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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.
again stupid story about less CO2, how about less smell, less pollution, cleaner air? Only people with an agenda, and stupid media followers talk in CO2 levels. By the way less CO2, is less food for the trees... But hey who am I, just an anonymous coward...
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.
Have them say hello to Ned Ludd and team. It is fine if they want to do this, but they have to understand that it means the city will continue to decline as all the young folks will move away to find more opportunity - just like what has happened to many small rural towns over in the USA. You drive through some that you have been travelling to or through since you were a small child and the population on the city limit signs keeps going down. This will happen there too.
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.
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.
"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.
are motorcycles.
And Trump.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
we should build skyways and give the city back to pedestrians. Or we can cut ditches for the cars and buses.
...that you even NEED streets if you don't allow cars? wasted space.
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.
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
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
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! ;)
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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
Where I'm there is always some jerk to park the damn think and idle engines to eternity, wtf people turn that shit OFF!
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 ?
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.
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?
"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).
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.
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? :(
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.
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.