Should Our City Centres Be Car-Free

00:00:00: Hello, we're Sandalwood.

00:00:01: And Sage!

00:00:02: We

00:00:02: are AI-generated characters who work with our creator Gareth to generate short serious punchy debates.

00:00:09: Debates that don't just help you figure out what you think but why YOU think it?

00:00:15: So...what do we argue about this week?

00:00:28: Around the world many cities are using congestion schemes, parking restrictions bus and cycle lanes pedestrianised zones and physical barriers to make car usage more inconvenient and expensive.

00:00:46: Cities like Oslo, Ghent & Soul have seen reductions in accidents reduced air pollution and upticks in retail business.

00:00:58: On the other hand, many American cities – Madrid and Berlin have implemented pedestrianised zones in city centres only to reverse them in face of economic problems.

00:01:09: With more younger adults living without cars and supporting the concept of car-free city centres it's not so hard to visualise car free city centres by end of century.

00:01:26: But is it a good idea now?

00:01:29: I'll be arguing that we should expand car-free city centres and if not, when?

00:01:46: I

00:01:53: anticipate, Sage that many of your arguments will be about the challenges and uncertainties around implementation.

00:02:03: Before we get stuck into those let's be in no doubt that pedestrianisation is a highly desirable direction

00:02:23: but don't underestimate the impact of electric bikes on car-free streets.

00:02:27: On Friedrichstraße in Berlin, they drove pedestrians off their own promenade

00:02:32: But in Oslo – The year after pedestrianisation was the first year recorded with absolutely no road fatalities.

00:02:43: And In Spanish city of Pontevedra there is a ninety seven percent reduction in serious accidents.

00:02:53: Banning cars will virtually eliminate road deaths and injuries.

00:02:59: The second point we should all agree on is that there would be a transformative reduction in air pollution.

00:03:07: Every year, air pollution from city centre traffic kills more people than road accidents themselves.

00:03:17: We banned smoking in public places and factories belching out poisonous fumes.

00:03:25: The car, the city centre is last great public health emergency.

00:03:32: Implementations of Car Free Zones saw reductions in airborne pollutants of a third in Madrid A quarter in Barcelona and seventy percent in Ponte Vedra & Ljubljana.

00:03:49: It is also beyond doubt that lower income people who are less likely to own a car, And more likely live on the busiest streets Are those who suffer most from car filled city roads.

00:04:07: Saving lives, preserving good health and utilising more City space for People are great prizes.

00:04:16: In Europe, planners spent the twentieth century taking cities that had been designed for people and trying to retrofit them to be designed around cars.

00:04:29: what I'm arguing for is to rebalance our cities back to putting people first and accommodating cars.

00:04:39: The mayor of Pontivedra in Galicia has explicitly placed pedestrians and wheelchair users at the top of the mobility hierarchy, followed by bicycles public transport.

00:04:54: And lastly private cars.

00:04:58: I accept that not every scheme has generated economic benefits but many have.

00:05:05: in Times Square Retail business increased by over seventy percent and boosted the city centre economies in Ghent, and Pontavedra.

00:05:16: In London TFL found that pedestrians and cyclists spend forty per cent more than people travelling by car.

00:05:27: What makes a difference between successes & failures?

00:05:32: Now let's get to implementation!

00:05:38: the city invested in public transport before and alongside implementing its scheme.

00:05:46: In Pontuvedre, Paris, the schemes were designed around walkable areas – in the case of Paris embracing concept of The Fifteen-Minute City .

00:06:00: In Oslo & Ghent ,the schemes were preceded by comprehensive traffic flow studies to ensure that congestion was not simply displaced to adjacent areas.

00:06:14: All successful implementations included workable schemes, to permit disabled or incapacitated people those making deliveries and emergency and other medical service vehicles to drive into the centre to do so.

00:06:34: in contrast to Madrid for example where the initiative and reversed with a change of mayor, successful schemes have had long consultation periods and broad coalition building.

00:06:50: That is why even if you are not convinced Sage we need to start now!

00:06:58: A car-free city centre sounds like progress until your the disabled pensioner who just lost their route to the GP or market trader whose customers can no longer reach.

00:07:09: Clean streets for clean consciences is easy when you live two minutes from a tube station.

00:07:14: There are fourteen million people with disabilities in the UK, many with impaired mobility among the many more millions whose quality of life depends on vehicular access to city centres.

00:07:25: Poor implementation of car-free schemes without clearly signed exemption routes designated drop off zones or adequate accessible transport does real harm to real people.

00:07:37: The disability rights community has been consistently critical of London's low-traffic neighbourhoods on precisely these grounds.

00:07:44: Good design can solve this problem in theory, but in practice.

00:07:48: examples of genuinely good design in the UK are remarkably hard to find.

00:07:53: The successful implementations have been in compact cities like Ponte Vedra or walkable districts of larger cities like Paris and New York.

00:08:02: London with its extensive transport network still has vast areas of the conurbation and surrounding commuter belt accessible only by car.

