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If you drive a car into the city center of Oslo next month, you shouldn't plan on staying long: There won't be any parking spots.
The Norwegian capital is in the process of eliminating the remaining 700 street parking spots in its city center by the end of 2018 as part of its plan to turn the area into a car-free zone.
"We're doing this to give the streets back to the people," Hanna Elise Marcussen, Oslo's vice mayor for urban development, said during a recent phone interview. "And of course, it's environmentally friendly." (The Scandinavian country, recently recognized as one of the world's most ecologically progressive nations, has plans to become carbon neutral by 2030 and halt the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2025.)
And it's not just Oslo that is turning away drivers. Popular tourist destinations across the globe are removing cars from heavily trafficked areas to reduce congestion, cut down on pollution, and make streets more welcoming to bikers and pedestrians.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 26 2018, @09:18PM (8 children)
It's worth noting at this point that Scandinavian countries are
Europe's wangvery, very small compared to the US. We have individual metropolitan areas that could cover more than an eighth of Sweden's entire land mass and it's the largest of the bunch.My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 26 2018, @09:26PM (2 children)
I thought the Wang was American? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 26 2018, @09:48PM
We have one too. We just call it Florida.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday December 27 2018, @01:38PM
Wang [wikipedia.org] used to be a computer company.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 26 2018, @10:22PM (4 children)
Not as small as you think, in your braindead state. First of all, Sweden's landmass alone is around 420 000 km2(Yes, Sweden is larger than California). Second, Sweden has municipalities that are larger than some of your states, especially when you only factor land mass.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 26 2018, @11:04PM (2 children)
Precisely as small as I think. I checked its size and the sizes of some of our larger cities before I posted. The Los Angeles metropolitan area covered over thirty-three thousand square miles in 2010. It hasn't shrunk since then, I guarantee you. Sweden covers 173,860 square miles. That makes LA one fifth the size of Sweden, give or take some small change.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @12:08AM (1 child)
So you are illiterate then, or only capable of ideologically motivated selective reading:
US Census Bureau data:
Los Angeles Metropolitan Area(aka Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area) landmass: 12 562km2 (Which is just a a bit less than twice the size of the Stockholm Metropolitan Area)
What you're talking about is the megapolitan area, the Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA Combined Statistical Area (CSA), more commonly known as the Greater Los Angeles Area a megapolitan area consisting of three metropolitan areas, which includes Riverside, Ventura and San Bernadino.
Given that the latter is based primarily on commuting patterns, we'd have to do the same in Sweden, where daily commuting happens as far south as Linköping and as far north as Gävle, and all of the towns and cities around Mälaren, which would massively inflate the numbers until it becomes absurd(and if you include weekly or monthly commuting it becomes utterly ridiculous)
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 27 2018, @12:34AM
Call it by whatever name you like, it's still over thirty thousand contiguous square miles of city. And I was never comparing cities to cities. I don't particularly care how big your cities are. You can be city from one end to the other and it makes no difference. The point is you are tiny and we are large. You might get away with not owning a vehicle. It's not quite as easy when you can drive for over three thousand miles (five thousand kilometers if you prefer) in your nation without getting off the shortest route and without crossing an international border.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @05:39PM
Include Greenland, an icy wasteland, which is comparable to the interior wastelands of the US. Then the sizes are more comparable.