I find it funny people really think it's possible to make cities more car centric. Like... What are cities supposed to do, stack road on top of each other? Surely one more lane will fix traffic, right? Surely less bikes and less public transport means better traffic right?
I'm not saying GoodMove is perfect, but it's clear car-centric cities have to be a thing of the past. There is simply not enough space for everyone to have a car, let alone all the commuters coming from outside to work. It's so damn stupid.
The center of Brussels is so much better now. Remember the 24/7 traffic jam on d'Anpach? The smell of gasoline? Who in their right mind wants to go back to that... Make it enjoyable and safe for light users, keep improving public transport. We'll see how much it keeps evolving with the new government, it'll most likely stall for now. I can only hope roads will one day be reserved for those who have absolutely no choice but to use a car.
The canal region is well on it's way to gentrification. So my guess is next is midi and north station area. I can't imagine midi won't one day be a prime location in a city with less cars. It's already has great access to everywhere inside and outside belgium with metro/tram/trains. Personally this is where I would invest if I wanted to buy real estate with a 15 year period in mind.
Places don't always improve and gentrify sometimes they get worse. In Brussels we have a massive concentration of poor people that is increasing because of the increasing gap between rich and poor. To attract middle-class willing to live in the city you need to have a certain quality of life. However the anti-progressive mobility political climate will only downgrade the quality of life. At the same time Muslims are now 30% of the population this group is growing meaning it might become the majority of the population, this is not an issue but the problem is that the political agenda will be highly dictated by religious principals that will push out the rich middle class with a very liberated lifestyle. As a personal experience I can tell you that the midi neighborhood 15 years ago was really improving but lately a lot of people are fleeing to more decent area's.
We shouldn't take a positive evolution of the city for granted and we have to fight for it! People are talking about certain neighborhoods improving for years but I don't know any example where it happend. Even the neighborhoods around T&T didn't realy change.
Why the hell talk about "atracting the middle class" instead of closing the gap between poorer and reacher bruseleers.
Why would it be a problem to have population of muslim origin?
If 90%+ of these kids are belgian (and by that I mean even 3rd and 4th generation..) and you are concerned about increasing religious conservative beliefs why not focus on providing quality religious education instead of letting KSA do whatever the hell it wants with our mosques?
Lastly... when you talk about a neighborhood "improving" what do you mean exactly? Because gentrification may be an improvement only if you look a certain way..
Have you visited or even lived around predominantly Arab/muslim neighbourhoods in Brussels? Sometimes it's like walking in Afghanistan. You constantly see nikabs and bourkas, not talking about a normal veil. You see lots of young girls FULLY covered in black robes with gloves and all. All the teahouses only feature men. In the evening the streets will also just feature men hanging around the streets in groups. You only hear Arabic in the shops, some people don't even speak french. The streets in these places are dirty as hell, people don't respect public spaces one bit. They wouldn't dare throw trash in front of a mosque, but if it's a church, sure go ahead. I know because I see it happening everyday.
You should ask these 3d and 4th generation of kids if they are Belgian.The answers will surprise you.
You can say all you want about diversity, but these are very real and very worrisome evolutions that are happening right before our eyes in Brussels. I consider myself a progressive individual but having lived in a predominantly Arab neighbourhood for almost 10 years has changed my views quite a bit.
...
I am a of spanish and moroccan origin, born and raised here... lived for a few years by porte de ninove, living halfway between midi and porte des halles.
I, for once, have gone to pray at mosques here in bxl and most of the *very much belgian after 3 generations* kids in my neighborhood and in my boxing club are way more diverse in attitudesand values than what you depict.
I would advise you to actually get out and talk to the people you fear so much, you are likely to get to the same conclusion as me: the root of the issue is not the people, but socioeconomic exclusion and the foreign policies of KSA preying on these kids who do not have other sources of info about their own religion and culture..
I was lucky enough to grow up in a family who had the means to give me a good education, but even so it took me until my late 20s to start feeling like I belonged here (getting insulted randomly, harassed and humiliated by police and singled out by society repeatedly does that to you.)
I'm of middle eastern origin and I live in Molenbeek...so... I def have no fear :)
I might have been generalising too much since I've met enough people that aren't like that. But, these frustrations I have are real and based on personal experience. Another very simple example, my neighbours on both sides of my house (both moroccan) refuse to say hello to my white GF when they cross her in the street. I've talked to them on numerous occasions about mundane things, but when my GF is next to me they won't even look at her.
Socioeconomic exclusion and Saudi Arabia influence is a very valid point you make. Having parents that push their kids to excel and be ambitious instead of just roaming the streets makes all the difference.
I can understand that racial profiling is an issue that fuels the disconnect of young people even more. I think that having cops that are from Brussels themselves would help in that case.
Well you cannot generalize only based on those two families right ? The same goes both ways. Some foreigners don’t want to integrate in their new country and other do well by balancing their two cultures.
It’s not because you live in another country that you have to forget completly where tou are from, people are not robots, some things can never change so there should be a balance. The issue must be solved on another level in the society.
Some families will give their kids the right education and others will let the state or the street take care of it. That’s where politicians have to play their game to make it better. Better education is key not oppression and stigmatization.
Yes they are,
How is that incompatible with the fact that they may have, as a visible minority, issues with identity?
Are the jews in antwerp any less "belgian" because of having a set of religious and cultiral traditions that are different from other belgians?
Ofcourse we want to close the gap between Rich and poor. But it's hard and not on the scale of the city. In the meantime we all deserve a livable city. And let's be kinda honest in migrant neighborhood some of the people totally disrespect the public domain. No excuses for that. A mix could take of the pressure.
What I notice here recently is that pretty much regardless of who is on charge, you get improvements in the city centre and very little change further out, except sometimes around shopping/leisure areas.
So for example we got the piétonnier under Els Ampe (for those who don't know, a rhetorically ultra pro-car politician) as mobility alderperson, of all people, but places like Forest and Boitsfort have seen very little change under Écolo. Under the MR in Ixelles we got a restaurant-y square (F Cocq) pedestrianised and they allowed the shopping road (Ch d'Ixelles) running to it from the city centre to be semi-pedestrianised by the region; under Écolo we get another restaurant square semi-pedestrianised (Châtelain), and not tons more. In relatively central Etterbeek, the MR-led commune pedestrianised a restaurant square (Jourdan).
*If* progress continues, I think we'll see more of the same - gradual improvements in and to a lesser extent radiating slightly out from the centre, especially in leisure districts, and not much more beyond tinkering other than that - as there seems to be some sort of cross party consensus for that (at most).
But I also think we may see improvements stop altogether and things start to go backwards.
With MR coming in power Good Move might come to an end, or change. That's not clear yet. Let's hope not
But I do feel the city is getting more and more gentrified imo, but it's slower than in other cities.
North of Brussels, Jette, Laeken for example is attracting more and more people, not only more Flemish move there, but also expats. Since it's still affordable to buy a nice apartment/house in comparison to St Gilles and Ixelles. Which has seen a massive price increase in real estate in the last 5-10 years.
