
Life in the Spanish city that banned cars - antr
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish-city-banned-cars-pontevedra
======
breatheoften
Its insane to me how large space-wise small towns in the us (Oregon in mind as
I write this) are — with a huge percentage of the real estate devoted to
parking lots. Even setting aside the traffic, it’s silly to walk across these
towns because businesses are separated from each other by massive parking
lots.

The traffic is often amazingly inhumane. Many of the small towns in Oregon are
formed on either side of the major highway which has speed limits within the
town but still sees so much traffic as to be very dangerous for pedestrians.

These towns need the commercial visitors brought by the highway to survive —
but the design common in Europe for this scenario is so much better. There
will be a sign for an exit off the main road for the “city center” exit —
there will be a single parking lot for the city center, and then comfortable
walking distance to the businesses ... superior design.

Many small, especially old, towns in Europe have ancient road layouts that are
too narrow and steep for cars within the town — which resulted in these car
free designs for free. It’s beautiful. Parking is easy because there is only
one place to do it on the outskirts — and then walk everywhere. There is no
improvement for a small town to be designed otherwise in my opinion.

~~~
sunshinelackof
Even Portland and Eugene love to boast how bicycle friendly they are, but
neither are really commutable by anything besides a car for most people. Which
is why most cyclists are so prolific -- it's hard to be a cyclist by
circumstance. Riding your bike inherently comes with crossing a dozen
intersections beaming with cars that treat you like you don't belong on the
road.

A solution is to level the planes of separation between types of traffic in
urban areas. With pedestrians closer to cars the cars have to go slower by
nature. It's antithetical to the common logic and current policy of building
walking paths completely separate from roads and all of the businesses
attached to them.

~~~
corndoge
Cyclists really don't belong on the road. It's such an odd collective
viewpoint that a vehicle which virtually always travels far below the speed
limit should be allowed alongside vehicles that travel at the speed limit. I
think this is because we conflate the benefits of cycling and the value of
making our public infrastructure amenable to cycling with the opinion that
cyclists should share highways with cars. It's simply not safe and no amount
of "Share the road" stickers and driver education will compensate for that.
Cyclists need their own infrastructure, bike lanes on the highways at a
minimum. They don't belong mixed in with cars.

~~~
soperj
I agree. The real solution is to eliminate cars from the roads, that way they
wouldn't have to share with bikers.

~~~
corndoge
This kind of snark, or perhaps just unrealistic statements, gets us
nowhere...dedicated infrastructure for cyclists alongside the same
infrastructure for cars is actually viable. Making a comment about how
everybody should be using bikes isn't helpful.

~~~
bertil
>>> Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

>> ban cars

> unrealistic statements

You, sir, are funny.

~~~
corndoge
The United States is not Spain. Nitpick all you want - the vast majority of
populated places in the US will never ban cars, at least for the foreseeable
future.

~~~
huebomont
Not because they can't though. Because they think they can't. Most cities in
the US could do this with some adjustments to public transit, and by managing
regional transit much better - for example it's insane that the default for
suburban rail line stations is the "park and ride" \- huge parking lot
surrounding the train station, rather than using that area for residential
development close to transit.

~~~
eanzenberg
No... because they literally can't without massive upheaval of where schools,
offices and shops are located.

~~~
jodrellblank
"They literally can't change, because that would involve having to actually
change".

They only want change that doesn't involve money, effort or change, or what?

------
elcapitan
One of the most interesting experiences in my life was visiting Tel Aviv on
Yom Kippur. On that day all car traffic is prohibited (also TV stations are
offline etc). It was absolutely amazing. Tel Aviv is a city with large roads
and usually extremely busy. On that day, cyclists ride over the highway, kids
play on the streets. I never felt that directly before how invasive the normal
car situation is.

Here's a photo
[https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2015/09/F141003...](https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2015/09/F141003FFDS008-e1442908153128-640x400.jpg)

~~~
chadash
Just to clarify, there is no _law_ that I know of prohibiting car traffic on
yom kippur in Tel Aviv. However, since this is the most important holiday of
the year, even many Israelis who don't celebrate other holidays will celebrate
this one. I believe that virtually all businesses are closed that day, even
those that don't close on other Jewish holidays (again, not illegal to
operate, but customary). So in practice, few people will be driving that
day/night.

~~~
elcapitan
Thanks for the clarification! Strong moral code though, I haven't seen one
non-official car that day.

~~~
jimmaswell
Moral code or just social pressure - the discomfort of the thought of
disobeying the tradition and everyone glaring at you as you drive down the
road outweighs the benefits of doing so even if you don't believe in the
tradition.

------
sebringj
I don't know why this didn't occur to me but in San Juan Capistrano, CA, I
enjoy that place so much with my kids because of the fairly large area where
cars have to have very slow speed limit or no cars allowed at all and pure
walking which was far better even. There is such freedom allowing your
children to laugh and play and walk on their own pace without worrying they'll
be run over and having to strictly hold their hand near each cross walk where
cars zip by at instant collision death speeds. I could hear the birds too. Was
calming and slows the perception of time so you can actually relax.

~~~
wahern
This is why I like theme parks.[1] It's sad because in America we've largely
relegated what should be a normal living environment to fascimiles of
imaginary places.

Actually, I live in San Francisco and the "downtowns" of each neighborhood do
allow kids some freedom away from their parents (e.g. to dart in and out of
stores and restaurants without waiting for the parent), but it's limited to a
single block unless you want to risk being run over. Hit-and-runs occur here
regularly, unfortunately, because the city is just barely pedestrian friendly
enough that pedestrians feel comfortable, but not friendly enough that cars
are actually forced to slow down (e.g. streets too wide). If car and
pedestrian are not both carefully paying attention, accidents happen.

[1] My wife doesn't like theme parks. But where she's from you never let kids
out of sight, regardless, so they offer little respite for her.

