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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

#581

Post by throwaway809484 »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #570
throwaway809484 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure how or why, but you're dead. Your comments are only visible to people with `showdead` enabled. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Me neither, but thanks for letting me know.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#583

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#584

Post by ghaff »

the_clarence wrote: post #571
rootusrootus wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rent one Not without a driver's license you won't... ;-)

Of course I meant, in the extreme case where a driver license is “needed”, you still don’t need to buy a car.

It's not "needed" to rent a car, it actually is needed. Buying/leasing a car versus combining traditional rentals, hourly rentals, and Uber/Lyft/taxis/etc. (plus other forms of transportation) is mostly an economic decision. But not having a license means that you don't have a lot of those options available to you. IOW, there's a big difference between not owning a car and not having the legal ability to drive a car.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#585

Post by ghaff »

the_clarence wrote: post #542
ghaff wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Can’t you rent in these cases? It sounds like it would be cheaper.

I basically live in the country. I can walk in the woods from my front door but not to anywhere else.

However, knowing lots of urban folks, having to rent a car (when everyone else is also wanting to rent a car) for weekends can be a PITA, especially if said car requires special racks and the like for sport equipment.

Of course, when traveling by air for vacation, renting a car is perfectly normal which is what I do.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#586

Post by evilolive »

twoodfin wrote: post #93
adrianN wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be many pristine woods left if everybody lives like you though.

I think you’re underestimating the total acreage of “pristine” wilderness in the United States. Any realistic demand for a lifestyle like koolba‘s would find ample supply.

To quote koolba: "That [lifestyle] is not possible without a car."

Living in a dense urban area, taking trains, walking, and biking. Goods delivered all in close vicinity. Large building with the opportunity to be more energy efficient than your single family home.

All that, I'm convinced makes the carbon footprint of the average urbanite much lower than someone who often drives miles for errands I know this must feel contrary to the intuition to those who live very close to nature

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#587

Post by electricslpnsld »

guelo wrote: post #535
electricslpnsld wrote: post #446

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. I commuted by bike for two years or so in Po…

I've been biking in Oakland for over 10 years and have never gotten a death threat.

I've had multiple people throw stuff at me from cars, I've had a teenager take a swing at me with a baseball bat from the curb, I've had a car stalk me for eight blocks driving inches from my back tire late at night. This is mostly West Oakland and the parts of of North Oakland along Adeline that gets you up to Berkeley -- I can't really comment on East Oakland or the hills. YMMV, of course.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#588

Post by zeitg3ist »

strictnein wrote: post #247
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…

> This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. You're really looking at this from a very narrow mindset. It isn't going into the city that a lot of Americans really want and need cars, it's heading out of the city. This may be shocking to people with a European upbringing, but when you have a vast country with lots of open…

I mean, I live in Europe and I can do the same thing... or do you think Europeans don’t have national parks and never take car trips? OP was criticizing cars as a daily method of transportation inside cities.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#589

Post by nextos »

throwaway809484 wrote: post #502
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I second the fact that most towns in Denmark have superb pedestrian-friendly downtowns. Ghent is also really good in this regard. And of course some mid towns in Spain & France.

Many American and British cities fail in this regard due to excessively sparse housing. But, for example, I found downtown DC & Arlington very walkable and nice.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#590

Post by gascan »

simonsarris wrote: post #281
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…

Church st in Burlington VT partially closed to cars starting in 1980 (based on Stroget in Copenhagen) and ongoing into 2005 with more and more blocks carved out for pedestrians only. It has been very successful. Why did it work, when Raleigh failed? What needs to be "considered carefully", exactly? (The large college nearby definitely helps in VT's case. But what else?) https://www.churchstmarketplace.com/ https://ww…

Just speculating, but looking at the photos from Fayetteville, it was totally car-scale. Sure, it was pedestrian-only, but just look at the pictures of the locale. Huge buildings, long distances, wide street.

This is not the best example but the first to pop to mind- compare to Pearl Street Mall, in Boulder, which seems to be doing well:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0180565,-105.2792529,3a,75y,...

Which, just skimming, looks to be laid out similar to Church Street.

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