16 ms·

Anecdotally, having moved to Western Europe, I get the sense that this is the major factor as well. If I walk down the street and there is a group of workers e

Anecdotally, having moved to Western Europe, I get the sense that this is the major factor as well. If I walk down the street and there is a group of workers excavating a road, there's a lot more of a relaxed attitude about fencing, walking underneath construction equipment, etc. After all - use your common sense - don't fall into the hole. If you do, isn't it kind of your own fault? Nobody's going to sue anybody. Additionally, it's not a big deal to close or severely impact a road due to construction - just shift around the fantastic public transit infrastructure, and everyone carries along. A bus only needs one lane in both directions. Another thing that would never fly in North America. Both of these problems are deeply cultural. Lawsuits have become a form of welfare. Sure, you might not have government healthcare if you get hurt or sick, but maybe you can sue somebody and get paid for your suffering? And America's love affair with the automobile is a well-known abusive relationship that America will never have the courage to leave.

karmelapple 9y ago
The abusive relationship love-affair is the best explanation I've ever heard of cars in the USA. Just like a an abusive relationship, the car love affair still produces some good things. It's not all dark and dreary. "I hate that he comes home drunk and hits me, but he's so loving and apologetic the next morning." "I hate that I get so stressed from my daily commute, but being able to drive to the countryside on the weekend is so nice." You can be in a relationship without dealing with abuse, and you can get to work less stressfully and still have the freedom to explore the world. That's what makes the relationship so sinister; it's Stockholm syndrome. "How could I ever live without him, even though he hits me sometimes?" "How could I ever live without driving everywhere, even though the country on the whole is getting more unhealthy, we continue to use up our limited resources, and the ability to walk around and individuals' quality of life is reduced?" Of course you can live without those negatives. There are ways out. There is a better life possible.
- chc 9y ago
  Can we try to get through one thread on HN without frothing at the mouth about how much we hate cars? Message received, you happen to be in a situation where you don't need a car — I am genuinely happy for you, as well as envious. But it is not necessary or helpful for someone to bang on about it in every single thread that has anything to do with building stuff. It doesn't help anything, and it just annoys people who don't have your good fortune and feel like you're agitating to take away something they need.
  - CodeCube 9y ago
    If people don't bang on about it, nothing will ever change ... seriously, everyone will simply move on and build the next urban sprawl center, and the next shitty road, out to the next desolate subdivision because that's what's easy. No one wants to be agitated. Well, too bad, we _should_ be agitated. Those without the good fortune _should_ raise hell to the city planners, and attend city council meetings, and vote in local elections. btw, I live in a place that definitely is an urban sprawl, and is in danger of getting worse as more and more people move here (Orlando, FL). So, I'm in the same place as it sounds like you are ... and I wish _more_ people would bang on
    - gozur88 9y ago
      >If people don't bang on about it, nothing will ever change ... It's not going to change anyway. The car haters on HN are in the minority of Americans.
      - L_Rahman 9y ago
        It's already changing in statistically significant ways: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-decline-of-the-drivers-license/425169/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-d...
        gozur88 9y ago
        >It turns out that Millennial behavior during the recession—living in the basement rather than driving to work, and biking and sharing rides elsewhere—did not reflect a preferred lifestyle so much as an accommodation to the longest recession and slowest recovery in modern U.S. history. >By year-end 2016 road travel had hit an all-time high, north of 3.2 trillion vehicle-miles. Gasoline demand has followed apace, also hitting new highs. So much for peak driving. http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2017/05/29/millennial_behavior_is_about_to_make_fools_of_peak_energy_demand_theorists_110227.html http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2017/05/29/millennia...
- rjeli 9y ago
  you can apply this analogy to literally anything with benefits and drawbacks.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > "I hate that I get so stressed from my daily commute, but being able to drive to the countryside on the weekend is so nice." I have truly never understood this line of thinking. These two are not tied together. I grew up in a car-centric city, but moved away in my teens. I've never personally owned a car and haven't had one in the household since I was 17. I hear this supposed "upside" of cars from my friends who are still stuck in LA, and what no one has ever been able to answer is: What prevents you from renting a car when you want to drive out to the countryside? I drive out somewhere beautiful on a sunny weekend probably 3x as much as any of my friends who own cars, and I'm still paying less for total transportation than they do (let alone the occasional hassle that owning a car exposes you to). The only actual negative I can think of is the mental friction of having to pay each time, and this is just an irrational speedbump that really isn't that difficult to surmount.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > What prevents you from renting a car when you want to drive out to the countryside? Nothing, but it is a barrier. When you own a car, you just get in, make sure you've got gas, and go. When you don't, you need to go out and find a rental place, get there, find a car you want/like, etc. It's a small barrier, and mostly psychological, but it's there and it affects decisions.
    - giobox 9y ago