~~~
GauntletWizard
The area your talking about, where there's little places where kids can play:
it's called the Suburbs. Growing up in the suburbs, cars went slow enough that
we could play in the street. The neighborhood grocery was about two miles away
and we could walk or ride our bikes, and we had plenty of friends houses along
the route should we need to stop. There's not the density of little shops that
you might find in SF, but as a kid you don't need that density (I don't need
it as an adult; the suburbs I live in have a nice downtown, but if I need
serious shopping, I have Amazon)

Suburbs, much reviled here, are the answer to all of the density problems that
people are complaining about. Mass transit works with commuter rail. There's
no argument except prestige to stay in the city.

~~~
tomtheelder
> The neighborhood grocery was about two miles away and we could walk or ride
> our bikes, and we had plenty of friends houses along the route should we
> need to stop.

This doesn't sound like the typical American suburban experience, and I think
what you are describing is almost heading in the direction of the best
existing solution for non-city living, which is the "village" style denser
towns that you see in Europe. The idea basically being that you turn a fairly
evenly distributed suburban population into one that clusters around small to
medium sized town centers that are walkable and bikable, but contain and are
surrounded by large areas of communal countryside and green space.

It necessitates a sacrifice in lot size (and potentially house size), but in
return you get a quiet, safe, traversable town with plentiful access to the
countryside, and it also helps immensely with things like logistics,
infrastructure (electricity/gas/internet in the suburbs is a nightmare), and,
potentially most importantly, transportation, since a strong commuter rail
system can actually service that sort of layout effectively.

Many if not would still describe this as a suburb. There are definitely places
(I'm aware of ones in the North East) that follow this model that are called
suburbs. When people complain about suburbs, they are complaining about the
model that dominates the US, not the concept of a less dense population area
surrounding a metropolis.

~~~
justtopost
Having lived in dozens of suburbs moving around in life, it seems very typical
to me. Even challenging neighborhoods buried in sprawl would lead to local
zoning opening up for shops. The problem often solves itself. Where I live now
only had one nearby market within driving distance, but market pressure opened
2 more. Its almost as if there is profit in these overlooked planning issues
and people like to win it.

This urban-centric thinking is odd to me. I do not want to live so far away
from the natural phenomenon of earth, and I think it is unhealthy that so many
want to push that lifestyle on everyone. It rings absolutely hollow to me to
have effortless transport to a thousand places all manmade, and mostly devoid
of non-domesticated plant and animal life.

------
nrjames
Raleigh converted Fayetteville Street to pedestrian only back in 1977. It
ended up killing all of the businesses there.

[https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/163829/](https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/163829/)

The city reopened it to traffic, however, and "revitalized" the area,
resulting in a booming downtown economy:

[https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-may-
learning-...](https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-may-learning-
from-raleigh-nc-fayetteville-street-renaissance)

I love pedestrian districts in cities. Copenhagen comes to mind. However,
pedestrian district plans need to be considered carefully, else they backfire.

~~~
simonsarris
Church st in Burlington VT partially closed to cars starting in 1980 (based on
Stroget in Copenhagen) and ongoing into 2005 with more and more blocks carved
out for pedestrians only. It has been very successful.

Why did it work, when Raleigh failed? What needs to be "considered carefully",
exactly?

(The large college nearby definitely helps in VT's case. But what else?)

[https://www.churchstmarketplace.com/](https://www.churchstmarketplace.com/)

[https://www.churchstmarketplace.com/about/history](https://www.churchstmarketplace.com/about/history)

~~~
gascan
Just speculating, but looking at the photos from Fayetteville, it was totally
car-scale. Sure, it was pedestrian-only, but just look at the pictures of the
locale. Huge buildings, long distances, wide street.

This is not the best example but the first to pop to mind- compare to Pearl
Street Mall, in Boulder, which seems to be doing well:

[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0180565,-105.2792529,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0180565,-105.2792529,3a,75y,74.44h,82.61t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sYTsjWcvQHaMkDss9oaC4cQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DYTsjWcvQHaMkDss9oaC4cQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D167.73972%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656)

Which, just skimming, looks to be laid out similar to Church Street.

~~~
ghaff
Among the differences are that the University of Colorado is right there and
Boulder has been a fairly affluent town for a long time (even before the
relatively recent immigration of Google, etc.)

Also, let's not overstate the differences. The actual pedestrian mall on Pearl
is just a few blocks long. And Fayetteville in Raleigh these days, while not
car-free, is part of a very walkable area of downtown Raleigh with lots of
restaurants, a few hotels, some shops, new condo construction, some major
businesses, the convention center, government offices, etc.

------
fredley
Pedestrianisation works well in European cities, especially small ones. It's
quite common here in the UK, often there are strict time limits on when
delivieries can be made, e.g. 6-8am when barriers are open to let vehicles in
and out.

However this model just does not work in the US, outside of very few places.
US cities are designed for cars, and without major redevelopment everything's
just too far apart - even within the context of a single street - for this to
make sense. If you had electric scooters or something though...

~~~
tetromino_
> there are strict time limits on when delivieries can be made, e.g. 6-8am
> when barriers are open to let vehicles in and out.

That is nuts.

That means a plumber, electrician, home appliance deliveryman, mover, etc. can
only handle one job requiring a vehicle per day. He will have to charge 3-4
times more for his services than someone working in an area where it's
feasible to finish 3-4 jobs in a workday. The costs are of course passed on to
the customers. Is their car-less life worth living in a pigsty that they can't
fix up because laws force contractors to charge exorbitant fees?

That means any business will want a dedicated vehicle to haul what they need
in the 6-8 am window. This is not just grossly economically inefficient (no
outsourcing delivery to third parties), it results in more vehicles sitting
idle during the day, using up parking space!

And that means moving is a nightmare. Moving a two-bedroom apartment worth of
stuff into or out of a truck is, realistically, at least a four hour job. That
means a cross-town move that could be done in one workday with sane laws will
take at least four workdays (two to load the truck, two to unload) in your
crazy UK town. Imagine the costs. How is it moral for you to shackle your
people to the land by making relocation unaffordable?

~~~
pjc50
When you look into the details of these things you'll nearly always find that
there are enough exemptions to make it work. If it was genuinely unliveable
people wouldn't live there. People have managed to live in Venice for
centuries despite it being physically impossible to get motor vehicles around
the centre.

[https://www.eco-business.com/news/how-a-city-in-spain-got-
ri...](https://www.eco-business.com/news/how-a-city-in-spain-got-rid-of-its-
cars/)

"In fact, in most streets there are no physical barriers to keep the cars out.
Vehicles making deliveries or locals heading to private garages can still
circulate in most places.

“What we did is to create loops to keep people from driving through the city,”
Lores explains. “If you enter by the south, you leave by the south.”

The goal of this strategy, which is complemented by severe parking
restrictions in all of the central area, is to get rid of what Pontevedra
officials call “unnecessary traffic”.

------
dsfyu404ed
>pedestrianised all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre

It's a lot less impressive when you realize that they just banned cars from
the area that was optimized for foot traffic anyway. Good on them for not
trying to go to far and force people to walk/bike in areas designed for cars.

>"while people claim it as a right, in fact what they want are privileges."

Tangent: This is probably the most European quote ever. Roman senators,
medieval lords, members of parliament, Napoleon, the Kaiser, etc, etc. could
have all said this.

>And the same shopkeepers who complain are the ones who have survived in spite
of the crisis

Surviving in spite of the crisis does not make the crisis fun or necessary. It
took a lot of boarded up shops before my city took away the bike lanes and put
back the on-street parking (no, the failed businesses did not coincide with
the recession if anyone was wondering). You gotta do what works even if it's
not what fits your political objectives. If an area of the city was designed
for pedestrians that's probably what will work best there. If an area of the
city was designed for cars then that's probably what will work best there.
It's a disservice to taxpayers to use their money to jam a square peg in a
round hole or vise-versa.

>The works were all financed locally and received no aid from regional or
central government.

Good on them for not asking for a handout.

