The Beginning of the End of Private Cars in American Cities

Oh yes I do. Let's say I'm late to a party on the other end of the town and no cars. What I'm supposed to do? Sleep at the bus stop waiting for the next bus late in the morning? Let's say I have to take a plane very early in the morning, there is no bus because it's a timeframe almost nobody have to move. What I'm supposed to do? Leaving yesterday and sleeping at the airport? That's why we have personal transport means. And actually yes, they allow anyone moving at anytime from any place to any other because roads are the only infra needed and they are static and every settlement is connected to some roads in a nation-wide road network. Having only a collective transport where it's sustainable is like having websites only working in certain moment of the day certain day of the year, some have tried this absurdity...

> I will give you my personal example which I think covers a few of these points

I was living in a big city, now I'm living in the French Alps: it's a spread are but I still have a supermarket at 1' car, few shops, few sport and leisure in 10' radius, the elementary school is a 8', the high school at 30' in the winter 10' less when there is no risk of ice or snow, nearest uni it at 1h15' etc. Of course there is no room for collective transport, there are some, but they are not much used not much interested. Thanks to this spread setup traffic does not exists, delivery of goods is cheap also because of that and easy access of anything, regional economy is alive ranging from a poor shepherd with few sheep to the international nuclear fusion research project with in between many kind of activities, there is room for any foreseeable evolution, the first drone delivery (failed) experiment was started in 2014 and operational in 2017 https://www.futura-sciences.com/tech/actualites/drone-livrai... it's a failed project because they only fly with good weather and not too much wind during the day, but anyway that's is. If a day flying car's will be a thing we have the room for that as well. At what cost? Well, LESS then the cost of dense are infra. Of course there are many roads, but they are "light roads", there is no need of big highways with enormously expensive bridges and galleries, there is no need of big and expensive aqueducts since the consumption is spread small scale sourcing is normal and cheaper. No need of high and mid rise buildings and so on. Why bother about collective transport schedule? Yes we depend on car, but personal cars regularly used are not much more expensive in raw materials terms than a fleet of public transport with the relevant infra. Especially EVs can be recharged at home for remote workers, at work with plenty of p.v. around factories, supermarkets, ... since there is space for them meaning we could sooner or later cut also much needs of fuels delivery. New homes means electrical heating, so no fuel logistic for VARIOUS type of fuel, EVs no fuel logistic for cars, agrivoltaic if well done (something NONEXISTENT but possible so far) means also almost no fuel needed for agriculture and so on. Just homes, electricity grid and local aqueducts. Oh, we can even spare more, for instance making common small energy storage and water storage for every buildings we can spare money in emergency services and any local works that interrupt the service, it might sound not much but it's a thing as well.

Having cars might means no benefit to you, but have a price for the society, yourself included, because well, we already see in various fields we are good at making small things at scale, like clusters, but any big project have not so nice outcome, so being able to live and flourish at small scale on scale it's a very important thing in a changing world. Not anything can be done so far like that, sure, but many things can be done.

Nothing of what you mention is my point, my point applies to living close to cities.

I'm not saying that everyone should stop using cars, I'm saying that people living close to cities should have the means to not depend on personal ownership of cars.

I use cars, like I mention: I get the odd cab here and there when getting to some place will be inconvenient by public transport due to schedule. The same applies when I got to the closest airport which is 50km away, if I need to be there for a very early flight I will get a taxi. I rent cars when needed (like transporting moving boxes between houses, or purchasing some big piece of furniture).

What I'm advocating for is to not depend on oneself owning a car just for the sake of the odd times where one can't use public transport. I spent much less money by hailing taxis when needed compared to if I had owned a car in the past 10 years.

> Having cars might means no benefit to you, but have a price for the society, yourself included, because well, we already see in various fields we are good at making small things at scale, like clusters, but any big project have not so nice outcome, so being able to live and flourish at small scale on scale it's a very important thing in a changing world. Not anything can be done so far like that, sure, but many things can be done.

Yeah, of course, it doesn't mean that people in cities should depend on a car just to gain economies of scale on producing cars, I'm not saying cars shouldn't exist, I think you missed that point...

Beware, the future of cities is the smart city, those with no more private ownership, whose where anyone can only move with some transporting services depending on it's schedule and so on. Maybe we can adapt, but it's a good thing?