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Life In the Spanish City That Banned Cars (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via The Guardian: People don't shout in Pontevedra -- or they shout less. With all but the most essential traffic banished, there are no revving engines or honking horns, no metallic snarl of motorbikes or the roar of people trying make themselves heard above the din -- none of the usual soundtrack of a Spanish city. What you hear in the street instead are the tweeting of birds in the camellias, the tinkle of coffee spoons and the sound of human voices. Teachers herd crocodiles of small children across town without the constant fear that one of them will stray into traffic.
"Listen," says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street below rises the sound of human voices. "Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here." Miguel Anxo Fernandez Lores has been mayor of the Galician city since 1999. His philosophy is simple: owning a car doesn't give you the right to occupy the public space. "How can it be that the elderly or children aren't able to use the street because of cars?" asks Cesar Mosquera, the city's head of infrastructures. "How can it be that private property -- the car -- occupies the public space?" Lores became mayor after 12 years in opposition, and within a month had pedestrianized all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre, paving the streets with granite flagstones. "The historical center was dead," Lores says. "There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars -- it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn't come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars."
Some of the benefits mentioned in the report include less traffic accidents and traffic-related deaths, and decreased CO2 emissions (70%). "Also, withholding planning permission for big shopping centers has meant that small businesses -- which elsewhere have been unable to withstand Spain's prolonged economic crisis -- have managed to stay afloat," reports The Guardian.
"Listen," says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street below rises the sound of human voices. "Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here." Miguel Anxo Fernandez Lores has been mayor of the Galician city since 1999. His philosophy is simple: owning a car doesn't give you the right to occupy the public space. "How can it be that the elderly or children aren't able to use the street because of cars?" asks Cesar Mosquera, the city's head of infrastructures. "How can it be that private property -- the car -- occupies the public space?" Lores became mayor after 12 years in opposition, and within a month had pedestrianized all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre, paving the streets with granite flagstones. "The historical center was dead," Lores says. "There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars -- it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn't come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars."
Some of the benefits mentioned in the report include less traffic accidents and traffic-related deaths, and decreased CO2 emissions (70%). "Also, withholding planning permission for big shopping centers has meant that small businesses -- which elsewhere have been unable to withstand Spain's prolonged economic crisis -- have managed to stay afloat," reports The Guardian.
nailed it
I thought the Founding Fathers codified that we can drive our clean burning gasoline Cadillacs everywhere in the world? Methinks it's time to invade this troublemaking region.
While there are many more, and more important, things to consider; Pontevedra just made my list of cities that I might like to call home one day.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
If we want to make cities and towns more livable, it is possible. Pontevedra has around 82,549 inhabitants and if it works in such cities, it will work in other European places in the same way resulting in better living conditions for half the population.
So no cars just in the historical Centre ... big deal this is common here in Europe....
Teachers herd crocodiles of small children across town without the constant fear that one of them will stray into traffic.
Is that really the correct group name for children? A crocodile of children?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I have never yelled because of vehicles. But I live in a country which requires cars have devices to keep them quiet. Perhaps they have no regulations requiring mufflers on cars in Spain. Why not solve that first?
I do have one question, though. Most car haters expound on how much public money funds automobiles. I'd like to see how dramatically Pontevedra's taxation has dropped. After all, with a ban on cars must come a significant reduction in taxation.
Would you prefer bananas of children ? Snakes of children ? Cluster of children ? Gaggle ?
There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars -- it was a marginal zone.
Not sure that "pedestrianizing" street corners here is going to reduce drugs.
I'm trying to understand how this works. They make it sound like there's no vehicles of any kind. Pontevedra is 118,3 km, equivalent to a square 10,9 kilometers on a side. Do people walk 5km or so to get into town? Even the elderly and disabled and infirm? And if they buy something in town, walk back hauling that? Even things like furniture? Shops in town, stocked by... 5km hike with a handcart? Can someone explain to me how exactly this works?
