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I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly grateful) but forgot to provide reliable public transport to close-by villages (max 5km,i.e., Poio/Marin/Salcedo). This means tha people from these villages commute by car to the city, which has really poor parking capacity. And the most important thing: there are zero specialized jobs in Pontevedra. Either you are a public state worker, for which you need to pass an exam to lock a lifelong job with no possibility of being fired regardless of how incompetent you are, or you work in hospitality. My partner works in Santiago and I work in the UK. There is no future for us in our city unless we want to study and compete for a position with thousands of other Spaniards. I firmly believe the major should also prioritise quality jobs. It is pretty nice for tourists to experience a city with no cars, but the reality of most locals is that they either leave or settle to accept precarious jobs.

This is really amazing to see trending on HN. I spent a couple days in Pontevedra this summer while walking the Camino de Santiago. It was absolutely delightful and what I experienced aligns with the article. The old town was filled with wide streets almost exclusively for walking, cafes and restaurants that sprawled into plazas, and people young and old enjoying the car free public space. It was one of the first stops on our trip through Spain and as an American it was stunning.

In America the contrast is stark. Most of our public spaces prioritize cars instead of people. I’m lucky to live near the beltline in Atlanta. It’s incredible to see how people flock to the beltline for a car free experience. It’s such a rare thing in America. Where it exists you can see that there is tremendous demand for it. Supply on the other hand is unfortunately very difficult to deliver.

I really wish the US could get more of this. I know here in Boston this has been a hot issue with the summer shutdown of Newberry on Sunday.

Drivers will come out of nowhere and complain, will start suddenly caring about people with disabilities (of course in no car areas we will figure out how emergency vehicles, deliveries, and people with disabilities will get around).

Sure our public transit system needs a lot of work, but that is not an argument for keeping the current car centric system we have in place now.

Cars obviously have their use cases and I can also understand why most of the US will never do this. But the car culture within cities is insane.

Writing this on a tram in Zürich. At this hour(peak hours) they depart ever 2-3 minutes or so. Walking distance is 50 meters.

It feels great.

Now let me hear your objections to why public transport could never work at your location

There are (at least) two Youtube channels, Ray Delahanty | CityNerd and Not Just Bikes, that really drive home the point in their videos that car-centric cities really stink.

https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd

https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes

I think the thing that really struck a chord with me about car-centric development, as someone who lives in a city with fairly poor public transport (by certain standards, it would actually be quite good if it were in the US) and where driving is the norm for getting around -

Prioritising cars actually makes things worse for drivers. We spend many tens of billions of dollars a year on roads in my state and traffic in the cities (and the highways between the biggest population centres in the south east corner where most of the people live) just keeps getting worse. When you give people real alternatives (convenient, frequent public transport, more cycling infrastructure, better planned cities so you can walk and cycle to things you need nearby) that actually gets people off the road and that is the one thing that can reduce traffic (apart from somewhere having a dwindling population).

Focusing all out infrastructure spend and making cars the primary mode continues to make car driving worse, but people get angry when too much money is spent on public and active transport, because “not enough” is being spent on road infrastructure. So politicians spruik their “congestion busting” road spending, and it keeps getting worse. It’s wild.

As someone for whom driving was just the default, I came around full circle.

I'm always wondering how Americans feel traveling to Europe and being able to walk in cities. It must be so surreal that they either have to move, or they can't fathom that these cities are practical to live in.

In my city (Tampere, Finland, pop. ~260,000) the annual number of traffic accidents leading to injury has halved since 2010. A big driver has been the decision in 2015 to lower the speed limits on all local streets from 40km/h (25 mi/h) to 30 km/h (~20 mi/h), with appropriate traffic calming measures implemented where necessary. (Industrial zones are exempt.)

A map link showing the current state:

https://kartat.tampere.fi/oskari?zoomLevel=7&coord=327979.56...

I love walking - both in places as a tourist, in NYC where I lived most of my life, and in my small north shore Long Island town today.

