Your title is correct not the post you linked
I’m not disagreeing with the post, but mass transit is completely non-existent where I live. We have so far to go.
Sure, some places basically require personal transport. Some of it because it is really rural, some of it because it is build to require cars (which is something that can be changed, although it takes time). The problem with cars being the default for everything in everyones mind is just, that possible alternatives aren’t even considered and thus even more car requirements are locked in for decades to come.
You can’t get rid of cars, not everywhere and in many places not right now. But you have to start and look for alternative ways to manage things so you can reduce the need over time.
Don’t know where you live, but to put this into perspective: it’s the same situation here and I live in The Netherlands (outside of the major cities). Even in a rich, flat country, the size of a post stamp, we cannot make mass transit work outside of larger cities. I agree that we need mass transit, but it’s only one solution for the mobility puzzle. Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
So from my perspective, no, cars aren’t just for the rich.
well yeah but that’s just because modern western urban planning is kind of absolute shit, it isn’t from some sort of hard limit of means.
china has such extensive public transport that it has become a popular political position to advocate building less high speed rails and shit on both sides of their political aisle.
From my perspective, you have to be rich to drive. The so-called poverty line is now what I and everyone I know aspires to one day reach, but secretly know we won’t. If you’re not wealthy and you’re driving, you have made a choice that demands compromise from every other aspect of your like. Though, likewise with not driving… But you can’t be not wealthy AND drive AND be a single parent of three, for example. And since you can’t sell the kids, you WILL figure out how to live without a car.
Where I live 90% of the homeless have cars, or are at least in a relationship with someone who has one. Many of them sleep in them. Because here you can live without a house but you can’t live without a car. Walking or biking the roads is deadly. Like you WILL die. Poor people have cars.
Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
When there’s 1 farm per 5 km maybe. In 1920, you could get from Savanah to Boston just by taking trains and streetcars; every neighborhood was served by atleast a tram.
The USSR found it worthwhile to build rail lines to remote settlements, without stops, a few times a day a guy would just drive a 2 train locomotive and stop if he saw anybody.
In some rural parts of Japan, you have lines it’s just 1 railroad, and every 20 miles is an unmanned station where it splits into 2 for the trains to pass, for like 10 stations. So you have 200 miles worth of suburbs being served by 40-50 workers running 20 3 car trains, that arrive every 30 minutes or so. The unmanned stations tend to have tons of bikes, they probably have buses too.
Average cost of owning a car per day is 20USD or so. A single railroad line that allows just 1000 people to not pay for a car does not cost 20,000 USD a day to operate. This is not including the cost of road building and maintenance. But even if it did, cheap transit is a public good; transit isn’t supposed to be revenue neutral. Roads aren’t revenue neutral.
Sure, you can get from Savannah–a major city–to Boston–also a major city just by taking trains. That’s a great case for public transport.
But as someone else pointed out, can you get from one side of Savannah to the other efficiently, at off-peak times? I lived in Chicago for over a decade, and while the transit system isn’t great, it’s not bad. I lived in the Austin neighborhood (if you know Chicago, you know that’s not a great area); if I went to see a concert at downtown without driving, I had to walk about a mile and a half to get home, because that was the closest train stop to my home, and busses in my area stopped running at 11p.
Where I live now, even if trains ran to my town (and they technically do, but it’s only freight), I would have to travel 15 miles to get to the train. And that 15 miles from where I live to the train is also about 1500’ of elevation loss. That’s pretty great for riding a bike there, and really, really sucks for getting home. Especially if I have groceries of any kind.
I agree that we should have better public transit, and I agree that the cost is a net public good. But that doesn’t solve all transportation needs. It may take a large bite out of them, but it doesn’t fix all of them.
But as someone else pointed out, can you get from one side of Savannah to the other efficiently, at off-peak times?
Savannah is a planned city designed in the 1700s. It’s probably the most walkable large city in Georgia.
busses in my area stopped running at 11p.
Continuing to run some transit late at night is one of the few things NYC and Chicago actually do better than most cities.
Even Tokyo runs some of its last trains before midnight. Some stations don’t get their first trains until 6 am. Missing the last train because of an event that let out at 2AM or 11 and it took awhile to get to the station isn’t that uncommon. It’s not terrible to walk 5km in a more walkable city. But also that’s where ebike and scooter shares, and even taxis fill the gap. You don’t need to destroy the city with parking lots and wide roads to support that.
