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The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

blog.scaramuzza.me

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Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#71

Post by AnimalMuppet »

I am 63. As I look at my future, "freedom" and "walking" look more and more distant from each other.

My wife has a handicapped tag. Freedom for her doesn't look like walking.

My mother in law is over 80, and she had polio. One leg is not fully functional. Freedom for her doesn't look like walking.

My son-in-law has something that looks a lot like long covid (not diagnosed, so I can't say with certainty). Freedom for him doesn't look like walking.

Yeah, I know, everyone I mentioned is an exception. But the point is, there are a lot of exceptions. Not just rural people (who have too far to go), but also the old, the temporarily or permanently ill, the handicapped. If you live long enough, you will probably become one.

So, it's fine to want a car-less future, but recognize that it's just less cars, not no cars. Some of us legitimately need them for our freedom.

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#72

Post by tim333 »

p_ing wrote: post #20

I’m curious to see how the author would react when it is two miles one-way to the crappy grocery store and eight miles to the good one. And there is a bus shows up about once every four hours. While cities can do a lot to improve the non-car experience, there’s a whole world outside those cities which would become inaccessible without a car. These are generally the “affordable” places to live in order to work in the…

I think the author is arguing for less cars, not no cars.

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#73

Post by zmnd »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #64
zmnd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you fix the mentioned problem of "filled with unpleasant people" with money?

Do you think the unpleasantness of people has gotten worse over time? If so, what caused that to happen?

Not my quote, just pointing out that not everything can be solved with money. But yes, I think it got worse over time.

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#74

Post by BobaFloutist »

grues-dinner wrote: post #43
mojuba wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there are third-tier historical medieval towns that are 100% walkable and you again don't need a car. My ideal city of the future is a small walkable town with everything within a 15-20 minute walk, possibly a part of a conglomerate of towns that run trains or buses between them. I currently live in one such historical town in Southern Europe that's protected by Unesco. The streets are so narrow that not onl…

> third-tier historical medieval towns that are 100% walkable Very many people, including me, want to live in a glorious walkable bijou old-town stone apartment, except they can't afford to because they stopped building them like that in about 1756 and the only jobs within walking distance of the old town are in hospitality and those do not pay the salaries to buy one of the treasured old town apartments from under a…

Or you could work remotely or hybrid, or take a 30-60 minute wifi-enabled commuter train to the big city for your big city job, clocking in and handling your emails during your commute and doing the last bits of work on your way home.

There's lots of solutions.

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#75

Post by outime »

nialv7 wrote: post #48
outime wrote: post #3

It's interesting how people's positions can be so different. As a European who has lived in two (european) countries with good and affordable transport, I've always been a happy public transport user... until a couple of years ago, that is. Much of the transport is now filled with unpleasant people, dirt, delays, etc which paired with the insane prices of housing in the "walkable" parts of cities, has made me 100% in…

I don't get it. If you've been enjoying public transportation for so long, then why is your reaction to it getting worse not: OK, we need to fix it so it's as good as it was. Instead you are just saying: OK, I have the resources to fix the problem for myself, so I don't give a F.

I do give a F. I'm paying a fair amount in taxes every month despite not using it.

On top of that, what's your proposal? Whether I use it (and be miserable) or not doesn't move the needle either way, so I choose not to be miserable.

If there were actually a way to make it better, I'd maybe get involved. But since I see zero options, I just stay away from it. Virtue signaling doesn't work for me.

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#76

Post by zmnd »

const_cast wrote: post #65
zmnd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you fix the mentioned problem of "filled with unpleasant people" with money?

Usually when people get older and start complaining about new "unpleasant people" the issue isn't that new unpleasant people exist. Rather, its that the older person has not adapted and is stuck. They become "get off my lawn" types

It’s easy to dismiss a problem by just saying that someone is just an “older person” who “didn’t adapt”.

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#77

Post by amanaplanacanal »

p_ing wrote: post #39
1over137 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being founded in 1880s doesn’t mean that all the planning since hasn’t been all auto-centric.

Except the dirt roads then were as wide as the paved roads are now with the same grid-style layout. Feel free to keep arguing how things radically changed just for cars. But they didn't.

If your city is like every other in the US, they changed drastically. Find a city map from pre WWII and compare it to today.

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#79

Post by dkiebd »

feurio wrote: post #38
ang_cire wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is "interested" in making public transit worse, the issue is that people in power are not users of it and so are not invested in it, and civic and national pride is generally dead in the West, being replaced with vapid nationalism, so there's no drive (no pun intended) to invest in public works projects.

The London Mayor some years ago, Ken Livingstone, was a huge proponent of public trasport and used it extensively. The current Mayor, whilst still a proponent, likely does not use it. A quick glance at the social media that he recieves will tell you why - it would not be safe. He needs to travel with close protection officers. The reason? He is Muslim, and Britain has become a very racist country indeed. Well, maybe…

[dead]

Re: The car is not the future: On the myth of motorized freedom

#80

Post by ivan_gammel »

poisonborz wrote: post #21

You only need to move a bit towards suburbia/countryside to create your deep disbelief in public transport. Cars are everywhere, for a reason. Public transport is great in theory only. With actual human societies - maybe the western ones, that is, except China/Japan - it just doesn't work. Corruption, laziness, bureaucracy, lack of proper planning and security makes the creation and maintenance of these projects unsu…

> Public transport is great in theory only

I never felt the need to have a car in most of Europe, so didn’t even bother to get a driving license. Urban population is 75% on average, so reaching rural or uninhabited areas is almost an edge case (at least for me). So it is not theoretical, it works great, even if it is not reaching the perfection of Japan. Looking at two of my favorite cities, Berlin and Moscow, I find that they are spending reasonably on expanding networks (and the most recent highway project in Berlin — extension of A100 — was very expensive and stupid, looking at the traffic jams there).

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