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"

#451

Post by jjani » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:57 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #316

christina97 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t enjoy the 15 minutes I spend packed in the NY subway when I have to take it during rush hour, but I do enjoy hopping on the subway off-peak when the cars are half empty and I get a seat and open my subway book. Similarly I hated being stuck in 30 minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic during my old commute in a past life. But I do really enjoy driving on new routes when the road is half empty. My two observation…

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.…

Great, let's do that when the negative externalities of cars are properly priced into their usage. This is the number one reason that's causing such sentiments, and rightly so. Expecting people to approach it differently before that is fixed is unrealistic. Currently, cars are subsidized to an absurdly higher level than public transit. That's the status quo. A change of that status quo means moving car subsidies to public transit subsidies, unless you raise taxes, which will make the exact same people defensive and hate you.

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

#452

Post by freetime2 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:57 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #354

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.…

I would say more of everything but NOT all in the same place.

Look at Greater Tokyo. 37 million people - and they have everything. Pedestrians, cyclists, cars, taxies, buses, surface roads, expressways, trains, subways, monorails, high speed rail, ferries, etc. All interconnected, and all being used to capacity at rush hour every day. It's absolutely insane, but every time I visit I'm in awe at how easy it is to get around (albeit unpleasant at times).

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

#453

Post by yourusername » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #276

yourusername wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not cramped into a single valid sitting position. No during rush hour you're more likely to be cramped into a single valid standing position.

This isn't my experience, but I understand some countries have overloaded public transit systems. When I've been in those countries, it's been simple enough to just let an overloaded train pass and grab the next one.

Ok but you let that train pass you might lose the connection to the bus at the other end. Or the next train or bus might not be for half an hour. Now you're late to wherever you were going.

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

#454

Post by wffurr » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:58 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…

Interesting use of the word “sustainable”.

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

#455

Post by adrian17 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #180

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…

>> Then again, big city living isn't for me anyway (obviously). I will always choose smaller to mid sized cities, and possibly even rural at some point in the future, for the personal reasons outlined above. Exactly. Not everyone wants to live in a "walkable" city. I would hazard that most in fact don't. A city is a place you go for services. It is where the big shopping centers and hospitals are. It is where the cor…

There's a huge spectrum between dense city center and suburbia; at present, I do consider my area to be "walkable", but it's not anywhere close to a dense city and there sure aren't "corporate HQs" anywhere nearby.

I do value having several gyms and restaurants (and friends) within just a short bike ride from my current house; and since one of the gyms I visit regularly is in the shopping mall, if I have an interest to cook something specific, I can buy whatever's necessary with like 5-10 mins of extra overhead.

And I do go to the local convenience store more or less daily anyway, if only for some snack, produce or fresh bread. There's a shop in each direction wherever I'd want to go, so the only way for me _not_ to inadvertently pass by one would be if I didn't leave my home at all entire day.

I'm not discounting anyone's general preference for country life, it's perfectly valid; I'm just saying that some of the things you're saying seem overexaggerated.

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

#456

Post by bluGill » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC

Othan wrote: post #387

bluGill wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've hit on the central, infuriating paradox of car-centric cities. We're told that building more roads will bust congestion, but the exact opposite happens That is a bad reading. If there is more congestion it is because you made some trips that were impossible before possible and so people are better using your city. The point of a city is all the things you can do - otherwise people would live in a rural area…

> If there is more congestion it is because you made some trips that were impossible before possible and so people are better using your city. No, this means that the trip was made easier by car, not that a trip was impossible and is now possible. > limiting the things people can do means you are a bad city. Not building massive freeways everywhere != limiting the things people can do in a city. Building public trans…

> this means that the trip was made easier by car, not that a trip was impossible and is now possible.

If someone chooses to not make a trip then I count it as impossible. I could walk across the North Pole to Europe, but I think everyone would agree when I say the trip is impossible anyway despite that.

