People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
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Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#2[dead]
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#3People's aversion to change, even when the change is for something that is objectively better in every way, is really really annoying.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#4Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#5I know I hate driving in Pro-Car Cities.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#6People's aversion to change, even when the change is for something that is objectively better in every way, is really really annoying.
Obviously people are the problem. That's why cities which are people free are the best cities.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#7People's aversion to change, even when the change is for something that is objectively better in every way, is really really annoying.
It's a lot of work and money to convert a NA city to a car free one. It's probably impossible TBH.
My city has the best public transit system in NA but still I can't imagine it be car free. It's going to literally kill people.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#8I was back in Taiwan last year after an extended absence.
It's pretty amazing how easy it is to get around with a combination of the mass rapid transit (MRT) system and high speed rail (HSR).
When I was last there, you still needed to take a bus or taxi from TPE to the city center. Now right from TPE airport, you can be in either Taipei city center in 30 minutes (MRT) or on the other end of the island in short order (HSR). Which is kind of fun because the southern end of the island has a totally different vibe.
Within Taipei, you can get to where you need to using the MRT and walk (fun because there's so many interesting nooks and back alleys anyways) or use bike rentals. There's also abundant buses as well connecting from the MRT stations.
Taichung has a single MRT line that connects east to west right off of the HSR line.
Kaohsiung has a few MRT lines and surface light rail that connect the major attractions.
All of it quite cheap to get around, incredibly clean and well maintained, and just all around made it much more enjoyable wandering the city.
The only time we felt the need for a car was visiting the more remote north/east coasts and only because we wanted to save time versus waiting for the slower trains that run those routes.
Whenever I land in SFO, I wonder who's bright idea it was to not have an easy connector to CalTrain at Milbrae (or I'm doing something wrong -- I feel like I don't fully understand the right way to get to Milbrae from SFO). Then on weekends, there's barely any service so if you land on a Sunday for a business trip, you'll waste so much time waiting for the train.
Indeed, it is jarring when we returned to the US.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#9People's aversion to change, even when the change is for something that is objectively better in every way, is really really annoying.
People mock the soviet way of building neighborhoods but it was miles better.
Instead of extensive pointless suburbs where everybody has his house, they built huge 8/10 story buildings.
The buildings were surrounded by parks, benches, places for kids to play.
People aggregated a lot and everything was relatively close (building taller means you can build a lot closer to downtown).
I have lived 6 months in Ohio, Columbus, and I can't but say you live much worse. One thing I noticed is that lack of good public transport is one of the major causes for neighborhoods to become ghettos and poor. You're a guy that lives some 15/20 miles off Columbus and there's a job in the city? Well, if you're that poor that you don't have a car you can't work there either. And nowadays you need at least 2/3k year for insurance alone. This lack of public transport is one of the major reasons why so many areas around big cities become slowly poor and ruined and people have tougher chances to start making a living.
In 2024 with everybody owning a car Polish neighborhoods have transformed. Cars fill every single space. Kids are constrained to small often remote areas. Benches get removed to get more parking spaces. People don't aggregate anymore, there's a much smaller sense of a community.
In many ways, the progress I have seen in Poland made the country just unhappier and lonelier. I would even bluntly say that my parents and my parents parents had it much better. They would party and dance every week, always on some trip or vacation.
Sure, the party would have people bringing their own glasses, salami and something to drink, but people really enjoyed the times.
Cars are just one of the major factors that transformed our cities for worse.
Re: People hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one
#10Car free cities are great but you have to have a lot of problems solved for them to work . You need high density, lots of public services from libraries to pools all these need to be close. Public transport has to be safe so you have to actually enforce laws and arrest vagrants. Car free needs a lot of things to go right where car full cities can be pretty disfunctional