But similar to any other "product" the evaluation depends on the user's needs. As a single guy I loved that NYC was dense and walkable - because that meant (among other things) literally millions of date-able women within a 30 minute walk radius of my house. Great! Now as a dad of 3 I don't care about that at all - and the lower density suburb let's me have a backyard for my kids and makes shopping easy, or taking the kids to activities (yes you can do all those things without a car but people chose not to when they have choice)

There should be some sort of mom-friendliness factor in these conversations. If my whole town is old people, terminally single younger people and migrants (as seems to be the case for the city in question) then high density walk ability is perfect. What's the density and transportation situation in places people actually have kids?

In Norway the public transportation in Oslo has become so bad that it's essentially no longer reliable. If I want to get somewhere in time, I have to use a car or a bicycle.

Also, the violence and sexual assaults on public transport is getting worse, the times that it does work it's completely overloaded, and the prices are insanely high and quite frankly becoming unaffordable with the insanely high inflation and interest rates.

A city that was altered greatly to accommodate pedestrians has become a city that does not accommodate anyone. This is likely to be the outcome in other cities that take similar measures, governments always fail eventually, once it becomes impractical to use cars the country's economy will suffer greatly as a result, because there will come a time when the government just decides they don't care about public transport anymore and it can be as horrible as possible because nobody has any choices anymore.

The problem that car solved years ago, is the following: you can develop a city without cars up to a point where the distance that you have to move to get to your work, or the supermarket, the hospital, etc is at max some km, let's say not more than 10/20.

That has the consequence that all people wants to live in the city center, and not in peripherals areas. This has the consequence of making the cost of an house (or rent) go up to a point where most people can't even afford it, while the salary that you get in the city rests more or less the same. Having a lot of people concentrated living in a small place produces also other unwanted effects, that lower the quality of living.

Cars allow us to develop our society not in big cities, but in rather small towns, without ugly skyscrapers of 20 floors but with nice houses where everyone can afford, for example, to have its own property, with its own garden, its own peace, without having being forced to share its living space with people he didn't choose.

To me cars, and now also remote work, are a benefit because they allow us to live in a more sustainable way. Thanks to car we can think of reclaiming villages where all the population migrated to the cities in the past years.

Example in Italy, where I live, why should I go to live in Milan, where houses cost 10 times the rest of the country, while having a car and a job that allows me to remote work at least half the week I can live in a small village near Milan and reach it by car when needed?

To me a society without cars is a less free society, in fact the development of the USA to me is to take as an example, while where they didn't have cars is the Soviet Union, and look at it...

One factor here is the perception of safety. To choose public transit over a car, you have to feel safe walking to/from the station and you have to feel safe riding the train. This is especially true if you are at a physical disadvantage because of gender, disability, age, whatever. Because it's a perception thing, this is not just about statistics. A dirty, chaotic subway station just feels threatening to passengers.

I've ridden public transit in a bunch of cities, and this makes a huge difference to how welcoming the experience is. Hong Kong is #1 for me. The trains and stations are clean enough to eat off of - probably cleaner than my car. On/off boarding is fast and orderly even during peak travelling hours. This is not a universal, and there are definitely cities where I would hesitate to take public transit if I had some other choice - which is the root of the problem when you're trying to convince a population to fund and use such a system instead of bringing their cars.

I love this quote from the mayor:

The fact that you park your private car in a public space is crazy: if you don’t have room for your freezer, do you put it on the sidewalk?

I would love this.

In my US town, which I believe gets high walkability scores, they've shifted more pedestrian-hostile in the last few years (while incidentally also managing to tick off many drivers and brick&mortar small business owners).

For one thing, the "separated" bike lanes are hated by many drivers and business owners, and seem more dangerous for pedestrians than before. (Reduced visibility of cars, and now almost universal reckless freeway-like use by motorized e-bikes/scooters which more normal bikes are now mimicking.)

Also, during Covid, they let restaurants spread out onto the sidewalks and street parking of very busy streets, and now this is not only pretty unpleasant and unhealthy seating for customers (desperate for even the slightest hint of what human-friendly planning could be like), but tends to be an obstacle course for people who just want to walk on the already problematic sidewalks.