I think that most of the trains in Chicago run late at night, although far, far less frequently. I remember taking the green line with my bike late at night, drunk, and riding the mile or so north to my home through some moderately shitty neighborhoods (a bit west of Garfield Park, if that means anything to you). I lived in in a pretty rough area; there were definitely no taxis waiting for fares near the train stations (or anywhere!), and there weren’t any e-bike or scooters in that area either. It was just rough getting around the Austin neighborhood in Chicago late at night without a car.
Yeah no I’m not saying Chicago is ideal, only that does 1 better than most cities in that it runs trains late at night. Most cities have ebikes/scooters, and an app that you can use to schedule an uber or taxi.
Being able to take your bike on the subway during non-peak hours is also nice; a lot of the world they don’t let you do that, except on a few special trains.
It’s probably not anywhere near the same situation. I lived a year in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a year in Duesseldorf in Germany. I’ve ridden my bike from Duesseldorf to Belgium and back, including rural areas.
Where I live, the nearest bus route is 7km away, and it only goes downtown. I almost never go downtown except for concerts or sporting events, but that bus doesn’t run after 6pm.
I can’t bike. I’ve been stuck in this house since the market crash that happened in 2007-2008, I’ve been here 18 years and in that time I’ve seen two people try to commute on bikes, they both disappeared after less than a month. I hope they’re alive.
I have seen more than a dozen bikes on the roadside in memorial of people who died. It’s just deadly for bikes. Tons of huge trucks on narrow curvy lanes with no shoulder, just a ditch. And high speeds.
I also live in the Netherlands and live in a commuter town of 80k inhabitants. There are a lot of bus routes in this town but they are all designed for commuters going to Amsterdam or for people going to the town center. If I want to visit a friend on the other side of town by bus I have to take multiple buses and waste a lot of time on waiting. I usually take the bike when I visit them since that’s faster than going by bus. But if I have to bring lots of things or it’s raining heavily or I know that I’m going home after midnight I take the car, since public transportation is just not a good option to take. Or if I want to visit another town that isn’t on route to Amsterdam it takes me twice as long to get there by bus compared to taking the car. Majority of homes in this town have a car since public transportation or the bike doesn’t satisfy every transportation need they have. And I rather want all these cars to be electric since that is conducive for the air quality.
It’s just not cost efficient for a town this size to have dedicated bus routes that connect every corner of town to each other. And it’s even worse for smaller towns.
Cost effectiveness is a capitalist concept and as rational people we should eschew it. We ought to construct societies in such a way that they function according to needs and desires. We have people, we have materials, we have locations. Done deal.
I agree. The whole existence of a government is based on the union of people to organize common infrastructure that might otherwise not be cost effective to be operated in a commercial manner. Therefore, public transport should be an easy 1, 2, 3. Unfortunately, it’s not the reality.
See how Japan handles that problem: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ltkiq (jump to 19:42)
My area has no local bus routes but it does have on demand shuttles via our county’s senior services. That doesn’t help with commuters or people trying to go shopping or to the doctor etc though. The biggest challenge is for young adults just getting started making low wages but needing to be able to afford housing, food and transportation.
absolutely. the debate when we were kids, and some, many in the city wanted light rail, which was ultimately voted down. my buddy who lived out in the sticks argued, it wouldn’t benefit him way out there. I should have pointed out he already benefits from the sewer and water infrastructure extended to far out communities like his. should have asked him to justify why the city supports him living out there.
Rural houses around me are all on well/cistern water and septic systems. I’m not even clear how you’d run sewer way out without elevation gain towards the rural areas, isn’t it largely dependent on gravity?
They could be using lift stations if they run the sewer out that far. If the city annexed a chunk of rural land and was planning on expanding into it over the next few years they may have preemptively investing in sewers and water to help spur development.
yes but… imagine a massive flash flood at high elevation where they built well, but not for that
Nice. A flase dichotomy so the right can cut EV subsidies as well as not spending on public transport.
A flase dichotomy
It’s illustrative of our national economic strategy. Which is to subsidize private consumer manufacturing rather than to directly invest in higher quality infrastructure.
This isn’t a false dichotomy, its a deliberate strategy of Patriarchal Libertarianism (which has mutated into full throated corporate fascism).
