Headline Oct. 09/ ''' CAR-FREE -ZONES- CITY-CUE '''

''' CAR-FREE -ZONES- CITY-CUE '''

*ENOUGH IS JUST ABOUT ENOUGH* ...............

LEADERSHIP OR NO LEADERSHIP  -  RESOURCE OR ZERO SOURCE-

governance or no governance,  in one context of  the entire Developing World, and its horrible killer cities-

The World Students Society, most lovingly and respectfully called !WOW!, the exclusive ownership of every student in the world,  join to protest most vehemently at this rising misery and sub-human survival. 

ANGRY AND ANNOYED and saddened.   that the World Students Society is at the............ State-of-Affairs in the  developing world,  I stop and pay respects, firstly  to:

David Goh, Marketing Director, Discover- CCTV technologies, Singapore. 

In due course, David,  would be my *eyes and ears* and keep me briefed on all the vehicles' related  miseries in the developing world especially Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines ...................

Secondly, I stop to pay respects to  the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of Taiwan.

TAIPEI - TAIWAN : One beautiful cool day, with a gentle blowing breeze. and with a barely audible hum beneath banyan trees, a brightly painted shuttle bus cruised through a  university campus  here.

THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE crawled along at a speed no more than six miles per hour. 

And only 12 passengers could fit inside. BUT the bus drove itself, raising hopes in Taipei and the developing world,  that autonomous public transportation would be up and running here within a year.    

''The idea of someday being able to ride around the city in  driver-less vehicles with zero emissions,   is quite exciting,'' said Amber Chen who was riding with her son Ruey-She, 8.

*And with every good reason to make  cities  car/vehicles free, I return to the continuation of the advance operational research on quality of life :

The most obvious solution would be to ban vehicles from these zones. And many cities in Europe are taking this approach, extending the areas from which vehicles are prohibited.

Copenhagen was a pioneer :The vast downtown pedestrian zone known as the  Stroget  has been steadily expanded since cars  were first banned there  in 1962.

[Trucks are given access before shops open to make deliveries].

In the run-up to Christmas last year. Madrid experimented with banning cars from a vast downtown area. [Cabs, buses and residents' vehicles were allowed]. 

The most ambitious plans for car-free zones in Europe have been driven not by fear,  gut a true desire to reduce pollution and create more convivial public spaces.

Paris, which experienced heavy smog in 2014, has followed a ban on diesel cars with  car-free days on Champs Ely sees, which have proved very popular.

the right bank of the  Seine  has also been permanently pedestrianized  -and parts of it become an urban beach in the summer.

Oslo has announced that,  in line with its commitment to reduce carbon emissions, it will make the downtown  car-free  by  2019.

Recently, however, in some cities, security concerns are acknowledged as the motivation for creating pedestrian-only zones. 

After the track-ramming attack in Nice, officials in Antwerp, Belgium, erected retractable bollards on side streets off the Meir, the main commercial artery, closing it to traffic during the busiest shopping hours.

On Friday last, Copenhagen municipal council cited the attacks in Nice and Barcelona when it announced a plan to further expand the city's car-free zone.    

In many cities,  for either practical or political reasons, a complete ban private vehicles is unlikely. 

But given a  newly heightened  awareness of  vehicle-ramming attacks, many city administrators are working on smart ways of separating cars and crowds.

Physical barriers are the most expedient method. The trajectory of the cat that barreled through  Times Square  in May ended when the vehicle was impaled on a three-foot high stainless bollard.

These bollards were  installed on the advice of a police department counterterrorism expert who'd read a 2010 article in  AL Qaeda's English Language magazine calling on attackers to use vehicles to ''mow down'' pedestrians.

But when such security barriers become ubiquitous   -as they have in some Israeli  cities   - they can be cumbersome and intrusive, and even in induce fear by calling attention to the threat of terrorism.

The enormous concrete barriers erected this  July around  Flatiron Plaza in New York have been criticized for protruding into the bike lane and driving cyclists into traffic.

With at least seven pedestrian plaza projects now underway in Manhattan. Queens and Brooklyn, there has to be a more elegant solution.

Downtown pedestrian zones work best when they are porous for people but impermeable for vehicles.

Concrete blocks should be temporary solutions. 

No physical barriers can entirely forestall the threat from the hate filled individual armed with guns,bombs, or knives determined to inflict spectacular harm.

This is a menace that has stalked crowded  Western cities  since the heyday of the bomb throwing anarchists.

But we should not have to live with the fear that,  that a stroll among city crowds cut be cut short by a van,  tractor-trailer  or  Mercedez, Toyota, Nissan, Audi,  Sabaru, Kia, Daewoo,  zooming toward us..........

Expanded and intelligently designed pedestrian areas will reduce the danger.

And that is a win all around, because what keeps our citizens alive  is also good for the city.  

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' The Revolution '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless