14 ms·

The Absurd Primacy of the Car in American Life

78 points by acjohnson55 11y ago

err4nt 11y ago
I'm engaged to an American and they seem to view a car as a right of passage into adulthood. They feel like the expense of a car, whatever it may be, is essential. If five people go to a restaurant, it's probably in 4+ vehicles. The craziest thing to me was recently a twenty year old borrowed money to purchase a stick-drive car when she doesn't drive stick and already had a recent, usable car. Why? Now she's going to have no money for years to come!
- phillc73 11y ago
  > If five people go to a restaurant, it's probably in 4+ vehicles That's just crazy! It means five people can't drink. All that's needed is maximum one car for five people, maybe two if traveling from dispersed locations. Keep designated drivers to a minimum.
  - kgwgk 11y ago
    Crazy indeed! Why would anyone want to go to a restaurant if not to drink alcohol?
  - SerLava 11y ago
    >maybe two if traveling from dispersed locations. Remember this is America we're talking about. Locations are really, really dispersed. Carpooling 5 people could mean the driver is dropping people off for an hour and a half.
    - wolfgke 11y ago
      Or if the driver drives a pickup truck one could go by bicycle to a point that is along the way that the driver takes and just put the bicycle on the truck bed when meeting. For the other direction it's the same. This should reduce the problem.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Drunk bicycling is still a bad idea, and illegal.
        Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
        It is a bad idea, and it is illegal in some countries, but nonetheless if you cycle drunk you're more likely to injure/kill yourself; if you drive drunk you're more likely to injure/kill someone else.
        mikeash 11y ago
        I agree that it's better, but it's still a bad idea and shouldn't be presented as any sort of solution.
  - organsnyder 11y ago
    When a major brewery in my town (Founders) relocated as they were expanding, they decided to move right across the street from the city's central transit station. Anyone (such as myself) that lives near a bus line can easily go to their taproom and not worry about driving. Not sure how much the transit station played into their relocation plans, or whether the land was just cheap, but it was a genius move.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  Absolutely. At my first job out of college it was an immediate purchase for some even though they were already tens of thousands in debt. I'm hoping my car (since high school) lasts long enough that I never have to buy/own a car again.
  - err4nt 11y ago
    Would you believe I'm coming up on thirty, and have never (yet) owned my own vehicle? It's not a big deal where I live, but to my fiancée's friends it counts against me. More than once, when talking about me, my fiancée has heard her friends tell others "He doesn't even have a car!" as though somehow I'm less of a man, and have to be driven around like a child. That whole mindset is foreign to me - I'm an adult which means I can afford to rent any vehicle I need to use, or hire somebody to drive me whenever I want and it's still probably cheaper than owning one vehicle in the long run.
    - peyton 11y ago
      Mid-20s American here. I'll try to explain my mindset. I've lived in Switzerland and all over Asia without owning a car. Loved public transit and never wanted a car. - Public transit in the US sometimes feels like riding a rolling homeless shelter. I know it's a chicken-and-egg thing, as most people have cars. I have no issue riding public transit in the US, but I couldn't see my parents taking public transit. So having a car is part of becoming like my parents. - Being able to drive a car (auto or stick) has practical advantages for emergencies. So there's a provider element. - Having a car is a symbol of independence. People who have cars in the US sometimes have friends asking to bum rides. So not have a car is seen as not being independent.
- jghn 11y ago
  I spent most of my 20s and all of my 30s not owning a car. Even living in a city where I don't need one if get a lot of responses to that fact stating that I'm an odd duck
  - err4nt 11y ago
    I live in Toronto, and I'm still weird for not owning a car. What's funny is that when my fiancée is here she insists on driving places just to make use of the car. It's really a love story Americans have with their vehicles - making excuses to use them when it's not even necessary. Sometimes I humour her and ride along, but when it's really obvious that transit is the right choice I insist we do the sensible thing :)
- marincounty 11y ago
  I would love to rid myself of all the hassle of a vechicle. Ironically, a week ago I had a terrible time getting my vechicle to pass smog. I literally got to the point where I considered giving the vechicle up. I wasn't having a great time psychologically, and wasen't thinking like I usually do. I usually don't fret about a vehicle because I went to automotive school, and can work on most vechicles, but I was just having a bad week. That said, where I live, giving up my vechicle would be like just giving up in life. I need a car in the suburbs. I honestly don't know how people do without them, unless they live near good public transportation. And yes, I guess America is very vechicle centric, but for good reason. They built it so spread out. They built most of our infrastructure like the 50's would last forever. A home, and a car for every American. We would always buy American products. We would never have to live like the rest of the world?
  - meric 11y ago
    >> I honestly don't know how people do without them I look for work and apartments within several minutes walk from a major train station. I can't imagine owning a car - the paperwork, regular checkups, constant looking for parking space, worrying about how to keep the car long term on a long trip overseas. Do I own the car, or does the car own me? When I have to travel somewhere inconvenient by public transportation I call a taxi or a Uber. I do this maybe once a month or two. If there's an event on a weekend and I could walk there in less than an hour from home, occasionally I'd walk instead of catching a taxi or Uber. I have visited a city with lacking public transport before, you're right, being unable to drive, and cannot travel anywhere without having to call a Uber every time, even to the corner shop few kilometres away, I feel like I'm trapped.
- coroutines 11y ago
  Something that's been frustrating for me is the bureaucracy around getting hired to government positions or school districts. I have a California State ID, which should serve well as identification - but I've been turned away by HR saying they require a drivers license several times. I'm pretty certain this is always incorrect when I apply for jobs that require no travel, but there's just so much policy you can't argue with. It's ridiculous. I also try to avoid telling employers I don't have a car, because I've been screened out of jobs by people assuming public transit is not reliable. Kinda frustrating. Btw, the US is huge. People here don't use enough caution when driving, but it would be impossible for most everyone to hold down a job without a car. Driving is a needed right when it shouldn't be.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    If there were a similar public outcry for the problem that you mention as for gender discrimination, it would soon nearly vanish.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      Because gender discrimination has nearly vanished?
  - err4nt 11y ago
    > it would be impossible for most everyone to hold down a job without a car I work internationally with a company of americans and the entire company is remote. Every single one of those Americans works from home, so would they still need cars? I know it's not the majority of people, but there's still a large chunk of people who can get to and from work without a car in the US as well.
    - coroutines 11y ago
      Are they taking applications? :p
- yardie 11y ago
  This is an assumption you make when growing up in suburbia. I assumed all adults knew how to drive and had a car. Or access to one. My college roommate, who was from NYC, didn't have a license and it kind of shocked me when he told me. He was very well organized on the public transit front. Like knowing exactly when to leave the dorm to catch the bus without having to stand out in the cold for more than 5 minutes. This is something I didn't master until moving to a city myself. Now that I've lived without a car for so long I'm not even sure I want another one. Buses, Uber, and rentals fill the void nicely.
kailuowang 11y ago
In U.S. culture is being shaped by business more than other countries. Car culture, gun culture are two great examples of commercial cultures in U.S.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jessaustin 11y ago
  "Gun culture" is a big thing, and it has a commercial component, but it can't really be reduced to that. In my immediate family, we probably own fifty firearms, none of them purchased within the last five years.
  - douche 11y ago
    That's one of the things about guns - they're a durable good, and they don't exactly have planned obsolescence or deterioration like most consumer goods. Provided you take even the slightest bit of care of them, they last almost forever. A good hunting rifle, shotgun, or pistol costs less than an iPhone...
    - Kristine1975 11y ago
      But you can always have more guns! In case the thug-booted jacks of the government come knocking at your door. Also maybe stricter gun-buying laws get passed, so better buy them now while you still can: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/10/us/gun-sales-terrorism-obama-restrictions.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/10/us/gun-sales-t...
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        Sorry we gun owners don't all conform to your fevered insecure stereotypes.
        Kristine1975 11y ago