Don’t disagree but in China you can get a new EV for less than 10k AND get the train.
to add on that, most countries, companies have largely abandoned climate change policies. sabin made a video on it(hossefender) on youutube. even funding for research they are icky about giving grants out, if you mention climate change as a result of “human related activities”. allegedly we have tour buses to thier biotech campuses as a way to transport employees, it allegedely takes 120 cars off the street per bus. if they actually offered that more, people are more likely to get jobs in tech in biotech, since alot of biotech campuses are usually very far away from transportation hubs. what usa needs to do, is get with the times, and adopt fast railway systems.
You’re not wrong, but Sabine Hossenfelder is not a good source for well, anything (except physics, which she has excellent grounding in).
The conservatives where I live shit blood absolutely any time any changes are made to roads to make them even slightly more pedestrian and bus/bike friendly. Preventing accidents/deaths and generally having a more usable, inviting environment for anyone that isn’t a car is unacceptable if it adds even a second to their commute. Go live on the fucking highway if you like it so much.
Yeah this. It’s kinda wacky how serious they are about it.
They have been brainwashed by car and oil companies.
That doesn’t excuse their ignorance, but it does highlight that the public information component will be very expensive to fix.
It’s not that. My theory is that its a brain chemistry thing.
Many drivers don’t do any form of exercise at all, and don’t do anything exillerating ever. The only time they experience any kind of movement faster than a shuffle is driving. It’s the most exciting and engaging thing they will do all year.
With this in mind, there’s kind of an imperative to zoom around as fast as possible without encountering adverse stimuli like a fine.
It’s funny because adding more non-car options tends to make using a car more pleasant. But conservatives aren’t known for being smart, correct, or good at long term thinking.
Every car commerical shows the fantasy of being the only car on the road.
It’s so ludicrous. and consistent that when you know to look for it, it’s actually hilarious.
People do not like traffic. They already hate most cars, cause they’re only driving one.
Oh definitely. The fewer cars there are on the road the nicer it is for me to drive. Make public transport better for everyone, reduce traffic!
To be fair, I do not drive a lot in any particularly dense cities. Mostly countryside and for my main route, I use a shortcut that takes me off the boring highway, onto a curvy road that surprisingly few people use. I’m living the car commercials! Also I mean public transport for this particular route is nonexistent (one bus a day each way and they’re hella uncomfortable). If public transport was better for my use cases and if I wasn’t constantly lugging around a bunch of stuff, I’d sell my car and get a motorcycle to use on the weekends in the summer.
Perfect! 👌
Yeah. My city changed a one way street that runs 30 blocks headed away from downtown from a two lane multiple stop sign traffic hazard to a single lane with plenty of parking, a bike lane, turn lanes for busy intersections, and highly visible intersections with proper pedestrian connections. Traffic would get backed up before, but now it goes pretty much straight through at the same time of day with barely any sloowing down. Sure, all the cars are in the same lane, but prevoiusly they were just spread out between two lanes and slowing down way more often to merge and turn more slowly.
Haven’t heard of any new plans to do the same with comparable streets despite being a roaring success. People look at a single lane and don’t understand it can be faster for everyone than two when done right.
That’s funny, Lead and Coal avenues in Albuquerque, NM had the same thing done to them, being made into one ways after being clogged two ways. It’s wild how much of civil engineering has to do with rate flow.
This was a two lane one way street that was reduced to one lane plus parking and turn lanes.
Ah my bad!
Not where these people live. Most conservatives don’t live in cities.
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80% of the population lives in urban areas, and about half the population is conservative. Even if we assumed that every rural person was conservative (which isn’t true), that still leaves more conservatives living urban than rural.
Cite your 80%.
Since we both know you won’t be able to so
That is only in the US. Not “the population”
True dat. I remember how quick they were to start criticizing remote work. Saying how it isn’t fair to the office building owners when people work from home. Less traffic & congestion was probably one of the few upsides of the pandemic to me as well.
thanks, henry. your horrible ideas still echo throughout history to this day. elon’s taking notes.
why not both
The money wasted in electric car subsidies is much better spent on mass transit and cycling initiatives, both of which move far more people at much less cost per person. Electric cars are being posited as the solution (as opposed to drastically improved mass transit) because that’s the only way auto companies can stay relevant and maintain their supremacy
Also we should be looking to reduce car use because car infrastructure is incredibly expensive and environmentally destructive.
Electric cars still need ashphault, make tire dust, require salted roads. Roads will still have surface water run off contaminated and artificially heated damaging natural water ways. Roads will need to be repaved more often due to EVs weighing more.
