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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"

#421

Post by SoftTalker »

LastMuel wrote: post #371
bombcar wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rush hour is more of a problem than people will admit; the biggest issue with public transit (in general) is that it is horribly "unprofitable" (for whatever you want that to be) except curing crush-time. At the extremes, a bus (or worse, a train) with one driver and one passenger is obviously worse than one person in a car. But transportation is not Car vs the World™ no matter how many people (online) want it to be.…

How come nobody ever points out that roads are “unprofitable”?

Because they aren't. They enable almost all economic activity that involves moving things or people around.

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

#422

Post by ascagnel_ »

frereubu wrote: post #67
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…

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…

Caro has a way with words; one of my favorite turns was when Moses declared traffic a problem "solved for a generation", only for Caro to begin the next paragraph with a description of the traffic jams that began to develop a few weeks after that particular road (I believe the Bronx River Parkway) opened.

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

#423

Post by freetime2 »

sebstefan wrote: post #351
freetime2 wrote: post #335

These threads always turn into fights between car vs. non-car people. But the answer should just be more of everything. More bike lanes, car lanes, buses, trains, parking, etc. Close a street or two off to car traffic, maybe just on weekends initially, to create a nice walkable downtown area. People always seem to talk about these things like it's one size fits all, when needs vary massively from one city to another.…

Where do you put the "more car lanes"? Houston is almost entirely lanes and parking, they're still congested. At which point do you have enough car lanes? The rest of the lanes sure; a fully used bike lane like Boulevard de Sébastopol is worth 8 lanes of car traffic. That helps. But more car lanes?

> Where do you put the "more car lanes"?

I'm not very familiar with Houston, but a quick google search shows that there is a big project underway right now to add more lanes in Houston [1]. So it would seem that civil engineers there have found a place to put more car lanes that they think will help with traffic congestion.

> At which point do you have enough car lanes?

As long as Houston is growing (currently it is the second fastest growing city in the US), I don't think there will ever be enough. They need to continuously improve their transportation infrastucture to keep up with a growing population. As I said above, I think this should include bike lanes and public transportation too. But if engineers identify a solution to alleviate traffic congestion by building more roads, then I think that is worth considering, too.

[1] https://www.txdot.gov/about/newsroom/local/houston/i45-const...

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

#424

Post by bombcar »

SoftTalker wrote: post #407
bombcar wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rush hour is more of a problem than people will admit; the biggest issue with public transit (in general) is that it is horribly "unprofitable" (for whatever you want that to be) except curing crush-time. At the extremes, a bus (or worse, a train) with one driver and one passenger is obviously worse than one person in a car. But transportation is not Car vs the World™ no matter how many people (online) want it to be.…

> At the extremes, a bus (or worse, a train) with one driver and one passenger is obviously worse than one person in a car. Or driving with no passengers at all, not uncommon for the buses where I live at certain times and routes. It's sort of a chicken and egg problem. You can optimize equipment usage by running more buses on heavily used routes but you can't encourage new ridership on new routes without running eno…

There was a city that did that - the busses were "on demand" - much more like a taxi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI1yM9mzCAE

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

#425

Post by rrrobert »

vanviegen wrote: post #69
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...

It seems like those comfy US coastal salaries usually buy you either: - A largish house in the subs, and a nice car that you'll be seeing a lot of, unfortunately. - A tiny house closer to work. While European SWE salaries are significantly lower, they can generally buy you a decent house close to work.

In which European city is this true? I can't think of any. Certainly not London/Paris/Amsterdam/Munich/Warsaw.

For comparison, Amsterdam's price per square meter for apartments is some 30% higher than in Seattle and my big tech company that offers total compensation around $500k/yr for L5 in Seattle pays low $200s (converted to USD) in Amsterdam. The only colleagues I know who live in a single family home within reasonable biking distance are late career (L6/L7) American expats.

In any European city, that has a decent tech job market, owning a house (even a small one by American standards) in walking/biking distance of the office means you're rich rich.

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

#426

Post by daveliepmann »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #66
daveliepmann wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

It has to do with the fact that air pollution has massively decreased, but cars still kill a lot of people. That's a considered and substantive point, I reckon.

I wrote it because in my experience a "balance" between modes can mean something like Amsterdam, or it can mean the status quo in the USA-outside-NYC, which is to say extreme and punishing car dependence. Sorry if I had you wrongly pegged. My belief is that a good balance is radically fewer cars in city centers. What's your idea of a good balance?

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

#427

Post by scott_w »

pkulak wrote: post #361
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 would have to admit that even I, I public transit nerd, would prefer an empty subway car. I also don’t like driving when I’m stopped dead in traffic, or biking when it’s next to a highway with no lane, or the bus when I miss my transfer, or walking when it’s pouring rain. I guess my point is that everything has a worst it can be. The idea, though, is that a city should offer all of them so that you can choose. And…

I generally agree but I'll caveat that subway at its worst can be far worse with trains going missing. "Metro apologises" is a running joke around the north east of England for how bad its service became in the past 15 years.

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

#428

Post by nehal3m »

shinecantbeseen wrote: post #414
nehal3m wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you would have to make the case in such a way that car infrastructure costs reside with car users only, and not spread over tax payers who don't want to pay for your choices.

That's hard to do in practice, I think. To take the inverse example: in NYC tolls on cars are used to pay for capital projects for the public transportation system. If these "independent" components were truly as independent as you imply income taxes + fares would cover the MTA, but they don't. Each style of transportation is going to have different levels of cost associated with it, likely changing as one or the oth…

That's not an unreasonable take in my opinion, but then the point of the person I'm responding to is 'let's silo costs and let the market decide' and if we're going to do that, however unpractical, I'd bet a lot of money that driving a car would become unaffordable.

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

#429

Post by forgotoldacc »

mschuster91 wrote: post #80
forgotoldacc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time aspect comes from excessive regulations and approvals and always, always giving jobs to the lowest bidding contractor. The lowest bidder is always the most expensive, and they always waste time far beyond schedule to burn more money, yet North America as a whole just won't learn from the past 70 years and keeps doing the same thing. I visit China sometimes and it's seriously just wild seeing a town s…

> Most of the time aspect comes from excessive regulations and approvals Well... given you're comparing to China... regulations and approvals have a point. China just openly sharts on nature, the environment and the rights of its citizens - the Party and its interests always come first. > I visit China sometimes and it's seriously just wild seeing a town suddenly have a metro system go from not existing to being full…

> Well... given you're comparing to China... regulations and approvals have a point. China just openly sharts on nature, the environment

These ones aren't really accurate in this century. China is making massive gains in clean energy and undoing a lot of the mess they made in the 20th century. I'm honestly blown away by how clean the water, air, and everything as a whole is over there. And I'm a freak who loves visiting places in the middle of nowhere, so it's not some Potemkin village stuff like YouTube China Truthers(tm) pretend is widespread.

> When a project gets screwed up, someone or their entire family ends up gulaged

Yeah, you watch a little too much YouTube. That stuff doesn't happen. Why would anyone be stupid enough to be an engineer if they risk having their entire family being arrested? Seriously.

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

#430

Post by nothrabannosir »

seper8 wrote: post #248
komali2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hear this all the time yet right now am traveling in Amsterdam and see many parents trucking their kids around in bicycles without issue. Actually I remember seeing this in SF as well, and in Taiwan and Japan I see incredibly young children riding public transit on t…

Most of these bike moms/dads still have a car at home.

In Amsterdam I guarantee you they don’t.

Source: grew up there.

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