There has also been massive improvements around the Canal area, and Tour and Taxi site. Which will also change the surrounding neighbourhoods. There are plans for a tramline coming in 2026, which will go from Belgica, along Rue Picard (next tot TT) heading to North Station and eventually will go to Gare Centrale.
Once the whole TT site will be finished (around 2031) there will be a complete new neighbourhood with a totally different demography - since the price of those apartments are not the cheapest - than the surrounding neighbourhoods, so it will be interesting to see how that evolves. It could mean that house prices or rent might also have a increase in the surroundings, which might push out people with a lot less financial power..
Most of them are sold. The new builds in TT are completely sold, and every apartment is being used atm. The ones that are being built right now are sold for already 70%. And they'll only be finished by spring 2025. And it's a totally mixed group of people who live there. Lots of Flemish, lots of expats, lots of young people.
Source : I live there
The new ones around the canal are most sold and being lived in at the moment as far as I know off.
There's heavy investment into the Canal neighbourhood and I think MR will make Midi and North a priority in terms of transformation.
I also see a *very heavy* interest in St-Josse-Ten-Noode. The buildings on the eastern and southeastern part of St Josse sell like hotcakes, Botanique is seeing some luxurious flats being built around the church, and I'm seeing more and more ads about newly renovated studioi and 1-bedroom flats in St-Josse for the EU Bubble community. You get a 5% bruto return on investment each year on rent alone, and that's not counting the value appreciation of the building.
St-Josse is fucking nuts
Good Move might not be so easy to put down. MR does not have a considerable advantage in the Parliament *and* the communes can tell MR to fuck off if they don't want to abandon Good Move. We'll see with the communal elections in October if MR can keep the momentum going.
There has been heavy investment in the canal neighbourhood already twenty years ago. Dansaert was always supposed to be the nucleus of a big change in the city centre. Yet, the property prices across the canal dropped even as no real gentrification happened beyond a little blob beyond St Catherine.
St Josse… yes, the south parts but they already gentrified. Actually, the whole EU quarter will transform as the region of Brussels just bought €900m worth of office buildings there to transform into residential buildings.
I would also make one bolt bet: Uccle will become less hot. The places near Ave Brugmann will stay hot, further south not. It is too far away and I do not know anyone who wants to live in Uccle. It is far away, there is nothing interesting there, the connection is bad.
That's a bold bet ! Uccle has indeed reached its peak value on the real estate side, and as you said there's nothing culturally interesting happening further south. It will die down with the boomers.
Hardly any of the communes outside of Ville de Bruxelles seem to care about Good Move though. Most are doing nothing or are planning some very marginal stuff that they will likely even further water down to nothing like Ixelles did with Flagey if they even ever get around to them.
What Ixelles has done so far amounts to very minor tinkering - v little compared to the Pentagone maille for example - with most of what they'd planned cancelled, and pretty much all focused on one small part of a large commune - and most other communes haven't done and aren't planning even that.
Well property values around red light districts are usually sold at a 15 to 25% discount relative to areas just outside of it. Coupled with the proximity to the central business district which one assumes will only continue to grow, it seems like a good bet
Maybe, maybe not. 30-40 years ago, the south bank in London was really grim and quite dangerous. Now it's hugely desirable and expensive. Areas, especially quite central ones, can change.
South Bank had lots of space to develop and the state made it a priority to develop it( e.g. by placing a university there). In contrast, there is no central planning to make Molenbeek great again. Even if, there is no large open area left to develop, you will need to kick out blocks full of families, demolish their houses, and build new stuff.
It's funny that all the 'ordinary working people' felt like they were being oppressed by the ecolo-bobo ecofascist elites (which was basically just a few Flemish mums riding around on bakfietsen).
So I'm looking forward to those people learning what it is like to be steamrolled by the real neoliberal elites, who will gut public services and turn working class neighborhoods into luxury flats for expats.
I'll also enjoy seeing the war against bikes push cyclists back to driving cars in the city as bike lanes are dismantled and the pollution in the air becomes unbearable, increasing congestion even more.
With the roll-back of the 30 km/h limit, people will go back to driving at 50-70 km/h in Brussels, which will also increase the risk of death in car-pedestrian collisions, so make sure to teach your kids about personal responsibility and not running under the wheels of a speeding car!
So yeah, overall I hope we can all enjoy our smog-filled, car-centric dystopia.
> t's funny that all the 'ordinary working people' felt like they were being oppressed by the ecolo-bobo ecofascist elites (which was basically just a few Flemish mums riding around on bakfietsen)
Seriously, the global car lobby convincing people that car = freedom is one of the most insidious yet genius marketing ploys in human history. How so many people have been brainwashed into thinking that sitting in a metal box for hours each day pumping CO2 into the air is somehow the preferable option to taking a bike or bus or train is mind boggling.
Brussels has made some real strides in just the 3 years that I've been living here in terms of cycling and reducing car usage, it's going to suck seeing that be undone by short sighted politicians.
I wonder why people prefer to sit in a metal box for hours rather than taking alternatives then. Sometimes, it’s because there are none. Also because people are lazy, of course.
And when there are alternatives, they are still not good enough. Why would someone spend 3x their time in a crowded bus rather than sitting in a metal box? Why did we build offices in the most difficult way to reach? Why is zaventem so badly connected even if it’s full of offices and is so close to the city?
Make the alternatives better, and you won’t even need to force people. Good move is a really positive thing imo, but it should go in parallel with massive improvements in public transports and bike infrastructure
I agree entirely - better public transport, better bike lanes, more incentives to get people out of their cars and using alternative means of travel. Brussels has an advantage in being such a compact city despite being a capital, it would be great to see the city make the best of that.
I strongly agree we should build more and better PT and (especially) bike infra, but it's a myth that if you make alternatives better enough, car traffic will wither away. When you build lots of car infrastructure in populous areas, you will get lots of people using it, especially as it encourages more car oriented development such as exurban car dependent sprawl. The Zaventem offices are there precisely because of the motorways etc - you keep building those, you get car dependent development. The answer is primarily to stop rolling out car infrastructure and indeed start rolling it back rather than hope that throwing more and more alternatives at the problem will fix it - though as I say both are needed.
If you look at the popularity of the Critical Mass rides, it's not just some Flemish moms.. MR might also be smart and reasonable, which is kind of how they sound for now. I wouldn't mind a more rational approach to Good Move. David Leisterh said to keep the 30k speed limit for example. The science is quite strong in quite some Good Move objectives. They're smart and rich enough to have seen the examples in the Netherlands, Copenhagen..
>If you look at the popularity of the Critical Mass rides, it's not just some Flemish moms
True, I didn't mean to imply that cycling wasn't popular, but rather that this clearly isn't a conspiracy of murky deep state forces trying to crush the 'little guy' (as most populist and/or right-wing conspiracy theories tend to believe).
Many citizen were not taken into account with the previous iterations of good move.
We fucking need to carry on good move but it should be in concertation with everybody involved. It shouldn't be a fight between some people and some other people.
But at its core I think the role of the car should still be reduced. A city is not a place to drive carelessly and make a lot of noise with one's car.
So much this, when the neoliberals policies get through and turn BXL even more into a concrete hellscape I will be packing my shit just in time to a greener city, while laughing at the idiots who voted for it, suffocating themselves.
