Let’s Build a Future Without Cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#91

Post by tommi » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 10:35 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #82

nickpinkston wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I came in here to comment of this. Let's cure the ills of a device that is massively useful. Sure - cities should look more like NYC and less like Houston - I'll give the car haters that, but I'm with uvdiv, that I'd far prefer fast, clean versions that drove themselves. The great part of high-speed rail, etc. is that you can relax while they do the driving and you arrive close to your destination. However, driv…

Maybe I'm the one crazy luddite on HN (would not surprise me at all!), but I don't look forward to self-driving 300mph cars. The idea of trusting a computer system to keep me safe on open roads, in close proximity to other computer-controlled cars, sounds terrifying, not relaxing. Yes, I love high-speed trains, because they're on a track, and while this obviously does not guarantee safety, it certainly makes it feel…

You do realize that a 300mph car is unfeasible due to drag? And that the close proximity is more of an issue with humans because of the inability to realize how much distance you actually need to react safely?

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#92

Post by fiddly_bits » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 10:44 PM UTC

donw wrote: post #86

sgentle wrote: post #40

To me, what would be interesting about a world without cars (or even with cars, but vastly more attractive public transport) is that it would partly reverse a sad isolationist trend that's come along with the power and control given to us by modern technology. I used to catch a bus every day through the city, and there were a lot of strange people on those trips. Gangs of 9 year old gangster kids drunk up the back. L…

You've done a great job of summing up one of the reasons that public transit in the US is as bad as it is. My goal is to safely get from Point A to Point B, and I don't want to spend a lot of time waiting around at Point A, or sitting and waiting on the way to Point B. We have three goals here, in order of importance. Let's call them safety, convenience, and speed. Taking a bus with a bunch of drunken hooligans doesn…

You have many of the same observations as me, but form a different conclusion. Although, one thing: you say, "My goal is to safely get from Point A to Point B..." Cars are a great way to kill 30 or 40 thousand people a year. Not very safe. And the quality of service (and riders) will surely improve on public transportation as more people use it, don't you think? Japan seems to prove that.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#93

Post by fiddly_bits » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 11:02 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #82

nickpinkston wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I came in here to comment of this. Let's cure the ills of a device that is massively useful. Sure - cities should look more like NYC and less like Houston - I'll give the car haters that, but I'm with uvdiv, that I'd far prefer fast, clean versions that drove themselves. The great part of high-speed rail, etc. is that you can relax while they do the driving and you arrive close to your destination. However, driv…

Maybe I'm the one crazy luddite on HN (would not surprise me at all!), but I don't look forward to self-driving 300mph cars. The idea of trusting a computer system to keep me safe on open roads, in close proximity to other computer-controlled cars, sounds terrifying, not relaxing. Yes, I love high-speed trains, because they're on a track, and while this obviously does not guarantee safety, it certainly makes it feel…

Must be perspective. I, for instance, think we should all be terrified to share the road with scores, hundreds, or even thousands of multi-ton mechanical devices traveling anywhere from 25 to 70 mph which are operated by people, easily-distracted, endlessly fallible, and often foolishly reckless people. Computer-controlled sounds better/safer to me.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#94

Post by fiddly_bits » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 11:11 PM UTC

gordianknot wrote: post #29

yason wrote: post #9

To get rid of cars, you need cities designed for people, not cars: otherwise everything is so far away that nothing gets ever done. We won't get rid of cars until oil is ridiculously expensive and we must give up. That will also leave much of the recent (since 1950's) development to decay, and new cities will emerge where there are new concentrations of people. So, we will get a future without cars at some point, it'…

Or we just migrate to self-driving electric cars, with the batteries serving as Intergrid energy storage.

Also, let's add wi-fi hot-spots to all of them so that they'll create a giant mesh-network, providing cheap internet access for everyone. And ponies! Everyone gets ponies!

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#95

Post by fiddly_bits » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 11:21 PM UTC

evincarofautumn wrote: post #10

Our country was built on steam trains, which were horrifically inefficient, but they got the job done. Currently we’re built on cars, which too are inefficient but practical. These things gained ground because there was a way to commercialise them, to make people say “I can’t live without that”. The question is: how can that be done with things like ultralights and bullet trains and public air? Could we really let th…

It really is an amazing testament to human ingenuity that something as mind-bogglingly complicated as the modern automobile could have ever become a consumer item. But their cost is profound (DanI-S sums it up here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3872338). Surely, concern for people who "can't afford" expensive things would lead to adopting more public transportation, don't you think?

