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Pontevedra, Spain’s Happy Little Carless City
- maelito 7y agoI'd love to see a ranking by country of the most carless cities.
- lqet 7y agoBased on [0], but it seems to be extremely ill-defined what a "car-free place" is. For example, in the United States, something like a single car-free street seems to fit this definition, whereas in Europe, you will find pedestrian streets basically in every town or village, but only the places where for example the entire city center / old town is carless appear in the article. I also tried to do a little manual disambiguation: US 59 Germany 36 France 31 Austria 28 Switzerland 26 UK 17 Spain 17 Australia 16 Canada 11 Bulgaria 11 Italy 10 Portugal 9 Argentina 9 Poland 8 Netherlands 8 Morocco 8 Mexico 7 Belgium 7 Greece 6 Croatia 6 China 6 Sweden 5 Romania 5 Japan 5 Israel 5 Ukraine 4 Turkey 4 Russia 4 India 4 Brazil 4 Serbia 3 Denmark 3 Nicaragua 2 Lithuania 2 Lebanon 2 Finland 2 Vietnam 1 Urugay 1 UAE 1 Thailand 1 Nepal 1 Montenegro 1 Malaysia 1 Lybia 1 Latvia 1 Kenya 1 Kazakhstan 1 Indonesia 1 Hungary 1 Estonia 1 Cuba 1 Colombia 1 Chile 1 Sierra Leone 1 New Zealand 1 Czech Republic 3 Costa Rica 2 Burkina Faso 1 Bosnia and Herzegovina 1 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places
- wetpaws 7y agoUS having a first place looks strange given how car-centric it's culture is.
- david-gpu 7y agoThe figures are not per-capita. That's why.
- yellowapple 7y agoThe US has a lot of small cities/towns, where it's arguably easier to implement this sort of thing, even by accident. The US also has a lot of old cities/towns (or sections thereof) untouched by the World Wars, and thus having missed out on the "opportunity" to rework things for cars without having to demolish perfectly good and usable (and now historic) buildings. There are also quite a few golf course / country club / equestrian / etc. communities where there's some other mode of transportation (e.g. golf carts or horses) that's common enough to make car access less necessary.
- vinay427 7y agoOne thing I was thinking of are university campuses, which tend to be more often be localized (not spread among a larger city) in the US. I'm sure there are some in European countries but I haven't seen it yet and I'm a student here. In most of these types of campuses that I've been to in the US, the main streets within the campus are therefore closed to non-essential car traffic.
- diziet 7y agoRelevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places
- kiliantics 7y agoThis list is much longer than I expected but still so small. It will eventually have to contain almost all places or, rather, be replaced by a wiki page with the "list of places that still have cars". That future seems so unimaginable to most but it needs to somehow happen in a matter of decades, if not years.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoThis is terrible. I read the article and thought “wow this would really work for Vilnius”. Something I’ve thought for last year matter of fact. Initially ai thought some car traffic could be replaced with e-scooters, but cobbled roads wouldn’t work well for it. Turns out Vilnius (old town I presume) is already “””car free”””. In reality there’s about 3-5 streets that mostly take tourists and locals around. There are no good reason to keep them open. I really hope one day this changes. It would make city so much quieter and nicer.
- bernawil 7y ago>many streets are designed as loops, making it impossible to use them to drive from one end of the city to the other. This solved a major problem—before the redesign, some streets were choked with nearly 30,000 cars a day, most of them simply passing through. Now, Lores told Citiscope, “If you enter by the south, you leave by the south.” They got away with transient traffic and are now generating their traffic in adjacent communities. Smart.
- ihaveajob 7y agoWhat's the point of driving to X if you know you can't get to X by car? The 'adjacent community' traffic surplus idea is bogus. At most you'll generate some short term need for added parking space in adjacent regions.
- lqet 7y agoAt least in Europe, many cities have large parking spaces at the city borders where a parking ticket is automatically a public transportation ticket to the car-free city center.
- dashscript 7y agoI think you misunderstood it. Take a look at the map and you'll see pontevedra is tiny, a circle barely 2km wide. Car owners obviously don't work there but commute somewhere else (most probably Vigo in the south). Story goes, their roads where clogged with passing traffic, commuters passing by pontevedra going somewhere else. Then pontevedra got rid of all roads and made a big ring road around the city. So they turned their city into a proverbial cul de sac to escape from other people's traffic. If every other community in the way did the same around them guess what.
- Merrill 7y agoThe old city center is a warren of narrow streets and must have been hell to navigate. Seems that it was a dying city center slum and this was a key step in gentrifying it.
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- simonebrunozzi 7y agoInteresting to read this one, as just last night I was having dinner with a friend and discussed the topic of car-free cities, driverless cars, etc, for about 2 hours. It is such an interesting topic, and there's so much assumptions that we always take for granted that prevent us from having a smart conversation about it. And then, of course, there's regulation, which essentially kills any idea almost instantly. An example? In the US you need to have a rear mirror in a car. A driverless car doesn't need one... But without the mirror, it can't pass the test to make it compliant and allow it to be on the road.