      Yup. I cycle a lot, and when I first moved to USA I tried to live the car rental only lifestyle in the Bay Area. In someways this was easier than I expected: * Most US car rental price comparison sites let you book a car months in advance to lock in the price, but you don't pay till pick up. There's almost never a penalty for booking and not picking up, so I used to just block book the weekends months in advance, whether I needed the car or not. * I just used the big rental firms - at the time services like ZipCar were priced to heavily incentivise you to only drive between ZipCar areas and drop off, e.g. use a different car for the outbound journey and the return one. Using them for all-day tripping often ended up being significantly more expensive than a traditional rental. I've no idea if this has improved. Car sharing services appeared to really rely on both your start and end destinations being in their 'coverage' areas though. * Once I got to know staff at my local rental place, I started getting 'free' upgrades a lot. However, after four or five months I ended up buying a modest low mileage 3 year old Honda. The cost of running isn't actually all that much more, and now I don't have to factor in travel time to rental place, having to refill the rental before return, clock-watching etc. This is entirely selfish of me of course, but very much caused by the small 'barrier' you mention.
- vacri 9y ago
  Meh, public transport also sucks. I have a daily commute a bit over an hour each way on a tram. I'm near the end of my line, so I'm 'lucky' enough to get a seat for that time. I'm not the one who gets squished in during peak hour, or has to watch overfull trams just pass by. If they're not overdue, that is (a famous problem with public transport). I'm also lucky in that where I live and work are on the same line. I do, however, have to walk a moderate distance at both ends - it's not end-to-end transport - and I'm limited to having a small amount of things I can personally carry; no carting much extra stuff to work to do things afterwards for me. I'm also tall, which means that public transport vehicles aren't built for me (seats too small, hit my head on things if I'm standing, etc) and there's nothing I can do about it. Then if it's raining, not all stops have shelters for the proles, and the floors can get slippery. Or perhaps its winter, and that press of people on the vehicle is a haven for colds and viruses to spread. Public transport is a good thing overall, but I do get tired of people talking about it like it's heaven 'if only it were more available'.
Mz 9y ago
And America's love affair with the automobile is a well-known abusive relationship that America will never have the courage to leave. From what I have read, Millenials are putting noteworthy pressure on this aspect of American culture. Also, I gave up my car years ago. With the magic of the internet, I work online. I mostly walk everywhere and occasionally take public transit. I think we can change this substantially.
- mason240 9y ago
  You're free to live how you choose, but don't force others to live how you see fit.
  - Mz 9y ago
    I don't see where you get the idea that I am doing anything or have any goal to force anyone to do anything. That seems like a huge and unwarranted leap of logic.
    - mason240 9y ago
      >I think we can change this substantially.
      - Mz 9y ago
        I don't see how that in any way suggests what you are saying. There are a lot of people who currently feel forced into long commutes who hate them. There are a lot of people who are trapped in the situation of they need a car to get to work, they need a job to afford a car because a car is often the second biggest household expense after housing itself. I am talking about opening up options, not putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to give up their car. We currently have many people who feel they have a gun to their head in terms of being forced into needing a car they don't want. Where is your sympathy for their right to choose?
        mason240 9y ago
lghh 9y ago
> And America's love affair with the automobile is a well-known abusive relationship that America will never have the courage to leave. It's pretty much impossible to leave this relationship unless you live in one of the larger US cities. If you live in a suburb, rural area, or city that's not in the top 10-15 in terms of size there's literally no other option that exists or that could easily exist.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  That's a self-inflicted problem though. Nobody put a gun to America's head and forced us to make our cities sprawl out. We collectively decided to do it that way because we thought it was better. And for a few things it IS better. But there are a whole lotta costs, too, with the top 3 being being actual financial cost, grinding on the faces of the poor, and making us fat.
  - karmelapple 9y ago
    How can we better quantify the costs? That's where, I think, many people have a blind spot.
    - TulliusCicero 9y ago
      Don't have an authoritative answer for you, but I thought this chart was pretty great; it shows the profit/loss for the local government (so, taxes vs spending) for different neighborhoods for a city in Lousiana: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...
  - dukoid 9y ago
    Not a gun but nuclear missiles: https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today.html https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-cause...
  - Jach 9y ago
    It's probably not even a decision so much as a probable consequence of having a much smaller population and opening of new frontiers to settle over the course of the country's history, ending up today with about half the population spread across about the same total area, and not uniformly. What has been our decision is to respect individual and local preferences (NIMBYism) and to ignore certain infrastructure improvements. Given that sprawl is not a new phenomenon but obesity is I don't see how you can claim this is responsible for making us fat.
1_2__3 9y ago
I know you couldn't resist injecting an anti-car barb in there but it makes no sense - the problem in the US isn't our "abusive relationship" with cars, it's insufficient infrastructure. Your magical public-transportation future will be ever bit as bad or worse than cars today if the government similarly underfunds it. Which they will.
aikinai 9y ago
As a counter-example, Japan is one of the best in the world at infrastructure while at the same time being incredibly thorough about safety and external impacts. They can do a complete overhaul of the busiest train station in the world with zero downtime and solid walls around all construction.

