Car future? Crazy European cities

yep

that is absolutly catastrophic. And i know what i'm talking about! i live in france...
a country where you can't go forward anymore...

it started with this stupid CO2 tax a fews years ago because they think petrol cars are bad for the environnement. it increased sales of diesel powered cars wich reject other substances than carbon dioxyde like nox who can bring you cancer...
our "minister" of the environnement said that we have the least polluting car network in europe...

they recently decided that in 2012 the town-centers in the 8 biggest cities in the country wille be forbidden to cars...

there is also this stupid excuse of "speed kills" that goes on and on...
now when you are 10 km/h faster than the speed limit on the motorway, you are arrested
by an helicopter and special forces...

i've got a friend who had his car stolen few days ago and the police didn't do anything...
he's now waiting for insurrence refund who takes moths...

arresting real offenders doesn't give money to the state. so our gouvernement decided to create new ones: the motorists...
and during that time, insecurity and crimes are building up...

all of this is done to satisfy useless demagogues...

like you i'm absolutely desperate.

and i'm afraid that european culture is dying... thanks to the E.U .....

 

well i'm not enjoying this country anymore...
but i love it so much! i've got a terrible but so fantastic familly story wich driven me to my passion. all my passion relies to pre-war bugattis.

i have the chance to live in an old stone house 300 meters from the atlantic ocean. when i was young, there was lots of them. and as i growned up, my town rejuvenated .now, in my town there are 2 left... mine and my godparent's one...
our politics says that we live in a liberal country but we are building houses and flats like the communists eras did... they are so horrible... stupid eco-mentalists...

France was the nursery of automobile!
it made a part of it's reputation over it!
where is this recognition now?

sarko is not socialist but he is uneducated and has stupid ideas...

 

I agree with this. It is extremely unfortunate that supercars are punished. As the Lambo CEO said, their cars get rarely driven more than 3000 miles a year, so they don't get why they are getting punished.

Just idiotic, nothing more. It p***** me off so much that I don't even care anymore and use all the fuel I can because one day they will probably ban all petrol cars!!

Does all this actually matter? Because as they cut of a few grams pollution per mile per car in Europe, the car manufacturers make another 1000 for the Indian and Chinese market...


Please tell me I'm wrong, because I am truly sad about how car fanatics are being marked as bad guys... Please don't take the super cars away. Please.

 

no you're not wrong

that is the price to pay of being romantic and dreaming...

i'm not a very modern man, i hate facebooK..., i listen musi like pink floyd ,eric clapton, BB king...
i don't really watch TV since the french presidential campain started because all journalists are socialists and demagogues...

and the worst thing... i'm 16 years old...

that is the price to pay of being romantic and dreaming...

 

I honestly only see a rant on Europe, when I read this article.

I will focus on Copenhagen since it is the place of those mentioned I am most familiar with.

The inner city of Copenhagen is packed with narrow streets, not created for cars (Same as many other European cities). You can still go to the very center of the city (even drive up to the front door of the Queens palace). Of course there are streets that has been closed or turned one way, but in general I don't experience the horrible conditions described in this article.

I find it strange, that when asked about parking spaces in Copenhagen their person of interest is a guy from an environmental organization? Obviously these kind of organizations are taking it to the extreme.

As for your statement.

In my opinion the joy of driving isn't found in the centre of the larger cities, but on the open back roads and highways. The city centres in the cities I have visited in US, isn't what I will call paradise for car drivers either.

 

I'm with you. Try driving around downtown Boston or NYC on a week day

 

ANY large city, no matter which or where, is arduous at best and an ordeal at worst. As cities grow, routes in/out generally remain the same and over time become insufficient. We all know this.

Lack of door to door public transportation and long commute distances will not cause any radical changes here in the US anytime soon.

One can only wonder, when an "enlightened" Zurich resident finds himself in a city like New York, will force of habit cause him to simply step of the curb wherever he chooses?

KP has proven to be based on fraudulent information. Even to EU seem to be having second thoughts.

http://devconsultancygroup.blogspot.com/2011/05/climate-scam-finally-over-kyoto.html

Worth less than a car? Hmmmm. Seems like most greenies, this person will not be happy until he has it all. I doubt too many cars are driven on the sidewalk with pedestrians, but cars must acquiesce to Mr. Marzolini because he seems to believe his time is more valuable than anyone else's. That is why this whole thing will eventually fail.

Lastly, I wonder how much fun it would be to do grocery shopping for one's family using public transportation, or better yet, a bicycle?

 

"@Symoon: keep dreaming and moving forward. Sarko says he is not a socialist but "la droite" in France does not exist (no capitalism like in the USA, China and many other countries, far too many very high taxes and regulations). Great story about the Bugattis. When I have time and more space, I may buy a Citroen Traction Avant + DS + SM + 2ch (each of them is not expensive at all to buy, but they are great testaments of the French car-building prowess)."

i never stoped dreaming
but romantic poeple are so rare these days...

the problem in france is that the intellectual level of the " francais moyen" is fairly low...
it's easy to be demagogue and manipulate.
at one time they want "la droite" to power and 6 monts later they want "la gauche" to win...
and most of our ministers are not qualified for the job they have...

 

I like driving, also in city areas. But imho you have to be an extremely big carnut to enjoy driving in congested zones, which are also to find in US cities. If accelerating from one light to the other is what does it for the driver, fine by me. But at some point it becomes just a car (and another way of transportation from one point to another) if you are not able to drive it where there are no traffic.

There are plenty of such opportunities in Europe both in metropolitan areas and countryside.

