Nah, we should make life more liveable without cars. Cars in themselves aren’t bad, but our over-dependency on them is.
I literally had this conversation at lunch today. We were talking about EVs and someone said the batteries are bad for the environment and I said, “yup! We’d be better getting a nice electric transit system to replace roads and cars.” I feel like most people know we’d be better off with a good transit system but rich people 80 years ago solidified our lives.
Yeah it’s brutal. We used to have electric busses in my city that ran on power lines. They didn’t take them out until the 90s. They’d come off every now and then and the driver would have to get out and put them back on with a long stick, but whatever.
Those busses were the best. No battery, no gas. If the electricity source is clean we’re golden, baby.
Also the seats were super squishy benches, not the hard individual seats we get now. They’d be covered in graffiti and it was awesome. However, the weren’t wheelchair accessible, but I’m sure it could be done now.
Define “good”. Can it take People to a bespoke location at the time of their choosing, door to door, with sizable cargo? If so, sweet, but I haven’t seen that
No you see, you have to have an extremist opinion that you haven’t put any level of thought or attention into because it makes you feel like you belong.
Rationality and coverage of EVERY SITUATION WHERE CARS AND PERSONAL VEHICLES ARE USEFUL, is a waste of time and effort because uh duh - cars bad
Exactly. Every time I go out of my home I insist on carrying a range stove and a shed, just in case. And taking the bus is very inconvenient.
“We should improve society somewhat”
“Have you considered that the improvment will have drawbacks? I am very smart”
Cars produce CO2 emissions that are ending life as we know it on earth. Cars also produce PM2.5 emissions that give little kids asthma. Cars are bad.
Cars don’t have to be bad. Cars can run on clean energy and make our lives incredibly convenient. However, we’ve crossed the line where convenience and sustainability find balance.
We shouldn’t ban cars, we should incentivize not using them. I drive, but I live in an area where I can take transit fairly easily so I do. My city has terrible transit, but I’m fortunate enough to live in an area where it’s one bus to downtown, so I never drive down town. By the time I find parking then walk to wherever I actually need to be, the bus would have been faster. I’m sure more people would do this if transit weren’t crap. I also ride my bike and walk when I can because I recognize this.
Thank you for the more practical take.
Carrot will likely work better than stick anyway. Instead of shaming people for using what seems to be the best and only way of getting to the city, show them what a nice pedestrian area looks like, remind them what it’s like to watch videos or play games while in transit, and get them to really consider the gargantuan size of classic American parking lots.
When finished, we’ll have people voluntarily voting at city council meetings to block cars from downtown, and revamp the long distance train station going to the next city.
Right, I only passed my test 5 years ago. I know how pleasant public transport is, I was on it every day for 30 years. live in a city that has a pedestrian center that I can walk to from my house. I still need to go to the tip, the supermarket, take my children to my grandparents. I’m going to Hampton court on Saturday, the south coast to pick up a boot full of my dead father in-laws belongings the weekend after and camping the weekend after that.
How is what you suggest helping me.
The reality is “dont do that stuff” is the real answer
Cars, in of themselves, are super-expensive luxury toys to be used on race tracks. They are bad.
The over-dependency is directly correlated with production and sale of cars, but it’s not just a correlation.
You - Noooooo the invention of a machine to allow easier access across the nearly 3,000 mile long country is so terrible!!! They should be limited like super yachts for the rich!!! Don’t innovate and make tools more efficient and safe!!!
Also you - fucking delusional
You - Noooooo the invention of a machine to allow easier access across the nearly 3,000 mile long country is so terrible!!! They should be limited like super yachts for the rich!!! Don’t innovate and make tools more efficient and safe!!!
Trains
And what of people that live out in the country, far from a city? Not walkable or bikeable. Building public transport there is not viable. Cars with sustainable fuel sources are the far better solution.
Nearly every single small town was built on a backbone of rail. They could at the very least put back what was stolen.
