perhaps an automated rental car would be ideal in that case.
Broadly, I’d agree with that too. IMO, cars are for entertainment only, and as far as that goes, there’s nothing wrong with them. If people would treat them as such, we wouldn’t need to have all the handwringing about emissions. Everyday transport could be provided by highly-efficient electric PRT, and cars could be outfitted with dirty, noisy, 4-litre fuckoff engines for maximum laughs.
The key - as with most things - is diversity. In the UK (the only place where I’m familiar with historical details) we’ve lost a great deal of transport diversity, mostly by deliberate government diktat. The canals and the railways, for example, were astoundingly efficient for freight, until pen-pushers started to shut them down. What happened was basically Metcalfe’s law in reverse: the usefulness of a network decreases in proportion to the square of the bits that are lopped off it. Everything now goes by road, and that’s stupid. Consider the car: it’s designed for both city transport and long-distance journeys, but those two applications have very different requirements. The result is a vehicle which is a poor compromise - it does neither task optimally. Trucks cause an astounding amount of damage to roads, and demand complex engineering because of the high axle loads.
Obviously, with multi-modal transport, you need to achieve smooth transitions between them. For example, a fully-automated city network would need several ‘stations’ where users could hop out of their (small, relatively slow) local vehicle and directly onto a fast point-to-point link to other cities, with the minimum of messing around or waiting.
Hi finley,
This is an area where I’d like to know more myself. I’d like to document specific cases of government collusion with the car industry, as well as the wrong-headed incentives that governments and municipalities have not to improve public transportation systems.
Out of the top of my head, I can only think of a recursive, stupid policy by various French governments (i.e. same policy proposed again and again over a period of decades by different prime-minister): government incentives to buy new cars, all in the name of “growing the economy”. The policy is self-defeating because there is a “godsend effect” whereby people only change their car when there is a government incentive, but not when there is not. It costs a lot of money to the taxpayers (in a sense, even people who don’t drive subsidise the cost of cars driven by other people). It really does little for the economy, because as soon as the incentive is removed, car sales drop dramatically, etc.
Also, there is the situation in the US where car manufacturers bought (in the early 20th century) many city public transportation systems to dismantle them!
Do any of you have more like this?
Do you have specific details that we could document?
In Ireland the government promoted car scrappage schemes, twice , partly to ‘stimulate the economy’.
Never mind that nobody hasn produced cars in Ireland since de Lorean.
Augustin: this one springs to mind (I’ve mentioned it before somewhere):
gov.uk/government/news/bill … the-future
Absolutely ludicrous. The underlying assumption is that cars will still be cars in 2040, except with different engines. They don’t explain why they think this is desirable or useful. Nowhere in that press release does it mention the possibility of achieving order-of-magnitude improvements in transport efficiency with a radical re-think. The policy document is absolute drivel, full of buzzwords and no actual vision for the future of transport, and complete lack of awareness of the advanced technology and know-how already available from struggling nobodies like ULTra:
gov.uk/government/publicati … ainability
It’s just a huge barrel of pork for big business, with no purpose other than to keep “the economy” humming.
Yes, the thing about US automotive interests buying up and shutting down public-transport operators (1930s?) is quite widely known, I think. And AFAIK nobody cares. I mean, it was a long time ago. What ya gonna do? 
[quote=“headhonchoII”]In Ireland the government promoted car scrappage schemes, twice , partly to ‘stimulate the economy’.
Never mind that nobody hasn produced cars in Ireland since de Lorean.[/quote]
At least in France, one could say that such a policy makes sense (although I wouldn’t agree), because France has a strong car industry (Peugeot, Renaut). But I still wonder to what extent the car lobbies play a role in this. But your example in Ireland is a very good one and allows to make a better contrast between what politicians say and do and the reality of things.
If you have specifics, links or more info, I would be interested. When I’ll find time, I’ll gather the information and add it to a wiki page in order to inform people.
Thanks!
[quote=“finley”]Augustin: this one springs to mind (I’ve mentioned it before somewhere):
gov.uk/government/news/bill … the-future
Absolutely ludicrous. The underlying assumption is that cars will still be cars in 2040, except with different engines. They don’t explain why they think this is desirable or useful. Nowhere in that press release does it mention the possibility of achieving order-of-magnitude improvements in transport efficiency with a radical re-think. The policy document is absolute drivel, full of buzzwords and no actual vision for the future of transport, and complete lack of awareness of the advanced technology and know-how already available from struggling nobodies like ULTra:
gov.uk/government/publicati … ainability
It’s just a huge barrel of pork for big business, with no purpose other than to keep “the economy” humming.[/quote]
Thanks finley for the documents.
Obviously, I agree with your sentiment. The first thing that caught my eye when viewing the documents is that they don’t hide the fact that the government is working hand in hand with the car lobbies. From the latter’s perspective, such a policy is obviously desirable and useful! 
[quote=“finley”]
Yes, the thing about US automotive interests buying up and shutting down public-transport operators (1930s?) is quite widely known, I think. And AFAIK nobody cares. I mean, it was a long time ago. What ya gonna do? [/quote]
Yes, that’s it!
This (the car industry buying tram operators) was an important part of the plot of a fun movie (live animation + cartoon) “Who killed Roger Rabbit?”. A fun movie that small kids (and big kids like me) can enjoy.
youtube.com/watch?v=1apwAmWB44U
It’s our job to make people care, about this and about the countless other policies I am also passionate about. This discussion in this forum helps, in very little ways. Another drop. At this rate, it may take a lifetime, or more, but You Banfa! Who knows when common sense will reach a critical mass?
I think it’s more useful to divide the question of “car-free”-ness into “recreational automobility” and “routine automobility,” rather than “private motoring” and “public transportation,” for reason that there is nothing inherently shameful or wrong about wanting or needing to get around, and some destinations may be better served by some modes of transport than others. Private motoring in the sense of the routine (commuting, fixed logistics) makes no sense. Very many cars travel with a single occupant, and, as noted, sit idle taking up space for most of their time. Their size makes them clumsy and difficult to store and moving the underutilized weight of the vehicle is a waste of energy (however it’s generated). For irregular journeys, taxis (which I should say certainly count as ‘cars’) are preferable to personal vehicles, but only in the sense that they do not require storage in the same way. Taxis, for their part, may be more wasteful of fuel as they spend a lot of time moving around looking for fares, rather than merely sitting in a shutdown state, waiting silently for something to happen. Mass transit is probably the most efficient method for anything, but it begins to fail into quiet hours when running an eight-car EMU from one end of town to the other for the sake of three guys is laughably inefficient. Similarly, if you are going to go camping in the sticks, asking for a bus to take you and your tents and sleeping bags and suchthelike to the middle of the woods is also asking too much.
The problem as I see it is that private motoring, moreso in the West but everywhere on the whole, has been given a task it’s not suited for at all, and that task is making repetitive journeys through busy corridors that could be served better and more efficiently by a single larger vehicle. Cars aren’t -bad-, they’re just -impractical- for a lot of the work people use them for. Nobody wants to wait in an exhaust-choked traffic jam any more than they want to try and move a ladder through the MRT.