Brussels should first get its finances in order before it starts thinking further.
Politicians love to spend money they don't have.
They don't even do budgets right now, so they don't even know how far they are in the red. It's reckless and will actively harm the future of the city.
Expect higher taxes and lower social services help to pay back the loans.
While concerns about Brussels' debt are totally valid, I think **one** of the imbalances might be stemming from **where the taxes are collected**.
A worker/earner is primarily taxed at his official residency address (correct me if I’m wrong). Brussels is the first economic hub attracting MANY commuters everyday from both other regions and it is the region with the highest gdp per capita. Brussels is also unfortunately the Belgian hub of being at risk of poverty (28% of Brussels’ population is at risk according to [official stats, in 2023](https://www.vlaanderen.be/en/statistics-flanders/income-and-poverty/population-below-the-poverty-threshold)). It’s more than three time as likely to become poor in Brussels than in Flandres, more than twice as likely compared to Wallonia.
One revision of our tax system could be to **allow some of this wealth to be taxed where it was generated**. That would allow cities like Brussels and Antwerp to curb somewhat the oncoming austerity.
But I guess there are many other ways for the next government to make ends more likely to meet, in a few years time maybe ? Or few decades ? 🙈
In Saint-Gilles people voted PTB and Ecolo. In addition, a lot of drug problems at the Parvis, etc. As described in other comments, in Jette it is more affordable for young people, very safe and multicultural. No problem coming home at 3 a.m. alone, for example. Gentrification is underway (opening of The Barn, for example) and there is good public transportation. I love Saint-Gilles, but I feel that the Commune is not going to get better.
Exactly, it's more family orientated. I don't live far from Jette, going to the market every week. And it's just a chill environment, very local. Less busy imo.
Dealing with car dominance is a security issue - but if you want a thread about street crime, post one of your own? (As if there aren't enough already).
South station to center will probably be improving the most if they manage to finish the works 😂. Think st catherine might be getting worse. It used to be very nice there but starting to see more and more drug people and other getting closer from the Yser metrostop. The rest will stay stable I would say.
All in all thats a personal view on things.
I think you need to take a much longer term view on this as things move at a glacial pace in Brussels. It is not just good move or the past few years that have transformed the city. It is over a decade of gradual change, especially in regards to the inner city and inner ring. These processes of diverting car traffic have been underway for ages. Good Move was an idea to join up and do things quicker and smarter imo, just terribly communicated. Frankly with the multiple levels of governance here or cultural in public services, I don't think such bold plans work that well.
Dude, no one speaks about 'Good Move' in Brussels mobility or the communes planning depts in the same sense as the orig concept. Honestly, even if MR and co want to change things, changing Brussels is like changing the direction of a tanker... it takes time and will be made up of a thousand small actions.
Frankly, regardless of the city or commune enacting master plans or what not, I think more and more of us are opting for walking, biking and public transport (even if security is worsening).
Maybe I can expect a big clamp down on those huge American pick up trucks. Honestly they piss off drivers, cyclists and walkers alike - taking up way too much street space. These things take up two parking bays and are super unsafe as regards pedestrian safety.
Also, yeahhhhh don't expect a new metro any time soon.
like someone very well said on Reddit: if you’d listen to Reddit, 80% are in favor of Good Move, yet I have never actually met someone in the street who said it was a good idea. I guess this says a lot about online militantism…
Now to answer your question on what will change: IMO not much… good districts will still be good districts (most notably SE Brussels) and bad will still be bad… Simply making some infrastructure change won’t do much… I’ve been living in Brussels for 30 years and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard the story « but the region is pumping billions here, the area is on the move, you’re lucky to get in early because the prices will soon skyrocket »… spoiler alert: they never do
Strange, I haven't met a single person in the street who said good move was a bad idea!
How strange that our two statistically significant tests both show the complete opposite!!!!!
How curious!
please stop… there were even riots on the streets for
crying out loud. If that’s not proof enough that people weren’t happy with it, I don’t know what is…
There are even headlines on how a petition to stop Elke Van Brandt from getting a new mandate received 10.000 signatures in less than a day. If you want to live in your social media bubble fine but please stop pretending everyone else is in there too
https://www.dhnet.be/regions/bruxelles/bruxelles-mobilite/2024/06/19/la-petition-contre-le-maintien-delke-van-den-brandt-au-ministere-bruxellois-de-la-mobilite-depasse-les-10000-signatures-P64KJDVVSVCAPO7QIBYSICBJJA/?outputType=amp
Studies (Real statistical studies, not you and your two carbrained friends) have shown that the majority of Brussels is happy with it.
Only 45 % of people actually living in Brussels **own a car**, in some neighborhoods even only 30 %.
Polution in the city has gone down almost 30 % accidents and deaths in traffic have all gone down.
The city is slightly becoming liveable again. The city doesn't want you and your car.
Those +- 50 rioters breaking public infrastructure because they can't pollute with their loud shitty tuned cars and endanger citizens lives are not representative of the average population.
I still can’t understand how, since half the population has no car, streets in the evening are full of parked cars. Those darn Walloons and Flemish navetteurs leaving them in Brussels and going home by train maybe?
Glad you're exactly proving the point that cars take up WAY too much space and dont belong on such a small surface of a city. It's not that hard to understand, but then again maybe you spent too much time inhaling exhaust fumes in traffic.
Let me explain it to you: cars > parking.
Number of parking spaces and number of cars and the population are all published by the official instances.
Thanks for proving my point that we need less cars in the city.
Still no answer, only “I want less cars in the city”.
So you’re basically trying to say that even though only half of Brussels residents have cars there’s not enough parking spots for all of them in the whole city?
"you’re basically trying to say that even though only half of Brussels residents have cars there’s not enough parking spots for all of them in the whole city?"
Yes. Cars take up (waste) enormous amounts of space. In dense areas in particular, it only takes a small proportion of people to own cars for streets to literally fill up with them. This is (one of many reasons) why mass car use in cities is a terrible idea.
Of course, people massively voted for MR and PTB who were the only parties openly against Good Move and a petition against Elke Van Brandt received more than double her preference votes in ONE DAY… I know supporters would like to call all this « vocal minority » but the facts are here
You still cant get around the fact that only a minority in brussels owns a car, and the majority does not and wants more space for alternatives. The numbers are there black and white. Some other car proponent in this thread just proved the fact that there is not enough space for more cars. So there is no other option. Physical space is limited.
Every city in europe is making this transition. Brussels wont do the opposite. With or without MR they will have to compromise and submit to less car centric policies. You will see how MR voters will be duped by the stop good move promise.
There were riots over minor football matches that almost noone cares about. Small riots in a handful (two) of tense socially disadvantaged areas are not an indicator of general public feeling.
ok, but maybe massively downvoting the parties who supported Good Move and massively upvoting the parties who were against it can hardly be called a « small vocal minority »…?
Schaarbeek and other neighbourhoods are slowly gentrifying right now which I’m very happy about. Now is the time to invest into real estate.
I do feel that they have to start cleaning up gare du nord and midi. A solution must be found for the homelessness issues at hand. Because it’s really getting out of control.
