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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

#511

Post by nedt »

nrjames wrote: post #100

Raleigh converted Fayetteville Street to pedestrian only back in 1977. It ended up killing all of the businesses there. https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/163829/ The city reopened it to traffic, however, and "revitalized" the area, resulting in a booming downtown economy: https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-may-learning-... I love pedestrian districts in cities. Copenhagen comes to mind. However, pedes…

Actually you need people in the city to not depend on cars. Public transport, cycle lanes and a reason to stay in the city centre like good restaurants, cafes, some festivals. Just closing a street to cars might just make everyone drive around and miss it. Also don‘t let big shopping malls be build at the outside of the city with huge parking areas. Create parks instead.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#512

Post by agumonkey »

ghaff wrote: post #326
agumonkey wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes both ways, people do less things when they can't and their lifestyle / social structures goes accordingly. Say villages with things nearby/local. Another point, I stopped looking for parking spots where I go. I park 1-2 miles before and walk the rest. It actually saves time.

A lot of the time these discussions seem to take place in a foreign language where you recognize the words but they just don't make sense. Personally, it's hard for me to imagine not having a car, much less not having a driver's license, because so many things I do are utterly dependent on driving even if I both worked and lived in a city (neither of which is the case). I need a car to transport my boating equipment.…

For years people busted me to get my driver's license. I finally gave up and did it. I went from eww to meh to cool to meh again. It's really not in my blood, I feel bad every time I use it without having cargo in the trunk. Even some groceries .. I'd better have a backpack.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#513

Post by dre85 »

I'll preface this with saying that I own two cars and in general like cars. However, I think personal motorized transportation along with industrialized animal farming are for me among the two biggest evils that arose in the last century. Cities in North America are entirely architected for the presence and convenience of cars. The mortality arising from pollution and accidents is staggering. The alienation and isolation of people as well. The cities and suburbs stretch so far out that you rarely get to see your friends unless you specifically organize something well ahead of time. Pedestrian zones with small shops are replaced with massive shopping malls.

I've always imagined a modern city with no cars, but I never knew that anyone actually had the balls to make this a reality. Kudos to this Spanish city! You can try to argue that the specifics of this city make it more amenable to being car-free, but I think that if there was enough desire, it would work anywhere. Just think if everyone paid their monthly car loan/lease into the public transportation system how incredibly functional it could be.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#514

Post by jimmaswell »

sebringj wrote: post #279

I don't know why this didn't occur to me but in San Juan Capistrano, CA, I enjoy that place so much with my kids because of the fairly large area where cars have to have very slow speed limit or no cars allowed at all and pure walking which was far better even. There is such freedom allowing your children to laugh and play and walk on their own pace without worrying they'll be run over and having to strictly hold the…

Being able to drive places feels much more like freedom to me than having to walk everywhere. As a kid I literally never walked into the road because I knew it was dangerous, so maybe that's just a problem of communicating the risk properly.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#515

Post by ghaff »

agumonkey wrote: post #512
ghaff wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the time these discussions seem to take place in a foreign language where you recognize the words but they just don't make sense. Personally, it's hard for me to imagine not having a car, much less not having a driver's license, because so many things I do are utterly dependent on driving even if I both worked and lived in a city (neither of which is the case). I need a car to transport my boating equipment.…

For years people busted me to get my driver's license. I finally gave up and did it. I went from eww to meh to cool to meh again. It's really not in my blood, I feel bad every time I use it without having cargo in the trunk. Even some groceries .. I'd better have a backpack.

I don't really like driving and I actually do less of the drive for an hour at the end of the day for some evening activity than I used to.

But I do like being able to get away for weekends, go to national parks and wilderness areas on vacation, etc. (And I like living in at least the semi-country which wouldn't be possible without a car.)

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#516

Post by jimmaswell »

pouetpouet wrote: post #253
dmix wrote: post #244

Once all cars become electric this will solve one of the biggest problems. Then once they become self-driving the other 25% of noise (honking, sirens, etc) would be significantly reduced.

Half of the problem with cars is a geometric one, they take up too much space. They give rise to sprawl and thus increase the demand for cars in a vicious cycle. Them being electric or self driving will not solve that.

I've been thinking, what if a city replaced vehicles with electric golf carts, atvs, scooters, and the like? I think that could work out pretty well.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#517

Post by ansible »

chomp wrote: post #275
Avalaxy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a fair comparison though. Yes, the salary is lower, but you can free or almost free healthcare, you get many vacation days, you get vacation money (at least in the netherlands), you get paid time off when sick, more job stability, unemployment benefits, etc.

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.

That's a decent benefits package... for the USA. But you can do far better in parts of Europe. It depends on where you want that work/life balance.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#519

Post by jimmaswell »

aerique wrote: post #249
dmix wrote: post #244

Once all cars become electric this will solve one of the biggest problems. Then once they become self-driving the other 25% of noise (honking, sirens, etc) would be significantly reduced.

You'd still have the visual pollution of cars

You can thank exacting regulations with the goal of safety/etc for modern calls all looking samey and generally ugly. I feel like there must be ways to give more leeway to aesthetic design without compromising what's truly necessary in terms of safety and economy.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#520

Post by munificent »

Sharlin wrote: post #188
alkonaut wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward Inside cities that is. One must remember that a lot of the people that move around in a city every day don't live in the city. And for many of them a car is a requirement anyway. For me the car is a sunk cost - I have it for the rare times I need it (I don't need it to go into the city), but buying/maintaining/insuring it is mostly a fixed…

Many suburbanites, however, have the entitled attitude that cities should accommodate their car trips to dense areas at the expense of people actually living there. Often their mindset is that cities are strictly where people go instead of where people live . In the US this mentality is exarcebated by the white flight and the decay of inner cities, but does also exist in Europe.

Many urbanites have the entitled attitude that cities should not accommodate people who are not rich enough to live within walkable distances of their job.

Many of the cities in the US that are dense enough to be reasonable walkable/bikable are also incredibly expensive in those areas.

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