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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"

#901

Post by potac »

stefs wrote: post #894
potac wrote: post #798

I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly…

> close by villages, max 5km a good cycle path would do wonders there. a flat 5km ride is doable for almost everyone, including seniors and children. regarding jobs: that's got nothing to do with the carless center. to the contrary - for remote work, it'd be perfect.

Do you know the funny thing? There is a cycle path from Pontevedra that stops ~500 meters before Marin (although still Pontevedra jurisdiction). It has been like this for years. Those 500 meters are ocean. We can't cycle through...

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

#902

Post by potac »

trosi wrote: post #900
potac wrote: post #798

I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly…

> [...] there are zero specialized jobs in Pontevedra. Either you are a public state worker, for which you need to pass an exam to lock a lifelong job with no possibility of being fired regardless of how incompetent you are, or you work in hospitality. Alas, this is basically how it works in most of southern Europe, including my home country Italy. I don't know how much a small-town mayor can do to reverse years of b…

I'm not saying the mayor should change what is not under his radar. I'm saying the mayor should attract private companies for locals that don't want to be public state workers.

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

#903

Post by panick21_ »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #7

In Norway the public transportation in Oslo has become so bad that it's essentially no longer reliable. If I want to get somewhere in time, I have to use a car or a bicycle. Also, the violence and sexual assaults on public transport is getting worse, the times that it does work it's completely overloaded, and the prices are insanely high and quite frankly becoming unaffordable with the insanely high inflation and int…

I was just in Oslo and public transport was fantastic and the city was fantastic.

> Also,

Those sound like a bunch of far-right wing talking points. Do you have statistics to back any of this up?

And they don't match my own experience even a little bit. Because in most countries cars tend to cost more overall and are generally less safe.

> A city that was altered greatly to accommodate pedestrians has become a city that does not accommodate anyone.

t was an absolutely delight walking around the city, being able to walk on the roads or crossing roads because traffic has been reduced so much. That a fantastic policy that made the city more attractive.

The city was extremely welcoming and navigating on food or by bus or train was fantastic. There were tons of people around and lots of people in all the restaurants and museums. Plenty of people hanging out at the beautiful water-front.

The claim that it 'doesn't work' is just pure nonsense. It only doesn't work if you want to drive in from the subburbs on a daily basis.

> governments always fail eventually

So we should have cities without governments? If you want to privatize the operations of some public transit, that is potentially reasonable. But 'governemnt=bad does not mean therefore we need cars everywhere'.

> once it becomes impractical to use cars the country's economy will suffer greatly as a result

This has been stupid quite a bit, there is literally a field of urban studies, and it universally find the exact opposite.

> , because there will come a time when the government just decides they don't care about public transport anymore and it can be as horrible as possible because nobody has any choices anymore

Ah here it is. That's the '15 min city is a globalist conspiracy to make us prisoners in our own city' nonsense. You have dipped deep into it haven't you?

Please anybody that reads this, go to Oslo and enjoy the beautiful, vibrant, save city it actually is.

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

#904

Post by panick21_ »

octo888 wrote: post #121
flanked-evergl wrote: post #7

In Norway the public transportation in Oslo has become so bad that it's essentially no longer reliable. If I want to get somewhere in time, I have to use a car or a bicycle. Also, the violence and sexual assaults on public transport is getting worse, the times that it does work it's completely overloaded, and the prices are insanely high and quite frankly becoming unaffordable with the insanely high inflation and int…

Not to be a doomer but I think public transport has peaked in many places in Europe except the big famous standouts like Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc The UK government for example is reducing subsidies for the railway and raising prices sometimes even 12-14% per year. This would be unimaginable 10 years ago. We have many railway workers who feel underpaid and some that feel they deserve the same pay as sp…

This isn't really true. Lots of investment in public transit in the Nordic countries. Austria is doing quite well. Switzerland of course to. Italy is doing better then many would have expected 20 years ago. In Paris they are building some of the most massive expansion in a long time, and even many smaller cities are building tram lines, and the TGV is putting up record numbers.

In the Baltic a massive rail expansion is happening. Former eastern countries like Czechia still have a good rail system and starting to upgrade it. Poland is upgrading in many places as well.

Spain has globally the best construction cost for new infrastructure and they are expanding things like Madrid metro.

The UK is doing badly as usual as of recently but despite the price rises, their network is incredibly full and well used.

But I wouldn't take the UK as typical.

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

#905

Post by abcd_f »

mendigou wrote: post #550
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.

People in Germany and the Netherlands must extra hardened I guess, since everyone bikes around there, even with their kids in tow.

