First town in America to ban new gas stations • Hacker News Board

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#91

Post by jeffbee » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #87

jeffbee wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that standard American rebuttal. We have better houses than in a favela. We have better health care than Eritrea. Our transportation is better than Kazakhstan … oh shoot, wait, they have more high speed rail than the USA. Scratch that. I’ve lived in Japan and their housing is far superior. It is newer in general, well-built, quiet, warm, efficient, comfortable, functional, and cheap. American housing stock is no…

> I’ve lived in Japan and their housing is far superior. It is newer in general, well-built, quiet, warm, efficient, comfortable, functional, and cheap. American housing stock is none of those things, at twice the price. Don't houses in Japan only last 20-30 years? Isn't the only reason they're newer in general that they have to be rebuilt so often? Houses in America last way longer than twice that, so only paying tw…

When you say that they "last longer" what you mean is that Americans are tolerating the deterioration for longer. Yes, the median American dwelling is 40 years old. No, that's not because they are built to last. Only someone with zero experience abroad thinks a 1980-model American house was built well.

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#92

Post by thesuitonym » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #78

thesuitonym wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to city planning, changes aren't made unless there's already a trend. A town isn't going to just decide out of the blue to ban new gas station construction unless there was already a trend away from ICE vehicles.

Deciding to ban something you don't like and then actually going through with it because you're rich enough to afford to shoot yourself in the foot or the people negatively affected are small/powerless enough is "wealthy suburb chock-full-o'-busybodies" 101. Banning gas stations is just the California equivalent of a suburb in North Carolina banning a litany of alcohol related businesses.

I wasn't saying it's right or wrong, in fact, I think outright banning new gas stations may make life difficult for the working poor, who do not buy new vehicles, and are less likely to be able to switch to an electric, but that's not really what I'm talking about here.

I'm just saying that the trend has to already exist for a municipality to change something.

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#93

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

usrbin wrote: post #7

dmitriid wrote: post #4

I 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…

Charging station availability is a bit of a red herring though. Like you said, it's really dependent on charging overnight/when you're not using the vehicle. Obviously the viability will vary from person to person, but considering that a huge portion of car owners don't need more than 100 miles a day, just charging at home is a viable option. For those people, EVs provide a better overall experience. I agree we need…

> Charging station availability is a bit of a red herring though.

How is it a red herring? It's a real need that has to be addressed to make EVs viable.

On Saturday we drove to a popular destination just 70 kilometres away from Stockholm (that is, 140 kilometres both ways). That popular destination has a total of 6 charging places with may be three of them with 22kW chargers, and the rest of them 7kW and 3kW.

To ensure we wouldn't get stuck, on Saturday morning I drove into the city to one of the 50kW chargers hoping they wouldn't be occupied, and spent an hour waiting at a cafe while the car was charging.

On Sunday we went for a longer trip. An unimaginable 135 km from Stockholm. I hoped to once again charge the car in the morning, but the 50kW charging spot was taken, so I had to contend with a 43kW one. It didn't charge as fast. We only had 260 km worth of charge in the car, and had to make a 1-hour-long stop at a McDonalds on the highway that had a total of 4 quick chargers that were miraculously unoccupied.

> For those people, EVs provide a better overall experience.

Somehow you assume that's the only experience "those people" are ever going to have.

> just charging at home is a viable option.

Ah yes. "Just". It's simple. Just charge at home. You only have to provide charging infrastructure at home. And provide that infrastructure for all homes (because the end goal is to make all cars electric, isn't it?).

Right now I live in an apartment complex with 154 apartments. It's one of the Stockholm's suburbs that is basically a village with a commuter train passing through it. Surely, you can get to the city, and public transportation is still excellent, but you do end up driving significantly more than you would in a city (if for the sole reason that all distances are increased compared to the city).

So, you need to provide electric outlets to all ~154 parking places near the complex. And to ~200 outlets to the neighboring complex. And to the next one. And to the next one... Who is going to pay for that, I wonder? Though I know. The "revolution" will happen at the expense of people who are told they will benefit from it.

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#94

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #86

emodendroket wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see that being more effective or less, but either way I don't think it's totally pointless.

I can understand your point about marginal inconvenience having a marginal benefit, but I think that car use may be so inflexible (I know that I literally need my car and would be willing to put up with any conceivable inconvenience law because I have to) that inconvenience laws, especially ones with direct gas-burning effects on anyone who keeps their car, can easily be net negative even for small increases in fuel…

Right now, even if you only ever travel short distances and an electric car would be totally suitable for you, the path of least resistance is to buy a gas car. It seems smart to try and shift that calculus.

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#95

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

Glench wrote: post #88

emodendroket wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if you were right. But even assuming it's the case, people will have to adjust to the electrical appliances. People in this very community say that they simply cannot learn to cook on an electric stove, or rent a car for the infrequent occasions when they want to travel hundreds of miles, and therefore fossil fuel usage must be continued unabated. Even this level of very small sacrifice is unimagina…

> Even this level of very small sacrifice is unimaginable. Unimaginable to who? I can easily imagine this. The negatives you list are real, but they'll get rapidly better in the next 20 years (longer range cars, more charging stations for example). But in focusing on the negatives you (and the people you say you're speaking for) forget the positives: - Electric cars already have the lowest cost of ownership of any ca…

I agree with you and do not intend to represent them. Rather I mean it's "unimaginable" to the complainers who are ready to shoot holes in absolutely everything but don't have any plan of their own to address the problem.

