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People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

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Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#21

Post by ctxc »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #3

People's aversion to change, even when the change is for something that is objectively better in every way, is really really annoying.

It seems to me that your "objectively better in every way" is subjective.

If it were objectively better in every way, I'd give my car up obviously. But there's the _small_ matter of major inconvenience with places inaccessible by public transport, erratic public transport, bad last-mile solutions with private transportation waiting to fleece us for all we're worth, leaving me questioning my life choices when the last mile costs 10x what 90% of the journey cost me in public transport, not to mention the overall experience of having to switch between multiple modes of transport each way.

Climate change...yes, but I'm not altruistic enough to go through this everyday.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#22

Post by ecshafer »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #8

I was back in Taiwan last year after an extended absence. It's pretty amazing how easy it is to get around with a combination of the mass rapid transit (MRT) system and high speed rail (HSR). When I was last there, you still needed to take a bus or taxi from TPE to the city center. Now right from TPE airport, you can be in either Taipei city center in 30 minutes (MRT) or on the other end of the island in short order…

The way Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea fund trains is a big difference with the US (though ironically is similar to how the US used to fund trains in the 1800s). The companies (usually in some kind of private-public partnership from my understanding) who build and run the trains in East Asia typically get land around the train stop to develop into malls, shops, apartments, etc. These sales and rents then fund the train lines. This incentive to keep everything nice on the trains and around the stops to help the other sides funding is important I think.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#23

Post by b-side »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #7
asdajksah2123 wrote: post #3

People's aversion to change, even when the change is for something that is objectively better in every way, is really really annoying.

It's a lot of work and money to convert a NA city to a car free one. It's probably impossible TBH. My city has the best public transit system in NA but still I can't imagine it be car free. It's going to literally kill people.

I don't know where this sentiment comes from, you think NA cities didn't exist before the Ford Model-T? Many of these cities existed and worked even without everyone having a private horse/carriage they just had trolleys.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#24

Post by lenerdenator »

What're you talking about? It's awesome driving 25 miles each way to and from work in this city with more highway miles per capita than any other city in the country.

sits down at desk; starts breathing exercises to calm the anxiety from the Mad Max-esque driving on the interstates

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#25

Post by lucumo »

There's probably also a bit of selection bias going on. People who prefer car usage will be less likely to go live in places where car ownership is difficult. The longer a city is "car-free" the more of that bias will accumulate.

There's really not much in the article to suggest that the same people are first against and later in favour. It shouldn't be surprising that some people prefer to live in car-free places, but that's all you can conclude without doing polling the same people before and after a change to car-freeness.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#26

Post by hnthrowaway0328 »

b-side wrote: post #23
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot of work and money to convert a NA city to a car free one. It's probably impossible TBH. My city has the best public transit system in NA but still I can't imagine it be car free. It's going to literally kill people.

I don't know where this sentiment comes from, you think NA cities didn't exist before the Ford Model-T? Many of these cities existed and worked even without everyone having a private horse/carriage they just had trolleys.

I'm fine if you want to go back to the 19th century. I don't.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#27

Post by jmbwell »

Anecdotally, in Houston at least, it does seem true that people come back from travel abroad and talk about walking around, using public transit, and if renting a car, only for drives through the countryside or a particular tour. And then complain about having to resume a tedious commute. It’s almost a cliche, like study abroad students coming home with new affectations.

Or, if they went to certain other places, complaining about how terrifying the traffic was, like “you wouldn’t believe these roundabouts, there were no signs, mopeds everywhere, it was lawless! traffic worse than here!”

To some maybe the connection is more obvious than to others, but as they say, you can lead the horse to public transportation but you can’t make it vote for people who support allocating resources for it.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#28

Post by Kalium »

tejohnso wrote: post #12

Not even sure how you'd start off hating the idea. Less noise, less pollution, shorter commute, cheaper infrastructure, more green, more walking, improved health...I mean...just off the top of my head I'm thinking of tons of advantages. I can't think of a single disadvantage. The only reason I need a car is because the city / neighbourhood is configured around the expectation that everyone has a car.

If your entire life is based around your car, it's your most important and powerful symbol of autonomy, wealth, and personal liberty. The prospect of someone in government deciding one day that the life you live is no longer welcome and your touchstone is evil is incredibly jarring, at the very least.

If you also live in an area where you cannot imagine how you could possibly live without using your car frequently, the prospect of a car-free city sounds a lot like you're being hung out to dry by people who don't care what happens to you.

These reactions are a combination of poor messaging by those affecting change and a failure of a imagination by the car-bound. The first, at least, is avoidable.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#29

Post by pjerem »

nothercastle wrote: post #10

Car free cities are great but you have to have a lot of problems solved for them to work . You need high density, lots of public services from libraries to pools all these need to be close. Public transport has to be safe so you have to actually enforce laws and arrest vagrants. Car free needs a lot of things to go right where car full cities can be pretty disfunctional

That’s not true. 2/3 of Parisians don’t even own a car and Paris is a very average city when it comes safety. Density is also pretty low for one of the biggest European cities.

And it’s just a known example, there are a lot of cities way smaller than Paris where it’s easy to live car free.

Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one

#30

Post by eddieroger »

tejohnso wrote: post #12

Not even sure how you'd start off hating the idea. Less noise, less pollution, shorter commute, cheaper infrastructure, more green, more walking, improved health...I mean...just off the top of my head I'm thinking of tons of advantages. I can't think of a single disadvantage. The only reason I need a car is because the city / neighbourhood is configured around the expectation that everyone has a car.

Because that scenario isn't universal, and while you can't think of a reason, others can. Perhaps someone would rather shop at Costco because they've got a big family and need to buy items in higher quantities. You can't get a Costco in a small city setting, so you need to drive there, and even if you could, shared transit isn't amenable to getting home the types of things you buy at Costco. Or perhaps you wish to have a single family home with a yard, but work for a company with an office presence downtown, and need to take your kid to daycare on the way to work. You could do that on mass transit, but would spend less time if you could plot your own course and just go. Your ideal situation may not need a car, but it's not a universal situation. As for noise, my suburban neighborhood is pretty quiet, and I live across from a park, so I've got plenty of green. I also happen to love driving, so I don't mind that the grocery is 10 minutes away, because I enjoy getting there and back.
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