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"

#231

Post by basilikum » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

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…

Car infrastructure takes so much space that you can repurpose parts of it in place. Just turn one of the lanes into a tram line, make dedicated bus lanes. On huge parking lots you can just split parts of and build housing or more smaller stores there.

Of course there are limits to this, but cities are often grown historically over centuries and city planning usually takes place in such constraints rather than planning cities from scratch. Don't let the perfect be the enemie of the good.

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

#232

Post by darkamaul » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

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 their minimal share of actual mobility. And I'm all in favor in further reducing car lanes, parking spots...

[0] in french - https://www.airparif.fr/actualite/2025/comment-la-qualite-de... [1] https://www.transportshaker-wavestone.com/urban-transports-s...

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

#233

Post by bluejekyll » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:40 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…

> I need that little bubble that separates me from other people.

I get the same independent feeling from others you describe while riding my bike (not a bubble, but that’s a false sense of security in a car giving the 40kish car occupants who die every year in the US). In fact, I generally enjoy that bike experience more than I ever do driving because I never get stuck in car traffic, never get stuck behind a line of cars at a traffic signal. Never need to work about parking, other than finding a secure place to lock up (which some destinations lack). I used to love driving, but I started commuting by bike for work and realized over time that I enjoy biking so much more that I go weeks at this point without ever driving.

FWIW I live in a smaller American city of about 120k people, but is part of a greater metro area.

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

#234

Post by betaby » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #161

I'm always wondering how Americans feel traveling to Europe and being able to walk in cities. It must be so surreal that they either have to move, or they can't fathom that these cities are practical to live in.

> traveling to Europe and being able to walk in cities

All of Greece is car oriented. Of course if you stay near Acropolis you get the impression of walk-ability. Spain outside of the historic city centers is car oriented. Average mileage traveled by car per person in Germany is about the same as is in Canada.

I can continue your generalization about my home city - Montreal. Which is walk-able .. but not really, see the second part here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yDtLv-7xZ4

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

#235

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #207

Ajedi32 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Cars are a better experience in almost all cases, but also have higher marginal costs. They also take up a lot of space, which in a dense city where space is at a premium makes them even more expensive due to the cost of things like parking and big roads. The solution isn't to force people into one option or the other. It's to make all options available at market rates and let them chose.

> Exactly. Cars are a better experience in almost all cases, I completely disagree. On a train or bus I can stand up and stretch my legs, I'm not cramped into a single valid sitting position. I don't get motion sickness on trains or busses like I do in cars, and don't feel claustrophobic. Also in cars I'm constantly stuck in traffic and can't do anything, whereas a bus or train no matter what's happening I can just r…

In many S and RE trains in Germany you do get to strecht a lot, assuming you manage to get into the wagon.

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

#236

Post by cglan » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #185

dijit wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to Europe, especially northern Europe. The wealthy population also take public transport, it's sort of expected that its for everyone... this seems to alter the behaviour of people in a positive way. Maybe through enhanced enforcement by police? or perhaps social conditioning through higher expectations? idk. US Public transport is not a model of what public transport is like; it's only an example of failed infr…

> Come to Europe Anecdotally, among myself and my friends we have more stories of problems with theft and encounters with hostile people from very brief travels to Europe than all time spent on public transport in the USA. To be fair, I haven’t lived in NYC where public transport is famously more dangerous. I also suspect that foreigners are more targeted for wallet thefts while traveling in Europe. However, watching…

Famously more dangerous? NYC? What on earth are you talking about

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

#237

Post by AlexandrB » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

sebstefan wrote: post #192

AlexandrB wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of "transit is more efficient" statistics is going to convince someone to ride it if they feel unsafe. Pretending that these are not real concerns just makes sure that we'll keep building monster highways.

There's no amount of convincing that is going to make them feel safe, you need to get them to use it, and change their opinion that way. They're not gonna use it unless you build it, and they're not gonna use it unless it becomes more convenient than the car. Right now you've got 3 unreliable bus lines, each bus 30 minutes apart, service stops at 8pm and the schedule is useless because they get stuck in traffic. Cons…

Yes, this is absolutely true! But if you make transit convenient without addressing the crackhead in the back, the first time someone tries it will probably be their last and we're back to "nobody uses it, so we're cutting the schedule to save money".

Fundamentally it's a competition between public transit and the alternatives (usually cars). Cities can influence both ends - make driving less pleasant by cutting road infrastructure, parking, add fees for driving into the city, etc and make transit more pleasant by improving schedules, cleaning, etc. I'm a big fan of the latter instead of the former because the former often pisses voters off and leads to a backlash that sets progress back instead. Unfortunately, the latter often costs more as well.

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

#238

Post by cvwright » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

MangoToupe wrote: post #183

gspencley wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#239

Post by probotect0r » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:42 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…

As the other user said, it doesn't scale. I'll give you my personal experience. I have been living in the greater Toronto area for 23 years, having moved here when I was 9. I live in one of the "cities" surrounding Toronto. This city was initially just a suburb of Toronto, that people moved to because houses were bigger and cheaper. Now it is a "city" of more than 700,000 people, in part because everyone moved here from Toronto, and in part due to high immigration in recent years. I put city in quotes because it's not really built like a city, it's still developed like a suburb with a large dependence on cars and poor public transport. All the good jobs are still in Toronto, so people still commute to Toronto for work. Before COVID and wfh, it used to take me 1.5 hours to commute to Toronto (one way), and I still had to drive to the train station. Forget driving to Toronto, it would take you just as long, if not longer, and parking costs are ridiculous. As this city grew, everyone wanted to move here for the same reason as you, bigger and cheaper houses. Now the houses are still bigger, but definitely not cheaper, and it takes forever to get anywhere. There are also less things to do because everything depends on cars.

I am writing this comment from a Italo Treno train, having been in Paris, Switzerland, Milan and Venice over the past week and half, so I have now seen the other side of this conversation.

The only freedom that cars bring is when travelling out of the city to remote places. Switzerland's inter-city rail service is so good I would never want to drive between cities if I lived there.

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

#240

Post by Workaccount2 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:42 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…

While you are not totally wrong, it's very true that car centric society has enabled the sprawling suburbs iconic of America (a large home and yard for everyone), from a sustainability standpoint, freely developed heavily packed cities win hands down. It's so much easier and more efficient to take care of everyone in one spot rather than sprawled out all over the place.