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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"

#891

Post by pjmlp »

m-schuetz wrote: post #879
pjmlp wrote: post #872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pity that whole thing with having a job, and wanting to get some better living standards. People usually don't live in the suburbs by choice, they get pushed there by the higher classes that can afford the city. Having lost access to the city center during my teenage years certainly gave me a perspective on those that talk from above, without worries about everyone else.

Around here, people voluntarily move to the suburbs because they want a house and a garden or simply larger flats for a lower price. And then they demand that prople inside the city center cater to them and turn their city into a parking lot for those not living there. I'm glad this is now being slowly reversed, and that cities actually look after their citizens rather than commuters that moved away because they want…

As if, living in the suburbs means having larger houses.

Feeling lucky living into one of those matchbox sized flat up on the 15th floor, while community 4h per day, distributed between several buses, train and subway lines.

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

#892

Post by stefs »

oldjim798 wrote: post #670
deltarholamda wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

When you compare driving to almost every other form of transportation it is wildly dangerous. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics... "Passenger vehicles are by far the most dangerous motorized transportation option compared. Over the last 10 years, passenger vehicle death rate per 100,000,000 passenger miles was over 60 times higher than for buses, 20 times higher than for passenger trains, a…

as far as i know, e-bikes (does that count as a motorized vehicle?) are more dangerous per kilometer traveled (especially if the infrastructure is lacking and not to a small part due to predation from cars, but most of the bike accidents happen without a second party).

compared to driving, riding a bicycle is very healthy so the net effect for bicycling is still positive.

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

#893

Post by groggler »

mothballed wrote: post #698
groggler wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, great.. I was recently hit by a paranoid schizophrenic on a E scooter.. More logically he could have been denied access since he had plenty of public transportation options where he wouldn't have gone on to eventually maime people.

I don't have any reason to believe a paranoid schizophrenic capable of buying and maintaining a scooter is going to be any more persuaded to use public transit than anyone else. They are going to use alternatives for the same reason the rest of us do. The ones using public transit are generally the ones with functional issues to the point they can't even get to that point of having a functional e scooter to crash.

Court systems persuade people based on weighing rights, necessities and probable harm. Reduce public transit and their decisions change, increase it and they may make incompetent pilot free zones.

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

#894

Post by stefs »

potac wrote: post #798

I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly…

> close by villages, max 5km

a good cycle path would do wonders there. a flat 5km ride is doable for almost everyone, including seniors and children.

regarding jobs: that's got nothing to do with the carless center. to the contrary - for remote work, it'd be perfect.

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

#895

Post by lomase »

pjmlp wrote: post #872
m-schuetz wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cities don't need to cater to people moving out to the suburbs, who only view the city as a road and a parking lot. Citizens of the city have every right to make it attractive and livable for themselves.

Pity that whole thing with having a job, and wanting to get some better living standards. People usually don't live in the suburbs by choice, they get pushed there by the higher classes that can afford the city. Having lost access to the city center during my teenage years certainly gave me a perspective on those that talk from above, without worries about everyone else.

People usually don't live in the suburbs by choice, they get pushed there by the higher classes that can afford the city.

People in Spain live in the suburbs by choice.

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

#896

Post by stefs »

Saline9515 wrote: post #415
darkamaul wrote: post #232

While the current Paris administration has its detractors, its policies, removing surface parking, expanding bike lanes, and lowering speed limits, have done tremendous good for air quality (see the Airparif study for details in [0]). Paris may not yet be at Amsterdam’s scale, but only 5 % of daily trips in the city are made by car. It’s staggering that roughly 50 % of public space is allocated to cars [1], despite t…

It's a reason among others, but this bike-centric policy (pedestrians nor public transport are the priority) led to an exodus of families [0]. I am among them, as I realized pretty quickly that it's a real pain to move around, buy groceries, go to the doctor, and so on with very young children in Paris, especially if you don't own a car. And now you have to deal with the uncivil behavior of the cyclists, moreover. It…

i haven't made that experience at all, as i've got kids and pretty much never used the car for inner city trips. trips are daily kindergarden, doctor, visiting friends - we do all those with either bikes plus a kids trailer or public transport (i'd say roughly 50/50).

for the kindergarden commute we've used the car two or three times in almost 5 years, when we had to transport birthday party stuff (i.e. cake), but then we stopped even doing because using it was too much of a hassle.

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

#897

Post by stefs »

mykowebhn wrote: post #158

There are (at least) two Youtube channels, Ray Delahanty | CityNerd and Not Just Bikes, that really drive home the point in their videos that car-centric cities really stink. https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes

some more:

https://www.youtube.com/@ClimateTown

https://www.youtube.com/@OhTheUrbanity

https://www.youtube.com/@CityBeautiful

more bike oriented, but that often overlaps with city planning and design:

https://www.youtube.com/@Shifter_Cycling

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

#898

Post by potac »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #877
potac wrote: post #798

I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly…

> Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly grateful) but forgot to provide reliable public transport to close-by villages (max 5km,i.e., Poio/Marin/Salcedo). He can't! Mayors in Spain do not have the authority to establish public transportation outside their municipality, as is the case of the villages you mention. That would fall under the authority of the Xunta de Galicia, which…

Huh! I didn't know this. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah, we all know what the Xunta is doing...

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

#899

Post by potac »

dmurray wrote: post #862
potac wrote: post #798

I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly…

I've been to Pontevedra and actually I thought it was something of a public transport hub! I was there because I was changing buses. Looking at Google Maps, there's a bus (XG628007) every 20 minutes from Marin to Pontevedra that takes 18 minutes for 7 km, along with at least two other bus routes which are less frequent and less direct. How much more public transport could you ask for? There are subway stops in Manhat…

It's true there is a bus to Marin every 20min but it uses a _single_ fixed route. People that live far away (>1km) from this path spend less time driving to Pontevedra than walking to the nearest bus stop.

It is not just increasing frequency, it is a matter of providing alternative routes to serve an important part of the population.

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

#900

Post by trosi »

potac wrote: post #798

I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly…

> [...] there are zero specialized jobs in Pontevedra. Either you are a public state worker, for which you need to pass an exam to lock a lifelong job with no possibility of being fired regardless of how incompetent you are, or you work in hospitality.

Alas, this is basically how it works in most of southern Europe, including my home country Italy. I don't know how much a small-town mayor can do to reverse years of bad political choices at the national level.

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