sphildreth 11y ago
The author seems really angry, maybe a good Sunday drive would cheer him up.
gm-conspiracy 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... ..and relevant documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4
reedlaw 11y ago
I wouldn't call dependence on cars "absurd" or "insane" as the article puts it. Certainly there's room for improvement. Self-driving cars may reduce underutilization as well as fatalities. Cities could be planned better for walking, biking, and public transportation. But without car transportation I doubt the US economy, standard of living, and general sense of unlimited possibility would be what they are today.
- gm-conspiracy 11y ago
  The current state of affairs did not happen by accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
  - Agustus 11y ago
    This is a conspiracy theory. The other part of the story is that if the streetcars were a better investment, General Motors would not have done this. Streetcars are slow, inefficient, and require rail lines to move about. So, if these companies realized the assets they were holding, then they have the opportunity to get rid of them. If you were an investor, the up and coming item was streetcars, as the article mentions they were better than horse-drawn carriages, so taking a stake in these would have been a good idea. The article mentions that the transit systems are expensive to maintain; as publicly held companies, they need to make money. The current day transit systems with rail lines are heavily underwater and have a difficult time making any money, let alone addressing maintenance issues: BART, Metro, and Max. Knowing the return on investment from existing data, would you as a private investor purchase any of those lines. So, the conspiracy can be developed in retrospect, but an over arching plot fails to account for some of the opportunities that fit more into an investor trying to make monies.
    - mountaineer22 11y ago
      It is not a theory. It is an actual conspiracy. From the link: "On April 9, 1947, nine corporations and seven individuals (officers and directors of certain of the corporate defendants) were indicted in the Federal District Court of Southern California on counts of "conspiring to acquire control of a number of transit companies, forming a transportation monopoly" and "conspiring to monopolize sales of buses and supplies to companies owned by National City Lines"[35] which had been made illegal by the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. In 1948, the venue was changed from the Federal District Court of Southern California to the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois following an appeal to the United States Supreme Court (in United States v. National City Lines Inc.)[36] which felt that there was evidence of conspiracy to monopolize the supply of buses and supplies.[37] In 1949, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, GM and Mack Trucks were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit companies controlled by NCL; they were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies. The verdicts were upheld on appeal in 1951." Then you have President Eisenhower appointing the president of GM as the secretary of defense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Erwin_Wilson#Secretary_of_Defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Erwin_Wilson#Secretary... ..and Francis DuPont appointed as chief administrator of highways, whose family, coincidentally owned the largest share of GM stock: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/administrators/fdupont.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/administrators/fdupont.cfm
pkorzeniewski 11y ago
The author is missing some crucial facts that a) not everyone lives in a big city with public transport, so they've no alternative; b) even if you live in a big city, it's often much faster or more convenient to take a car; c) without a car you can't get to 99% places outside the city, so say goodbye to weekend road-trips. No, that's not absurd at all - that's the invaluable freedom of movement.
- bluetomcat 11y ago
  > without a car you can't get to 99% places outside the city People in big cities should realise that owning a car doesn't mean you have to use it daily. I have a very well-maintained mid 90's Japanese car that sits in a garage and is only taken out for trips during the weekends. Being able to afford a new car, I have saved an enormous amount of money compared to my peers.
- kuschku 11y ago
  > c) without a car you can't get to 99% places outside the city, so say goodbye to weekend road-trips. No, that's not absurd at all - that's the invaluable freedom of movement. Why? You can bike there. A lot of people do weekend trips with bike and tent here, even families. I know even a family that bikes every year up to Denmark and back for vacation (living near Hamburg), even when their kids were still little (you can buy carts to attach to a bike which can seat multiple kids + store bags) And if you take your bike in bus or train, you can get literally anywhere in Europe within of a day.
  - base698 11y ago
    Really? You can bike 100 miles each way to do something active and not be too tired to do it? Also ropes, parachutes and other adventure activity equipment doesn't bike well.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      You don’t have to do it in one day ;) And otherwise, as I said, bike to bus stop or train station, should be < 10 miles, take bike on train, go wherever you want, bike to destination. Costs you like 10$ and you can get anywhere easily.
pigpaws 11y ago
...apparently written by an apartment dweller who wants to 'nerf' the entire world. The market or job isn't always 2 blocks or even 2 miles away. ...The Absurdity of an Atlantic Article.
chrisbennet 11y ago
It might as well be called "The Absurd Primacy of Not Living In Cities"
- Kristine1975 11y ago
  Where I live public transport extends well into the countryside.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    Counter point - it does not for me. Attempting to use public transport for me would involve an hour walk (in the snow, half the year), and an hour and a half on the bus. A car, on the other hand, is right around a 20 minute drive on a bad day.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    An interesting comparison would be how much of the US has a comparable population density and less public transport. The very high density areas of the US tend to already be better served than the rest of the US. You can take a train to rural Massachusetts, but it has ~10x greater density than the US at large (that's a fuzzy number and not carefully determined; it's ~100x for the less populated western states and ~500x for Alaska).
  - pionar 11y ago
    May I ask where you live? The countryside can mean any amount of distance. In many parts of the US the "countryside" between cities could stretch hundreds of miles. I live outside of Detroit, but I'm originally from Indianapolis. That's ~300 miles, a 4.5 hour drive by car. I drive that stretch about once every other month to visit family, do work functions (I work from home; my company is in Indianapolis) and other things. As I make this drive, through what is almost exclusively small towns and farms, there's no way public transportation could be made affordable enough to cover the vast distances required so that the reliance of cars in this area would be diminished. And that's in the Midwest, where the cities aren't that far apart (every major city is 2-5 hours away from the others)! Imagine Texas, where you can drive in a straight line for >10 hours and still be inside that state.
autokad 11y ago
"More than 80 cents of every dollar spent on gasoline is squandered by the inherent inefficiencies of the modern internal combustion engine" actually the inefficiencies are spent on taxes rather than the engine itself. its really hard to read through the extremely biased article. it literally admits airplanes are more inefficient but cars are worse because they are used more. That's a special kind of logic there. I myself live in Philly which is one of few places you can exist in america without a car. I also give up a lot of freedom. it means not being able to go hiking in the woods, or pretty much anything outside the maybe 5 or 6 places in america with enough population density to warent a good mass transit system. cars in many situations also save copius amounts of time. A trip to north east philly is about an hour and a half by mass transit, 25 minutes by car. time savings that would eclipse any theoretical 10 years of life expectancy loss from cars. cars have done wonder's for economy as well.
- victorhooi 11y ago
  Your post is pretty inaccurate. > actually the inefficiencies are spent on taxes rather than the engine itself. Incorrect - the efficiencies are to do with basic physics, and the laws of thermodynamics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency "Modern gasoline engines have a maximum thermal efficiency of about 25% to 30% when used to power a car. In other words, even when the engine is operating at its point of maximum thermal efficiency, of the total heat energy released by the gasoline consumed, about 70-75% is rejected as heat without being turned into useful work, i.e. turning the crankshaft." > its really hard to read through the extremely biased article. it literally admits airplanes are more inefficient but cars are worse because they are used more. That's a special kind of logic there. Incorrect - what the article actually says is: "Transportation is a principal cause of the global climate crisis, exacerbated by a stubborn attachment to archaic, wasteful, and inefficient transportation modes and machines. But are cars the true culprit? " So we are talking about who contributes the most to global warming - and the answer, no matter how you look at it, is cars. Airplanes contribute around 8 percent - cars contribute some 83 percent. > cars in many situations also save copius amounts of time. A trip to north east philly is about an hour and a half by mass transit, 25 minutes by car. time savings that would eclipse any theoretical 10 years of life expectancy loss from cars. Incorrect - firstly, what exactly is the price of a life? I can tell you that to most people, if you told them, can I take 10 years off your life, you would hardly be met with joy. Secondly - this disparity you refer to isn't due to any inherent strength of cars - more, it's just to do with very poor investment in public transport in the US. If you journey outside the United States, to other lands, you will see what some good planning and smart investment in pubic transport can bring. It's like saying, here are my two children - Alice and Bob. Alice is well fed and does sports every day after school. Bob is beaten and malnourished, and we keep him chained in the basement. Here, I'm going to race Alice and Bob - gosh, Alice can run fast!
