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"

#611

Post by Saline9515 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

jjevanoorschot wrote: post #595

Saline9515 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What you’re describing is perfectly possible without a car. I live in Amsterdam and have a young family. We own an electric cargo bike that we use for groceries and to cart around our daughter. You can use it with an infant car seat and for larger kids. When we need a car we use a car sharing app. There are around 10 cars within walking distance of our flat. Many people in cities _want_ a car but don’t need one.

Cargo bikes are dangerous for children, there is little protection in case of an accident (not necessarily with a car, a bollard is enough) and well once you have one child in, you can't really have groceries. You can't use it when it's freezing. What you describe is typical of a one-child family in Netherland, but doesn't fit the reality of most of European cities. Also Netherland has a rather high amount of cars per head, so not everyone thinks like you ;-)

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

#612

Post by dspillett » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

abraxas wrote: post #49

North Americans visiting Europe often grapple with why they enjoy European cities more than North American ones. It's often perceived as an architecture issue ("Europe has historical buildings that we don't have") but very few notice that the main difference is the urban scale and the resulting walkability. The Netherlands has plenty of modernist and even brutalist architecture yet every city there is a pretty nice p…

> It's often perceived as an architecture issue ("Europe has historical buildings […]") but very few notice that the main difference is […] the […] walkability.

I'd say both. We do have the history on show both because we have more of it, and sometimes the stuff from eras when the US as we think of it¹ existed tends to be better preserved despite the effects of WWI and WWII. But we also have it easy to get to, often safely on foot, in our cities².

> This is because they know how to scale cities to human centric proportions.

Not wishing to put us down, but I'd say a fair chunk of that is historical accident. A lot of cities started out as smaller settlements that grew and merged, meaning there is a spread of housing, shows, workplaces, etc around the whole city because it used to be in each individual part before they merged over time. America's cities on average started at, or at least very quickly gained, a larger scale, and grew from the inside out rather than by several insides growing until their outsides merged.

Some European cities made the mistake of doing away with some of that and converting to a state closer to that of US cities, and many current efforts are more about returning to their roots than being newly person friendly.

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[1] essentially from the point the founding fathers went to find somewhere they could be prescriptivist about people's, lives because they weren't getting away with that as they wanted to over here, and perhaps a little before that

[2] though there is a fair amount of it that isn't as easy to get to unless you drive

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

#613

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

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).

[deleted]

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

#614

Post by insane_dreamer » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:05 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.…

In my experience cars are much more dangerous than public transport.

I've taken public transport my whole life, in numerous countries, and only bought a car for the first time 7 years ago when moving back to the US. Never had any incident on public transport or felt unsafe. Was it always as comfortable and convenient as my car? No, but that's a separate issue.

I'm a weekend road cyclist and I've had a number of very close calls with cars -- invariably big pick up trucks, sometimes flying an American flag (you know the type) -- purposely rev up and buzz by me as close as possible on small country roads, sometimes honking as well or flipping the bird out the window. Any little stumble or twitch at that point and there were a couple of times I would have been in the hospital or dead.

Yeah, there are sometimes strange people on public transport, as well as homeless, etc. But I've encountered more *holes driving cars than on the bus or subway.

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

#615

Post by nonethewiser » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

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).

I think Tokyo proves my point. You see less bikes on the road and more on the sidewalks. Roads are relatively narrow and bike lanes are less common there than the West.

Perhaps I could have been more clear, but that was my major point of contention. Bike lanes on the road are problematic. And of course its a given that the trains will have their own dedicated paths.

a comment about bikes on the sidewalk in tokyo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34801479

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

#616

Post by ainiriand » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:05 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.…

Funny enough it is the same with the cinema for me, too much impolite behaviour so I prefer to watch at home.

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

#617

Post by insane_dreamer » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

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…

After moving to the US it was shocking to me how much urban space in many cities is taken up by surface parking lots. A real blight on downtowns.

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

#618

Post by mrguyorama » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:09 PM UTC

ux266478 wrote: post #352

komali2 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a quality of life point of view, I have never been comfortable being crammed into a sardine can with that many other people. Then, you've experienced poor public transit systems. A good one doesn't make you so packed in because there's enough trains for people to have comfortable amounts of space. Anyway, it's moot - if your city has lots of people, the only feasible way to move them around is public transit.…

I wouldn't qualify Tokyo's public transit system as poor. In fact, the only one that might rival it in Europe would be the one in Moscow.

From a perspective of "packing people in"? Tokyo is absolutely poor.

The MTA doesn't have to employ people to pack extra riders into full subway cars.

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

#619

Post by jjevanoorschot » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:09 PM UTC

Saline9515 wrote: post #611

jjevanoorschot wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re describing is perfectly possible without a car. I live in Amsterdam and have a young family. We own an electric cargo bike that we use for groceries and to cart around our daughter. You can use it with an infant car seat and for larger kids. When we need a car we use a car sharing app. There are around 10 cars within walking distance of our flat. Many people in cities _want_ a car but don’t need one.

Cargo bikes are dangerous for children, there is little protection in case of an accident (not necessarily with a car, a bollard is enough) and well once you have one child in, you can't really have groceries. You can't use it when it's freezing. What you describe is typical of a one-child family in Netherland, but doesn't fit the reality of most of European cities. Also Netherland has a rather high amount of cars pe…

I’m not saying that everyone in the Netherlands agrees with me. I’m just illustrating that it’s perfectly possible to live in a city like Paris or Amsterdam with a family and without a car.

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

#620

Post by ikjasdlk2234 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 5:09 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #537

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.…

>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 tha…

>She explained that that were she lived (Boston) you just couldn't safely wave at just anybody you passed.

This is the most hilarious thing I've read on this site. Your cousin might get some weird looks waving to random people, but why would they feel unsafe? I have never known more of my neighbors than in Boston, and I've lived all over the U.S.