ED: Aha, just read the article:
Not the whole city of ~80k people, just 1/394th of the city. 0,3km^2. Just a big pedestrian mall, really.
Why is this news?
"Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
This is your only warning. We do not need your lazy, entitled blogging around here. We have no need for millennials who contribute nothing but selfies. If you even approach the area, you will be deported. We really should build a wall to keep out bad hombres like you people.
Even the "car-free zone" isn't actually completely car-free. E.g.:
They haven't talked about stocking shops, but if they're carving out exceptions like that, then I imagine vehicles for stocking shops also get exceptions.
There's also the obvious implications of the scheme:
Because, of course, people drive to it, then walk around in it, then drive home.
"Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
"Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here."
So this is a city of less than 14,000 people. That's a good size for this experiment.
Now would this work for some of Manhattan? Hell yeah. Brooklyn? Maybe. LA, Phoenix? Nope. For the right size and density yes.
My only question is how those adorable coffee shops get their supplies daily. Hand trucks? Burros? So a mostly-ban would be probably just as useful as a total ban, and restricting deliveries to very early morning or late night only disturbs the sleep of residents. Small price to pay. \s.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Cars are a negative influence.
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/07/how-cars-divide-america/565148/
I am living in a small town in Spain, similar size to Pontevedra, a few hours away from there and even with a pretty similar name. Here people use cars a lot and honk constantly (why?). I live outside the center, in an almost rural area where there is virtually no traffic. A very calmed neighborhood. Yesterday's night a bunch of idiots were honking for a while during the night!! Why??!! No traffic, no people, nothing to celebrate (don't get the point of these celebrations either)!! Doing it under very specific driving conditions seems logical (I do honk before using the lights when driving, but only as a last resource), but why in any other context? Not even in big cities with lots of traffic.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
"Teachers herd crocodiles of small children across town without the constant fear that one of them will stray into traffic"
what the fuck is a crocodile of small children? That's gotta be a mistranslation thing. Anyway, let's all not teach our children about the dangers of roads so they can just walk out into traffic when they're older and move away I guess.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
People don't shout in Pontevedra -- or they shout less
Just how loud are cars in Spain?
The whole city is the size of a typical shopping mall. There are no cars inside shopping malls - for the same reason.
I think everyone that would want to live that way should go ahead and move there and enjoy the serenity.
No really, get the fuck out of here.
Not the whole city of ~80k people, just 1/394th of the city. 0,3km^2. Just a big pedestrian mall, really.
Why is this news?
If you look around with Google Street View at what I assume is the proper location you can see a few delivery and other construction vehicles, but otherwise it's a lot of foot traffic.
The one thing I'm curious about is residents, if the city centre is all tourist and business than you can make do with foot traffic. But do residents with cars need to park outside the boundaries?
I stole this Sig
With a youth unemployment rate of 50% and a siesta that lasts half the day, no wonder this is working well.
No one does any work in Spain, so it makes sense that banning cars works in this town.
still a nice idea. I think if you build a city with proper public transport and actually shut down the roads ( I mean like tear them up and put in trees) starting with the most congested area's and then working outward, this could really be a green and human alternative to the modern city. Maybe even adding some more innovative public transport like walkways with Segway's / foot taxi's Elevators cars that could take you to different places.
Walking is healthy for you, reduces stress, and eliminates pollution. Of coarse the trick to any large systemic way is to have a strategy to phase it in so that people can adapt to it.
This phrase makes no sense to me. How is it they are "herding" the crocodiles? What relationship to they have with the children? Is this a 'custom' in Spanish towns? My brain cannot construct a matching mental image.
By the way less CO2, is less food for the trees...
Wow, how on earth did trees survive before we built cars, then!?
your gustatory quantification apparatus needs recalibrating
Taking the square root I get a square with a side length of about 550 meters or 600 yards. Not very large at all. Sounds to me like the banned area isn't the entire city, but instead a small area in the center.
So what's the point of the article?
