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

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

#301

Post by panick21_ »

cholantesh wrote: post #222
mettamage wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Growing up in suburban California I was basically in an outdoor prison until I could drive. Having grown up in the Netherlands and having a decision to make where we want our kids to grow up (US spouse), this feels painful to read. I suppose the SWE salaries aren't worth it. Also this is one of the best towns to cycle in the Netherlands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w&ab_channel=NotJu...

Hah, I had a feeling that was a NJB video. It is generally surreal to me that even smaller settlements in Europe have more, shall we say, evolvability than North American ones, and (at least in some cases owing to their antiquity) prioritize the needs of pedestrians.

American cities, almost all were also built before the car. At least the city centers. Both US and European cities grew after WW2.

The US just radically and systematically destroyed its own cities, Europe did its fair share of that, but simply not as bad. I think what saved Europe is that they were behind the US in investment, and when they finally wanted to adopt those US polices, people had already figured out how shit it was, and in many cities the worst urban highways were prevented.

In the US, very few cities survived and very few highways were stopped.

European cities are do not have more evolvability, in fact, large US roads actually means you have more op. Its more a matter of the US refusing to evolve. Its political far more then an aspect of the build environment.

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

#302

Post by bluGill »

noosphr wrote: post #98
prmoustache wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am with you. It is not only about lanes but also parking. My in laws live in a very car centric city and it is crazy the way all distances are multiplied when everything need a dedicated parking space. There is almost nothing left at walking distance and every time I visit I have the feeling I spend all my day in a car instead of ... doing stuff.

It's pretty amazing how much time you can save by being able to park in front of whatever you want to get into. Starting at the same point I've beaten cars that should have gotten there 20 minutes faster according to google maps.

I save a lot of time by taking a parking spot far from the door and just walking. People who drive spend a lot more time than they think looking for a parking spot close to the door. Plus nobody cares if I take up 3 parking spots way out there (so long as I'm not in a lane of course) so I can stop whereever without checking for the lines saving even more time not trying to get perfectly in the parking spot.

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

#303

Post by roryirvine »

cm2187 wrote: post #13

[flagged]

Only the tube is affected by the strike.

Overground, National Rail, DLR, the Elizabeth line, trams and buses are all working. And the few parts of the tube network that don't have any nearby heavy rail services (eg. the Hainault loop on the Central line) are mostly still running.

Sure, the non-tube services are (much!) busier than normal but this situation is actually a great demonstration of one of the most important factors in making public transport useful: route redundancy, so that if one is suspended for whatever reason there are reasonable alternative options for most journeys.

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

#304

Post by MangoToupe »

cvwright wrote: post #238
MangoToupe wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I of course understand this attitude, but it fills me with hopeless dread that this country will never be able to do anything hard again. Our addiction to cars is one of the hardest to swallow and easiest to fix problems, and yet the will to do so is simply non-existent. To convince an American to give up on any collective, just point out they'll be mildly inconvenienced. No wonder we never even tried to fight our ca…

Safety is the much bigger challenge for public transit in the US right now. Since the pandemic, most cities have really eased off of any enforcement of rules or laws in public spaces. Driving in rush hour traffic sucks, but it beats getting randomly stabbed in the neck by some psycho who didn’t even pay his fare.

> Driving in rush hour traffic sucks, but it beats getting randomly stabbed in the neck by some psycho who didn’t even pay his fare.

This concern never even occurred to me. Are you not far more likely to die in a car crash?

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

#305

Post by youngNed »

mystifyingpoi wrote: post #196
qwertygnu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my personal car bubble as much or more than most people (though maybe not as much as you), but at some point we have to get over ourselves. We're all so spoiled. Why the hell do we deserve to all have our own giant speed machines careening through cities where people (including us drivers!) are trying to live? It doesn't make any sense and it's a shame that we've let it go so far, especially in the US. It shou…

Do you have kids? I don't think so (correct me if I'm wrong). Car is absolutely essential for driving around small kids no matter the urban density. I'm more dependent on my car(s) when I got the first newborn than I ever was.

Really depends where you are. But not in a major city, in the UK its not.

