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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

#781

Post by mcdonje »

areyousure wrote: post #768
mcdonje wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unless you live in a large city Most people live in large cities

In case anyone is curious, I downloaded US Census Bureau data on the population of all incorporated towns and cities in the United States, eg from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2... It appears that the median resident of the United States lives in a town or city of population 18,290 (as of the census date April 1, 2020). As a quick sanity check, the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org…

Most of those are suburbs. 85% of the US population lives in metropolitan statistical areas.

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

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

#782

Post by refurb »

noobermin wrote: post #252
refurb wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar in Singapore which arguably, because of its size has amazing public transport. But what do a lot of people do if they can afford it? Buy a car, especially if you want to live away from the city center and have kids. They even pay the $100,000 fee for a 10 year permit to have a car, on top of 100% import tax. That's close to $175,000 just to own some tiny 3-cylinder car for 10 years.

Singapore was literally rebuilt for cars very much like America. It's not because cars are better, and even so drivers are miserable here they rank low on waze's rankings of happy drivers, with Netherlands much further up the pack. All new developments (HDB as well) are even more car centric. If you can drive, you are afforded privilege in some respects, and so that's why people do it. Also, "live away from the city…

You kinda prove my point. 11% own cars because thats the government cap (no more cars allowed), but even middle class people are willing to spend hundreds of thousands for the benefits of driving.

And to say Singapore was built for cars is kinda funny. It has one of the best public transit systems in the world.

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

#783

Post by refurb »

vel0city wrote: post #256
refurb wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar in Singapore which arguably, because of its size has amazing public transport. But what do a lot of people do if they can afford it? Buy a car, especially if you want to live away from the city center and have kids. They even pay the $100,000 fee for a 10 year permit to have a car, on top of 100% import tax. That's close to $175,000 just to own some tiny 3-cylinder car for 10 years.

When you make it incredibly expensive to own a car, few people own cars. Who would have guessed? I wonder what car ownership would look like if there was no fee and taxes were much lower?

You missed the point entirely.

It's incredibly expensive to owns cars and people still pay.

That tells you how valuable they find owning a car.

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

#784

Post by tjmc »

The issue to me is not so much ownership as self reliance. I’m Gen X and I can drive, cook, swim, ski, sail, fly and scuba dive. Perhaps I’ve taken things to extremes but it was important for me and my friends to become capable of looking after ourselves. I own a car, but not a boat, skis, scuba tanks or plane (though building the latter is a dream). Here in Australia public transport is actually pretty good in the inner cities but it really limits your opportunity to see the wider country. Owning a car doesn’t always make sense - I lived in inner Sydney for a few years happily without one. But I don’t really respect people that are in their mid-20’s or older and have to rely on others to drive them everywhere.

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

#785

Post by xnx »

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…

Wait until self driving cars become the norm. Driving to destinations 8 hours away will be commonplace.

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

#786

Post by qup »

taylodl wrote: post #657
yonaguska wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, once I started cycling, public transportation became a painful exercise in constraint. I would even prefer to cycle through freezing temperatures on icy roads rather than cram myself into a train or on a bus. Luckily for me, the bike ride was a 20 minute commute for most of my 20s, while the bus/train would be 40 minutes, and a care would also be about 30-40 minutes with traffic. True freedom for me is the motor…

Motorcycling is also significantly cheaper than is owning a car. The average used car price in the US buys a top-of-the-line, brand-new motorcycle. Used (and even new) motorcycles can be had for significantly cheaper. The insurance and fuel costs are significantly less as well. A motorcyclist will have half the cost or even much less than that of a car owner. I know people always respond that motorcycling is more dan…

> A motorcycle is the most maneuverable vehicle on the road in terms of swerving, braking and accelerating.

Rider here. I score you one out of three.

Motorcycles turn worse and brake worse than four-wheeled vehicles.

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

#787

Post by patmorgan23 »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #712
JohnFen wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public transport sucks, not sure why so many people people like it. Public transport sucks in the US, but that's just because the US has a weird hostility towards it, so doesn't properly invest in it. There's nothing about it that makes it have to suck.

We’re not hostile to it and we have good or at least adequate public transit in a lot of major cities. We just don’t need it everywhere. I live in a very suburban town and can’t imagine that many people would really want to take it. My town skews heavily Mormon (large families) and elderly. That is not going to get much ridership yet some people still keep proposing light rail extension to my town.

You don't think those elderly people who are having trouble driving would love the opportunity to hold on a light rail line so they can take a stroll downtown in with their grandkids?

There is no good transit system in north America. If you want to see good transit you have to go to Europe, Asia or Latin America, where even small towns can have robust transit with high ridership.

North America is comically car dependent because we build everything only focusing on how cars are going to get in and out, and require ludicrous amounts of parking onsite basically everywhere.

Our transit systems are almost always an after thought in the land use planning process. We surround places in seas of parking and put transit stops on the edge of them or put transit stops on highway access road with no sidewalks. The transit systems are often viewed and built as a charity service provided for the poor that no respectable person would use daily. The schedules rarely have sufficient frequency to make the service actually usable.

Our zoning codes make building walkable places that could support and be supported by transit illegal or restrict them to only small specific TOD projects.

Here's a great video essay on what north America gets wrong when building transit https://youtu.be/MnyeRlMsTgI

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

#788

Post by patmorgan23 »

plandis wrote: post #763
MengerSponge wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and public roads should be an additional cost. I'm not interested in banning cars, but I am interested in charging appropriately for sprawl and air pollution.

Car registration fees / gas taxes do pay for that?

They contribute to but don't even come close to covering the total cost (at least in the United States but I suspect it's similar In Europe)

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

#789

Post by frenchy »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #642
dclowd9901 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with a guy who had two kids and no car. They rode their bikes everywhere, always. He insisted on it. I think his wife was miserable lol. But his kids seemed to like it!

Bringing home groceries on a bike for a family of 4 in the rain sounds awful. Though today grocery delivery isn't too bad, I suppose.

It totally depends. I do half our shopping on a bike, but I was very intentional about buying a place that was only a km from a grocery store. I could walk if I really wanted.

The worst part is that the shopping carts aren't near the bike rack, so its quite a hastle to deal with toddlers trying to run away.

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

#790

Post by steelframe »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #642
dclowd9901 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with a guy who had two kids and no car. They rode their bikes everywhere, always. He insisted on it. I think his wife was miserable lol. But his kids seemed to like it!

Bringing home groceries on a bike for a family of 4 in the rain sounds awful. Though today grocery delivery isn't too bad, I suppose.

> Bringing home groceries on a bike for a family of 4 in the rain sounds awful.

It's 100% about the equipment. Gore-Tex. Neoprene. Fenders. Front and rear racks. Waterproof panniers. Lithium-ion batteries. Motor.

Park right in front of the market. Pop the panniers into a cart. Stow the groceries directly into them. No hauling bags out to your car, loading them into the trunk, and then unloading them at home. Instead, transfer straight from the panniers to the fridge and pantry.

I do it year-round in the hilly and rainy Pacific Northwest, and it's actually kind of fun.

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