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This is why electric cars are so important. No exhaust, no noise. They're perfect for urban use.
by maxsilver 7y ago
This is why electric cars are so important. No exhaust, no noise. They're perfect for urban use.
- merpnderp 7y agoElectric self driving cars are so important. Sitting in and navigating traffic are huge sources of stress for urbanites. White knuckling it at 70mph in bumper to bumper traffic, or spending 45 minutes in stop and go traffic twice a day, are certainly high stress situations.
- CalRobert 7y agoThat doesn't sound like a real city, tbh. Just a sprawling suburb. TBF 98% of what the US calls "cities" are just giant suburbs of themselves.
- CalRobert 7y agoElectric cars don't solve: * kids being killed if they try to play in the street * urban centres being destroyed by parking lots * elderly people being terrified to cross the street * Dead cyclists etc...
- toomuchtodo 7y agoThey do solve allowing those of us who want to live in rural areas to do so in an environmentally friendly way. No cities please.
- klipt 7y ago80% of Americans live in cities. That means if they all moved to rural areas, the population density of rural areas would go up 5X. Would they still be rural then?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thrower123 7y agoThat's actually a good question... There is so much land, especially west of the Mississippi, that is almost completely unpeopled that I'm not sure that distributing the people concentrated in the most dense 1000 sq miles would make a significant increase. We need a Randall Monroe What If?
- magduf 7y agoMuch of the land west of the Mississippi isn't arable land or livable in any way, unless you do what they did in Phoenix and pump the rivers dry. That isn't sustainable; it's an environmental disaster.
- Ma8ee 7y agoThen use the cars in rural areas where they have a place. They don't belong in cities, electric or not. And one of the reasons that cities are better for the environment is less need of transportation.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoBut are cities better for people if you're cramming everyone into less space and want them to move about less? If research says no, we shouldn't be promoting cities, but ways of reducing environmental impact while also reducing density when zoning/land use planning. "In fact, the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health estimates that city dwellers face a nearly 40 percent higher risk of depression, 20 percent higher chance of anxiety, and double the risk of schizophrenia than people living in rural areas."
- Ma8ee 7y agoI won’t get into the completely different discussion about mental health. You don’t state where your quote comes from, but it would be interesting to know if they say anything about what exactly living in a city makes people more depressed. But your point about move about less: people living in cities actually move more. You’re much likely to walk or bicycle to shops or work when the distance is one and a half mile than when it’s ten.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoQuote is directly from the linked article for this thread. I don’t want to be restricted to shopping, work, or entertainment that is walking distance or possibly public transit if I’m feeling adventurous, which is what living in a city constrains you to.
- Ma8ee 7y agoI guess you are joking. Or are you seriously trying to say that you have more choices because you are living in a rural area and have to take the car whenever you want to go anywhere? Just as an example, where I am sitting right now, I have more than 30 restaurants and cafés that I can reach within 5 minutes walk. If I don't mind walking a bit longer, or taking the subway a few stops, for a total traveltime of say 20 minutes, I can reach hundreds, most likely thousands, of restaurants. Shopping and entertainment are similar. And this is far from a mega-city, but a city with around a million people.
- CalRobert 7y agoI live in a very rural area. On three sides of my acreage are cattle. When I drive in to the city, which I do sometimes, I am imposing a cost on everyone living in that city because I chose to drive. I still do it sometimes - if I'm going to Ikea I'm not carrying my stuff home on the train - but let's not pretend it isn't a burden on others.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kelnos 7y agoExhaust and noise is a problem certainly, but IMO a bigger problem is the ridiculous amount of space that gets reserved to support cars that could be used to support people instead.
- CalRobert 7y agoIf only residents went to planning meetings to complain about a lack of places for people to sleep, instead of for cars to sleep.
- jweir 7y agoThey are a sign of urban failure. If your city needs cars your city has failed. Go spend some time a city without cars - or sections of a city that don’t allow cars - I’ll wager you like it. Unfortunately in the US many criticize such efforts as being like Disneyland - as if that is a bad a thing.
- rhapsodic 7y ago>They are a sign of urban failure. If your city needs cars your city has failed. Go spend some time a city without cars - or sections of a city that don’t allow cars - I’ll wager you like it. How would I get my drum kit to a gig in the heart of such a city?
- semafour 7y agoIn some states, suburban and rural folks find out they like concentrated areas made for people, not cars, once every year. They love the state fair.
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoDo you guarantee that the legal items one would normally transport in a car will be allowed on public transportation?
- CalRobert 7y agoI think most people agree there is _some_ use for automobiles in cities, just like there's _some_ use for helicopters in cities. It's _extremely_ limited though. I actually think it's silly to allow guns in cars and not on public transport (way more drive-bys than bus-bys, after all) but that's definitely an edge case.
- eswat 7y agoI believe it’s the urban planning involved in accommodating the physical traffic of vehicles the GP is getting at, not the emissions. Electric vehicles do nothing to address roads occupying more space than sidewalks, for example.
- progfix 7y agoOnly when they are significantly smaller than current cars. It isn't just about the emissions, it's about the space that cars take and the speed they are moving.
- logfromblammo 7y agoThe electric passenger vehicle most important to cities is actually... elevators. Press a button to call a ride. Press a button to select a destination. 24-hour automated operation, and free-to-use for passengers with hand-carried items. Compared with an elevator, a street-driven electric car is a bit of a nightmare. The closest horizontal analog is commuter trains on electrified rails, and even those are shaped by car culture. If a city were planned like a building, and horizontal movement given over to externally-powered single-car on-demand vehicles that move exclusively on dedicated trackways, there wouldn't be so much space and energy wasted on cars.