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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

#611

Post by Xylakant »

thehappypm wrote: post #604
eastbound wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True freedom is city bikes. Go anywhere worry-free, empty handed, come back using a simple card. 35€ per year in Lyon, France. Unplanned arrival at 1am in the wrong train station? A bike is still waiting for you. Drawbacks: It’s only free for 30 minutes per trip; Sometimes you still get the bike stolen for 150€.

Sadly cold climate areas struggle with making this a reality. Boston has a big network of these bikes and ridership is huge in the warmer months, but drops off a cliff when it gets cold and icy. I know areas in Europe achieve this, but Copenhagen is warmer and less snowy than Boston.

Meet Oulu, the winter cycling capital of the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU - including the reasons why people do not cycle in winter (it's not primarily the cold)

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

#612

Post by johnwalkr »

bluGill wrote: post #305
moffkalast wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you again need to figure out and get whatever local card or ticket or app they decided to use to pay for all that, because there is zero standardization, which adds even more financial overhead assuming you're only visiting once, plus figuring out the timetable and route plan so you don't end up on the completely opposite end. Lots of "Oh wait, you were supposed to take the #15 bus, but this is a #15B which doesn…

Transit agencies should come up with a reciprocity plan. You don't live here, but you have have a monthly pass for the city you live in so I'll let you ride my system for a week - or if system prices are too different pro-rate your time so you get a great discount. Note that a large part of the above is I think transit agencies should try to get as many people as possible on unlimited ride family passes. Anyone with…

Large cities don’t usually have one unlimited monthly plan, you pay for your specific route or zone(s).

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

#613

Post by ryukafalz »

asciimov wrote: post #583
ryukafalz wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but my neighborhood was so far removed from other places and stores that there was no other place to go This is probably why. It's less clear cut when there's an abundance of places to go and things to do within easy walking/biking/transit distance.

Indeed. I'm always fascinated by the idea of high density cities, because that kind of lifestyle is so foreign to me. While I would love to have stores and restaurants that stay open past 9 pm, I don't think I want to live in such close quarters to so many other people.

Even in the suburbs here in the Northeast, things are physically close enough to each other that you could get to quite a lot without a car. We often don't build in such a way that it's comfortable to do so though.

I've just moved to a suburb of Philadelphia. I'm on a quiet residential street, but there's a train station to Philly about an 8 minute bike ride away (with trains every 7ish minutes at rush hour), and the route is reasonably comfortable. Likewise there's a main street about a 5 minute ride away with several restaurants and shops, and the neighboring towns are similar. (Riding on the main street itself is less comfortable, but there's at least a documented plan to add bike infrastructure.)

There's also a big-box shopping center that would be a 12 minute ride away, but there's currently no safe route there without a car. That's a policy choice though, there's nothing about the distances involved that would make it infeasible.

Despite all this, I would guess that my neighborhood doesn't fundamentally look much different than those you're familiar with. It's maybe slightly more compact, but unless you're really far out there my guess is it's just better-connected.

Not showing my actual house for obvious reasons but this is representative: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MidgjesXcKjgTFnt9

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

#614

Post by warner25 »

stuckinhell wrote: post #546
warner25 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can recognize the tremendous utility of something without having an emotional connection like love for it. I agree that I can't imagine not having a car with my four little kids. I also can't imagine not having laundry machines with four little kids, but I don't love my laundry machines; I'm not passionate about them. If you swapped them out with different but reasonably equivalent machines, I wouldn't eve…

I chose the word Love and I meant it. Humans are emotional beings first and thinking beings second (Though this maybe my day job of management leaking through). Every time I look at my car, I remember my children's "firsts", and honestly I know I'll be very sad when that car breaks down.

Fair point. My car has served me a lot longer than my laundry machines, and it indeed has many more memories connected to it. Now I'm wondering if that's unique to my car or any old object that been close to me for 15 years. I guess I have a simple backpack like that too.

