Pontevedra - where cars come last

Before I got COVID and our trip got thrown into a bit of a disarray, we had planned to stay in Pontevedra, a mid-sized city in Galicia, for a few weeks after we completed the Camino.

It turns out I have an affection for midsized cities in Northern Spain (shoutout to Burgos!) but this wasn’t the reason for the visit to Pontevedra. It turns out that Pontevedra is famous among a certain type of nerd for being a car-free city since the 1990s, and I wanted to go walk around in it and talk with the people who made it happen.

While that original plan got derailed, we did end up finishing the Camino almost a week earlier than planned, so on Sunday we took the train an hour south from Santiago de Compostela to Pontevedra.

The train station was a bit of a hike from our hotel, so we took a taxi. (But Ona, why would you be afraid to walk 2 km to the hotel when you just walked 700km? Because I didn’t have a roller bag and a bunch of books with me on that hike, that’s why!).

The taxi driver was one of the most elegant women I’ve ever met - stylish gray bob, chic suit jacket, beautiful leather portfolio on the front seat. She looked like a fancy real estate agent. But once she started driving, there was no question of her profession. She could tailgate and honk impatiently with the best of them.

We dropped our bags and went for a stroll around the city, and I started to feel like I’d been duped. There were cars! Not many, especially in the old quarter of the city. But the narrow and twisted streets of any old quarter of a European city aren’t conducive to cars; even in Barcelona’s gothic quarter, you won’t see many vehicles. Was this whole “no car” thing fake? Greenwashing?

No. I just needed to explore the city a little more. So yesterday I walked all over Pontevedra and realized that it’s not a car-free city, it’s a city that deprioritizes them. What does this look like?

Cars are guests. Pedestrians roam the streets freely - in the old quarter but also in the new parts of the city. When I started my walk on Monday morning there were delivery vehicles everywhere, unloading and loading goods. There are strict limits for when these vehicles can be within the city center, and even with numerous big vehicles on the road, pedestrians used the entire street freely and were in no hurry to get out of the way of trucks.

The streets themselves are built differently. No curbs. Huge broad sidewalks. Very narrow lanes for traffic, most of it one-way. In the evenings, pedestrians take over the streets completely.

Sign explaining vehicle restrictions in Galician, a street with bollards, Andy and a new friend

Outside of the city center, which is a couple square kilometers, there is traffic, mostly controlled by traffic circles instead of stop lights. As a pedestrian, I have come to loathe traffic circles; they’re unsafe and difficult to cross. But not in Pontevedra. The “car last” philosophy extends beyond the city center; I always felt incredibly safe at any crosswalk or traffic circle. Cars always stopped immediately. Even our cab driver, who drove like a bat out of hell, stopped for pedestrians. The entire city has a speed limit of 30 kilometers (18 miles) per hour, which greatly increases pedestrian safety. There have been no traffic deaths here since 2011. Meanwhile in San Francisco, there were 42 traffic deaths last year alone.

The “car last” philosophy extends to parking. It’s kind of wild, when you think about it, that cities devote so much land to store private property, much of it for free. Pontevedra decided to reclaim that space and limited parking to a few strategically-placed paid underground parking garages and free street parking spots on the perimeter of the city center. So, this city of 80,000 people has about 13,000 public parking spots. Compare that to San Francisco, a city of over 800,000 people with 442,000 public parking spaces. If Pontevedra were to follow my hometown’s example, it would have almost 30,000 more parking spaces than it currently does. But they don’t need them, because they’ve built a city where less than 30% of trips are taken with a private car.

The benefits of this “cars are guests” design are numerous. The environmental benefits are huge; drastically decreased carbon emissions and cleaner air. There are health benefits to the population; kids can play outside safely, everyone exercises more just as a part of daily life. The roads are used more lightly, which means street maintenance is cheaper. Businesses are rewarded with more traffic. The lack of curbs and smooth streets make this a very accessible city; I’ve seen more folks in wheelchairs and using various mobility devices here than anywhere else in Spain.

The city is quieter and calmer too. I went across the river today to climb to a monastery in the next town (I guess it’s become a habit) and I noticed immediately how much louder the roads were. In Pontevedra, I can hear the birds sing.

There’s a final benefit to the “cars are guests” model: the reclamation of public space. The streets really are for everyone. Teens on scooters, outdoor seating for restaurants, old ladies using walkers, school kids at recess, benches to chat on. The fabulous Morag Rose told me that walking (or taking public transit) in a city forces you to interact with those around you, to negotiate difference, to figure out how to be together. When we’re in private cars, we’re sealed off from the world and from each other - at a time when real-life connection is more important than ever.

At its core, Pontevedra is a city built to foster connection. I’m not sure if that was the intent or just a happy byproduct, but it’s tangible. Last night, while walking after dinner, I saw a young woman on a scooter whiz by two old ladies walking slowly with a wheelchair. The young woman stopped and turned and shouted to the women and they had a charming little conversation in the street; all delighted to see each other. It was a small moment, but an important example of the connections we can build when we design a city to put people first.