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Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

economist.com

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Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#341

Post by neuronic »

IloveHN84 wrote: post #180
JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

Don't let be fooled by the "tourist impression". Staying for some days isn't the same as living in a place, involving commuting to work, bringing children to school, etc Every city looks nice as a Tourist, but then it's hard if you live there and in the false zone of the city (=farest away)

Spent 6 years in the US as a European. By far the worst part on a daily basis was the missing public transportation due to the enormous focus on cars. Many towns didn't even attempt to be accessible to anyone without a car.

I sometimes waited for hours in NY state blizzards to catch a bus before I was able to afford a car. I walked 2-3 hours to a mall and to Walmart when all other students went home for break. Bus service was irregular and spotty.

We have shittier bus services in small towns and villages as well and people often use cars for convenience. But public transport is still present at a minimum level.

I honestly don't get this dependence and focus on cars in the US. Must be some former Detroit lobbyism that led to this.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#342

Post by noobermin »

vnorilo wrote: post #226
JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

This European spent a couple of carless months in Pittsburgh and found the public transit pretty decent. Only ride-hailed a handful of times. I do realize that Pittsburgh is probably not a median US city, but serves to remind us in the old world that there's a huge variety of different sorts of places in the US.

It isn't. It's also an older city and it depends on where in a city you are. Try living this way in a suburb of LA, your quality of life without a car will be greatly reduced.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#343

Post by marble-drink »

rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

You just can't compare commuting on time alone. If you commute by car then 100% of that time is spent sitting down either driving or stuck in traffic. If you commute by public transport then maybe 50% of the time is spent reading, and 50% is spent walking. If you commute by bicycle then 100% of the time is spent cycling.

It's a shame that study only shows a mean aggregate. I'd be interested to see the raw distribution in commute times. Just anecdotally I've known many people in the UK who spend only ten minutes "commuting" to work each day. That rarely seems to be possible in the US from what I've seen.

But, yes, European people don't understand the American way of life. The amount of waste and unsustainable consumption would shock them to the core.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#344

Post by systemtest »

glogla wrote: post #257
rayiner wrote: post #170

I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling... That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit us…

I'm in European city with great public transport, and my commute is 50 minutes by bus or 20 minutes by car (one way). Every time someone says "we should forbid cars in cities", I hear "we should take away 1 hour a day from your family, you should sit in bus instead". (or more likely stand, since the bus is always full) I'm not fan of that.

My commute by car is 45 minutes, 60 minutes by public transport.

I still take public transport. In a car I need to be focused for the full 45 minutes and be stuck in traffic, having nothing to do. In the train I can put my laptop on the table and work for 35 minutes straight before I need to switch to the subway. I can also recline the seat and take a 35 minute nap instead. It's amazing and really adds to my quality of life.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#345

Post by arkh »

dwd wrote: post #302
arkh wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure why you're getting down-voted Maybe because just speaking on the phone in traffic makes a lot less attentive so you're prone to create accidents.

I would consider talking hands-free (if you're holding a phone you deserve to lose your license) no more distracting than listening to music. There are worst things like eating or talking to someone else in the car. (look at the road not the person when you're talking)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safe...

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-18024-008

>The results indicate that passenger conversations differ from cell phone conversations because the surrounding traffic not only becomes a topic of the conversation, helping driver and passenger to share situation awareness, but the driving condition also has a direct influence on the complexity of the conversation, thereby mitigating the potential negative effects of a conversation on driving.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#346

Post by noobermin »

neuronic wrote: post #341
IloveHN84 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let be fooled by the "tourist impression". Staying for some days isn't the same as living in a place, involving commuting to work, bringing children to school, etc Every city looks nice as a Tourist, but then it's hard if you live there and in the false zone of the city (=farest away)

Spent 6 years in the US as a European. By far the worst part on a daily basis was the missing public transportation due to the enormous focus on cars. Many towns didn't even attempt to be accessible to anyone without a car. I sometimes waited for hours in NY state blizzards to catch a bus before I was able to afford a car. I walked 2-3 hours to a mall and to Walmart when all other students went home for break. Bus se…

There's an old conspiracy, although its accuracy is debatable, google the "General Motors streetcar conspiracy." Another potential possibility is many cities scrapped their streetcars for spare metal during WWII. Along with that, market forces and lobbying and policy by people like Robert Moses, the current form of America was created.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#347

Post by baud147258 »

masklinn wrote: post #210
closeparen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, but I think it's worth considering that public transit commutes might be longer because people find time on public transit more pleasant, and are willing to do more of it. To look at two extremes, 45 minutes of bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go driving is a lot less compelling than 45 minutes of reading on a commuter train with a comfortable seat.

> people find time on public transit more pleasant, and are willing to do more of it. My knowledge of "popular" underground (London) or metro (Paris) lines makes that very unlikely, they're hot, way overcrowded, and odd-smelling when they don't outright stink. Very useful and convenient, and can be pleasant outside of peak hours, but back when I worked in Paris despite not being a morning person I switched my work ho…

For Paris, it depends on the line. I'm taking line 10 daily (and a bit of T2) and it's confortable enough.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#348

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

DrOctagon wrote: post #96
Barrin92 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So you end up with this "class warfare" type situation. This is a weird framing because the very poorest segments of society in Europe also tend to live in urban areas and don't even own a car and rely on public transport, so it's more of a class sandwich. The very car reliant demographic seems to be what in the United States is called the 'dream hoarder' class, which is to say the largely socio-economic isolated mi…

Class isn't purely economic. It is the perception of 'inner city elites' being out of touch with the rest of the country. In the recent Australian election, the (losing) Labour Party had a policy to target 50% of vehicles being electric by 2030. The Liberal party jumped on this and ran a scare campaign that Labour was trying to take away the vehicles that Australians love for work and recreation, utes and 4WD/SUVs. I…

Living unsustainably and ignoring pollution and global warming is their "need"?

Politicians running that kind of campaign should be jailed. They probably do much more actual damage than those who support terrorism or racism, which are illegal in most countries.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#350

Post by briandear »

H8crilA wrote: post #183
JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

It's the case not just in Korea and Japan but in most cities outside of America. It's one of American peculiarities, like checks or no public health care. China has a fantastic subway system in most big cities, for example. I once took a subway ride from the Shenzhen airport to the Hong Kong border, crossed the border, switched to another subway and arrived in downtown Hong Kong. That's around 65km (40 miles) by publ…

Checks? France loves checks and use them more than Americans.

No public health care? That isn’t true either. Medicaid and Medicare are public health care.

Another legitimate peculiarity of Americans is the vastly higher disposable income compared to most other countries. Even with all of the “free” stuff, the French have lower wages and far less disposable income than Americans.

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