Proposed carless Auckland subdivision

[plam]

Two minutes from a train station with pretty regular service to Auckland, no internal roads for cars, estimated 20% cheaper houses. Still pretty suburban SFH focus. Houses from NZ$600-650k (about C$550k let's say). Solves some of the problems but not all of them I guess. I'm OK with not solving all of the problems.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/clim...nd-housing

[danbrotherston]

Two minutes from a train station with pretty regular service to Auckland, no internal roads for cars, estimated 20% cheaper houses. Still pretty suburban SFH focus. Houses from NZ$600-650k (about C$550k let's say). Solves some of the problems but not all of them I guess. I'm OK with not solving all of the problems.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/clim...nd-housing

Very cool.

Yeah, I mean, I think solving only some problems is fine. But I really do think removing the cars will actually end up solving most problems. Cars create a lot of problems, but they also mask others...incomplete community, it's fine, you can just drive somewhere else. As soon as driving is inconvenient, those other problems come back, and people (with wealth) will be motivated to solve them.

[tomh009]

Two minutes from a train station with pretty regular service to Auckland, no internal roads for cars, estimated 20% cheaper houses. Still pretty suburban SFH focus. Houses from NZ$600-650k (about C$550k let's say). Solves some of the problems but not all of them I guess. I'm OK with not solving all of the problems.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/clim...nd-housing

Very cool.

Yeah, I mean, I think solving only some problems is fine. But I really do think removing the cars will actually end up solving most problems. Cars create a lot of problems, but they also mask others...incomplete community, it's fine, you can just drive somewhere else. As soon as driving is inconvenient, those other problems come back, and people (with wealth) will be motivated to solve them.

Yes ... although this one still has a car park, albeit on the edge of the community, so driving would not be super inconvenient.

But, overall, I do like it. At the minimum, it is far less car-intensive, and the land usage is much more efficient. Now, make it a mixed development with townhouses and mid-rises in addition to SFH, and it's even better.

[plam]

Very cool.

Yeah, I mean, I think solving only some problems is fine. But I really do think removing the cars will actually end up solving most problems. Cars create a lot of problems, but they also mask others...incomplete community, it's fine, you can just drive somewhere else. As soon as driving is inconvenient, those other problems come back, and people (with wealth) will be motivated to solve them.

Yes ... although this one still has a car park, albeit on the edge of the community, so driving would not be super inconvenient.

But, overall, I do like it. At the minimum, it is far less car-intensive, and the land usage is much more efficient. Now, make it a mixed development with townhouses and mid-rises in addition to SFH, and it's even better.

I guess sometimes you do have to leave your 15 minute radius... I wouldn't expect a climbing gym every 15 minutes for instance. In those cases ideally there'd be good transit. But for daily needs it really shouldn't be required to drive a car. Which is actually the way I've set up my life in Waterloo.

Condos and townhouses would be great but somehow many societies (NZ and Canada to some extent) kind of view detached houses as the best possible type of housing. I don't really get it. At least having them closer to each other and not separated by huge tracts of asphalt is a plus.

[Coke6pk]

Fire and other Emergency responses? (I realize police have bikes, and EMS can golf cart).... but if I'm having a heart attack or suffering a home invasion.... I want a direct roadway.

Coke

[danbrotherston]

Fire and other Emergency responses?  (I realize police have bikes, and EMS can golf cart).... but if I'm having a heart attack or suffering a home invasion.... I want a direct roadway.

Coke

How direct? I live in a building, the paramedics and police physically cannot park closer than 80 meters from my front door. Other people have giant homes and they might be 80 meters away from their front door. For that matter, I also have a cottage and that cottage is over a KM of water away from the nearest road. Why is it less reasonable if those 80 meters are up a sidewalk instead of a hallway or lake?

[Coke6pk]

Fire and other Emergency responses?  (I realize police have bikes, and EMS can golf cart).... but if I'm having a heart attack or suffering a home invasion.... I want a direct roadway.

Coke

How direct? I live in a building, the paramedics and police physically cannot park closer than 80 meters from my front door. Other people have giant homes and they might be 80 meters away from their front door. For that matter, I also have a cottage and that cottage is over a KM of water away from the nearest road. Why is it less reasonable if those 80 meters are up a sidewalk instead of a hallway or lake?

If you are living in a cottage or rural area, there is an expectation of slower emergency responses.... this is in the middle of a major city.  Yes, an apartment and/or mansion may have additional challenges, but judging from the overview of the proposal, these residences will be far from 80M from an access point, no?

Coke

[ijmorlan]

How direct? I live in a building, the paramedics and police physically cannot park closer than 80 meters from my front door. Other people have giant homes and they might be 80 meters away from their front door. For that matter, I also have a cottage and that cottage is over a KM of water away from the nearest road. Why is it less reasonable if those 80 meters are up a sidewalk instead of a hallway or lake?

If you are living in a cottage or rural area, there is an expectation of slower emergency responses.... this is in the middle of a major city.  Yes, an apartment and/or mansion may have additional challenges, but judging from the overview of the proposal, these residences will be far from 80M from an access point, no?

Coke

I’d be interested to know details, but I don’t see any insuperable challenges. UW campus (within Ring Road) is pretty much car-free but I don’t think EMS has trouble getting in there. It could be as simple as “ambulances are allowed to drive on the sidewalk/paths when needed”.

[tomh009]

How direct? I live in a building, the paramedics and police physically cannot park closer than 80 meters from my front door. Other people have giant homes and they might be 80 meters away from their front door. For that matter, I also have a cottage and that cottage is over a KM of water away from the nearest road. Why is it less reasonable if those 80 meters are up a sidewalk instead of a hallway or lake?

If you are living in a cottage or rural area, there is an expectation of slower emergency responses.... this is in the middle of a major city.  Yes, an apartment and/or mansion may have additional challenges, but judging from the overview of the proposal, these residences will be far from 80M from an access point, no?

Coke

There are pedestrian-priority roadways that would be usable for emergency vehicles. There is no to-scale map that I saw but it doesn't look like anywhere in the development would be more than 100-200m from such a roadway.

[plam]

Also somehow in North America we've been talked into having wide roads so that emergency services can access them. Not the case in e.g. the UK, where they have smaller trucks. To be honest I haven't seen many firetrucks in NZ so I can't say how big they are compared to North American ones.

[ijmorlan]

Also somehow in North America we've been talked into having wide roads so that emergency services can access them. Not the case in e.g. the UK, where they have smaller trucks. To be honest I haven't seen many firetrucks in NZ so I can't say how big they are compared to North American ones.

The tail does indeed wag the dog here. Emergency services takes their huge fire trucks as a given, rather than adapting their choice of vehicle to the situation. Then of course some of the emergency calls involve people being run over by people driving way too fast along the excessively wide streets.

[tomh009]

Also somehow in North America we've been talked into having wide roads so that emergency services can access them. Not the case in e.g. the UK, where they have smaller trucks. To be honest I haven't seen many firetrucks in NZ so I can't say how big they are compared to North American ones.

The ones in Tokyo are definitely much smaller.