By the end of day, we are barely getting ahead environmentally with EVs if at all. Some EVs like an electric hummer will generate more carbon through their lifecycle (production, use, and disposal) than an ICE compact car.
So what do you suggest? No cars allowed at all? Even in European countries with strong public transportation cars are still useful and allowed (except in crowded city areas). It’s hard to imagine life out in the boonies without access to a car…
I think we should pursue better public transportation primarily, but I also think efforts to make electric vehicles better are an important piece of the puzzle to transporting ourselves sustainably.
I claimed reduce car use, not no cars at all. If we cut car trips in half in favor of walking, biking, or transit thats a huge improvement. Car dependancy has other issues as well with land use causing sprawl and strip malls, which often sit abandoned and a new development is built further down the road. I think reducing car use and improving density and livability of cities goes hand in hand.
Yup. Even if we don’t reduce the number of cars, driving them less often is a massive benefit.
I think there needs to be an effort to advocate for reduced car use, many of the suburbs would be much nicer if people could be allowed to use golf carts on the roads. It would be a step in a better direction, break the obsolete car industry, and bridge to walk-able communities in existing burbs that can’t be easily or quickly redeveloped.
As much as I would love for the modern world to be able to reduce its car dependency, unfortunately in places like North America that is just straight up impossible, even with public transit places are just too far apart.
The vast majority of car trips are done locally. Most people aren’t driving from Dallas to New York to get their grocceries, go to the gym, or go to work.
Most people who live rural areas need to travel at least half an hour to get groceries, I am not talking about people who live in cities.
It’s all about protectionism for an obsolete car industry. If we legalized golf carts, and ATVs, most families in the suburbs would buy one of those. They’d use it for groceries, school runs, dentist appointments, and getting coffee down the street. Their main car would sit idle the majority of time, because it’s a hassle to drive a large car. It would make living in suburbia someone more tolerable, as you would see your neighbors more in golf carts.
I know this isn’t exactly an urban area but ATVs can be legally driven on the road in West Virginia
Tax rebates for massive luxury electric SUVs but you’re on your own if you want to buy an e-bike worth less than the total tax rebate for an EV. Most places won’t even build infrastructure for anything other than cars. My city has roads with no sidewalks that go straight to downtown and some newly built suicide bike gutters along a major stroad.
Some states have programs, I know Cali has a program for ebikes https://www.ebikeincentives.org/
Though I will admit most of Cali is not bikeable (at least socal imo, norcal is better)
Here’s a list from what I could find online on it. https://tstebike.com/blogs/new/unlock-savings-2025-u-s-state-e-bike-tax-credits-and-rebates
As long as a majority of Americans live in suburban areas, car dependency will continue.
As long as new housing is built in suburbs due to zoning, people will continue to live there.
All of the housing in my city that is near downtown or near business districts is either abandoned, run down, or gets converted into businesses.
If suburbs were developed to be people-centric, you really wouldn’t need a car for 99% of your daily tasks. Most trips by car are very short, and can very easily be replaced by non-car modes of transportation.
The argument I usually hear from car-brains is that we have to pRoTeCt RuRaL cAr DrIvErs.
Unless you’re transporting anything of a decent size which most people do frequently.
Define “decent size” and define “frequently”.
It’s incredibly rare to see pickup trucks in the suburbs or city hauling stuff. Sure, there’s that one guy who collects metal scraps once a week, but that’s about it. He’s using his truck to make a living, not to take his kid to school up the road.
Heavier or more awkward than you can comfortably carry. Weekly/monthly food shop, furniture, weekend getaways, etc.
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Fuck up naepals
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Weekly/monthly food shop, furniture, weekend getaways, etc.
Food shopping doesn’t require a large truck, or even a car.
I’ve carried 120lbs worth of groceries on an old bike + a lightweight trailer. It’s easy to haul stuff on a regular bike, and if hauling large loads is something that you’d often do, a cargo bike makes a lot more sense than a car.
These days, since I don’t support Walmart anymore, I can walk to my local grocery store a few times a week with a handcart, and get all the groceries I could need (even pulling 60lbs+ with a handcart is easy). I can also get exercise and connect with other humans at the same time! It’s a better way of doing it.
Furniture? How often? Most people get stuff like that delivered for free, or might rent a small van for the odd time they want to pick up themselves.