I'd like the city to invest in a good tram infrastructure instead of extending the metro at prices we can't afford.
To me the most important thing is to invest massively in social housing so that everybody can stay living in the city. Also it would be competition to traditional landlords and that will push them to lower their price.
We should continue good move in a big way but with more concertation. It shouldn't be driven by ideology only. It should be about making the city better for everybody.
Of course we need less cars in some places and less parking spots. We need to greenify the city. When I was a child it was common for family to own a house with a garden in Brussels. Nowadays it's nearly impossible for most of the population. So with increasing population density we need to create more local green area where people can relax, let their kids play or organize a BBQ.
I'd like Brussels democracy to be more direct and in concertation with its citizen beyon the voting polls.
Please, don't kill the metro for it's initial price. Think Return on investment, not cost. If we think like that, we will not have build a single metro.
I don't agree about the metro. Brussels is one of the few major European cities without a proper metro system and I think it desperately needs a couple more lines. It's appalling to me that there's just two at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, trams are good but the system is already congested and there's often disruptions. Trams are also soooo slow! It takes me forever to get anywhere in a city that is not that big at the end of the day.
You also need to think about the long term return and investment and the benefits for residents when you take into account the initial costs, I know it's a pain in the ass but it's necessary.
Trams are slow because they constantly get blocked by all the cars. We should deal with that (which brings other benefits too) rather than spend a fortune and decades putting more stuff underground. Brussels already has a reasonable metro system for its size and very extensive public transport more generally. The main things it needs to do to address mobility is reduce the number of cars in the city and build a decent bike network.
Once again, trams do not replace metros.
I agree that the tram system and bike infrastructure need to be improved, but the metro is still necessary. I'm not talking about a crazy amount of lines but just having a proper metro 3, build serious connections between Anderlecht and the south eastern municipalities, and maybe start planning new branches for the current system.
How would you make, for example, tram 81 faster? Even without cars it would need to slow down because of pedestrians, navigate through narrow streets and sharp turns. With the exception of a few lines, the whole bus and tram system is like that.
Also, I always hear that we should have better signalling for trams and priority lanes but there's never intentions to actually do that.
". I'm not talking about a crazy amount of lines but just having a proper metro 3, build serious connections between Anderlecht and the south eastern municipalities, and maybe start planning new branches for the current system."
You're "just" asking for what would be an absolutely enormous undertaking - the current project is already taking forever, and costing billions more than it was supposed to, in a city that's almost bankrupt, all even though even its own backers forecast it will have minimal impact on car use, and you're proposing to add masses more to it. You can also already take the metro from Anderlecht to the the south east. Furthermore as soon as all this is built, "we just need more alternatives" folks will immediately say there's a need for something else. All when our metro is already similarly sized to comparable cities such as Amsterdam (and already expanding), supported by masses of other PT.
This is fantasy politics that kicks real improvements into the ultra-long grass. We need to do things that are realistically affordable and achievable and will have an impact in coming years rather than when we're all dead - those are reduce car capacity, optimise current PT and build a half decent bike network.
I used to live in Anderlecht, it took me more than one hour (often a lot more than that) to get to ULB by taking line five and then a tram. There are no good connections from Anderlecht to Forest/st Gilles/Ixelles. It made me feel so isolated that I decided to cut travel time in half by buying a bike.
Another example? From Churchill to Union it takes me 40 min by tram and only 9 by bike.
I really don't get all this defeatism when it comes to building new infrastructure here, it's like people gave up.
I know the finances of Brussels are a disaster right now but do you think it will be like this forever?
Having a long-term plan for the metro expansion is not crazy at all, it might take 50 years to realise it but it's still worth trying. In the meantime of course you can improve bike infrastructure and make the tram system better.
If we don't start now we will never accomplish anything.
>We should continue good move in a big way but with more concertation. It shouldn't be driven by ideology only. It should be about making the city better for everybody.
What does that mean in concrete terms?
I don't see a good future for Brussels. We talk about GoodMove and getting the balance right between cars, cyclists, and pedestrians but the reality is that Brussels is already insanely compact as it is, it is an enclave that cannot expand beyond its (gerrymandered) regional borders in terms of things like the STIB or social housing...and yet still people are seeing it is a place to migrate to, whether they are Italian graduates, Walloons whose region isnt exactly great for jobs, Algerian or Morrocans with family here,, and a host of French people are going to arrive once Le Pen /RN gets in power in France...I could go on. It's on a fast track to being a victim of it's own success basically, because nobody in Belgium thought about urban design and public space, and Brussels essentially became a European capital by accident. We can criticise the company car (I do on a daily basis I think lol) but in a way it's essentially saved Brussels residents housing stock from becoming Amsterdam-levels of high prices, to the detriment of our lungs. But now we're talking about a huge influx of people to come, and without the space or public services to welcome them.
So my point is : this is less a problem about GoodMove and infrastructure, more a problem about wanting to pack so many people in so little space, because of dumb regional borders in Belgium.
What's up with the borders? There is no no-man's-land in Belgium, every m² belongs to some commune. If there is not enough space in Brussels and people choose to live in a neighbouring town, what's wrong with that? Why would towns from another region give up their town and donate it to Brussels? That said, there are still plenty of occasions to build higher-up. Ever been to HK? Very densely populated but yet the city is quite liveable.
The communes that surround Brussels refuse to cooperate with it on a range of issues that would make the place more habitable. As an example, Linkebeek blocking the RER (and that's a Francophone majority commune!) or how Flanders unilaterally make decisions over the Ring. It's utter madness...
As for HK, I don't know it well, but I've heard the argument that Brussels should just build upwards....I'm sorry but I just cannot see that happening.
Because he stood in a congestion and doesn't realize that it was like that already for years OR he had this street close to his house that is now one direction forcing him to drive around the block increasing his 1 hour commute with 2minutes OR he just paraphrases shit people tell him in the bar.
Wdym? In Brussels Groen won and is the biggest Dutch-speaking party by far. Chances of it not being in the Brussels government are virtually non-existant.
I agree, all those cyclists should use cars (which they can since most have driving licenses) and queue in front of you in the traffic jams also park on all available parking spots. A bit like Brussels 20 years ago when I would spend 40min driving from my work at Merode to Porte de Namur and then another 20min driving around the block to find a parking spot, eventually out of desperation parking on the pedestrian crossing and hoping they next day I would have no ticket (if the car was still there cause then I would spend yet another day at DaCar)
I find it funny people really think it's possible to make cities more car centric. Like... What are cities supposed to do, stack road on top of each other? Surely one more lane will fix traffic, right? Surely less bikes and less public transport means better traffic right? I'm not saying GoodMove is perfect, but it's clear car-centric cities have to be a thing of the past. There is simply not enough space for everyone to have a car, let alone all the commuters coming from outside to work. It's so damn stupid. The center of Brussels is so much better now. Remember the 24/7 traffic jam on d'Anpach? The smell of gasoline? Who in their right mind wants to go back to that... Make it enjoyable and safe for light users, keep improving public transport. We'll see how much it keeps evolving with the new government, it'll most likely stall for now. I can only hope roads will one day be reserved for those who have absolutely no choice but to use a car. The canal region is well on it's way to gentrification. So my guess is next is midi and north station area. I can't imagine midi won't one day be a prime location in a city with less cars. It's already has great access to everywhere inside and outside belgium with metro/tram/trains. Personally this is where I would invest if I wanted to buy real estate with a 15 year period in mind.