zzalpha 11y ago
The comments, here, are almost as fascinating as the article. The data cited are irrefutable. The points made are perfectly logical. And yet many of the comments make it seem like the author insulted their mother. It's that car culture, the almost religious emotional attachment to the automobile, that makes the US so unique. I don't believe there's an equivalent anywhere else. It's really quite fascinating.
- surge 11y ago
  Individually though we have little choice, fact of the matter is I live 30 miles from where I work. I can't afford to live close enough to walk, they demand I be in the office almost every day. I would love to reduce my dependence on a vehicle, if nothing else to get rid of the risk to my own life I take every morning getting behind the wheel while half awake. The article fails to point out the US is spread out, people live far apart, and there are few if any viable alternatives for transportation, even in areas with high population density.
  - zzalpha 11y ago
    Agreed, it's a hard problem to solve. Question though: did you consider alternate forms of transportation when you decided where to live and work? Or did you just (even subconsciously) presume a car was necessarily part of the picture? That's one of the cultural issues at play, here. For many, not only is single car commuting just assumed, anything else is virtually unthinkable, affecting any number of decisions people make.
    - thedaemon 11y ago
      Unlike many European countries we do not have bus routes to the rural towns. It forces us to rely on our own cars, or a family member's good will. Until we can build the bus infrastructure, cars are here to stay.
      - rebelde 11y ago
        A bus infrastructure? You must mean a self-driving taxi- or uber-like smart car infrastructure. Yes, I know it doesn't solve the "problem" completely, but it is a step in that direction. The next step would be sharing rides.
ideonexus 11y ago
I agree with the author, and am cognizant of the problem and outraged for the same inefficiencies, deleterious health effects, and fatalities he outlines. But I wish he could have spent an equal amount of time exploring how we solve this problem rather than just inciting futile anger over it. One solution is telecommuting; get people of the road by having them work from home. Another is mandating fuel efficiency and reducing the pollution cars produce. It's outrageous that children getting leukemia and respiratory illnesses are considered acceptable loses so that people can drive enormous SUVs purely as status symbols instead of for their utility. You want to drive a vehicle that gets less than 20 MPG? Fine, you're also going to pay a gasoline consumption tax to support the social programs that take care of the families your pollution is giving cancer. Most importantly to me, and the point the author leaves out, is that cars are highly subsidized. The irony of American car ownership is that we consider public transportation socialist, while spending trillions of tax dollars on public roads. I would love to take the train to work, where I can read a book, write, or program instead of sitting in traffic for an hour... but for some reason we consider sitting in traffic for an hour on a publicly-funded road "freedom."
- zzalpha 11y ago
  IMO, if you wanted to change things, you'd have to penalize driving by eliminating subsidies and/or introduce taxes on non-commercial vehicles and fuel. Then pair that with policies that discourage urban sprawl and encourage investment in public transportation. We know this can work because the run up on crude caused miles driven to decline. But that requires some serious political will, and that ain't gonna happen.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Taxes are also a problematic solution because they tend to be regressive. Poor people often can't afford efficient cars and living in a place with good public transportation is a luxury in many places. Poor people's jobs are not typically the ones that allow telecommuting. In general I'm a fan of taxing pollutants to account for their true costs, but it's not as straightforward as it might appear.
Rezo 11y ago
More US cities should try at least creating some car-free zones. It's crazy how in a city of New York's caliber, with great public transport, so much space is taken up by cars for so little gain. The total lack of "walking streets" (streets entirely for pedestrian use for Americans unfamiliar with the concept!) is baffling to me. I think it would be perfectly fine to for example close something like Broadway or even 5th Avenue to cars, the businesses on these streets derive almost no traffic since it's all pass-through. Can you imagine how much better that would be for almost everyone, businesses included, what a destination that would create with a whole avenue packed with people? Close of the streets around squares, instead of creating islands in the middle of traffic you'd get street cafes. Just one, pretty please?
- jackcarter 11y ago
  Chicago tried: https://www.wbez.org/shows/dynamic-range/the-short-sad-life-of-state-streets-pedestrian-mall/f1ebf2b0-2f64-4542-9f18-83123216400d https://www.wbez.org/shows/dynamic-range/the-short-sad-life-...
- travmatt 11y ago
  I'm currently finishing reading Robert Caro's "The Power Broker", which is about the man who is mostly responsible for New York's choice to embrace the automobile over people, Robert Moses. In short, this choice was extremely conscious and in large part driven by racial and class based segregation.
  - mountaineer22 11y ago
    Excellent book. I highly recommend this, as well.
- tim333 11y ago
  They did for a bit of Broadway. Seems successful. Maybe they could try a few more blocks http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Broadway-Plaza-is-Here-to-Stay-84111687.html http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Broadway-Plaza-is-Here-...
- goldbrick 11y ago
colllectorof 11y ago
"Annual U.S. highway fatalities outnumber the yearly war dead during each Vietnam, Iraq, the War of 1812, and the American Revolution." This kind of nonsense is why all population statistics should be reported per person per year. 1. Public transportation is a huge vector for viral diseases. 2. You can drive to a place any time of the day. Public transport doesn't always work 24/7. 3. If you live in a shitty neighborhood, you most likely would not want to walk or take a bicycle everywhere. So in some ways cars can make you safer. 4. Car efficiency and safety is something that is getting improved all the time. 5. If something bad happens (think hurricane), relying on public transportation will get you stranded with much higher probability.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  1. You won't be getting on a plane then? 2. You fit your life to the schedule, just as you fit existing journeys around the fact your car can't do 300 mph or drive over water. It isn't worse, just different. 3. Perhaps the neighbourhood wouldn't be so shitty if everybody wasn't in a car isolated from their surroundings. 4. Cars have been getting bigger all the time, those efficiency gains have been squandered on SUVs. 5. Maybe, although basing your transport policy around freak events isn't that sensible.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    You sound like a European who's never been to the US. >You won't be getting on a plane then? Most people don't ride planes very often. If you rely on public transit, you have to use it multiple times per day. People can go months or years before boarding a plane. >Perhaps the neighbourhood [sic] wouldn't be so shitty if everybody wasn't in a car isolated from their surroundings. No, the neighborhood is shitty for various other reasons which have nothing to do with cars. America has long had a problem with race relations. >Maybe, although basing your transport policy around freak events isn't that sensible. What "freak events"? Hurricanes happen here quite frequently, as do lesser storms.
  - surge 11y ago
    There are at least 2-3 hurricanes hitting the US coast a year, and continues to increase as climate change becomes more prevalent. The U.S not driving won't make much of a dent in climate change, not with China and other industrializing nations. But if you really cared about greenhouse gases, not soap boxes, let's talk about eating meat. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up...
amelius 11y ago
I wonder how Apple will do with their Apple car, once people realize they don't have to own a car. The Apple brand is about possession, and this doesn't go well with using a car as a service.
iamthepieman 11y ago
I hate owning a car. I do not like thinking about repairs, i do not like how much it cost, i do not like how much it pollutes, i do not like how dangerous driving is. I can't afford to live in a good neighborhood of a city with good public transit either though so I'm damned if I do and also... if I don't
cubano 11y ago
