{"id":721,"date":"2010-04-13T12:13:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T12:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/?p=721"},"modified":"2010-04-13T12:13:58","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T12:13:58","slug":"une-rue-de-geneve-sur-quatre-et-broadway-bientot-sans-voiture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/2010\/04\/une-rue-de-geneve-sur-quatre-et-broadway-bientot-sans-voiture.html","title":{"rendered":"Une rue de Gen\u00e8ve sur quatre et Broadway bient\u00f4t sans voiture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Le Conseil municipal de la Ville de Gen\u00e8ve<\/a><\/strong> a d\u00e9cid\u00e9 d\u2019interdire 200 art\u00e8res du centre-ville aux voitures. Par son ampleur, la mesure fait du canton un pionnier et int\u00e9resse les experts. Si elle se concr\u00e9tise, la fermeture de 200 rues du centre-ville \u00e0 la circulation automobile fera de Gen\u00e8ve un laboratoire en mati\u00e8re de mobilit\u00e9. Le nombre important de rues concern\u00e9es donne au canton un r\u00f4le de pionnier, rel\u00e8ve le g\u00e9ographe <\/span>Pierre Dessemontet<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span> , sp\u00e9cialiste des questions de mobilit\u00e9. Le 19 janvier 2010, la majorit\u00e9 de gauche du Conseil municipal (parlement) de la Ville, appuy\u00e9e par les radicaux, a vot\u00e9 l\u2019initiative \u00abpour 200 rues pi\u00e9tonnes\u00bb propos\u00e9e par les Verts. Le vote positif de l\u2019assembl\u00e9e, comp\u00e9tente pour adopter une initiative, fait que le texte ne sera pas soumis au scrutin populaire. D\u00e9sormais, l\u2019ex\u00e9cutif de la Ville dispose de trois mois pour \u00e9laborer un plan d\u2019action. Il devra concr\u00e9tiser l\u2019initiative au cours des quatre prochaines ann\u00e9es, en proposant une liste de rues interdites aux voitures sur les 800 art\u00e8res de la commune.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pendant ce temps de l'autre cot\u00e9, aux USA<\/a><\/strong> … On a recent Thursday in February, two disparate incidents in cities on opposite coasts may have signaled the end of the hundred-year ascendancy of automobiles in American life. In Portland, Oregon, the city council voted 5-0 to accept a new bike plan with the ambitious goal of increasing the percentage of people riding bikes from 6% (the highest of any big city in the country) to 25% (comme \u00e0 Beijing !! voir ici<\/a>)<\/strong>. Three thousand miles away, on the opposite coast, the New York City Department of Transportation announced that they would make permanent the closing of Broadway<\/strong> to vehicle traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n

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At first sight, both incidents might not seem to have a lot in common, but they do represent highly visible examples of a dramatic shift sweeping America with regards to our attitudes about transportation and the proper role of transportation in making American cities prosper. Trendsetting cities around the country have realized for quite some time that it is not in their best interest to continue bending over backwards to accommodate cars \u2013 in fact these cities are going in the opposite direction and are actively seeking ways to accommodate walkers, bicyclists and transit users. The success of this approach shows in the rebirth over the last 10 years of cities like Washington and Chicago. And this new approach is no longer just a fad limited to the blue states \u2013 Oklahoma City and Little Rock are examples of red state capitals that are taking tentative steps to ensure a less car dependent and more vibrant future. <\/span><\/p>\n

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What these cities may not realize is that they could be riding the crest of a wave of change in our culture. The tentative signs of the end to the dominance of cars in American culture are showing up in a number of ways. For example, the number of vehicles per person in America peaked in 2001. In fact, this decade is the first since the automobile era began in 1900 that the number of vehicles per person was smaller at the end than at the beginning of the decade. Likewise, the number of miles driven in America for each man, woman and child peaked in 2004 \u2013 both of these peaks occurred long before we even dreamed of the current economic downturn which seems to have just accelerated the trends.<\/p>\n

So what is going on? Well, for one there is a growing recognition by cities that we can no longer afford to expand or even simply maintain the massive highway infrastructure that they have accumulated over the last 60 years. And in fact, cities are learning that it is way cheaper to provide for bikers, walkers and transit users. The current bike infrastructure in Portland was built up over 15 years for $60 million. This puts in stark relief the fact that $60 million would buy us little more than one mile of freeway. <\/p>\n

Second, cities need to be cool to succeed and it is hard to be cool when you\u2019re completely surrounded by the detritus of car culture \u2013 huge roads, parking lots and parking garages. Besides, younger citizens seem to be growing disillusioned with that car culture – a number of recent studies have found that young people in rich countries are buying cars at a much lower rate than their parents did at the same age. In some quarters, this is cause for panic \u2013 lower car purchase is almost always equated with economic stagnation. However, with oil prices staying stubbornly at $80 per barrel in the midst of perhaps the worst recession since the 1930s, we might not have a choice but to face up to the fact that we are entering a different era.<\/p>\n

Just as the start of the automobile era created winners and losers, so too will a new post-automobile era. The question is whether or not we in the USA will wake up to this new reality in time to take advantage of the economic opportunities and needs of the new era -such as the need for American manufacturers of streetcars, for instance. <\/p>\n

The really good news in this story is that this could be a transition to a time when the carnage from motor vehicle crashes will no longer be considered an accepted part of modern life. A time when our urban places will once more be designed for people and not be trashed to accommodate cars. And when the profligate burning for mobility of the earth\u2019s finite store of petroleum will be looked at as a quaint relic of the past. A past not unlike the one now regulated to the movies where people smoked in doctor\u2019s offices and on airplanes. A past that causes us to say: what were they thinking?<\/p>\n

The signs are all pointing in the same direction; the post-car future may be much nearer th
\nan we think and we need to get serious about planning for it.
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<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Le Conseil municipal de la Ville de Gen\u00e8ve a d\u00e9cid\u00e9 d\u2019interdire 200 art\u00e8res du centre-ville…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[47,105,131,143,163,179,203],"class_list":["post-721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-collectivite","tag-infrastructure","tag-mode-doux","tag-partage-de-la-voirie","tag-qualite-de-lair","tag-stationnement","tag-vehicule"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transportsdufutur.ademe.fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}