Rail used for freight. Do you think people were taking the train to the grocery store or the doctor’s office? Not to mention, that’s still in the city. There are people that live many miles away from the nearest public infrastructure, outside of roads and electricity.
Then there’s the dilemma of being at the mercy of the train schedule. 1 to 2 stops a day. It’s not like public transport in metropolitan areas where there are many stops a day.
Back then, they were walking to the general store or the doctor’s office if they lived in town, and they were riding their horse if they were a farmer living out in the fields. Today, we have such inventions as bicycles and paved roads to replace horses. The future is now!
There are people that live many miles away from the nearest public infrastructure, outside of roads and electricity.
Yes! And they should move away and be helped with that.
Rural places will never have city services. Never. There’s only a tiny minority of professionals and artists who want to heroically settle into such places. What would be needed in this case, if you really wanted it, would be a military/authoritarian like regime to force people to work there. It happened in the past, I have lived in such times in my part of Europe. I don’t see that happening in liberal capitalism.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but people travelled in the country before cars were invented
Yea, and it took 80 years and three generations to get to your destination.
Really? You mean when people in rural areas had to stay overnight if they went to town for supplies because the trip there took so long? And that’s before a century of planning around the convenience of cars.
Yeah, I mean then. Some people got used to driving their SUV 200km into town to get a haircut and buy out of season fruit every saturday. And that lifestyle relies on unsustainable and dangerous technologies that we can’t afford to keep running. It was never going to be permanent. If you want metropolitan conveniences, you’re going to have to live in a metropolitan area. This isn’t difficult logic.
Personally, I’m not a fan of government policies that ban things, because a ban is a blunt instrument that often leads to perverse results. Instead, I think that government should internalize economic extenalities, and let the individual incentives work. People who live out in the countryside get massive tax subsidies in the form of all those roads on which only they drive, for the most part.
So, fine, if cars are the only practical transportation, then the people who want to live out there need to pay for their roads with their own money.
(That is the long way to say that I don’t think personal cars out in the countryside are all that practical.)
Do you think only private cars are using those roads? Oh dear, how do you think all the food gets to the cities?
Indeed, the topic was people living in the countryside, and (I hope) not about Soylent Green. As for the farms producing food in the countryside, they need to pay directly for the road infrastructure they use, too. That way, the true cost of transportation gets priced into the product, which lets the market allocate resources more efficiently. Government subsidy distorts the supply and demand curves, it leads to what I believe economists call deadweight loss. For example, with subsidized road transport, the cost to the farmer of locating a farm far from the city is reduced. That lowers demand for land near the city, which makes it more attractive to build housing on big lots on the land instead. That kind of sprawl means more driving, more pollution, more environmental damage. Plus, the local government has to subsidize even more pavement, which is becoming a major issue as the burden of maintenance costs is overwhelming them in many places. (Incidentally, lots of farms and food processors at least in Wisconsin face labor shortages, because the workers can’t find affordable housing out in the middle of nowhere.) We might benefit from cheaper food prices, but the cost to society is a lot higher than the benefit, hence the “loss” in deadweight loss.
I don’t think you realize how much of rural America is a random exit off the interstate. Which is mostly not local traffic and paid for those who travel it.
We have more than 4,100,000 million miles of highway in the United States, but only 48,756 miles of Interstate highway. That doesn’t sound like most places are just off of a random exit, and with one glance of the map, one can see vast swathes of land nowhere near an Interstate highway. However, the system does carry about 1/4 of all highway miles in the country, so that’s a lot of lightly-traveled non-Interstate pavement. Furthermore, revenues from highway users does not cover the cost of the Interstate system. The Highway Trust Fund has been shrinking, because the $0.184 per gallon tax hasn’t changed since 1993, and the fund is projected to be depleted by 2028. The Federal government has shored it up multiple times with transfers from the general fund. Wisconsin has done the same, I know, and likely quite a few other states that I’m not familiar with, as well.
In short, the massive subsidy to automobile travel, especially in rural areas, is not practical, because it is not sustainable.
