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Comment by GekkePrutser | Hacker News Reader

I live there too, and traffic here is pretty busy. Personally I don't really understand why so many people drive. Because public transport here is extremely efficient and cheap. I don't even own a car here and I'm really happy to no longer need one.

But if I had kids I wouldn't really let them participate. Even with the police escort, they might lose the group and be on their own in this busy city.

I'm from near Amsterdam myself and there cyclists are the kinds of the road. Here it's very different.

The mayor is very green and she's trying to pedestrianise a lot, but it's limited to a few lane closures and a handful of "superilla" test blocks. I think there is a lot of resistance to it. I really support her efforts but sadly she doesn't seem to be that popular. She also tried to clean up an area near the seafront with seedy nightclubs and casinos but got a lot of flak for that. I often see graffiti blaming her for stuff :(

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> But if I had kids I wouldn't really let them participate. Even with the police escort, they might lose the group and be on their own in this busy city.

At what age would you be comfortable with them biking on their own?

No idea.. I have no kids :) Not sure at what age they are capable of what. Of course I was also young but like I said in the Netherlands bikes are king of the road. And I lived in a quiet suburb.

It also depends on the area. If they'd just cycle to school in a quiet area it'd be ok more easily than if they have to cross roads like Passeig de Gracia, Arago or Gran Via, or some of the busier Rondas of course.

I rarely cycle here anyway. I mainly walk, I don't feel safe enough cycling. There's some cycle lanes but not in every street, and often not well connected, or they suddenly jump to another side (the ones on Diagonal tend to do this), mix with pedestrians etc.

> But if I had kids I wouldn't really let them participate. Even with the police escort, they might lose the group and be on their own in this busy city.

Don't underestimate the resourcefulness of kids - in many ways, Goonies was a documentary ;)

I would have been comfortable with my kids doing something like this at 7 years of age. I recently had to chaperone on a schoolbus for a week - the 5 and 6 yo are still "small" and easily scared, but from 7 up they are basically fearless balls of energy.

Sadly, as society, we don't give kids the level of independence they deserve, because we've been shocked and somewhat indoctrinated by 50 years of newscycle scaremongering. We expect every kid to end up like James Bulger if we let them roam - except statistically there will be one Bulger in millions, maybe billions, of kids. When I think of what I could do at the age my kids are now, I feel like I've let them down - but if I'd done anything differently, I would have had social services on my ass.

Being in power thanks to Manuel Valls, who was running for a reactionary far right party, did not help on her reputation.

Also, she is leading the highest amount of council driven evictions, which does not help either. (for context she reached office on her first time thanks to the anti eviction associations.)

She is green, yes.

But she is over promising and under delivering.

I think she's having a hard time because she doesn't have a big majority. There's only so much political capital you can spend. But at least she's trying!

I'm still a big fan of her :)

She didn't make any concessions to Valls at all, as Valls supported her purely out of spite for the alternative. I don't see what the problem with that is.

Also you make it sound like Valls was a fringe far-right nutjob, when C's has two major parties to its right in the political spectrum, and Valls himself left because the party was steering rightwards too much to his liking.

I'm a left-wing voter but honestly these ultra-partisan, polarizing views are a scourge that poisons politics.

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