I recently visited three Spanish cities in 10 days while not burning a gallon of gasoline. I saw the future and the past, all converging to make the cities I stayed in imminently more liveable than cities in the US. It’s no wonder that people in Europe are happier, live longer, and have much lower carbon emissions than in the US.
To start, life is centered around your neighborhood. Almost every block I walked down has a coffee shop, a pharmacy, a restaurant, maybe a bakery, and a fruit/vegetable vendor; this is the case even in tourist districts. There’s no need to hop in the car for an errand or generate instant trash with take out when you can stop in for a bite, a coffee, or carry home that cucumber you forgot to buy from the supermarket.
Second, the government actively invests in maintaining small-scale retail. Barcelona is famous for its markets, helping to eliminate food deserts and making sure everyone across the city has access to high-quality and sustainable food. There’s more than just the Mercat de la Boqueria on La Ramba (which is the market tourists know about). The City of Barcelona has public/private partnerships to operate over 40 local-serving markets across the city. These markets allow small clothing, produce, meat, cheese, seafood and prepared food vendors to rent small booths and operate successful small businesses, all without having to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to open a free-standing location. Each market has 100-200+ stalls/vendors.
Cities across Spain also invest heavily in making outdoor public spaces inviting for all ages and lifestyles. A wine bar near me in Oakland has to get a special permit to open because it’s within 1,000 feet of a school. In contrast, Spanish cities build outdoor bars (with plenty of non-alcoholic options) immediately adjacent to public playgrounds because it’s OK to put things that are fun for kids and adults next to each other. Public living rooms work and are much more effective at activating public spaces than expensive and one-time events.
As for transit, my first experience with taking a bus in Madrid was realizing that I didn’t buy the right kind of transit pass (train only). The good thing is that every single bus in Spain’s big cities have tap-to-pay systems. Transit should be easy to use and easy to pay for. With almost every credit or debit card allowing for tap-to-pay, this should be table stakes for any transit provider in the US. Few people have $1.25 or $2.50 or $2.75 in exact change in their pocket to pay for a fare.
And as much as some voices on the left like to crow about “fare-free” transit or other social-equity driven ideas, being a stakeholder in something often means supporting it with your time, money and effort. Transit in Europe is definitely not free but it’s reasonably priced, convenient and has stiff fines for breaking the rules. I saw a team of 5 fare inspectors working in Barcelona as soon as I entered my first Metro station and they were issuing €100 fines to scofflaws. I didn’t see a single person hop a fare gate in Spain over 10 days. Social cohesion usually requires enforcing a shared set of rules; this is in contrast to BART and Muni’s wholly ineffective fare enforcement programs. From personal experience, if I don’t see a person hop over a BART fare gate when I enter or exit a station, I’m usually surprised.
One of the reasons why I think people are more willing to take transit in Spain is I rarely if ever needed to know when the next train or bus was coming. Subway trains would show up every 4-6 minutes regardless of whether it was 7am or 11pm; this is in stark contrast to BART, Muni and AC Transit’s often 20-30 minute waits until the next train or bus. These waits in the Bay Area making taking trips via transit a logistical nightmare, especially when transfers are involved.
And when transit stations are designed in Spain, they are central hubs allowing for easy transfers for people of all ages and mobility levels. Brand new Muni stations in San Francisco in contrast, like the “Market Street” stop for the T train, requires a rider to ride massive escalators and walk hundreds and hundreds of yards to transfer to the other Muni or BART lines that are actually along Market Street. Transit stations shouldn’t make your life a nightmare if you have limited mobility or are carrying suitcases.
America on the other hand is dominated by the almighty car, particularly the massive “body-on-frame” SUV/Pick-up Truck. I didn’t see a single one of these super-sized vehicles in Spain. Delivery “trucks” and work vehicles in Spain are mostly small hatchbacks; “bigger” jobs are carried out by vans smaller than the smallest truck you could rent at your local “U-Haul”. Nothing is more intimidating than teaching your kid how to ride their bike and seeing an 18-wheeler driving down your neighborhood street at 30 miles per hour. Trust me, I’ve seen this in Oakland.
Also, something that really stood out is how police in Spain mainly drive around in small sedans or “tiny” crossovers. Almost no police departments in the Bay Area are allowed to initiate high-speed car chases (except in the most dire scenarios) and most police work revolves around responding to crimes that already occurred. Is it really necessary for OPD to respond to calls for service in massive Chevy Suburbans, Ford SUVs or F250 Super Duty Pick-ups? Police should keep us safe, the sizes of their trucks are dangerous.
Lastly, local streets in Spain are for people, not cars. Almost every street in Spain has some form of hard barriers to protect pedestrians from vehicles. But that’s almost not necessary because speed limits typically range from 6 to 25 miles per hour on local streets. But cars often can’t even go this fast since the streets are for people, not cars. If a street is narrow, people have priority, cars need to follow behind the pedestrian. You won’t hear horns honking from drivers in frustration, you don’t hear growling V8s intimidating you, the cars just calmly scoot along, slowly and safely.
It’s amazing how much more pleasant walking in a city can be when you know that cars will stop for you in a crosswalk and you see that the cars are approaching the crosswalk at 5-15 miles per hour and not over 35 (a speed that is almost guaranteed to kill you).
Americans often equate the car and the open road with freedom but is it really empowering to circle the block for parking, pay >$1,000 to operate your vehicle, or have to sit in your car and drive somewhere everytime you need to take your kids somewhere, buy a loaf of bread or grab a bite to eat? There is an alternative, we just need to decide what future we want to have… and maybe it involves a bit of going back to the past.
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Ryan Lester is a transit and Vision Zero advocate, a long-time Oakland resident, and he served as a Co-Chair on the City's Reimagining Public Safety Task Force.