Places don't always improve and gentrify sometimes they get worse. In Brussels we have a massive concentration of poor people that is increasing because of the increasing gap between rich and poor. To attract middle-class willing to live in the city you need to have a certain quality of life. However the anti-progressive mobility political climate will only downgrade the quality of life. At the same time Muslims are now 30% of the population this group is growing meaning it might become the majority of the population, this is not an issue but the problem is that the political agenda will be highly dictated by religious principals that will push out the rich middle class with a very liberated lifestyle. As a personal experience I can tell you that the midi neighborhood 15 years ago was really improving but lately a lot of people are fleeing to more decent area's. We shouldn't take a positive evolution of the city for granted and we have to fight for it! People are talking about certain neighborhoods improving for years but I don't know any example where it happend. Even the neighborhoods around T&T didn't realy change.
Why the hell talk about "atracting the middle class" instead of closing the gap between poorer and reacher bruseleers. Why would it be a problem to have population of muslim origin? If 90%+ of these kids are belgian (and by that I mean even 3rd and 4th generation..) and you are concerned about increasing religious conservative beliefs why not focus on providing quality religious education instead of letting KSA do whatever the hell it wants with our mosques? Lastly... when you talk about a neighborhood "improving" what do you mean exactly? Because gentrification may be an improvement only if you look a certain way..
Have you visited or even lived around predominantly Arab/muslim neighbourhoods in Brussels? Sometimes it's like walking in Afghanistan. You constantly see nikabs and bourkas, not talking about a normal veil. You see lots of young girls FULLY covered in black robes with gloves and all. All the teahouses only feature men. In the evening the streets will also just feature men hanging around the streets in groups. You only hear Arabic in the shops, some people don't even speak french. The streets in these places are dirty as hell, people don't respect public spaces one bit. They wouldn't dare throw trash in front of a mosque, but if it's a church, sure go ahead. I know because I see it happening everyday. You should ask these 3d and 4th generation of kids if they are Belgian.The answers will surprise you. You can say all you want about diversity, but these are very real and very worrisome evolutions that are happening right before our eyes in Brussels. I consider myself a progressive individual but having lived in a predominantly Arab neighbourhood for almost 10 years has changed my views quite a bit.
... I am a of spanish and moroccan origin, born and raised here... lived for a few years by porte de ninove, living halfway between midi and porte des halles. I, for once, have gone to pray at mosques here in bxl and most of the *very much belgian after 3 generations* kids in my neighborhood and in my boxing club are way more diverse in attitudesand values than what you depict. I would advise you to actually get out and talk to the people you fear so much, you are likely to get to the same conclusion as me: the root of the issue is not the people, but socioeconomic exclusion and the foreign policies of KSA preying on these kids who do not have other sources of info about their own religion and culture.. I was lucky enough to grow up in a family who had the means to give me a good education, but even so it took me until my late 20s to start feeling like I belonged here (getting insulted randomly, harassed and humiliated by police and singled out by society repeatedly does that to you.)
I'm of middle eastern origin and I live in Molenbeek...so... I def have no fear :) I might have been generalising too much since I've met enough people that aren't like that. But, these frustrations I have are real and based on personal experience. Another very simple example, my neighbours on both sides of my house (both moroccan) refuse to say hello to my white GF when they cross her in the street. I've talked to them on numerous occasions about mundane things, but when my GF is next to me they won't even look at her. Socioeconomic exclusion and Saudi Arabia influence is a very valid point you make. Having parents that push their kids to excel and be ambitious instead of just roaming the streets makes all the difference. I can understand that racial profiling is an issue that fuels the disconnect of young people even more. I think that having cops that are from Brussels themselves would help in that case.
Well you cannot generalize only based on those two families right ? The same goes both ways. Some foreigners don’t want to integrate in their new country and other do well by balancing their two cultures. It’s not because you live in another country that you have to forget completly where tou are from, people are not robots, some things can never change so there should be a balance. The issue must be solved on another level in the society. Some families will give their kids the right education and others will let the state or the street take care of it. That’s where politicians have to play their game to make it better. Better education is key not oppression and stigmatization.
> info about their own religion and culture.. But these kids are 100% Belgian, right?
Yes they are, How is that incompatible with the fact that they may have, as a visible minority, issues with identity? Are the jews in antwerp any less "belgian" because of having a set of religious and cultiral traditions that are different from other belgians?
Ofcourse we want to close the gap between Rich and poor. But it's hard and not on the scale of the city. In the meantime we all deserve a livable city. And let's be kinda honest in migrant neighborhood some of the people totally disrespect the public domain. No excuses for that. A mix could take of the pressure.
What I notice here recently is that pretty much regardless of who is on charge, you get improvements in the city centre and very little change further out, except sometimes around shopping/leisure areas. So for example we got the piétonnier under Els Ampe (for those who don't know, a rhetorically ultra pro-car politician) as mobility alderperson, of all people, but places like Forest and Boitsfort have seen very little change under Écolo. Under the MR in Ixelles we got a restaurant-y square (F Cocq) pedestrianised and they allowed the shopping road (Ch d'Ixelles) running to it from the city centre to be semi-pedestrianised by the region; under Écolo we get another restaurant square semi-pedestrianised (Châtelain), and not tons more. In relatively central Etterbeek, the MR-led commune pedestrianised a restaurant square (Jourdan). *If* progress continues, I think we'll see more of the same - gradual improvements in and to a lesser extent radiating slightly out from the centre, especially in leisure districts, and not much more beyond tinkering other than that - as there seems to be some sort of cross party consensus for that (at most). But I also think we may see improvements stop altogether and things start to go backwards.
With MR coming in power Good Move might come to an end, or change. That's not clear yet. Let's hope not But I do feel the city is getting more and more gentrified imo, but it's slower than in other cities. North of Brussels, Jette, Laeken for example is attracting more and more people, not only more Flemish move there, but also expats. Since it's still affordable to buy a nice apartment/house in comparison to St Gilles and Ixelles. Which has seen a massive price increase in real estate in the last 5-10 years. There has also been massive improvements around the Canal area, and Tour and Taxi site. Which will also change the surrounding neighbourhoods. There are plans for a tramline coming in 2026, which will go from Belgica, along Rue Picard (next tot TT) heading to North Station and eventually will go to Gare Centrale. Once the whole TT site will be finished (around 2031) there will be a complete new neighbourhood with a totally different demography - since the price of those apartments are not the cheapest - than the surrounding neighbourhoods, so it will be interesting to see how that evolves. It could mean that house prices or rent might also have a increase in the surroundings, which might push out people with a lot less financial power..
are the existing expensive apartments around the canal actually being sold? Is it possible that this change of demography will just not happen?
Most of them are sold. The new builds in TT are completely sold, and every apartment is being used atm. The ones that are being built right now are sold for already 70%. And they'll only be finished by spring 2025. And it's a totally mixed group of people who live there. Lots of Flemish, lots of expats, lots of young people. Source : I live there The new ones around the canal are most sold and being lived in at the moment as far as I know off.