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#96

Post by dublinben » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #86

emodendroket wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see that being more effective or less, but either way I don't think it's totally pointless.

I can understand your point about marginal inconvenience having a marginal benefit, but I think that car use may be so inflexible (I know that I literally need my car and would be willing to put up with any conceivable inconvenience law because I have to) that inconvenience laws, especially ones with direct gas-burning effects on anyone who keeps their car, can easily be net negative even for small increases in fuel…

Car use (as measured by Vehicle Miles Traveled) is more elastic than you may think. There were pronounced dips during the oil price spikes of 1974, 1979, and 2008, showing that the price at the pump has a direct effect on how much people drive.[0] Last year we obviously saw an even more significant decline as many people stayed home during the pandemic.[1] There's also more positive, lasting ways of reducing VMT like improving alternatives, introducing congestion charges, or replacing gas taxes with cost per mile fees.[2]

[0]https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10315

[1]https://highways.dot.gov/newsroom/us-driving-last-year-was-l...

[2]https://www.urbanismnext.org/what-to-do/congestion-vmt-reduc...

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#97

Post by Glench » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #95

Glench wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even this level of very small sacrifice is unimaginable. Unimaginable to who? I can easily imagine this. The negatives you list are real, but they'll get rapidly better in the next 20 years (longer range cars, more charging stations for example). But in focusing on the negatives you (and the people you say you're speaking for) forget the positives: - Electric cars already have the lowest cost of ownership of any ca…

I agree with you and do not intend to represent them. Rather I mean it's "unimaginable" to the complainers who are ready to shoot holes in absolutely everything but don't have any plan of their own to address the problem.

Maybe you should speak for yourself! :)

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#98

Post by doodlebugging » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

I wonder why we need more gas stations.

I own several vehicles of various vintages and there is not a single one that I couldn't crank up and drive from an existing gasoline station in my home town to any other connected, accessible location on my continent. Indeed, I can actually drive the 4WD vehicles I own deep into the countryside where there are no gasoline stations and never have a single fuel supply related problem with proper planning and equipment.

The fuel tanks on my vehicles range in volume from 10.5 US gallons to 33 US gallons and fuel economy numbers range from 32 mpg down to 12 mpg. That means for any of my vehicles I have a range of more than 300 miles (10.5 * 32 = 336 miles and 33 * 12 = 396 miles).

I will encounter lots of existing gasoline stations along any route I choose.

I think the idea behind building new stations has to revolve around making it more convenient for people moving to new subdivisions to fuel their vehicles locally. If you don't build out gasoline station infrastructure near new construction then those who choose to live there are required to monitor their fuel consumption closely enough that they always know when they should gas up on the way home. They should be doing this anyway IMHO.

I don't think we need new gasoline stations in summary because I think all places are already accessible with our current infrastructure.

And I would like to expand on or clarify a statement in the article that is very important and was not stated well.

From the article about halfway down:

>>But it’s not all good news. The long-term shift to electric and a mass closures of gas stations will create toxic “brown sites” across the country. A typical gas station can spill up to 100 gallons of gasoline annually, ... ...these poisoned plots will present an environmental problem of monumental proportions.

This paragraph makes it seem as if the existence of a gas station is environmentally fine until that station is closed or decommissioned at which point it becomes a brown site requiring remediation. That is not true at all. Once you fill the tanks and begin serving gasoline to customers there will always be some spillage at the pumps. The gasoline station becomes a brown site when it begins operation but you are typically only able to begin remediation when the station is shut down and no longer serves gasoline or when there is a documented leak from the underground tanks that makes it critical to shut down the station for repairs. Therefore, all existing gasoline stations are already toxic environmental sites and the problem is indeed monumental today.

I see no reason to add to the problem by building new gasoline stations.

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#99

Post by bluedevil2k » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #91

josephcsible wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve lived in Japan and their housing is far superior. It is newer in general, well-built, quiet, warm, efficient, comfortable, functional, and cheap. American housing stock is none of those things, at twice the price. Don't houses in Japan only last 20-30 years? Isn't the only reason they're newer in general that they have to be rebuilt so often? Houses in America last way longer than twice that, so only paying tw…

When you say that they "last longer" what you mean is that Americans are tolerating the deterioration for longer. Yes, the median American dwelling is 40 years old. No, that's not because they are built to last. Only someone with zero experience abroad thinks a 1980-model American house was built well.

Seems like someone just can’t admit they’re wrong.

Re: First town in America to ban new gas stations

#100

Post by elif » Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #83

elif wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A high turnover rate of strangers handling their wallets. Also a ginormous sunshade and legal occupation can be obtained for a $1 soda or lotto ticket. Superchargers have nothing to do with financial transactions. You can't buy a soda or lotto ticket and claim to belong there.

I can't really see why you couldn't have chargers attached to a convenience store or restaurant. It would seem to make a lot of sense.

Superchargers are almost always next to a restaurant. I've never seen one near a convenience store.