randya

Barcelona, 1908: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdwzY1o7k8

aidy

o jee
it's full of hipsters on bicycles

I-Like-To-Bike

Stop dreaming about the long ago past. Calcutta seems to be just the place for those who believe a city without cars is so dang desirable.

CB HI

"Imagining a city without cars"

Did you actually watch the clip. There were several cars moving about.

And a bunch of zoo bombers trying to get run over by the trolly.

uke

We could use a return to 10 mph speed limits for cars. Well, maybe not 10 mph. But I'd settle for 20 mph within city limits.

CB HI

Better make it 25 mph, so as not to slow cyclist having to weave around the cars.

genec

Oulu Finland... you can go anywhere in the city on well designed bike paths. If you do encounter a car, it will have stopped to wait for you. The city core is pedestrian and bike only. Bikes always get the shortcut to anywhere.

StrangeWill

So if we go back to bikes we're going to be shot when we protest places of work?

Bummer.

At least women wont be able to vote anymore.

StrangeWill

Actually I think that would be fitting, think of the complaints.

"Slow cars taking up the road, I had to beat one to a diveway and he almost hit me!"

Metzinger

ILTB's right. The moment we get rid of our cars, the streets will flood with people, and we'll all have to go live in tarp covered shacks. Beware.

San Rensho 

Beautiful film Randya. What I found interesting was the way the people in the film were interacting with the camera. Since movies were relatively new in the first decade of the 1900s, it will still a novelty, and it caught the attention of almost all the people on the street, who would either wave or stare at the camera.

In one of the comments written in Spanish, the author says that the people in the movie were waving and tipping their hats in a greeting to those of us living in the future.

genec

Really, tarp covered shacks... Funny I don't see that issue in cities that are heavy in bike traffic now. Copenhagen or Oulu for instance.

Metzinger

It was an (apparently failed) attempt at a joke.
Which, on further reflection, ILTB's comment may also have been.

I-Like-To-Bike

The whole thread is a joke. The OP film is fine for rose colored reminiscing about the good ol' days, but doesn't make or serve any purpose that relates to bicycling safety or advocacy.

10 Wheels

Nice film

Roughstuff

Why settle for a city without cars, though I offer Pyongyang as an example. Why stop there? Why not have a country without cars....

I offer North Korea as an example. By the way it is also a country without electricity, which should be enough to bring envirowackos into orgasmic frenzy.

roughstuff

pipes

We got a city / island here in Michigan a massive tourist spot Makinaw Island . NO CARS ALLOWED horses and bikes or of course you can walk to get around . Great place to visit

I-Like-To-Bike

How do all the visitors and supplies get to this car free paradise? Must be nice to have the car parking concession at the ferry slip.

gosmsgo

I reckon many of the people in north korea actually have more money than most americans.

Most people I know in america have a couple of car loans and a negative net worth.

chriswnw

Cool clip, thanks. To be honest though, I'd rather deal with the 1-3 cars per minute that I ordinarily encounter on less busy streets to having to deal with that mob of peds!

As an aside, I've spent some time looking at Google StreetView in various Italian and Spanish cities. Although the street topology seems very conducive to convenient cycling, it doesn't seem that many take advantage of it in the present day. I don't see the enormous bike racks that can be found in the Netherlands, Sweden or Germany. The two-wheel vehicle of choice seems to be the motorized scooter. Any observations from people who have lived in or visited southern Europe?

chriswnw

I think 25 mph would be the most comfortable. At 10 mph, half of the cyclists on the road would be breaking the speed limit.

Roughstuff

HEE! Touche! And they have the Kimch'i to wake em up in the morning. ZIIiiiiinnnnnnnnnG! Not exactly a breath of fresh air.

Love eatin' those dogs though.

roughstuff

randya

Nah, the difference is that those Barcelona neighborhoods are middle or upper middle class 'hoods, and not slums.

crhilton

I enjoyed it. Several others appeared to as well. It certainly makes sense in an advocacy forum.

StephenH

It is a neat film.

I remember reading in a history-of-trucks book, that back around the turn of the century, there was a fear that New York City was going to be buried under horse manure, and so trucks were seen as the solution to that problem. You can see that a little bit in that video, still a fair number of horses around, and that seems to be the only freight system in use.

If you think about, that streetcar is SLOW. If I had to use that now, it would take me 3-1/2 hours to get to work each day.

Where's the electricity to run those streetcars come from? Could have been hydropower (kills the Salmon). Could have been big old coal-fired boilers belching out smoke somewhere, too. It came from somewhere.

You've got to figure that getting run over by a streetcar was just a pretty regular occurence around there.