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#96

Post by chadmalik » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 11:36 PM UTC

I agree with the concept of a future without cars. However, this is one of these areas where an entire discussion can go on with mostly Americans and our willingness to look at how other nations do things means we do a lot of incredibly stupid stuff.

Look, we need to just do whatever Mexico and a huge number of nations do and allow local collectivos with trucks etc. to give rides around town. It's fine to say we should do this or that in the future but our transportation is laid out like it is. It's freaking difficult to get around the US without a car. We've built nearly all of our cities and towns in a way dominated by cars and roads. So buses and trucks are the way to go.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#97

Post by chadmalik » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 11:38 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #80

jQueryIsAwesome wrote: post #24

Cars are one of the worst inventions by human kind. Aside from the points mentioned in the article there is also many deaths by cars (traffic accidents) and the huge amount of cars now days tend to saturate the roads and make mobilization a really slow process. My solution would be to get rid of cars all together an use only electrical trains driven by few professionals who are less likely to cause accidents; with fi…

Before cars became commonplace, we used horses to help transport goods and people inside cities. Horses dump manure. A lot of it. Quoting from http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-th... : "A horse will on average produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day. Consequently, the streets of nineteenth-century cities were covered by horse manure. This in turn attracted huge numbers of flies, and…

Well then maybe they shouldn't have been using pavement and even more to the point, not packing people into cities. We should spread out and use things like horses because they are an environmental free lunch compared to the insanity of extracting fossil fuels so that fat assholes can sit in traffic for 2 hours a day to go sit in an office.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#98

Post by fiddly_bits » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

raintrees wrote: post #46

A friend of mine retold an observation he had read: If an alien species were to observe our planet from on high for awhile, they may come away with the idea that the automobile is the highest life form on the planet we call Earth...

An alien observer might also note that as soon as we discovered what we could do with oil, we busied ourselves with using it up as fast as possible.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#99

Post by bickfordb » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 12:10 AM UTC

One insurmountable problem I see with advancing mass transport is that people simply aren't willing to spend as much on public transport than they are cars because they believe they have an equity investment in the car. Most people I know get upset spending any more $75-100/mo on a monthly transit pass, but are willing to pay $400/mo on car expenses since they "own" the car. As a result, I don't think really good systems will ever emerge except for where there is massive subsidization, and even those cases suck. For instance a few years ago when I looked San Francisco MTA had a budget of $750MM but only sold $110MM in tickets. The only bright spot I see are company run shuttles.

The other problem I see is that most people appear to be irrationally scared of cycling in cities/urban areas, even though most city cycling occurs at really slow speeds. I have been a cyclist in San Francisco for five years with only a few minor incidents. Whenever I talk to people who aren't cyclists about commuting in the city, they often respond as if I have an impending death clock over my head.

For people who think cycling is a major health boon: it really isn't unless you're commuting >5mi/each way or doing a lot of climbs. It's not that hard most of the time. I get way more out of a 30-40minute/run or squats in the gym.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#100

Post by emmelaich » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 12:41 AM UTC

DanI-S wrote: post #34

fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like trains and commuting by train too. I can't stand traffic either. But cars remain awesomely effective, because they can go from point to point, and they're so competitive that trains are only really competitive if: * you're going to be traveling for very long distances (but not long enough for airports to be faster), or * traffic is going to be utterly miserable, or * the train is RIGHT THERE and very convenien…

Knowing that the median household income in the US is $44k, I am continually shocked at the amount of money spent on cars. "Slightly less than one-third of households said they had one personal vehicle1 available for use in 2001. A little more than one-third of households (40 million out of 107 million households) had 2 vehicles and slightly less than one-quarter had 3 or more vehicles available." [0] This is an unim…

I am amazed at the amount people spend no cars but again be wary of the thought that this inherent to cars. It's about culture and keeping up with the Joneses. My 15 year old 4 cylinder car costs not a lot to run and takes me everywhere. You can prise out of my cold dead hands :-)