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.
You can have streets which are car-friendly (for exceptional or emergency purposes where you need the car) by getting rid of all frivolous car use. There's no feasible alternative, because congestion always destroys car-friendliness except in very sparsely populated areas. And you can only eliminate that congestion by promoting more scalable alternatives to the use of private motor vehicles.
I hadn't visited Madrid in over 20 years, and found the burial of the M30 (and, increasingly, the radial highways) extremely impressive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Río
There's also the subway (impressive sprawl, infrastructure itself not so much), and decent buses.
Plenty of areas have also been closed to car traffic.
I'm all for restricting traffic, but it doesn't need to be completely either-or, even in a larger city.
I understand where it's coming from, but I have to disagree about the populist activism part. I don't think that pedestrians should worry about how to fit cars in their proposed solutions. That's something for the car proposers to do. It's not like the other way around is different. Just take a walk in any big city and you will see how pedestrians are a second thought in most of the roads.
I'd argue that the design of public infrastructure should be a discussion which every citizen is equally involved in, with the goal of finding a solution that works for all. Chanting an us-versus-them narrative does nothing but stifle this discussion, and accepting it as legitimate results in decisions being made by special interest groups (team-car or team-pedestrian) rather than the residents whom actually make use of the infrastructure in question.
To me, whether there's enough space for cars and walkability are both part of how dense a city is. Leaving room for cars must make a city less dense and usually less pleasant for pedestrians as well; in the same way, a suburban area with single family homes and limited low-rise apartments needs car infrastructure because public transport gets worse the longer each trip is and the fewer riders there are.
You can accommodate both regions within one city, but they can't overlap without compromising one or the other (edit: although this compromise is a desirable middle ground for some people). Note that Pontevedra built huge free parking areas on the outskirts of its urban area. For their whole city it's not either-or, but in any given place they've had to make a decision.