Not car free but i can definitely tell you there is possibility to walk, public transit in MOST of EU cities.
Starting from Scandinavia, almost any city with pop , 10k or more will have generally bus transport, and probable connectivity to nearest big city by train/bus, big cities have metro (Stockholm) that I know of
Germany has vast network of rail(although it’s schisse at moment with DB) , within cities its bus , that I know of .
France almost any big city will have bus, tram and/or metro and long distance trains
Same for spains cities ,
Netherlands is famous for its Public transport
This is from what I know
Cars are severely slow and given less prio in these countries, in any of big city e.g. Barcelona, Paris, Hague, you can see you can go faster by public transportation or almost same time as car for same destinations , check it out in Google maps with comparisons
Spain has 195mph trains as well connecting huge swaths of the country. I fortunately was able to experience this.
The American concept of a “road trip” is just not the same in Europe. The Trains are far faster than your car would ever go. No reason to putter around at 80mph on a fast American highway when Europe just has faster modes of transit.
Long distance? Train. Short-distance? Train and/or bus. Its really easy over there, but difficult in America.
That being said: American Freight Rail moves way more than Europe Freight ever does. One of the problems here in the USA is that freight is the priority, and freight just doesn’t need to be as fast as Passenger traffic. We kind of need to build a 2nd, separate rail system, to get anything like the Europeans have.
“Lots” of American cities seems like an exaggeration.
Some American cities have certain areas which are car-free.
How many European cities are 100% car-free?
Wasn’t Paris’s speed limit set to like 15mph?
Multiple cities in Europe are becoming ‘Walking First’ cities where cars are effectively 2nd class.
Car free? No. But cars are being de-prioritized extremely these days.
Not car free but i can definitely tell you there is possibility to walk, public transit in MOST of EU cities. Starting from Scandinavia, almost any city with pop , 10k or more will have generally bus transport, and probable connectivity to nearest big city by train/bus, big cities have metro (Stockholm) that I know of Germany has vast network of rail(although it’s schisse at moment with DB) , within cities its bus , that I know of . France almost any big city will have bus, tram and/or metro and long distance trains Same for spains cities , Netherlands is famous for its Public transport This is from what I know
Cars are severely slow and given less prio in these countries, in any of big city e.g. Barcelona, Paris, Hague, you can see you can go faster by public transportation or almost same time as car for same destinations , check it out in Google maps with comparisons
Spain has 195mph trains as well connecting huge swaths of the country. I fortunately was able to experience this.
The American concept of a “road trip” is just not the same in Europe. The Trains are far faster than your car would ever go. No reason to putter around at 80mph on a fast American highway when Europe just has faster modes of transit.
Long distance? Train. Short-distance? Train and/or bus. Its really easy over there, but difficult in America.
That being said: American Freight Rail moves way more than Europe Freight ever does. One of the problems here in the USA is that freight is the priority, and freight just doesn’t need to be as fast as Passenger traffic. We kind of need to build a 2nd, separate rail system, to get anything like the Europeans have.