> This does not work in populated areas with high demand. (This is incredibly well studied)

You absolute can and I disagree with the studies. Now I will agree that building 50 layers of highway bridges needed is not a reasonable thing to do, but it still a solvable engineering challenge if we wanted to put the money into it.

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

#457

Post by ux266478 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC

SubjectToChange wrote: post #275

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 don't see myself ever not being a driver. Cars aren't getting cheaper, car maintenance has become absurdly expensive (compared to what it was), auto insurance is set to get far more expensive, and making your entire lifestyle dependent on the existence of cheap gasoline is not a great strategy. A lot of people will simply be priced out of driving. >It's not pro- public transit and better urban planning that bother…

> The more remote your living is, the more everyone else is subsidizing your existence.

This is an uncritical viewpoint, you're simply describing a society. It doesn't matter where you live, you're soaking up the labor and capital of the wider net of people. That's what it is to have a civilization, and ours is so deeply interconnected that all relationships are inherently reciprocal. The trivially measurable flow of money doesn't say anything of substance as it's a second order abstraction, only that the mechanisms and pipelines by which money move are situated in cities. It's not urban labor and urban resources that builds, maintains and operates that infrastructure or the social fabric that it serves and is served by.

> It's one thing for the people who already live there or genuinely need to live out there, it's another thing for people to choose to live out there for "personal reasons".

On the contrary, the negative health effects of cities are empirically measurable[1][2][3]. We should be striving at all times as human beings to move past having them at all, and should look to building towards healthier, lower density living and encourage it for anyone who is capable of doing so. We cannot fall into the trap of building, encouraging and valuing objectively worse living conditions in the name of efficiency, the entire point of this whole system is to lead better lives, not to make the numbers go up.

[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26630577/

[2] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23015685/

[3] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31610855/

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

#458

Post by account42 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #102

cm2187 wrote: post #13

[flagged]

Taipei moves on scooters. It also rains a lot. Every office has hangers in the stairwells for rain ponchos. Adapting to rain seems very doable.

Taipei has warm temperatures year round that mean everything is dry quickly. It's quite a different situation when your socks get soaked in < 15 degree weather.

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

#459

Post by cryptopian » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 3:00 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #212

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…

Nobody likes to hear this, including me, But a car with no traffic is the overall best form of transportation. Anything that reduces traffic, just makes driving a car more palatable. So we are stuck forever at an equilibrium of tolerable traffic. More people taking the bus, train, bikes, and walking? Great! I'll zip down the highway and get a parking spot right in front.

Urban planning has a term for this - the Downs Thomson paradox. Over time, traffic tends to increase up to a point at which equivalent journeys on transit/bike/foot are quicker.

What this means of course is that an effective way of reducing traffic is by speeding up the alternatives.

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

#460

Post by KaiserPro » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 3:00 PM UTC

mystifyingpoi wrote: post #375

KaiserPro wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car is absolutely essential for driving around small kids no matter the urban density. For places like london, paris, amsterdam, you can totally be car free. So long as you have a pram with space under the seat for storing stuff, its totally not a problem to take kids out and about. The other thing thats invaluable, is that you can concentrate entirely on your kids without worrying about crashing.

Sure, but these are multi-million cities. They have amazing public transport. The issue I see here is assuming that Europe = Paris/Rome/Amsterdam. Probably due to tourism. It makes the impression that whole EU is just amazing and no one needs a car. It can't be further from the truth.

You made a clear assertion about the need for cars, regardless of urban density.

But it turns out that actually urban density is pretty good indicator of reasonable public transport. of _course_ there are black spots, rural england lost its trains in the 60s and busses in the 2000s.

But

The british didn't make the tube for tourism, given that they've not built anything transport wise since the 90s (except the Elizabeth line)

Paris didn't make the metro for tourists, because they are french, they're not going to spend money on dirty tourists who get in the way.

the Netherlands didn't make trams for tourists, they can cycle like the rest of us.