"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation." - Gustavo Petro
Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
31–40 of 835 posts
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#32I suspect that the issue is more that money is falling out of love with them, (at least in the US)
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars are a viable option only on low-density rural areas + long distance trips. Short distance you can do by biking (e-bikes are the modern evolution of the old two-stroke scooter) or walking. In high density public transportation is massively faster, cheaper, and more efficient that personal automobile.
>In high density public transportation is massively faster, cheaper, and more efficient that personal automobile. This assumes the public transportation is competently run, which is a rarity in the Anglophone world. In the UK I think the only good one is TfL. Meanwhile Birmingham has a million people and no metro. The one time I visited NYC the subway seemed third world.
UK here: My brother and my 3 (adult, independent) kids all seem to manage fine without cars, and have done so for years. Only one of them lives in London, the others in much smaller places.
Sure, there are plenty of areas where it would be really difficult. But there are also a lot more places than just London where it's perfectly possible, depending on family circumstances and lifestyle choices.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#34There's 138 trains per day between Amsterdam and The Hague. It's faster to take the train than to drive on that trip. Driving in either city in an exercise in frustration. Why would anyone in a rich country with a high functioning rail system like The Netherlands want to drive? I don't know how many rich countries that describes, but I lived happily for years in Boston in the USA without a car. I have one now but onl…
The problem with that is the part where you need to get to and from the train station to your actual destination, which could be on the very other side of town. It can be solved with shuttles or taxis, but that adds even more complexity and annoyance than just driving directly, especially with luggage.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#35I really wished this demonisation of the car stopped. Modern cars are way more climate friendly than merely 10-20 years ago and many climate-conscious persons do pool to commute. But we need to understand. There are cases where the car is a must. Unavoidable. Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather. Imagine having a neurological dise…
Replace the words "the car" with "good public transit" and your last paragraph makes equal if not more sense.
There's different ways of living a life, and the current trend shouldn't be seen as car demonization. I see it more as a new generation seeing the current US car-centric society and pushing for a better (for the life they want to live) alternative.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In high density public transportation is massively faster, cheaper, and more efficient that personal automobile. This assumes the public transportation is competently run, which is a rarity in the Anglophone world. In the UK I think the only good one is TfL. Meanwhile Birmingham has a million people and no metro. The one time I visited NYC the subway seemed third world.
UK here: My brother and my 3 (adult, independent) kids all seem to manage fine without cars, and have done so for years. Only one of them lives in London, the others in much smaller places. Sure, there are plenty of areas where it would be really difficult. But there are also a lot more places than just London where it's perfectly possible, depending on family circumstances and lifestyle choices.
Yeah I live car-free in Cardiff. It's doable. But I won't kid myself and say that the public transport is good. It's mediocre like every British city outside London. It's a city of half a million and we don't even have a tram. As a nation we have far too low expectations for public transport.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#37If you live in anything like a real city and don't absolutely need a car to commute, the misery of street parking alone vastly outweighs any kind of occasional benefit. But it's nice to have a license so you can rent a car if you really want to.
What is a real city? I live in one of 20 biggest in the US, but even #2 LA is pretty hard to get around without a car. My experience in traveling has been that places where carless transportation is easy, are places I can only afford to visit, not live.
If you limit yourself to the US this will of course be the case - the tendency in urban development has been shaped by cars for a long time.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#38There's 138 trains per day between Amsterdam and The Hague. It's faster to take the train than to drive on that trip. Driving in either city in an exercise in frustration. Why would anyone in a rich country with a high functioning rail system like The Netherlands want to drive? I don't know how many rich countries that describes, but I lived happily for years in Boston in the USA without a car. I have one now but onl…
"Why would anyone in a rich country with a high functioning rail system like The Netherlands want to drive?"
Well, I live in The Netherlands and the place where I work is not very reachable by public transport. The 138 trains per day between Amsterdam and The Hague is all very nice and so on but even in the Netherlands people who live in a village will in many cases be somewhat isolated if they don't own a car.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#39I really wished this demonisation of the car stopped. Modern cars are way more climate friendly than merely 10-20 years ago and many climate-conscious persons do pool to commute. But we need to understand. There are cases where the car is a must. Unavoidable. Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather. Imagine having a neurological dise…
In the country I live in, you can't get a bus or train after a certain hour of night.
If you had business in a different city that's a few hours distance, and you miss the last bus of the day, you'll need to wait at least 6-8 hours to be able to get the first bus or train of the next day.
In this case you can probably still find a taxi, but then we're back to the car situation.
(EDIT: Of course the problem would also be solved if you could get a bus or train any time of the day.)
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#40I really wished this demonisation of the car stopped. Modern cars are way more climate friendly than merely 10-20 years ago and many climate-conscious persons do pool to commute. But we need to understand. There are cases where the car is a must. Unavoidable. Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather. Imagine having a neurological dise…
>But we need to understand. There are cases where the car is a must. Unavoidable. Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather. Imagine having a neurological disease or some other disability.
Bud, nobody is taking the car away from those kinds of use cases. It's very clear for most people that cars are necessary in those situations, and that's fine. What we're demonising is the car as the only way to go about getting from A to B. If you watch some of the urban planning videos on the topic, or lurk the r/f*cars subreddit you'll quickly see that most people also* want to make the driving experience better! And by better they don't mean to build one more lane, but sensible infrastructure that makes sense for everybody, not just the cars. The whole point is about inclusion: why isn't using a car unavoidable?