In Groningen, in the netherlands, they did something similar a *long* time ago. You can drive your car into the medieval center, but you can't drive *through*. The city center is divided into 4 quadrants, and you can't get from one quadrant to another without first going to the edge. Also there's hardly any parking.space inside. There are cars in the city, but not many.
Still has the same problem of extra busy edges, but still I think it's a success.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeerscirculatieplan_Groningen (in dutch)
Car engines are not the noise issue.
Cars in Spain are as loud as anywhere else: not very, unless modified by the owner to make more noise than it did when it left the manufacturer.
Motorbikes and scooters in Spain are as loud as anywhere else in Europe: loud or very loud. In particular, small motorbikes are very much louder than cars.
I strongly suspect that the decrease in ambient noise volume is from two things, neither of them being car engines:
Removing the Spanish drivers and their horn buttons from the town, and
removing the scooter and motorcycle engines from the town.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
A crocodile of children.
I Iike it.
Me too. I can just picture the headlines: "A crocodile ate a crocodile of Children whilst on a school trip to Kenya."
"Gaters vs. Crocks. In a tragic turn of events, while visiting Walt Disney World in Florida a crocodile of children was consumed by a crocodile of alligators."
"Pythons consume a crocodile of children while visiting the Everglades."
If they really had 14,000 cars or so traveling through there daily, where did all that traffic go? Surely it wasn't all local traffic. I have to assume his move to ban cars from passing through just increased the traffic in surrounding areas, as people were forced to detour around it.
This doesn't seem like a very workable plan for many cities. He might get away with it as long as he's a lone exception to the rule. But as soon as you have a few adjacent cities trying to pull it off, you're going to create some real traffic problems and effectively roadblock travelers from passing through that part of the country.
Pontevedra is 118,3 km, equivalent to a square 10,9 kilometers on a side. Do people walk 5km or so to get into town? Even the elderly and disabled and infirm?
You don't have to walk 5km to get to town because you're already in town when you're at the walking only zone.
we should build skyways and give the city back to pedestrians. Or we can cut ditches for the cars and buses.
According to the map, an average American mall has more area than where the cars are not allowed.
I know some people are trying to bring back the mall+residential concept here in order to keep malls from dying. The difference here is that Pontevedra is the city center instead of the middle of fucking nowhere.
This would make sense for any city that has never been rebuilt since the invention of cars. But it doesn't make for a useful model on existing major cities.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Increased CO2 boosts crop yields, but reduces the nutrition level, for a net loss.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
they use to put us in pairs that hold hands and walk like soldiers behind the pair before yours. Easy for the teacher to count you every 5 mins.
I have no idea what âoebecame mayor after 12 years in oppositionâ means or implies and Google is giving me nothing helpful.
I spent several years fixing copiers and printers. I have also worked in the HVAC industry. When I see these car free articles my first though is, "what about maintenance and repair?"
We visited Florence once and found it much more pleasant as a pedestrian tourist because of their traffic restrictions.
https://www.visitflorence.com/...
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
And they were cold, very cold. Much warmer now. Trees are happier now, just ask one.
They want to add weed :-
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/09/17/a-deal-with-coca-cola-could-make-aurora-cannabis-t.aspx
No. In Spain, everyone walks, a lot, even the elderly. One of many reasons why Spaniards are healthier than Americans. The 3-4 hour lunch break also means that Spaniards can and usually do have home cooked lunches - far healthier and cheaper than packed lunches, takeaway, or eating out. Oh, and there are supermarkets and markets within a short walk of just about everywhere people live. I really miss living in Spain.
Idiot.
I am a tree. A Silver Birch to be precise. If you make it warm I will die. My children will wither. It's not like we can move so easily.
Fuck off. Idiot.
