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You're both wrong and right :p While the distances between the towns in Australia is massive, most of our population resides in a handful of urban coastal citi

You're both wrong and right :p While the distances between the towns in Australia is massive, most of our population resides in a handful of urban coastal cities. While car culture is historically dominant, the biggest cities are all seriously trending towards increased densification, and much of our substantial immigration over the past 2 decades had been from nations used to much denser living. I leave open the question as to whether it is the answer to all societies problems, but it would be a brave man to proclaim that wasn't the way Australian cities and population hadn't been trending for the past 10 years, and we'll likely trend for at least the next 10.

stephenr 9y ago
most of Australia's population lives in the suburbs surrounding the city. Public transport from the suburbs to anywhere but the city or somewhere directly on the way, is terrible. Will we have better cars that are less polluting, safer, even self driving? Sure. Will we get rid of personal motorised transportation? No.
- elementalest 9y ago
  Yep, and try getting the government to pay the billions required to get public transport up to standard to be able to just provide adequate transport for the majority of people in those cities.
- ACow_Adonis 9y ago
  Perhaps I am overly generous in assuming that anyone talking about getting rid of cars is partaking in rhetorical hyperbole, and moreso making the point that we might be moving away from 2-3 cars for every household in the burbs, and approaching/trending towards 1-2 overall. I will add in addition to my above post, that our high property prices are additionally feeding an additional densification trend...
  - stephenr 9y ago
    I don't know where you live but everywhere I've lived, it's been 1 maybe two cars per couple, or one car if the person is single. The only exception I've seen to this is if people own a motorbike too, but then it's usually 1 shared car for the couple and a motorbike each.
    - oculusthrift 9y ago
      sounds like you live in a city with young people whereas if you are in a suburb it’s families with a bunch of cars. Both parents can have a car, and they can have a van and maybe they’ll have a car for their 16 year old kid.
      - stephenr 9y ago
        Doesn't sound like any Aussie suburb I've lived in.
    - ACow_Adonis 9y ago
      Luckily the Australian census and statistics are quite targeted on these areas, so you can drill down to quite detailed area level analysis. You can google for "Australian Census 2016 quick stats" and get this information for most places in Australia. Where I currently live is very atypical for Aus, about 75% of households here have 1 or fewer cars, but I've lived pretty much up and down the entire east coast and have a relatively intimate knowledge of both this country and the collection of information on it. As Russel Coight might say: "I've bend around this wide brown land, seen a thing or two..."
      - stephenr 9y ago
        Thanks for the tip about the census I found this http://profile.id.com.au/australia/car-ownership http://profile.id.com.au/australia/car-ownership Looking at aust-wide and state by state, it's as I described, at most (in wa and tas) 18% with 3+ cars, but 60+% fall into 1 or 2 cars per household. The rest is no car and no answer.
        9y ago
- megablast 9y ago
  Yeah, people here are ridiculously addicted to cars, even in inner city regions. Ridiculous. > Will we have better cars that are less polluting, safer, even self driving? Sure, whatever. Considering the huge amount of pollution that goes into just creating the car, it is silly to talk about less polluting. Safe? Yeah, that why the road toll is going up. Self driving? Can't come soon enough, since people are incapable of concentrating long enough and are too selfish to drive safely. Private cars are a stupid idea, and have caused way more problems.
  - stephenr 9y ago
    The road toll has been on a steady downward trend since the 70s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_Australia_by_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths...

stephenr 9y ago

most of Australia's population lives in the suburbs surrounding the city. Public transport from the suburbs to anywhere but the city or somewhere directly on the way, is terrible. Will we have better cars that are less polluting, safer, even self driving? Sure. Will we get rid of personal motorised transportation? No.

elementalest 9y ago
Yep, and try getting the government to pay the billions required to get public transport up to standard to be able to just provide adequate transport for the majority of people in those cities.
ACow_Adonis 9y ago
Perhaps I am overly generous in assuming that anyone talking about getting rid of cars is partaking in rhetorical hyperbole, and moreso making the point that we might be moving away from 2-3 cars for every household in the burbs, and approaching/trending towards 1-2 overall. I will add in addition to my above post, that our high property prices are additionally feeding an additional densification trend...
- stephenr 9y ago
  I don't know where you live but everywhere I've lived, it's been 1 maybe two cars per couple, or one car if the person is single. The only exception I've seen to this is if people own a motorbike too, but then it's usually 1 shared car for the couple and a motorbike each.
  - oculusthrift 9y ago
    sounds like you live in a city with young people whereas if you are in a suburb it’s families with a bunch of cars. Both parents can have a car, and they can have a van and maybe they’ll have a car for their 16 year old kid.
    - stephenr 9y ago
      Doesn't sound like any Aussie suburb I've lived in.
  - ACow_Adonis 9y ago
    Luckily the Australian census and statistics are quite targeted on these areas, so you can drill down to quite detailed area level analysis. You can google for "Australian Census 2016 quick stats" and get this information for most places in Australia. Where I currently live is very atypical for Aus, about 75% of households here have 1 or fewer cars, but I've lived pretty much up and down the entire east coast and have a relatively intimate knowledge of both this country and the collection of information on it. As Russel Coight might say: "I've bend around this wide brown land, seen a thing or two..."
    - stephenr 9y ago
      Thanks for the tip about the census I found this http://profile.id.com.au/australia/car-ownership http://profile.id.com.au/australia/car-ownership Looking at aust-wide and state by state, it's as I described, at most (in wa and tas) 18% with 3+ cars, but 60+% fall into 1 or 2 cars per household. The rest is no car and no answer.
      - 9y ago
megablast 9y ago
Yeah, people here are ridiculously addicted to cars, even in inner city regions. Ridiculous. > Will we have better cars that are less polluting, safer, even self driving? Sure, whatever. Considering the huge amount of pollution that goes into just creating the car, it is silly to talk about less polluting. Safe? Yeah, that why the road toll is going up. Self driving? Can't come soon enough, since people are incapable of concentrating long enough and are too selfish to drive safely. Private cars are a stupid idea, and have caused way more problems.
- stephenr 9y ago
  The road toll has been on a steady downward trend since the 70s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_Australia_by_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths...