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Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

theguardian.com

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Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#31

Post by smcl »

baud147258 wrote: post #21
smcl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do those lunch/meal vouchers exist at all in the UK? Many workers here in Czech Republic get them as a work benefit, and I suspect this is what they're referring to. It varies per employer but we get roughly one ticket per working day, worth 110kč ($4.40, or €4) and they're valid in pretty much every restaurant in the city so basically everyone goes out for lunch. When I was in the UK they didn't have anything like t…

We have them in France too, but half is payed by the employee (taken from the salary). But we can also use them when buying groceries (not all supermarkets accept them, but a lot of them do)

Yep same deal as us, a mix of employer/employee contributions pay for them, they can be used for some items in supermarket (not for things like alcohol) and I think the employer contribution is tax exempt too

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#32

Post by anjc »

ashtonkem wrote: post #2

Hopefully some of it remains after. Car centered cities are awful for human beings, we should reclaim some of this space for us.

> Car centered cities are awful for human beings

Do you just mean that a car centred city is more noisy and dirty than an economically-equivalent city that has fewer cars? They've been amazing for human beings if you take a broader/longer perspective.

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#33

Post by mantas »

v3nom wrote: post #9

Adding more bike paths to reach city center from suburbs and locking down city center for cars should follow next. There are plenty of research which shows that slow traffic brings more business to shops

Oldtown is mostly for tourists/partying nowadays (as in before the whole Corona mess). Offices and everyday shops/services are moving out for the past 2 decades. Living downtown is getting less and less desirable too because students are priced out while older folks don't want 24/7 party all around. No bike paths will change that.

On the bright side, no sane person drives into oldtown for a looong time. Especially after recent raise of parking fees. Quite a few streets are already car-free. Transit traffic is going to be banned any time now (said for the past 5 or 10 years, but eventually it will happen).

As for bike paths, few neighbourhoods were well connected for decade+. More and more connections are being built. Terrain and city density is not exactly friendly though. Downtown is, well, down in a valley. While banks ain't truly steep, living in a flat country it is quite a mental stop. On top of that, lots of people live in soviet-era blocks 5km+ from downtown. Add that bike paths ain't bee-line straight and it ends up a 30min+ ride one way for a beer.

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#34

Post by PeterStuer »

From the opposite side of the spectrum, meet Antwerp Belgium.

First thing they did under the guise of "Corona measures' was lift the low emission zone so the most heavily polluting vehicles could once again roam free in the city, and make all on street parking free.

Their pretends that this was 'to give maximal access to care workers' fell flat immediately as all caseworkers that needed city access already had complying vehicles, and they now have trouble finding spaces to park as all streets are just permanently filled with long-term parked cars. Yet, they still persist with the idiocy.

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#36

Post by twic »

smcl wrote: post #29
icebraining wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seem the UK had them quite early, but abolished them a few years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_voucher#United_Kingdom

First I've heard of it. I doubt many companies took advantage of the scheme and issued them and I guess very few restaurants would've accepted them anyway.

As a kid in the '80s or '90s, i remember seeing signs on restaurant windows or in menus saying they accepted Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Luncheon Vouchers. I never actually saw a Luncheon Voucher though.

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#37

Post by bzb3 »

ashtonkem wrote: post #2

Hopefully some of it remains after. Car centered cities are awful for human beings, we should reclaim some of this space for us.

>Car centered cities are awful for human beings, we should reclaim some of this space for us.

This might sound shocking, but cars are driven by human beings. When a human being is driving a car, the space taken by that car is actually being used by a human being.

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#38

Post by acqq »

PeterStuer wrote: post #34

From the opposite side of the spectrum, meet Antwerp Belgium. First thing they did under the guise of "Corona measures' was lift the low emission zone so the most heavily polluting vehicles could once again roam free in the city, and make all on street parking free. Their pretends that this was 'to give maximal access to care workers' fell flat immediately as all caseworkers that needed city access already had comply…

> they still persist with the idiocy

Also, according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

is Belgium at this moment, except for San Marino of only 30,000 inhabitants, the country with the highest death rate in the world from coronavirus epidemics, per million of population:

San Marino: 1,208

Belgium: 655

Spain: 519

Italy: 458

UK: 384

France: 369

Netherlands: 275

Sweden: 244

USA: 186

Germany: 77

Greece: 13

I believe, if the rest of the world is not much aware of that fact, that also says something about Belgian politics. I'd love to read more about the perspective of Belgians here.

Edit: see also https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps which I explain in the later post -- that independent, different statistics is, approximately, not disproving the ratios for the European countries, except for the UK, where it seems there was some kind of underreporting of Covid-19 related deaths.

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#39

Post by ivan_gammel »

lampe3 wrote: post #15
acd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After this Covid returns to normal and its safe I will go and visit Vilnius as a tourist! :)

You should take this test first: https://vilniusgspot.com/

This is the website of the day. People who created it are gods of marketing.

Re: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe

#40

Post by toasted_flakes »

acqq wrote: post #38
PeterStuer wrote: post #34

From the opposite side of the spectrum, meet Antwerp Belgium. First thing they did under the guise of "Corona measures' was lift the low emission zone so the most heavily polluting vehicles could once again roam free in the city, and make all on street parking free. Their pretends that this was 'to give maximal access to care workers' fell flat immediately as all caseworkers that needed city access already had comply…

> they still persist with the idiocy Also, according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries is Belgium at this moment, except for San Marino of only 30,000 inhabitants, the country with the highest death rate in the world from coronavirus epidemics , per million of population: San Marino: 1,208 Belgium: 655 Spain: 519 Italy: 458 UK: 384 France: 369 Netherlands: 275 Sweden: 244 USA: 186 Germany: 77 Gr…

Belgium counts all deaths from care homes as COVID-19 deaths. Hardly a fair comparison, even if I have my gripes with the politics.
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