“Single data point observed — is this a trend?”
First town in America to ban new gas stations
11–20 of 124 posts
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#12Lots of towns have already done this. Berkeley did it years ago. It doesn't matter at all. The fact that Berkeley bans certain land uses means that the town next door, Emeryville, falls prey to fiscalization and simply makes their whole urban strategy be making money off of encouraging all the things Berkeley bans. The effect is that there are probably more gas stations than Emeryville than there would otherwise be i…
Ojai bans "fast food" though the definition of that is a bit slippery - and so there are fast food places just outside city limits.
Cupertino, CA is like this too.
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#13Electric cars are expensive. You need to have money to buy one. By punishing petrol car owners, you are essentially rewarding rich people for having money.
And can people even charge a electric vehicle at a public charger if they don't have a credit card or a smartphone or both?
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#14We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). I can't see the US ever being willing to make these sacrifices though. If you compare the $/sqft for housing in the US vs. Europe the difference is shocking (even in big cities like Seattle vs. London), same for gasoline prices, etc. The US has become accustomed to unparallele…
We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). Is this really a sacrifice? I can't see the US ever being willing to make these sacrifices though. If you compare the $/sqft for housing in the US vs. Europe the difference is shocking (even in big cities like Seattle vs. London), same for gasoline prices, etc. I would be more…
I live in a suburb of a medium sized city. It’s not particularly dense, probably slightly lower density than the median American lives in.
My generation Z neighbors (I have two) are very happy to live without a car. They live within three miles of their jobs and use electric scooters for commuting. They have their food and consumer goods shipped to their house. They say that they don’t need to drive anywhere, and the occasion that they want to go somewhere Uber is available. Meanwhile they are saving hundreds to thousands of dollars a month by not having two cars.
I personally (a millennial) have put less than five thousand miles on my car in the last 5 years. People say cars are a requirement for American life, but I find that’s becoming less true for more and more Americans.
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#15I drove a fully electric car over the weekend within 100 kilometres of Stockholm. No. The tide is not turning. The vast majority of charging stations are inside the city. And the vast majority of places in those stations a slow, 3kW ones, with a sprinkle of 11kW in between. There are maybe ten 50kW ones in the entire Stockholm area. If the only thing you do is commuting, and you have a place to charge your car overni…
The old saw has been "then you take the train", which only works for folks who are comfortable on trains, and whose type of travel fits with train schedules. I like having my own car, and I like roadtrips without schedules.
For me, an EV needs about 8 miles of range for commuting, and about 1000 for vacation, and it's just silly to own 992 extra miles of battery the other 355 days a year.
Which is to say, I think we're rushing prematurely into completely ending gasoline vehicles. They should be phased out, but "phased" is the operative word -- let some linger in applications where they're still better suited. I currently drive a hybrid and I plan to replace it with a PHEV, not a BEV, for that reason.
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#16Lots of towns have already done this. Berkeley did it years ago. It doesn't matter at all. The fact that Berkeley bans certain land uses means that the town next door, Emeryville, falls prey to fiscalization and simply makes their whole urban strategy be making money off of encouraging all the things Berkeley bans. The effect is that there are probably more gas stations than Emeryville than there would otherwise be i…
[deleted]
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#17Lots of towns have already done this. Berkeley did it years ago. It doesn't matter at all. The fact that Berkeley bans certain land uses means that the town next door, Emeryville, falls prey to fiscalization and simply makes their whole urban strategy be making money off of encouraging all the things Berkeley bans. The effect is that there are probably more gas stations than Emeryville than there would otherwise be i…
You must be joking. Berkeley loves its gas stations. There is nothing more Berkeley than a Volvo 240 getting 5MPG and spewing smoke all over town. When someone tried to develop apartments at 3000 Shattuck on the site of "Smog and Gas" -- a quite ironic name indeed -- the city's grey NIBMYs went to war, writing the zoning board that "Berkeley Smog & Gas better serves the needs of the working class of my neighborhood than the proposed speculation housing." The ZAB agreed, disapproving the project! It is on-the-record that the people of Berkeley prefer gas stations over housing.
Also I have no idea what you are talking about with Emeryville. They have three gas stations, all on Powell St. Berkeley has at least 20.
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#18as someone who rides a motorcycle this sort of legislation is infuriating. gas stations are food, rest, and a chance to get my bearings with a map.
Frankly California's more gilded counties like Sonoma have a perverse incentive to reduce gas stations: it reduces congregation and attendance by the homeless. This feels like the "cashless" argument playing out all over again. Sure, its perhaps easier and more efficient for the business to simply refuse to accept cash but at the end of the day its a poor people ban.
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#19We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). I can't see the US ever being willing to make these sacrifices though. If you compare the $/sqft for housing in the US vs. Europe the difference is shocking (even in big cities like Seattle vs. London), same for gasoline prices, etc. The US has become accustomed to unparallele…
I don't think you can reasonably compare "European" house sizes using London as an example. The UK is small and ancient. We literally don't have the land necessary for building big houses in cities. There wasn't much land to start with, and changing the use of land that's had buildings on it for 1000 years is incredibly hard. The same is true, with less of a supply limitation, for most cities across Europe. Houses were built many hundreds of years ago, and replacing one with a bigger one requires knocking down the whole neighborhood.
By comparison the US is brand new and has abundant land. Add to that the fact that many houses in the US are timber-framed things that are easy to change and extend, and you have a recipe for big homes.
Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations
#20Electric cars are expensive. You need to have money to buy one. By punishing petrol car owners, you are essentially rewarding rich people for having money.
And can people even charge a electric vehicle at a public charger if they don't have a credit card or a smartphone or both?
Who doesn't?