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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

#731

Post by tablespoon »

rexpress wrote: post #576
tablespoon wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Dutch drivers, but only because so many others leave their cars at home. I was actually considering making the same point, but sarcastically: "B b but, when I was a…

That assumes that the tourists and visitors confine themselves to the major tourist areas. If you bother to cycle outside the major tourist areas of the Netherlands, whether to minor cities or villages, you'll still notice many people cycling for local journeys. The mistake is people used to car dependence being unable to imagine any alternative, thus refusing to believe that it can be true.

> That assumes that the tourists and visitors confine themselves to the major tourist areas.

Which is a valid default assumption, unless it's made clear the speaker didn't do that.

Especially in this case, where you have an actual Dutch person who lives in the actual Netherlands getting told they were wrong by someone who cites visitor experiences.

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

#732

Post by albertopv »

albertopv wrote: post #70

Italy is made of thousands of small towns, industrial areas far from cities, all poorly connected by public transit. I really would like not to use car, but them using public transport it would take me almost an hour from home to work, 10kms, it's 15 minutes by cars. Also there are kids, if sick school will call parents to bring them home. I drive less than my parents did, if only because of higher gas prices, higher…

I really must check what and how I write before clicking comment button...

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

#733

Post by tablespoon »

pavlov wrote: post #565
tablespoon wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... Do you feel the same way about your home? Your day's itinerary will inevitably have to see you return there, too. Too see the other side, it may be useful to think of a personal car as home-like transportation infrastructure and always using public transit…

Driving is not like being at home because it requires active focus and continuous observation of an evolving social situation where other people’s decisions could cost lives. If sitting on a train is like being in a hostel, then driving is like doing tedious office work in a cubicle. I’d rather hang out at the hostel.

> Driving is not like being at home because it requires active focus and continuous observation of an evolving social situation where other people’s decisions could cost lives.

You're unreasonably expecting the analogy to be a perfect map between the two situations, when no analogy ever is.

My car is more home-like than a bus, because the car is my space.

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

#734

Post by Gordonjcp »

shortcake27 wrote: post #706
Gordonjcp wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay, so what about used cars? The average used car price in the U.S. is now over $28K (KBB). That's more than I've ever paid for any new car I've ever bought! That's more than I've spent on buying, taxing, insuring, MOTing, and repairing every car I have owned since I passed my driving test nearly 30 years ago. We live in an age of ubiquitous information. It has never been easier to learn how to repair things. Why…

> Why would you pay more than most new cars cost, when you could pick up some shiter for a few hundred, run it until it breaks In this thread and IRL it seems people are deathly afraid of a car breaking down. When I bought my most recent car (2001 Corolla) people were like “ooh what if it breaks down”. Wow, IDK, maybe I’ll fix it? Or maybe I’ll junk it. Still cheaper than buying a newer car. And it’s not as if newer…

Exactly. I drive a 25-year-old Range Rover. I get a lot of "Oh but what if it breaks down?" Well, I have tools in the boot. Also, a couple of times a week I look underneath to see if anything is hanging down that shouldn't, and look under the bonnet to see if anything is visibly out of place or pishing out fluids, and I check that there's enough of something that looks more-or-less like oil on the dipstick and enough of something that looks more-or-less like coolant in the radiator.

I'd jump in that thing and drive it anywhere, at any time, in any weather conditions, for any distance.

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

#735

Post by hintymad »

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…

It seems you're assuming that majority of the people live in the city or would love in a city? Many people, me included, do not want to live in a city, at least not in an American city. What a city boasts to offer are not relevant to my life: bars, shops, boutique stores, fancy restaurants, active social circles, loud parties, fashion shows, you name it. All those activities are just either too noisy or too crowded. On the other hand, there's not enough outdoor activities in a city. Things are so small in a city too. I want to stay in a spacious coffee shop talking to my friends without raising my voice. I want to have a huge gym instead of those crammed multi-floor ones in a city. I want to have a house that has large enough backyard and front yard and quiet streets for my kids to play around. I want to be able to play drum on my front yard and my neighbors won't hear a thing (I'm exaggerating but you get the idea). I want to be able to hop on a vehicle to ski in a place no more than 30 minutes away from my home whenever I want to. And I certainly don't want to take a bus for grocery shopping for a family of 6. The only thing in a city that I miss is those amazing huge libraries. God I enjoy spending my whole day there.