Pedestrianized zones in city centers are common across Europe. It's typical to see 'loading hours' in the early morning when delivery trucks and garbage collection can roam. Emergency vehicles and police tend to get a free pass so the roads need to be passable.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The city's expenditures should be much lower since most car haters suggest a huge portion of city revenue goes to funding cars. If you're correct, the city might be able to eliminate all forms of taxation except sales tax
ORLY? Near the end of the quoted part of TFA we find:
That was in 1999. They granite-paved more than 17 square kilometers. Any bets on whether they're still paying it off a generation later? Or how many times they paid for it when you include interest?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The one thing I'm curious about is residents, if the city centre is all tourist and business than you can make do with foot traffic. But do residents with cars need to park outside the boundaries?
I spent six years living in Singapore where the taxes are such that only rich people can afford cars. And I was absolutely miserable taking public transportation. The public transportation was horribly overcrowded and, as expected, everyone was always sick and coughing and sneezing on each other. And also absent-mindedly picking their noses and flicking the boogers aways onto neighboring passengers, etc.
Now I live in Los Angeles with an hour commute each way to work. And compared to Singapore it's absolute heaven. I'm usually able to park my car about 20 feet from my apartment. And on my commute I can crank up the AC to be pleasantly cool (in Singapore I would arrive at work drenched in sweat and have to change all my clothes) - maybe relax singing along to some Enya. And then I can park about 50 feet away from where I work. And if I'm feeling a bit sleepy after lunch I can go out to my car and take a nap to finish out my lunch break.
And then when I go grocery shopping on weekends I'm not trying to carry a weeks worth of groceries with me on a succession of crowded standing-room-only public busses. Or if I want to take the family somewhere fun for the weekend, it's not an epic journey of transferring between four different public busses to get where we're going. We just all climb into my nice little air-conditioned car and are able to have a cozy quiet conversation together while we get where we're going quickly and efficiently by car.
For me, having a car is absolute heaven compared to the years I was forced to rely on public transportation in Singapore.
Oops. Slipped a decimal point - by more than one. (Should have used a calculator.) It's only a little over half a square kilometer., not 17+
Still,crash-programming a granite repaving of half a square kilometer isn't cheap, either.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
And I'm a Colorado Quaking Aspen. I can't reproduce by sex any more, only by cloning. PLEASE turn up the heat.
...shut down the roads ( I mean like tear them up and put in trees)...Walking is healthy for you, reduces stress, and eliminates pollution...
So when your house is on fire and the fire department walks on over with whatever hoses and equipment they can comfortably carry, I'm sure you'll feel good about the reduced stress and eliminated pollution. :)
you can be almost anywhere in the Bay Area in under 15 minutes. With stops.
15 minutes transportation time. 2 hours to get through security and another hour to find some to park near the hyperloop station
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
They're quiet, not really a car or motorcycle... Hrmmm, seems like Bird should suddenly show up and take over! ;)
This sig intentionally left blank.
While there are many more, and more important, things to consider; Pontevedra just made my list of cities that I might like to call home one day.
Not to take away anything from the city, but we have suburbs larger than Pontevedra (which makes its social experiment possible.)
If you can afford to move and live there, by all means. I just hope you are paying attention to job prospects in such a small city with double digit unemployment rate, with the Spaniard economy experiencing a lot of hurting.
It would be a nice place for retirement (though not necessarily the cheapest.)
No need to go that far away - probably most of the benefits of going car free can be had via superblocks - https://www.theguardian.com/ci...
I always thought being able to drive directly into my house garage was a massive luxury with clear exernalities like road noise, traffic danger and increased pollution, and honestly if I could instead park away from my house and had to walk there to take my parked car (or more likely, public transit or taxi), I'd consider it a good tradeoff (esp. considering kids would be safe from traffic in that superblock)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Same with funerals.
Yes, the cadaver would have a hard time trying to walk...
And can't they just sell stockings at the supermarket? *Our Leggs fit your legs...*
Where I'm there is always some jerk to park the damn think and idle engines to eternity, wtf people turn that shit OFF!
Because it was never about CO2. It was an is all about regulating industries out if existnce. I even had on if the cronies say it to my face because he knew I couldn't prove what he said to me. Environmental regulation is a linchpin to how they go after industry, jobs, wealth and your while way of life really. It was never about the environment. These are the same people that detonated nukes in the upper atmosphere ffs.