- FranzFerdiNaN 7y agoMakes sense, driverless cars can still be driven manually right now. So it needs a read mirror.
- keyle 7y agoThe article makes it sounds all positive, but I'd love to hear from a local that's been through the transition. Surely the local businesses cannot be all positive about this. I mean, a car comes with a trunk, where you can put your shopping in. Having to walk 1300m or 15' worth of shopping can't be good for the local businesses.
- andys627 7y agoHere's a study looking at that: https://bicycle-research.ucdavis.edu/bicyclists-as-consumers-mode-choice-and-spending-behavior-in-downtown-davis-ca/ https://bicycle-research.ucdavis.edu/bicyclists-as-consumers... Found bikers basically spend as much as drivers... they spend less per trip but make more trips.
- icebraining 7y agoOn the contrary; walking encourages foot traffic to small shops. If you're in the car anyway, you're likely to go to the big mall outside the city instead. Having to carry stuff a bit is not a huge problem, that's what personal shopping trolleys are for.
- viburnum 7y agoThe problem is when you follow that logic to its conclusion, then everyone needs a car, streets are replaced by six lane roads, and only giant big box stores are left.
- Brakenshire 7y ago> Having to walk 1300m or 15' worth of shopping can't be good for the local businesses. The answer is you shop differently, and the shops are set up differently. I remember one residential area in a Spanish city where there were huge numbers of small fruit and vegetables shops, almost kiosks, which popped up during the morning, there was one just round the corner from where I was staying, and probably 5 within a 5 minute walk. You can literally just go downstairs and pick something up, so that’s probably a third or a half of the shopping weight on your doorstep. Then there were small supermarkets dotted around, and you’d just pick things up on the way back from the bus stop. The whole concept of a huge fortnightly shop is based on a car culture.
- ardit33 7y agoHaving traveled/lived a lot in Europe I have noticed that totally car-less city is something that actually is not necessary good, but 'limiting car travel' is. Car based transportation is still needed for: 1. Shipping of goods/deliveries, etc.... 2. Shipping of people (think elderly, sick, disabled, ambulances, taxis, etc..) Best way to do this with blocks/chunks of the cities being pedestrian only, and roads with loading/unloading areas that come close enough.... but no parking, or maybe parking centralized underground in one place, with one clear entry exit (so people don't circle around to find parking). Best solution I have seen is in Barcelona, where you have blocks cordoned off, and pedestrian only use, and still have streets that get close enough to these blocks... so you can do your deliveries as well.... Karlsruhe and Ulm in Germany do achieve this as well . (major areas are pedestrian only, allow cars to come close for loading/unloading, limited on-street parking, and parking in the center only allowed in some major underground place). Most people can reach the center, if they really have to, but it discourages daily use of the car as it would be too expensive to park.
- clairity 7y agoeven though i'm currently living car-free, i'm with you on this. sure, i'd love to see cities invest more in human-centered design and planning, but include cars in that. they're useful! but i'm totally fine putting all the cars underground.
- LilBytes 7y agoI've been in Australia from 12 years, though an ex-pat from the UK. I visited Barcelona for the first time in a decade less than a month ago and coming from a country that's so very car centric (Australia), I found Barcelona to be an absolute delight for just walking around as a pedestrian. I agree with your sentiment wholly.
- camkego 7y agoHave you been to Cronulla near Sydney? While not car-free by any stretch, it does have wonderful car-free areas that used to be crowded with cars many years ago.
- pvaldes 7y agoIt rains each three minutes, the sea is deep and wild and the water is cold as death. People talk in high pitch tones, are easy going and friendly by default with (civilised) visitors but also complex inside and sometimes release their sadness or little inner martian also. Is all by the weather So is basically like the planet Kamino (de Santiago) but with really memorable food. I love it :-) Here is the official unofficial anthem that explains everything about this crazy people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t02dFZI7nw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t02dFZI7nw4
- icebraining 7y agoI spent a lot of my youth there, yet didn't know Siniestro! Thanks for that! Galicia is a great region, you feel like you're living both in the past and in the present at once, without discordance.
- candeira 7y agoI grew up in Galicia, my sister still works for child services there. I'll give you some of the cheer and awe, but will dispute the lack of discordance.
- TylerE 7y agoHow many of these posts do we need a day? They have long ceased to be "news" or interesting. The only real variation here is that it isn't citylab.
- jlg23 7y ago> How many of these posts do we need a day? Who is "we"? > They have long ceased to be "news" or interesting. To you, apparently. > The only real variation here is that it isn't citylab. Indeed. That's why I filter out citylab references on HN in my feed.
- journalctl 7y agoAnd how many of these responses do we need on each one of these posts? I find it fascinating that articles talking about the benefits of car-free places make some people so viscerally upset. Why does this strike a nerve so much?