~~~
JetSetWilly
>"while people claim it as a right, in fact what they want are privileges."

There's nothing European about it, despite the fantasy of Europe being
comfortable with dictatorships. Driving a car is also a privilege in the US -
try driving one without your state-sanctioned license to do so and you will
discover that.

By the way, Members of Parliament are democratically elected so I am not sure
how they fit in with the rest of the motley crew.

------
erkken
Cars have to some extent led us through part of the industrial revolution.
However, it's my belief that cars, except from polluting the environment and
destroying our cities - makes people unhappy and sad.

Visiting LA this summer, I knew I was in for a car heavy metropolis but
this... I can't understand why people waste so much time of their precious
life (usually alone which also greatly worsen the problem) - locked in a car.

Coming to the topic of the autonomous car revolution, which I frankly do not
understand. Sometimes it feels like the ambition is to end up as the humans in
WALL-E. What kind of life is that?

Ps. Coming from Europe, I crossed US by bicycle a few years ago, from NY to
US. People say it's a country to be seen through a car, but I argue it's to be
seen on a bike.

~~~
avgDev
I was born in Europe and lived there for 14 years before moving to US. I went
there recently.

I also recently visited LA.....

Most people I know from smaller cities in Poland own cars or would love to own
a car but simply cannot afford it as gas is really expensive, so are cars
compared to incomes. When I visited I rented a car which allowed me to see so
many things all over the country. I would not able to visit so many locations
without a car.

Same goes for LA, renting a car allowed me to travel from LA to San Diego on a
relatively short trip.

In NY over 50% households are car-free. In Chicago about 30% of households are
car-free. People travel to cities for various reasons, often they don't do it
daily.

My wife traveled to school by train in city of chicago for one year, then she
switched to driving her car, she saved a lot of time on her commute, and
didn't have to deal with weirdos on the trains at night.

Cars are here to stay. Some people drive less by utilizing services like
amazon but then amazon needs to deliver packages, but, I guess that still
minimizes fuel consumption as things are delivered in a more efficient way.

------
freediver
First thing I noticed when moved to SF Bay Area from Europe was “God, Los
Gatos would be so beautiful if the main street was a pedestrian area.” Then
went actively searching for one and found a little stretch at Santana Row in
San Jose, if you can call 30 meters of blocked off street pedestrian area.

But even dense populated cities like SF dont have a pedestrian zone. It is one
of the rare things I miss quality of life wise.

~~~
mymythisisthis
I agree. I think that there is a transition point where slow moving cars and
people can intermingle. A third option, a hybrid.

------
sunshinelackof
As a kid in the early '90s the corner market, grocery store, schools from
elementary to high, both jobs I had, and park were all within a 10 minute walk
-- and that was in the suburbs. Cars don't need to be a requirement for daily
life even in the suburbs it just requires good planning or planning at all.

~~~
always_good
When people ask me why I like living in Mexico, this is one of the main
reasons:

The other week I walked around my neighborhood in Guadalajara to do some
errands. I got my knives sharpened, picked up my repaired shoes from the
cobbler, some fried pumpkin seeds from the seed guy, some meat from the
butcher, and then some tacos of course. All within two blocks.

~~~
tomaskafka
I moved to a center (pedestrian zona) of a small town in central Europe, from
a country's capital, same experience here.

In a capital, I didn't do a detour on my way home to get a good bread, as it
would add 15 minutes to a way home. Here it's a pleasant walk behind a corner.

~~~
PascLeRasc
European grocery stores are so wonderful. I love how everyone's just stopping
by to pick up a few things for dinner and tomorrow's breakfast, not pushing
their yacht of a shopping cart around. The produce is always super fresh and
cheap compared to American, and I always like getting a nice carbonated
mineral water.

------
Barjak
>People don’t like being told they can’t drive wherever they want, but Lores
says that while people claim it as a right, in fact what they want are
privileges.

This strikes me as the fundamental issue.

~~~
wahern
Modern discourse about "rights" has become twisted. Some day we need to
realize that one person's right is another person's prohibition. A society
needs to choose its rights wisely lest the unintended consequences result in
less overall freedom.

In a healthy civil society legally enshrined rights are less important because
you can trust that everybody's freedom will be maximized, at least to a first-
order approximation. In unhealthy societies legal rights are often cold
comfort.

~~~
gascan
IMO as we accumulated more and more "rights", the concept became diluted. We
went from the bedrock negative rights of freedom of speech, travel, etc, then
to positive rights, and then people started applying the concept of "rights"
to what I would consider "entitlements".

~~~
flatb
It's all the same debate, really. After all is said and done, rights function
to entitle you to things or acts. The blurry line that I believe you might be
talking about has a very specific name, but recent social and public discourse
make a lot of people nowadays automatically cringe at it's sight (wrongly,
IMO) without seriously hearing out or considering it's merits. I'm talking
about the word "privilege".

------
supernovae
I work in the Domain of Austin Texas, it's an outdoor mall, office park and
residential area that is supposed to be like a downtown 2.0 in many ways. A
place for humans to "live, shop and work" according to their mantra.

In reality, it's scary to walk to whole foods to get lunch at times. Cars
NEVER yield to crosswalks or pedestrians. It's so bad they have flashing LED's
on the stop signs in some areas.

The domain would be beautiful if parking garages were on the exterior and
everyone had to walk in. Imagine being able to walk to shops, work and dining
without worrying about getting plowed down by an F150 with a "thank god for
our snipers" sticker on the back.

