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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

#671

Post by bentoscher »

minikomi wrote: post #595
ta1234567890 wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly, I think this is only easy to accomplish in mid-sized densely-populated cities ( You are right about the "easy" part, but it can definitely be done. In fact that's what Tokyo feels like, and it's the largest city/metro area in the world, with 38 million residents.

Indeed. I've lived in downtown Tokyo for 8 years without even owning a driver's licence. Walking through the city is one of my favorite pastimes.

Take a bit of time to walk; Look, wonder, have a talk. There is no journey without the ´jour´; All should at least once be a flaneur.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#672

Post by breatheoften »

ajmurmann wrote: post #631
sakopov wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you explain how the mixed-use makes this worse? Not having seen it, I'd expect it to make the situation better that I have a restaurant right next to my apartment or office and don't need to get in the car.

I haven’t spent any time in Kansas City to know what the parent referred to — but with a lack of knowledge I could imagine this aesthetic could lead to some pretty bad designs if the feeling was that each mixed use function needed its own entrance and each entrance needed to be as close to parking as possible. Such could encourage all the buildings to be islands surrounded by a moat of parking lots which would help ensure that walking anywhere would involve a lot of walking through parking lots ...

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#673

Post by PascLeRasc »

tomaskafka wrote: post #447
always_good wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people ask me why I like living in Mexico, this is one of the main reasons: The other week I walked around my neighborhood in Guadalajara to do some errands. I got my knives sharpened, picked up my repaired shoes from the cobbler, some fried pumpkin seeds from the seed guy, some meat from the butcher, and then some tacos of course. All within two blocks.

I moved to a center (pedestrian zona) of a small town in central Europe, from a country's capital, same experience here. In a capital, I didn't do a detour on my way home to get a good bread, as it would add 15 minutes to a way home. Here it's a pleasant walk behind a corner.

European grocery stores are so wonderful. I love how everyone's just stopping by to pick up a few things for dinner and tomorrow's breakfast, not pushing their yacht of a shopping cart around. The produce is always super fresh and cheap compared to American, and I always like getting a nice carbonated mineral water.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#674

Post by PascLeRasc »

jcelerier wrote: post #10
boobsbr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25 minutes on foot? It's more of a village than a city.

> 25 minutes on foot? It's more of a village than a city. you can walk from side to side of Paris in a tad more than one hour with a good rhythm, and two hours if you take it normally.

I'll settle for 3 hours and a croque-monsieur :)

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#675

Post by elcapitan »

rospaya wrote: post #654
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…

How accessible is Tel Aviv for pedestrians? I'm visiting soon and wonder how complicated it will be without a car.

The main parts are well accessible. There are some districts which are very car-centric, but the "old" part is well walkable. Or you can rent a bike, as I did.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#676

Post by bobthepanda »

adrianN wrote: post #662
bobthepanda wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40 hours a week at federal minimum wage is $15,000. AAA considers average car ownership cost to be at $6,000 a year. https://www.moneycrashers.com/living-without-car/ That is a ridiculous cost to just throw on poor people. And this is assuming a poor person has a full time job with no dependents, and has no other competing concerns for money.

The average car ownership cost is probably not very relevant for the type of cars that people on minimum wage drive.

Generally lower purchase cost, but higher maintenance. And older cars generally have poorer mileage.

This is of course, also assuming that they didn't get a subprime auto loan to get that car in the first place. Subprime auto defaults are increasing: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/never-min...

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#677

Post by WhompingWindows »

supernovae wrote: post #575

I work in the Domain of Austin Texas, it's an outdoor mall, office park and residential area that is supposed to be like a downtown 2.0 in many ways. A place for humans to "live, shop and work" according to their mantra. In reality, it's scary to walk to whole foods to get lunch at times. Cars NEVER yield to crosswalks or pedestrians. It's so bad they have flashing LED's on the stop signs in some areas. The domain wo…

I identify with that crosswalk yielding issue. In Boston they sometimes put up signs on the road surface itself, informing drivers that is ILLEGAL to not yield to pedestrians. I say "You broke the law" loudly whenever a driver doesn't yield in that situation, yet I've never seen any enforcement of this law.

Meanwhile, law enforcement is quick to sit on the highway catching those going with the flow of traffic over the speed limit, or quick to over-police non-violent drug offenses. So sad to see enforcement of the rules of the road take a back seat, especially when it comes to pedestrians, whose chosen mode of transport is beneficial and should be encouraged.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#678

Post by x220 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #620
x220 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chalk it up to the fact that almost literally every European city developed while people still traveled on horses, and nearly every American city saw 90% of its development when cars existed. If Americans already need cars because cities are so far apart and it isn't yet feasible to rely on public transportation across states and the country, why bother making cities that resemble European, pre-steam engine city layo…

It always comes back down to money. Suburbs are inherently less efficient; you need more sewage, more electric, more road, etc. to serve the same amount of people. And this is before we consider that suburban houses are much farther away and apart, much bigger spaces with more heating and AC requirement, etc. Suburbs generally don't make enough money through taxes to cover their lifecycle costs. The first generation…

It is less efficient if all you care about is money and people working for your company.

It is far less efficient if you have a partner, children, pets, and like having peace and quiet. You know, things that make you happy.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#679

Post by huebomont »

responseguy wrote: post #580
huebomont wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not because they can't though. Because they think they can't. Most cities in the US could do this with some adjustments to public transit, and by managing regional transit much better - for example it's insane that the default for suburban rail line stations is the "park and ride" - huge parking lot surrounding the train station, rather than using that area for residential development close to transit.

I wonder how much space could be allocated to residential development though. Here (Portland Oregon) The park and ride infrastructure isn't that built out (Or maybe it is and I just haven't noticed it???). I dont believe you could move all the people that need to drive into the city to work, into the new residential development provided by that conversion.

That's not the idea as much as moving parking away from IMMEDIATELY next to the station - and improving bus links to rail transit.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#680

Post by huebomont »

eanzenberg wrote: post #597
huebomont wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not because they can't though. Because they think they can't. Most cities in the US could do this with some adjustments to public transit, and by managing regional transit much better - for example it's insane that the default for suburban rail line stations is the "park and ride" - huge parking lot surrounding the train station, rather than using that area for residential development close to transit.

No... because they literally can't without massive upheaval of where schools, offices and shops are located.

Where in my comment do I suggest moving the suburbs? Nothing in your comment would be a result of anything in mine.
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