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> It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving everywhere.
by maxsilver 8y ago
> It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving everywhere.
That would be nice, but that's not the general opinion of urbanists in the US. They (generalizing) really do believe as the parent describes, to "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit", and they truly believe this will magically fix public transit across the nation.
It's the urbanist version of "the beatings will continue until morale improves".
They'll often lie about it, saying "we don't hate them, we just want them to pay their fair share", or "to remove subsidies". But mostly, they just really hate cars. Especially electric ones (since they largely solve most of the problems of cars, while still being cars). Just browse the top 20 posts of /r/urbanplanning on any given day to see this in action
- jacques_chester 8y ago> since they largely solve most of the problems of cars, while still being cars They solve air pollution and some of noise pollution. But they don't magically cause people to carpool. And even if they did, net passenger density for buses is higher, rail substantially higher again. An NYC subway R160 carriage can, in the space of about 4-5 car lengths, carry about 250 people, meaning those trains move a thousand or more people in the distance from a T-intersection to the back of a cul-de-sac. Cars are expensive. It's just that you don't pay for it at the car.
- DrScump 8y agoThey solve air pollution They displace air pollution to wherever the generation plant is, except for rare areas served by 100% nuclear/hydroelectric/solar/geothermal.
- kruczek 8y agoNote however that it is easier to limit and monitor air pollution generated by relatively few generation plants, than by hundreds of thousands of individual cars.
- coryfklein 8y agoThis is a false dichotomy. Certainly it is true that reducing air pollution is better than not, and certainly effective public transit reduces total air pollution both by being more efficient, and because power sources are never 100% fossil fuel powered.
- supertrope 8y agoWhile the only 100% hydroelectric regions I know of are the pacific northwest USA and eastern Canada, I live in an area with 60% hydroelectric and nuclear. 30% is natural gas. The last 10% is a split between coal and renewables. So a battery electric vehicle is 65% near zero emissions, and 95% is less polluting than oil. (Without considering the inherent efficiency of battery powered motors vs. internal combustion engines. Or the environmental footprint of manufacturing "green" machines, building concrete containment domes for nuclear plants, nuclear waste disposal, or methane leaks). Even pure displacement of air pollution to smokestacks is a huge plus in places like midtown Manhattan where the most respiratory health harms due to particulates, NOx, ozone, etc. are taking place. Less kids getting asthma, people getting heart attacks/strokes, premature births, etc.
- aoeusnth1 8y agoDisplacement results in better health outcomes, which is the whole point.
- kasey_junk 8y agoSo, by your definition I’m an urbanist. I don’t hate electric cars more than gas cars, what I will say is that electric cars don’t solve a lot of the externalities that actually bother me on a day to day basis (that said of course I would prefer all vehicles switch off of gasoline), My big issues are that cars take more space than other forms of transport, cars endanger me more frequently when I’m trying to do my thing & we expend insane resources on supporting car centric lifestyles that we needn’t expend. Basically I’m tired of subsidizing other peoples car centric life styles at the expense of my own.