A lot of the trees just a few miles from me are presently on fire after yet another severe drought year due to climate change.
I imagine that probably doesn't make them happy. I'm disinclined to closely approach a burning tree to ask.
What in the fucking vuck is rudeness and the kernel and the SJW religion got to do with congestion mitigation in the real world ?? Thou shall bow before the all powerful all knowing townhall planners ?
One of the chestnuts here that are dying off since so many more of the specialized insect pests killing them survive the warmer winters? They expect my state to be chestnut-free in just a few years.
When I see these car free articles my first though is, "what about maintenance and repair?"
In a pedestrianized city? You are clearly talking a load of old cobblers.
They make a VERY good argument for a car-free lifestyle.
Rather than 300,000m2 300 km 2 would be about 15km a side, 10 miles.
How does it feel, punching mother nature in the face?
The whole city is the size of a typical shopping mall. There are no cars inside shopping malls - for the same reason.
45.68 sq mi is the size of a typical shopping mall. Bullshit much?
How does it feel, punching mother nature in the face?
Ha ha, that's actually pretty funny!
But, seriously, all this nonsense about re-usable shopping bags and forcing people to use public transportation, etc. is totally missing the point. If people were really serious about reducing the impact of the human species on the planet then there is one thing that totally eclipses everything else: the total human population.
If you really care about the environment then it's all about providing people in developing countries with the education and resources to avoid unplanned pregnancies - and also about pushing back against certain evil organizations that encourage people to have large families.
In a sane world, it would be people who have lots of children (and people like the pope who encourage them) who are asked how it feels to be punching mother nature in the face.
"owning a car doesn't give you the right to occupy the public space" -- but it is public space.. am I not part of the public? Oh wait... nm... public space = state space that the public is privileged to use at the discretion of the state.
When you go to pick up a date, you have to _literally_ pick her up!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
>"With all but the most essential traffic banished, there are no revving engines or honking horns, no metallic snarl of motorbikes or the roar of people trying make themselves heard above the din -"
And banning motor vehicles is way overkill. A modern, in-spec, unaltered car or motorcycle makes very little noise. I would say 90% of typical vehicle noise comes from illegally modified exhaust systems, ancient and/or very poorly maintained vehicles, modified stereo sound systems with huge speakers/amps, and large/commercial vehicles (dump trucks, buses, package trucks, semis, etc).
No it was not due to climate change, or at very least not human climate change (some areas of the planet are ecperiencing very slow climate change because thats just how it is). You know nothing about climate, get over it.
It is strange that shops selling stockings would get a special exemption.
The out-of-control fire is because of fire prevention; fire prevention that led to lots and lots of burnable stuff all over the place. Had there been ordinary small forest fires every few years, this wouldn't have happened.
I don't eat trees, and we don't have any giraffes in my neighborhood.
We can afford them we're just too busy watching avocado stepmom porn and killing ourselves.
... What are all your lifetime's accomplishments worth, if you die on the toilet? :(
You're basically bringing up the big problem with the American mall. A lot of American malls are named "Blahblah Village" or "Blahblah Town Square" -- but what is a village or town without RESIDENTS? American malls are basically hamlets without the "ham" (in this case, they etymology of "ham" being a cognate for "home").
If you stack apartment buildings on top of a shopping mall, you get a traditional walkable village with the added benefit of climate control. Your mall will now never become a dead mall because it has its customer base built-in, and nobody needs to drive on a daily basis because most of their daily needs are within walking distance (and if they work in a different mall-town you can easily build quick transit between them).
It's still a two-bit town where you can run all sort of "experiments" you want, because the results do not scale up. REAL cities are another matter.
