this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
301 points (97.5% liked)

Fuck Cars

15204 readers
650 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

There was no room to exercise. Just dangerous. The noise from cars alone was stressful.

Now, New Yorkers would NEVER allow this to be reversed.

But back then, many people actually opposed banning cars from Central Park 🤦

It took decades of activism to kick these cars out of the park.

all 38 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] kurikai@lemmy.world 61 points 1 month ago (4 children)
[–] mienshao@lemmy.world 53 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Seriously… I don’t get making a post like this without even providing pictures of what it’s like now.

[–] hamid@crazypeople.online 16 points 1 month ago

The road is still there but with no cars allowed.

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 11 points 1 month ago

Last time i was there (which was a couple years ago), the paved roads were still there, but there were no cars on them except for an occasional cop car or ambulance going at moderate speed. And iirc the painted car lanes have shrunk down to a single lane, while painted lanes for pedestrians widened and bike lanes were added

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 40 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

De Blasio also greatly increased the number of ferries running from borough to borough.

[–] Statfish@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just visited NYC for the first time in decades, and was blown away with the ferries. Such a great way to see the city!

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 10 points 1 month ago

De Blasio wanted to make them the same price as the subways, Adams raised the price to $4.00. Currently $4.50, subway is $3.00

[–] Thunderbird4@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A few years ago? That looks like 2005

[–] PlaidBaron@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Yeah we just old. This was probably a good 20 years ago.

[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 month ago

That's actually amazing. Love old videos of life in motion.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 17 points 1 month ago (3 children)

What does it look like now?

[–] hamid@crazypeople.online 20 points 1 month ago

They disallowed cars in the park loop and the whole road is still there but it is for biking and running now

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So, where was the road in the vid? Bottom left?

[–] cazssiew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

It's somewhere in the top right of the pic, around the western edge of the lake (hidden by trees, the body of water visible in the pic is the reservoir): https://maps.app.goo.gl/pEYWTiKPz7XgUJ9Q6?g_st=ac

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone -3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I dunno, I didn't watch the video lol.

The park is huge by the way. It might not come across as well in an aerial photo, but it's pretty massive, especially for something in the middle of a city as large as NYC.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you zoom in on the bottom left, you see little dots. Like ants. Those are people lol insane

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

Running alongside traffic is the equivalent lung damage as smoking a pack of cigarettes.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Here in Kansas City there's a movement afoot to remove some sections of street pavement in our downtown area and replace it with a park. I'm fairly confident it'll happen too.

Luckily there's a ton of park space throughout the city here.

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

I read your comment like removing the sidewalk to put parking spots in place

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I wish op posted a current picture - I missed Central Park the last few times I visited nyc.

I don’t know if we really have similar opportunities here in the Boston areas, but we have a lot of places pedestrianizing downtowns. While we had some for many years, pandemic was a big trigger, but very few became permanent and too many were given back to cars.

I’m especially annoyed at my town. We have a classic “Main Street” with shops and restaurants, right near a train station, commons, museum, etc. they’ve been pushing it for decades as a walkable place …. Businesses got tons of extra traffic when it was pedestrianized. They kept it for summer weekends but just stopped doing that too.

Most residents wanted permanent, town council wanted it permanent …. But we have a strong mayor who didn’t

[–] AccoSpoot@lemmynsfw.com 10 points 1 month ago

How else are Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson meant to stop Jeremy Irons emptying out the international gold reserve?

[–] dan69@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

I appreciate this video and audio. It’s good to have this for archival footage so we can learn from these mistakes.

[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

Now to get rid of the horse carriage industry that is working those poor horses to death.