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Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

theguardian.com

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Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#61

Post by 8xde0wcNwpslOw »

TomMarius wrote: post #14
montenegrohugo wrote: post #3

This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…

On top of other issues, most of Europe also enjoys a 4-season year - meaning that a bike or scooter is safely and comfortably usable around half of a year, definitely not more.

Around here (this site I mean), the majority opinion doesn't find any problem at all with sleet and snow and cycling.

The odd thing about this is how the biking paths around here (a city 60N) still remain relatively empty for a long time in the winter. It almost confuses me, but not really :-)

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#62

Post by freediver »

First thing I noticed when moved to SF Bay Area from Europe was “God, Los Gatos would be so beautiful if the main street was a pedestrian area.” Then went actively searching for one and found a little stretch at Santana Row in San Jose, if you can call 30 meters of blocked off street pedestrian area.

But even dense populated cities like SF dont have a pedestrian zone. It is one of the rare things I miss quality of life wise.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#63

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

koolba wrote: post #59
montenegrohugo wrote: post #3

This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…

In cities sure, but there’s plenty of us who do not want to live in cities. Heck, I don’t even want to live within eye sight of neighbors, stores, or really anything else except some pristine woods. That’s not possible without a car.

Amen.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#64

Post by hesk »

TomMarius wrote: post #14
montenegrohugo wrote: post #3

This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…

On top of other issues, most of Europe also enjoys a 4-season year - meaning that a bike or scooter is safely and comfortably usable around half of a year, definitely not more.

Unless there's ice on the road, I ride my bike year-round in Berlin.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#65

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

exDM69 wrote: post #30
TomMarius wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of other issues, most of Europe also enjoys a 4-season year - meaning that a bike or scooter is safely and comfortably usable around half of a year, definitely not more.

I live in an European city 60 degrees northern latitude, and the bicycle season is more like 9 months out of the year. That can be extended to 10-11 months with a bit of clothing/gear and bicycling the whole year is not impossible either (but most people who do have a separate winter bike). I used to do 15+15 km bike ride to work and back almost every day for 9 months out of the year. Sadly I can't do that any more a…

My wife is 11.5 months cycling in Berlin ;-)

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#66

Post by montenegrohugo »

fudgy73 wrote: post #56
montenegrohugo wrote: post #3

This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…

totally agree, but a question for you and others - what's the point | what's going to happen | why is so much $$ being put into autonomous vehicles?

In relation to the transportation-problem being discussed, autonomous vehicles are much better than normal privately owned cars because (in theory) they do not need any parking, at least not in premium inner city ground. They can just drive away and park somewhere where they aren't disturbing anyone, and come back when needed. Alternatively, if they are part of a car sharing service, the % of time the car is not being used and is therefore a wasted resource is going down. A normal car is only being used for what, 5-10% of the day? the rest of the time it is a completely wasted resource. If a car is not owned by an individual but by a group of consumers, a much smaller amount of cars is needed to satisfy transportation needs for the entire group.

Of course, even though they have these two advantages, they will still pollute(if not electric, and even so because they must transport more mass than say a scooter, and the electricity still needs to be generated at an external power plant) and create noise pollution and they also need to use traffic lanes and road-infrastructure.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#67

Post by TomK32 »

In my city, Linz in Austria, only a small part is pedestrian, and even then the main-line of the 4 (actually 2+2) tram lines is cutting right through it. I wish they'd extend the pedestrian area and add that second tram line overground rather than underground as the current political fantasies look like.

Anyways, from that article, if you have a change in a city's government, change is a lot more likely to happen. If only there were some time-limitations on mayor posts and the council.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#68

Post by dathinab »

TomMarius wrote: post #14
montenegrohugo wrote: post #3

This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…

On top of other issues, most of Europe also enjoys a 4-season year - meaning that a bike or scooter is safely and comfortably usable around half of a year, definitely not more.

That really depends on the level of comfort you want to have when riding a bike. A lot of people do still use a bike in winter (through I can't recommend it), through even if you don't do so, using it for 5/8 of a year is quite doable.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#69

Post by gaius »

montenegrohugo wrote: post #3

This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…

privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society

For people with a very limited lifestyle restricted to a few city blocks perhaps this is true. But the majority of people do not live that way and have use cases for cars that you have not considered in your analysis.

change always requires some sacrifice,

By other people, funnily enough

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#70

Post by hesk »

dao- wrote: post #18
boobsbr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it be that private property - the bicycle/the scooter - occupies the public space?

Curious. Where are those massive bicycle and scooter dedicated roads and parking spaces that occupy our cities?

Devil's advocate: Have you been to Amsterdam? They have dedicated bike lanes and parking garages for bikes near the train stations.

Of course, I would say that this is an excellent use of public space as opposed to infrastructure dedicated to cars.

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