karmelapple 9y ago

The abusive relationship love-affair is the best explanation I've ever heard of cars in the USA. Just like a an abusive relationship, the car love affair still produces some good things. It's not all dark and dreary. "I hate that he comes home drunk and hits me, but he's so loving and apologetic the next morning." "I hate that I get so stressed from my daily commute, but being able to drive to the countryside on the weekend is so nice." You can be in a relationship without dealing with abuse, and you can get to work less stressfully and still have the freedom to explore the world. That's what makes the relationship so sinister; it's Stockholm syndrome. "How could I ever live without him, even though he hits me sometimes?" "How could I ever live without driving everywhere, even though the country on the whole is getting more unhealthy, we continue to use up our limited resources, and the ability to walk around and individuals' quality of life is reduced?" Of course you can live without those negatives. There are ways out. There is a better life possible.

chc 9y ago
Can we try to get through one thread on HN without frothing at the mouth about how much we hate cars? Message received, you happen to be in a situation where you don't need a car — I am genuinely happy for you, as well as envious. But it is not necessary or helpful for someone to bang on about it in every single thread that has anything to do with building stuff. It doesn't help anything, and it just annoys people who don't have your good fortune and feel like you're agitating to take away something they need.
- CodeCube 9y ago
  If people don't bang on about it, nothing will ever change ... seriously, everyone will simply move on and build the next urban sprawl center, and the next shitty road, out to the next desolate subdivision because that's what's easy. No one wants to be agitated. Well, too bad, we _should_ be agitated. Those without the good fortune _should_ raise hell to the city planners, and attend city council meetings, and vote in local elections. btw, I live in a place that definitely is an urban sprawl, and is in danger of getting worse as more and more people move here (Orlando, FL). So, I'm in the same place as it sounds like you are ... and I wish _more_ people would bang on
  - gozur88 9y ago
    >If people don't bang on about it, nothing will ever change ... It's not going to change anyway. The car haters on HN are in the minority of Americans.
    - L_Rahman 9y ago
      It's already changing in statistically significant ways: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-decline-of-the-drivers-license/425169/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-d...
      - gozur88 9y ago
        >It turns out that Millennial behavior during the recession—living in the basement rather than driving to work, and biking and sharing rides elsewhere—did not reflect a preferred lifestyle so much as an accommodation to the longest recession and slowest recovery in modern U.S. history. >By year-end 2016 road travel had hit an all-time high, north of 3.2 trillion vehicle-miles. Gasoline demand has followed apace, also hitting new highs. So much for peak driving. http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2017/05/29/millennial_behavior_is_about_to_make_fools_of_peak_energy_demand_theorists_110227.html http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2017/05/29/millennia...
rjeli 9y ago
you can apply this analogy to literally anything with benefits and drawbacks.
wutbrodo 9y ago
> "I hate that I get so stressed from my daily commute, but being able to drive to the countryside on the weekend is so nice." I have truly never understood this line of thinking. These two are not tied together. I grew up in a car-centric city, but moved away in my teens. I've never personally owned a car and haven't had one in the household since I was 17. I hear this supposed "upside" of cars from my friends who are still stuck in LA, and what no one has ever been able to answer is: What prevents you from renting a car when you want to drive out to the countryside? I drive out somewhere beautiful on a sunny weekend probably 3x as much as any of my friends who own cars, and I'm still paying less for total transportation than they do (let alone the occasional hassle that owning a car exposes you to). The only actual negative I can think of is the mental friction of having to pay each time, and this is just an irrational speedbump that really isn't that difficult to surmount.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > What prevents you from renting a car when you want to drive out to the countryside? Nothing, but it is a barrier. When you own a car, you just get in, make sure you've got gas, and go. When you don't, you need to go out and find a rental place, get there, find a car you want/like, etc. It's a small barrier, and mostly psychological, but it's there and it affects decisions.
  - giobox 9y ago
    Yup. I cycle a lot, and when I first moved to USA I tried to live the car rental only lifestyle in the Bay Area. In someways this was easier than I expected: * Most US car rental price comparison sites let you book a car months in advance to lock in the price, but you don't pay till pick up. There's almost never a penalty for booking and not picking up, so I used to just block book the weekends months in advance, whether I needed the car or not. * I just used the big rental firms - at the time services like ZipCar were priced to heavily incentivise you to only drive between ZipCar areas and drop off, e.g. use a different car for the outbound journey and the return one. Using them for all-day tripping often ended up being significantly more expensive than a traditional rental. I've no idea if this has improved. Car sharing services appeared to really rely on both your start and end destinations being in their 'coverage' areas though. * Once I got to know staff at my local rental place, I started getting 'free' upgrades a lot. However, after four or five months I ended up buying a modest low mileage 3 year old Honda. The cost of running isn't actually all that much more, and now I don't have to factor in travel time to rental place, having to refill the rental before return, clock-watching etc. This is entirely selfish of me of course, but very much caused by the small 'barrier' you mention.
vacri 9y ago
Meh, public transport also sucks. I have a daily commute a bit over an hour each way on a tram. I'm near the end of my line, so I'm 'lucky' enough to get a seat for that time. I'm not the one who gets squished in during peak hour, or has to watch overfull trams just pass by. If they're not overdue, that is (a famous problem with public transport). I'm also lucky in that where I live and work are on the same line. I do, however, have to walk a moderate distance at both ends - it's not end-to-end transport - and I'm limited to having a small amount of things I can personally carry; no carting much extra stuff to work to do things afterwards for me. I'm also tall, which means that public transport vehicles aren't built for me (seats too small, hit my head on things if I'm standing, etc) and there's nothing I can do about it. Then if it's raining, not all stops have shelters for the proles, and the floors can get slippery. Or perhaps its winter, and that press of people on the vehicle is a haven for colds and viruses to spread. Public transport is a good thing overall, but I do get tired of people talking about it like it's heaven 'if only it were more available'.

