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Cars Kill Cities

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Re: Cars Kill Cities

#151

Post by dllthomas »

tdees40 wrote: post #138
dllthomas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not even the monetary cost of renting, it's the time cost." Absolutely. I'd definitely meant for that to be a part of "overhead" but it probably is worth calling out explicitly.

For most hauling cases, you can rent a truck/van from Home Depot for $20/hour or so. It takes about five minutes to do. Obviously that isn't everyone's use case, but Enterprise will pick you up, or Zip Car or even cabs is a valid possibility. None of these are all that difficult.

Like I said, it's been falling. Transportation to/from Home Depot is time and expense. Enterprise will pick you up, but there's slop in when exactly that will be, and it still doesn't entirely remove the time to/from the rental car place. The nearest ZipCar isn't always available. And nonetheless, these might be fantastic options for most people. My only points were that overhead shouldn't be overlooked, but that it's been falling. If you look at it and determine that, for your situation, it's less, then great! That will be the case in an increasing number of situations; I make no claim at all about how many or few.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#152

Post by dllthomas »

lsc wrote: post #143
jseliger wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car is freedom. Do you really want to be completely dependent and beholden to some public transport system? Per the link, I view a car as slavery, and, per The High Cost of Free Parking , car infrastructure is much more expensive than is commonly realized. Owning a car is being a slave to car payments, to saving for the car, to the insurance company, to the repair shop, to the driveway or parking lot, to paying aro…

People throw around the world 'slavery' way too lightly, considering it's historical connotations.

"Freedom", too, for that matter.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#153

Post by lsc »

dllthomas wrote: post #152
lsc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People throw around the world 'slavery' way too lightly, considering it's historical connotations.

"Freedom", too, for that matter.

meh, 'freedom' has never had a good, solid meaning. Kings have been using that word for centuries.

Slavery, until fairly recently has meant 'owning another human' - I mean, hell, I'll buy the use of slavery to mean 'having a choice between doing what another human wants and dying'

My problem here is expanding it to mean 'having to pay a small fee or suffer discomfort'

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#154

Post by psychometry »

ctdonath wrote: post #109
jseliger wrote: post #34

If you're interested in this topic, Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City are both worth reading. The former explains how "free" parking isn't really free and how it distorts a lot of behavior, and the latter is about what cities are good for and how to build healthy cities in general. Personally, I wonder why people would want to own a car if they can avoid it: htt…

Why would you want to own a car if you could avoid it? (correction applied) Because I can go wherever I want, whenever I want, with my whole family (pets included), with a trunkful of cargo, as I see fit. I keep a bunch of gear in my car which makes me pretty much independent. No way I'd be hauling "go camping on a moment's notice" stuff and other equipment everywhere on the bus. Nor would I have the basic equipment…

Giving your preference for buying puppies from a breeder, it's not surprising that your opinions about transportation also only revolve around what you want and not what is moral or best for society or your community.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#156

Post by glomph »

David Byrne's book Bicycle Diaries has some fantastic analysis of the effects of cars on cities (particularly American ones). I would highly recommend it!

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#157

Post by forrestthewoods »

phaer wrote: post #79
forrestthewoods wrote: post #17

Self driving cars my pick for best solution. You can have fewer cars services more people with higher efficiency. It's all wins across the board. I hope the bloggers solution ideas aren't "better public transportation". Public transportation sucks, even in Europe. A pre-requisite to good public transportation is poor infrastructure for private transportation. I view asking for better public transportation as asking f…

That's just not true, you can't say that about all european cities. Vienna has excellent public transport for example.

Public transportation sucks at a fundamental level. It's a graph with an extremely limited number of nodes on a completely fixed schedule. That's clearly inferior to free travel from any point to any point.

Given equal travel time I'd pick an autonomous car over train or bus 100% of the time. I'd pick a self driven car 100% of the time when not inebriated. For the most part faster travel time in a train or bus isn't a sign of their superiority but a sign of failure in proper infrastructure for cars. =I've been throughout Europe. Including two weeks in Vienna. I still think public transportation sucks and asking for more is asking for a faster horse.

In the United States I'd argue there isn't a single city with good public transportation. Not one. Some folks will list NYC as a good example. I don't consider a city with the single worst commute time in the entire country as a positive example. [1]

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/longest-...

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#158

Post by bguthrie »

booyaa00 wrote: post #110
jseliger wrote: post #34

If you're interested in this topic, Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City are both worth reading. The former explains how "free" parking isn't really free and how it distorts a lot of behavior, and the latter is about what cities are good for and how to build healthy cities in general. Personally, I wonder why people would want to own a car if they can avoid it: htt…

Lots of people don't want to live in a city. For me, living in a city is a horrible existence. So living in the unspoilt countryside a car is pretty useful to get around. A car is freedom. Do you really want to be completely dependent and beholden to some public transport system?

I live close enough to my workplace and the basic necessities that I could walk to them if I so choose. Most people who own cars now live so far away from these things that they can no longer live without their four-wheeler. That doesn't seem all that free to me.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#159

Post by msandford »

VLM wrote: post #101
msandford wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even the monetary cost of renting, it's the time cost. If I have a pickup truck the time cost for me to buy something off of CL is driving there, inspecting it and then buying it. Done. If I have to rent a pickup to transport it back then I've got two choices. I can either rent the vehicle prior to looking at the item or after I decide to buy it for sure. If I always-rent then I'll kill at least 2hrs per CL…

For the price delta between my Yaris and a gigantic 4x4 crew cab pickup truck, including capital cost, interest, insurance, gas, maint, tires, if I buy a small car I'll never, ever have to buy anything used again off craigslist. This is stereotypical penny wise pound foolish behavior. WRT to OP's relative hauling some plywood occasionally, for the price difference between a commuter car and a monster truck he could f…

Sure but you're calculating the ideal case for you and worst-case for the truck. Not everyone buys a gigantic 4x4 crew cab pickup. There are plenty of regular bed length, single cab RWD pickups on the road and they don't cost $60k to buy.

The Ford F150 base model goes for $25k or so.

http://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/pricing/

A base model Yaris goes for $14k.

http://www.toyota.com/yaris/#!/Welcome

And that's presuming you're buying new! There are a great many used pickups for sale and the parts tend to change less frequently because pickup design parameters change much more slowly than car design parameters do. Because the design changes more slowly parts tend to be around longer and cheaper. And because the design of a pickup is driven by the need to have a 4x6-8ft long bed they tend to have roomy engine compartments in order to keep the proportions "correct"

By your own admission if you did at least one project per month requiring the use of a truck you would be spending the same amount of money. Perhaps that's money well spent to you, but you're not everyone.

There's no "right" answer here, only a spectrum of options that are better or worse depending on your personal preferences and the kinds of activities you undertake.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#160

Post by msandford »

tdees40 wrote: post #138
dllthomas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not even the monetary cost of renting, it's the time cost." Absolutely. I'd definitely meant for that to be a part of "overhead" but it probably is worth calling out explicitly.

For most hauling cases, you can rent a truck/van from Home Depot for $20/hour or so. It takes about five minutes to do. Obviously that isn't everyone's use case, but Enterprise will pick you up, or Zip Car or even cabs is a valid possibility. None of these are all that difficult.

Not difficult on an absolute scale, but definitely more difficult than getting your keys, going out into the driveway and driving off.

So it depends on how frequently you use a truck as an input into the cost of owning vs cost of renting equation. At once per year it absolutely makes sense to rent. At once per day it absolutely makes sense to own. Many use cases fall in between.

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