Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 699 posts

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#481

Post by jf »

jimmaswell wrote: post #464
elcapitan wrote: post #126

One of the most interesting experiences in my life was visiting Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur. On that day all car traffic is prohibited (also TV stations are offline etc). It was absolutely amazing. Tel Aviv is a city with large roads and usually extremely busy. On that day, cyclists ride over the highway, kids play on the streets. I never felt that directly before how invasive the normal car situation is. Here's a photo h…

Kids can play anywhere else when cars are on the road. What's so attractive about playing on a big patch of hard material that gets so hot in the summer you can't touch it without burning yourself? What's wrong with parks and people's yards? I never understood the pining for the days of playing on streets.

you can't touch it without burning yourself

That's why I wore shoes or rode a bike when I played in the streets.

I grew up in places with small yards and no parks nearby. The street is where we'd ride our bikes, have water balloon fights, play roller hockey, etc.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#482

Post by rootusrootus »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #356
chomp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but I get 6+ weeks paid time off, plus 6 weeks paternity leave, and triple the pay of a comparable position in the EU, at the cost of worse healthcare. At this point in my life I'm mostly healthy, so the risk of staying in the US outweighs the benefits of moving to the EU.

I get 6+ weeks paid time off How did you manage that?

Make it a condition of employment. Vacation time is negotiable just like salary, and usually much easier to get than actual money.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#483

Post by DoreenMichele »

jimmaswell wrote: post #464
elcapitan wrote: post #126

One of the most interesting experiences in my life was visiting Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur. On that day all car traffic is prohibited (also TV stations are offline etc). It was absolutely amazing. Tel Aviv is a city with large roads and usually extremely busy. On that day, cyclists ride over the highway, kids play on the streets. I never felt that directly before how invasive the normal car situation is. Here's a photo h…

Kids can play anywhere else when cars are on the road. What's so attractive about playing on a big patch of hard material that gets so hot in the summer you can't touch it without burning yourself? What's wrong with parks and people's yards? I never understood the pining for the days of playing on streets.

When I played baseball growing up, the street was level and hard and so on. The backyard with grass had a steep hill and poor traction, etc. The street in front of my house made a much better baseball field than my steeply sloped, grassy and uneven backyard.

Yet, it was right in front of my house, so I could use the bathroom, get a snack and remained under the watchful eye of my mother, unlike, say, some distant park with a proper baseball field.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#484

Post by sakopov »

breatheoften wrote: post #419

Its insane to me how large space-wise small towns in the us (Oregon in mind as I write this) are — with a huge percentage of the real estate devoted to parking lots. Even setting aside the traffic, it’s silly to walk across these towns because businesses are separated from each other by massive parking lots. The traffic is often amazingly inhumane. Many of the small towns in Oregon are formed on either side of the ma…

Half of Kansas City's downtown is parking lots which generally sit empty during the day. To make matters even worse, the city is constantly building mixed-use areas with retail and office space, restaurants, hotels and apartments intermixed with roads running every which way. Walking around these places is just a constant hazard.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#485

Post by dang »

CalRobert wrote: post #178

Not sure what your situation is but there are a fair number of options for people who are decent programmers to move to Europe permanently..

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18014466 and marked it off-topic.

(There was nothing wrong with this comment, but the discussion it led to is extremely well trodden.)

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#487

Post by rootusrootus »

timc3 wrote: post #370
overcast wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but all you're doing is effectively paying for those yourself with the pay cut. It's not just about paying for day to day things, 50% pay cut is 50% less I get to invest.

There is something to be said how amazing it is when everyone around you is also able to get the same health care no matter their income or background.

I don't meet people very often who don't have access to health care. Most get perfectly adequate coverage through their jobs, and the unemployed and elderly are subsidized by the gov't.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#488

Post by soperj »

corndoge wrote: post #466
sunshinelackof wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Portland and Eugene love to boast how bicycle friendly they are, but neither are really commutable by anything besides a car for most people. Which is why most cyclists are so prolific -- it's hard to be a cyclist by circumstance. Riding your bike inherently comes with crossing a dozen intersections beaming with cars that treat you like you don't belong on the road. A solution is to level the planes of separatio…

Cyclists really don't belong on the road. It's such an odd collective viewpoint that a vehicle which virtually always travels far below the speed limit should be allowed alongside vehicles that travel at the speed limit. I think this is because we conflate the benefits of cycling and the value of making our public infrastructure amenable to cycling with the opinion that cyclists should share highways with cars. It's…

I agree. The real solution is to eliminate cars from the roads, that way they wouldn't have to share with bikers.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#489

Post by jimmaswell »

sxv wrote: post #153
moneytide1 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s hostile to pedestrians and discourages people from going outside to just wander This is a good point. The leisurely stroll is practically nonexistent in my city. I'm in a more rural setting, but there is still a well-defined city hub. It just feels awkward walking down the sidewalk when people are zooming by at 35mph+. The result is sidewalk cut offs, which is inconvenient to me as a biker. There are frequentl…

Where I grew up (Huntsville, Alabama), if you saw a pedestrian or cyclist around town you would assume they are homeless. After living in SF and Montreal and traveling in Europe, I can't see myself going back to a "car-first" city. Which sucks because that's pretty much all the US offers.

I lived on a college campus for two years without a car, with on-campus amenities and a very walkable town right next to it. Now that I live elsewhere with a car, I can't see myself ever going to a pedestrian-only area. I just do not like having to walk everywhere. The closest on-campus food was a five minute or so walk away from my dorm room, which doesn't sound like a lot, but I didn't like having to walk even that distance. Classes could sometimes be a 10 minute walk apart. Town was only 10 minutes away but I never went there because I didn't want to do the walk. So, I largely didn't go around much. Not to mention how uncomfortable it could be outside during the coldest parts of the winter or hottest parts of summer. I'd settle for a freezer burned hot pocket instead of having to walk in the biting cold even with a good jacket and gloves.

Nowadays, with a car, I don't mind driving for 10 minutes somewhere - it's actually often enjoyable, whereas walking for ten minutes out of necessity feels like an annoyance and a burden. I don't mind walking when I want to, like on hikes, but I certainly don't miss it being a necessity. There is a fast food place about 1.5 miles from me, which many consider walking distance, but I always take the car there and use the drive-thru even though the way there is very walkable.

The place I'm at right now is a nice compromise of usability for pedestrians and motorists, but I personally plan to someday live in a more rural area and maybe have a small farm, and I'm not bothered at all by the fact that such a place is essentially car-only.

Post reply on HN