Eh. I don’t hate cars. I just want better infrastructure for all street users. Everyone is capable of acting like a complete asshole using the public right of way. Think of the worst shithead that cut you off on the freeway. Now imagine that same shithead doing the same to a pedestrian or cyclist? It’s really fucking dangerous. All you have to do is google ‘pedestrian hit and run’ to see that we have a huge fucking problem on our hands. Ban all cars? No! Ban private vehicles where pedestrians, cyclists , and transit riders are? Yes! That way people don’t need to fucking die. Some people don’t need to drive. I’m sure we’ve all mumbled that under our breath after nearly getting wrecked by some dipshit that had no business driving to begin with.
Please don’t make light of mental illness symptoms. Triggers are serious business, they’re not a joke or an insult.
Pareto principle. Don’t lose sight of 80% of cars for the 20% rural.
Edit: maybe I misread your point. All these rural drivers are using roads that they don’t pay to build or maintain. They should be charged for their true cost of transportation instead of it being subsidized by wherever they drive.
It turns out that you can do rural spaces bad too. Rural sprawl!
https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States/Settlement-patterns
In reality, the industrial revolution and especially the Green Revolution have ended the rural economy and, with that, the rural society. These places will remain unsustainable, nonviable, slowly dying as people try to move away for better lives or as they remain stuck, dependent on some corrupt local politicians and leaders.
It’s a simple matter: once a couple of people with lots of cool machines and work vast tracts of land, the rest of the people in the area become useless.
Rural spaces are, currently, in a transient situation.
If the industrial economy collapses, then, yes, rural spaces will be great again.
I’m not trying to promote some false dichotomy, this is the economy and the people stuck in rural places are usually worse off - and that’s for a reason. They will never be better off in this context, it is not happening.
So, instead of trying to prop up a dying place, help the people migrate. End the subsidized fantasy and end the sunk cost loop.
You’re not wrong at all.
But this is basically as radical of a suggestion as banning cars lol. We’d have to have affordable housing, jobs, social services, food and resources, etc. available for those trying to migrate into cities. Most US cities don’t even have those things for the people that already live there - almost always due to NIMBY regulations with some good old fashion bigotry mixed in.
We would basically have to first see a massive change in governance trends before this could be doable.
Of course, this is entirely ignoring the cultural challenges.
We would basically have to first see a massive change in governance trends before this could be doable.
I guess you can wait until the economic ponzi game ends for those places and people abandon it:
- infrastructure decay, no repairs
- cars break down more, good luck paying for repairs
- speed drops necessarily
- no chance that fuel is decreasing in price, whether it’s fossil juice or whatever the electricity is coming from
As people give in* and leave, this decay accelerates as the measly taxes cover even less of the required maintenance.
The politics people are avoiding now will be orders of magnitude worse when it comes time to do bailouts.
Cars aren’t the real problem. The real problem is shipping cheap shit across the pacific. The top ten biggest ships pollute more than every car in the world combined. Also, fuck cruise ships, there is literally zero benefit to them, just a resort on a boat.
That’s a very compelling argument with teensy-weensy flaw of not being true. Not even close. The entire martitime cargo sector is estimated at 3-4% of CO2 emissions, whereas land transport is closer to 10%.
Yup! Source I have from 2016 has it even more unbalanced than your numbers. All shipping is 1.7% vs all road transport at 11.9%. Wish I had more recent data but their claim wouldn’t be true even if those top ten ships represented the entirety of ocean emissions and was tripled afterwards.
Caltrops is a simple solution. Banning cars seems to be where we’re having issues. So let’s start small. Ban private vehicles in dense urban cores where space is at a premium. It’s a start.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but we had thriving cities full of food before cars were invented
I think we can make the transition safely over the next 5 years if everyone genuinely treats this as a #1 priority. And it is a #1 priority, because the human species is going extinct if we don’t reduce our fossil fuel emissions to ZERO.
Sure, but they developed that way.
Did they?
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