Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars
I feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives.<p>Growing up in the suburbs without a car, I was <i>really</i> excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago).<p>I&#x27;m on the opposite corner of the neighborhood from the business districts, so a little errand like CVS or the grocery store is around half an hour by foot each way. The bus or shuttle is usually a wash, given the time spent waiting for it. A bigger errand like Target or Macy&#x27;s is a special occasion, taking about 50 minutes each way (walk to bus, wait for bus, ride bus, wait for train, ride train, walk from train station, or sometimes take yet another bus). A downtown or North Side restaurant, once you get tired of the local ones, is a similar ordeal.<p>Feeling trapped in the neighborhood was mostly an annoyance. I adapted by buying most things from Amazon (Prime is well worth it) and carefully planning shopping lists for brick-and-mortar stores. After a while I got tired the local restaurants, so I pretty much stopped eating out. I assuaged my claustrophobia by burning either money (Uber) or time to go downtown every few weekends, but generally spent as little money as possible when doing so. Still, it grew more annoying over a few years.<p>The turning point came when I realized that it took about as long to get from my apartment to the downtown train station (about 7 miles) as it did from that train station to Milwaukee (90 miles).<p>I bought a car recently, and my quality of life shot up dramatically. Distances that used to be a big deal are now nothing. Even if I&#x27;m going somewhere without cheap parking, I can drive directly to a train station instead of taking the bus. Life moves faster. I get to enjoy the city more often.<p>If the CTA would run more frequent, smaller vehicles on its routes I would easily go carless again. But instead it sounds like the approach is just to degrade the experience of owning a car until it&#x27;s as bad as public transit, rather than the other way around. When that happens, it&#x27;s off to the suburbs, I guess.