And in stretches of the sidewalk on major streets that don't have restaurants blocking them, at any moment, someone will come plowing through at full speed on one of those huge 'e-bikes' with the huge tires.

The one a few nights ago, through dense walkers on the sidewalk of the central business drag along a main street, at high speed... the rider of the 'e-bike' the size of a large motorcycle was clearly paying close attention, and his face looked like he was operating at near the edge of his ability to avoid hitting anyone (which would cripple or kill them), with the confidence and judgment that comes from being barely 20. Which confidence should gamble only his own life and limb, not those of others.

I think the bike rental stations on the sidewalks (now including e-bikes) also now lead to even sensible people being desensitized to riding the sidewalk, since you have to go some length of sidewalk with the bike just to access the station. Many people end up riding right up to it, and accustomed to that, even though it's illegal in at least some cases.

(The first thing I would do is temporarily outlaw all the motorized bikes/scooters, except for people with official medical reasons, it's gotten so bad. Until we can treat them as motor vehicles with sufficient regulations, and re-educate people not to be completely stupid bordering on psychotic. Then, after correcting for all the backsliding on safety and street life, we can resume thinking about the cars, which, even though 4-wheel drivers have long been called "Massholes", lately the 4-wheel car drivers been paragons of responsibility, compared to 2-wheel drivers in general.)

First sort out how people can manage to visit cities without having to own a car on first place.

Most European villages and town are unreachable without cars.

Some can already consider themselves lucky if there is a daily connection into one direction.

Everyone likes to think we are all living in Paris, Berlin within city boundaries.

I feel like a bit of a failure when it comes to transport. I tried for many years to cycle to work in Dublin covering 25km on an ebike, but gave up after several nasty incidents that almost resulted in serious injury (for example my head almost going under the wheel of a van). I've experienced so much hatred, verbal and physical violence from drivers — and I'm the kind of cyclist that is fully lit, clad in high-vis and stopping at all traffic lights.

About a year ago I started to take the bus. My commute went from an hour on the bike to over two hours. Spending four hours a day on a bus to travel such a short distance is not a fun experience. The bus meanders through a city choked with traffic. It's often faster if I get off and walk that part of the journey (I've checked). I enjoyed cycling for the most part. It was great for fitness and clearing my head. The parts of my commute away from cars were beautiful but there was a significant risk of death or serious injury every time I got on the bike. More and more drivers are buried in their phones. Cycle or bus and you'll see this.

The bus was slowly killing me. It was hard to work as the crowded bus wobbled around narrow Dublin streets along with various degrees of anti-social behaviour. I got off the bus angry and frustrated and groggy.

I've just bought a small little electric car and I can get to work in around 40 minutes. I don't have to listen to other people's loud voice calls or TikToks that are so loud they penetrate through ANC. I don't have to ask someone to make space on the seat they are occupying all by themselves and their bag and endure the dirty looks for it. I don't have to wait and wait for buses that never show up. I hate the bus. I hate that I hate the bus. I feel like a failure for having to buy a second car but I fucking tried!

I'm happy in my car. It's fun to drive and it makes me happy and guilty. I feel like I have so much more freedom. I'm not tied to the bus schedule which placed very tight limits on my time, and the bus frequently didn't show. Otherwise it would take much longer to get home. I can stop by somewhere on the way home and pick something up. Like the bike, I am by myself in the car and I can decompress. I can sing if I want.

It makes no sense for a 25km commute to take two hours. Its madness. By travelling from one suburb to another via the city centre the bus becomes wholly impractical. A public transport system has to work so that people leave their car at home. London worked for me, I got the tube everywhere. Valencia has an amazing public transport system. Dublin is completely broken.

Prioritizing people is by any means the way to go, but it's not hassle-free.

It has an impact on businesses and delivery operators that end up being obstructed.

Ideally I think one should move towards layered cities, pedestrians on the ground while beneath them roads, parkings and especially train and train carts thrive.

