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Do people who don't own or have interest in owning a car really get that upset about other people's choices? The way you've worded those makes it sounds like t

Do people who don't own or have interest in owning a car really get that upset about other people's choices? The way you've worded those makes it sounds like they're feeling pretty judgemental.

pornel 7y ago
It's your personal choice only if you don't expect to have (non-congested) public roads and parking spaces for your car. Space in cities is shared and finite, so something has to give. When I visit U.S. I'm shocked how much of city space is sacrificed to seas of asphalt and mountains of dull concrete. Multiple very wide lanes cutting cities into inaccessible islands, making everything spaced further apart. Where I'd expect to have a 5-minute stroll by a park to a local cafe, it turns out to be a dangerous 30-minute walk through viaducts and parking lots to a mall.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  It depends a lot on where you go to. The cities of the NEC (Boston-Washington axis), along with Chicago and (to a lesser degree) San Francisco are generally pretty hostile to cars and have dense and compact cores. There's a tranche of cities that are trying to develop more towards that transit-heavy/car-lite scenario, which includes Seattle and Portland (and surprisingly, Los Angeles, but they have a long way to go). Then there's the cities that embraced the automobile and have blocks of nothing but parking in their downtown--Kansas City is one of the worst offenders here. And of course the suburbs tend to lean heavily into the space-wasting, automobile-centric design. It's quite striking just how compact things are in the first set of cities compared to the automobile-centered places elsewhere in the US. Apple's spaceship campus is about the size of downtown Providence. Or, if you impose it on Midtown Manhattan, it would cover the entire area between Penn Station, Grand Central, Broadway, and the Empire State Building (which incidentally houses more employees by itself than Apple's campus does).
baby 7y ago
I live in SF, previously Chicago, and I'm annoyed everyday at: * I have to cross large streets that have been built for cars all the time * Public transport sucks * The city is against other modes of transportation like kick scooters and people comolain about how much space they take when you have large cars parked everywhere * Because people move in cars, no area is really densed. Restaurants and bars are miles apart. * Because few people take the bus, there are all sorts of crazies there. I took the bus twice when I moved here and almost got beatten up the first time, witnessed someone getting mugged the second time. I'll never take the bus again here. * When I'm in the shuttle, and the traffic is freaking slow, I look outside the window and see one person per car. Why don't more people take shuttles instead of taking so much space on the road? Well there is no public transport. * Noise, noise, noise * The roads are all broken. Shuttle rides are uber bumpy.
- tathougies 7y ago
  I think this is nuts. I lived in san Francisco for many years and the entire city is accessible by public tranit. The city is even building more like the new subway line. And Chicago takes the cake for crazies on buses. Ive never felt so unsafe on a bus as Chicago. Id rank san Francisco's situation on par with londons core urban areas. Maybe you're also including the surrounding burbs?
  - baby 7y ago
    You're in luck, I also lived in London before moving to SF. Daring comparing these two cities public transport is FUD. I've never taken a cab in London, bus and some metro lines are 24/7. Public transportation of SF and the bay is a joke if you've ever been outside the US.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      Yes, I do agree the 24/7 thing is very annoying. Although living in Marin for the past few years, it's weird because bus service to/from SF is actually 24/7 there. But, it's totally misplaced. Within the city though, for everyday tasks, SF is basically on par with most cities in the world. Most cities do not have 24/7 transit.
      - baby 7y ago
        I strongly disagree with you, and I've lived in 8 different cities accross 3 continents.
  - viklove 7y ago
    Which line were you on? I take a bus to work every day in Chicago, and I've felt unsafe maybe once or twice. Definitely felt way less safe walking through downtown SF with the homeless population heckling me for my soda. Chicago's public transit ranks much, much higher than SF's. The fact that you compared it to London shows just how conceited you are.
    - 7y ago
homonculus1 7y ago
The reflexive, condescending erasure of the advantages and necessities of owning a car on the part of wealthy Bay Area urbanites is illuminating as to why some people get pissed off enough to roll coal.
- mikestew 7y ago
  Thinking that everything is about you and your diesel F-250 that you genuinely need for work is the very definition of narcissism. I am willingly to guess, however, that a very large number of people I saw on the way to work here in the 'burbs this morning did not require a two ton wheelchair to get to their place of employment.