In fact, the best couple of days at this area are the art walk days but its
been a while since I've seen those. For the artwalk days, they close the
streets and it's like a magic little city of everyone breathing easier,
enjoying some quiet serenity and kids walking around without parents needing
100% attention.

For the price they demand to live and lease space here, it would seem serenity
and peacefulness would be the best thing they could do! (and there was plenty
of land at one point for exterior garages... now its just a mad dash for
people to find spots across the different garages which are all too small for
the big trucks texans love)

~~~
WhompingWindows
I identify with that crosswalk yielding issue. In Boston they sometimes put up
signs on the road surface itself, informing drivers that is ILLEGAL to not
yield to pedestrians. I say "You broke the law" loudly whenever a driver
doesn't yield in that situation, yet I've never seen any enforcement of this
law.

Meanwhile, law enforcement is quick to sit on the highway catching those going
with the flow of traffic over the speed limit, or quick to over-police non-
violent drug offenses. So sad to see enforcement of the rules of the road take
a back seat, especially when it comes to pedestrians, whose chosen mode of
transport is beneficial and should be encouraged.

------
cf141q5325
>“The city is the perfect size for pedestrianisation,” says local architect
Rogelio Carballo Soler. “You can cross the entire city in 25 minutes.

This seems to be the key point why it works.

~~~
boobsbr
25 minutes on foot? It's more of a village than a city.

~~~
fabatka
Are you familiar with the saying "In Europe 100 miles is a long way, In the US
100 years is a long time"?

~~~
scbrg
In Europe 100 miles is... an anglicism :-)

------
Cthulhu_
Most cities in the Netherlands have a car-free inner city or shopping streets,
no need to idolize this particular one. Going from a congested city to a car-
free one is a good move though.

Interestingly, while Amsterdam's historic inner city is fully open to cars,
you don't really see much of them - in part because it's just not practical,
in part because parking is very expensive.

------
kenmicklas
It drives me crazy seeing people claim to "just" prefer living in the car-
oriented suburbs when

1) that lifestyle is vastly subsidized by economic activity generated in the
cities

2) the biggest reason cities are unpleasant is (surprise) the high density of
car traffic and noise!

The mass distribution of personal cars is going to go down as the greatest
mistake in societal development.

------
jimmybot
If you're interested in "walking" around yourself, here's the streetview:
[https://goo.gl/maps/gxHkcvg4LWB2](https://goo.gl/maps/gxHkcvg4LWB2)

------
eloycoto
Hi!

I'm living in one of the closes villages around Pontevedra, I'm heabilly use
the city, and I'm doing some remote job for an SF startup.

If you have questions, I'm happy to help and provide feedback.

~~~
yAnonymous
What do people do who have to commute to the city for work?

What do you do when you have to buy a few boxes of beer for a party that are
too heavy to carry?

How do emergency services work?

~~~
eloycoto
1) There are a few types: \- Working in the city center --> Walking mainly. \-
Working outside of the city --> Cars/bus __

The city that has banned the cars is the city centre, but is a round island,
so in 10-25 min walk, there are parking slots, where you can drive from.

2) Shopping trolley, instead of buying a lot one day, you ended that each day
you pick up a few things. (And this is great, 15 min day walking)

3) All the emergency services can go to the city centre, so cars are banned,
but if you have an event or emergency cars can get into, here is the common
sense rule.

And there is a benefit here, kids are in the street, and due a lot of kids in
the street, that moves the street from unsafe, to full of #know people, that
make things super safe.

~~~
yAnonymous
Thanks. I suppose the common sense rule also applies if you buy furniture or
move in or out of an apartment.

~~~
eloycoto
Yes!

~~~
TheCoelacanth
How about more frequent deliveries like stores or restaurants that need to get
deliveries every few days?

~~~
eloycoto
already reply in another thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18015103](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18015103)

------
dathinab
I thing "banning" cars in a Town/City work well for smaller cities, through
you still might want to have some time frame in which e.g. trucks can bring
new goods to super markets, fire fighter etc.

For larger cities I think it would still be possible to have many "no-car"
isles, paired with good public transportation available for anyone at "any"
place (which can be done today by e.g. using this small and _slow_ self-
driving mini buses to connect the home/side streets with the underground
trains, regular trains and potentially normal sized buses, you just need to
deploy enough of them with a good rout planing algorithm and a smartphone app,
through it might be slightly expensive).

~~~
eloycoto
Hi,

Van and trucks can enter the city the first time in the morning, so things are
ok, and there are no problems for that.

The city itself is a "round island", so cars can go close to the estuary and
be close to the city, so get into city center takes less than 15 minutes.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>and there are no problems for that.

Forcing all deliveries to happen in the early morning sounds like a massive
pain in the butt.

For example: Forcing a lunch/dinner restaurant to have people there early to
deal with inventory or delivering inventory to a diner during breakfast rush
are both far from ideal.

Any industry that routinely has to get materials (e.g. skilled trades)
delivered will be inconvenienced by not being able to take delivery during
mid-morning or after lunch, this can unnecessarily stretch out jobs (and cost
more $$).

I guess if the only industries in your city are white collar or tourism it's
fine.

Better to just not allow noncommercial vehicles during certain times.

~~~
eloycoto
>Forcing all deliveries to happen in the early morning sounds like a massive
pain in the butt.

>For example: Forcing a lunch/dinner restaurant to have people there early to
deal with inventory or delivering inventory to a diner during breakfast rush
are both far from idea

TBH,restaurants the most happier with this changes. More people in the streets
means more customers. If the van can get into the door, there is an entry
zones, where delivery can be done with less than 5 min walk.

Disclaimer, my father is a deliveryman for restaurants.

> Any industry that routinely has to get materials (e.g. skilled trades)
> delivered will be inconvenienced by not being able to take delivery during
> mid-morning or after lunch, this can unnecessarily stretch out jobs (and
> cost more $$).

Nope, those industries are not in the pedestrian zone, in Galicia, there is a
lot of industrial areas for that matter.

For white-collar, these entry areas, allow delivers to walk less than 5 min,
so it's ok.

Is not walk/no-walk, the city did awesome to allow entry zones and make the
walking culture for all of us.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>TBH,restaurants the most happier with this changes. More people in the
streets means more customers. If the van can get into the door, there is an
entry zones, where delivery can be done with less than 5 min walk.