A common misconception is the idea that those pregnancies in other countries are "unplanned". In most human cultures (and in most species), maximizing offspring is a good thing -- it increases the survivability of your species/race/culture/family. It's only in certain very wealthy cultures where the value of the individual has eclipsed the value of a family that people no longer want to reproduce. Even then in these wealthy cultures, many older individuals wind up spiraling into depression because they don't have children or grandchildren.
That's why some third world countries have incidents where they violently oppose vaccination programs -- because sometimes someone starts a rumor that the vaccines are secretly including contraceptives. People still want to have 10 children to make their family and tribe strong with many providers/fighters.
Now we can go to the mall to be stared at by the angry old lady, hear a couple upstairs getting in a fight and Eddie the wino stumble around drunk again.
I suppose in your happy authoritarian rule home town we can just arrest those who cause a disturbance to the businesses.
If you care about the environment then you will sacrifice a human(s) regularly.
The population is out of control and mother gaya is sick if it. She was fine with charging 10 cents more for plastic bags, but that was yesterday. What have you done for me today?
Just like that Abraham fellow, she needs you to bring her some blood, any body will do.
To make the adjustment easy, start sacrificing your prisoners and Democrats. Once those are cleaned up you can move onto your loved ones.
Next up, in order to be a better person, you need to own less things. Non materialistic people are just better. Also, we may not sacrifice you until later if you demonstrate how much better of a person you are. So take those possessions and toss them in the trash or flat out burn it up. After all, recycling is mostly just burning garbage.
I think this could be the start of a better world. Dont forget to take an axe to anyone who disagrees ... you are doing the lords work after all.
Stay woke and broke!
Trader Joes has some good deals on chest nuts. No need to worry.
Everything is better in Spain.
I was just robbed and it was a far superior experience to any theft in the United States.
Dont get me started on how much better it is being out of the job and living on the streets of spain. You really havent lived until you wake up in your filth on some street and then proceed to deficate publicly.
I know some people claim they can do the same thing is San Francisco, but it doesnt sound nearly as pompous as doing it in Spain!
Life is defiantly more fulfilling over here and that isnt all due to the worms.
The problem (at least where I live) is that the malls themselves are located in places where nobody wants to live. Who wants to live in a warehouse located 15 miles (and 45 minutes during rush hour) away from the city center? You couldn't build enough housing to make a mall self sufficient. These things usually serve communities of tens of thousands, and are designed to attract tourist/shopping traffic from as much as 100 miles away.
There is a dying mall near me that is less than 15 years old, and it is so big that it has to be located outside of the suburbs. Their theory was that "if you build it..."
Turns out nobody came. And there aren't any mass transportation routes or even realistic highways near the thing, so nobody wants to live in or around it. Hell, I just want them to hurry up and bulldoze the thing so they can stop running the lights over the empty parking lot all night. Its a light pollution eyesore.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
All five of the warmest five years on record in my area have been since 2012. The fact that we're experiencing an extreme drought is not a coincidence. This area would not be catching fire, especially in September, in a year when we had a remotely normal climate.
Facts are stubborn things. You can stand outside at noon in the noon and deny the sun exists - "no, there is no radiation, or at very least not solar radiation, you know nothing about radiation, get over it" - but you will still get burned.
There can be plenty of legitimate disagreements about what responses to global warming are appropriate. But claiming it's not happening, in the face of a decade of record temperatures and melting ice, or claiming it has nothing to do with us, in the face of obvious science about what CO2, methane, etc do and the fact that we've doubled their atmospheric concentrations in the past 70 years, is simply delusional.
I'm sure some things are out of some context that I'm missing, but this sounds too easy.
> "Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here."
Well then Mr. Mayor, this sounds like terrible planning. It sounds like your city's in the way of people from not around here, trying to get somewhere else.
> "How can it be that the elderly or children aren't able to use the street because of cars?"
For the same reason cars aren't able to use the sidewalks. They're both there to serve different purposes, and using one where the other is intended will give you results you might not like.
Again...I'm missing context. 'cuz otherwise it doesn't sounds like the intellectual elite are being voted in over there. But then, where does *that* ever happen...but that's another story.