I may get excommunicated and shot at dawn for this, but right now I'm in London and I've come to a conclusion. This and any other major city needs to ban all internal combustion powered vehicle as soon as is feasibly possible. The single worst thing is the noise an smell from even the diminished number of cars, trucks, motorbikes etc. You get a short distance away from the road and it's wonderful.
Flame away!
In reply to Adrian_Thompson:
I solved that problem by staying out of the cities. They are soul sucking places even when they are quiet.
Go to Boston. Downtown is amazing after the dig. Sure there is surface traffic but no highway whail
Stay over there you commie/hippie/greenie/SOB/Purisdriver!
You clearly have not taken on 'Merican values. If you attempt to come back I'll see to it that you're surrounded by Harley's with loud pipes and open header equipped big block Chevys.
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: I solved that problem by staying out of the cities. They are soul sucking places even when they are quiet.
Quoted for troof
Behold the solution!
Simply make everyone in London drive one of these!
I feel like I was channeling Jeremy Clarkson when I had that idea.
If you think the noise and smell is the worst, imagine what will happen if the world runs out of crude oil in 30 or so years with no contingency plan. 
We will have plenty of other problems related to this also.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson: You should tell people that don't like cars to buy electric vehicles.
Think of how many lifes would be saved if we banned all vehicles.
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: I solved that problem by staying out of the cities. They are soul sucking places even when they are quiet.
Will have to try it
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: I solved that problem by staying out of the cities. They are soul sucking places even when they are quiet.
Disagree. Love the place. So much cool stuff. No I wouldn't want to live here (couldn't afford it) but absolutely love visiting.
I grew up down the road from a gravel pit and an ambulance dispatch, on a road tieing two highways together, and rode the bus towards the front of the line of idling international diesel buses in school before ultra low sulfur diesel, that stuff is all background noise to me. Not that I don't prefer quiet and nature and whatnot, but I've never thought to complain.
Mr_Clutch42 wrote: If you think the noise and smell is the worst, imagine what will happen if the world runs out of crude oil in 30 or so years with no contingency plan.
Is that 30 years from now.. or 30 years from the 70's? or 30 years from 2005? 
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:
They just keep finding more and more of the stuff.......
make everyone run race fuel, that e36m3 smells great!
I would love to disagree but I couldn't hear the question.
WHAT!!!
Fueled by Caffeine wrote:Mr_Clutch42 wrote: If you think the noise and smell is the worst, imagine what will happen if the world runs out of crude oil in 30 or so years with no contingency plan.Is that 30 years from now.. or 30 years from the 70's? or 30 years from 2005?
No man, 30 years! What don't you understand about 30 years!
I love city noise. I stayed at a hotel in downtown LA last weekend, and slept with the windows open. What I will miss the most about my current place is the proximity to train tracks. I wouldn't be surprised if 50 trains pass by a day a 1/4 mile away, most in the middle of the night.
Strangely, I berkeleying love hearing all the noises staying dead downtown at night in the hotel room. Vancouver, chicago, san fran, san diego, boston, etc.
Nothing lulls me to sleep faster than taxis honking, sirens, drunk people screaming, and a hotel air conditoner straining to keep the toom at 68F.
I'm with you A_T. I'm always amazed at how far the sound of a normal car going 60mph travels across a silent valley. But let's start with unmuffled Harley's, bro dozer pickup trucks, and rolling E36 M3heaps with leaking exhausts first, then tackle the everyday commuter traffic.
I think the future of cities is without a doubt mass transit, walkable neighborhoods plus bike lanes, and electric vehicles. The pollution and the waste has been too much for too long.
Mass transit, yes, I'd forgotten just how berkeleying awesome the tube, bus, rail system is here. The only reason I've gone to the rental car since we got here is to charge my phone sine over the last 10 years we have a 100% lost luggage record coming to the UK as a family and the mains adaptor still hasn't caught up with me
Live next to an airport or railroad tracks. You go deaf or tune it out. Eventually, you don't hear E36 M3 anymore.
Ah yes, public transit. It's the governments way of telling you where to go and when you will get there. Bonus points for the thugs and head cases ready to rob you at a moments notice!
Bike lanes and walkable neighborhoods? Yeah, I want to walk 38 blocks with 2 40lbs bag of water softener salt in the middle of January. 
In reply to Gearheadotaku:
I have never seen anyone lug water softener salt around a city. Most cities I've been too have been fairly easy to get around without a car.
As far as why people love where they do generally the price of housing has more to do with it than transit planners. People tend to settle in the nicest area they can afford and from time to time we add or change service accordingly.
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