[rebuilder]

From past experiences with different European cities, I'd guess this may be a case of an old city being forced to adapt to motorized traffic.

I've lived all my life in young cities, where most of the infrastructure seems to have been designed in the 50's or thereafter. Also almost ridiculously strict regulations about how much space a given type of road requires. Generally speaking, there's very little trouble of the sort being discussed here, but you do get people complaining about delivery trucks parking in the bike lanes - in areas built in the 20's.

At the other extreme, go to old towns in a place like Croatia, and there are no bike lanes - delivery trucks park by just stopping in traffic. As far as I could tell, it was just a fact of life.

The point being, I suspect this is a result of trying to cram too much traffic into too small a space, and not being willing to accept the consequences.

It's very hard to change n old city to suit motorized traffic. After a while, I actually felt more comfortable driving in Croatia than I do in my nordic home town, because everyone seemed to have adapted to the suboptimal roads in towns by being very careful.