Pontevedra, Spain’s Happy Little Carless City

imartin2k | 180 points

Having 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.

ardit33 | 4 years ago

Without 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

jlg23 | 4 years ago

It 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

pvaldes | 4 years ago

This is such a cool publication, by the way. Founded by David Byrne of Talking Heads.

jpster | 4 years ago

I'd love to see a ranking by country of the most carless cities.

maelito | 4 years ago

You 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.

YeGoblynQueenne | 4 years ago

I'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

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 [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4267082,-8.634709,761a,35y,2...

andion | 4 years ago

There'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

WaxProlix | 4 years ago

I 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.

AmpsterMan | 4 years ago

The 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.

keyle | 4 years ago

One 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.

m463 | 4 years ago

Interesting 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.

simonebrunozzi | 4 years ago

Jane Jacobs has this all figured out in 1960!

viburnum | 4 years 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.

bernawil | 4 years ago

There has been an suspiciously steady spate of anti-car posts on HN in the past month.

Scapeghost | 4 years ago

How 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.

TylerE | 4 years ago

Typical 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...). If you look at maps, you will see that since then the AP-9 highway (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.

lazyjones | 4 years ago