Do people who don't own or have interest in owning a car really get that upset about other people's choices? The way you've worded those makes it sounds like they're feeling pretty judgemental.

pornel 7y ago

It's your personal choice only if you don't expect to have (non-congested) public roads and parking spaces for your car. Space in cities is shared and finite, so something has to give. When I visit U.S. I'm shocked how much of city space is sacrificed to seas of asphalt and mountains of dull concrete. Multiple very wide lanes cutting cities into inaccessible islands, making everything spaced further apart. Where I'd expect to have a 5-minute stroll by a park to a local cafe, it turns out to be a dangerous 30-minute walk through viaducts and parking lots to a mall.

jcranmer 7y ago
It depends a lot on where you go to. The cities of the NEC (Boston-Washington axis), along with Chicago and (to a lesser degree) San Francisco are generally pretty hostile to cars and have dense and compact cores. There's a tranche of cities that are trying to develop more towards that transit-heavy/car-lite scenario, which includes Seattle and Portland (and surprisingly, Los Angeles, but they have a long way to go). Then there's the cities that embraced the automobile and have blocks of nothing but parking in their downtown--Kansas City is one of the worst offenders here. And of course the suburbs tend to lean heavily into the space-wasting, automobile-centric design. It's quite striking just how compact things are in the first set of cities compared to the automobile-centered places elsewhere in the US. Apple's spaceship campus is about the size of downtown Providence. Or, if you impose it on Midtown Manhattan, it would cover the entire area between Penn Station, Grand Central, Broadway, and the Empire State Building (which incidentally houses more employees by itself than Apple's campus does).

baby 7y ago

I live in SF, previously Chicago, and I'm annoyed everyday at: * I have to cross large streets that have been built for cars all the time * Public transport sucks * The city is against other modes of transportation like kick scooters and people comolain about how much space they take when you have large cars parked everywhere * Because people move in cars, no area is really densed. Restaurants and bars are miles apart. * Because few people take the bus, there are all sorts of crazies there. I took the bus twice when I moved here and almost got beatten up the first time, witnessed someone getting mugged the second time. I'll never take the bus again here. * When I'm in the shuttle, and the traffic is freaking slow, I look outside the window and see one person per car. Why don't more people take shuttles instead of taking so much space on the road? Well there is no public transport. * Noise, noise, noise * The roads are all broken. Shuttle rides are uber bumpy.

tathougies 7y ago
I think this is nuts. I lived in san Francisco for many years and the entire city is accessible by public tranit. The city is even building more like the new subway line. And Chicago takes the cake for crazies on buses. Ive never felt so unsafe on a bus as Chicago. Id rank san Francisco's situation on par with londons core urban areas. Maybe you're also including the surrounding burbs?
- baby 7y ago
  You're in luck, I also lived in London before moving to SF. Daring comparing these two cities public transport is FUD. I've never taken a cab in London, bus and some metro lines are 24/7. Public transportation of SF and the bay is a joke if you've ever been outside the US.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Yes, I do agree the 24/7 thing is very annoying. Although living in Marin for the past few years, it's weird because bus service to/from SF is actually 24/7 there. But, it's totally misplaced. Within the city though, for everyday tasks, SF is basically on par with most cities in the world. Most cities do not have 24/7 transit.
    - baby 7y ago
      I strongly disagree with you, and I've lived in 8 different cities accross 3 continents.
- viklove 7y ago
  Which line were you on? I take a bus to work every day in Chicago, and I've felt unsafe maybe once or twice. Definitely felt way less safe walking through downtown SF with the homeless population heckling me for my soda. Chicago's public transit ranks much, much higher than SF's. The fact that you compared it to London shows just how conceited you are.
  - 7y ago

homonculus1 7y ago

The reflexive, condescending erasure of the advantages and necessities of owning a car on the part of wealthy Bay Area urbanites is illuminating as to why some people get pissed off enough to roll coal.

mikestew 7y ago
Thinking that everything is about you and your diesel F-250 that you genuinely need for work is the very definition of narcissism. I am willingly to guess, however, that a very large number of people I saw on the way to work here in the 'burbs this morning did not require a two ton wheelchair to get to their place of employment.