Mz 9y ago

And America's love affair with the automobile is a well-known abusive relationship that America will never have the courage to leave. From what I have read, Millenials are putting noteworthy pressure on this aspect of American culture. Also, I gave up my car years ago. With the magic of the internet, I work online. I mostly walk everywhere and occasionally take public transit. I think we can change this substantially.

mason240 9y ago
You're free to live how you choose, but don't force others to live how you see fit.
- Mz 9y ago
  I don't see where you get the idea that I am doing anything or have any goal to force anyone to do anything. That seems like a huge and unwarranted leap of logic.
  - mason240 9y ago
    >I think we can change this substantially.
    - Mz 9y ago
      I don't see how that in any way suggests what you are saying. There are a lot of people who currently feel forced into long commutes who hate them. There are a lot of people who are trapped in the situation of they need a car to get to work, they need a job to afford a car because a car is often the second biggest household expense after housing itself. I am talking about opening up options, not putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to give up their car. We currently have many people who feel they have a gun to their head in terms of being forced into needing a car they don't want. Where is your sympathy for their right to choose?
      - mason240 9y ago

lghh 9y ago

> And America's love affair with the automobile is a well-known abusive relationship that America will never have the courage to leave. It's pretty much impossible to leave this relationship unless you live in one of the larger US cities. If you live in a suburb, rural area, or city that's not in the top 10-15 in terms of size there's literally no other option that exists or that could easily exist.

TulliusCicero 9y ago
That's a self-inflicted problem though. Nobody put a gun to America's head and forced us to make our cities sprawl out. We collectively decided to do it that way because we thought it was better. And for a few things it IS better. But there are a whole lotta costs, too, with the top 3 being being actual financial cost, grinding on the faces of the poor, and making us fat.
- karmelapple 9y ago
  How can we better quantify the costs? That's where, I think, many people have a blind spot.
  - TulliusCicero 9y ago
    Don't have an authoritative answer for you, but I thought this chart was pretty great; it shows the profit/loss for the local government (so, taxes vs spending) for different neighborhoods for a city in Lousiana: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...
- dukoid 9y ago
  Not a gun but nuclear missiles: https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today.html https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-cause...
- Jach 9y ago
  It's probably not even a decision so much as a probable consequence of having a much smaller population and opening of new frontiers to settle over the course of the country's history, ending up today with about half the population spread across about the same total area, and not uniformly. What has been our decision is to respect individual and local preferences (NIMBYism) and to ignore certain infrastructure improvements. Given that sprawl is not a new phenomenon but obesity is I don't see how you can claim this is responsible for making us fat.

1_2__3 9y ago

I know you couldn't resist injecting an anti-car barb in there but it makes no sense - the problem in the US isn't our "abusive relationship" with cars, it's insufficient infrastructure. Your magical public-transportation future will be ever bit as bad or worse than cars today if the government similarly underfunds it. Which they will.

aikinai 9y ago

As a counter-example, Japan is one of the best in the world at infrastructure while at the same time being incredibly thorough about safety and external impacts. They can do a complete overhaul of the busiest train station in the world with zero downtime and solid walls around all construction.