I would never go with my kids on a bike on any road that's shared with cars. The risk, as small as it is, is still unacceptable to me.

Don't know about Germany, but in Netherlands it's solved with having proper cycling infrastructure. It's the right approach, but it is still more of an exception. Where I am at they just painted cycle paths on existing roads and then tried to make it safer by cutting speed limit in half and eliminating lots of street parking. And now it's a mess that doesn't work well for anyone. Next elections are in a year, will be interesting to see how that will go.

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

#906

Post by wolvesechoes »

m-schuetz wrote: post #879
pjmlp wrote: post #872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pity that whole thing with having a job, and wanting to get some better living standards. People usually don't live in the suburbs by choice, they get pushed there by the higher classes that can afford the city. Having lost access to the city center during my teenage years certainly gave me a perspective on those that talk from above, without worries about everyone else.

Around here, people voluntarily move to the suburbs because they want a house and a garden or simply larger flats for a lower price. And then they demand that prople inside the city center cater to them and turn their city into a parking lot for those not living there. I'm glad this is now being slowly reversed, and that cities actually look after their citizens rather than commuters that moved away because they want…

> Around here

And around here people are moving out of the city because they cannot afford a flat in the city.

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

#907

Post by flanked-evergl »

panick21_ wrote: post #904
octo888 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be a doomer but I think public transport has peaked in many places in Europe except the big famous standouts like Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc The UK government for example is reducing subsidies for the railway and raising prices sometimes even 12-14% per year. This would be unimaginable 10 years ago. We have many railway workers who feel underpaid and some that feel they deserve the same pay as sp…

This isn't really true. Lots of investment in public transit in the Nordic countries. Austria is doing quite well. Switzerland of course to. Italy is doing better then many would have expected 20 years ago. In Paris they are building some of the most massive expansion in a long time, and even many smaller cities are building tram lines, and the TGV is putting up record numbers. In the Baltic a massive rail expansion…

> Lots of investment in public transit in the Nordic countries.

This is my favourite phrase. "lots of investment". Crime, drugs and violence gets worse, but it's okay because there is "lots of investment" in police — just meaning we keep spending more money and getting worse results.

Public transport gets more expensive and worse every year, but there is a "lots of investment" in public transport — meaning we keep sending more money and getting worse results.

Energy is getting more expensive, but it's okay because there is "lots of investment" in energy — meaning we keep spending more money and getting worse results.

But it's okay, you should be happy, at least there is "lots of investment", what are you going to do with your money anyway, after all you can't go anywhere because it's unsafe, the public transportation is probably not working, and you don't have money for it after paying your bills because of all the "investment" anyway, and even if you did the government can always find more things to "invest" the money in.

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

#909

Post by rkomorn »

potac wrote: post #901
stefs wrote: post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> close by villages, max 5km a good cycle path would do wonders there. a flat 5km ride is doable for almost everyone, including seniors and children. regarding jobs: that's got nothing to do with the carless center. to the contrary - for remote work, it'd be perfect.

Do you know the funny thing? There is a cycle path from Pontevedra that stops ~500 meters before Marin (although still Pontevedra jurisdiction). It has been like this for years. Those 500 meters are ocean. We can't cycle through...

Someone's never heard of a triathlon...

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

#910

Post by Earw0rm »

Saline9515 wrote: post #758
Earw0rm wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not, because speeds are so much lower - and injury is, by and large, related to kinetic energy which is the _square_ of speed. OK, cycling at 50km/h in a city is dangerous and stupid (if you're even physically capable of doing so, which few are?). 30km/h in suburbs / 20km/h in the centre is mostly fine, and 10 for busy complicated spaces. 30km/h is slow enough to prevent the vast majority of crashes being…

Kinetic power is lower, that said you can still hurt yourself pretty bad depending on how you fall. A wrist doesn't need a lot of force to break, nor a skull needs to fall from high to cause trauma. A cyclist on a sidewalk going at 20km/h can cripple a child for life (not that the cyclist cares, but just for the example). I broke my wrist by falling from my bike when I was younger, almost while stopped (my wheel got…

And yet if you look at the public health statistics for the things _actually_ crippling children for life, "other people on bikes" are a very long way down the list - at least in most places; I don't know if Paris has a specific problem there. You can hurt yourself pretty bad in the home, after all - the major causes here seem to be cars and dogs.

(Before we even consider that - at population level and in developed Western countries - lack of physical activity, and an environment which actively suppresses it through sheer indifference if not outright hostility - is likely inflicting a far greater burden on childrens' health and wellbeing than trauma).

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