I was walking in a narrow street in Granada, Spain yesterday and two guys on their scooters where going at 40mph, on a street meant mostly for pedestrians. They pollute like cars (the stink is the same, even if smaller engine.) When people talk about cars ruining cities designed for walking, they should include scooters. They look cute in movies but they are not so pleasant to have around in practice. I don't mind the electric scooters the type you stand on because if you're going really fast on a narrow pedestrian and you hit someone it won't be so fatal, and you will get hurt probably equally, so people generally don't ride them at maximum speed. Also, they're essential for take-away food delivery.

This is nice and all for tourists and people that live in the city center. But then if you don't live in the actual city and need to drive for half an hour to reach the city, spend half an hour searching for parking, then take a half an hour bus, then it's not so funny.

To me, it's more than just reduce traffic, but a sign that government is investing in its people. In order for a traffic free/minimal zone to thrive, you need policies that promote affordable housing, policing policy that reduces crime without being "brutal". The population also must accept certain civil responsibilities as trust and respect must go both ways.

Don't forget to throw out the stinking loud gas mopeds and motorbikes while you're at it!

This linked article and the comment section remind me how I admire American maximalism. No half-measures - want to be able to drive everywhere? Let's bulldoze whole cities to make them car-oriented. Tired of the concept after a few generations? FUCK CARS, let's have Pontevedra everywhere.

Meanwhile there are places in the US that managed to preserve a more balanced approach. Take for example the borough of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Fgs9pBLmGCgWbtLGA?g_st=ac

At first glance it looks like a typical car-oriented landscape, but note the presence of sidewalks. There's on-street parking, but hardly any driveway visible, because they're at the back, connected to one-way alleys.

That is brilliant. On one hand the area is fully walkable, on the other everyone gets to live in their detached house with a garage and whatnot. You can drive, but you can also walk. Hell, you could probably even cycle through those alleys as cars use them only to park, so they won't be speeding through there.

I'm hoping for a self driving taxi + trains combo to maybe solve the problem.

For one a self driving taxi fleet could take up vastly less space - you'd no longer need one car per person, you'd need far fewer parking spots, most cars could be single or double seaters again taking less space and running more efficiently.

The space savings could be used to boost rail-based public transit options, which would see more adoption as self driving taxis make last-mile transport cheaper and easier. A bunch of positive feedback loops driving public transit adoption and improvements.

Result is cleaner and more efficient transport for all, and vast amounts of space returned from serving cars to serving people.

At least that's the dream!

That’s cute. But if you don’t have the public transportation infrastructure & enough housing it’s totally infeasible. People who drive the cars are not the city residents. They are the ones who cannot afford living in the city and have to commute from far away.

> Made for People, Not Cars

cars are just people that move from A to B.

if there is no sensible way to move where you need to go it is not a city made for humans but just hostile to people and their requirements.

i need exactly 63 downvotes please, don't be cheap.

What this article doesn't mention is that economically, people are so much more productive then cars.

The land value of your city will be so much better if you have a walkable city. Walkable is always the start, then you map bikes, and public transport on top.

You will have city that is economically productive and vibrant.

Something I said a couple days ago:

> It's not an either-or. You can have streets which are car-friendly, bike-friendly, and pedestrian-friendly at the same time. Just look at the Dutch, they've been doing it for years. That is until recently in some big cities, though, where some less knowledgeable politicians have also adopted this false populist either-car-or-bike concept. Though the traditional principle still applies to about 99% of the country's roadworks, and it works really well.

Adding onto that, sentences like "made for people, not cars" absolutely validate my point that this is nothing but populist activism. I'm hoping that we can all have a honest, intellectual discussion on how to make infrastructure better for everyone. Just make sure to always remember in every discussion about this topic: it is never either-or, not even in the densely populated Netherlands.

That's how the EU liberals are losing the last drop of good-will that they have from the general (lumpen) populace. But good for them they all stand behind gentrification.

My favourite thing about living in the Netherlands is that kids have freedom. They can bike to school, their friends’ houses, sports, town etc and parents aren’t their taxi.

Growing up in suburban California I was basically in an outdoor prison until I could drive.

I am going to be downvoted for this but I am not wrong.