Weekend getaway is understandable. I don’t know anyone who goes on them every weekend. Maybe on a holiday weekend, but even then, owning a car for the odd getaway seems… wasteful.
The majority of people would still benefit from people-centric infrastructure, and an even greater number of people don’t need anything bigger than a small car (if that).
And I say that acknowledging that North American cities aren’t even designed with people in mind, so imagine how useless cars would be if they weren’t the priority?
Are you single? Food shop with a family is not feasible with the weather and roads here. Vegan too so a lot bulkier. Tins, bottles of juice, fruit and veg, dog food, etc. it barely fits in the car.
Move furniture about all the time, last week I took my garden furniture to my SILs for a party she is having.
Away doing something most weekends yes, kids demand it.
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Are you single?
No. And before kids moved out I was shopping for four adults + extra for when the grandkids stayed over.
Food shop with a family is not feasible with the weather and roads here.
Even though the option to have groceries delivered is available, I get groceries by bike or on foot all year round. In Canada. We get snow and sub-zero temperatures.
Vegan too so a lot bulkier. Tins, bottles of juice, fruit and veg, dog food, etc. it barely fits in the car.
Yes, also vegan. 25 years, now 🤩 I get it, we buy large bags of flour, rice, dry beans, and other bulky ingredients on a regular basis.
At peak-pet, we had five adult cats and two large dogs. At that time, I’ll admit that ordering pet food online with free delivery was just what we did.
Grocery shopping does require planning if you’re going infrequently.
Being in the suburbs or city, most people would have access to at least a few grocery stores within a 20 minute bike ride.
Move furniture about all the time, last week I took my garden furniture to my SILs for a party she is having.
If all the time, then you are able to justify having a larger vehicle. Most people, including most SUV owners, are not moving furniture all the time.
Away doing something most weekends yes, kids demand it. Can’t exactly put the pram on a bike either so even with great public transport the weather makes doing anything without shelter unpractical.
When we had the grandkids over, I was using a child trailer (for two) and using panniers for the groceries.
Since all grocery stores since Covid offer curbside pickup, it was much easier than you’d think.
And I don’t have a cargo bike, which would make things even easier.
My point is that a people-centric city plan would remove barriers for mostly everyone. Even within a car-centric framework, it’s totally possible to avoid using a car for most trips.
I wouldn’t have believed it until I tried.
This is privilege. Funny how so many in here would immediately bitch about others not recognizing it but in here it’s totally acceptable to be completely obliviously.
Ah. See, you’re able to ride a bike and not die. My community is not there yet.
Unless you’re moving furniture or have a physical disability it’s not really an issue. It’s also easy to use Uber/Lyft/etc and book a large vehicle on the occasions you do actually need it.
I guess if you’re buying a ton of pet food/litter or drinks regularly it could be a pain, but if an area is actually designed well you won’t be carrying it very long. And if you plan ahead and have one of those little luggage/shopping carts you don’t have to carry it at all.
Source: have lived for the past 15+ years without a car.
The juice and alcohol would barely fit in the carts
Move furniture frequently, do have a physical disability, pets, kids. Not feasible without a car. Using taxis all the time would be a fortune and kinda defeats the purpose, no?
A cargo bike would probably be better for you, then, or just a cargo attachment to a bike. E-bikes are strong enough for hauling and getting around that I see a parent and 1-2 kids being hauled around by them all the time, and I doubt your groceries outweigh that.
If you haul furniture for work or are constantly doing free deliveries for friends or something then yeah, you’re going to need transport that accommodates that. But that’s an edge case and doesn’t really negate the societal need for communities to be built around human beings and not cars. If you lived where I do you would be eligible for door to door service from the disabled transit to take you to and from the grocery store. There’s not a reason for you or anyone else to need to spend (tens of) thousands of dollars on a car, insurance, gas, and maintenance to access food or your job when we could just be doing mass transit and improving pedestrian/cyclist access.
I wasn’t arguing against building communities to be built around human beings, I’m saying they aren’t so it’s infeasible.
I’ve never seen anyone with kids on bikes here because it’d be miserable. Narrow roads, parked traffic, and no safe routes from A->B for most things. No bike routes, can’t go on the motorway, backroads are a death sentence. Looking at a cargo bike - never seen one IRL - that would fit a small weekly shop. Then you have the kids and all their stuff. God forbid we want to take the dog also.
