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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"

#461

Post by tuesdaynight »

uyzstvqs wrote: post #439

Something I said a couple days ago: > It's not an either-or. You can have streets which are car-friendly, bike-friendly, and pedestrian-friendly at the same time. Just look at the Dutch, they've been doing it for years. That is until recently in some big cities, though, where some less knowledgeable politicians have also adopted this false populist either-car-or-bike concept. Though the traditional principle still ap…

I understand where it's coming from, but I have to disagree about the populist activism part. I don't think that pedestrians should worry about how to fit cars in their proposed solutions. That's something for the car proposers to do. It's not like the other way around is different. Just take a walk in any big city and you will see how pedestrians are a second thought in most of the roads.

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

#462

Post by dbingham »

deltarholamda wrote: post #225
powvans wrote: post #10

This is really amazing to see trending on HN. I spent a couple days in Pontevedra this summer while walking the Camino de Santiago. It was absolutely delightful and what I experienced aligns with the article. The old town was filled with wide streets almost exclusively for walking, cafes and restaurants that sprawled into plazas, and people young and old enjoying the car free public space. It was one of the first sto…

>Where it exists you can see that there is tremendous demand for it. Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time, or they witness (or experience) violence, or some other anti-social behavior sours the whole thing. I spent some time in NYC during the Giuliani years, after the city did a lot of work cleaning it all up: stopping turnstile jumpers, removing graffiti, more police, etc.…

This all comes down to "We can't have nice things in America because of our toxic mix of individualism and capitalism."

Because we insist on trying to privatize everything, refuse to provide a safe floor for people, and make poverty and mental health challenges moral issues (meaning we degrade people who experience them and leave them to fend for themselves) we create an environment where true community is impossible.

Unless, of course, we apply authoritarian and abusive policing controls against those we've left behind, rounding them up and sending them somewhere else. Which of course achieves a temporary "peace" at the cost of a deep insecurity and fear, because we all know the moment we slip or step out of line, we're gone.

It really is toxic and has led directly to society breaking down to the point where we're now falling into full scale fascism.

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

#463

Post by Fricken »

deltarholamda wrote: post #450
Fricken wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I see your wife and kids in trouble I'll intervene, don't worry. Of course, motor vehicle crashes are the second biggest killer of kids after guns. I don't know where homeless people sit on the threat scale but it's a negligibly small amount.

That's a non-answer, so I assume that's a "no" on the wife, kids, and/or letting them pedal through tent city. In any event, homeless people are low on the threat scale because people generally avoid riding a Schwinn through homeless encampments, which should be perfectly obvious but I guess not.

I don't have kids. The homeless district is easy to avoid, and there's a k-12 school right on the edge of it with many kids walking, cycling and taking the bus to school. I've never heard of a serious incident involving homeless people.

Here's a fun fact for you: statistically cyclists live longer than non-cyclists, and that's in spite of all the hazards they have to deal with while out riding.

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

#464

Post by EE84M3i »

nonethewiser wrote: post #378
alistairSH wrote: post #319

I love this quote from the mayor: The fact that you park your private car in a public space is crazy: if you don’t have room for your freezer, do you put it on the sidewalk?

I dont think its a very good analogy. I completely understand dedicating space to public transport instead of cars. But dedicating space to cars seems entirely reasonable in isolation, because the city has an interest in making it possible to get there. Parking spaces store cars - but is that their entire function? Or is that just an aspect of enabling people to drive into the city? Consider the fact that you cannot…

Many places have on street parking that is used by residents (e.g. you get the "have to move my car twice a month because of street sweepers" effect). It's possible that's what the quote is referring to.

Compare Brookline MA, which allows on-street parking, but only during the day to neighborhoods in Boston proper which has free on-street parking permits for residents.

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

#465

Post by darkwater »

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 think you are totally off. Never lived in Paris but I lived in Barcelona for many years, during the transformation to be more car-hostile and bikes and pedestrians friendly. I spent there my 20s-30s and left when I had a family but due to (public) school scarcity in our neighborhood and rent prices. But mobility was not the issue at all. It was actually a pleasure bring my daughter to her kindergarten by bike and then go to the office.

And I think Paris and Barcelona share a lot in that respect (the mayors - Hidalgo and Colau - met a lot to discuss exactly those topics and share experiences).

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

#466

Post by dqv »

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”?

I remember pointing this out to someone who said public transportation was unprofitable and his response was "I don't care".