I should have said industrial foodservice. Are there no schools, hotels, etc.
in the city center? Do catering services not deliver lunches to the city
center?

>Nope, those industries are not in the pedestrian zone, in Galicia, there is a
lot of industrial areas for that matter.

Um, yes, you still have skilled trades. These are the people installing new
light fixtures in office buildings and replacing the blower motor for a
building's HVAC. Not being able to do diagnostic work and then send someone
around later in the day to actually perform repairs is like getting shot in
the foot to any business that does repair work.

I support not allowing commuter traffic in city centers but not allowing
commercial vehicle traffic seems like needlessly cutting the clock cycle of
every part of the economy that deals with physical goods by a factor two or
three.

------
pixelbeat__
It's interesting how people's expectations and attitudes develop. I remember
landing at San Diego airport and asking how I could walk the relatively short
distance into the city center. I just got looks of derision and directions to
the taxi rank. I did attempt to find a walkable route myself to no avail.

It's an interesting contrast to banning cars and essentially banning walking

~~~
Basketb926
San Diego airport website does give some walking details that were not known
by the people you met [https://www.san.org/to-from/Walking-
Biking](https://www.san.org/to-from/Walking-Biking)

------
dre85
I'll preface this with saying that I own two cars and in general like cars.
However, I think personal motorized transportation along with industrialized
animal farming are for me among the two biggest evils that arose in the last
century. Cities in North America are entirely architected for the presence and
convenience of cars. The mortality arising from pollution and accidents is
staggering. The alienation and isolation of people as well. The cities and
suburbs stretch so far out that you rarely get to see your friends unless you
specifically organize something well ahead of time. Pedestrian zones with
small shops are replaced with massive shopping malls.

I've always imagined a modern city with no cars, but I never knew that anyone
actually had the balls to make this a reality. Kudos to this Spanish city! You
can try to argue that the specifics of this city make it more amenable to
being car-free, but I think that if there was enough desire, it would work
anywhere. Just think if everyone paid their monthly car loan/lease into the
public transportation system how incredibly functional it could be.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Working in the center of Berlin, I wish Berlin would do the same. There is a
hospital near, and a constant load noise level from ambulances. Without cars,
those could be much much quieter, but traffic increased, cars got more
soundproof and people hear loud music, so ambulances became loader all the
time. Noise kills people.

------
honkycat
I really dislike cars and being around cars. They are noisy. They ruin the air
quality of a city. They take up massive amounts of space through parking that
could be better used. They force the public to subsidize car owners. They kill
people through both air pollution and through collisions. They dominate a
city's life in an extremely unattractive way.

I base a lot of my existence around avoiding cars and living in places where I
can have a pleasant walk without having to deal with traffic. To the point
where I recently moved from Chicago, Illinois to Portland, Oregon because
Portland is a much more pedestrian friendly city. And it shows. You walk
around the city and it's actually alive and working.

In Portland, people don't have to have their children on leashes because every
street isn't a 4 lane highway with constant traffic that is disrespectful to
people's space. People are strolling down the streets and wandering into
businesses. In Portland drivers slow down and wave you across the street
instead of swerving around you at 40 miles an hour.

In Chicago a common occurrence was for a car to decide to make a red light, so
they would make a turn into a crowd of pedestrians who are crossing the street
and "shoot the gap" without slowing down, with maybe 3 feet of clearance on
either side. People would open doors without a second thought and door bikers.
Trucks would make dangerous turns into bikers and frequently kill them ( A
young woman was recently killed this way, and I once had to jump off of my
bike and drag it onto the sidewalk to avoid being run over ).

Cars drivers seem to enter this "magic circle" where it's fine to do dumb and
extremely dangerous things because you are driving. When you are in a car, all
behavior is acceptable.

Decide to teach the biker a lesson by turning into them? They won't charge you
with anything.

Swerve into a crowd of pedestrians? It's fine normal behavior.

Make a blind turn into an alley and have to slam on the breaks to avoid
running into a pedestrian? Totally A-OK chief! Great work!

As has been pointed out elsewhere, a lot of European cities do not have this
problem. When visiting France, I went to the city of Strasbourg where they
have a very nice little "park and ride" system where you park your fume-
spewing, space-taking machine and park it in the PARKING AREA, instead of
letting you drag it into their beautiful city.

strongtowns.org has a lot of great information about how the US road
infrastructure is, to put it bluntly, a dumb and bad experiment that has
failed.

~~~
snarfybarfy
> I really dislike cars and being around cars. They are noisy. They ruin the
> air quality of a city.

I guess you are not alone. Given a certain location, the singlemost important
indicator of your house price is the amount of cars driving by each day.

A factor of 3 in my immediate neighborhood:

$15k per m^2 in a cul de sac vs. only a 100 meters apart $5k per m^2 next to a
4-lane road with quite some traffic.

------
Tade0
Population: 82.5k - obviously cars have no business driving through such a
place.

I spend a good chunk of the year in Bologna, Italy. The city centre there is a
roughly ~4km^2 _Zona Traffico Limitato_ \- an area in which only certain
vehicles are allowed during certain hours. Pretty much every city in Italy has
such a zone and 4km^2 to me seems to be the ideal size for it.

That being said I know a few people who live in the centre and judging by
their experiences, I wouldn't want to move there. It's so densely packed that
noise bounces off the walls effectively amplifying itself. Also there are no
residential waste bins so if you miss trash day during the summer your organic
waste turns into an unholy bag of stink.

Walkable cities are a nice concept, but one has to watch out for one perverse
incentive that is created along the way: pack everything as densely as
possible.

------
jfroma
There is a pedestrian city in my province (Córdoba, Argentina) called La
Cumbrecita. You leave your car in the entrance to the city in a parking lot
and you can walk the entire town.

First time I visit there made me wonder why not all towns aren't pedestrian
like this. I mean most towns have nice sidewalks and are walkable but why not
just banning cars. In addition to having less noise I can imagine plenty of
other benefits.

> [La Cumbrecita] is completely pedestrian and reminiscent of the small German
> towns of the fifteenth century. One can hike up through the town (and then
> down) to the waterfall, a truly paradisiacal experience.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cumbrecita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cumbrecita)

------
jaysonelliot
The one question I have, that I haven't seen answered in the article or
elsewhere, is how deliveries are handled. Presumably shops and businesses in a
car-free city need to get truckloads of goods or equipment moved in and out on
a regular basis. How is it done?