My guess is, that no one buys exotics/sportscars with the purpose of driving in the city centres only, unless the purpose is showoff! (There may be some who does, but for the main part of buyers, I don't think so)

I do not recognize the "gone crazy on highways" either. Haven't driven that much in France, but anywhere else I haven't experienced the problem mentioned.

The biggest problem of driving in Denmark and some other European countries is those horrible taxes, which makes it almost impossible to buy something a little exciting for a normal working person.

 

what's made the french police crazy is that they have a quota of "contraventions" (or tickets in english i believe) to reach and if they exceed it they recieve a reward on their salary.

at the le mans 24 hours for example all the cars parked around the race track on the sidewalks were riddled with tickets even if these cars were not from france...

 

"Mr. Fellmann calculated that a person using a car took up 115 cubic meters (roughly 4,000 cubic feet) of urban space in Zurich while a pedestrian took three. “So it’s not really fair to everyone else if you take the car,” he said."

This statement is exactly what is wrong with the European collectivist world view imho. Sadly the traditional independent American attitude is being erroded and we are moving that same direction. Call me crazy if you want.

 

It's funny, but you're both right. In Houston, where I have worked, the "independent"/car-centric attitude works well. It's big, flat, open and gas is cheap.

When I've been in Europe, I think kage's point is spot on. Public transport is really much better. In NY and Boston, it's kind of the same -- I'm astonished that anyone even bothers to bring Lambos/Ferraris/Porsches into NYC. It's hell.

I don't think either view is "better". The U.S. is big, flat and spread out. Europe is generally older and concentrated.

As a car enthusiast, I would love to have clean, reliable, fast public transport from my house to my office downtown (would also save me $25/day parking) and a great car in the garage for driving around the many great roads in/near San Diego.

 

All true. I get that many european cities werent/arent/now cannot be designed for car traffic and that in many cases public transport works well. What I think rubs me the wrong way is that these arent the reasons cited for the rules. The traffic people act like the have a moral imperative to destroy the car and anyone who owns one and its irritating.

 

This is affectionate and ignorant. The news article referred to is ignorant at it´s best. In Stockholm it´s free to drive in the evening and weekend. I drove a Ferrari round the city the other day. It does not affect sports cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini etc.
As previously pointed out many european cities have centres from the middle ages with narrow streets not suitable for cars. But you can drive just outside the old centre in most of the cities.
European cities are usually small, regarding the area, and when it takes about 15 minutes to traverse a city by bike it takes about 60 minutes by car.
In Paris it has never been possible to drive a Ferrari if you don´t accept "fender benders" and dents in you car from people opening their doors. I always drive an old "dented" 355 in Paris.
Just to compare Europe to the USA. Americans always think that they are "free". Still, your finger prints are taken when you visit an amusement park, when you enter a garden etc. Your "Patriot act" is controlling the citizens of the USA and "spilling over" to Europe demanding information on european citizens. You can´t do that in Europe. Europeans are "free".
Americans also think that they have the right to over consume the limited natural resources creating ridiculous traffic situations. Everybody drives a car and get caught in traffic jams.

As usual the analysis and intellectual critcism is lacking. The environment and the health of people are affected in a negative way by traffic. By implementing various strategies to diminish traffic the problems are diminished.

 

Do you know what the word affectionate means? (not a knock because your English is far better than my Sweedish, just curious)

What?

Limited in what sense? Natural resources are discovered all the time and science continually learns new uses for previously worthless things (there was a time when people drilling for water struck oil and were disappointed).
As an aside, its ironic to me that a person who owns Ferraris judges anyone for "over consumption."

As usual meaning what? Whats "usual?" If you mean the NY Times, they are a little liberal for my tastes, but thats all relative.



Maybe this is headed nowhere fast...
No disrespeect meant at all, just commenting.

 

I agree, I'm not keen on the moral imperative or "cars are evil" attitude many people have. It comes across as condescending and ignorant. Driving a rusty Volvo in Boston traffic is pretty joyless, but winding out a sports car on California backroads is one of life's great highs.

I just choose to live in places where the driving is good, rather than cramming into a condo in a city center.

 

I never had a problem with NYC, back in the day ('70s).
The lights are synchronized, and if some tourist didn't move when the light changed, the Checker cabs (tanks) would push them out of the way. ("He who hesitates is a hood ornament. )

The biggest problem with Boston is that it was built by people with no sense of direction.
(Look at where "East Boston" and "South Boston" are. )
(Remember: the settlers on Plymouth Rock had intended to go to Jamestown in VA -- they missed by 750 miles.)
Concord looks like the roads were laid out by letting the horses wander on their own.
That, and "the shortest distance between two points is under construction".

Compare that to DC, where they turn the lights red for about an hour, until half the county is collected into one jammed mass.

The issue, as I see it, in Europe, is that the roads weren't built for Escalades.
Cars (and SUVs) have been getting progressively larger.
(Compare one of today's "compact" cars to a Celica or Triumph from the '70s.)
But the city streets aren't getting any wider.

Once you ease off the requirements to know how to drive, you wind up mandating big padded boxes that need big engines.
Then those same bureaucrats get upset at the traffic jams and exhaust.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the government.

 

Thank all these "austerity" measures. Austerity is Government speak making you do with less so the Government can have more. How does that affect nicer cars? The Government can't get away with "austerity" and not crack down on things like high profile cars with increased emissions standards, higher gas mileage requirements, carbon emission penalties etc. It will continue to be an uphill battle and at some point buyer's will begin to throw in the towel with all the resistance. Already I'm seeing a younger generation who can't afford much and they won't be too interested in purchasing a non-green vehicle later even if they do have the money.

 

Europe is in the rear-view mirror. Who cares?

Dale

 

YES, and MANY here unwittingly approve of it.

 

lol, good point.