101–110 of 158 posts
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>take a lot of space on the road That's the point, cars deliver a lot of personal space & comfort that really make it attractive vis a vis public transport.
Try Cambridge in England just once. The commuter gridlock is appalling. On a bicycle you could just zip by the madness, and you don't even need much fitness.
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https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...
Small apartments, no cars, high taxes to fund a generous welfare and pension system just results in society eating itself.
We should be looking at what's going on in Spain generally as a failure. Without cars, these cities are giant glorified dormitories.
This bike thing is cute, but the reality is that several sections of the city will be shut down for 10s of minutes during morning peak hour, and the chance of a kid getting lost is fairly high. Several kids just walking together in a dedicated bike lane would be easier to control.
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I have spent a lot of time in Barcelona, and love the city, although I’ve only had short stays (~weeks) and haven’t resided there in the traditional sense. I think increasing car hostility makes it less hospitable and accessible to many people away from the core. There’s also a tradeoff which isn’t being acknowledged here. A city that manages its density appropriately will have faster travel times via cars compared t…
> A city that manages its density appropriately will have faster travel times via cars compared to public transit or biking This seems like nonsense. Surely public transport has more capacity than cars, or at least it is not guaranteed that cars have more.
This would be incredibly frustrating to me as a car driver. I don’t think having shared roads for a vocal minority of bikers makes sense. It basically slows down everyone to bike speed, which I realize is the unspoken strategy of bike activists, and it is also why I am against supporting bike-friendly policies in their current form. It makes more sense to have cities build raised biking/walking lanes outside of the t…
>Why aren’t cities exploring such strategies to accommodate those who like the fast point to point benefits of cars alongside those who are OK taking it slow or going out for a bike ride? Because everybody wants to get from point to point fastest and safest way possible and doing it by car is not the answer which scales.
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It has a good public transport system, yes, but ironically it's the only city where I felt kind of insecure in the subway. Always making sure nobody is going to pickpocket me or I don't look the wrong way at some guy looking for trouble. A friend of mine works there as security and after all the stories he told me I rather get in a car and deal with the traffic. And I'm saying this as someone who uses the subway to c…
Yes, the city has very unsafe places, IE Rival, cuidad vella. The amount of ambulance sirens and police presence speaks for itself. It feels less safe than London, I have lived in 3 not so good boroughs in London.
Barcelona is really not bad at all for violent crime :)
There's some places that really are a bit unsafe but it's more out. Like La Mina, there's been some shootings there recently: https://www.lavanguardia.com/sucesos/20210908/7706383/tirote... (Though technically that's not Barcelona anymore but Sant Adria de Besos)
I live there too, and traffic here is pretty busy. Personally I don't really understand why so many people drive. Because public transport here is extremely efficient and cheap. I don't even own a car here and I'm really happy to no longer need one. But if I had kids I wouldn't really let them participate. Even with the police escort, they might lose the group and be on their own in this busy city. I'm from near Amst…
Being in power thanks to Manuel Valls, who was running for a reactionary far right party, did not help on her reputation. Also, she is leading the highest amount of council driven evictions, which does not help either. (for context she reached office on her first time thanks to the anti eviction associations.) She is green, yes. But she is over promising and under delivering.
I'm still a big fan of her :)
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how did people react to reduction of cars ? in many places every step toward reduction of car use is met with a lot of rants if not anger.
People who live in the city live it, people (specially rich people) who drives from outside the city hate it.
Most cities I know have Park & Ride facilities at the outskirts near ring roads. Barcelona doesn't seem to have these (though perhaps I'm missing them as I don't own a car).
But I know my colleagues who come from outside are always struggling to find a parking spot, and they tell me there is no P&R.
I had an idea similar to this, based on my experience of Critical Mass cycle rides in London: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_(cycling) It was called "Cycle Pods", which would be mini-critical mass rides for commuters. You'd probably need between five and ten riders who cycle the same route each day at a roughly similar pace, so you could register with a route and see whose rides were similar to yours. Th…
> There's something about cyclists taking over the road that really provokes some drivers. Every critical mass ride I've ever seen blatantly ignores traffic laws, particularly running red lights. I say this as an avid cyclist and bike commuter: drivers are right to be pissed at them (but not to do something dangerous).
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how did people react to reduction of cars ? in many places every step toward reduction of car use is met with a lot of rants if not anger.
The problem is a bunch of place introduce traffic limitations or some congestion tax... But then do nothing else! You have to find an alternative for people to not take their car (closer grocery shop for instance). Meanwhile the money goes to some pension fund for underperforming, unionized municipal workers...
for the record, I cycle, drive a hybrid and am looking to buy an electric car. I'm not singling out cyclists as a hate target. I'm genuinely curious how this is going to work.