Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#2Todo es increíble cuando la mente humana deja de ser egoista
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#3I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go. And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. Then this "induced demand" nonsense that pops up all the time. It's impossible because total traffic cannot increase due to new roads since there aren't infinite people or cars to begin with. The traffic moving to new or wider roads is missing elsewhere, which is usually good.
But hey, go ahead, try this pipe dream in any large city. It'll work great, like that recent "summer of love" in Seattle.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#4I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…
People own private cars in the US because the real cost of owning a car is hidden from the car users. E.g., subsidized roads, gas, automobile industry bailouts, and finally global warming and climate impact.
European cities have far fewer cars than similarly sized American cities. Gas and car ownership taxes are are also more expensive in Europe compared to America. The reason for this is that the actual cost of car ownership in the US is being passed on to future generations.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#5I suspect modern transportation infrastructure are going to be one of those things future generations mock us for.
We spend an insane amount of our private money on purchasing and maintaining personal vehicles, our public money on our road infrastructure, and our natural resources on building and driving the cars ( that smog has a cost even if everyone wants to pretend it does not. ).
They belch smog that poisons people and reduces their IQ[0]. They create trash and waste. Their production and transportation eats up our natural resources and pollutes our earth. Traffic makes cities miserable to live in. So much of the way we live in the United States has been dictated by the private vehicle.
0: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-poll...
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#6I suspect modern transportation infrastructure are going to be one of those things future generations mock us for. We spend an insane amount of our private money on purchasing and maintaining personal vehicles, our public money on our road infrastructure, and our natural resources on building and driving the cars ( that smog has a cost even if everyone wants to pretend it does not. ). They belch smog that poisons peo…
We devote vast amounts of real estate to transportation too. The surface areas of just the on/off ramps of a highway blow my mind. Then there’s the road kill. I wish there was a better way.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#7I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…
People own private cars in the US because the real cost of owning a car is hidden from the car users. E.g., subsidized roads, gas, automobile industry bailouts, and finally global warming and climate impact. European cities have far fewer cars than similarly sized American cities. Gas and car ownership taxes are are also more expensive in Europe compared to America. The reason for this is that the actual cost of car…
Gas subsidies have to be amongst the worst things we’re doing to ourselves. But we’re practically forced to them because of the secondary price effects.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#8I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…
People own private cars in the US because the real cost of owning a car is hidden from the car users. E.g., subsidized roads, gas, automobile industry bailouts, and finally global warming and climate impact. European cities have far fewer cars than similarly sized American cities. Gas and car ownership taxes are are also more expensive in Europe compared to America. The reason for this is that the actual cost of car…
This. If the true cost of driving was passed onto the consumer, cars would get dropped faster than cable TV.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#9My favorite thing to do is visit outdoor recreation areas 30-60m outside my city and but within my metropolitan area (which is the size of rhode island)
If cars were suddenly unobtainable, I would be forced to move to maintain my sanity which would have other quality of life impacts such as being far from family or less job opportunity.
I don't see how anything short of nuking this metropolitan area and waiting for the dust to clear in order to rebuild can fix the current mess we're in here.
On the other hand my work is a short 8 mile bike ride along nice quiet side streets which pre-COVID i used to do 4-5 times per week. There was a shower in the gym at work I used which made the entire thing feasible. Frequently I'm nervous about the affects on my health due to the poor air quality here but the relaxation and fitness it brings seems to be a good tradeoff.
I would be happy to not own a car due to the outrageous expense to myself and society, but I don't see myself easily giving up the freedom that comes with it.
Re: Opinion – I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing
#10I'm so tired of seeing this kind of nonsense over and over again. No, it doesn't take much less space to move 50 people in a bus than with cars because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go . And people wouldn't be owning private cars if it wasn't convenient for them, consequently it's impossible that life would instantly improve for everyone if they had to give them up like the author claims. T…
> because the effing bus doesn't go where 50 random people need to go
This would be a problem if the random destinations were uniformly distributed. They are not. They cluster. And indeed there is a feedback loop between public transport and destination desirability.
> It's impossible because total traffic cannot increase due to new roads since there aren't infinite people or cars to begin with. The traffic moving to new or wider roads is missing elsewhere, which is usually good.
It sounds like you think induced demand is an instantaneous phenomenon. It's not. It's a dynamic system with a variety of stocks and therefore, a variety of delayed effects that show up over spans of time.
But you can simplify it to an abstract model: supply and demand. You can fairly say that there is a supply of car travel and a demand for car travel.
If you lower the cost of something then, all things being equal, the demand rises. If you make car travel faster and more pleasant than it was previously, then demand goes up until it reaches an equilibrium again. It's easy to estimate where that equilibrium lies: around the current travel time for a road before it is expanded. But then the net cost for other uses of the space has risen, because there is less to go around.
Roads are not immune from economics, just as they are not excused from geometry.