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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

#51

Post by rv-de »

StavrosK wrote: post #46
rv-de wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stuff I read about Brussels recently on the news tells a different story. To give one example: "Brussels has gone yet further. From May 4, the Belgian capital’s entire city core will be a priority zone for cyclists and pedestrians, one in which cars cannot exceed a speed of 20 kph and must give way in the roads to people on foot or on bikes. This comes on top of an ongoing pedestrianization plan designed to make…

Yes, but Brussels is not Antwerp.

Well, that is true. I misread that.

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

#54

Post by dkdk8283 »

ianleeclark wrote: post #45
bzb3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

A portion of that space is being occupied by a human, but it's not all being used by the human. We both know you know this.

Cars are positive for humans. Dense living conditions like NYC are not sustainable. You burn out.

Sometimes you want to get away from all people. Car is essential for this.

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

#55

Post by neltnerb »

smcl wrote: post #31
baud147258 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have never heard of this before. It is fascinating to me that health care gets decoupled from employment but eating is considered an employment benefit.

I don't really object or anything, it just seems out of character.

Wouldn't it be better if the government did this directly by the same logic you'd apply to health care? Making employee meals tax deductible instead of just giving everyone a government funded food benefit sounds much more like what I'd expect in the US.

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

#56

Post by Jemm »

lampe3 wrote: post #7
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.

Hello from Vilnius, the City already has parking zones. As a normal person its very hard to park in the City center. Here is some information: https://www.govilnius.lt/plan-your-trip/getting-around/parki... Also, some streets are already car-free and only delivery vehicals can enter them.

How do they handle disabled residents in those zones?

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

#57

Post by williamdclt »

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/

I can count on my fingers the number of times I've seen a website that was this well made!

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

#58

Post by smcl »

neltnerb wrote: post #55
smcl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have never heard of this before. It is fascinating to me that health care gets decoupled from employment but eating is considered an employment benefit. I don't really object or anything, it just seems out of character. Wouldn't it be better if the government did this directly by the same logic you'd apply to health care? Making employee meals tax deductible instead of just giving everyone a government funded food…

It's an interesting comparison, but I don't really think it's in the same ballpark as healthcare being provided by your employer. It's cheap (less than $90/month for mine) and it's optional - nobody's dying or going bankrupt because they don't have stravenky. It's better to think of it like the free coffee, fruit, breakfast and snacks you might have in your office. I'm sure someone's made an argument that they'd rather get a few extra bucks each month than have free coffee in the office, but not many :-)

"Making employee meals tax deductible" sounds like I have to keep receipts of what I ate and file them with my taxes to receive the benefit. But it's just that some amount of the value of these vouchers is subtracted from the subtotal used to calculate my income tax.

It's a small thing, but honestly it's a really nice benefit

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

#59

Post by Johnjonjoan »

acqq wrote: post #41
toasted_flakes wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-52466471/page/3 "29 Apr: The death toll from the virus in the UK rises to more than 26,000 after care home deaths are included for first time " Apart from that, luckily, we have also "all deaths" (for any reason whatsoever) statistics for participating EU countries (and, still, UK), so we can compare these too: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps Even there Belgium has had quit…

I'm not sure on the Belgium situation but there is quite the lag between death and reporting of these care home numbers. For a care home death to be counted towards the coronavirus total a death certificate is required which takes time.

There has also been a large deal of controversy over the counting of care home deaths in the UK with the government consistently being called out by care home operators for unbelievable care home death numbers.

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