Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions • Hacker News Board

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#31

Post by gnclmorais » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

kzcqt wrote: post #4

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #2

And the current mayor will probably lose office next month to parties that have promised to remove said restrictions, because in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison. Sadly, being able to take and park cars everywhere seems to be a much higher priority for much of the population (I say this as a Spaniard). My hope is that the EU somehow intervenes and stops them from taking steps back in this respect. As…

This baffles me. The government is there to serve the people. People are unhappy about what the current mayor is doing, that's why she's getting kicked out. Advocating for the EU to step in and force people to stay unhappy will only increase the anti-EU sentiment, but I guess the cat is out of the bag on that one.

> The government is there to serve the people.

I think you could ask twenty people about what does this mean and you’ll get twenty different shades of ‘serving the people’.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#32

Post by kikoreis » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

robertAngst wrote: post #21

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #2

And the current mayor will probably lose office next month to parties that have promised to remove said restrictions, because in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison. Sadly, being able to take and park cars everywhere seems to be a much higher priority for much of the population (I say this as a Spaniard). My hope is that the EU somehow intervenes and stops them from taking steps back in this respect. As…

Isn't it interesting how we opinions on the lives and decisions halfway across the world- Despite not living there and understanding the complexity of life. I'm an Environmentalist, but whenever I hear about government imposed solutions, I imagine someone's life is terrible. -Elderly folks have a significantly harder time getting necessities -Emergency vehicles take longer due to traffic I won't go on, because I won'…

See other threads for details on the actual program. The restrictions are pretty moderate and have exclusions for local residents etc.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#33

Post by Jare » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #2

And the current mayor will probably lose office next month to parties that have promised to remove said restrictions, because in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison. Sadly, being able to take and park cars everywhere seems to be a much higher priority for much of the population (I say this as a Spaniard). My hope is that the EU somehow intervenes and stops them from taking steps back in this respect. As…

Carmena is the best thing that has ever happened to this city, precisely because she is always trying to do what's needed not what's convenient. Sadly, there are populists and selfish people everywhere around the world like vultures trading our long term well being for their own short term gain.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#34

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #11

MordodeMaru wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain is by far the least anti EU country in the EU. Also, it is a matter of who enforces pollution policy: Madrid is a city with limitations, Europe on the other hand is able to dictate directives. On regards to the elections, let's see if she gets kicked out.

> Spain is by far the least anti EU country in the EU No. In the latest Eurobarometer, confidence in the EU is one of the lowest in Spain. 54% of respondents do not trust the EU, vs. e.g. 21% in Lithuania or 31% in Denmark. http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/...

However, in the same document you can also see that Spain is the second EU country with the most positive image of the European Union, second only to Sweden (page 10).

When asked about membership in the EU, the answer is also more positive than average, although in a more modest 9th place (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-heard... page 37).

So it depends on how you ask. I would say saying that Spain is the least anti EU country is quite an overstatement, but it's definitely more pro-EU than average.

I think the results of the question on trust may be biased by the fact that Spanish people don't trust politicians in general. In page 6 of this Eurobarometer survey (https://ec.europa.eu/spain/sites/spain/files/eb88_nat_es_es.... - sorry, in Spanish, I couldn't find it in English) you can see that while trust in the EU is not very high, it's quite higher than trust in the Spanish government. So most people wouldn't want to leave the EU.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#35

Post by wklauss » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

kzcqt wrote: post #4

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #2

And the current mayor will probably lose office next month to parties that have promised to remove said restrictions, because in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison. Sadly, being able to take and park cars everywhere seems to be a much higher priority for much of the population (I say this as a Spaniard). My hope is that the EU somehow intervenes and stops them from taking steps back in this respect. As…

This baffles me. The government is there to serve the people. People are unhappy about what the current mayor is doing, that's why she's getting kicked out. Advocating for the EU to step in and force people to stay unhappy will only increase the anti-EU sentiment, but I guess the cat is out of the bag on that one.

The government IS serving the people precisely by putting in place measures to improve air quality.