People tend not to point it out because most don't actually care about the profitability at all, it's just a meme opinion they present because they prefer cars and look at it like a competition. Other meme opinions that get used:

- disabled people need cars and you want to take cars away from them! (fake disability advocacy - disability advocates who have spent 10 minutes thinking about this know that disability is a spectrum and that many disabilities prevent people from being able to use cars or they are unable pay for the necessary modifications to be able to drive; also no one said anything about taking cars away from people)

- cyclists are a danger to pedestrians and cars! (rhetorical trick to get people to think bikes pose a greater danger to pedestrians than cars)

- buses are ugly! (so is your car)

- it increases traffic (so does your car)

- not everyone wants to ride a bike/walk/take the bus (no one said you have to)

They say these things even in non-adversarial contexts. Like in a discussion about wanting more pedestrian infrastructure and bike paths, they will say "just use [existing bike path], some of us have JOBS and ERRANDS to run" as if people only walk/bike for leisure. No, you don't understand, I'm trying to get as far away from the horrible drivers with Texas/Florida plates as possible!!

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

#467

Post by account42 »

lm28469 wrote: post #442
account42 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design won't mean you won't get soaked if it happens to rain when you need to walk to the nearest bus station to get to work. You can reduce the issues with public transport somewhat (at the expense of its density and cost advantages) but you can never completely eliminate them compared to personal vehicles that get you from door to door.

> Design won't mean you won't get soaked if it happens to rain Sometime I wonder in what alternative world people live in which rain is a problem... Yes it's life, sometimes it' warm, sometimes cold, sometimes dry, sometimes wet. Buy a $10 rain poncho or umbrella and move on lol. How fragile are you that you can't deal with basic things like rain ? There are hard things in life, like your kid getting diagnosed with l…

Rain has been solved: with enclosed vehicles that take you from your home to your destination.

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

#468

Post by pjerem »

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…

> 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 understand what you mean. I don’t especially love it either. But I honestly 100% prefer that to being stuck in traffic, being attentive to everything everywhere just not to kill anyone.

And I say that while owning a comfortable car.

I truly enjoy and cherish not having to use my car to go to work because I did it in the past and I hated it.

Being stuck in my car alone is far worse for me than being stuck in a train station because my train is late or cancelled.

But it may be my personality. I came from the countryside, so I was using my parent’s car everyday.

When I moved to the nearby city (in Europe) I truly felt not having to care about a car to be absolutely freeing.

Now I’m back in the countryside but near a train station that I use everyday to commute and the idea that I may, somehow , if I change job, need to use my car everyday (which I like, btw) is really frightening to me.

Exiting a train and walking two minutes to catch a tramway or a metro then a bus without real waiting times and without thinking about it then taking another route on the way back because a friend invited you for an afterwork really feels like society is just working.

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

#469

Post by bluGill »

Ekaros wrote: post #283
bluGill wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be packing people like sardines. If your subway is that full then you should be adding more trains, or building more lines to ease congestion. (depending on your cities exact situation). In the US we have made building for a reasonable price impossible and then say it is impossible to fix the problems, but it shouldn't be like that.

I thought building more lanes does not work. So why would building more lines work. Soon there will be induced demand and they will be even fuller.

Building more lanes does work - but people misunderstand induced demand. Really induced demand should be called fixing suppressed demand. If you get induced demand it means you need a lot more lanes. We can't afford the 50 layers of highway bridges needed to build enough lanes, but transit is a lot more space efficient and so we could afford it.

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

#470

Post by thelastgallon »

bluGill wrote: post #216
thelastgallon wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is full of impossible choices. Do I worry about the perfume of a lady on the train or worry about death/disability from a drunk driver on the road. Car deaths per year in the US are about 40 - 45K; injuries, some of them permanent are most likely 20 - 30x. Deaths and disability from perfume on a lady on the train are most likely far higher. I wish schools teach something, whats that called, math? probability? to…

> Do I worry about the perfume of a lady on the train or As someone who will have a runny nose all day if I sit next to that lady, yes I do worry about her perfume more than I worry about the drunk driver. While the drunk driver is a worse situation if the odds hit me, the odds the perfumed lady is too close to me is much higher.

Thats right. The risks of a perfume lady are way too scary. Cars never have any odors, just fumes, soot and particulate matter, brake dust. The air quality of cities is so much better than that of forests because of cars. The risks couldn't be more clear: 10 million deaths from air pollution[1] and pollution causing every kind of disease (except STIs) from cars vs hundreds of millions of deaths from perfume lady in train.

This is what all economists get slightly wrong? They say humans are rational agents, soak in all the information, calculate the costs and benefits with the probabilities and make rational decisions. But humans almost always make emotional decisions. A perfume lady is way more scarier than a 5000 lb vehicle hurtling down at 60 mph, custom built to protect the person driving the vehicle, on surfaces built for vehicles and vehicles only (trillions of dollars in maintenance and tens of trillions of dollars healthcare costs).

Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year. Why Do We Accept That as Normal? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p...

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