I no longer drive for a variety of reasons, and here in Florida at least where everyone has, it often seems, 2 cars, and there is very little good public transportation, it's not really very fun. I get things thrown at me by random drivers at least once a month. I have to be constantly aware of drivers chatting on cells not seeing me and literally hitting me head on at intersections. Trying to date, at my age, with no car is almost impossible. Pretty much the only other people I see riding bikes are the homeless. And then there is the stigma that if your riding a bike, it means you obviously have DUI and/or other issues. But I love riding my bike. I've been a constant bike rider since I was 6yo and it has and always will be a source of joy and freedom to me. Like I enjoy saying "drive a car, burn money and get fat...ride a bike, burn fat and save money."
- mironathetin 11y ago
  "And then there is the stigma that if your riding a bike, it means you obviously have DUI and/or other issues." Here in Europe bikes become a lifestyle item. Just get yourself a real cool bike, with a carbon belt drive or one of those Titanium bikes, and dress accordingly.
- yitchelle 11y ago
  > And then there is the stigma that if your riding a bike, it means you obviously have DUI and/or other issues. How deep is this stigma in Florida? I guess that this stigma is regional. I definitely don't feel this stigma living in Western Europe.
  - bobbyadamson 11y ago
    It's a consistent stigma across most of America
    - donatj 11y ago
      I've never felt this stigma in Minnesota. I had no idea it was a thing. People hate on bikers for slowing down traffic, yelling things like "get a car, loser" but I've never heard anything DUI related.
blondie9x 11y ago
The best thing we can do now without government involvement is focus on carpooling. In private sector that is something we can control and influence independently. Public transportation can be demanded and new options added, however we have delegated that to our government and representatives. We would need to uniformly demand more of it over time. During interim if we find carpools and try that, in theory we could reduce much of the climate, health, traffic, and deprecation concerns.
altotrees 11y ago
The whole notion of a car being a "rite of passage" in America has always seemed odd to me, even as an American. In many cases, I have friends with loads of college debt taking on an equal amount of debt for a new car upon graduation. It seems to me to be a throwback idea that has lived on. I don't think a new car can really be seen as a rite of passage in the current culture of tuition inflation/stagnating wages. It is more like a luxury you are lucky to be able to truly afford (I'm not talking a 72 month payment plan, no down payment afford here) a year or less out of college.
imgabe 11y ago
Cars are fine if you use them appropriately. They're great for trips from one city to another (> 10 miles or so) or if you need to carry something really heavy. Otherwise walking, biking, or public transportation are preferable. If your life is arranged such that all the places you commonly need to go are > 10 miles apart from each other, consider changing that.
imgabe 11y ago
I wonder how things would change if commuting time was considered "working" and employers had to compensate for it at the employee's hourly rate. This probably isn't realistically feasible but... It seems like most individuals would rather not have horrendous commutes, but they work where the jobs are and they live where housing is cheap and those two things are often far apart. These same individuals have little political pull in terms of zoning laws and urban improvements to make the necessary changes to the infrastructure to allow them to live close to work. If suddenly, say GE, or any major employer in a town had a financial incentive to lobby the local government to make it easier for employees to live close to where they work, things would probably change a lot faster.
- lagadu 11y ago
  Or even just cut the middle-man (the employer). Here in Denmark if you live more than a set distance from your place of work (IIRC it's 20km) you get tax deductions based on the distance of your commute. This way it's the government directly that gets an incentive to make things better because they literally get less tax money and there's no added complexity by involving employers.
  - imgabe 11y ago
    That probably works well in Denmark, but I think it would be confusing with the morass of federal/state/local governments in the US. A deduction on your Federal taxes wouldn't necessarily affect the tax money collected by the local or state government, which is usually the one responsible for building various roads. State and local governments may or may not even collect income taxes (some do, some don't).
yodsanklai 11y ago
One advantage of having a car that I don't see mentioned in the comments is safety. There are a lot of places where I don't feel safe taking public transportations at night. Besides, bikes are more likely to get stolen or vandalized.
- gedy 11y ago
  I also am assuming most of the no-car commenters in the US have no spouse or small children. There's a lot more to life than commuting back and forth to the office.
  - sevensor 11y ago
    I have a foot in both camps -- I have a wife and small children, and we own a car, but I use bicycle and public transit to get to work. There's really no safe way to get the kids to preschool without a car. I had to do this last week, due to some car issues. The cars whooshing by my tiny children as we walked to the bus stop on the narrow shoulder were utterly terrifying. I won't be doing that again soon. There were no economical alternatives to our current housing situation, so like many other commenters, we have to use a personal vehicle even though we'd prefer to avoid it.
    - gedy 11y ago
      Agreed. Yes the housing situation is basically a must to move away from expensive housing near work.
    - yodsanklai 11y ago
      Quite often, I see people carrying very young kids on their bike, either on a back seat, or in a special carriage. We have bike lanes pretty much everywhere in my city, but they are not always separated from the car roads. I don't know if I would take such a risk myself.
- yardie 11y ago
  Bikes are cheap compared to cars. No one is going to risk a prison sentence for it if they can avoid it. Besides, if it's stolen I claim it against the insurance and get another one. I'm referring to the cheap city bikes, if you have a carbon fiber competition bike keep it at home and save it for race day. Some cities bikes are so ubiquitous you have to really want to steal it to steal it. Last time I was in Ghent bikes were everywhere. If you didn't have one just grab the nearest unlocked bike off the rack. Most likely its 50 years old and the owner has abandoned it. Now that is a bikable city!
cm2187 11y ago
The article shows the problems related to using car, but not why this primacy is "absurd". What is the alternative? (it's only absurd if there is a better alternative).
mariojv 11y ago
I agree that it's absurd that a lot of Americans have to rely on their cars, but I sympathize with the commenters here who don't have cars in places where they would be really convenient. It would be good if the author of the article went more in-depth about the causes of car culture and potential policy solutions. The car is a status symbol of independence in American culture, but I don't think the prevalence of that culture can be separated from how our infrastructure is heavily biased towards utilizing public space for parking spaces, roads, etc. I personally dislike driving and would much rather walk or take a train to where I'm going, even if it took a bit longer. In my city, there is no public transit at all that would allow me to get to where my doctor is, and it would take almost 2 hours for me to bike there across very dangerous roads not designed for bikers. My city also banned ride sharing services for a time, so the only options would have been "bumming" a ride from someone or taking an expensive cab - both car-based modes of transit. Taking public transit to another place I could have biked from more easily would have taken just as long as biking the whole route. Towards the end of the route, I would have had to somehow bike on a highway with cards speeding along at 60+mph, too. Even in another city designed with bike lanes when I had very obvious flashing lights attached to my bike, I got hit by a driver who wasn't paying attention when he turned right onto the road in front of me. Drivers in my current city are much less aware of bikers than there, and I've seen Uber drivers in another city with a similar lack of public transit yelling and harassing bikers sharing the road quite unobtrusively. Another factor here is that the elderly get heat strokes during the summer when temperatures exceed 100 degrees. I'm not sure how well walking to their bus stop would work. There need to be better solutions here than the gas guzzling monstrosities that people drive everyday. I try to reduce my carbon footprint and gas bill by driving an efficient car. The infrastructure for electric cars, which would help the dependence on fossil fuels but not entirely solve deaths from vehicle accidents (though it might prevent some, because of large crumple zones), simply isn't there yet. Until better public transit gets more funding, the increasing availability of affordable electric cars may be a good stopgap solution, at least.
- frabbit 11y ago
  Having lived and worked in France, the UK, the USA and Canada (mostly in large cities) I have heard people's excuses for why they do not cycle ad nauseam. All in places where I do cycle. Usually there is a way. Usually people are looking for an excuse not to find it. That's not to deny that your particular situation is indeed impossible, but the idea that you need bike lanes and your mantra of being in danger strikes me as not reflecting the actual safety, convenience and abve all _enjoyment_. Cycling has overall better life expectancy outcomes than driving and is pretty safe. You may want to consider a pedelec/electric-assist bicycle (I recommend recent models using the bottom bracket motors from either Bosch or Shimano) if your trip is too long.
mgarfias 11y ago
Clearly written by someone in the city.