Most of the backslash against Madrid regulations is coming from people that don't live in the center of the city and are using the issue as a proxy to voice their political views against the mayor's political party (affiliate to left-leaning Podemos).

Funny thing is that this measure was for the longest time in the previous mayoral team (under control from right-leaning Partido Popular) agenda as well.

On the anti-EU sentiment. I think it's important to point out that 62% of Spaniards (and rising since Brexit started) have a favorable view of the EU (according to Pew Research). Eurobarometer is also showing highest support for the EU in 35 years.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#36

Post by acd » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

The air in cities are getting dirty mostly due to diesel car emissions. In order to save the planet from global warming a lot of diesel cars has been sold in Europe due to lower co2 emissions. They were sold as clean diesel cars but were not really clean emitting a lot nox/pm2.5 small particle emissions. The small particles are a danger to public health. It is time we go fully electric/hybrid car in the cities or remove cars from the city centers all together. I do not think a car drivers in cities has the right to pollute the air quality that pedestrians breathe.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#37

Post by inferiorhuman » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

jaden wrote: post #29

kzcqt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, thanks for this comment. That's what makes this matter worse: they restrict private transport, but public transport just gets worse and more expensive every year.

At least for the Madrid metro, they have what I consider to be one of the most accessible and convenient public transportation systems I've used. And compared to Indianapolis, where I currently live, Madrid's public transport makes what we have here an embarrassment.

Madrid public transit is pretty comprehensive, but not particularly cheap or accessible. The rail is a bit archaic to use (single use tickets require source and destination stations despite being mostly one fare zone), station layout is fairly confusing at the bigger stations IMO. Perhaps most importantly, the stations are often pretty deep requiring a lot of waking -- not a problem if you're able bodied though.

I didn't use the bus system at all so I can't comment there. Barcelona in comparison has fairly easy to navigate stations and a much friendlier fare system.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#38

Post by inferiorhuman » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

kzcqt wrote: post #4

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #2

And the current mayor will probably lose office next month to parties that have promised to remove said restrictions, because in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison. Sadly, being able to take and park cars everywhere seems to be a much higher priority for much of the population (I say this as a Spaniard). My hope is that the EU somehow intervenes and stops them from taking steps back in this respect. As…

This baffles me. The government is there to serve the people. People are unhappy about what the current mayor is doing, that's why she's getting kicked out. Advocating for the EU to step in and force people to stay unhappy will only increase the anti-EU sentiment, but I guess the cat is out of the bag on that one.

People act against their own self-interest all the time (e.g. the modern Republican Party in America).

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#39

Post by tomelders » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

I don't own a car because I'm fortunate enough to live in London with an awesome public transport system and a half decent cycle network.

But the air quality here sucks and pollution from cars is through the fucking roof. We just introduced an Ultra Low Emission area scheme that's a half hearted attempt to do what they've done in Madrid, but for me that doesn't go far enough.

I think we should just ban any vehicles that aren't electric from being inside the M25 and give people two years to prepare.

I get that this will be difficult for a lot of people and cause a lot of disruption, but it's killing us. It's killing us now. And if the Brexit brigade can wave away the looming catastrophe of their no-deal-Brexit dreams by conjuring up fantasies about the Blitz spirit, and how we can always make do and mend because we're British; then I don't see why we can't use that same logic to inflict difficult circumstances on people to save the fucking planet and protect our fellow citizens from the harm of air pollution that's being brought into our city by people who don't fucking live here.

Re: Emissions fall in Madrid city center thanks to new traffic restrictions

#40

Post by isostatic » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

kzcqt wrote: post #16

dingallero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In several places where I lived the public transport road service was subcontracted to the lowest-bidding private company of the region. This in turn creates this shitty illusion of "public" service that nobody wants to use, because: - it's unreliable (delays and strikes are common) - short working hours - poorly planned (or no) interconnections with other public services - abusive service costs to recoup the costs E…

>In several places where I lived the public transport road service was subcontracted to the lowest-bidding private company of the region. They are required to do so by law.

Not quite, but they have to justify the choice to use a service that costs more.