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The End of Car Culture

nytimes.com

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Re: The End of Car Culture

#71

Post by gobbluth »

potatolicious wrote: post #22
axuaq wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a public transportation system that runs on time, doesn't spread disease, doesn't have punk kids who confront you for no reason, is safe, and has sane time schedules and I'll be happy. Until then, I'll always prefer driving/walking/biking/anything. Unfortunately, I'm in a situation where I can't drive now, and I have to deal with an awful San Francisco public transit system that does 0 of the things I listed.

> "Give me a public transportation system that runs on time, doesn't spread disease, doesn't have punk kids who confront you for no reason, is safe, and has sane time schedules and I'll be happy." The problem is that you live in San Francisco. The biggest problem in that list (safety/perceived safety) has more to do with the city than the transit system itself. It's not a brokenness in the transportation system (thou…

It's the same in Europe. As a visiting American, I'm in awe of the infrastructure they've built -- beautiful, clean, fast, charming -- but these were built with European society in mind, which generally raises kids to be respectful, clean, and polite.

But now there are a ton of pretty awful immigrants from the Middle East who harass women, destroy property, and threaten anyone they dislike... which is quickly making European cities very unpleasant places to live. I wouldn't be surprised if Europeans start their own version of white flight away from their cities.

Re: The End of Car Culture

#72

Post by seanmcdirmid »

olalonde wrote: post #68
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All nicer apartment blocks are like that, actually; they usually have a garage underneath but even this is too expensive for most people (whose work unit will give them a Mercedes even if they can't afford a parking space!), so they park on the street...fun stuff.

I've actually always wondered about that. I often see loads of Mercedes/BMW/Lexus/Porsche cars parked around old buildings where the rent is less than 150$/month. If what you say is true (companies giving Mercedes to their employees), why is this? Or do some Chinese prefer owning an expensive car rather then living in a nice place?

I said "work unit" and I'm talking about government employees :) The government gives them the car and they use their connections to "qualify" for subsidized housing (the kind they are building for the poor!). So the result is a lot of Audi's parked around public housing.

Whatever works.

Re: The End of Car Culture

#73

Post by obeleask »

As a car guy, maybe I am biased, but:

1) Where are the data/charts behind this statement: "Part of the explanation certainly lies in the recession, because cash-strapped Americans could not afford new cars, and the unemployed weren’t going to work anyway. But by many measures the decrease in driving preceded the downturn and appears to be persisting now that recovery is under way. " If the whole premise of the article is that this is more than just something related to the recession, shouldn't we be able to see that data for ourselves, and the justification should be more than a passing statement. The wording of "by many measures" also makes it sound like the author is cherry picking metrics to make his point. I'd also like to see the car usage compared to unemployment rates for the same age group. Overall, I just don't believe the validity of the claim without seeing more data.

2) As the author says "Whether members of the millennial generation will start buying more cars once they have kids to take to soccer practice and school plays remains an open question." I'm not sure it is an open question. When you're single and can live near where you work, it's reasonable to get on without a car. Then life changes, and you need a car.

3) If there is an actual drop-off in car usage, then it could be because we likely are at an inflection point of some significant changes in the industry. The two big ones being electric cars with Tesla leading the way, and the second one being self-driving cars with Google leading the way. We might just be seeing a temporary drop as people reject the "old" way, and as these two new technologies take-off and become more mainstream, so again will car usage .

Re: The End of Car Culture

#75

Post by yxhuvud »

gobbluth wrote: post #71
potatolicious wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Give me a public transportation system that runs on time, doesn't spread disease, doesn't have punk kids who confront you for no reason, is safe, and has sane time schedules and I'll be happy." The problem is that you live in San Francisco. The biggest problem in that list (safety/perceived safety) has more to do with the city than the transit system itself. It's not a brokenness in the transportation system (thou…

It's the same in Europe. As a visiting American, I'm in awe of the infrastructure they've built -- beautiful, clean, fast, charming -- but these were built with European society in mind, which generally raises kids to be respectful, clean, and polite. But now there are a ton of pretty awful immigrants from the Middle East who harass women, destroy property, and threaten anyone they dislike... which is quickly making…

I don't know about other European cities, but immigrants are priced out of the central areas of Stockholm, just like poor black people are priced out of Manhattan. I wouldn't be surprised if the same effect is true in other cities as well, due to the fact that most have been a lot more restrictive than USA when it comes to erecting high rises.

Re: The End of Car Culture

#76

Post by r00fus »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #46
andyl wrote: post #5

The end of car culture can't come soon enough.

I think public transportation culture can't die soon enough. It's a ham-fisted solution to poorly designed cities. Even in "good" cities like New York and Vienna I think it's awful. I despise public transportation in almost every conceivable way. The good news is that the future is a fleet of self driving cars. Everybody wins in that world. Safe, efficient, clean, and fast. It's gonna be great.

Where did you get from "self-driving" to "safe, clean, efficient and fast"?

Cars, unless we go with the monorail-pod-car concept, will always have particulate pollution due to tires (even EVs like the Tesla). Furthermore, all the self-driving cars right now are also gas-powered (hybrid, IIRC). It's not clear how the intersection of mass-market self-driving cars and human drivers will result, safety-wise, leaving alone pedestrians. I won't contest the "fast" claim you put out there, but given safety concerns, it's likely not going to be much faster than non-automated car results.

Public transport is a poor solution, but it's simply the safest, most efficient that exists unless you're simply unconcerned with reality or don't care about scale. When Musk shows up with a working pod-car concept (he's hinted at it), then I'm on board. Until then, I'm a champion of least suck transport model that exists.

Re: The End of Car Culture

#77

Post by cafard »

ttrx wrote: post #48
nostromo wrote: post #10

One thing missed by most of these post-auto stories: transit used to be sooo boring , and no longer is. I'm old enough to remember riding the bus before mp3 players and smart phones. Your only options were to read or to bring a CD player. Walkmans (Walkmen?) were a pain: batteries got expensive, and carrying more than 1 or 2 CDs was a pain, so you ended up listen to a few tracks over and over. Newspapers and books we…

Not me. Most of my life I lived in cities with very good public transport systems, but I know that once I am done getting educated, I will live in a city that one can't live in without a car. Public transit and bikes are cheaper and cleaner, I agree. But goddammit, they are so inconvenient. Public transit is annoying because it's never close to where you live or work - your destination gets averaged with everybody el…

Disagree utterly, but upvoted anyway.

Re: The End of Car Culture

#78

Post by DanBC »

There's still a few billion people with no transport who will be buying vehicles soon.

I really freaking hope we've sorted out some better engine than internal combustion.

But even batteries might be tricky - how much rare earth metal do you need for a billion electric vehicles?

The problem with Beijing population all driving cars isn't so much that they're driving cars - it's weird of me to demand they still ride bicycles - but that they mostly drive badly made badly maintained cars.

Also, this is the kind of thing where international travel helps you see other perspectives. The first 'drive through mailbox' I saw was in the US. At Gilroy Outlets I would see someone leave one store, get in their car, drive 20 yards to be outside the next store, get out, go shopping, get back in their car, drive 50 yards to the next store they wanted to visit, and so on. I have no idea if that's common in the US, but I saw it in a few different malls in CA. It kind of freaked me out. (I understand if these people have a disability that makes walking painful or whatnot. That wasn't obvious from looking at them. Maybe they just hate the smell of garlic?)

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