The thing most mass transportation advocates need to understand when it comes to the US is that we don't want cars necessarily for convenience, we want them to be able to avoid other people. We don't want to have to endure the constant micro aggressions of other passengers. We certainly don't want to have to endure the assaults, murders and rapes that happen. We don't want to be forced to mix with the most violent of society while unarmed and packed liked sardines.

Every argument you make about cars being more dangerous are 100% valid, we just don't care. We would rather die 10 times due to an accident than a violent murder. Its just our nature. Until you can get crime to essentially zero or ensure either an armed officer in every train car or allow citizens to carry mass transportation will not be a thing in the US. Especially not in Red states. I'm talking complete removal of all inconveniences, including things as minor as someone playing their music loudly on a blue tooth speaker. This murder of the Ukrainian woman combined with the treatment of Penny essentially killed any hope of mass transit being popular in Red states for the next 100 years. I am not arguing for or against Penny's actions I am simply stating the effect that it had on most people that support what he did, the same people that would need to support mass transit for it to catch on.

Again I am not arguing numbers here, mass transportation is obviously statistically safer than car travel by a massive degree. I am arguing human nature. We will not subject ourselves to criminals and intentional violence when there is an alternative no matter how much more dangerous that alternative ends up being

I feel like this common conversation is missing a dimension. Car vs. public transport is too flat.

I prefer that cities are walkable and have good inter and intra public transport. So I'm with the anti-car crowd on that.

However, I do not prefer cities in general. So I'm with the pro-car people on this one. I enjoy the trend of spacious car-friendly suburbs and rural areas. I value the space and freedom over the conveniences of the city.

So a tax financed site telling how it's great to have more tax and regulations. Not surprising. Find it very weird to have government trying to gerrymander things just as we are on the cusp of EV transition and autonomy. Go take a ride in a Tesla with FSD, the future is here, let it come in, get out of the way. In a few years with autonomous vehicles the need for vehicle ownership wild radically decrease and with that a huge need for parking space will simply vanish.

What I suggest instead: make electricity super cheap use all the ways possible create space for charger system but let brands compete( don't over regulate) Allow autonomous system to operate, be a trailblazer in the field.

People also drive cars, so a better title is: Made for pedestrians, not cars.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of ideology in the issue of restricting car traffic in cities, for example, the Netherlands is often cited as an example, but they forget that it is one of the most motorized countries in the world (80% of families have a car, and 33% have two), and has one of the densest networks of motorways in the world, and 78% of trips in the Netherlands are made by car, and the average distance of a bicycle trip is only 5 kilometers. I do not argue that local restrictions or a ban on cars, especially in the center, make life more comfortable, but this does not mean that it is necessary to restrict it everywhere.

I often ride a bike, but it is generally surprising that after a century of development of the car, the creation of comfortable climate control systems, noise insulation and multimedia, I am seriously asked to take children to school in the rain, wind or snow on a bike. For me, this sounds like regression

This would lead to literally murder in my part of upstate New York. Heck, my neighbor will even park on his own lawn to avoid the ten foot walk from the pavement.

Urban is usually associated with panhandling, trash, public urination and crime.

> "Galicia is mainly and historically ruled by the right-wing Popular Party"... (Galician Nationalist Bloc)

So they likely have much stricter standards of what constitutes acceptable urban behavior...

... than, say, New York, where very recently a person with 30-year criminal history has allegedly killed a couple...

... or in Charlotte, where an Ukrainian refugee was fatally stabbed in the light rail.

Pontevedra has around 80K inhabitants, so it's practical to design it this way. But when cities are much bigger, problems start to arise. Not everyone can afford to live in the center (nor is there space for them, and building taller than a certain number of meters or floors is often forbidden for various reasons), so people begin moving farther out.

Sure, there's public transport... but only until it takes six times longer than driving a car - and that's not even counting all the issues public transport has in many places, which some people deny even exist, although doesn't matter to me because I just experienced them first hand way too many times (I have never owned a car until recently).

At that point, you might as well move farther out to a nicer house, less expenses and just drive a bit longer.

How about we enforce existing laws first?!!!

