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

greeneuropeanjournal.eu

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

#831

Post by baby »

drstewart wrote: post #484
baby wrote: post #161

I'm always wondering how Americans feel traveling to Europe and being able to walk in cities. It must be so surreal that they either have to move, or they can't fathom that these cities are practical to live in.

It's not surreal at all, and most Americans marvel at how tiny and unliveable the houses are. Europeans must marvel at being able the size of living accommodations in the US. They can not even fathom in their brains what it's like not to be crammed into a tiny 20sqm flat.

I think you're talking about suburbs in the US, I understand you have a lot of space but it seems like a very isolated way of living

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

#832

Post by baby »

tjansen wrote: post #634
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…

I was in Paris this year, for the first time in 10 years, and frankly, I didn't notice less traffic. All streets are full. There are certainly more electric cars, and fewer old ones. However, the streets are now crowded with Uber and taxi cabs. I didn't notice fewer cars.

I go between NY and Paris and it's insane that New York basically has zero pedestrian streets, while Paris has so many. I used to live in SF and Chicago before, and same, there are no pedestrian streets, why?

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

#833

Post by mr3martinis »

underlipton wrote: post #812
MisterTea wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Spain last month and what stood out is that walkability requires mom and pop stores as well as more integrated neighborhoods with small commercial shops mixed into residential. Small shops seemed to be the majority in the city centers. The only large store I saw was a Lidl. They have largeish indoor markets that are more like a mini mall of individual shops like a butcher, produce, baker, cheese, even restau…

I don't know about that. There have been large grocery stores and retailers in Washington DC for years, and walkability is fine. It's most comfortable when it's just one or two in a neighborhood, of course, but a block's a block.

Major retailers for sure but DC stores are typically more compact than their suburban counterparts. IMO it’s great. I far prefer the small WF in Logan Circle to a giant one in NOVA - it’s much faster to get in and out and still has everything I need.

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

#834

Post by baby »

xyzelement wrote: post #331

I love walking - both in places as a tourist, in NYC where I lived most of my life, and in my small north shore Long Island town today. But similar to any other "product" the evaluation depends on the user's needs. As a single guy I loved that NYC was dense and walkable - because that meant (among other things) literally millions of date-able women within a 30 minute walk radius of my house. Great! Now as a dad of 3…

I grew up in the city in France and man it was so much fun, I was outside all the time visiting my friends, I don't understand how kids can grow up in the suburbs tbh

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

#835

Post by vkou »

potato3732842 wrote: post #810
Zigurd wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data point: I've been in two car wrecks. Once as a passenger where the driver spun it on the Mass Pike to 128 ramp, and once when I got T-boned on my way home from having my car serviced. That was my favorite car. Nobody's ever bothered me on public transport. Not on the MBTA, not on MBTA, Metro North, or LIRR commuter rail, not on Amtrak to New York, not on the New York public transit systems.

I've been in two accidents and been in the car where a fight broke out on the red line twice. And I've been driving a hell of a lot more than the years I rode the subway....

> I've been in two accidents and been in the car where a fight broke out on the red line twice.

Were you an active participant in the fights?

If not, wouldn't the fair comparison be a count of how many car crashes you have driven past?

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

#836

Post by AlecSchueler »

Saline9515 wrote: post #713
AlecSchueler wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. ;-)

Yes, if you focus on one see fragment alone then I'm actually saying the opposite of that I said.

But being car centric or not doesn't even matter here. The argument that car owners don't think like cyclists doesn't apply to car owners who spend a significant portion of their week on bicycles.

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

#837

Post by zahlman »

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…

Not all European cities live up to the stereotype. I've been to Germany a couple of times; most of the cities I've stayed in were quite nice, but Stuttgart came across as an American-style car hell and Frankfurt seemed quite dirty. (Berlin has a strange charm to it, actually, from a combination of modern architecture and historical preservation.)

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

#838

Post by zahlman »

mykowebhn wrote: post #158

There are (at least) two Youtube channels, Ray Delahanty | CityNerd and Not Just Bikes, that really drive home the point in their videos that car-centric cities really stink. https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes

As nice as it is to see reviews of transit systems and urban planning in various cities worldwide, NJB's commentary style gets really obnoxious at times. He comes across as someone who believes that everyone who doesn't see things his way is irredeemably, irrationally evil and the reason we can't have nice things (tm).

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

#839

Post by BrenBarn »

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.…

> Public transit requires a certain level of unspoken agreement. "We will all behave in this manner." If this unspoken agreement is broken often enough, then it must be enforced.

All of society requires this, not just public transit.

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

#840

Post by robbingtherob »

The slow death of Europe by 1000s of cuts. Put migrant activity on top of that and bye bye.

There is a posibility between "muh America is car-centric, and btw i am bad at driving so i hate driving" and "you have to walk even in bad wrarher and when you are 70, think about the climate bruh".

HN are a special kind of nonsense crowd.

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