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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"

#711

Post by mothballed »

afavour wrote: post #706
mothballed wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see the difference between every driver being able to be a bouncer, and only sworn police being able to be a bouncer? Private citizens generally can't trespass people on public property. You have to get a policeman and the policeman has to cite a specific policy or law they have violated. The private system in this case is way more pragmatic since every driver that is already on the bus has bouncing rights.

I don't really understand what this has to do with the original discussion. You said: > It applies to public transit specifically because people have freedom of speech to be assholes My response to was to say I do not believe that is true at all. Passengers on public transit do not have freedom of speech to be assholes.

Well you just admitted it applies more to public transit because they need a police to kick them out. If I can be an asshole and no one is able to show up and stop me, I have effectively the freedom 'de facto' to be an asshole even if I do not have 'de jure' freedom to be an asshole.

Personally I'm not so sure police in NYC can kick people out for 1st amendment protected activity, which was what I specifically referenced the asshole activity being under the umbrella of. That was your assertion, that while I contested how pragmatic it might be, I never stated whether I believed it was true or not.

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

#712

Post by Saline9515 »

Earw0rm wrote: post #648
Saline9515 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Architectural preservation. Which may not be all a negative thing, but central Paris is low-rise compared to Manhattan, Berlin or even central London.

Central Paris is denser than Manhattan. At some point the bottleneck is not the amount of people you can cram into a m2 of land, but the underlying infrastructures.

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

#713

Post by Saline9515 »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #645
Saline9515 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Also Netherland has a rather high amount of cars per head, so not everyone thinks like you ;-) You can bet all those car users also ride bikes though. It's just very common in the NL to live in one city and work in another, things like that. I know people who have cars they use to go to work and back and then take all other journies via foot, bike or public transport. In short it's not an either/or thing.

Lol sounds very car-centric to me, commuting to work by car. ;-)

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

#714

Post by bombcar »

cycomanic wrote: post #472
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.…

> 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. > Hold on, if we talk about efficiency and profitability, you also need to compare to roads. You can't on one hand subsidise road/car travel and at the same time demand profitability from public transport. If we w…

Who is paying for these unprofitable roads?

If it's the people (eventually) then it's just accounting.

All these things can be referenced, and checked. Rural roads are paved because they're used (the ones that aren't - they're gravel or mud).

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

#715

Post by Saline9515 »

jjevanoorschot wrote: post #619
Saline9515 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Impossible to go to a store, buy groceries for a week with two kids on a bike. And at some point the cargo bike gets as big as a small car.

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

#716

Post by Earw0rm »

qwertygnu wrote: post #149
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 love my personal car bubble as much or more than most people (though maybe not as much as you), but at some point we have to get over ourselves. We're all so spoiled. Why the hell do we deserve to all have our own giant speed machines careening through cities where people (including us drivers!) are trying to live? It doesn't make any sense and it's a shame that we've let it go so far, especially in the US. It shou…

And, well, a lot of people _can't_ have their own speed bubble.

Most of us, for quite a bit of our lives - when we're under 18 for a start, and over 75ish it isn't really a good idea (yes, I know, no viable alternatives for a lot of people right now, but it's still a bad idea). Whenever we've had a drink. There's a dozen or more medical conditions which can snatch your right to drive away with the stroke of a doctor's pen, and that's before we consider all the common meds which come with a don't drive advisory warning.

And then there's all the other times where it'd sure be nice not to have to. When we're tired, or stressed, or sick, or weather conditions make things dicey. Or when I just wanted to read that book, magazine, blog article, or watch that movie. Or we've got to be someplace with the kids but they actually need our undivided attention.

The point is, even if you drive and like driving, it's just basically civilised to have other affordable options. Even if they're a bit slower or come with other compromises, they should, y'know, exist. And sometimes allowing them to exist comes at a price of making driving your own speed-bubble at the times when you can and want to a little less convenient or more expensive.

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

#717

Post by bombcar »

cycomanic wrote: post #478
SoftTalker wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they aren't. They enable almost all economic activity that involves moving things or people around.

That same argument should apply to public transport then. You can't on one hand argue that roads don't need to be profitable in the traditional sense because of their benefits and the turn around and ignore the same for public transport.

Even if you don't demand profitability, there still needs to be cost/benefit analysis done.

Do you build one rail line or two? Do you build one bus route or two? Do you expand a road or build a new one?

Making it a train vs car or rail vs road obscures the problem AND the solution.

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

#718

Post by Gud »

zamadatix wrote: post #651
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

My location isn't urban and those in the nearest cities don't care about making it convenient for me to get there. It's a trade off, but I've never been as comfortable when living in an urban area so it is what it is.

Yeah, it's not for every location.

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

#719

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

goosejuice wrote: post #709
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the density of Manhattan oppressive and stifling. Coming from Wrigleyville, in Chicago, it felt very impersonal and alienating. I ended up buying a house in an internal suburb (a former suburb from the 1930s that had been swallowed by the city) that is also a historic neighborhood (so it's character cannot be destroyed by developers).

Funny, I find Wrigleyville oppressive. I lived by that red line for a few years. It takes a lot of patience to live there.

When I lived there it was middle class Polish and gay (since Boystown is right next to it).

Pierogis, coffee, and cute little shops. That and great music.

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

#720

Post by osigurdson »

lukan wrote: post #666
osigurdson wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on demand. If bikes are 100-to-1 then make a bike lane, if the other way around maybe not. Need to remember that tax-payers actually fund this stuff so can't just force random stuff on them.

That is true, but the thing is, without bike lanes, people won't switch to bikes in certain traffic conditions. Cyclists pay taxes btw. too and a bicycle with its low weight is magnitudes cheaper for the roads, then the SUV tanks.

I guess it is reasonable to run some experiments, set up some bike lanes for a period of time. If they are used, keep them, if not maybe consider removing them.

Good point regarding the costs. The other advantage of dedicated / purpose-built bike paths is they likely don't have to be built to the same spec as ones designed for vehicle use (I assume - not a civil engineer).

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