I wonder when "I don't own a car", will be the new "I don't own a TV"
I never owned a TV or a car :)
Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
641–650 of 699 posts
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was visiting a customer site near Miami, some years ago. I opted for not renting a car, I could easily go to the customer's site by taxi. But then some components got stuck in customs, and I had to stay the weekend. It turned out that the hotel was its own enclave if you didn't have a car! I couldn't walk to the shopping mall, or a nearby restaurant, I tried everything. Just couldn't get there. It was like being in…
You mean there were no sidewalks? That's the thing, often in the US I felt very boxed into a place, simply because I couldn't just do a Cartman and 'go home' (or someplace else).
There were sidewalks, but only for a limited range around certain landmarks (malls, hotel, etc). I managed to cross an eight-lane street, but that section (with malls) was also closed off to the next 'island' (i.e. the sidewalk stopped. There were some car-only tunnels here and there also.) All those islands, and only cars could go between them. Yeah, quite similar to what poster @ghaff described in a post below.
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#643This 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.
Get a horse.
People managed without cars for the vast majority of human existence.
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#644We so so need this in Hongkong, especially in the older areas where the streets feel as narrow as a rickshaw. Public transport is excellent and ppl here so unhealthy i general they need the walking anyway! Most of the corridoor from Saiyingpun all the way to North Point at least should be car free. And pretty much all of TST through to Mongkok. More than enough metro lines and bordering causeways to move the masses i…
As much as I like to see a car free HK, there's still a lot of need for vehicles in those areas, banning cars, especially in HK is not the solution.
If you want people to walk more, make the city actually walk friendly, even a short walk from my apartment to the MTR station is annoying; people just randomly walk anywhere, making it impossible to enjoy walking. There's aircons leaking constantly, little newspaper stands blocking the sideways.
I really enjoy walking, but in HK it's really not that fun.
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#645Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean there were no sidewalks? That's the thing, often in the US I felt very boxed into a place, simply because I couldn't just do a Cartman and 'go home' (or someplace else).
There were sidewalks, but only for a limited range around certain landmarks (malls, hotel, etc). I managed to cross an eight-lane street, but that section (with malls) was also closed off to the next 'island' (i.e. the sidewalk stopped. There were some car-only tunnels here and there also.) All those islands, and only cars could go between them. Yeah, quite similar to what poster @ghaff described in a post below.
That's just nuts. You'd think that there are at least state-level regulations to have sufficient sidewalks, car culture or not. I mean at some point it's a health and safety issue (when you can't even get to the doctor's office across the street).
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#646Earlier quoted context omitted.
Peeve: these folks often don't realize there are other sides/lanes of traffic that they aren't able to stop. So the pedestrian still can't cross because of other lanes, but now the good Samaritan is just holding up traffic and slowing everyone down. Including the pedestrian who would normally wait for traffic to clear. Paradoxically, in these encounters I prefer the "rude" drivers that get out of the way as quickly a…
I think this is a pretty interesting phenomenon and I often struggle with how to handle it. I have pretty severe defensive navigation requirements where I tend to require active perception of velocity change before I trust obstacles are going to behave in the manner I expect ... and I think that mentality often leads to these kinds of outcomes. I was recently in Amsterdam where there are many many bikes and many vari…
> Keep an eye out for opportunities to improve the group outcome in the future and have a nice day.
I think what you describe just minimizes fuel consumption though.
I had not really considered that people might view it differently but thinking back on my experience in Canada, I remember being surprised at how much people would accelerate when the light turned green and how hard they would have to brake just seconds later at the next red light.
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#647>pedestrianised all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre It's a lot less impressive when you realize that they just banned cars from the area that was optimized for foot traffic anyway. Good on them for not trying to go to far and force people to walk/bike in areas designed for cars. >"while people claim it as a right, in fact what they want are privileges." Tangent: This is probably the most European quote ever. Roma…
>"while people claim it as a right, in fact what they want are privileges."
There's nothing European about it, despite the fantasy of Europe being comfortable with dictatorships. Driving a car is also a privilege in the US - try driving one without your state-sanctioned license to do so and you will discover that.
By the way, Members of Parliament are democratically elected so I am not sure how they fit in with the rest of the motley crew.
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#648One 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…
Just to clarify, there is no law that I know of prohibiting car traffic on yom kippur in Tel Aviv. However, since this is the most important holiday of the year, even many Israelis who don't celebrate other holidays will celebrate this one. I believe that virtually all businesses are closed that day, even those that don't close on other Jewish holidays (again, not illegal to operate, but customary). So in practice, f…
What about hotels? E.g. if somebody wants to visit especially for that holiday.
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#649Earlier 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 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.
When I was in Denmark, many downtown roads were close to cars, making them pedestrian malls. Unfortunately, certain traffic was allowed, such as official vehicles. There was just enough of them to pretty much ruin things. You couldn't just amble down the street without having to constantly get out of the way of them.
It's like being in the airport concourse with those electric golf cars racing between the pedestrians with their interminable annoying beeping.
Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars
#650It'd be so nice in downtown Seattle if a few of the streets were closed off to cars for 4 hours a day or so.