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"

#551

Post by dfxm12 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

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.…

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.

These are not issues with public transit. These are issues with municipalities that don't invest in their citizens.

For one example, public transit connects people to jobs. Some people in nicer areas with good jobs fight against public transit because they don't want the working class to have easy access to their neighborhood. So, again, the issue isn't public transit, it's people who don't want to share their municipality's resources. New York today has free kindergarten, universal school lunches and the excelsior scholarship program. Thanks to investments like this, we see crime in NY today is lower than even Giuliani's tenure as mayor...

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

#552

Post by sombrero_john » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

deltarholamda wrote: post #500

rcpt wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time OP is right. The demand is huge and supply is tiny. Even with those scary panhandlers people are jamming onto public transport (when it actually exists) and going far far out of their way to experience walkable areas. > zero other options if I want to live where crime is low and the schools aren't dysfunctional Crime in NYC is exceeding…

>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.

There are many teachers, social workers, and bartenders living on the UWS. Hardly the top 0.1%.

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

#553

Post by ionwake » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

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.…

>Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time

As a european I read this comment, its sort of implications, and reckon US must be hell in some areas. TBH London has seen a big drop in health, pan handlers have "lightly" started appearing on public transport, I think I only began noticing it since 2020.

My point is even with the occasionaly pan handler in London, that statement wouldn't make sense, as it is not "obviosuly bad" in that regard.

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

#554

Post by ndsipa_pomu » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

shinecantbeseen wrote: post #522

Workaccount2 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sustainability and efficiency, sure - you're definitely right on that. I'm going to take a bit of a devil's advocate role here though: There are negative impacts to dense packing of humans too, though. Think about the local ecosystem of plants and animals that was irreparably destroyed and will never be recovered in the construction of X densely packed city you can think of. Think about the huge scale of resource shi…

Car focussed development destroys far more land (e.g. parking) than similar size developments that enable walking/cycling/public transport.

Look at London - most people don't bother driving into the center of London andit's technically counted as a forest due to all the greenery. When you design for cars, all other travel modes are made impractical as cars take up so much room that all the facilities end up being miles away from people.

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

#555

Post by sensanaty » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

knolan wrote: post #298

I feel like a bit of a failure when it comes to transport. I tried for many years to cycle to work in Dublin covering 25km on an ebike, but gave up after several nasty incidents that almost resulted in serious injury (for example my head almost going under the wheel of a van). I've experienced so much hatred, verbal and physical violence from drivers — and I'm the kind of cyclist that is fully lit, clad in high-vis a…

This is a problem when the public transport system isn't built with these exact issues in mind. You're right, it shouldn't take 2 hours for that commute, and all the other issues you pointed out are legitimate. The problem is that the infrastructure hasn't been adapted to make things better for the people using public transport.

As a comparison to the Netherlands, public transport always has right of way vs regular traffic, they have their own dedicated lanes that traffic isn't allowed into (this includes taxis! They can use the public transport lanes) and even their traffic signals treat them preferentially. I take a bus very often, and quite often it won't stop at a single red light because the traffic lights are programmed to help the flow of public transport, despite the street it travels on having 5 or 6 different traffic lights. In many cities, only public transport is allowed in some of the denser streets too, so they don't have to compete with other drivers on the road.

Trams, metros and trains are pretty obvious as to why they work so well.

Same with bike lanes. First of all, whenever they can be they are wholly separated from the main traffic and live in their own independent lanes. If a bike has to join regular streets, they have the right of way and these situations are kept at an absolute minimum. The streets and intersections themselves are also designed so that drivers are forced into driving safely via traffic easing measures and low speed limits. Plus, everyone here bikes, so there isn't the same type of animosity or stigma you see elsewhere because drivers understand what it's like to be a cyclist and view it as a normal thing.

So it's not your fault and you shouldn't feel bad, it's the fault of your government for not investing into proper public transport infrastructure. They are trying to squeeze in public transport infra into existing road infra, whereas what they should be doing is redesigning the current infra to make sure public transport is better integrated.

And, guess what, the roads here are still awesome for drivers! Other than the centers of the bigger cities, there isn't much congestion to speak of and the highways are of extremely high quality (to the point we have a billion memes about feeling the bumps of Belgium as soon as you cross the border). It's not like NL is a car-free utopia, something like 65% of people still have cars, the difference is that there are alternate options that are just as good, and often better than driving. That's the secret sauce to good public transport.

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

#556

Post by DuckConference » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

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

Switzerland's extreme wealth makes them a bit of an outlier though, other european countries are probably a fairer comparisons for most places.

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

#557

Post by bee_rider » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:08 PM UTC

dfee wrote: post #523

CPLX wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took my kid to school in Downtown Brooklyn on the subway today. It was great. New York is great and the subway is amazing. I remain mystified by what I see people say on cable news or podcasts. Or maybe everyone secretly just really loves strip malls, who knows.

From a website I read last night: > Mountain Life > I love the fact you can drive down the road and wave at friends you know.....and hell you probably will be drinking a beer with them later that day. I love the fact everyone is pretty laid back and neighbors know each other..Anyone for BBQ?. I enjoy the fact I can chill out relax NOT hearing the city noise. I love the fact at night you can look up and see the night…

A bit weird they decided to include some barbs about how their environment was NOT like some city, even when trying to be positive.

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

#558

Post by deltarholamda » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:09 PM UTC

hiddencost wrote: post #485

deltarholamda wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

[dead]

"Nobody I know voted for Nixon."

Many cities have been losing population for a while, regardless of your intimate knowledge of what other people do or don't feel. Incredulity isn't really much of a solution if you want to address issues that people might have.

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

#559

Post by ndsipa_pomu » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

jajko wrote: post #350

NickPollard wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 4 year old and an 18 month old, and I don't own a car (nor does my partner). We rent a car ~10-20 times a year, but that's usually for vacations or trips out of the city to visit family. Regular weekly family life we use buses, the underground (metro), trains, or sometimes taxis. We are considering eventually getting a car, but we've managed for 4 years with children to not need one and it's not been an issu…

London has abysmal transport situation - any time I needed to traverse through city, it was 3+ hours of buses and trains/subway mix. Of course doing the same with car would be even worse. Imagine when people don't live in such shitholes, and spend weekends travelling ie to nature or mountains or culture or history or whatever, on non-congested roads. Heck, imagine going to nature even evenings after work, ie for rock…

I don't understand how you can spend 3+ hours getting around London. I live in Bristol and when we go to visit London, it takes about 3 hours including the train all the way from Bristol to London. Getting from A to B in London is probably 30-40 minutes tops using the underground.

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

#560

Post by CalRobert » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

hulitu wrote: post #402

CalRobert wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might I suggest bikes are a great form of private mobility?

> Might I suggest bikes are a great form of private mobility? Yes you may. They fall short though for distances bigger than a couple of km, when carrying something or by bad weather.

I do 5-10 km happily on a regular basis with kids and cargo