A novel approach. It would slow me down, certainly, if I was driving there, or walking.
Fuck Cars
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
-
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
-
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
-
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
-
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
-
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
-
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
-
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
They seem to have a real problem with speeding (the article mentions up to 50 in a 20 km/h zone). That's massive. 20 is really just barely more than the idle power of a car. It's what we have in Switzerland for "encounter" zones where cars are allowed but pedestrians have full priority. Speeding through that at 50 is crazy.
It's an interesting approach and it seems to be working. So I say good for them. But at the same time I can't help but think that there might have been more conventional things to try. Signs don't really work well on drivers. Physics does. A few hefty dips and bumps get drivers to slow down real fucking fast. Looking at a top down image of the intersection there's a REALLY wide turn on one side that is very obviously tempting to speed through. But there's also a small "square" next to it which could have easily been extended to make the turn more sharp. A few more of those fat concrete planters and drivers will learn really quickly that this space isn't for them anymore.
Reminds me of the streets where they remove all markings entirely. I think this would increase safety, since road safety coincides inversely with how safe drivers feel to drive fast and not pay attention, and this signals pretty strongly “you’re on your own now, good luck!”
I wonder if this is more effective than just narrowing the streets.