I’m in regional Australia, it’s unrealistic to ever expect public transport to overtake private transport, we’re too spread out.
I minimise my driving, but I couldn’t survive without my own car, it’s not a black and white issue.
Sure. I get that. Where I get kinda confused by some people (not blaming you for this!) is when the extrapolation comes out. “We need cars to cross this massive gap between cities, and that’s why we shouldn’t build this tram line in the middle of this densely populated city”. Similarly, just because I think we should (talking about the EU here) make big investments into rail and ban short-haul flights, that doesn’t mean I don’t see the value in transatlantic flights.
Sorry for venting, Romania’s a shithole when it comes to cars compared to the rest of the EU.
If you replace “cities” with “rural towns” you might have a better understanding of why we still need cars in regional areas.
Australia is HUGE, the rural towns are far apart and have low populations.
You can’t run a bus/train every 10-20mins for 3 people, you run a bus/train ever 2hrs for 40 people, and they’ll never change.
I’m all for accessible cities, for those that want to live in them, but you’ll never get me away from my quiet rural life on the edge of regional centre. The reality is the transport in my town of 40,000 people has an insignificant impact on the environment compared Sydney, for example, with +5,000,000 people.
I do get that for some situations and regions, cars are immensely valuable. I also could not agree more about the difference in environmental impact between dense, populous cities where everyone has a car and small rural towns where everyone has a car. That should be pretty self-evident.
All I was trying to say is that here in Bucharest you have some idiots that talk about cars and their necessity as if we’re in the Australian outback, where no alternative could ever be possible.
