Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone" • Hacker News Board

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#131

Post by ericmay » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

gspencley wrote: post #115

silvestrov wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car oriented people seriously underestimate how many people that can be transported in a subway train and how much highway space it would take to transport the same number of people in cars. One subway line can transport more people than even the widest existing highway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_dif... (edit: spelling)

From an efficiency point of view public transportation makes a lot of sense. From a quality of life point of view, I have never been comfortable being crammed into a sardine can with that many other people. I've done it. I've never enjoyed it. I do look forward to travelling to the Netherlands one day and I will enthusiastically use public transit there just as a personal experiment to see if my experience differs en…

The thing that is so great about better transit for folks in cities in America is that it benefits you specifically in the lifestyle choices you want to live. Introducing better transit options gets folks out of their cars and onto the tram or sidewalk and that leaves you with your desire for solitude with more open highways.

> It's not pro- public transit and better urban planning that bothers me. It's the anti-car "lobby".

Fair but you have to remember that this anti-car lobby is rather tiny in comparison to the pro-car lobby which is every state department of transportation, automaker, insurance company, oil executive, auto dealer, etc. they aren’t as loud and annoying because they don’t have to be, but take away some of their power and you unleash lunatics.

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#132

Post by gazook89 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #73

Zigurd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hold out hope that many more Americans will get E bikes, and demand separated bike lanes. There's plenty of room for them on most American roads especially newer suburbs.

American Fietser is in Carmel, Indiana and evidently loves using his Urban Arrow everywhere.

+1 to urban arrow. Schlep my infant and pre-k kid in it every day of the year and the older kid loves it, is more engaged with the community (she has mentally mapped it and we commonly stop to talk to neighbors in a way we can’t in car), and I can actually fit more kids in it than the car. The car requires a car seat for each kid, which won’t fit across the back seat— the bike takes in an infant seat, and space for two kids on the bench.

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#133

Post by freetime2 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #19

My favourite thing about living in the Netherlands is that kids have freedom. They can bike to school, their friends’ houses, sports, town etc and parents aren’t their taxi. Growing up in suburban California I was basically in an outdoor prison until I could drive.

> Growing up in suburban California I was basically in an outdoor prison until I could drive.

Just as a counter point, I grew up in suburban Massachusetts and this wasn't the case for me. My friends and I rode all over town on our bikes. Bike lanes weren't a thing back then at all, and this was in the 90s when violent crime was at its peak in the US. We just tried to stick to streets with less traffic, rode on sidewalks where available, and took alternate routes through the woods, the cemetery, private property, etc. to avoid busy areas. This is anecdotal, of course, but no kid from my town ever got hit by a car when I was growing up (one kid did die chasing a ball into the street, though).

I'm all for building bike lanes and public transport. And also not all suburban areas are equal - I've definitely seen areas of the US where I would not feel safe riding a bike even as an adult. But I think whatever is keeping kids confined to their homes is just as much a cultural change as it is a lack of infrastructure.

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#134

Post by account42 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #52

stephen_g wrote: post #4

I think the thing that really struck a chord with me about car-centric development, as someone who lives in a city with fairly poor public transport (by certain standards, it would actually be quite good if it were in the US) and where driving is the norm for getting around - Prioritising cars actually makes things worse for drivers. We spend many tens of billions of dollars a year on roads in my state and traffic in…

Car oriented people seriously underestimate how many people that can be transported in a subway train and how much highway space it would take to transport the same number of people in cars. One subway line can transport more people than even the widest existing highway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_dif... (edit: spelling)

Sure, if you pack people like sardines. If anything, trying to achieve this kind of density is what pushes people away from public transport.

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#135

Post by CalRobert » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

walthamstow wrote: post #114

arethuza wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty similar for me - I travel to London from Edinburgh quite a lot and I much prefer taking the train.

Before Brexit I got the train from London to Amsterdam. 3h45 direct, clean, comfortable and so much more civilised than flying.

Even after brexit it’s very possible. I understand InOui may start offering competing services in the channel tunnel.

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#136

Post by vid » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

gspencley wrote: post #115

silvestrov wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car oriented people seriously underestimate how many people that can be transported in a subway train and how much highway space it would take to transport the same number of people in cars. One subway line can transport more people than even the widest existing highway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_dif... (edit: spelling)

From an efficiency point of view public transportation makes a lot of sense. From a quality of life point of view, I have never been comfortable being crammed into a sardine can with that many other people. I've done it. I've never enjoyed it. I do look forward to travelling to the Netherlands one day and I will enthusiastically use public transit there just as a personal experiment to see if my experience differs en…

Once you get used to it, you get more solitude in public transit. Plan your route so you get access to a seat, settle in with a book or music. The other people melt away. Whereas driving a car involves constant interaction with other drivers which in many places (including rural areas, not to single out pickup drivers but there is a pattern) can be quite fraught.

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#137

Post by eigenspace » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

alerighi wrote: post #122

The problem that car solved years ago, is the following: you can develop a city without cars up to a point where the distance that you have to move to get to your work, or the supermarket, the hospital, etc is at max some km, let's say not more than 10/20. That has the consequence that all people wants to live in the city center, and not in peripherals areas. This has the consequence of making the cost of an house (o…

If you haven't discovered the problems with this model, then it's only because not enough of your neighbours have had the same idea.

Look around at places with very high car use (especially in North America) and you'll discover that this solution simply does not scale. Cars take up a gigantic amount of room on roads, and even gigantic highways like Onatrio's 401 [1] just have not been able to keep up with the level of sprawl that occurs when people move out of the city to surrounding suburbs and commute into the city by car.

Adding lanes to the highway does not help and just induces more traffic on it, and it also causes all the surrounding villages to sprawl outwards until they become indistinct blobs that merge into the nearby metropolitan city.

Trains are a much better solution to this problem because they have way better throughput, don't destroy cities with massive highways and parking garages, and encourage denser development that lets nearby villages retain their character and size.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Highway_401

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#138

Post by CalRobert » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #109

lm28469 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 4 supermarkets in a 10 min walk radius, to reach one of them I don't even need to cross a single public street. Same for schools, I know of 3 in my street, there are probably more but as I don't have kids I wouldn't know. I think you missed the entire point, it's a design choice, if you design everything around cars of course going grocery shopping will require a car... my supermarkets don't even have parking…

> it's a design choice Yes. Americans chose big houses and yards.

If that’s what they choose then why make it illegal to build anything else?

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#139

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

First sort out how people can manage to visit cities without having to own a car on first place.

Most European villages and town are unreachable without cars.

Some can already consider themselves lucky if there is a daily connection into one direction.

Everyone likes to think we are all living in Paris, Berlin within city boundaries.

Re: Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"

#140

Post by anonymars » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:11 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #86

abraxas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public transit needs a lot of money and time so I'm not sure it's even doable for many NA cities. Is this a joke? I grew up in Poland, a relatively poor country (and used to be a lot poorer) and in most cities it has public infrastructure that flagship North American cities can barely dream of. It's not a question of money but of societal priorities.

The problem is, the Americans literally dug up a lot of the public transit infrastructure they had. Tramways and cable cars used to be widespread. You'd need to lay down all that track again.

What's wrong with buses?