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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"

#531

Post by Saline9515 »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #509
Saline9515 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport usually requires a medium-to-high density to be sustainable. However, it can get saturated - in Paris, the subway and the trams are full for long periods during the day, even at midnight! It makes the experience really unpleasant when you have no alternative.

Man, you really public transportation, you've been all over this thread sniping every positive comment about public transportation

I love quality public transportation. The problem is that most of the time people make cities less car-friendly, but don't improve public transport, as it's expensive and their electorate wants bike lanes, making the situation worse for everyone. In my city, they removed the parking space near the farmer's market, but didn't add any bus line or renovate the tram, which doesn't allow disabled people or just strollers to hop in. How are we supposed to come there?

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

#532

Post by deltarholamda »

rcpt wrote: post #526
deltarholamda wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why don't you simply move to Chelsea or the Upper West Side? Because I'm not in the top 0.1%. "Why don't you just move into a $2-5 million dollar home?" is an astonishing take.

Wait. Are the pedestrian friendly cities battlegrounds with panhandlers with horrible schools, or are they wildly expensive luxury destinations that are in such high demand that only the 0.1% can live there?

I'd think "it can be both" would be obvious, but clearly not.

Rich people have been enjoying a different standard of life even in the midst of abject poverty since forever, but I guess this is news to some.

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

#533

Post by elAhmo »

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…

As someone with a family and a car, can't you use public transport for that? You can walk to local parks and have a doctor that is relatively nearby, but Paris has very extensive transport network and it is perfectly fine to move around without a car.

No one is arguing you should take your sick kid on a bike for one hour ride.

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

#534

Post by EE84M3i »

freetime2 wrote: post #452
nonethewiser wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

One thing that contributes to cars being non-intrusive in Tokyo is just that there are many less of them than in American cities as there are many systems that de-incentivize having a car in the city.

To buy a car you need a certificate from the police attesting that you have a free parking spot of a certain size. The expressway tolls in Japan are often more expensive than gas for any long distance travel (and even the gas is expensive because there is basically no domestic oil production). The process of getting a license is much more intensive than in America. Japan has significantly more strict drunk driving laws than America (>0.03% for up to 3 years in prison, >0.05% is up to 5). Many workplaces don't allow you to drive to work (even if you could find parking) because by law their workman's comp insurance has to cover commuting and getting a policy that covers driving costs extra. There is absolutely no on-street residential parking.

All of these are deliberate policy choices that contribute to making the majority of road traffic in Tokyo be commercial and for most residents to default to some other form of transit.

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

#535

Post by Saline9515 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #511
Saline9515 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barcelona is in Spain, on the Mediterranean, where the weather is fair all year long. It's not the case in many parts of the world. Bicycles are a rather dangerous mode of transportation, and I wouldn't use it with kids, especially in a city.

Dangerous why? Because of all the cars?

Dangerous because a city provides many ways for a cyclist to fall or hit something or someone. In France, data shows that 2/3 of cyclists' "serious accidents" don't involve another road user. https://www.cerema.fr/system/files/documents/2024/05/3._2024...

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

#536

Post by Mordisquitos »

Saline9515 wrote: post #488
Gud wrote: post #367

Writing this on a tram in Zürich. At this hour(peak hours) they depart ever 2-3 minutes or so. Walking distance is 50 meters. It feels great. Now let me hear your objections to why public transport could never work at your location

Public transport usually requires a medium-to-high density to be sustainable. However, it can get saturated - in Paris, the subway and the trams are full for long periods during the day, even at midnight! It makes the experience really unpleasant when you have no alternative.

That's the reason nobody uses public transport in Paris: it's too crowded.

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

#537

Post by everdrive »

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.…

>The worst argument anybody can make is "but that's just life in the big city!"

A cousin was visiting us in our nice suburb. We had a slow, not-busy road we walked on when we lived there, and we'd wave to anyone; neighbors, vehicles, etc. Our cousin was sort of uncomfortable, and asked "do you know all these people?" I explained that we knew some of them but were just being polite and friendly. She explained that that were she lived (Boston) you just couldn't safely wave at just anybody you passed.