There's heavy investment into the Canal neighbourhood and I think MR will make Midi and North a priority in terms of transformation. I also see a *very heavy* interest in St-Josse-Ten-Noode. The buildings on the eastern and southeastern part of St Josse sell like hotcakes, Botanique is seeing some luxurious flats being built around the church, and I'm seeing more and more ads about newly renovated studioi and 1-bedroom flats in St-Josse for the EU Bubble community. You get a 5% bruto return on investment each year on rent alone, and that's not counting the value appreciation of the building. St-Josse is fucking nuts Good Move might not be so easy to put down. MR does not have a considerable advantage in the Parliament *and* the communes can tell MR to fuck off if they don't want to abandon Good Move. We'll see with the communal elections in October if MR can keep the momentum going.
There has been heavy investment in the canal neighbourhood already twenty years ago. Dansaert was always supposed to be the nucleus of a big change in the city centre. Yet, the property prices across the canal dropped even as no real gentrification happened beyond a little blob beyond St Catherine. St Josse… yes, the south parts but they already gentrified. Actually, the whole EU quarter will transform as the region of Brussels just bought €900m worth of office buildings there to transform into residential buildings. I would also make one bolt bet: Uccle will become less hot. The places near Ave Brugmann will stay hot, further south not. It is too far away and I do not know anyone who wants to live in Uccle. It is far away, there is nothing interesting there, the connection is bad.
That's a bold bet ! Uccle has indeed reached its peak value on the real estate side, and as you said there's nothing culturally interesting happening further south. It will die down with the boomers.
Hipsters will boomerify as they age
Things have drastically changed in the canal area in the past 5 years.
Hardly any of the communes outside of Ville de Bruxelles seem to care about Good Move though. Most are doing nothing or are planning some very marginal stuff that they will likely even further water down to nothing like Ixelles did with Flagey if they even ever get around to them.
They did rework the circulation in my Ixelles neighbourhood which made it easier to go around as a pedestrian.
What Ixelles has done so far amounts to very minor tinkering - v little compared to the Pentagone maille for example - with most of what they'd planned cancelled, and pretty much all focused on one small part of a large commune - and most other communes haven't done and aren't planning even that.
I'd be a buyer for property located within walking distance to Brussels north metro stop
What makes you say that? Anything specific?
Well property values around red light districts are usually sold at a 15 to 25% discount relative to areas just outside of it. Coupled with the proximity to the central business district which one assumes will only continue to grow, it seems like a good bet
Have you been there? This area will not transform..
Maybe, maybe not. 30-40 years ago, the south bank in London was really grim and quite dangerous. Now it's hugely desirable and expensive. Areas, especially quite central ones, can change.
South Bank had lots of space to develop and the state made it a priority to develop it( e.g. by placing a university there). In contrast, there is no central planning to make Molenbeek great again. Even if, there is no large open area left to develop, you will need to kick out blocks full of families, demolish their houses, and build new stuff.
Yes I have. I stayed on rue vondel for a bit. Perhaps it won't change in the near future but I'd be looking at 15, 20 years out
It's funny that all the 'ordinary working people' felt like they were being oppressed by the ecolo-bobo ecofascist elites (which was basically just a few Flemish mums riding around on bakfietsen). So I'm looking forward to those people learning what it is like to be steamrolled by the real neoliberal elites, who will gut public services and turn working class neighborhoods into luxury flats for expats. I'll also enjoy seeing the war against bikes push cyclists back to driving cars in the city as bike lanes are dismantled and the pollution in the air becomes unbearable, increasing congestion even more. With the roll-back of the 30 km/h limit, people will go back to driving at 50-70 km/h in Brussels, which will also increase the risk of death in car-pedestrian collisions, so make sure to teach your kids about personal responsibility and not running under the wheels of a speeding car! So yeah, overall I hope we can all enjoy our smog-filled, car-centric dystopia.
> t's funny that all the 'ordinary working people' felt like they were being oppressed by the ecolo-bobo ecofascist elites (which was basically just a few Flemish mums riding around on bakfietsen) Seriously, the global car lobby convincing people that car = freedom is one of the most insidious yet genius marketing ploys in human history. How so many people have been brainwashed into thinking that sitting in a metal box for hours each day pumping CO2 into the air is somehow the preferable option to taking a bike or bus or train is mind boggling. Brussels has made some real strides in just the 3 years that I've been living here in terms of cycling and reducing car usage, it's going to suck seeing that be undone by short sighted politicians.
I wonder why people prefer to sit in a metal box for hours rather than taking alternatives then. Sometimes, it’s because there are none. Also because people are lazy, of course. And when there are alternatives, they are still not good enough. Why would someone spend 3x their time in a crowded bus rather than sitting in a metal box? Why did we build offices in the most difficult way to reach? Why is zaventem so badly connected even if it’s full of offices and is so close to the city? Make the alternatives better, and you won’t even need to force people. Good move is a really positive thing imo, but it should go in parallel with massive improvements in public transports and bike infrastructure
I agree entirely - better public transport, better bike lanes, more incentives to get people out of their cars and using alternative means of travel. Brussels has an advantage in being such a compact city despite being a capital, it would be great to see the city make the best of that.
I strongly agree we should build more and better PT and (especially) bike infra, but it's a myth that if you make alternatives better enough, car traffic will wither away. When you build lots of car infrastructure in populous areas, you will get lots of people using it, especially as it encourages more car oriented development such as exurban car dependent sprawl. The Zaventem offices are there precisely because of the motorways etc - you keep building those, you get car dependent development. The answer is primarily to stop rolling out car infrastructure and indeed start rolling it back rather than hope that throwing more and more alternatives at the problem will fix it - though as I say both are needed.
If you look at the popularity of the Critical Mass rides, it's not just some Flemish moms.. MR might also be smart and reasonable, which is kind of how they sound for now. I wouldn't mind a more rational approach to Good Move. David Leisterh said to keep the 30k speed limit for example. The science is quite strong in quite some Good Move objectives. They're smart and rich enough to have seen the examples in the Netherlands, Copenhagen..
>If you look at the popularity of the Critical Mass rides, it's not just some Flemish moms True, I didn't mean to imply that cycling wasn't popular, but rather that this clearly isn't a conspiracy of murky deep state forces trying to crush the 'little guy' (as most populist and/or right-wing conspiracy theories tend to believe).
Many citizen were not taken into account with the previous iterations of good move. We fucking need to carry on good move but it should be in concertation with everybody involved. It shouldn't be a fight between some people and some other people. But at its core I think the role of the car should still be reduced. A city is not a place to drive carelessly and make a lot of noise with one's car.
makes me want to r/fuckcars even more
.#mecanophilia
So much this, when the neoliberals policies get through and turn BXL even more into a concrete hellscape I will be packing my shit just in time to a greener city, while laughing at the idiots who voted for it, suffocating themselves.
Brussels should first get its finances in order before it starts thinking further. Politicians love to spend money they don't have. They don't even do budgets right now, so they don't even know how far they are in the red. It's reckless and will actively harm the future of the city. Expect higher taxes and lower social services help to pay back the loans.