I've always loved the idea of being able to live in a car-free city, but never
quite understood how certain things would work, including garbage collection,
deliveries, and emergency services, without vehicular traffic.

Or do they make exceptions for all of those? Does anyone know?

~~~
GijsjanB
Where I live, the municipality is seriously looking into an out of the city
distribution centre with (smaller, electric) vehicles for supplying the city
centre. That doesn't make it free of cars, but it will be more efficient (not
every shop needs their own supply truck, supplies can be shared).

~~~
jaysonelliot
Which city is that?

------
anjc
This may be nice in a sunny seaside tourist city, but any pedestrianised towns
I've been to in the UK are barren, dull, and frankly scary once the sun starts
to set.

------
quincy_daniels
I would like to take this moment to advertise a project currently under
development in my city:

[https://beltline.org/about/the-atlanta-beltline-
project/atla...](https://beltline.org/about/the-atlanta-beltline-
project/atlanta-beltline-overview/)

The Atlanta belt-line is mostly being built on top of old light rail line
around the city. The idea, as I understand it, is to provide a pedestrian and
(unfortunately) cyclists only pathway that connects many of the notable places
around the city. On this pathway, there already exists a large amount of
beltline and road accessible shopping/restaurants/bars. There are plans to
build a large amount similarly accessible housing on the beltline as well.

I assert that this strategy is a better alternative than closing off convex
sections for cities similar to Atlanta. What would define a city similar to
Atlanta? One that is not very dense, with some undeveloped or neglected land
in urban areas, and whose centers of social activity are decentralized. By
saying the centers of social activity are decentralized, I mean to say that
the major parks, stadiums, shopping developments, chic neighborhoods, and so
on, are dispersed around a few mile radius of downtown. Shutting of any two
square mile area to car traffic would fail to capture more than a few of these
places, and cause worse traffic problems elsewhere, which is costly regardless
of how you approach it.

There are some downsides to the beltline of course, mainly its cost, but you
get the same opportunity for a pedestrian urban experience, without overtly
turning it into a political battle.

------
escot
Most of Golden Gate Park in SF is closed to cars every Sunday (and Saturday
during summer) and it is really magical. Normally living in a city makes you
feel tiny but this makes you feel like everyone is on the same level.

[http://sfrecpark.org/permits-and-reservations/special-
events...](http://sfrecpark.org/permits-and-reservations/special-
events/golden-gate-park-road-closures/)

------
timonoko
European cities were very much pedestrian and bike town in the 1950's. In
Helsinki they proposed banning bikes from city center, because they caused
traffic congestion and gave poorish image of Finland. Bike paths were kept
open all year manually. I biked some 10 km to school and every single day
dozens of guys had woken at 5 o'clock and shoveled and sanded narrow but
adequate bike path just for me.

------
Invictus0
The Las Vegas Strip is the antithesis of this. It's probably the only place in
the world where the main downtown area is also an 8 lane highway. It's so bad
that you actually cannot cross the street there, and you have to get around by
walking on raised walkways above the street. Uniquely terrible urban planning.

[https://odis.homeaway.com/odis/destination/2ee03d5b-c981-44d...](https://odis.homeaway.com/odis/destination/2ee03d5b-c981-44df-
ae3a-e526f7e3ec01.hw1.jpg)

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/La...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Las_Vegas_%2822096744189%29.jpg/1200px-
Las_Vegas_%2822096744189%29.jpg)

[http://theworldisurban.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/Elevat...](http://theworldisurban.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/ElevatedWalkway.jpg)

------
thales_m
What about people who live inside city limits but work elsewhere? For example,
I currently reside in Washington, DC but work about 30 min away. There is no
public transportation to my work. At night, I park in a garage but there are
others who park on the street and commute out of the city every morning.

~~~
maaaats
This would solve itself if cars were banned. Either you would have to find a
more practical place to live, the city add public transportation to the work,
you find a new place to work, the work moving offices etc.

It's only a problem because you decide things has to be exactly like they are.
But with other constraints the society would have landed on an other
configuration.

~~~
CapricornNoble
Every solution in your second sentence either costs businesses money or costs
your workforce money.

What is your solution for your economy when BOTH decide to relocate to an
administrative region that DOESN'T ban cars?

I've considered other places to live in Asia, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, and
Taiwan. I found that used Japanese sports cars (I own several) were all
prohibitively expensive to import/register in each. The crazy-low "total cost
of ownership" for automobiles is one of several reasons that Japan is my
primary base of operations/residence.

~~~
boomlinde
I'm sure that if you're into car sports you could get someone to sponsor the
import.

------
tokyodude
I grew up in the suburbs in Los Angeles. I lived on a cul de sac. Think the
family house in ET. We played in the street all the time. That seems pretty
normal for suburbia isn't it? I would ride around the block or over to the
next cul-de-sac from like 4yrs old.

------
nayuki
The article has similar sentiments on promoting walkable cities as the whole
blog "Strong Towns".
[https://www.strongtowns.org/](https://www.strongtowns.org/)

------
pasta
It's also possible to design cities for both people and cars. The trick is to
separate them.

For example a shopping street where no cars are allowed could have parking
lots at the back of the shops. So trucks can supply the shops and customers
can pickup large goods with their car.

Another method is what we call in Dutch a ​'Cauliflower-neighbourhood'. The
closer a road comes to the place were people live, the smaller they become.
And speed limits will go down as well. The limits most of the time go from
50km/h to 30km/h to 15 or even 5km/h.

------
dchichkov
I wish, we could do that in the few feets of Murphy's Square in Sunnyvale. It
would be so pleasant to _not_ have hot spewing smog vehicles park, one feet
from your dining table.

------
TomK32
In my city, Linz in Austria, only a small part is pedestrian, and even then
the main-line of the 4 (actually 2+2) tram lines is cutting right through it.
I wish they'd extend the pedestrian area and add that second tram line
overground rather than underground as the current political fantasies look
like.

Anyways, from that article, if you have a change in a city's government,
change is a lot more likely to happen. If only there were some time-
limitations on mayor posts and the council.

------
zoom6628
We so so need this in Hongkong, especially in the older areas where the
streets feel as narrow as a rickshaw. Public transport is excellent and ppl
here so unhealthy i general they need the walking anyway! Most of the
corridoor from Saiyingpun all the way to North Point at least should be car
free. And pretty much all of TST through to Mongkok. More than enough metro
lines and bordering causeways to move the masses in an out of the area.

