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Europe does not have some magical equation for drastically reducing car use. The number of cars per capita in the EU is only about one third lower than the Unit

Europe does not have some magical equation for drastically reducing car use. The number of cars per capita in the EU is only about one third lower than the United States. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it certainly means that the sizable majority of Europeans are still car-centric. And even then that's mostly a function of lower incomes (vis-a-vis the US). The high-income European states of Luxembourg, Switzerland, Iceland, Monaco and Liechtenstein all have almost identical car ownership as the US. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...

AstralStorm 7y ago
This is probably a function of distances between living space and work. Beyond 10 km the car catches up and starts to get ahead in total travel time. Public transport is meant to close this gap but there's not enough for people, much less bicycles, especially long distance. So it gets crowded. The car is universal until you run out of parking space.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  Do roads not get crowded where you live? Here in Silicon Valley, there's no more room to widen 101.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Roads always get crowded; broadly speaking, making them wider increases the number of people willing to use them until they fill up again.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    They do, but not enough to ensure longer distances are inefficient. And especially the "ingress" roads do not block - from suburbs and further districts. Now that is Poland, Warsaw, the city is designed to be more car friendly than most capitals in EU, more spread out, while still keeping strong public transport and bike as options. The parts that block up are near choke points, City center, bridges, some big intersections.
Angostura 7y ago
We have a car. My wife and I still cycle to work each day.
PeterisP 7y ago
The difference of car usage between USA and Europe should be much larger than the difference in car ownership. A car is useful for many things other than the daily commute, someone who mostly bikes to work is still rather likely to own a car but contribute much less to the traffic and pollution. [edit] looking at random stats such as http://internationalcomparisons.org/environment/transportation.html http://internationalcomparisons.org/environment/transportati... seems to confirm that - the vehicle ownership rates are just a bit lower, but annual distance driven per capita in European countries is twice less than USA.

AstralStorm 7y ago

This is probably a function of distances between living space and work. Beyond 10 km the car catches up and starts to get ahead in total travel time. Public transport is meant to close this gap but there's not enough for people, much less bicycles, especially long distance. So it gets crowded. The car is universal until you run out of parking space.

greglindahl 7y ago
Do roads not get crowded where you live? Here in Silicon Valley, there's no more room to widen 101.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Roads always get crowded; broadly speaking, making them wider increases the number of people willing to use them until they fill up again.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  They do, but not enough to ensure longer distances are inefficient. And especially the "ingress" roads do not block - from suburbs and further districts. Now that is Poland, Warsaw, the city is designed to be more car friendly than most capitals in EU, more spread out, while still keeping strong public transport and bike as options. The parts that block up are near choke points, City center, bridges, some big intersections.

Angostura 7y ago

We have a car. My wife and I still cycle to work each day.

PeterisP 7y ago

The difference of car usage between USA and Europe should be much larger than the difference in car ownership. A car is useful for many things other than the daily commute, someone who mostly bikes to work is still rather likely to own a car but contribute much less to the traffic and pollution. [edit] looking at random stats such as http://internationalcomparisons.org/environment/transportation.html http://internationalcomparisons.org/environment/transportati... seems to confirm that - the vehicle ownership rates are just a bit lower, but annual distance driven per capita in European countries is twice less than USA.