There are cities that came to be said as 'paradise' as a result of banning cars

There is a city that excluded cars from the center of the city because "vehicles that should be possessed by individuals can not be occupied by public spaces". Although it is a city that suffered from problems such as traffic congestion and accidents, the city has been in a declining trend, but the population has turned to an increasing trend with this plan succeeding, and it has become possible to say to residents that "there are no cities that are easy to live".

'For me, this is paradise': life in the Spanish city that banned cars | Cities | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish-city-banned-cars-pontevedra

In 1999, Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores, who was appointed Mayor of Pontevedra , a city located in the southwest part of Spain, Galicia, said that "ownership of a car does not mean the right to occupy public spaces" I have a very simple philosophy. At the inauguration of Mr. Lores, 14,000 cars were traveling around the city on the day, but due to the cars children and elderly people could not use the roads, we decided to solve the problem.

Mr. Lores is a person who became a mayor after served as a member of the opposition party for 12 years and became a mayor after a month without a pedestrian road including a cobblestone road and a center continuing from the medieval period as a pedestrian It was set as a priority area.

"Drugs rushed, cars overflowing, the historic center was dying, the city faded, polluted, traffic accidents occurred frequently, getting depressed, getting the opportunity to leave the city Many of us actually went away.We originally thought about improving the traffic situation, but we did not come up with a good plan, so we excluded the car and asked the residents I decided to regain public space, "Lores says.

The left is the center before plan execution, right is the center after execution.

Specifically, Mr. Lores first prohibited running a car in the city and removed the parking space on the ground. This is because cars looking for parking spaces were a major cause of traffic congestion. Instead of eliminating all the parking lots in the city center, we have parking spaces in the basement and in the surrounding areas of the city, of which 1686 are free spaces. We adopted a roundabout to exclude traffic lights, expanded the range of "no car area", and set the speed limit of 30 km / h in other areas.

As a result, the number of deaths of traffic accidents from 1996 to 2006 was 30, while the number of deaths in 10 years thereafter decreased to three. The dead from 2009 has become zero. Despite the population declining in another town of the area, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 70%, Pontevedra got 12,000 new residents. In addition, thanks to suspended building permits for large shopping centers, small businesses have been able to withstand Ponte Pedra's small business as the Spanish economic crisis broke out small business.

The plan to "eliminate cars from the center" is also criticized as creating traffic jams in the surrounding area. Also it is said that there is not enough parking space. There is no public transportation between the parking space and the center, so there is no way to walk or use a bicycle. However, because the city center is small enough to pass in about 25 minutes on foot, people who criticize also say, "I lived in Barcelona and Toledo, but there is no place to live so much", he says that this model will not be rejected It is.

by Dani Oliver