It is dangerous for pedestrians to walk on sidewalks, because cyclists on their electric motorbikes are driving there 30 mph!

Aggresive off-leash dogs are everywhere! Entire cities, parks and streets are one big dog toilet!

North Americans visiting Europe often grapple with why they enjoy European cities more than North American ones. It's often perceived as an architecture issue ("Europe has historical buildings that we don't have") but very few notice that the main difference is the urban scale and the resulting walkability. The Netherlands has plenty of modernist and even brutalist architecture yet every city there is a pretty nice place to be. This is because they know how to scale cities to human centric proportions. The layout of buildings together with the connective tissue of tram lines, bike lanes and sidewalks is what makes their cities alive and safe, not elaborate building facades (although they have some of that as well).

Relevant for USA: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2023/04/07/car-free-cities/

Do you want to live here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w

While the current Paris administration has its detractors, its policies, removing surface parking, expanding bike lanes, and lowering speed limits, have done tremendous good for air quality (see the Airparif study for details in [0]).

Paris may not yet be at Amsterdam’s scale, but only 5 % of daily trips in the city are made by car. It’s staggering that roughly 50 % of public space is allocated to cars [1], despite their minimal share of actual mobility. And I'm all in favor in further reducing car lanes, parking spots...

[0] in french - https://www.airparif.fr/actualite/2025/comment-la-qualite-de... [1] https://www.transportshaker-wavestone.com/urban-transports-s...

Sounds amazing. When I visited Venice in 1997, I appreciated the lack of cars about as much as the presence of the canals.

These threads always turn into fights between car vs. non-car people. But the answer should just be more of everything. More bike lanes, car lanes, buses, trains, parking, etc. Close a street or two off to car traffic, maybe just on weekends initially, to create a nice walkable downtown area.

People always seem to talk about these things like it's one size fits all, when needs vary massively from one city to another. And even from one neighborhood to another.

Bike lanes and public transport will reduce traffic congestion as long as they are well-designed and people actually use them. And being able to get into a car and drive somewhere is incredibly convenient when traffic is light and parking is plentiful.

TL;DR: «Only “necessary traffic” is allowed in Pontevedra: vehicles used for emergency and public safety, public services (including garbage and water trucks, etc.), transportation of people with reduced mobility, and accessing private garages are permitted 24/7. However, loading and unloading for commercial supplies, home delivery, transporting bulky objects, and house moving and related activities, are permitted only during certain hours.»

Fifteen-Minute Cities and Chat Control are brought to you by the same people

It is timely to publish that the day pretty much all public transportations in London are shut down because of a strike, and it is raining in case you thought cycling would be a good idea. Meanwhile the streets of Paris are blocked by leftists trying to set the city on fire, also disrupting public transportations.

Taking car transport to the extreme is bad, but the narrative that life in a small flat and commute by public transport is the future is dystopian, too.

The "air pollution" argument is disappearing fast as well with the ongoing transition to EVs.

What we need is a good balance. Pedestrians, bicycles, public transport, and cars.

It's all fine and dandy until you realize that economy pays a big buck for faster and more comfortable ways of transporting a body. (And it's been this way since time memorial).

You either transport your body fast, or you are missing out. And the greatest thing to miss out is an opportunity. While programmers can live in one room for years and just use Zoom for everything, others can't.

Sorry to say, but most of my European friends who were much anti-car, have changed their opinion after... buying a car. Being able to move in whatever direction at whatever time and being able to carry some stuff in your trunk makes your life convenient. Add to that the privacy and your personal AC and you won't be able to top it off. In South Africa personal vehicle means security at night.

The only places where this works are the places where: 1. People live for retirement and pleasure. 2. The road infrastructure is just straight hell. (Like Portugal. It's bad in Lisbon. It is terrible in there). 3. Where you are not under any circumstances can be robbed by a random person on a street.

So, the so-called cars problem is not something solvable. You just have to handle other factors to and cars will follow. I've seen cities where improvement in economic and social conditions led to the development of nice pedestrian and bike infrastructure.

I have never once in my life seen someone with groceries on the metro. I have no car and kids.