- smcl 7y agoThere's a little "hide" link beside each story you can use if you want to see something else in its place
- jlg23 7y agoWithout regard to the actual topic there is a gem of wisdom that applies to a lot of hackers in "projects from hell": if you want to change something big way, do it in incremental steps, do what is within reach (in reach for the most stubborn/narrow minded opponent). Just because you figured it all out don't expect others to listen to you lecture them. A small step, easily digestible, that turns out to be useful, is much more useful than long rants: a) the actual goal is one step closer, b) people will start to really think about what you say once you delivered, c) you might learn you are wrong
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- AmpsterMan 7y agoI was lived in Spain for some time not too long ago. Wife and I visited Pontevedra and we fell in love. I wish there were some way for me to get a good remote job and live there.
- WaxProlix 7y agoThere's an intentionally old-timey place in Michigan called Macinac Island (pronounced mackinaw), which has been automobile-less since I can remember. Fun place to go for a bit, get some fudge, go for some nature walks, get a horse drawn carriage ride, etc. Haven't been since I was a kid, so it's hard to say how the experience holds up. Likely a much, much lower population density than any of these current urban experiments, but I still think of it every time I see the "no cars" thing being done. http://www.mackinac.com/about/history/no-cars http://www.mackinac.com/about/history/no-cars
- viburnum 7y agoJane Jacobs has this all figured out in 1960!
- m463 7y agoOne fact I noticed traveling through europe, the small quaint cities that couldn't accomodate cars well... were designed and built for pedestrians and horses in the first place.
- lazyjones 7y agoTypical disingenuous car-hater article. They show a b/w picture from the 1970's to demonstrate the "before" situation with passthrough traffic (https://reasonstobecheerful.world/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Pontevedra4.png https://reasonstobecheerful.world/wp-content/uploads/2019/10...). If you look at maps, you will see that since then the AP-9 highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopista_AP-9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopista_AP-9) has been built around the city. So that situation was clearly resolved otherwise. It has nothing to do with the current Mayor's expensive actions to make the city more easily overrun by tourists.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jpster 7y agoThis is such a cool publication, by the way. Founded by David Byrne of Talking Heads.
- Scapeghost 7y agoThere has been an suspiciously steady spate of anti-car posts on HN in the past month.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gerardnll 7y agoBecause use of private transport has to decrease. It is neither sustainable nor healthy. Even if it's a Tesla.
- andion 7y agoI'm from a town nearby Pontevedra. I lived in the city, and outside. I really like carless cities, and move almost everywhere by bike where I live now (Coruña). Pontevedra is great, and I really like how the city center feels, it got super friendly to walk by foot. But every time I see news like this I get a little angry because they don't talk about the real experience of commuting to the city or its crazy development. Regarding development: The city has very few parks inside it compared to other Spanish cities. Mainly because they don't save spaces for them, the ones that exist have 30+ years. Building development is crazy, you can build virtually everywhere. You can see new buildings leaving very narrow alleys (example in [1]), tons of new buildings with no single "green zone" nearby (example in [2] where the only planned "park" is the little one by the roundabout) Regarding commuting: Doing so from the multiple towns around is not easy and got way worse. . Many kids go to study to Pontevedra from 20+ km around. The road from my parent's house from my mothers job has 40 road bumpers in total. She does 4 trips a day counting 160 bumps a day. It gets old quick. The "deterrent parkings" are poorly located to avoid crossing the city and the main one we can use looks like a swamp when it rains, as you can see here: https://goo.gl/maps/N7E7jjzzC2VbAjmaA https://goo.gl/maps/N7E7jjzzC2VbAjmaA I just want to put our two cents on a different side on the story, I wish they implemented some more policies for outsiders that work / use city services. I hope more people get the whole picture from this. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/LTDxgPevfgTyidybA https://goo.gl/maps/LTDxgPevfgTyidybA [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4267082,-8.634709,761a,35y,223.04h,8.02t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4267082,-8.634709,761a,35y,2...
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y agoYou know what very famous city is completely car-free? Venice. That's no joke. Venice has canals and all the vehicle traffic is restricted to the canals, but, well, that's exactly it. Vehicle traffic and pedestrian traffic never have to cross each other's path, in fact they physically can't [1]. There are large areas, especially in the interior of the main island, that are naturally only for pedestrians, areas where only small canals reach that are not accessible by motorboat, areas where you don't hear a vehicle for hours on end. And just to answer the concerns of people who wonder how commerce would continue if delivery trucks are not allowed to enter a pedestrianised city- Venice is a huge commercial zone where everyone sells everything to everyone else. Free trade doesn't need cars, people. ________________ [1] Unless a pedestrian falls into a canal; or someone like Ottobre Nero, an infamous gondoliero, manages to get their vessel on land which is not impossible with a bit of motivation.