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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

#681

Post by emj »

jchrisa wrote: post #596
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…

You must live in America. Here in Portland, the bike are winning out and things like a city-wide 20mph speed limit are taking hold. It's faster to get across town on an ebike than in a car, because all the drivers are stuck in traffic that the bikes rarely see because they use different streets. It's far from perfect but pockets of success like this prove the investment is worth it. If you are interested in a ROI bas…

Small note, cars usually get stuck in traffic because they are bad at handling intersections, while pedestrians and bicyclists have such a high troughput in intersections that this seldom is an issue.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#682

Post by Sharlin »

ummonk wrote: post #350
Sharlin wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To live within reasonable walking / public transport distance of my workplace in SF, I'd be paying about a thousand dollars a month more in rent. If you don't want me to commute in from the suburb, build more housing in the city and bring down market rent there.

Sure, that's exactly what urbanists are trying to do. But they're prevented by NIMBYs and car-centric regulations, like mandatory minimum parking spaces per inhabitant.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#683

Post by bobthepanda »

x220 wrote: post #678
bobthepanda wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can have all of those things in a city. It's not as if the Europeans are all single slaving away in cubicle farms. Most people would say that the Europeans work far less than Americans do.

In fact, suburbs can be some of the most limiting places for kids. Every activity needs a driver, so until you get a license you need a chaperone. You mostly can't walk to the shops, or the park, or your friend's house, with limited exceptions. And biking and walking are out of the question if you have to navigate a main suburban arterial to get there. As a parent your choices are to trap them in the house or spend your precious time driving your kids everywhere.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#684

Post by topmonk »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #665
topmonk wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, when/if autonomous taxis come about will the whole attitude of catering to cars over than pedestrians will cease. If people don't have cars, parking won't be a problem, and walking from one store to another rather than paying for a taxi would become preferable. Then more people would have the awful experience of walking half a mile through a giant paved parking lot which would motivate people to change it.

I feel like you'd end up with a micro-payment type system - it'd be $1 to cross a parking lot or two and you'd have fields of parking lots everywhere to house the cars that would serve the instant demand people would expect.

I don't think there would be so many parking lots needed. Cars today spend most of their time not in use, which is why we need such large amounts of area to store them.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#686

Post by etatoby »

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.

I moved here 2.5 months ago and I'm so glad I did. It's a huge metropolis where one can comfortably live without owning a car. On top of that, it has one of the lowest crime rates among the world's big cities:

https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_current.jsp

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#687

Post by minikomi »

bentoscher wrote: post #671
minikomi wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An original poem? Lovely :)

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#688

Post by tomcam »

wolco wrote: post #598
electricslpnsld wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've been to your part of the world. The entire area felt unsafe everywhere. I got into a semi-fight on the bus for taking a seat. I've had poets aggressively push there words. It seems like the area is ready to explode. Detriot feels much safer. People mostly leave you alone. Wear the wrong colors could be an issue. The boards over windows is a little bit scarier but in Detriot you feel more prepared, even expect so…

If there’s one thing that gets my goat it’s overly aggressive poets. The media really need to pay attention to this widespread problem. Once in Detroit a 15-line sonnet almost got me into fisticuffs with the so-called poet. Let’s just say I grew up in the mean streets of Anaheim and she didn’t stand a chance.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#689

Post by njarboe »

legulere wrote: post #534
njarboe wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

Cars are typically utilized under 5% of the time. A car most of the time is a non-human inhabited object that is wasting a lot of space

Similar to most rooms in a house/apartment? My living room and dining room is utilized way under 5% of the the time, both more square feet than my car.

I think the most intrusive part of cars are when they are moving. That is when they are dangerous, mess with peds and bikers, and occupying roads that break up community space. Look at how much parking structures are as a % of the total building space in downtown SF or Manhattan. Not nothing, but pretty small. Maybe 5%. Probably less.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#690

Post by kiliantics »

komali2 wrote: post #413
wahern wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern discourse about "rights" has become twisted. Some day we need to realize that one person's right is another person's prohibition. A society needs to choose its rights wisely lest the unintended consequences result in less overall freedom. In a healthy civil society legally enshrined rights are less important because you can trust that everybody's freedom will be maximized, at least to a first-order approximati…

>Some day we need to realize that one person's right is another person's prohibition. I take slight issue with that - for example, what prohibition on males was there when women were given the right to vote? I suppose one could argue the male vote was diluted but realistically no pain would be felt. I say this because oftentimes for social services arguments, conservatives will ask me "well who's gonna pay for it," w…

Granting the right to private property ultimately deprives people of access to necessary resources. Private property is what forces people to have to pay ever-increasing rent, or work more hours for less pay. It's an inherently unstable social system because those with more property can more easily increase their ownership and thereby make it harder for those with no property from ever getting any.
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