78 points by acjohnson55 11y ago

I'm engaged to an American and they seem to view a car as a right of passage into adulthood. They feel like the expense of a car, whatever it may be, is essential. If five people go to a restaurant, it's probably in 4+ vehicles. The craziest thing to me was recently a twenty year old borrowed money to purchase a stick-drive car when she doesn't drive stick and already had a recent, usable car. Why? Now she's going to have no money for years to come!

phillc73 11y ago
> If five people go to a restaurant, it's probably in 4+ vehicles That's just crazy! It means five people can't drink. All that's needed is maximum one car for five people, maybe two if traveling from dispersed locations. Keep designated drivers to a minimum.
- kgwgk 11y ago
  Crazy indeed! Why would anyone want to go to a restaurant if not to drink alcohol?
- SerLava 11y ago
  >maybe two if traveling from dispersed locations. Remember this is America we're talking about. Locations are really, really dispersed. Carpooling 5 people could mean the driver is dropping people off for an hour and a half.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    Or if the driver drives a pickup truck one could go by bicycle to a point that is along the way that the driver takes and just put the bicycle on the truck bed when meeting. For the other direction it's the same. This should reduce the problem.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Drunk bicycling is still a bad idea, and illegal.
      - Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
        It is a bad idea, and it is illegal in some countries, but nonetheless if you cycle drunk you're more likely to injure/kill yourself; if you drive drunk you're more likely to injure/kill someone else.
        mikeash 11y ago
        I agree that it's better, but it's still a bad idea and shouldn't be presented as any sort of solution.
- organsnyder 11y ago
  When a major brewery in my town (Founders) relocated as they were expanding, they decided to move right across the street from the city's central transit station. Anyone (such as myself) that lives near a bus line can easily go to their taproom and not worry about driving. Not sure how much the transit station played into their relocation plans, or whether the land was just cheap, but it was a genius move.
atom-morgan 11y ago
Absolutely. At my first job out of college it was an immediate purchase for some even though they were already tens of thousands in debt. I'm hoping my car (since high school) lasts long enough that I never have to buy/own a car again.
- err4nt 11y ago
  Would you believe I'm coming up on thirty, and have never (yet) owned my own vehicle? It's not a big deal where I live, but to my fiancée's friends it counts against me. More than once, when talking about me, my fiancée has heard her friends tell others "He doesn't even have a car!" as though somehow I'm less of a man, and have to be driven around like a child. That whole mindset is foreign to me - I'm an adult which means I can afford to rent any vehicle I need to use, or hire somebody to drive me whenever I want and it's still probably cheaper than owning one vehicle in the long run.
  - peyton 11y ago
    Mid-20s American here. I'll try to explain my mindset. I've lived in Switzerland and all over Asia without owning a car. Loved public transit and never wanted a car. - Public transit in the US sometimes feels like riding a rolling homeless shelter. I know it's a chicken-and-egg thing, as most people have cars. I have no issue riding public transit in the US, but I couldn't see my parents taking public transit. So having a car is part of becoming like my parents. - Being able to drive a car (auto or stick) has practical advantages for emergencies. So there's a provider element. - Having a car is a symbol of independence. People who have cars in the US sometimes have friends asking to bum rides. So not have a car is seen as not being independent.
jghn 11y ago
I spent most of my 20s and all of my 30s not owning a car. Even living in a city where I don't need one if get a lot of responses to that fact stating that I'm an odd duck
- err4nt 11y ago
  I live in Toronto, and I'm still weird for not owning a car. What's funny is that when my fiancée is here she insists on driving places just to make use of the car. It's really a love story Americans have with their vehicles - making excuses to use them when it's not even necessary. Sometimes I humour her and ride along, but when it's really obvious that transit is the right choice I insist we do the sensible thing :)
marincounty 11y ago
I would love to rid myself of all the hassle of a vechicle. Ironically, a week ago I had a terrible time getting my vechicle to pass smog. I literally got to the point where I considered giving the vechicle up. I wasn't having a great time psychologically, and wasen't thinking like I usually do. I usually don't fret about a vehicle because I went to automotive school, and can work on most vechicles, but I was just having a bad week. That said, where I live, giving up my vechicle would be like just giving up in life. I need a car in the suburbs. I honestly don't know how people do without them, unless they live near good public transportation. And yes, I guess America is very vechicle centric, but for good reason. They built it so spread out. They built most of our infrastructure like the 50's would last forever. A home, and a car for every American. We would always buy American products. We would never have to live like the rest of the world?
- meric 11y ago
  >> I honestly don't know how people do without them I look for work and apartments within several minutes walk from a major train station. I can't imagine owning a car - the paperwork, regular checkups, constant looking for parking space, worrying about how to keep the car long term on a long trip overseas. Do I own the car, or does the car own me? When I have to travel somewhere inconvenient by public transportation I call a taxi or a Uber. I do this maybe once a month or two. If there's an event on a weekend and I could walk there in less than an hour from home, occasionally I'd walk instead of catching a taxi or Uber. I have visited a city with lacking public transport before, you're right, being unable to drive, and cannot travel anywhere without having to call a Uber every time, even to the corner shop few kilometres away, I feel like I'm trapped.
coroutines 11y ago
Something that's been frustrating for me is the bureaucracy around getting hired to government positions or school districts. I have a California State ID, which should serve well as identification - but I've been turned away by HR saying they require a drivers license several times. I'm pretty certain this is always incorrect when I apply for jobs that require no travel, but there's just so much policy you can't argue with. It's ridiculous. I also try to avoid telling employers I don't have a car, because I've been screened out of jobs by people assuming public transit is not reliable. Kinda frustrating. Btw, the US is huge. People here don't use enough caution when driving, but it would be impossible for most everyone to hold down a job without a car. Driving is a needed right when it shouldn't be.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  If there were a similar public outcry for the problem that you mention as for gender discrimination, it would soon nearly vanish.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    Because gender discrimination has nearly vanished?
- err4nt 11y ago
  > it would be impossible for most everyone to hold down a job without a car I work internationally with a company of americans and the entire company is remote. Every single one of those Americans works from home, so would they still need cars? I know it's not the majority of people, but there's still a large chunk of people who can get to and from work without a car in the US as well.
  - coroutines 11y ago
    Are they taking applications? :p
yardie 11y ago
This is an assumption you make when growing up in suburbia. I assumed all adults knew how to drive and had a car. Or access to one. My college roommate, who was from NYC, didn't have a license and it kind of shocked me when he told me. He was very well organized on the public transit front. Like knowing exactly when to leave the dorm to catch the bus without having to stand out in the cold for more than 5 minutes. This is something I didn't master until moving to a city myself. Now that I've lived without a car for so long I'm not even sure I want another one. Buses, Uber, and rentals fill the void nicely.

kailuowang 11y ago

In U.S. culture is being shaped by business more than other countries. Car culture, gun culture are two great examples of commercial cultures in U.S.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jessaustin 11y ago
"Gun culture" is a big thing, and it has a commercial component, but it can't really be reduced to that. In my immediate family, we probably own fifty firearms, none of them purchased within the last five years.
- douche 11y ago
  That's one of the things about guns - they're a durable good, and they don't exactly have planned obsolescence or deterioration like most consumer goods. Provided you take even the slightest bit of care of them, they last almost forever. A good hunting rifle, shotgun, or pistol costs less than an iPhone...
  - Kristine1975 11y ago
    But you can always have more guns! In case the thug-booted jacks of the government come knocking at your door. Also maybe stricter gun-buying laws get passed, so better buy them now while you still can: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/10/us/gun-sales-terrorism-obama-restrictions.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/10/us/gun-sales-t...
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Sorry we gun owners don't all conform to your fevered insecure stereotypes.
      - Kristine1975 11y ago

sphildreth 11y ago

The author seems really angry, maybe a good Sunday drive would cheer him up.

