
Madrid announces new rules of the road in bid to banish traffic from center - jseliger
https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/05/inenglish/1538733317_890210.html
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clukic
After leaving NYC I've lived in more than a dozen European cities over the
last five years. The one commonality that I've seen is that where ever an area
is pedestrianized it just explodes with life. Terraces, shops, children, dogs.

No one wants to be anywhere near a 100km/hr road. It can sometimes be ok to
walk next to a 50km/hr road but it's not nice and it's best to avoid it. 30
km/hr you can stroll or sit on a terrace and it's fine. But when it's 20km/hr
or just closed everything changes.

When there's no chance your kid is going to get killed by a car, he can just
go out and play. Your dog can sit off leash under your table while you eat.
You can be absorbed in a conversation and not worry a misstep will result in
serious injury or death.

We somehow just accept that the possibility of death or jury is just outside
our door. Like live electric wires running down streets. When you take them
away, everyone just relaxes a lot more.

~~~
SamReidHughes
There have been pedestrianization attempts that failed. Just like failed
malls. European cities mostly have a better layout for that sort of thing.

~~~
cco
Do you have any examples? I'm always curious for counter points.

~~~
SamReidHughes
I don't know examples offhand, sorry. I mean, there's some if you google
"failed pedestrian malls".

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weeksie
Can we do Manhattan next? Haha, just kidding. The dysfunction of our city
politics makes obvious life-improving policies completely untenable. Hell, we
can't even change the way we collect our garbage or maintain our (totally
necessary, vital) mass transit.

~~~
jacobmoe
Maintaining our mass transit is (stupidly) a state responsibility, to be fair.

~~~
kartan
> Maintaining our mass transit is (stupidly) a state responsibility, to be
> fair.

I guess that this is circumstantial. That is USA's political system that is
not working.

Because the headline is about a local government taking responsible actions to
improve peoples lives while empowering public transportation as an efficient
way of transport.

How different is "Metropolitan Transportation Authority" to "Consorcio
Regional de Transportes de Madrid" [0]?

[0]
[https://www.crtm.es/conocenos.aspx?lang=en](https://www.crtm.es/conocenos.aspx?lang=en)

~~~
jacobmoe
Oh I'm not making excuses for it. The commenter I responded to noted that
NYC's political dysfunction makes things difficult. I'm just noting that New
York State's political dysfunction is also to blame.

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anonymousDan
It's very noticeable how pleasant Madrid is to wander around even currently in
comparison to other big European cities. Cars seem well confined to certain
streets and everywhere else is very quiet (in terms of traffic) in comparison.

~~~
davidgould
I spent several days walking around Madrid about a decade ago. Compared even
to the SF area cars were much less obtrusive. Most street level views were not
completely blocked with cars. I as amazed when I got back how even potentially
beautiful cityscapes here are cluttered up with cars - as if "used car lot"
was our aesthetic ideal.

So I'm really glad to seem them take this even further.

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HeadInTheClouds
I wish London would follow this example, I fear however that the press would
whip up an outrage. Public transport in Central London is excellent. I have
not felt the need to have a car after 20+ years of living here. The situation
is obviously very different in rural areas.

It would also be great to upgrade all Taxi's and buses to fully electric as
well.

~~~
alex_duf
To license a new taxi in London it has to be electric. We're seeing quite a
few nowadays. There's still a huge backlog of diesel cabs but at least it's
slightly improving.

New double deckers are hybrid, and all new single deckers are fully electric.
Again, big backlog (8000) but give it 20 years. (I wish it could be done
faster though)

~~~
Symbiote
With political will, the taxis could be solved in under 10 years — it's mad
that they allow 15 year old taxis to operate.

The buses should be solved much earlier, the average age is about 4-5 years.
(Older buses seem to end up in Northern England...)

[https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-
fl...](https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-fleet-data-
and-audits)

~~~
lightgreen
What’s wrong with 15 yo taxis as long as they are compatible with emission
regulations? If they work fine, we should encourage long term cars usage and
repairs instead of throwing them away after 5 years.

~~~
ip26
The emissions regulations of fifteen years ago are much more relaxed than
today's, and of course old cabs are measured to the old standard-
grandfathered if you will.

