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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

#501

Post by slobotron »

gascan wrote: post #494
corndoge wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If we insisted bicycles only be allowed on dedicated bicycle tracks, there would be no track because there would be no bicycles (because there was no track!) As a bicyclist, I would love to have a dedicated network of bicycle track all over town. But it doesn't exist, yet. Also, this is way fuzzier than you present. There's little conflict between cars and bikes on lightly traveled, spacious suburban streets or sleep…

Do what downtown Vancouver, BC did - take out a travel lane and/or parking spots and create dedicated bike lane.

Sure, some businesses complain, but overall number of bikes on the road seems to have increased.

https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/news/opposition-to-propo...

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/mobi-bike-share-vancouver-rid...

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#502

Post by throwaway809484 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #463
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…

What really amazes me is the creation of new "Shopping Centres" - miles and miles of independent stores and nothing between them but parking lots. They took the mall and scaled it up so everyone gets a store, and now if I want to go to two places I have to actually drive from one to the other because it's nothing but parking lots and pedestrian hostile roads separating them - sometimes it's a two minute drive, but th…

This is precisely what shines so much in Pontevedra (the city featured in the article) and e.g. Oviedo (another Spanish city that aggressively adopted this policy in 1991). Local shopping benefited so much from banning cars downtown. Little specialty shops and cafes blossomed vs suburban malls.

Sadly, I think this is only easy to accomplish in mid-sized densely-populated cities (Paradoxically, shopping associations were initially strongly opposed to implementing car-less downtown plans. Only to reckon later how wrong they were.

If I recall correctly, car-less policies were imported from Aarhus and Aalborg, where majors were experimenting with turning some main streets into pedestrian only by the late 1980s.

It's also interesting to note that both Aalborg and Oviedo tend to rank very highly in a few quality of life EU metrics [1]. I know both, and they are pretty fantastic places to work and live in. Everything is within short walking distance.

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies...

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#503

Post by jasonrhaas »

I really like the idea of restricting where and when people can drive their cars. In China there are policies in place that only allow to commute with your car on certain days of the week. The other days you need to use public transport or find a car pool.

A lot of Americans think that they should be able to drive and park their car when and where ever they want. This mentality needs to change if we want to continue to grow our cities sustainably.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#504

Post by technofiend »

komali2 wrote: post #410
technofiend wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a gated neighborhood of large, well appointed homes near Rice University in Houston.* They open up every once in a while for tours, particularly at Christmas. More than once kids or adults raised there have mentioned being able to just play in the street as one of their fondest memories of the place. In car-centric Houston their experience is rare if not exactly unique. *1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sha…

Ex-Houstonian here: down there we worship and give sacrifice to the motor gods. We'll build massive multi million dollar freeway interchanges[0] as monument to our gods. No place for busses. Our attempt at public transit was a slow tram that runs up and down main street through dozens of intersections, pushing any hapless motorist not expecting a train on the fucking road it encounters out of the way. So when rice cl…

>I disagree that it's "not unique,"

When I say it's "not unique" I'm acknowledging there are other gated communities with low traffic. The closest one I can think of to Rice is in Montrose on Courtland Place. If you ever went to KPFT on Lovett and noticed a big wall where Lovett ends that's the back side of their little community. Look on street view or satellite view of Google maps at Bagby and Courtland Place to see what I mean.

Also the first neighborhood I listed is separate and distinct from the Rice University campus. It shares a border but it's not part of their land holdings: all the homes are privately owned.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#506

Post by corndoge »

soperj wrote: post #488
corndoge wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This kind of snark, or perhaps just unrealistic statements, gets us nowhere...dedicated infrastructure for cyclists alongside the same infrastructure for cars is actually viable. Making a comment about how everybody should be using bikes isn't helpful.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#507

Post by nedt »

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…

Just make the cars slower and this problem is solved. 20mph in cities is safer for everyone, doesn‘t take longer to drive and allows sharing the road.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#508

Post by CalRobert »

Razengan wrote: post #295
skh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived for a while in Berlin. Coming back to the U.S. the first thing I noticed were too many billboards and ugly parking lots. Each store has its own parking lot. Largely underused. No nice paths to traverse the bleak endless parking lot landscape. It’s ugly and wasteful. It’s hostile to pedestrians and discourages people from going outside to just wander. Even in relatively walkable communities like the one I live…

> I wish I could move to Europe permanently. This is the "Vote with your wallet" at the international civic level. It may not have been very convenient or practical in the past but it seems to be becoming an increasingly accessible option, at least for first-world people. Move to the places whose ideals align with yours, and help them develop those, if you can't convince your current home to adopt them.

The comment I left on how exactly to do this was marked off topic and detached (no idea why to be honest), but feel free to message me if you want some advice. There are a few ways to do it.

Also this whole idea is known as Exit, Voice, and Reason too.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#509

Post by njarboe »

soperj wrote: post #488
corndoge wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I love small walkable shopping centers that are organically grown over decades that mix residential, commercial, and retail uses. I live in such an area and it is great, but, if society wants to find a way to move to a better human scale constructed landscapes, it might be a good idea to stop referring to people in cars as non-human inhabited objects and use a more human focus word like motorist. We use pedestrian for a person use their feet or a bicyclist or biker for someone using a bicycle.

Cars can be a great tool for humans to use and they are not yet running around without a human inside.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#510

Post by Fricken »

dm33tri wrote: post #434
Fricken wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ride all year round in edmonton, I don't understand what the superstitions are against riding in winter. It's like walking, just a bit windier and you can't put your hands in your pockets. I'll take -20c over rain any day. The only thing I don't like doing in cold weather is being still. So long as I'm moving I'm fine.

You can't ride on ice and snow unless you have fancy bike and tires. You will sweat unless you only drive plane roads. Wind and snow make it much harder to ride. Most people will just give up on riding in winter the first time they try it.

I've commuting year round for close to two decades, you don't need a fancy bike. You don't need fancy tires. For 90% of my winter commuting I'm on wet or dry pavement, in the coldest major city in North America. Four years ago the city began promoting winter commuting, along with a commitment to keep the bike paths clear, and the number of winter bicycle commuters has doubled annually. Enough of them are overweight middle aged ladies, the last type of person you'd suspect to be a hardcore winter commuter, but that's because it isn't actually hardcore. The barriers are psychological, there's a very easy learning curve to overcome, and it comes quite naturally if you just maintain a cycling through the fall. It's also a cure for seasonal affective disorder/cabin fever.

I ride a fixed gear In winter, with the same tires I use in summer. A lot of people are on mountain bikes. Some people are on fatbikes, but that's overkill for basic commuting.

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