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Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

economist.com

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Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#441

Post by cscurmudgeon »

fleddr wrote: post #109
wffurr wrote: post #10

There's 138 trains per day between Amsterdam and The Hague. It's faster to take the train than to drive on that trip. Driving in either city in an exercise in frustration. Why would anyone in a rich country with a high functioning rail system like The Netherlands want to drive? I don't know how many rich countries that describes, but I lived happily for years in Boston in the USA without a car. I have one now but onl…

The US anti-car narrative often refers to the Netherlands as some kind of beacon of proper public infrastructure, whilst not knowing a damn thing about it. First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country. We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million. On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles. Public transport is rarely faster, not even in…

Well said. The pro-EU narrative hypes up everything in the EU or Europe zone ignoring data. For e.g., US rail infra is more than that of Netherlands per capita:

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Ra...

Usage (totals):

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

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#442

Post by cscurmudgeon »

rexpress wrote: post #154
fleddr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US anti-car narrative often refers to the Netherlands as some kind of beacon of proper public infrastructure, whilst not knowing a damn thing about it. First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country. We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million. On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles. Public transport is rarely faster, not even in…

>First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country...On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles. Anyone visiting a Dutch city can see what a distortion this comment is. The sheer volume of bike traffic on largely safe infrastructure is phenomenal. Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock. Life may be good for Dut…

What fraction of Netherlands lives in a city vs the rural areas?

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#443

Post by taylodl »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #402
taylodl wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That moves the monthly cost from $780 to $740. That's still an expensive proposition

Keep moving the cost down by getting progressively older cars until you hit the price you can afford.

Older cars come with higher maintenance costs and reliability issues. As you drive down the financing costs you're increasing the maintenance costs. Maintenance costs also come with aggravation costs, potential towing costs, using vacation time to deal with servicing a vehicle, and so forth.

If you have no vehicle whatsoever and you need to get one, you're looking at $500-$600 per month in total costs to get something that's reasonably reliable. As I noted in another response those costs don't even include parking. I also didn't account for things vehicle registration costs and emissions testing costs. It all adds up to make vehicle ownership quite expensive. I'm not surprised at all that young people are re-thinking the premise of owning a vehicle.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#444

Post by noobermin »

synthpop wrote: post #390
thesuitonym wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't get the emotional association of freedom that previous generations did. Previous generations would just go out for a ride, take the car out on Sunday and and enjoy the scenery. We just don't do that anymore, either because we're more concerned about the environmental effects of driving, or that we just have more interesting things to do. Not to mention, when this idea of "the freedom of a car" came about, ev…

It's ironic that as a result of previous generations of the USA being so terminally car-pilled, the "scenery" of most American towns/destinations have slowly transformed into bland, ugly parking lots as far as the eye can see.

Of course, the generations that did this will deny they had any hand in it, and suck it up to their children (you know, the ones they raised apparently) are lazy, sheltered (by who I wonder), etc etc.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#445

Post by CalRobert »

usrusr wrote: post #343
overthemoon wrote: post #174

I'm an aging millennial, but on a purely personal level, when I lived in a city with good public transit, I was a lot happier, most of the time. I really like stepping off the train and the bus and being on my own two feet, the walking exercise, not being chained to this thing I have to worry about. I hate driving, I hate parking, I hate owning a car--the maintenance, the ongoing cost of fuel and insurance, all of it…

It really is a "the grass is bleaker on the other side" situation. As a public transport person I feel weirdly constrained by the idea that a day's itinerary will inevitably have to see me return to wherever the car is parked, impossible to do spontaneous things like walk a few stops, ride with an acquaintance or something like that that would eventually take me home, but not return to some previous stage. With a car…

True freedom is a folding bike! Ride to point a, take your Brompton with you on the train to point B, ride to point c, etc.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#446

Post by stcroixx »

overthemoon wrote: post #174

I'm an aging millennial, but on a purely personal level, when I lived in a city with good public transit, I was a lot happier, most of the time. I really like stepping off the train and the bus and being on my own two feet, the walking exercise, not being chained to this thing I have to worry about. I hate driving, I hate parking, I hate owning a car--the maintenance, the ongoing cost of fuel and insurance, all of it…

You live somewhere that requires a car and you have a car, so yeah, there's no association of car=freedom for you. That is for people who live in the same place as you but don't have a car. When they get one, it's 'ah, freedom'. You could experience this too if you tried to live your normal life without your car.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#448

Post by pookha »

overthemoon wrote: post #174

I'm an aging millennial, but on a purely personal level, when I lived in a city with good public transit, I was a lot happier, most of the time. I really like stepping off the train and the bus and being on my own two feet, the walking exercise, not being chained to this thing I have to worry about. I hate driving, I hate parking, I hate owning a car--the maintenance, the ongoing cost of fuel and insurance, all of it…

I felt like I was going to get murdered by some guy wigging out in NYCs subways. And I'm attuned to sketchy situations thanks to my youth and there was a menacing vibe even without the nutter. And the bus? God no. I rode the city bus as a kid. Guy was dealing drugs in the back, gangs would abuse and bully a gay dude like every day...it was a show. Thank god for the freedom, safety and flexibility my personal vehicle provides.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#449

Post by HPsquared »

taylodl wrote: post #400
sokoloff wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of reliable 15-year old cars. (My wife drives a reliable 18-year old, 225K mile car. We took it on a 1600 mile roundtrip for the winter holidays this year with no particular fear that it wouldn't run like a top for the entire trip.) The idea that cars are only reliable for 5 years and 60K miles is, IMO and IME, quite out-dated. That was more true in the days of carburetors, points-based ignition, and…

I have a 15 year old, 20 year old, and 25 year old vehicle. They're very reliable. They're also not for sale.

>They're also not for sale.

There's a famous economics paper on this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

Used cars are an example of information asymmetry. If someone has a "bad" car they'll want to sell it. If they have a "good" car they'll want to keep it. Especially if both cars have the same market value because the buyer can't distinguish between the good and bad cars.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#450

Post by foobarian »

Earw0rm wrote: post #258
overthemoon wrote: post #174

I'm an aging millennial, but on a purely personal level, when I lived in a city with good public transit, I was a lot happier, most of the time. I really like stepping off the train and the bus and being on my own two feet, the walking exercise, not being chained to this thing I have to worry about. I hate driving, I hate parking, I hate owning a car--the maintenance, the ongoing cost of fuel and insurance, all of it…

Yep.. something about setting out in to the unknown, a battered paper map as your guide, and the combination of surprise and lack of accountability (doesn't perfectly describe what I mean, but I can't find a better word) you'd get in return. It was possible to do that before cars, but mass car ownership & a modern road network made it something the average consumer could do semi-routinely, instead of something that r…

Street view is the last nail in the coffin, why drive when you can just take a peek from your computer.

On the flip side, it's a fun activity to do with my kid. Pick a random country, "drive around" on SV to see what it's like there.

I'm sure we lose something from the watered down interaction though. Walking into a faraway bar or diner and chatting up the locals is much more enriching.

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