gm-conspiracy 11y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... ..and relevant documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4

reedlaw 11y ago

I wouldn't call dependence on cars "absurd" or "insane" as the article puts it. Certainly there's room for improvement. Self-driving cars may reduce underutilization as well as fatalities. Cities could be planned better for walking, biking, and public transportation. But without car transportation I doubt the US economy, standard of living, and general sense of unlimited possibility would be what they are today.

gm-conspiracy 11y ago
The current state of affairs did not happen by accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
- Agustus 11y ago
  This is a conspiracy theory. The other part of the story is that if the streetcars were a better investment, General Motors would not have done this. Streetcars are slow, inefficient, and require rail lines to move about. So, if these companies realized the assets they were holding, then they have the opportunity to get rid of them. If you were an investor, the up and coming item was streetcars, as the article mentions they were better than horse-drawn carriages, so taking a stake in these would have been a good idea. The article mentions that the transit systems are expensive to maintain; as publicly held companies, they need to make money. The current day transit systems with rail lines are heavily underwater and have a difficult time making any money, let alone addressing maintenance issues: BART, Metro, and Max. Knowing the return on investment from existing data, would you as a private investor purchase any of those lines. So, the conspiracy can be developed in retrospect, but an over arching plot fails to account for some of the opportunities that fit more into an investor trying to make monies.
  - mountaineer22 11y ago
    It is not a theory. It is an actual conspiracy. From the link: "On April 9, 1947, nine corporations and seven individuals (officers and directors of certain of the corporate defendants) were indicted in the Federal District Court of Southern California on counts of "conspiring to acquire control of a number of transit companies, forming a transportation monopoly" and "conspiring to monopolize sales of buses and supplies to companies owned by National City Lines"[35] which had been made illegal by the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. In 1948, the venue was changed from the Federal District Court of Southern California to the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois following an appeal to the United States Supreme Court (in United States v. National City Lines Inc.)[36] which felt that there was evidence of conspiracy to monopolize the supply of buses and supplies.[37] In 1949, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, GM and Mack Trucks were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit companies controlled by NCL; they were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies. The verdicts were upheld on appeal in 1951." Then you have President Eisenhower appointing the president of GM as the secretary of defense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Erwin_Wilson#Secretary_of_Defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Erwin_Wilson#Secretary... ..and Francis DuPont appointed as chief administrator of highways, whose family, coincidentally owned the largest share of GM stock: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/administrators/fdupont.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/administrators/fdupont.cfm

pkorzeniewski 11y ago

The author is missing some crucial facts that a) not everyone lives in a big city with public transport, so they've no alternative; b) even if you live in a big city, it's often much faster or more convenient to take a car; c) without a car you can't get to 99% places outside the city, so say goodbye to weekend road-trips. No, that's not absurd at all - that's the invaluable freedom of movement.

bluetomcat 11y ago
> without a car you can't get to 99% places outside the city People in big cities should realise that owning a car doesn't mean you have to use it daily. I have a very well-maintained mid 90's Japanese car that sits in a garage and is only taken out for trips during the weekends. Being able to afford a new car, I have saved an enormous amount of money compared to my peers.
kuschku 11y ago
> c) without a car you can't get to 99% places outside the city, so say goodbye to weekend road-trips. No, that's not absurd at all - that's the invaluable freedom of movement. Why? You can bike there. A lot of people do weekend trips with bike and tent here, even families. I know even a family that bikes every year up to Denmark and back for vacation (living near Hamburg), even when their kids were still little (you can buy carts to attach to a bike which can seat multiple kids + store bags) And if you take your bike in bus or train, you can get literally anywhere in Europe within of a day.
- base698 11y ago
  Really? You can bike 100 miles each way to do something active and not be too tired to do it? Also ropes, parachutes and other adventure activity equipment doesn't bike well.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    You don’t have to do it in one day ;) And otherwise, as I said, bike to bus stop or train station, should be < 10 miles, take bike on train, go wherever you want, bike to destination. Costs you like 10$ and you can get anywhere easily.

pigpaws 11y ago

...apparently written by an apartment dweller who wants to 'nerf' the entire world. The market or job isn't always 2 blocks or even 2 miles away. ...The Absurdity of an Atlantic Article.

chrisbennet 11y ago

It might as well be called "The Absurd Primacy of Not Living In Cities"

Kristine1975 11y ago
Where I live public transport extends well into the countryside.
- falcolas 11y ago
  Counter point - it does not for me. Attempting to use public transport for me would involve an hour walk (in the snow, half the year), and an hour and a half on the bus. A car, on the other hand, is right around a 20 minute drive on a bad day.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  An interesting comparison would be how much of the US has a comparable population density and less public transport. The very high density areas of the US tend to already be better served than the rest of the US. You can take a train to rural Massachusetts, but it has ~10x greater density than the US at large (that's a fuzzy number and not carefully determined; it's ~100x for the less populated western states and ~500x for Alaska).
- pionar 11y ago
  May I ask where you live? The countryside can mean any amount of distance. In many parts of the US the "countryside" between cities could stretch hundreds of miles. I live outside of Detroit, but I'm originally from Indianapolis. That's ~300 miles, a 4.5 hour drive by car. I drive that stretch about once every other month to visit family, do work functions (I work from home; my company is in Indianapolis) and other things. As I make this drive, through what is almost exclusively small towns and farms, there's no way public transportation could be made affordable enough to cover the vast distances required so that the reliance of cars in this area would be diminished. And that's in the Midwest, where the cities aren't that far apart (every major city is 2-5 hours away from the others)! Imagine Texas, where you can drive in a straight line for >10 hours and still be inside that state.

autokad 11y ago

"More than 80 cents of every dollar spent on gasoline is squandered by the inherent inefficiencies of the modern internal combustion engine" actually the inefficiencies are spent on taxes rather than the engine itself. its really hard to read through the extremely biased article. it literally admits airplanes are more inefficient but cars are worse because they are used more. That's a special kind of logic there. I myself live in Philly which is one of few places you can exist in america without a car. I also give up a lot of freedom. it means not being able to go hiking in the woods, or pretty much anything outside the maybe 5 or 6 places in america with enough population density to warent a good mass transit system. cars in many situations also save copius amounts of time. A trip to north east philly is about an hour and a half by mass transit, 25 minutes by car. time savings that would eclipse any theoretical 10 years of life expectancy loss from cars. cars have done wonder's for economy as well.

victorhooi 11y ago
Your post is pretty inaccurate. > actually the inefficiencies are spent on taxes rather than the engine itself. Incorrect - the efficiencies are to do with basic physics, and the laws of thermodynamics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency "Modern gasoline engines have a maximum thermal efficiency of about 25% to 30% when used to power a car. In other words, even when the engine is operating at its point of maximum thermal efficiency, of the total heat energy released by the gasoline consumed, about 70-75% is rejected as heat without being turned into useful work, i.e. turning the crankshaft." > its really hard to read through the extremely biased article. it literally admits airplanes are more inefficient but cars are worse because they are used more. That's a special kind of logic there. Incorrect - what the article actually says is: "Transportation is a principal cause of the global climate crisis, exacerbated by a stubborn attachment to archaic, wasteful, and inefficient transportation modes and machines. But are cars the true culprit? " So we are talking about who contributes the most to global warming - and the answer, no matter how you look at it, is cars. Airplanes contribute around 8 percent - cars contribute some 83 percent. > cars in many situations also save copius amounts of time. A trip to north east philly is about an hour and a half by mass transit, 25 minutes by car. time savings that would eclipse any theoretical 10 years of life expectancy loss from cars. Incorrect - firstly, what exactly is the price of a life? I can tell you that to most people, if you told them, can I take 10 years off your life, you would hardly be met with joy. Secondly - this disparity you refer to isn't due to any inherent strength of cars - more, it's just to do with very poor investment in public transport in the US. If you journey outside the United States, to other lands, you will see what some good planning and smart investment in pubic transport can bring. It's like saying, here are my two children - Alice and Bob. Alice is well fed and does sports every day after school. Bob is beaten and malnourished, and we keep him chained in the basement. Here, I'm going to race Alice and Bob - gosh, Alice can run fast!