And if I can afford such life without a car, I'm all for it. But I don't know how.

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

#736

Post by earthling8118 »

serpix wrote: post #703
MengerSponge wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is a luxury, and should be priced accordingly

It is ridiculously expensive but the freedom is unparalleled. It would takes two hours to go across town. It takes 30 minutes by car. This is in Helsinki. Public transport works only to and from city center, sideways travel is royally painful.

Cars are chains that bind us, nothing more. The "freedom" to pay for insurance, gasoline, tires, batteries, and whatever else happens to go wrong. Cities with a proper public transit story also tend to have better driving experiences too

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

#737

Post by saltcured »

yamtaddle wrote: post #701
JeremyNT wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I am curious if you do not live in the US. The cars here have only gotten bigger... much bigger. Pickups and very large SUVs rule the roads now, with huge lifts and massive footprints. Many of the most popular large SUVs, such as the Jeep Wrangler or…

I mean 50s and 60s (and, to some degree, 70s) cars. Modern cars are taller but there were some absolute boats back then, and they weren't uncommon. And they felt huge on the inside. All but the largest of big-ass SUVs don't feel as big as they did, when you're actually in them. [EDIT] And even with the added height, the view from a truck or SUV sucks compared to those old cars. The only modern car I've been in the co…

I think you're partly talking about the side effects of safety changes. An older car could feel like a "green house" with lots of glass and small frames. The cabin was also less protected, so the volume of empty space inside was closer to the volume of the outer skin of that section of the car. Thin doors, not much between you and the engine compartment firewall, wheel wells, etc.

But I also wonder if you were a kid back then. Everything seemed larger when we were small. I can look at the garage in my parents 50 year old house and realize that cars back then fit in the same spaces as cars now, and were roughly the same footprint as far as worrying about the exact position so that you could still open the door to get in or out of the parked car.

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

#738

Post by earthling8118 »

tropicalbeach wrote: post #644
flangola7 wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just park then from there go anywhere you want then just take a taxi or lyft back to your car. I thought I had heard it all but "take a lyft back to the parking lot your car is in" is a new low in car culture degeneracy.

Why it's very practical. Lets say you live in the suburbs 30 minutes from downtown. You find a parking lot park your car and just walk wherever from there. At end of the day if your tired and the car is to far just get a lyft back. Sitting on a train or bus with screaming kids and breathing everyones air is not something that enjoyable. I prefer my own car it's more freedom.

Would you still agree if you had to deal with the externalities? Your suburban life is being subsidized heavily by that downtown area. At the end of the day if I'm tired the last thing I want is to get on the road-- I would rather arrive at my destination without putting the cognitive effort in to pay attention to the road

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

#739

Post by suction »

nivenkos wrote: post #200
lnsru wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely share your opinion. There is no money left for a car after paying all the bills in euro inflation zone. 200€ just to own something, another 100€ insurance with maintenance and the insanely expensive fuel on top. Let’s say 150€ when car is used occasionally.

Yeah, the European economy is in complete collapse. "You will own nothing"...

[dead]

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

#740

Post by earthling8118 »

detourdog wrote: post #550
dublinben wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be able to just partner with one of the existing providers in this space, like Zipcar, and let them handle the logistics: https://www.zipcar.com/business/residential

I have reached out to manufacturers that offer the ability to pay a fixed amount for access to cars. Last I checked they were all individual focused products. Zipcar could work but I find the more relationships I have the more paperwork. I would control all aspects and simply add it to the keycard for tracking. If I introduce a third party it removes human judgement from the individuals involved in the relationship.…

You sound like the kind of fabled landlord that is a pleasure to work with. Keep it up.
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