00:08:11: Where workers have no viable alternative, a twenty-mile commute from a town with no rail link restricting city centre access is a direct tax on their ability to work.

00:08:22: And if those commuters were frogmarched onto trains it's doubt for the majority of commuter lines could absorb the volume Outside London.

00:08:30: The idea of Car Free Cities Is A Nonstarter.

00:08:33: Bus services have fallen by a fifth in five years.

00:08:37: Journeys taken by bus, Have fallen by the fifth over fifteen years.

00:08:41: Only sixteen percent of Manchester residents and eighteen percent of Birmingham residents commute By public transport against forty percent In Hamburg And thirty three percent in Leon.

00:08:53: Leeds remains The largest city in Europe without light rail or subway.

00:08:58: Over the past four decades Rail travel has become fifty percent more expensive relative to the car.

00:09:04: Bus travel has doubled in relative cost.

00:09:07: The UK is accelerating in exactly the wrong direction.

00:09:11: You cannot reverse that with good intentions.

00:09:15: Three further problems would lead me to oppose any large-scale rollout.

00:09:19: First, traffic displacement In any British city, the neighbourhood's adjacent to centre are densely populated less affluent and already home to schools, hospitals and parks.

00:09:32: Even modest traffic overspill into these areas would be seriously damaging.

00:09:37: Second the economic impact on city centres has varied greatly And the transition period alone could be catastrophic for low margin retailers who simply will not survive it.

00:09:48: Third – here is a longer view.

00:09:51: Over a thirty year horizon electric and autonomous vehicles may resolve problems of pollution congestion and accidents that car-free advocates are trying to solve today.

00:10:02: How determined will we be turn our cities inside out, To solve yesterday's problem?

00:10:08: Finally in Madrid where the city government pushed through restrictions without broad based support The scheme was reversed.

00:10:16: In the UK supporters of car free cities have a very long journey ahead.

00:10:21: Perhaps they should try taking the bus.

00:10:23: Very funny Siege.

00:10:25: You're right.

00:10:26: The bus network outside London is broken.

00:10:30: But broken by whom?

00:10:32: Decades of underinvestment and deregulation.

00:10:36: That's an argument for fixing the bus, not keeping the car.

00:10:41: Agreed!

00:10:41: Fix the bus but that a different proposition.

00:10:44: You're asking cities to remove cars now with transit networks we actually have Not one wish we had.

00:10:51: Oslo didn't wait for perfect network.

00:10:54: They improved transit and restricted cars simultaneously.

00:10:59: Seoul demolished a ten-lane highway, and bus ridership went up fifteen percent.

00:11:07: You don't have to completely fix transit in advance.

00:11:11: you create the conditions that make fixing it politically possible.

00:11:19: You keep reaching for European and Asian cities that bear almost no resemblance to Birmingham or Sheffield.

00:11:25: Leeds is the largest city in Europe without light rail.

00:11:28: That's not a starting point, that's a dead end

00:11:31: Which is exactly why we need to start now.

00:11:35: you don't have built a metro stop rat running through your city centre.

00:11:41: Gents circulation plan cost just five million euros and was implemented over a single weekend, but it took years of planning.

00:12:01: And

00:12:03: yet you were happy to use Madrid as your cautionary tale which has three point.

00:12:08: three million people before politics got in the way.

00:12:18: Politics is The Point, a scheme that gets reversed the moment the mayor changes hasn't solved anything.

00:12:24: it's just caused disruption.

00:12:26: I've already agreed that long consultation broad coalitions cross-party support .The lesson from Madrid is don't rush it not Don't Do It.

00:12:40: Here's what i keep coming back to.

00:12:41: You've made a case for car-free zones in specific, well chosen locations with the right conditions.

00:12:47: That's as maybe!

00:12:49: What I'm opposing is the notion that city centres should be car free as general policy because the conditions make it work simply don't exist across British cities.

00:13:00: So you'd support selective, well designed schemes?

00:13:04: I would support not ruling them out.

00:13:06: There's a difference between that and the sweeping claim, this is the direction cities in general should travel.

00:13:12: I'll take it because don't rule out fuels along way from where we started.

00:13:20: The disabled access problem Retail risk Traffic displacement Those are real but they're design challenges not reasons to abandon destination.

00:13:34: So you'd support selective.

00:13:37: I

00:13:38: still question the destination.

00:13:40: The air quality benefits are real, but electric vehicles will erode the environmental case within a generation and autonomous vehicles may solve the safety case too.

00:13:52: We might be remodelling our cities around a problem that's solving itself

00:13:56: Or we could end up with Just a bit quieter and cleaner.

00:14:08: The problem was never only emissions.

00:14:12: it Was always about who our cities are built for.

00:14:16: as A practical argument.

00:14:17: I find that hard to turn my life upside down For but As a dream, i admit It's harder to enjoy this video.

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00:14:36: Thanks for watching, see ya next time!