There’s no need to spend on a car. There’s a shop for essentials within walking distance like there is anywhere I’ve lived in the UK, you could just not visit people who live further than walking distance from you, rely on other people to drop off things for you. Spend a lot more time commuting doing smaller trips to avoid being overloaded, spend more in the expensive local shops. Order a delivery from ASDA instead of driving around the zero waste shops, local co-ops, etc. Just a lot less practical and more restrictive. Not really edge cases, people use their cars to transport stuff regularly. New homes take time to build up, new family members, refurbishments, events, etc. If you don’t drive then someone else is doing it for you or you’re just doing less.
That’s not even true. E-bikes solve the low density suburb problem. You just need to actually build out appropriate bike lanes and trails. Suburban neighborhoods aren’t unfixable.
Many millions of Americans spend at least an hour commuting to and from work every day. I don’t think they’re going to want to do that on an e-bike.
Your vision is too small. What do you think the biggest problem is for deploying transit to suburbs? The last mile problem. You can have a train to the suburbs, but people still then need to drive from the train station to their home. With an e-bike, that solves this problem.
Sure, you can cite some hypermiler that commutes 2 hours across rural land between cities, but now you’re just masturbating to edge cases, the equivalent of someone that justifies buying a giant truck because they move a couch once a year.
E-bikes solve the last mile problem of transit. Look at how trains and bikes actually work in countries like the Netherlands. People tend to bike to the train station, ride the train, then take a bike to their destination. With an e-bike, your train stops only needs to be within a couple of miles of both your start and destination. E-bikes make solve the problem of the incompatibility of low-density suburbs and transit.
I used to do something like what you’re describing. I would drive my car to a light rail station then take the train into the city to work. I suppose what you’re talking about is just replacing the car with an e-bike. That’s fine, but I don’t see a huge difference in this scenario between an e-bike and an electric car, especially since I wasn’t just driving to the light rail station, I was also driving to the grocery store and to restaurants and to the houses of friends and family, etc.
Now, if I had lived in the city nearer to my work, and to stores, and restaurants, and shops, etc, an e-bike would have made a lot more sense.
Most people in suburbia have a stores within a reasonable e-bike distance of them. And yes, there isn’t a ton of difference between the e-bike and an electric car in that context. Which is the entire point! The difference is that one costs a minimum of $30k, while the other can be had for less than $1k. And for the resources to build one electric car, we can build dozens of e-bikes.
The difference is that one costs a minimum of $30k, while the other can be had for less than $1k.
That’s true, yet I still think many people will opt to spend the additional money for a car. They’re covered and climate controlled, and they offer more passenger and cargo capacity. In the Netherlands, which you mentioned as an example of a country with high e-bike adoption, there are still millions of cars. I’m sure there are fewer cars than there otherwise would have been, but cars are still very much in the transportation mix. Not a bad thing, necessarily. I definitely think it has reduced car dependency - cars are no longer as much of a necessity - but cars are not eliminated.
How am I going to bring home groceries for my family of 4 on an E-Bike?
I do groceries for 2 people once a week with a bus and my legs. With an e-bike and a cargo trailer it would be trivial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_bike
You get an electric cargo bike. The idea only sounds terrifying, no? But that’s because you’re imagining riding the thing with your kids through car traffic. If you have the infrastructure to make it practical to run errands with vehicles like this, without sharing paths with cars? Just other vehicles of similar size and speed? Suddenly it’s much more sensible.
No, they are unfixable. Suburban infrastructure costs far more to maintain than the tax and fee revenues it generates.
bUt oUr pRoFit MaRGiNs!
I don’t even know about that. EVs are prohibitively expensive for most people, and will continue to be for a while, if the idea is to have electric monster trucks on our streets.
Now, unless the future of EVs in North America include those tiny, affordable EV cars, then they might save themselves. Good luck with that! LOL
Not practical to have zero cars. Residential areas aren’t set up for it. How you going to get your shopping in with 2 kids when it’s pissing of rain like it is 70% of the time here in Scotland.
Priority should be public transport with cheap public autonomous taxis that can drive 24/7 and unclutter the streets.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone with a lick of sense in here that’s advocating for zero cars – just that the way the system is currently set up prioritizes cars above everything else when it ought to be the other way around – cars ought to be the very last resort instead of the first option most people go for. Taxis absolutely have their uses, and yes they should be cheap, but not so abundant as to divert people from using mass transit like buses or trams
You have a very city centric view. And yes this meme does hint at advocating for 0 cars. This is not the only reply you’ve gotten about this. And I know you guys love to tout the whole “most people live in cities now” while also ignoring the fact that it’s just barely half and half of humans in general don’t even live in the west. Those in Asian countries have completely different lives and routines to what you would all expect. Most of which do have access to public transit and they still have need of individual transport.
