4K video of an evening walk around Ikebukuro Station in central Tokyo. Many bicycles, minor streets with no (or limited) traffic, major streets with large pedestrian walkways.
Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
21–26 of 26 posts
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#22I 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.
For some reason, we humans don't apply system design to all the systems we build. If we were designing a system from scratch, no one would choose only two primary modes of transportation, cars and planes, and then tack on the rest. Instead, we'd choose a variety of modular, de-coupled ways with flexible interfaces to get around: walking, biking, scooters/motorcycles, cars, buses, subways, trains, and planes. Yes, we have all these today, but they are not used. Cars and planes do everything from long distance to short distance trips. Bicyclists, motorcyclists, scooters, and pedestrians are, often literally, sidelined and treated as annoyances. Instead, we should be using the best tools for the job and designing cities to support these variety of ways.
In the U.S., we've given corporations such massive power and leverage that it breaks the system design process. Corporations aren't interested in building holistic systems. They want to build funnel systems that funnel people into their products, just as the car companies did back in the mid-twentieth century to kill off mass transportation methods to instead sell individuals and families the car.
The U.S. could choose to be a world leader in this if it wanted, but it doesn't want to.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#23I 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 th…
> 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.
But:
> Data from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory indicate that particles from brake wear, tyre wear and road surface wear currently constitute 60% and 73% (by mass), respectively, of primary PM2.5 and PM10 emissions from road transport, and will become more dominant in the future.
In terms of local air quality, this will remain significant (tyre/road wear will get worse unless we manage to significantly reduce the weight of electric vehicles), and what little studies have been done tend to suggest this largely negates the gains from regenerative braking.
Essentially, we've _already_ substantially got rid of exhaust pipe smog such that other components create the majority.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 th…
> 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. But: > Data from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory indicate that particles from brake wear, tyre wear and road surface wear currently constitute 60% and 73% (by mass), respectively, of primary PM2.5 and PM10 emissions from road transport, and will become…
> > Data from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory indicate that particles from brake wear, tyre wear and road surface wear currently constitute 60% and 73% (by mass), respectively, of primary PM2.5 and PM10 emissions from road transport, and will become more dominant in the future.
So how much does road transport contribute overall?
EV brake less than ICE.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#25I 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…
> I suspect modern transportation infrastructure are going to be one of those things future generations mock us for.
Current generations mock us for this. And we look at car-less people as if they are chained to a substandard lifestyle without a hint of irony. Don't they realize they need a car to get by?
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. But: > Data from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory indicate that particles from brake wear, tyre wear and road surface wear currently constitute 60% and 73% (by mass), respectively, of primary PM2.5 and PM10 emissions from road transport, and will become…
> > Data from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory indicate that particles from brake wear, tyre wear and road surface wear currently constitute 60% and 73% (by mass), respectively, of primary PM2.5 and PM10 emissions from road transport, and will become more dominant in the future. So how much does road transport contribute overall? EV brake less than ICE.
Road transport is 11% of PM2.5 primary emissions and also 11% of PM10 primary emissions.
Domestic combustion (i.e., wood (primarily) and coal fires in domestic settings) is the top category of PM10 (44% of total) and second highest for PM2.5 (27%), after "industrial processes and use of solvents" (32%).
Notably, the resurgence of wood-burning fires in domestic settings has substantially increased emissions from that category over the past two decades (more than doubling it at a time when most other sources have been decreasing), and worse that's disproportionately in urban areas.