alternatively we could get rid of car dependency
That’s fine for people who live in cities (which I acknowledge is a lot of people), but for people who live in smaller more remote and more rural places, it will never be possible to fullly be free of personal vehicles.
I want to ride a bike really bad, but cars have killed more cyclists in my city year over year my entire life.
It’s just simply terrifying out there when a douche in an Escalade is in a hurry.
If electric bikes were the only thing allowed on back roads, it would work great.
Edit: yeah, it would involve extreme changes to bike design so that they could carry more things, and there is always a need for a tractor, a semi hauling things, and moving vans.
I suppose for rural cycling to work safely, it would need a network of separate paths, plus some bike lanes attached to the roads in strategic places.
I don’t think you understand what rural means. There were people who had to travel 1 hr+ by car to get to the local grocery store where I came from. An ebike isn’t appropriate for places where you may need to travel 60+ miles, and/or in snow or bad conditions that might persist for weeks, and/or in ungodly hot / humid conditions that also persist for weeks. All three of those are true for decent swaths of the year in my area.
I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. Electric bikes are a great solution for those that don’t need to haul much or go far. Weather permitting of course. I sold my ICE sedan about a year ago and don’t miss it.
Maybe, but I feel like that ship has sailed in the US. Both for practical/economical reasons and because will resist. If half the people fought against wearing masks to protect vulnerable people from covid, good luck getting them to give up their "single family home with a yard + 2 cars” lifestyle. For those fortunate enough to have a single family home, that is.
I’m not saying it SHOULD be this way, and I’m not arguing against reducing cars with public transit and walkable/bikeable towns. However, from my perspective inside suburbia that borders rural areas, electrification of vehicles and supplying the grid with renewables is 1000x more likely as the path to fix this stuff environmentally.
And to get rid of cars for non-environmental reasons, I think that will be even more difficult. I mean, I visited Sweden earlier this year and for all the progressive stuff they’re way ahead of us on, there are still cars everywhere. They are smaller, more sensible cars with a much larger proportion being electric, but cars just the same.
We are screwed in the US because one side is actively and honestly against transit. The other side plays transit lip service but their actions prove they only want transit as a way to funnel money to some supporter (and so projects cost far too much and what we have runs bad schedules)
Start small, support deregulating zoning so people can build more dense housing, and small corner shops in residential areas, that way it’s not so far to go places. Support bike lanes so people can ride safely if they want to ride. Support work from home to prevent people from having to go anywhere in the first place.
If we started now, we’d be ready in a couple decades in all but the most compact metro areas. And that’s after we build the requisite political will. The US fucked itself hard leaning into cars as transport.
But that’s reality for most of us living in the burbs where the schools are better and the neighborhoods are better for kid stuff.
neighborhoods are better for kid stuff
Maybe it’s just me growing up in the city, but I would not want to raise my kid in an American-style suburb. Imagine being a tween but never being able to go anywhere without your parents, because everything is too far away to walk or bike and public transport is not available. Yikes.
My kid is younger but we moved from the suburbs to a dense urban area shortly after he was born. I have to agree even though he’s not yet that independent. Some of my friends back in the burbs were like “what are you going to do with a kid in the city?” But we ride bikes to parks and gardens, go to different museums and the zoo, visit festivals for different cultures. It’s pretty awesome and almost every weekend is an eventful thing for us.
My local huge park, pool, and sports complex is .7 miles. I have multiple stores and restaurants .5 miles away. Our library is also about .7 miles away. My burb is relatively walkable and perfectly bike-able.
Our grid has its own problems and is completely unsafe for cyclists a lot of the time. I know; I work there. My city has removed lanes from streets to create space for bikes and people still get killed by idiots in cars. Still inadequate public transit. Only more walkable than my own burb in certain, hyper expensive neighborhoods. Cheaper areas have homeless problems (warmer climate) resulting in tons of property crimes (mostly stolen bikes and break-ins). Many encounters with bonk-shit crazy guys yelling at stop signs (and people). Some of them have large, aggressive dogs. Oh, and then there’s the fires they start by attempting to cook or warm themselves and then getting high or drunk.
Frankly I would be stoked to live in a townhouse or condo or something on the grid. All my favorite restaurants are down there, lots to do, etc. But it’s shit for kids and the schools are rough as fuck.
Yes. One alternative is communal traffic. People are just to lazy so they can’t wait for it. If every car was indeed banned, gues how good the communal traffic would then be. Since the need increase, a lot. They would be going a lot often and suddenly there are no more cars blocking the roads. Also note that you would not have to be driving so you could do other stuff than looking at the road. And you dont have to save up money for the cars. No need to fix the car when it breaks. No need to find a gas station in time. Just less things to think about. Just look at how the flying business work today, no average people own their own plane. But still people make use of communal planes.
My city (Houston) had a bus system that goes everywhere, but the sheer size and the lack of logical routing makes it hard to use. My friend could drive 20 minutes to work (but cannot drive because of a mental disability) or take multiple buses for 3 hours each way. She now rides an e-bike, but it still takes nearly an hour and she is literally risking her life because there are no bike lanes. Plus the cost of the bike was $3000 and it regularly needs maintenance.
Nothing beats covinience. If it’s easy, people will pay up. That means you are right, that if the communal traffic improves as you say, it would get alot more people using it.
But unfortunately, cars are just so, so convinient, it’s almost impossible to beat, if you don’t straight up outlaw them.
We can’t, though. It would cost trillions of dollars and massive population relocation for it to happen.
Cars are here to stay. The only reduction I can see happening is if fully autonomous cars are a thing. I’m betting they won’t be sold to the public and will be used like Uber.
Not really. It would cost trillions of dollars - but it would be cheaper than car infrastructure. The key is to start building and running using transit now where it makes the most sense and expand that.
You’re delusional if you think there’s even a remote possibility of that ever happening in the US without inventing a time machine to stop the auto industry from killing the rail industry in the early 1900s.
The cat has been out of the bag way too long to put it back in now.
The dirty little secret is we’ve basically done that already - building train lines or subways in the US is so astronomically expensive that no one is doing it “for profit” anymore, and it looks likely that it’ll never become financially viable unless something changes massively. I mean, from what I can tell NYC can’t profitably retrofit the subways, forget about building a new line. Amtrack is constantly in bankruptcy or being bailed out. No one is going to build a modern train line from Rochester NY to NYC again - there just isn’t going to be the passengers.