Funny you should mention Asian countries, considering both I and the author of the tweet in the screenshot live in an Asian country. We do use individual transport – but it’s not cars, it’s usually motorbikes or scooters. The “meme” (actually a serious opinion from someone who studies urbanism and transport for a living) is aimed at manufacturers and governments (like mine) who are pushing electric cars that most people can’t afford (and that people in rural areas definitely can’t afford) to the exclusion of public transit, which practically everyone can afford.
And you should know those motorbikes and scooters are FAR AND AWAY WORSE than cars. Can everyone afford public transit:
https://www.self.inc/info/cost-per-mile-in-america/
Depends on who’s setting the price.
I’ve just told you I live in Asia and you’ve sent a link about public transport in America.
Very good USdefaultism, sir.
Most of America’s suburbs are designed to have a supermarket somewhere on the outside of the zigzagging streets of the residential homes. Golf carts would be perfect, in the vast existing suburbia. Legalize golf carts for slow streets in the burbs, and you’d get a massive reduction in car use. A quick electrification of vehicles.
I like bikes, I get it that many people don’t. But at the very least legalize golf carts on slow streets. I feel that the average suburban home wouldn’t mind getting a golf cart as a second vehicle. It’s a quick way of hopping to the strip mall to get milk, or a morning coffee.
This is an argument of scarcity. That scarcity (of money, in this case) is artificial, and created by those who won the last election to make the scarcity even more extreme.
The fact is we need both, and to get both we have to change ideas and to change ideas we need to get people onboard and a good way to get people onboard with clean renewable energy in the US is cars. It’s a gigantic fucking place and trains and bikes aren’t practical in some of it.
Controversial take (for this community): Electric personal vehicles were the catalyst for the electrification of commercial vehicles. So while it doesn’t address the problem of car-centric infrastructure, EVs have had a net positive impact on the environment by converting fleet vehicles to less polluting options as well as taking diesel trucks off the road.
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Well, they solve the pollution problem in built-up areas and they solve the CO2 problem if you increase solar and wind power. The one thing they don’t solve is the congestion problem.
The congestion problem, the microparticles from tires problem, most of the noise problem, the physical safety for pedestrians and cyclists problem…
Of all the problems with cars in cities, EVs solve one of them (air polution from burning fuels) and that only if the makeup of the generation infrastructure for the electric grid is mainly renewables or nuclear.
The CO2 problem is a pretty big problem to solve, to be fair. I charge my EV at night when the ejection is really cheap because it’s nearly all wind power.
Plus, even if you reduce the number of cars by 50% you still need to replace the other 50% on the road so the EV industry needs to grow
I totally agree with you.
And what’s even sillier is that examining the facts, Electric cars are better than ice cars anyway.
This philosophy take that op posted about evs being a “rich person’s” green solution is a commentary on the general wealth required to own and maintain any car, not anything about ev technology itself.
It is verifiably true that even though cobalt mining and lithium mining are riddled with ethics issues, pollution issues, etc. The battery powered cars that those metals go into are still a net positive on the environment by year 4 or 5 of ownership. We should push for evs to use better battery chemistry but it’s not productive to try and shit on evs when battery research really hasn’t been a huge focus until recently and there is a ton of benefits.
ev cars were invented right around 1900. Imagine if we were focusing on the development of better batteries with cleaner chemistry, better power density, cheaper costs, etc for 100 years…we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
And evs are better for cost of ownership for the end user. You didn’t costume brakes nearly as fast, dollar per mile costs for energy (gas or kws) are much cheaper in a lot of places for evs (I know California is expensive for energy, I’m speaking generally), no oil changes, no break downs due to drive train…evs just work until they need tires or a new drive battery in 12+ years.
This argument I’m presenting is purely for the case of EV car vs ICE car. Public transport should also be electrified once the power infrastructure is there. That’s the real problem.
The best 2 reasons not to get an ev over a regular car(especially since they are so cheap second hand right now) are 1. long trips being a headache and 2. Your electricity cost is really high.
If you live somewhere where electric is cheap and you need a commuter car an ev is so nice.
