Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#501

Post by faceplanted » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

Do think of the other perspective though, all those local places for going out are so popular partly because housing is so small and expensive that staying home for the evening just isn't that attractive a proposition

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#502

Post by tinyhouse » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

It's a great idea for cities but despite what many people here are saying, I don't see myself selling my car any time soon.

I live in the Boston area and until about 2 years ago didn't own a car. I don't need it for commute since I bike or take the train. The public transit in Boston and nearby towns is decent. But if you want to go to a town farther away you're usually out of luck. Car sharing is great but it wasn't a good enough solution for me.

Zipcar started in the Boston area and overall there are many options today such as Turo and others. The problem is that these services are at peak demand when you need them the most. During the week there are many Zipcars available in my area but I usually don't need a car then. On the weekend when the weather is nice and I need a car to go hiking, everyone else needs a car too and if I didn't book in advance I need to travel across town for an available car. And twice I did it just to find out there was a problem with the car. (that was the breaking point for me and led me to cancel my Zipcar membership and buy a car).

There are other problems too. Now we have a kid and need a carseat. That makes Uber/Lyft much more of a hassle. We're not gonna travel around carrying a carseat. Many of the people here commenting probably don't have kids.

Having a car on the weekends is just convenient. The carseat is already installed. The hiking/beach gear is all in the trunk. We have a bike rack and go on biking trips (some car sharing companies let you book a car with a rack but those are more limited). For us it wasn't even a big investment, we got a great car for $6500 which we only use on the weekends and so far had no issues.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#503

Post by bluGill » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

People stay home in the US because they have a house with plenty of things to do at home. Why go to a karaoke bar when you have a piano in your house? Why go to a cafe when you have a nice kitchen to cook your own meal? Why do A when you have B? The large houses people have in the US enables and enforces a lifestyle very different from what you get in other cities. This is just a fact - you are allowed to hate it or like it.

I don't want to have a karaoke bar nearby - it might be fun (I've never been to one), but at home I have my wood saws, music, computers, food, thread. Those are just the things I've used this week at home (note that it is Tuesday as I write this: the week is only three days old) to entertain myself.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#504

Post by kaibee » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

throwaway3627 wrote: post #124

maxsilver wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how it is in the USA too, for about the past 20ish years now. Wealthy people have largely eliminated poor/middle class people out of the core urban areas, and moved them mostly to the suburbs/exurbs. Then, wealthy people tear down the functional public transportation between the urban city and the rest of the metro (mostly roads and freeways), and replace them with pretty but function-less "public tra…

Silicon Valley area is the perfect example. Terrible public transport apart from a very few, select areas and it's inconvenient and expensive. (BART, Caltrain, Lightrail, Amtrak)

I'm from the North East, so maybe I'm off base here, but...

Using Silicon Valley as 'the perfect example' of anything that is supposed to generalize to the rest of the country, or even within 100 miles, seems... bizarre.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#505

Post by gerbilly » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

Awesome.

Who needs the hype of self driving cars if you can get rid of the cars entirely?

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#506

Post by opencl » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #484

mcv wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are people who choose to die rather than risk bankrupting their family with uncontrollable medical costs. So there's plenty of drama. Medical bankruptcy in particular is something that I don't think occurs anywhere else.

> So there's plenty of drama. Medical bankruptcy in particular is something that I don't think occurs anywhere else. I doubt the veracity of this oft-repeated meme, but I'll let Snopes provide the detailed analysis: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/643000-bankruptcies-in-the... I would appreciate similarly-detailed evidence to the contrary.

This paper from the American Journal of Public Health says ~530k/year.

http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304901

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#507

Post by bluGill » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

marble-drink wrote: post #343

rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

You just can't compare commuting on time alone. If you commute by car then 100% of that time is spent sitting down either driving or stuck in traffic. If you commute by public transport then maybe 50% of the time is spent reading, and 50% is spent walking. If you commute by bicycle then 100% of the time is spent cycling. It's a shame that study only shows a mean aggregate. I'd be interested to see the raw distributio…

I get carsick when I try to read on the bus. My time this morning was 50% walking, and 50% staring out the window at nothing.

It is worth it to not have to drive, but the car is faster by far at no loss.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#508

Post by yyhhsj0521 » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #486

agent008t wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same reason why you can have vending machines everywhere in Japan but not in the US. Uniformly high cultural level (relatively speaking), as well as a high level of trust (justified) probably has a lot to do with it.

I don't see how a lack of uniform culture and trust prevents vending machines elsewhere, or what it has to do with vending machine proliferation? In japan you even have vending machines to pay for your restaurant food inside the restaurant, where your usually paying upfront. And some parking lots have per stall locks that don't let you drive away until you pay. You could argue that is symbolic of lower "trust".

I think the parent comment is referring to vandalism. See any public machine in any big US cities.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#509

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

adjkant wrote: post #106

maxsilver wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how it is in the USA too, for about the past 20ish years now. Wealthy people have largely eliminated poor/middle class people out of the core urban areas, and moved them mostly to the suburbs/exurbs. Then, wealthy people tear down the functional public transportation between the urban city and the rest of the metro (mostly roads and freeways), and replace them with pretty but function-less "public tra…

> So you get this ridiculous situation where US cities can point to all these shiny new bus lines and bike lanes as "progress", but absolutely no one can afford the housing needed to use any of that, so on a CO2-per-person basis, we've regressed significantly. And 1990's era cities with it's freeways and parking were often better for the environment on a CO2-per-person basis than 2019's cities are today that lack tho…

[deleted]

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#510

Post by dumb_troll » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #503

JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

People stay home in the US because they have a house with plenty of things to do at home. Why go to a karaoke bar when you have a piano in your house? Why go to a cafe when you have a nice kitchen to cook your own meal? Why do A when you have B? The large houses people have in the US enables and enforces a lifestyle very different from what you get in other cities. This is just a fact - you are allowed to hate it or…

It's not about stuff, it's about having other people. Some ( apparently a whole lot more than I thought) people find the lack of social interaction in American towns and cities depressing and alienating. Moreover you may have a lot things to keep you entertained in your home, but I doubt that yours is reflective of the average American home. Most people (I'm guessing now) probably just watch T.V and argue online...