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.

Comments

Re:Haha - say hello

[Rei]

Even the "car-free zone" isn't actually completely car-free. E.g.:

If someone wants to get married in the car-free zone, the bride and groom can come in a car, but everyone else walks,” he says. “Same with funerals.”

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:

The main grumble is that the scheme has led to congestion on the periphery of the zone and that there aren’t enough parking spaces.

Because, of course, people drive to it, then walk around in it, then drive home.

Re:Maybe I'll move to Spain

[luis_a_espinal]

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.)

Re:I can see this working for Spain

[houghi]

I cabn see this working in Spain. Not because of the unemployment rate, nor because of your misunderstanding of the siesta.

I see this working in Spain as people in Spain tend to be out of their house more than several other countries.

I have visited several Spanish cities where cars where not a thing in the center of the city. And in many European cities, traffic is either banned or discouraged.

I work in the center of Brussels and they have turned on of the main streets into a pedestrian zone.

In Leuven where I live, they have devided the city in 5 parts, so driving from one part to another you need to go out of the city and back into it. That encourages people to take a bicicle or walk.

Re:good story destroyed by CO2

[Immerman]

Increased CO2 boosts crop yields, but reduces the nutrition level, for a net loss.