Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives • Hacker News Board

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#441

Post by washadjeffmad » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 12:04 PM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #438

salixrosa wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me an example of the immense freedom and flexibility that cars brought? Can you give me an example that doesn't involve driving to the middle of nowhere, that isn't solved by a good public transportation system, and doesn't involve bringing home large amounts of groceries, or furniture, etc?

Daily routine for people who do not live, work and socialize exclusively in the city center. Things like going to work, piking up kids, shopping, visiting other people, having hobbies, outdoor activities, returning borrowed stuff,...

Or has the presumption of car ownership (or indifference to those who without) exacerbated zoning problems, increased prevalence of food deserts, and widened the wealth gap in communities even within cities?

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#442

Post by em-bee » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 1:00 PM UTC

DocTomoe wrote: post #435

em-bee wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which countries/cities are you talking about? i didn't make that experience in germany for example.

Germany is kind of a mixed bag here - situations are getting weird quickly if you search for Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg or Stuttgart, they get somewhat acceptable when you consider Berlin (but listen to them complaining about rent!), and in some areas, living is almost free (most of the Ruhrgebiet). Also consider that if you are reading HN, you are likely to work in IT, which gives you a skewed idea on average income…

fair point. i did go by gut feeling, and haven't actually done any thorough comparison. and yeah, i can totally see that working in IT won't let me feel the pain of above average rent.

berlin is indeed interesting, one would think that with it being the capital city, the demand would rise, but i guess that east berlin is less popular, and that berlin also suffers from the overall reputation of east germany.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

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Post by oftenwrong » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #275

oftenwrong wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps, but there is much more to it. Florida is flat, but Floridian cities are almost entirely non-bicycle-friendly. San Francisco is hilly, and has many people riding bicycles.

Florida is also a very hot swamp. Riding a bike in the southern US during the non-winter is far different than riding a bike in Northern Europe.

And San Diego has great weather, yet it is largely car-centric. On the other hand, New York has terrible weather, and has a high bicycle mode-share.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#444

Post by stellar678 » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #150

stellar678 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in a small town of 100,000 people, that means 11 of your neighbors will be killed by drivers crashing their cars every year. And that doesn’t account for the deaths and health costs caused by road pollution, by inactive lifestyles forced on communities due to car-centered infrastructure, etc... Given the car-oriented status quo, perhaps it’s true that cars give owners tremendous freedom and agency (at the…

> If you live in a small town of 100,000 people, that means 11 of your neighbors will be killed by drivers crashing their cars every year. True. But for comparison, if we live in this small town of 100k people, then 192 people will die from Heart Disease, 178 people will die of Cancer, 47 people will die of Respiratory diseases, 43 people will die of Stroke, and 16 will die from the flu (influenza or pneumonia) every…

Thing about car crashes is...they are the #1 most common cause of death for young people from age 5-25.

If you look at the population-wide stats, things are dominated by diseases of aging because more old folks are dying overall.

Every death at age 25 has robbed us of more than double the number of years of life than a death at 50.

As for the rumination about productivity, desirability and cost - I really don’t understand your argument.

How do cars make life more affordable in communities that are well-equipped to live a car-free life? (Well-equipped meaning with density of services, walkability and transit.)

The paradox you describe is just a function of how rare these dense, people-friendly communities are in our landscape of endless exurban development crisscrossed by 6-lane expressways where you have to wait 5 minutes to cross the street while walking your dog. If we built more of these high-demand, people-centered communities, the price differential would not be so great.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#445

Post by salixrosa » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #438

salixrosa wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me an example of the immense freedom and flexibility that cars brought? Can you give me an example that doesn't involve driving to the middle of nowhere, that isn't solved by a good public transportation system, and doesn't involve bringing home large amounts of groceries, or furniture, etc?

Daily routine for people who do not live, work and socialize exclusively in the city center. Things like going to work, piking up kids, shopping, visiting other people, having hobbies, outdoor activities, returning borrowed stuff,...

A city center isn't required for public transportation to be convenient. I've taken public transit through suburbs and tiny towns and out to the countryside.