I don't think this occurred to her at the time, but that means she lives in a pretty awful place. Why exactly would it be _dangerous_ to wave at someone in a friendly way? There's only one answer to that question; because you live around violent or unstable people.

Before anyone says I'm just privileged, I've lived in rough areas before, and I can't fathom why anyone would put up with that sort of daily violence, noise and general degradation of quality of life if they otherwise didn't have to. We ultimately ended up moving out of the city just like you said because the crime was getting worse year by year. Do you want some drunk kid blasting his bass right outside your house at 11pm on a weeknight? (for hours, no less) And if you go and try to get him to turn it down there's a significant chance you'll be met with violence? Or people harassing your wife if she's ever "foolish" enough to walk down the street without you? Or to need to explain to your wife "hey, we can't walk through that group of kids, I can't really defend you against more than two attackers." All of these were regular issues for us. Home invasions on our block started ramping up, we knew people who were attacked, shot, killed, just while walking home.

To your point, this wasn't academic. It can be quite the 3rd rail to try to explain _why_ the violence in the city is bad, what is the cause and what is the solution. But when we're talking about my family's safety, I just don't care. I'm not going to live like that, and would have done almost anything to get my family out of that sort of situation. I really can't even fathom people who would write these things off. "Sure, my wife might be murdered and abused in a home invasion, but there are really cool walk-able restaurants!" It's pathological.

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

#538

Post by Saline9515 »

rcpt wrote: post #518
Saline9515 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if you live in the most expensive part of the town, which is often the epicenter, it may be ok. However, not everyone can afford this, or justify the expense, especially since you are pitted against childless couples that don't have to support children financially. Also, the presence of bikes on the sidewalk makes it hostile for vulnerable pedestrians, and generally turn a pleasant experience (walking in a city…

Childless couples aren't competing for 4 bedroom apartments. The problem is that cities forbid construction of those.

Everyone is competing for space. I don't see how cities prevent building larger apartments. European cities are mostly built out anyway, and the tendency is rather more to split large apartments to cater to the childless crowd.

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

#539

Post by tialaramex »

whatever1 wrote: post #365
eigenspace wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very backwards way of looking at the issue. The public transportation infrastructure and denser housing used to exist throughout north American cities, but was bulldozed to make room for comically wide roads, oversized single family houses (increasinly occupied by empty-nesters not utilizing all the now empty space), parking lots, malls, and big box stores. Car centric design caused these problems, and movi…

Did they also bulldoze the skyscrapers that we are missing to house all of the suburbs population in the cities ? It’s nice to believe in fairytales, but what you are proposing is effectively cutting access of poor people to opportunities so that the rich can bike to their cafe safely.

Skyscrapers aren't practical in most places. On Manhattan you've got sky high land prices and excellent rock, so hence skyscrapers.

But in a lot of places the bedrock isn't very good and the prices are lower and it just does not make sense to build a skyscraper.

Urban densification is a real thing if you don't legislate to prevent it and create a culture which abhors it. The street I live on was here a century ago, but back then it'd have a few dozen scattered family homes. Over time there's infill, maybe we knock down a big house and we put up a semi (I think Americans would call this a "duplex"?), sell both units and so by the 1980s the street has a lot more individual homes, with smaller lots.

But there's still densification pressure, so two things begin to happen. One is that people buy a family home, cut it up and sell the parts. So maybe you take a 5 bed, slice it up, re-plumb and offer three small units each contained to one floor of what had previously been a house.

The other is what happened where I live, builders buy a house with excess land, knock the house down, and put an entire block of dedicated flats ("apartments") where it stood, designed so that it looks basically like a single large house from the street.

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

#540

Post by Tade0 »

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'm seeing a similar trend in my country where even the culture in city centres is not conducive to having a large family, or a family at all even.

All the parents of 3+ children that I know live in the suburbs or even in the middle of nowhere in the case of one family totalling 7 at the moment, as their firstborn already moved out.

Personally I was priced out of the city where I grew up, so I moved to one that's half the size and live on the outskirts with my family, but in the 13 apartments connected to our staircase we're one of three families and the only ones not renting.

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