41–50 of 79 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a luxury for the rich Parents of children under 12 should also be given a pass. (Unless outsourcing the population is a deliberate tactic, of course.)
Why is it necessary to have car if you have kids? It's quite possible to get around with kids, if the city is built for it.
1. Wow, all of these cars are annoying -- let's restrict them
2. But, rich people own these cars, and many of them drive into the city to spend money, which pays the workers
3. We all agree traffic is annoying, so those rich people sure must prefer to drive their cars
4. Hmmm, what will happen if we punish/tax/regulate their cars? Possible they'll stop coming into the city?
5. If that happens, what happens to the workers?
My primary point is that it's easy to say, "these cars suck, so let's tax them" without thinking through all of the ramifications.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends. I used to walk to school alone when I was little. When I was a little older I walked my younger brother to his school, then I walked to mine. My parents didn't need a car to do that for us. However all of us used a car to go shopping once a week. A four people family buys an incredible amount of stuff. Sometimes I walked with my mother to small shops to buy fresh food during the week. We also walked to he…
If I had kids under 12, I'd be all about grocery delivery. In my town you can order groceries online and delivery is about 5 bucks if your purchase is over $50 - not taskrabbit or anything, but the store's own delivery service. I'd go that way in a minute over stuffing kids into shoes and clothes and an SUV for something that should be a 30 minute job.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly is it about children under the age of 12 that requires a car?
I'm a father of two boys (8 and 5 yo) and we live in a small village (Ober-Erlenbach) next to a sattelite city (Bad Homburg) close to a big city (Frankfurt). We could not get along without a car (actually we own two cars). The younger child goes to a kindergarten on the opposite end of Bad Homburg. That's 40 minutes with the bus one direction. No, there was no option of a kindergarten closer to our house. There was n…
I think that many asian cities have the right approach here. Treat cars as a luxury good in a space-challenged context and tax them heavily, while making sure to provide a world class public transport system so as to guarantee no-one actually needs a car. While it doesn't have a COE, tokyo does basically the same thing. You will have to pay $50k upfront for a 10-year car permit in singapore. In Tokyo there's no upfro…
People will resist giving up cars in areas with crappy weather, but I could see this working in many US cities west/south currently choked with traffic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends. I used to walk to school alone when I was little. When I was a little older I walked my younger brother to his school, then I walked to mine. My parents didn't need a car to do that for us. However all of us used a car to go shopping once a week. A four people family buys an incredible amount of stuff. Sometimes I walked with my mother to small shops to buy fresh food during the week. We also walked to he…
If I had kids under 12, I'd be all about grocery delivery. In my town you can order groceries online and delivery is about 5 bucks if your purchase is over $50 - not taskrabbit or anything, but the store's own delivery service. I'd go that way in a minute over stuffing kids into shoes and clothes and an SUV for something that should be a 30 minute job.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly is it about children under the age of 12 that requires a car?
I'm a father of two boys (8 and 5 yo) and we live in a small village (Ober-Erlenbach) next to a sattelite city (Bad Homburg) close to a big city (Frankfurt). We could not get along without a car (actually we own two cars). The younger child goes to a kindergarten on the opposite end of Bad Homburg. That's 40 minutes with the bus one direction. No, there was no option of a kindergarten closer to our house. There was n…
The original thought was "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury." You're describing a situation where the first criteria was not met so the second, of course, won't follow. So your situation doesn't apply and it doesn't take away from the original idea.
Amazing! This more than anything else seems so sci-fi to me. Reminds me of the Diamond Age somehow. In the US we have so much space we take for granted building a new road a new subdivision a new 5acre parking lot. Imagine if there was no more space. Cars now become a whole lot more of a questionable use of space.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kids can walk, when not young enough for a trolley. My 5-year old just cycled 4km with me this weekend.
My 5yo goes to a kindergarten which is 7km away. I'm sure he'll be delighted to walk that distance. Five days a week.
Lee Kuan Yew actually thought, almost a decade ago, that he didn't go far enough: “I knew that once people in Singapore could have a car, they’d never give it up. So, before it got out of control, I said you need a Certificate Of Entitlement before a car is yours; and the permitted up-tick in number of cars depends on what the road capacity is. That was the first move. So, you bid for it. If you issue more entitlemen…
Random anecdote: I commute by MRT. I guess my average wait time is around three to max five minutes on the platform. I'm used to public transportation from Germany, but SG's transportation is so much better and very affordable on top. Cabs, Grab and (no clue, never used it myself) Uber are cheap when you need an alternative. I had a car for most of my life in Germany, don't miss it a single bit in SG.