~~~
woutr_be
As much as I like to see a car free HK, there's still a lot of need for
vehicles in those areas, banning cars, especially in HK is not the solution.

If you want people to walk more, make the city actually walk friendly, even a
short walk from my apartment to the MTR station is annoying; people just
randomly walk anywhere, making it impossible to enjoy walking. There's aircons
leaking constantly, little newspaper stands blocking the sideways.

I really enjoy walking, but in HK it's really not that fun.

------
iaresee
We were living in downtown Toronto during [the Northeast blackout of
2003]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003)).
It was _amazing_ to experience the city, for several days, without the usual
crush of cars and trucks and busses on the roads. Really magic couple of days
I'll never forget.

------
jasonrhaas
I really like the idea of restricting where and when people can drive their
cars. In China there are policies in place that only allow to commute with
your car on certain days of the week. The other days you need to use public
transport or find a car pool.

A lot of Americans think that they should be able to drive and park their car
when and where ever they want. This mentality needs to change if we want to
continue to grow our cities sustainably.

------
helios893
I have a fantasy that once a year a major US cities (think Manhattan) ban
private cars for a day. Public Transit, and emergency vehicles pass as normal.

------
bluGill
Many cities in the US have banned cars from a significant number of Downtown
Streets. We call them skyways for the most part, though sometimes they are
underground. It works well, keeps cars out of the way of people. It also makes
for a nice environment to walk around.

Our zoning is such that those streets close at night, and I wouldn't recommend
them in the late hours before they are officially closed.

------
yohann305
All of a sudden, Elon Musk's vision to have all traffic underground is a lot
more sound.

I love this guy, seeing him so misunderstood makes me sad.

------
ansible
Seems like a good time to re-post this rant by James Howard Kunstler on what's
wrong with modern USA urban planning:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_sub...](https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia?language=en)

------
efrafa
In Slovakia every bigger city have pedestrian zone with no cars. Its the one
of the best things you can do for city.

------
clon
I am sure it also helps tourism. I'm definitely putting this on my bucket list
when going to Spain next time.

------
nos84733675859
Had a quick search and didn't see anyone talking about it.

If your interested by this article you might enjoy the book 'happy city'. It's
a bit one sided but looks at how cars have changed cities, and how changes can
be made to make them happier.

------
JepZ
In Germany we have a similar paradise: the island Helgoland [1].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heligoland#Road_restrictions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heligoland#Road_restrictions)

~~~
anticensor
Helgoland is a tax haven, too. Only thing it lacks is an organised business
district.

------
sytelus
So how does these car-less cities manage followings:

\- Truck delivery to businesses such as large stores/shopping malls

\- Ambulance, police car services

\- Disabled/old people wanting to move around

If you allow any or all of above, you still need roads for vehicles only,
traffic lights etc, right?

------
machisuji
I'd love to live in a city like this. I spent a couple of days in Dublin and
it was just crazy how loud, crowded and congested with cars and buses the city
is. Was not really pleasant walking through the city.

------
oriol16
What piques my interest is why on earth has Pontevedra a Citibank office

~~~
switch007
Must be an old photo: Citibank retail exited Europe in 2014 (Citibank España
was sold to Banco Popular in 2014)

------
newshorts
my wife and I used to need to take vacations and drive to the mountains on the
weekends just to get away from the stress of the city. Then we moved to an
area where we can bike to two separate town centers and we haven’t felt the
need to take a vacation in years.

We are more social and more relaxed now, and I swear it’s because we can bike
to all the places we would have driven, like restaurants, movie theaters and
grocery stores.

Ditching the car has been a very positive experience.

------
jiveturkey
> pedestrianised all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre,

I'm reminded of the Isle of Sark. I thought it must be bigger but wiki says
it's only 5,000 sq m.

------
skookumchuck
It'd be so nice in downtown Seattle if a few of the streets were closed off to
cars for 4 hours a day or so.

------
village-idiot
If it weren’t for the massive culture shock and difficulty, I’d live in
Munich. I love the quiet city center.

~~~
ofrzeta
There's actually only one street with no cars (Kaufinger Str.) and lots of
traffic around on the Altstadtring and such. It's far from a city without
cars, to the contrary. Also you'd need to be able to afford the rent.

------
liquid153
I wonder when "I don't own a car", will be the new "I don't own a TV"

~~~
Mashimo
I never owned a TV or a car :)

------
teknico
Been there recently. The peace and quiet was uncanny, it felt like my hometown
half a century ago.

------
lifeformed
Are stores and restaurants able to get supplies by vehicle to restock?

------
plgonzalezrx8
That must feel so weird, but at the same time, so quiet and peaceful.

------
nobody271
I walk to the grocery store most days. It seems to kill several birds with one
stone:

\- unwind after work

\- get exercise

\- get outside

\- time to think

You would think it would be a lot more popular but it's not. It seems more
like there must be something wrong with you if you walk on a daily basis lol.
... societal norms I guess.

~~~
claydavisss
Come back when you are seventy and tell us if you still enjoy cycling with
forty pounds of groceries

This entire thread is predicated on building cities for young single men

~~~
Uberphallus
When you have things at walk distance you don't need to buy 40 pounds of
groceries. That's a US suburban problem.

------
JVIDEL
Why is this news? The town of General Belgrano in Argentina banned cars ages
ago.

------
montenegrohugo
This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars
(especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward.

Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces,
roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces
citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make
any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense regions, but in modern
cities other solutions have to be found. Mass transit, biking lanes, electro-
scooters, (elevated)-footpaths are the way to go. Maybe even electric
ridesharing.

But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the
transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society.

I know european cities are much more pedestrian friendly & that US cities in
general are more oriented towards the car lifestyle, but as said previously,
this needs to change. It is a big cultural and infrastructure change over a
longer timespan, but it is achievable.

Of course change always requires some sacrifice, and I imagine the car-drivers
in above mentioned article must have been plenty pissed at the beginning. But
they paved over the streets, made the inner city pedestrian only, and now they
are better for it. Of course this is a very small town and these changes do
not scale up as easily as one would like, and much more complex projects will
have to be designed for bigger cities. But it is doable (see initiatives in
e.g. Madrid, Munich & most of the netherlands) and "only" requires some long-
term commitment. But we all know how good politicians are at that (what's
global warming??).