zzalpha 11y ago

The comments, here, are almost as fascinating as the article. The data cited are irrefutable. The points made are perfectly logical. And yet many of the comments make it seem like the author insulted their mother. It's that car culture, the almost religious emotional attachment to the automobile, that makes the US so unique. I don't believe there's an equivalent anywhere else. It's really quite fascinating.

surge 11y ago
Individually though we have little choice, fact of the matter is I live 30 miles from where I work. I can't afford to live close enough to walk, they demand I be in the office almost every day. I would love to reduce my dependence on a vehicle, if nothing else to get rid of the risk to my own life I take every morning getting behind the wheel while half awake. The article fails to point out the US is spread out, people live far apart, and there are few if any viable alternatives for transportation, even in areas with high population density.
- zzalpha 11y ago
  Agreed, it's a hard problem to solve. Question though: did you consider alternate forms of transportation when you decided where to live and work? Or did you just (even subconsciously) presume a car was necessarily part of the picture? That's one of the cultural issues at play, here. For many, not only is single car commuting just assumed, anything else is virtually unthinkable, affecting any number of decisions people make.
  - thedaemon 11y ago
    Unlike many European countries we do not have bus routes to the rural towns. It forces us to rely on our own cars, or a family member's good will. Until we can build the bus infrastructure, cars are here to stay.
    - rebelde 11y ago
      A bus infrastructure? You must mean a self-driving taxi- or uber-like smart car infrastructure. Yes, I know it doesn't solve the "problem" completely, but it is a step in that direction. The next step would be sharing rides.

ideonexus 11y ago

I agree with the author, and am cognizant of the problem and outraged for the same inefficiencies, deleterious health effects, and fatalities he outlines. But I wish he could have spent an equal amount of time exploring how we solve this problem rather than just inciting futile anger over it. One solution is telecommuting; get people of the road by having them work from home. Another is mandating fuel efficiency and reducing the pollution cars produce. It's outrageous that children getting leukemia and respiratory illnesses are considered acceptable loses so that people can drive enormous SUVs purely as status symbols instead of for their utility. You want to drive a vehicle that gets less than 20 MPG? Fine, you're also going to pay a gasoline consumption tax to support the social programs that take care of the families your pollution is giving cancer. Most importantly to me, and the point the author leaves out, is that cars are highly subsidized. The irony of American car ownership is that we consider public transportation socialist, while spending trillions of tax dollars on public roads. I would love to take the train to work, where I can read a book, write, or program instead of sitting in traffic for an hour... but for some reason we consider sitting in traffic for an hour on a publicly-funded road "freedom."

zzalpha 11y ago
IMO, if you wanted to change things, you'd have to penalize driving by eliminating subsidies and/or introduce taxes on non-commercial vehicles and fuel. Then pair that with policies that discourage urban sprawl and encourage investment in public transportation. We know this can work because the run up on crude caused miles driven to decline. But that requires some serious political will, and that ain't gonna happen.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Taxes are also a problematic solution because they tend to be regressive. Poor people often can't afford efficient cars and living in a place with good public transportation is a luxury in many places. Poor people's jobs are not typically the ones that allow telecommuting. In general I'm a fan of taxing pollutants to account for their true costs, but it's not as straightforward as it might appear.

Rezo 11y ago

More US cities should try at least creating some car-free zones. It's crazy how in a city of New York's caliber, with great public transport, so much space is taken up by cars for so little gain. The total lack of "walking streets" (streets entirely for pedestrian use for Americans unfamiliar with the concept!) is baffling to me. I think it would be perfectly fine to for example close something like Broadway or even 5th Avenue to cars, the businesses on these streets derive almost no traffic since it's all pass-through. Can you imagine how much better that would be for almost everyone, businesses included, what a destination that would create with a whole avenue packed with people? Close of the streets around squares, instead of creating islands in the middle of traffic you'd get street cafes. Just one, pretty please?

jackcarter 11y ago
Chicago tried: https://www.wbez.org/shows/dynamic-range/the-short-sad-life-of-state-streets-pedestrian-mall/f1ebf2b0-2f64-4542-9f18-83123216400d https://www.wbez.org/shows/dynamic-range/the-short-sad-life-...
travmatt 11y ago
I'm currently finishing reading Robert Caro's "The Power Broker", which is about the man who is mostly responsible for New York's choice to embrace the automobile over people, Robert Moses. In short, this choice was extremely conscious and in large part driven by racial and class based segregation.
- mountaineer22 11y ago
  Excellent book. I highly recommend this, as well.
tim333 11y ago
They did for a bit of Broadway. Seems successful. Maybe they could try a few more blocks http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Broadway-Plaza-is-Here-to-Stay-84111687.html http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Broadway-Plaza-is-Here-...
goldbrick 11y ago

colllectorof 11y ago

"Annual U.S. highway fatalities outnumber the yearly war dead during each Vietnam, Iraq, the War of 1812, and the American Revolution." This kind of nonsense is why all population statistics should be reported per person per year. 1. Public transportation is a huge vector for viral diseases. 2. You can drive to a place any time of the day. Public transport doesn't always work 24/7. 3. If you live in a shitty neighborhood, you most likely would not want to walk or take a bicycle everywhere. So in some ways cars can make you safer. 4. Car efficiency and safety is something that is getting improved all the time. 5. If something bad happens (think hurricane), relying on public transportation will get you stranded with much higher probability.

tonyedgecombe 11y ago
1. You won't be getting on a plane then? 2. You fit your life to the schedule, just as you fit existing journeys around the fact your car can't do 300 mph or drive over water. It isn't worse, just different. 3. Perhaps the neighbourhood wouldn't be so shitty if everybody wasn't in a car isolated from their surroundings. 4. Cars have been getting bigger all the time, those efficiency gains have been squandered on SUVs. 5. Maybe, although basing your transport policy around freak events isn't that sensible.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  You sound like a European who's never been to the US. >You won't be getting on a plane then? Most people don't ride planes very often. If you rely on public transit, you have to use it multiple times per day. People can go months or years before boarding a plane. >Perhaps the neighbourhood [sic] wouldn't be so shitty if everybody wasn't in a car isolated from their surroundings. No, the neighborhood is shitty for various other reasons which have nothing to do with cars. America has long had a problem with race relations. >Maybe, although basing your transport policy around freak events isn't that sensible. What "freak events"? Hurricanes happen here quite frequently, as do lesser storms.
- surge 11y ago
  There are at least 2-3 hurricanes hitting the US coast a year, and continues to increase as climate change becomes more prevalent. The U.S not driving won't make much of a dent in climate change, not with China and other industrializing nations. But if you really cared about greenhouse gases, not soap boxes, let's talk about eating meat. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up...

amelius 11y ago

I wonder how Apple will do with their Apple car, once people realize they don't have to own a car. The Apple brand is about possession, and this doesn't go well with using a car as a service.

iamthepieman 11y ago

I hate owning a car. I do not like thinking about repairs, i do not like how much it cost, i do not like how much it pollutes, i do not like how dangerous driving is. I can't afford to live in a good neighborhood of a city with good public transit either though so I'm damned if I do and also... if I don't

cubano 11y ago

I no longer drive for a variety of reasons, and here in Florida at least where everyone has, it often seems, 2 cars, and there is very little good public transportation, it's not really very fun. I get things thrown at me by random drivers at least once a month. I have to be constantly aware of drivers chatting on cells not seeing me and literally hitting me head on at intersections. Trying to date, at my age, with no car is almost impossible. Pretty much the only other people I see riding bikes are the homeless. And then there is the stigma that if your riding a bike, it means you obviously have DUI and/or other issues. But I love riding my bike. I've been a constant bike rider since I was 6yo and it has and always will be a source of joy and freedom to me. Like I enjoy saying "drive a car, burn money and get fat...ride a bike, burn fat and save money."