Ask me how i know

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

#306

Post by stephen_g »

aunty_helen wrote: post #120
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…

This is level one understanding of public transport systems. “We should build metros and then everything will be better” There’s cities that are not setup for efficient public transportation or walkable living. Redesign it from ground up and put a metro smack bang through the middle. Until then, it’s just not going to work. People, and especially people who like the idea of walkable cities that reside in council chai…

I think you are being unnecessarily defeatist. Cities can’t be redesigned from the ground up, but at the same time we’ve seen that investment into roads can’t fix traffic in cities once they reach a certain population and density.

The first thing we should do is target development. For example, planning laws should require new development (suburbs etc.) to be built around some kind of transit (ideally rail). Zoning should always be mixed - for example it should always be permissible to have at least small apartment blocks, groups of townhouses (like row houses), and small shops and cafes in suburbs. The idea of mandating areas be dedicated to only detached single family dwellings should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

There’s just so much like that that can be started right now. But we don’t - we just keep making the same mistakes and things get worse.

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

#307

Post by frereubu »

arethuza wrote: post #105
frereubu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Power Broker by Robert Caro, a biography of Robert Moses that's particularly focused on his long career in the government of New York, is, quite aside from a fascinating psychological portrait and a parable about how bad it is when someone has untrammeled power in a bureaucracy, an absolutely fantastic case study in how building more roads makes traffic worse. And it was published in 1974! For anyone that cares t…

Seconded - I'm currently listening to the audiobook of this book and I find it utterly fascinating.

Yeah, the reader of the audiobook is pretty good, although I slightly prefer Grover Gardner, who recorded the audiobooks for his series on LBJ, as a narrator. If you like The Power Broker, I'd highly recommend those.

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

#308

Post by ericmay »

bluGill wrote: post #255
ericmay wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They by and large don’t though. Instead, big houses and yards are the only options on the table for most Americans because of zoning regulation and developers just copy/pasting designs to save money. There isn’t an option for new brick house in neighborhood built before cars were a thing. You either have the existing housing stock, which is astronomically more valuable, or you don’t. There’s no developer building tho…

> There isn’t an option for new brick house in neighborhood built before cars were a thing Every time I look those houses are on lots of similar sized to modern lots. People back then choose space as well. They did allow stores in those neighborhoods though, so you could do some of the basic things in life without getting on the streetcar or walking. Those neighborhoods were also closer to jobs or close to a streetca…

The mixed-use development, which was practically banned during the automobile era, is a great example of doing more with less. As you mention, being able to walk over to your local school, or park, or market, or clothing shop, etc. helps reduce the need for car travel for small things, which allows us to have fewer cars on the road, spend less on infrastructure, and make driving a little more pleasant.

But there are other benefits. That local coffee shop or clothing store is better able to compete, because they don't have to compete on efficient product delivery which is something that you see in the suburbs Ala Starbucks or Wal-Mart. This increases entrepreneurial activities and helps money spread instead of concentrate. It's no coincidence in my mind that income inequality has increased partially because of tax rates, but also because of concentration of businesses that can best realize supply chain efficiency.

To your point about brick, sure yea homes don't have to be brick, but generally plastic siding sucks visually, plus suburban houses are built incoherently, so if we could just get something that looks good that's half the battle. But perhaps the most important part, which I'm not sure suburban housing design can really accommodate, is the layout and streetscape design that enables a healthy mix of SFH, apartments, and other living arrangements mixed with businesses and amenities.

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

#310

Post by happosai »

Aurornis wrote: post #162
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)

People don’t pick their mode of transportation based on space efficiency. They pick their mode of transportation based on their needs and priorities. Taking the subway works when there’s a stop near your home, a stop near your destination, and you have all of the time necessary to wait for it. If these conditions aren’t met then you need additional transport to and from one or both ends of the subway journey. There’s…

People very much prefer sedentary lifestyle too, yet is very bad for your health. Likewise, cars are nice as long as you continue to ignore all the negative externalities it has - pollution, climate change and above all the massive waste of space in parking lots and highways that could be used better.
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