~~~
lightgreen
If modern emission standards are really important then we should enforce
standards but not throw away cars. Maybe old cards are still good enough.
Maybe old cars can be tuned/upgrades/switched to another fuel etc. Car age is
not important at all, and should not be considered.

~~~
Symbiote
That is what is done, age is an approximation.

So far, these rules aren't enforced against cars in England, only buses and
heavy vehicles in London must comply. It's similar in some large cities in
Germany and Sweden.

Example: [http://urbanaccessregulations.eu/quick-guide-key-
schemes?cit...](http://urbanaccessregulations.eu/quick-guide-key-
schemes?city=London)

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roknovosel
Ljubljana has already made a similar effort:
[https://www.citylab.com/design/2016/02/how-ljubljana-
turned-...](https://www.citylab.com/design/2016/02/how-ljubljana-turned-
itself-into-europes-green-capital/458934/)

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kareemsabri
Lot of anti-car folks on here. I'm inclined to agree we should discourage
driving into city centers, but it's a tough ask when we've been driving
forever and everyone owns cars. Telling my elderly father, who lives in the
suburbs and drives everywhere, to take a train into the city to visit me is a
non-starter, as another commenter pointed out. Habits are hard to break.

However, I work in downtown San Francisco and live in Oakland, and I would
NEVER drive my car over the bridge into the city, because of congestion.
Banning cars outright seems to be a heavy-handed move and overly restrictive
of individual choice, and you should just "price in the externalities" as the
economists say. High tolls or expensive city driving permits for non-residents
seems a better move to ease the transition as well as fund public transit
options. They have to build up really, really good public transit
infrastructure if they're going to make it more attractive than driving.

To me the plethora of rules reads overwrought and complex, and "occasional
visitors" seems ridiculous.

~~~
Symbiote
The healthiest old (or old-ish) people I know are the ones who use public
transport the most.

Two of my grandparents drove everywhere for decades, retired, still drove
everywhere, then had huge trouble with their joints etc. When my grandmother
lost her license (worsening eyesight), she was very isolated.

My other grandparents had nice cars, but also made good use of their
pensioner's discount/free transport pass. My grandma would take the train
across a large English city to visit her sister or friends. She's in her late
80s, and still very mobile, although no longer independent.

I prefer a ban, as it's fairer to everyone. There are externalities that are
very difficult to price (pollution, accident risk), and just being rich
doesn't give people extra rights to poison the air and kill/injure people. It
also ensures rich people use public transport, so they have some incentive to
make sure the service is good.

~~~
xfitm3
Banning vehicles is not inclusive of people with disabilities. Does this mean
they should effectively be banned from cities?

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arrrg
I don’t think any proponents of this would have any issue with allowing
disabled people access (probably including disability caused by aging).

~~~
majewsky
A ban on vehicles could be restraining even to those with a special exemption
because the infrastructure will adjust for the ban. What use is a car when the
place you need to get is only accessible by bike lanes and sidewalks?

~~~
greglindahl
Lots of places use small vehicles like golf-carts in that situation: hotels,
nursing homes, walking communities, etc.

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lucidguppy
So we want cities that can let in delivery vans - but not people with cars.

Sounds reasonable.

~~~
ck425
Yeah, it does. People can use public transport. Or legs.

~~~
TomMarius
Definitely not everyone and/or every time. Also time is a factor. And what
about comfort?

I'm not in favor of the current system, but your idea is wrong. It creates a
centralized monopolized transportation system that serves well only a very
small minority of people and might easily became a nightmare. There are other
ways we could follow that would make much more people happy, support the
economy and wouldn't make sick people stuck at home and everyone late.

One such system could be a real time optimized network of self driving and
_self owning_ (limited AI) electric vehicles with various sizes and operation
modes (on demand like taxi/bus-like/...) - and non-self driving vehicles
wouldn't be allowed inside.

~~~
ck425
Sick people can often get public transport. I was seriously ill this year and
got a bus to hospital.

And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air and
thousands of deaths each year.

Sure, perhaps we need more gradual change, particularly in the states. But in
Europe, especially the UK, we should be rolling out pedestrianisation to our
busiest city centre streets and aggressively aiming for minimal traffic in the
heart of city centres.

~~~
TomMarius
> Sick people can often get public transport. I was seriously ill this year
> and got a bus to hospital.

Sure they do. Not always though. Getting a bus to a hospital is impossible
from my current place. And it's not just about driving yourself, you need to
drive things (e.g. food) as well. Yes, I drove my car the 600 meters it is to
the store - I simply wasn't able to walk it, and the idea of carrying things
on the way back was truly sickening. It's 800 to the bus stop, I simply
wouldn't make it. Food poisoning is a bitch (thankfully that was only one of
the three occasions, the other ones were much lighter).

> And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air
> and thousands of deaths each year.

If you read my comment properly, you'd know that I'm against that as well as
you are. I'm not in favor of the current system. I'm just more in favor of
individual transportation, but that doesn't imply the current system.

