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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 ridiculou

• skh 8y ago
  It seems to me encouraging pedestrians makes things more social. Everyone driving in their own car seems a lot less social to me. Can you elaborate on why this is anti social?
  • grezql 8y ago
    friends and families are discouraged when they realize they cannot drive home to me and park here. Instead they must spend 1 hour on train. This in turn increases isolation of people.
    • tecleandor 8y ago
      During most of the day, driving to the center of Madrid is way, way slower than taking the train. The city is quite antisocial right now, full of people incapable of moving around the city due to a huge stream of cars occupying most of the space in the streets, but barely moving.
    • KirinDave 8y ago
      Was the car faster? Is taking the train actually difficult? I live in the US, in a state famous for requiring a car. I genuinely miss when I could take the train to work, and my family visits me less now that they have to drive into the city rather than park at a train terminal and ride transit in.
    • the_clarence 8y ago
      This is because you have a shitty public transport because your city focuses on cars.
    • CalRobert 8y ago
      Nobody can land a helicopter on my flat but I still have friends. Cars are about as practical in city centres.
• the_clarence 8y ago
  In Europe most people do not drive in the cities. How is that anti social? On the contrary cars are hated: they contribute to noise pollution, real pollution, accidents, etc. They take space and breaks paths for pedestrians, scooters, bikes, etc.
  • Silhouette 8y ago
    In Europe most people do not drive in the cities. That's quite a generalisation. People in major cities like London and Paris would obviously like to clean up the pollution and reduce the noise and disruption, but the simple fact is that the existing public transport systems are not even close to having enough capacity to replace private motor transport entirely, and there zero chance of them having it any time soon. And those are the ideal cases, where there is enough demand to make a reasonably efficient and close-to-24/7 public transport network viable. Those in smaller cities have much worse options in terms of efficiency, availability and reliability, as do those travelling between or outside the bigger cities. You can't just ban cars to fix this, or price them off the roads with congestion charging or the equivalent. It would take a huge programme of investment in developing new mass transit alternatives and redesigning large parts of the overall transport infrastructure within cities to make forcible elimination of cars in favour of public transport a viable option, and any such plan would probably have to be implemented over a 50-100 year timescale, with those footing much of the bill never living to see the benefits. That's a tough sell for any political administration. I personally think that making private transport less intrusive and damaging has far more potential to improve the situation in the short to medium term. Infrastructure for electric vehicles is one obvious move in the right direction, but more generally, our road systems are still designed around the idea that one person making a journey with limited cargo needs a car-sized vehicle, which is horribly wasteful in road space, parking space, fuel consumption, etc. We have some very basic infrastructure in cities these days for bikes and we make some allowances for motorbikes, but these modes of transport have serious downsides for a lot of people. Crucially, the changes needed to improve those downsides would also allow, for example, smaller electric vehicles that are still fully enclosed and having space for carrying small loads in addition to their human occupant. Combine that with increasing automation over the next couple of decades for better safety and general efficiency, and most of us might at least still be alive to see the benefits.
• NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    I am not sure what you mean by "once again". Are you suggesting that pre-car cities had no nuisance related to horse traffic?
    • NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      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 8y ago
        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 8y ago
• Puer 8y ago
  Driving is not a right. It's a privilege.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • iwwr 8y ago
    More like, mobility is a right. Areas without functional public transport still have to rely on cars.
    • frabbit 8y ago
      Imagine if I proposed taxing people approximately $5000 extra a year and then insisting that in addition they took on an extra job of being a chauffeur every morning and evening? And in addition I sequestered land and the sides of roads in order to store the vehicles which you needed to maintain, license, insure? And in addition I would propose that approximately forty thousand people a year would be killed directly in vehicle collisions and that your children would be put in danger by you and your neighbors. It is possible that you are talking about one of the very rare (and ever decreasing) rural areas which simply does not have enough population density to make public transport viable. But, we will worry about that after the dense suburbs, exurbs and downtowns have a modern transport system.
    • eeZah7Ux 8y ago
      > mobility is a right Spot on - and societies obsessed with cars effectively deny that right to people who cannot drive or cannot afford a car.
• KirinDave 8y ago
  Unless you're implying this was done against the will of the majority of the citizenry who live there, I'm curious why you think an axiom "technology should create opportunities" should override the rights, freedoms and preferences of people there.
  • kareemsabri 8y ago
    Ever heard of tyranny of the majority?
    • frabbit 8y ago
      Isn't that when the car drivers get vast amounts of money spent on infrastructure so that they can inconvenience me?
      • kareemsabri 8y ago
        Seems like a good example.
    • KirinDave 8y ago
      Ah yes. I've heard this argument. It's pretty puerile. Land, utilities and the environment aren't like human-made resources. They're finite. So there's some inevitable decision-making there. This may limit your absolute freedom, but no one promised you that anyways. It seems to me like having a majority of residents and workers supporting an initiative for local civic planning has a lot more legitimate authority than, say, a national vote on the same subject. At some point, you have to accept being an outlier.