mironathetin 11y ago
"And then there is the stigma that if your riding a bike, it means you obviously have DUI and/or other issues." Here in Europe bikes become a lifestyle item. Just get yourself a real cool bike, with a carbon belt drive or one of those Titanium bikes, and dress accordingly.
yitchelle 11y ago
> And then there is the stigma that if your riding a bike, it means you obviously have DUI and/or other issues. How deep is this stigma in Florida? I guess that this stigma is regional. I definitely don't feel this stigma living in Western Europe.
- bobbyadamson 11y ago
  It's a consistent stigma across most of America
  - donatj 11y ago
    I've never felt this stigma in Minnesota. I had no idea it was a thing. People hate on bikers for slowing down traffic, yelling things like "get a car, loser" but I've never heard anything DUI related.

blondie9x 11y ago

The best thing we can do now without government involvement is focus on carpooling. In private sector that is something we can control and influence independently. Public transportation can be demanded and new options added, however we have delegated that to our government and representatives. We would need to uniformly demand more of it over time. During interim if we find carpools and try that, in theory we could reduce much of the climate, health, traffic, and deprecation concerns.

altotrees 11y ago

The whole notion of a car being a "rite of passage" in America has always seemed odd to me, even as an American. In many cases, I have friends with loads of college debt taking on an equal amount of debt for a new car upon graduation. It seems to me to be a throwback idea that has lived on. I don't think a new car can really be seen as a rite of passage in the current culture of tuition inflation/stagnating wages. It is more like a luxury you are lucky to be able to truly afford (I'm not talking a 72 month payment plan, no down payment afford here) a year or less out of college.

imgabe 11y ago

Cars are fine if you use them appropriately. They're great for trips from one city to another (> 10 miles or so) or if you need to carry something really heavy. Otherwise walking, biking, or public transportation are preferable. If your life is arranged such that all the places you commonly need to go are > 10 miles apart from each other, consider changing that.

imgabe 11y ago

I wonder how things would change if commuting time was considered "working" and employers had to compensate for it at the employee's hourly rate. This probably isn't realistically feasible but... It seems like most individuals would rather not have horrendous commutes, but they work where the jobs are and they live where housing is cheap and those two things are often far apart. These same individuals have little political pull in terms of zoning laws and urban improvements to make the necessary changes to the infrastructure to allow them to live close to work. If suddenly, say GE, or any major employer in a town had a financial incentive to lobby the local government to make it easier for employees to live close to where they work, things would probably change a lot faster.

lagadu 11y ago
Or even just cut the middle-man (the employer). Here in Denmark if you live more than a set distance from your place of work (IIRC it's 20km) you get tax deductions based on the distance of your commute. This way it's the government directly that gets an incentive to make things better because they literally get less tax money and there's no added complexity by involving employers.
- imgabe 11y ago
  That probably works well in Denmark, but I think it would be confusing with the morass of federal/state/local governments in the US. A deduction on your Federal taxes wouldn't necessarily affect the tax money collected by the local or state government, which is usually the one responsible for building various roads. State and local governments may or may not even collect income taxes (some do, some don't).

yodsanklai 11y ago

One advantage of having a car that I don't see mentioned in the comments is safety. There are a lot of places where I don't feel safe taking public transportations at night. Besides, bikes are more likely to get stolen or vandalized.

gedy 11y ago
I also am assuming most of the no-car commenters in the US have no spouse or small children. There's a lot more to life than commuting back and forth to the office.
- sevensor 11y ago
  I have a foot in both camps -- I have a wife and small children, and we own a car, but I use bicycle and public transit to get to work. There's really no safe way to get the kids to preschool without a car. I had to do this last week, due to some car issues. The cars whooshing by my tiny children as we walked to the bus stop on the narrow shoulder were utterly terrifying. I won't be doing that again soon. There were no economical alternatives to our current housing situation, so like many other commenters, we have to use a personal vehicle even though we'd prefer to avoid it.
  - gedy 11y ago
    Agreed. Yes the housing situation is basically a must to move away from expensive housing near work.
  - yodsanklai 11y ago
    Quite often, I see people carrying very young kids on their bike, either on a back seat, or in a special carriage. We have bike lanes pretty much everywhere in my city, but they are not always separated from the car roads. I don't know if I would take such a risk myself.
yardie 11y ago
Bikes are cheap compared to cars. No one is going to risk a prison sentence for it if they can avoid it. Besides, if it's stolen I claim it against the insurance and get another one. I'm referring to the cheap city bikes, if you have a carbon fiber competition bike keep it at home and save it for race day. Some cities bikes are so ubiquitous you have to really want to steal it to steal it. Last time I was in Ghent bikes were everywhere. If you didn't have one just grab the nearest unlocked bike off the rack. Most likely its 50 years old and the owner has abandoned it. Now that is a bikable city!

cm2187 11y ago

The article shows the problems related to using car, but not why this primacy is "absurd". What is the alternative? (it's only absurd if there is a better alternative).

mariojv 11y ago

I agree that it's absurd that a lot of Americans have to rely on their cars, but I sympathize with the commenters here who don't have cars in places where they would be really convenient. It would be good if the author of the article went more in-depth about the causes of car culture and potential policy solutions. The car is a status symbol of independence in American culture, but I don't think the prevalence of that culture can be separated from how our infrastructure is heavily biased towards utilizing public space for parking spaces, roads, etc. I personally dislike driving and would much rather walk or take a train to where I'm going, even if it took a bit longer. In my city, there is no public transit at all that would allow me to get to where my doctor is, and it would take almost 2 hours for me to bike there across very dangerous roads not designed for bikers. My city also banned ride sharing services for a time, so the only options would have been "bumming" a ride from someone or taking an expensive cab - both car-based modes of transit. Taking public transit to another place I could have biked from more easily would have taken just as long as biking the whole route. Towards the end of the route, I would have had to somehow bike on a highway with cards speeding along at 60+mph, too. Even in another city designed with bike lanes when I had very obvious flashing lights attached to my bike, I got hit by a driver who wasn't paying attention when he turned right onto the road in front of me. Drivers in my current city are much less aware of bikers than there, and I've seen Uber drivers in another city with a similar lack of public transit yelling and harassing bikers sharing the road quite unobtrusively. Another factor here is that the elderly get heat strokes during the summer when temperatures exceed 100 degrees. I'm not sure how well walking to their bus stop would work. There need to be better solutions here than the gas guzzling monstrosities that people drive everyday. I try to reduce my carbon footprint and gas bill by driving an efficient car. The infrastructure for electric cars, which would help the dependence on fossil fuels but not entirely solve deaths from vehicle accidents (though it might prevent some, because of large crumple zones), simply isn't there yet. Until better public transit gets more funding, the increasing availability of affordable electric cars may be a good stopgap solution, at least.

frabbit 11y ago
Having lived and worked in France, the UK, the USA and Canada (mostly in large cities) I have heard people's excuses for why they do not cycle ad nauseam. All in places where I do cycle. Usually there is a way. Usually people are looking for an excuse not to find it. That's not to deny that your particular situation is indeed impossible, but the idea that you need bike lanes and your mantra of being in danger strikes me as not reflecting the actual safety, convenience and abve all _enjoyment_. Cycling has overall better life expectancy outcomes than driving and is pretty safe. You may want to consider a pedelec/electric-assist bicycle (I recommend recent models using the bottom bracket motors from either Bosch or Shimano) if your trip is too long.

mgarfias 11y ago

Clearly written by someone in the city.