Traffic jams are the worst, with minutes easily turning into hours in cities like Los Angeles and Dublin. What if we could just make traffic jams disappear altogether?
Turns out, city planners of Dublin have a plan to do this — simply ban cars. With the number of commuters expected to grow by as much as 20 percent over the next decade, the city had to make a radical change.
"Dublin has a compact city center, but we don't give enough priority to pedestrians or cyclists," said Ciarán Cuffe, chair of the Dublin council transport committee. "All too often those who walk are left waiting at crossings while cars whizz past for minutes on end."
Of course, cars won't be banned completely in Dublin, just in certain downtown areas. The roads will instead be used by public transport such as buses and trams, and will be much more open for pedestrians. Parts of roads will also be turned into promenades, with café tables being placed and new bike lanes being added.
The plans still need to be get public approval, however, it is largely expected that this will happen pretty easily. Not only that, but as is always the case with these types of things, it will be a very gradual process and one that will take effect as the city continues to build and improve its light rail.
"The true test of a civilized city is whether you can let go your child's hand and allow them to explore the city by themselves. That is our ultimate goal," continued Cuffe.
The decision to try and implement these plans has been spurred on by changing demographics in the city. An increasing number of young people want to live in the city center, causing the number of people using bicycles to double and the number of those using cars to drop by 17 percent. The city has also begun using ride-sharing services like Uber.
As the city is changed with these plans, it is expected that even more people will want to come live in the city center, greatly helping the economy.
Cars won't go away completely for Dublin — at least not in the near future. The current goal, however, is to cut car use down to 20 percent from 33 percent in two years, while encouraging the use of public transport, biking and walking.
Dublin isn't the only city to be initiating a decline in car use. Paris recently unveiled a plan to turn a city highway into a park alongside the river, with the city also starting to ban cars in the city center. Other European cities are also starting to take this initiative.