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

#615

Post by wizofaus »

Surely we can come up with a better term than "anti-car" laws. In virtually all the cases I've seen they're basically attempts to reverse over-dedication to car-specific infrastructure of precious urban space - i.e. to use that space for something that improves the urban environment for everyone - and yes, often including those who realistically have no choice but to drive (delivery vans etc.). Cars are great for many things, but most of reasons they're not are because so many of us are given few realistic alternative choices due to the nature of how our cities have been built (which we had very little collective say in), hence we all end up using them for almost every journey, with predictable consequences. It doesn't make sense to consider attempts to fix that as "anti-" anything.

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

#616

Post by hunter2_ »

Xylakant wrote: post #479
ghaff wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a couple in SF who don't own a car and still seem pretty mobile between bike, walking, Uber, Zipcar, rentals, etc. But it takes a certain mental accounting disciple to go "I'm OK with spending $50 in transportation to meet a friend for dinner--and maybe a bit longer--because I'm still coming out ahead on an annual basis."

The thing that helped me most is looking up the costs for owning a car and building that into my budget. I know that as long as the sum of all rides in a month is below that figure, I'm coming out ahead. (plus the added comfort of not actually being the one to drive)

> in a month

It might make more sense to say "in a car ownership window" than "in a month" to prevent heavy months (say, holidays/vacations) from seeming problematic and lighter months (not doing much besides working) from implying that you're winning more than you really are. Assuming sufficient buffer of funds, that is.

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

#617

Post by fragmede »

yamtaddle wrote: post #547
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…

Cars are mostly less fun to drive around in, now. They used to be bigger, with nice wide & deep seats, and they had way better visibility. Plus more were convertibles. Now they're smaller, with thick heavy safety beams providing much worse visibility, and there aren't many convertibles around. There are exceptions, but they're mostly fun for the driver , not passengers. And they're usually expensive. Plus, at-home en…

You missed the biggest problem of all - traffic. Driving can be quite fun, but sitting in traffic is not. Because "everyone" has a car now, there's traffic everywhere to make LA freeways jealous. Sitting as a passenger in a car that's barely moving isn't the worst - we have infinite distraction boxes to play with, but the driver has no such toy to play with, so they have to make do with podcasts. Which are often quite engaging, but the driver still has to drive.

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

#618

Post by tdiff »

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…

Because number of trains per day makes little sense if you have to plan the trip months in advance to get affordable prices, and the ticket binds you to a specific train.

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

#619

Post by wing-_-nuts »

codexb wrote: post #556
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 can accept that people can find happiness in vastly different situations, but the "city life" is devoid of a lot of the things that people living in the suburbs and rural areas enjoy that require having a car. People who collect things, or have a workshop in their garage, or go fishing, or hunting, or real hiking, or any outdoor activity really, or who have children (especially more than one). If I lived in the cit…

If I could shape the world to my liking, we'd look a lot more like the neatherlands with mixed-use development, great public transit and protected bike / ped infrastructure.

Even with all that goodness, roughly half the population in the neatherlands owns a car, despite how outrageously expensive it can be there. There are still great reasons to own a car, and frankly I think everyone's experience would be better if walking, biking, and public transit were safe and viable. That could get so much traffic off the road. It would make driving much more pleasant.

Owning a car should be a 'nice to have' and not a 'need'.

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

#620

Post by GiorgioG »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #573
GiorgioG wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...who admit that they hate driving, many of which never got a driver's license." They hate driving or they don't drive because they don't have a license (and thus how can they hate something they don't do)...which one is it? I don't "love" my vehicle, I'm an adult and a vehicle is just a tool. I enjoy the convenience of being able to move from point A to point B on my own schedule. Are there downsides? Of course. F…

Those with licenses hate driving but do it (sparingly) through necessity. Those without licenses still had permits at some point, but found driving stressful enough that they never bothered to get a license.

Reading the above it seems like you're combining the dislike/stress of learning to be competent at something (driving) with the dislike for a particular activity (driving).

Learning something isn't always fun, even if that something is something you may come to enjoy (or at least be indifferent about) once you gain a certain level of competency with it. If you never get past the learning discomfort it's hard to differentiate the dislike for the activity itself vs the frustrations of being a beginner.

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