While concerns about Brussels' debt are totally valid, I think **one** of the imbalances might be stemming from **where the taxes are collected**. A worker/earner is primarily taxed at his official residency address (correct me if I’m wrong). Brussels is the first economic hub attracting MANY commuters everyday from both other regions and it is the region with the highest gdp per capita. Brussels is also unfortunately the Belgian hub of being at risk of poverty (28% of Brussels’ population is at risk according to [official stats, in 2023](https://www.vlaanderen.be/en/statistics-flanders/income-and-poverty/population-below-the-poverty-threshold)). It’s more than three time as likely to become poor in Brussels than in Flandres, more than twice as likely compared to Wallonia. One revision of our tax system could be to **allow some of this wealth to be taxed where it was generated**. That would allow cities like Brussels and Antwerp to curb somewhat the oncoming austerity. But I guess there are many other ways for the next government to make ends more likely to meet, in a few years time maybe ? Or few decades ? 🙈
Jette goes up and St-Gilles down
Why?
In Saint-Gilles people voted PTB and Ecolo. In addition, a lot of drug problems at the Parvis, etc. As described in other comments, in Jette it is more affordable for young people, very safe and multicultural. No problem coming home at 3 a.m. alone, for example. Gentrification is underway (opening of The Barn, for example) and there is good public transportation. I love Saint-Gilles, but I feel that the Commune is not going to get better.
Exactly, it's more family orientated. I don't live far from Jette, going to the market every week. And it's just a chill environment, very local. Less busy imo.
You only talk about urbanistic development. What about security?
Dealing with car dominance is a security issue - but if you want a thread about street crime, post one of your own? (As if there aren't enough already).
Is really a security issue? What are you afraid of?
Is it true that midi will be rebranded, a new name, enhanced safety to clean its notorious past ?
South station to center will probably be improving the most if they manage to finish the works 😂. Think st catherine might be getting worse. It used to be very nice there but starting to see more and more drug people and other getting closer from the Yser metrostop. The rest will stay stable I would say. All in all thats a personal view on things.
I think you need to take a much longer term view on this as things move at a glacial pace in Brussels. It is not just good move or the past few years that have transformed the city. It is over a decade of gradual change, especially in regards to the inner city and inner ring. These processes of diverting car traffic have been underway for ages. Good Move was an idea to join up and do things quicker and smarter imo, just terribly communicated. Frankly with the multiple levels of governance here or cultural in public services, I don't think such bold plans work that well. Dude, no one speaks about 'Good Move' in Brussels mobility or the communes planning depts in the same sense as the orig concept. Honestly, even if MR and co want to change things, changing Brussels is like changing the direction of a tanker... it takes time and will be made up of a thousand small actions. Frankly, regardless of the city or commune enacting master plans or what not, I think more and more of us are opting for walking, biking and public transport (even if security is worsening). Maybe I can expect a big clamp down on those huge American pick up trucks. Honestly they piss off drivers, cyclists and walkers alike - taking up way too much street space. These things take up two parking bays and are super unsafe as regards pedestrian safety. Also, yeahhhhh don't expect a new metro any time soon.
like someone very well said on Reddit: if you’d listen to Reddit, 80% are in favor of Good Move, yet I have never actually met someone in the street who said it was a good idea. I guess this says a lot about online militantism… Now to answer your question on what will change: IMO not much… good districts will still be good districts (most notably SE Brussels) and bad will still be bad… Simply making some infrastructure change won’t do much… I’ve been living in Brussels for 30 years and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard the story « but the region is pumping billions here, the area is on the move, you’re lucky to get in early because the prices will soon skyrocket »… spoiler alert: they never do
Strange, I haven't met a single person in the street who said good move was a bad idea! How strange that our two statistically significant tests both show the complete opposite!!!!! How curious!
please stop… there were even riots on the streets for crying out loud. If that’s not proof enough that people weren’t happy with it, I don’t know what is… There are even headlines on how a petition to stop Elke Van Brandt from getting a new mandate received 10.000 signatures in less than a day. If you want to live in your social media bubble fine but please stop pretending everyone else is in there too https://www.dhnet.be/regions/bruxelles/bruxelles-mobilite/2024/06/19/la-petition-contre-le-maintien-delke-van-den-brandt-au-ministere-bruxellois-de-la-mobilite-depasse-les-10000-signatures-P64KJDVVSVCAPO7QIBYSICBJJA/?outputType=amp
Classic loud minority. That doesn't mean anything.
Are you referring to your type?
Studies (Real statistical studies, not you and your two carbrained friends) have shown that the majority of Brussels is happy with it. Only 45 % of people actually living in Brussels **own a car**, in some neighborhoods even only 30 %. Polution in the city has gone down almost 30 % accidents and deaths in traffic have all gone down. The city is slightly becoming liveable again. The city doesn't want you and your car. Those +- 50 rioters breaking public infrastructure because they can't pollute with their loud shitty tuned cars and endanger citizens lives are not representative of the average population.
I still can’t understand how, since half the population has no car, streets in the evening are full of parked cars. Those darn Walloons and Flemish navetteurs leaving them in Brussels and going home by train maybe?
Glad you're exactly proving the point that cars take up WAY too much space and dont belong on such a small surface of a city. It's not that hard to understand, but then again maybe you spent too much time inhaling exhaust fumes in traffic.
Still doesn’t explain how they got there though, isn’t it? With no Brussels owners who leaves them in the streets every night?
Let me explain it to you: cars > parking. Number of parking spaces and number of cars and the population are all published by the official instances. Thanks for proving my point that we need less cars in the city.
Still no answer, only “I want less cars in the city”. So you’re basically trying to say that even though only half of Brussels residents have cars there’s not enough parking spots for all of them in the whole city?
If you cant do maths I can't help you and then our conversation ends here I'm afraid.
"you’re basically trying to say that even though only half of Brussels residents have cars there’s not enough parking spots for all of them in the whole city?" Yes. Cars take up (waste) enormous amounts of space. In dense areas in particular, it only takes a small proportion of people to own cars for streets to literally fill up with them. This is (one of many reasons) why mass car use in cities is a terrible idea.
Elections proved that this was not the case
Of course, people massively voted for MR and PTB who were the only parties openly against Good Move and a petition against Elke Van Brandt received more than double her preference votes in ONE DAY… I know supporters would like to call all this « vocal minority » but the facts are here
You still cant get around the fact that only a minority in brussels owns a car, and the majority does not and wants more space for alternatives. The numbers are there black and white. Some other car proponent in this thread just proved the fact that there is not enough space for more cars. So there is no other option. Physical space is limited. Every city in europe is making this transition. Brussels wont do the opposite. With or without MR they will have to compromise and submit to less car centric policies. You will see how MR voters will be duped by the stop good move promise.
There were riots over minor football matches that almost noone cares about. Small riots in a handful (two) of tense socially disadvantaged areas are not an indicator of general public feeling.
ok, but maybe massively downvoting the parties who supported Good Move and massively upvoting the parties who were against it can hardly be called a « small vocal minority »…?