I want to finish this comment with a call to engage in democracy. Make your
opinion heard, loudly, go to the voting polls, participate in your local
council, actually engage in politics. Because if you do not, no significant
change will be made any time soon.

~~~
TomMarius
On top of other issues, most of Europe also enjoys a 4-season year - meaning
that a bike or scooter is safely and comfortably usable around half of a year,
definitely not more.

~~~
Freak_NL
Please send a note to the Dutch (and the Germans, the Danish, the French, the
Belgians, …) to tell them to stop riding their bicycles in the midst of
winter.

In the past five years there was one day when I couldn't cycle to work due to
black ice covering most of the roads, and even that resolved itself in the
afternoon. Snow just means you need a bit more dexterity than usual.

As for comfort; proper clothing means you are pretty much comfortable most of
the time.

~~~
lloeki
> black ice ... snow

The ultimate irony of the point attempted to be made is that people don't
drive when ice or snow cover on the road (or suck at it, take undue risks,
fail to, and ram into curbs/cars/people).

~~~
rimliu
What? People drive on the ice and snow all the time, what are you talking
about? Not all countries have mild climate, you know.

~~~
CydeWeys
Many people don't though (look at how attendance rates plummet at schools and
businesses on heavy snow days), and of those who do drive anyway, the accident
rate is highly elevated.

~~~
8xde0wcNwpslOw
I cannot relate to what you write at all. In all my years in school, I did not
witness a single day of attendance drop due to weather (the only weather-
related exception was for the early years of elementary school, when you could
choose not to go outside during breaks if the temperature was low enough, but
that was rarely the case here near the coast).

What's more, in bad weather people (who have the option to choose between
public transportation and their own vehicles) tend to choose cars more often
because public transit has a habit of becoming increasingly unreliable,
especially due to winter conditions, even though such conditions can be
reasonably expected for 6 months a year.

~~~
lloeki
I grew in a mountain pass area where there (used to, times change...) be heavy
snow 2 to 4 months per year, and learned to drive there. Now I live in a city
where snow happens regularly but much less and typically goes away in a couple
of days, and when there's snow there's much less people on the roads, and for
those who are, only a fraction know how to handle it, or even have proper
winter tyres even though temperatures dive below the freezing point every
year. People routinely flat out skip work on such days because "snow", which
coming from where I grew up, is unfathomable unless you got a meter of snow
overnight. On the occasional trip to Paris I've witnessed a couple events
where emergency services are scrambling to bring water, food, and clothes to
people gridlocked for hours (it was _winter_ and many couldn't be arsed to
take even a _jacket_ , oblivious to their environment, living in their air-
conditioned bubbles from house to covered parking lot to car to workplace);
the entirety of the city streets was in deadlock because of a couple of
millimetres of snow (obviously {rail,sub}way was unaffected). Pure madness.

------
CalRobert
Not sure what your situation is but there are a fair number of options for
people who are decent programmers to move to Europe permanently..

~~~
xxpor
It's hard to justify when you could potentially be looking at a 50% pay cut.
That's the only reason I haven't moved myself.

~~~
lexs
Do you actually get anything out of that 50% more pay? Thinking about higher
rent, healthcare etc.

~~~
mywittyname
Absolutely. Only a few cities in the USA are expensive on an international
level. The cost of living in most regions of the USA is so incredibly low that
a decent programmer has a _shot_ of having a paid off house & car, no student
loans, and $100k or so retirement account by the age of 30 (assuming
graduating college @22).

Where I live, the median house price is about $170k USD (avg rent is just
under $900/mo) and the median software engineer salary is just under $100k
USD.

Plus, taxes in the USA can be pretty low.

~~~
symlinkk
Where do you live?

~~~
mywittyname
Ohio

------
hulton
Eliminate cars. Eliminate the options for people to be autonomous. Pack
everyone into major metropolitan cities by the millions. Stop building houses.
Build Up. Build condos and apartments. Eliminate the option for people to buy
land because it is unsustainable and the state knows better. Sounds like a
perfect dystopian society.

------
dmix
Once all cars become electric this will solve one of the biggest problems.
Then once they become self-driving the other 25% of noise (honking, sirens,
etc) would be significantly reduced.

~~~
pouetpouet
Half of the problem with cars is a geometric one, they take up too much space.
They give rise to sprawl and thus increase the demand for cars in a vicious
cycle. Them being electric or self driving will not solve that.

~~~
dmix
Still, noise is a major factor. Just take the mayor's comments from the
article and the opening sentence:

> In Pontevedra, the usual soundtrack of a Spanish city has been replaced by
> the tweeting of birds and the chatter of humans

> “Listen,” says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street
> below rises the sound of human voices.

Noise is the #1 problem with cars. Walkability and space issues via parking
are #2.

~~~
darkstar999
A lot of the sound of cars are them moving over the road, not the engine
noise. Electric wouldn't help.

------
ummonk
Urbanists who hate cars like to tear down freeways. E.g. in SF they tore down
the Embarcadero and Central freeways, instead of repairing and extending them.
This of course forces more cars onto the streets, making life worse for
everyone.

~~~
jrockway
But to be fair, San Francisco did not even want the Embarcadero freeway and
proposed a tunnel that the state nixed. When the thing collapsed in an
earthquake it was a pretty easy choice to not spend money building something
the city didn't even want.

You do have to agree that not having to walk under a urine-soaked freeway to
get to the waterfront is an improvement to the city. The tunnel would have
also been fine, of course.

------
rnatkins
>How can it be that private property – the car – occupies the public space?

Regardless of what you think of this policy, this is the level of reasoning of
a 14 year old.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I feel like we should be charitable on the actual wording of the statement as
the speaker is being quoted in their non native language.

I read this as more that we can't just default to subsidising private cars in
a public space. Roads, parking and other infrastructure that de facto
subsidize and encourage private car usage but which often are considered
"free".

~~~
gaius
_Roads, parking and other infrastructure that de facto subsidize and encourage
private car usage but which often are considered "free"._

Taxes on fuel raise £50Bn/year for the exchequer, which is double the amount
spent by the government on all transportation of all kinds. No one considers
it to be “free”, and in fact drivers subsidise everything else.

~~~
claudius
How many of those £50Bn need to go to the NHS to treat illnesses caused by
drivers?

~~~
gaius
Given that the entire NHS budget is £125Bn I'm guessing... not much?

How many lives has the road system saved, by the way? What do ambulances drive
on? Or even ordinary drivers taking sick or injured relatives to the hospital
themselves?

