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Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

nytimes.com

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Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#11

Post by brailsafe »

ianai wrote: post #6
honkycat wrote: post #5

I suspect modern transportation infrastructure are going to be one of those things future generations mock us for. We spend an insane amount of our private money on purchasing and maintaining personal vehicles, our public money on our road infrastructure, and our natural resources on building and driving the cars ( that smog has a cost even if everyone wants to pretend it does not. ). They belch smog that poisons peo…

We devote vast amounts of real estate to transportation too. The surface areas of just the on/off ramps of a highway blow my mind. Then there’s the road kill. I wish there was a better way.

Don't forget parking lots outside big box stores

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#13

Post by lazyjones »

robbyt wrote: post #4
lazyjones wrote: post #3

I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…

People own private cars in the US because the real cost of owning a car is hidden from the car users. E.g., subsidized roads, gas, automobile industry bailouts, and finally global warming and climate impact. European cities have far fewer cars than similarly sized American cities. Gas and car ownership taxes are are also more expensive in Europe compared to America. The reason for this is that the actual cost of car…

> European cities have far fewer cars than similarly sized American cities. Gas and car ownership taxes are are also more expensive in Europe compared to America. The reason for this is that the actual cost of car ownership in the US is being passed on to future generations.

No, the reason for this is that European cities are much older and denser, hence streets are narrower, garages are often impossible to build. Gas is more expensive because most cities in Europe have to import it from far away and because taxes are generally higher, not because we're beacons of virtue while the USA is car owners' heaven.

Here in Austria, the average car owner pays a few 1000 $ per year in car-related taxes plus highway tolls, gas prices are high ($8-9 per gallon) and people are complaining just as much about the cost of car ownership being passed on to future generations or the general public. All while our car taxes/tolls are used to maintain highways and those are used by everyone's cargo deliveries, bus travels and so on.

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#14

Post by lazyjones »

honkycat wrote: post #5

I suspect modern transportation infrastructure are going to be one of those things future generations mock us for. We spend an insane amount of our private money on purchasing and maintaining personal vehicles, our public money on our road infrastructure, and our natural resources on building and driving the cars ( that smog has a cost even if everyone wants to pretend it does not. ). They belch smog that poisons peo…

> They belch smog that poisons people and reduces their IQ[0]

We'll have to stop equating cars with smog. Modern cars don't have exhaust pipes. So this can no longer serve as an argument against cars in general.

> Traffic makes cities miserable to live in.

Traffic is a function of the number of people who live in cities, it increases with population even without private car ownership. So you are essentially saying that people make cities miserable to live in (I agree).

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#15

Post by lazyjones »

jacques_chester wrote: post #10
lazyjones wrote: post #3

I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…

> because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go This would be a problem if the random destinations were uniformly distributed. They are not. They cluster. And indeed there is a feedback loop between public transport and destination desirability. > It's impossible because total traffic cannot increase due to new roads since there aren't infinite people or cars to begin with. The traffic moving to…

> If you lower the cost of something then, all things being equal, the demand rises

No. Only in abstract models with potentially infinite supply and demand. If you lower the cost of plaster casts, more people won't break their legs.

> Roads are not immune from economics, just as they are not excused from geometry.

And economics aren't immune from ideology and disingenuous modelling.

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#16

Post by jacques_chester »

lazyjones wrote: post #15
jacques_chester wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go This would be a problem if the random destinations were uniformly distributed. They are not. They cluster. And indeed there is a feedback loop between public transport and destination desirability. > It's impossible because total traffic cannot increase due to new roads since there aren't infinite people or cars to begin with. The traffic moving to…

> If you lower the cost of something then, all things being equal, the demand rises No. Only in abstract models with potentially infinite supply and demand. If you lower the cost of plaster casts, more people won't break their legs. > Roads are not immune from economics, just as they are not excused from geometry. And economics aren't immune from ideology and disingenuous modelling.

> If you lower the cost of plaster casts, more people won't break their legs.

Now you're misunderstanding elasticity of demand and assuming that demand or supply curves are perfectly linear.

Plaster casts are highly inelastic, but if I jacked the price to $100,000 per, demand will fall off fairly sharply.

> And economics aren't immune from ideology and disingenuous modelling.

My experience is that economists know more about economics than people who beat up the strawman versions.

Your position, as I understand it, is that some other model correctly describes the demand for road travel. What is it? And why is road travel the exception?

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#17

Post by lazyjones »

jacques_chester wrote: post #16
lazyjones wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you lower the cost of something then, all things being equal, the demand rises No. Only in abstract models with potentially infinite supply and demand. If you lower the cost of plaster casts, more people won't break their legs. > Roads are not immune from economics, just as they are not excused from geometry. And economics aren't immune from ideology and disingenuous modelling.

> If you lower the cost of plaster casts, more people won't break their legs. Now you're misunderstanding elasticity of demand and assuming that demand or supply curves are perfectly linear. Plaster casts are highly inelastic, but if I jacked the price to $100,000 per, demand will fall off fairly sharply. > And economics aren't immune from ideology and disingenuous modelling. My experience is that economists know mor…

> My experience is that economists know more about economics than people who beat up the strawman versions.

And mine is that economists disagree with each other more than with anyone else.

> Your position, as I understand it, is that some other model correctly describes the demand for road travel. What is it? And why is road travel the exception?

What model specifically are you talking about? We have N lanes going from A to B, if we add 1 lane, total traffic from A to B will increase regardless of any other circumstances? Is that it?

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#18

Post by esoterica »

lazyjones wrote: post #3

I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…

> try this pipe dream in any large city

Ummm, you do realize that in most large cities around the world (including NYC, although excluding many US cities), most people do not use cars as their main mode of transportation right? It's not some crazy utopian hypothetical, it's literally how most dense cities already work.

> It's impossible because total traffic cannot increase due to new roads since there aren't infinite people or cars to begin with.

You don't need an "infinite" number of people or cars for induced demand to apply, you just need the number of people/cars to be >>> the road/parking capacity (which is true for any dense city).

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#19

Post by lazyjones »

esoterica wrote: post #18
lazyjones wrote: post #3

I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…

> try this pipe dream in any large city Ummm, you do realize that in most large cities around the world (including NYC, although excluding many US cities), most people do not use cars as their main mode of transportation right? It's not some crazy utopian hypothetical, it's literally how most dense cities already work. > It's impossible because total traffic cannot increase due to new roads since there aren't infinit…

> It's not some crazy utopian hypothetical, it's literally how most dense cities already work.

In which large city is private car ownership prohibited?

Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

#20

Post by frabbit »

Although I like the idea of stopping the insane susbidies given to private automobile transport I do not like the narrow, bi-directional bike lanes that this article is illustrated with.

When I cycle I want the option to ride side-by-side chatting with a friend or family member. I do not want to be squashed into a narrow single-occupancy lane with a concrete delimiter (or parked cars) stuck behind someone else going slowly.

There is a simple solution: let everyone faster than a pedestrian onto the roads; introduce presumed liability (similar to the Netherlands); lower the speed limit for cars, charge the operators a price that reflects the climate destruction (and whatever the going price for a few hundred thousand 3rd-World children blown to shit is these days).

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