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Cars Kill Cities

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Re: Cars Kill Cities

#181

Post by loup-vaillant »

robomartin wrote: post #148
ctdonath wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Why would you want to own a car if you could avoid it? I used to live approximately half a mile from the epicenter of the 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake. I was actually at my desk programming at 4:31AM when it hit. It was, by far, the most violent quake I have ever experienced. The vertical component was brutal. It actually shot me up off my chair when it compressed the height adjusting air cylinder and propel…

What if you didn't had your car? Would you have lost any property, or have anyone harmed?

Assuming not having your care would have been bad, what is the frequency of such events? Are they, say, more frequent than serious car crashes?

Not to mention the sheer costs of having most people owning their own car, compared to a decent public transportation system (which doesn't exist, I know). Even if cars save more lives than they crush, this money could go to more efficient life-saving effort, such as medical research, or existential risks mitigation.

It's all cost and benefit. Don't let your personal experience get in the way of numbers. They may be abstract, but at that scale, they matter more than your own family.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#182

Post by Segmentation »

robomartin wrote: post #148
ctdonath wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Why would you want to own a car if you could avoid it? I used to live approximately half a mile from the epicenter of the 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake. I was actually at my desk programming at 4:31AM when it hit. It was, by far, the most violent quake I have ever experienced. The vertical component was brutal. It actually shot me up off my chair when it compressed the height adjusting air cylinder and propel…

The original article explains it well. It's okay to own a car, maybe even one per adult in the household (though I would advocate greater car sharing). The original article's point is using the right tool for the job. In your cases the car was the right tool. For many people, especially city dwellers, you can leave your car at home and ride a bicycle for your daily city commutes. If everyone physically able followed this rule.. We'll, we'd probably look a lot like Sweden or those other uber bike friendly European places.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#183

Post by ctdonath »

jseliger wrote: post #112
ctdonath wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

(correction applied) Thanks, fixed! 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. But at very high cost, per The High Cost of Free Parking , and at high time costs: I'm struck by the way that, when I lived in Tucson, it took seemingly 30 or 40 minutes to get anywhere. Now I live in New York City and it takes about the same, but the def…

Sure, cars suck for some scenarios. Bikes and public transport work much better there. Frankly, I don't like living in those conditions.

Bikes and public transport suck for other scenarios. Right now I'd spend more time just walking to & from bus stops than my entire commute, and biking the 15 miles to work would get me killed by the end of the week.

Live where it suits you. Ticks me off that the public transport crowd wants to actively deny me both my money and preferred mode of transport, when I wish to deny them nothing but my involvement.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#184

Post by mikeash »

robomartin wrote: post #148
ctdonath wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Why would you want to own a car if you could avoid it? I used to live approximately half a mile from the epicenter of the 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake. I was actually at my desk programming at 4:31AM when it hit. It was, by far, the most violent quake I have ever experienced. The vertical component was brutal. It actually shot me up off my chair when it compressed the height adjusting air cylinder and propel…

I don't understand your last paragraph at all. Inverters aren't all that expensive and will run all those basic necessities you mention from a normal gas-powered car.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#185

Post by tedsanders »

htp wrote: post #150
tedsanders wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon me, but what is s/g?

"s/every day/frequently/g” is a UNIX-y way of saying “substitute ‘frequently’ in place of ‘every day’ in the entire document”. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sed#Substitution .)

Thanks!

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#186

Post by ctdonath »

psychometry wrote: post #154
ctdonath wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A "rescue" bit my daughter in the face and very nearly destroyed her eye. I'll stick with pets of known social and medical histories, thank you very much. BTW: having a car meant I could race her to medical help without having to wait for public transportation (aka ambulance).

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#187

Post by gress »

VLM wrote: post #80
ars_technician wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you envision goods being delivered to people then?

They would subsist merely on great clouds of smug, rainbow baths, meditation, and unicorn droppings. The rest of us, of course, will drive a car.

Unicorns are GMOs and would never be permitted in the same city as rainbow baths.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#188

Post by devilshaircut »

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…

Well - he made it easy for you because based on how he phrased it, you only had to come up with one reason cars are good. You picked some low-hanging fruit (not an ad hominem attack; your reasoning is sound). Cars are a clear solution to certain problems.

That said, I think that these reasons tend to diminish when contrasted with the downsides (not that it matters, but I do own a car, and am not just trying to shill the other side). Example: having a car also contributes to the degeneration of the city. This is a point well-illustrated in the original article. Is it worth owning a car when it is intrinsically tied to urban sprawl and the decay of cultural vibrance? Ownership comes at a cost.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#189

Post by eru »

im_a_lawyer wrote: post #125
booyaa00 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's great but you assume that there is a choice. I want to live in a nice city, but I can't. Trillions of dollars, decades of government policies and dozen of agencies with their "homeownership" programs destroyed our cities and permanently put them at a disadvantage. My city alone lost almost 1 million people so far, where blocks with only 2 or 3 houses left standing are plentiful(this isn't even Detroit!) yet th…

> I want to live in a nice city, but I can't.

If you want city living badly enough, there are countries that still have viable cities.

Re: Cars Kill Cities

#190

Post by eru »

dionidium wrote: post #51
gress wrote: post #7

The post is right, and even more so for developing world cities that emerged before cars were around. However the post is also naive. Cars are usually much faster, provide much better shelter from the weather, and are much less tiring than trying to lug bags from one place to another on buses or other public transport. They also place far fewer constraints on when you can travel. Of course it's possible to structure…

Everybody knows this is true, of course. I live three miles from work. To get here this morning I could have walked 3 blocks to the light rail station near my apartment, then another 4 or so blocks from the destination station to my office. This is pretty convenient, especially in St. Louis, where the vast, vast majority of residents don't have options nearly that good. But I didn't do it. It was 16F degrees when I l…

Put on some proper clothing and take your bike?
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