~~~
ck425
Your system is still a ways off and even then still takes up a lot a room and
is potentially just as lethal to pedestrians and cyclists.

~~~
TomMarius
Actually, at least according to many transportation experts in my country,
there is a certain population density when mass transit stops being effective
at all - since too many people want to go to too many different places all
around the city. Intelligent individual transportation (e.g. cars mainly from
4 to around 20 passengers) that'd be able to predict and respond to demand
(both short term and long term) combined with good subway, light tram and
transit tunnels is much more effective once you pass that point. Also consider
other factors such as historic cities where a bus doesn't even fit -
literally; such cities are all around Europe, hundreds of them. Economic
factors such as price per km per m2 occupied could be used to promote ride
sharing.

Since the system could be connected to street cameras, has faster reaction
times, doesn't drive through red lights and so on, no, it definitely would not
be as lethal. The number of vehicles required would be much smaller, so the
assumption is absolutely baseless - the common solution to safer cycling is
less cars, and that's exactly what would happen. Additionally, most parking
spaces wouldn't be needed as the cars could park at a centralized garages
(desirable because charging) and the new space could be used to create bike-
only roads. Buses everywhere would be more lethal since a bus is a large and
heavy vehicle and there'd be too many of them. I'm sure you don't feel good
riding a bycicle up to a hill next to a bus - for a reason; at least I don't.

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village-idiot
The dangers of car oriented cities has been so egregiously ignored, at least
on a policy level, that strong and aggressive push backs are not surprising.

Honestly, I think this is kinda what drivers get for fighting tooth and nail
against bikelanes and public transit for decades.

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grezql
They have done this in other european cities too. But maybe not in the same
territory scale.

I have lived downtown for 2 years myself and oppose this ridiculous
"environment"-protection move.

Its very anti-social to ban traffic from urban areas. Technology and evolution
should create opportunities and positive changes for people, not take away
their rights!

~~~
NeedMoreTea
It's very anti-social to permit the thing that more than any other makes a
city noisy, dirty, polluted, smelly, health impacting, interferes with
everyone's quality of life, and takes an absurdly selfish amount of space (1
person in a 5 or more seat car - the usual).

Get rid of all of them, enable adequate public transport, add a whole load of
trees, calming and removal of signage and markings. Then give priority to the
_pedestrian,_ bike, and perhaps limited motorbike before car.

Cities could be a nice place to live once again rather than somewhere to
avoid.

~~~
cm2187
I am not sure what you mean by "once again". Are you suggesting that pre-car
cities had no nuisance related to horse traffic?

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NeedMoreTea
Seems there was a brief spell in the 30s, and early post-war prior to the UK
eliminating so much bus, rail, and all trams there was a spell where everyone
got OK quality of life in a city, before everyone owns a car. Before all the
flyovers, dual carriageways, urban motorways and junction prioritisation of
cars.

That said, I feel no cars at all is the ideal we should aim for, and build our
roads for - with the necessary investment in public transport.

~~~
majewsky
As much as I'm advocating for public transit (heavy user myself, don't have a
driver's license), "no cars" is a very unrealistic ideal. If I had to propose
a rule, it would be something like "no privately-owned cars". Even in an ideal
scenario, you still need car lanes everywhere for:

\- ambulances and fire engines

\- trucks that deliver goods to inner-city shops

\- moving vans

\- vans of craftsmen

\- etc.

Also, there should still be some form of carsharing for when families go
grocery-shopping, or when I buy a sofa and need to haul it home.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Perhaps I'd have better phrased it as no more priority for vehicles first, but
it's the ideal or the vision. Every country will have the more spaced rural
communities where eliminating personal transport probably won't work. As a
human I'd like the vision to be humans first.

Sticking with cities, all of your points can be achieved designing roads for
no cars and pedestrians everywhere. We already do it to a limited degree in
the pedestrianised urban centres - which still permit emergency services.
Deliveries to shops and tradesmen are often restricted to specific time ranges
only. Barriers at the periphery enforce time or permit access. More space for
pavement cafes, planting, but keep a single lane for the few trucks,
emergency, even taxis in some places.

You can also see it with "shared space" becoming more common in residential
areas. I think it was a Dutch idea, sometimes called "naked streets" depending
where in the world you are. That's removal of all lights and markings from
junctions and streets, sometimes combined with calming features to ruin line
of sight, maybe by planting trees, or insert slaloms. That results in kids
able to play out, or pedestrians walking in the middle of the street, and
crossing wherever they like. The driver becomes no more important than the
foot traffic, and they have to pay far more attention, especially at
junctions. Still lets all traffic in, just vehicles no longer get to come
first in a set lane that pedestrians feel excluded from.

Comes down to where we place priority. Seems pretty clear the 60s post-war
ideal of Brutalism, walkways in the sky and expressways of cars, but no buses
and trams, while gaining longer commuting distances everywhere was absurdly
anti-human.