It just so happens that most of the public transit in the states royally sucks -- even in the city centers.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#446

Post by magduf » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:19 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #383

magduf wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you don't need to do it all at once, and you don't really need to bulldoze every building and road. It would be more realistic to just "upzone" as the other commenter said, and stop accommodating car transport so much and start aggressively redeveloping after adding public transit infrastructure (which would be a lot cheaper and easier if you bulldoze along the routes so you can do cut-and-cover instead of diggi…

While you do that in the core, the outside of the city still grows, and that's all car based - there's no way around a city expanding and not building it for cars, unless you get the bus infrastructure out there before the people show up, which would appear to be a monumental waste when every city in the world's focus seems to be cutting taxes.

The cities in America grow because there's various incentives for them to do so, and nothing really constraining that growth in a way that favors cars.

Don't build new roads to the core, maybe even take out, restrict, or slap huge tolls on the existing roads, and you'll keep people from wanting to commute in by car. Also remove rules requiring parking spaces, and even encourage replacing parking lots with buildings or parks or anything else, to make car driving the most miserable experience it can possibly be

There's lots a government can do to make people stop driving cars so much, and stop moving out to the suburbs. There just isn't political will (in America) to do so.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

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Post by mcguire » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #434

mcguire wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apropos of nothing, in 1890 (i.e. pre-car), a pound of flour was roughly $4.00; a dozen eggs was roughly $6.00.

And correlated for inflation?

I should have said: that is in 2016 dollars.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#448

Post by nec4b » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 8:36 PM UTC

salixrosa wrote: post #445

nec4b wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daily routine for people who do not live, work and socialize exclusively in the city center. Things like going to work, piking up kids, shopping, visiting other people, having hobbies, outdoor activities, returning borrowed stuff,...

A city center isn't required for public transportation to be convenient. I've taken public transit through suburbs and tiny towns and out to the countryside. It just so happens that most of the public transit in the states royally sucks -- even in the city centers.

It is not a matter of quality. By definition public transport cannot connect all the dots on the map. It is simply impractical or rather impossible. The car gives us freedom of movement that nothing else can currently match. You personal anecdote of taking public transport doesn't invalidate other people use cases and needs, because what works for your situation doesn't necessary work for everyone. If I may use a CS analogy: public transport is like a collection of linked lists and a car is like one giant dictionary. Totally different use cases.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

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Post by mikorym » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #185

mikorym wrote: post #166

> Even so, 85 to 90 percent of toxic vehicle emissions in traffic come from tire wear and other non-tailpipe sources, which electric and hybrid cars still produce. First of all, this person meant to say "particulates" [1] and so we are not talking about CO2 at all . Secondly, the source that he links to has this table in it for PM10 (the table for PM2.5 would be analogous) [2]. Almost all of this argument is based on…

I drive an electric; wife drives a gas ICE; I maintain both. No way is electric brake wear 1% or less of a conventional car (what it would take for it to round down to zero in that table). I'd put it at around 5-10% of an ICE, making the total particulate emissions higher.

Even if it's 20 percent or more it won't make much of a difference. The table is rediculous to start off with. Almost all of the particulates are due to "resuspension" which is literally the wind / slipstream created by the car. These are not emissions; whatever is on the road is just blown up in the wind and based on this argument they claim that electric cars have more particulate emissions than ICEs.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#450

Post by afiori » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #430

afiori wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand what you are referring to. > Do you think more drivers or pedestrians are harmed by incidents involving both? pedestrian obviously. This implies to me that regardless of the law, pedestrian should be careful when crossing the streets. From the legal side I believe we should adopt the regulations that are more likely to decrease the number and gravity of incidents, this is heavily dependent of loca…

I'm saying we shouldn't be satisfied with "that behavior should be illegal for both parties" when one party is much more likely to be injured or killed than the other. Pedestrians should be careful regardless of the law, but the law should focus on drivers, specifically.

Agree but I believe this can be formulated better

> when one party is much more likely to be injured or killed than the other.

the focal point to me is: "When one party's mistake are much more likely to endanger people (both others and themselves)" Where my intention is to focus on how the car is the dangerous element of the equation rather that on how the pedestrian is the one at risk. I personally find it a more solid building block.