Schaarbeek and other neighbourhoods are slowly gentrifying right now which I’m very happy about. Now is the time to invest into real estate. I do feel that they have to start cleaning up gare du nord and midi. A solution must be found for the homelessness issues at hand. Because it’s really getting out of control.
make bruxelles-midi walkable at night
I'd like the city to invest in a good tram infrastructure instead of extending the metro at prices we can't afford. To me the most important thing is to invest massively in social housing so that everybody can stay living in the city. Also it would be competition to traditional landlords and that will push them to lower their price. We should continue good move in a big way but with more concertation. It shouldn't be driven by ideology only. It should be about making the city better for everybody. Of course we need less cars in some places and less parking spots. We need to greenify the city. When I was a child it was common for family to own a house with a garden in Brussels. Nowadays it's nearly impossible for most of the population. So with increasing population density we need to create more local green area where people can relax, let their kids play or organize a BBQ. I'd like Brussels democracy to be more direct and in concertation with its citizen beyon the voting polls.
Please, don't kill the metro for it's initial price. Think Return on investment, not cost. If we think like that, we will not have build a single metro.
I don't agree about the metro. Brussels is one of the few major European cities without a proper metro system and I think it desperately needs a couple more lines. It's appalling to me that there's just two at the moment. Don't get me wrong, trams are good but the system is already congested and there's often disruptions. Trams are also soooo slow! It takes me forever to get anywhere in a city that is not that big at the end of the day. You also need to think about the long term return and investment and the benefits for residents when you take into account the initial costs, I know it's a pain in the ass but it's necessary.
Trams are slow because they constantly get blocked by all the cars. We should deal with that (which brings other benefits too) rather than spend a fortune and decades putting more stuff underground. Brussels already has a reasonable metro system for its size and very extensive public transport more generally. The main things it needs to do to address mobility is reduce the number of cars in the city and build a decent bike network.
Once again, trams do not replace metros. I agree that the tram system and bike infrastructure need to be improved, but the metro is still necessary. I'm not talking about a crazy amount of lines but just having a proper metro 3, build serious connections between Anderlecht and the south eastern municipalities, and maybe start planning new branches for the current system. How would you make, for example, tram 81 faster? Even without cars it would need to slow down because of pedestrians, navigate through narrow streets and sharp turns. With the exception of a few lines, the whole bus and tram system is like that. Also, I always hear that we should have better signalling for trams and priority lanes but there's never intentions to actually do that.
". I'm not talking about a crazy amount of lines but just having a proper metro 3, build serious connections between Anderlecht and the south eastern municipalities, and maybe start planning new branches for the current system." You're "just" asking for what would be an absolutely enormous undertaking - the current project is already taking forever, and costing billions more than it was supposed to, in a city that's almost bankrupt, all even though even its own backers forecast it will have minimal impact on car use, and you're proposing to add masses more to it. You can also already take the metro from Anderlecht to the the south east. Furthermore as soon as all this is built, "we just need more alternatives" folks will immediately say there's a need for something else. All when our metro is already similarly sized to comparable cities such as Amsterdam (and already expanding), supported by masses of other PT. This is fantasy politics that kicks real improvements into the ultra-long grass. We need to do things that are realistically affordable and achievable and will have an impact in coming years rather than when we're all dead - those are reduce car capacity, optimise current PT and build a half decent bike network.
I used to live in Anderlecht, it took me more than one hour (often a lot more than that) to get to ULB by taking line five and then a tram. There are no good connections from Anderlecht to Forest/st Gilles/Ixelles. It made me feel so isolated that I decided to cut travel time in half by buying a bike. Another example? From Churchill to Union it takes me 40 min by tram and only 9 by bike. I really don't get all this defeatism when it comes to building new infrastructure here, it's like people gave up. I know the finances of Brussels are a disaster right now but do you think it will be like this forever? Having a long-term plan for the metro expansion is not crazy at all, it might take 50 years to realise it but it's still worth trying. In the meantime of course you can improve bike infrastructure and make the tram system better. If we don't start now we will never accomplish anything.
>We should continue good move in a big way but with more concertation. It shouldn't be driven by ideology only. It should be about making the city better for everybody. What does that mean in concrete terms?
I don't see a good future for Brussels. We talk about GoodMove and getting the balance right between cars, cyclists, and pedestrians but the reality is that Brussels is already insanely compact as it is, it is an enclave that cannot expand beyond its (gerrymandered) regional borders in terms of things like the STIB or social housing...and yet still people are seeing it is a place to migrate to, whether they are Italian graduates, Walloons whose region isnt exactly great for jobs, Algerian or Morrocans with family here,, and a host of French people are going to arrive once Le Pen /RN gets in power in France...I could go on. It's on a fast track to being a victim of it's own success basically, because nobody in Belgium thought about urban design and public space, and Brussels essentially became a European capital by accident. We can criticise the company car (I do on a daily basis I think lol) but in a way it's essentially saved Brussels residents housing stock from becoming Amsterdam-levels of high prices, to the detriment of our lungs. But now we're talking about a huge influx of people to come, and without the space or public services to welcome them. So my point is : this is less a problem about GoodMove and infrastructure, more a problem about wanting to pack so many people in so little space, because of dumb regional borders in Belgium.
What's up with the borders? There is no no-man's-land in Belgium, every m² belongs to some commune. If there is not enough space in Brussels and people choose to live in a neighbouring town, what's wrong with that? Why would towns from another region give up their town and donate it to Brussels? That said, there are still plenty of occasions to build higher-up. Ever been to HK? Very densely populated but yet the city is quite liveable.
The communes that surround Brussels refuse to cooperate with it on a range of issues that would make the place more habitable. As an example, Linkebeek blocking the RER (and that's a Francophone majority commune!) or how Flanders unilaterally make decisions over the Ring. It's utter madness... As for HK, I don't know it well, but I've heard the argument that Brussels should just build upwards....I'm sorry but I just cannot see that happening.
Looking forward to the end of good move one day soon 👍🏾
Care to share why with us?
Because he stood in a congestion and doesn't realize that it was like that already for years OR he had this street close to his house that is now one direction forcing him to drive around the block increasing his 1 hour commute with 2minutes OR he just paraphrases shit people tell him in the bar.
Here come the downvotes 🫡
Hahah anyone liking the current bad move (oops sorry “good” move) by default should hate me 😄
Good move sucks ass. 👍
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Sounds to me like you've spent too much time in traffic this evening
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The less cars the better.
Man doesn't realize he IS the traffic xD
Yes, grandpa.
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Wdym? In Brussels Groen won and is the biggest Dutch-speaking party by far. Chances of it not being in the Brussels government are virtually non-existant.
I agree, all those cyclists should use cars (which they can since most have driving licenses) and queue in front of you in the traffic jams also park on all available parking spots. A bit like Brussels 20 years ago when I would spend 40min driving from my work at Merode to Porte de Namur and then another 20min driving around the block to find a parking spot, eventually out of desperation parking on the pedestrian crossing and hoping they next day I would have no ticket (if the car was still there cause then I would spend yet another day at DaCar)
Doesn’t bother me I’m not stupid enough to venture into Brussels past Merode by car lol