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This country has been reconfigured to force almost everyone to drive. Comparing the two on that basis is not fair. Finally, the full cost of car dependence beyo

This country has been reconfigured to force almost everyone to drive. Comparing the two on that basis is not fair. Finally, the full cost of car dependence beyond just pollution which is a big one is not bourne by the government but by drivers, just look at the car insurance industry.

vecinu 7y ago
Including pedestrians, cyclists and all other forms of transportation that become much more dangerous due to how many cars there are on the road. Imagine how many people would be biking, riding electric scooters and walking if US cities were actually designed with these modes of transportation in mind.
- asdff 7y ago
  The good news is that the tide can shift. If you add more bike lanes, people start riding their bikes. People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous. I ride in LA and if you can get a bike lane at all, it's gonna be a faded strip painted 2 feet from the parked cars/along the sewer grates. There needs to be more separation from the batshit drivers here who wouldn't shrug at a hit and run too. Not very inviting, but I can bike all year at least.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    I no longer think that bike lanes will get the job done. Long ago, when I was working in western Tennessee, I noticed that, in that area, the painted bike lanes were almost always on arterial roads. I even found one that was on a stretch of controlled access highway. Asked a colleague who worked for TDOT about that, and it turns out that you could get extra federal money for roads with bike lanes. So of course, the counties would put the bike lanes on the roads that cost the most to maintain, not the ones that made sense for bicycles. Outside of a few major cities, I suspect that's invariably how bike lanes are going to end up working in the US. What you could get people on board behind, though, is traffic calming measures. Bill it as fighting back against the hordes of Waze drivers blasting through your neighborhood as a shortcut, and you might be able to get some political momentum behind it. That would then get you to roads that could support mixed traffic without half-assing it by painting cyclists into a thin ghetto full of potholes and broken glass. And then pair it with movements to get some questions about how to share the road with bicyclists onto the written driving test, so that drivers at least know how to share the road with cyclists. Right now, nobody's telling them, so they genuinely don't know. Even here in Chicago, I've had surprisingly many water cooler conversations where I had to correct a complaining car commuter who thought that it was illegal for all these bikes to be in the road and that they're supposed to stay on the sidewalk.
    - u801e 7y ago
      > how to share the road with bicyclists onto the written driving test, so that drivers at least know how to share the road with cyclists. That's one of the reasons why the "Share the road" sign is being phased out in favor of the "bikes may use full lane sign". The proper way to share a lane is in serial fashion, not parallel. This is because lanes are rarely wide enough for a car or truck to pass a cyclist with sufficient distance between the two while both remain within the lane itself. In fact, many state laws that specify that cyclists must ride as far right as practicable actually have the substandard width lane exception (described above) to that requirement.
    - asdff 7y ago
      Bike lanes are fine on arterial roads if they are separated from traffic well enough. In santa monica they actually give a little room in the bike lane. Arterials get you to places more directly than side streets, that inevitably have to cross 6 lanes of an arterial from a stop sign. Good luck putting a light there without protest.
    - burfog 7y ago
      The very concept of "traffic calming" is a lie. It's cause for road rage, distraction from watching for pedestrians, slamming brakes, and loud hard-revving engines. One day when I had reduced ride height due to a tire issue, a "traffic calming" device cracked my oil pan. That was just great for the environment. I leaked carcinogenic used oil all along the way, and then had to get the oil pan replaced. The creation of that new oil pan involved industrial activity that surely was not good for the environment.
  - irrational 7y ago
    >People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous. I don't like to bike because it rains 9+ months out of the year here.
    - the_gastropod 7y ago
      Rain gear does a pretty fantastic job of keeping you dry in the rain. And, needless to say, it's significantly cheaper than a car.
      - u801e 7y ago
        While that is true, motorcycles are cheaper than cars, but you don't see the majority of people riding motorcycles. Protection from the elements and the ability to carry more cargo is the reason why most people drive cars as opposed to riding bicycles or motorcycles.
        CalRobert 7y ago
        Motorcycles are more hassle than both bikes and cars (licensing, attire, helmets) and a WAAAAAAAY more dangerous (about 40 times as likely to die per mile was the figure in the California Motorcycle Safety Course, if memory serves). They're also a pretty big expense since for most people they won't replace a car, and you still need to insure/maintain a motorcycle. I'm very pro-motorcycle but bicycles have a much lower barrier to entry.
        the_gastropod 7y ago
        > ...the ability to carry more cargo... I'll grant you that a car is more convenient for carrying cargo. But with a bike trailer, a bicycle can pretty easily handle most people's cargo requirements—anything from groceries to large appliances like refrigerators. Check out some of these bicycle trailer plans: https://bikecart.pedalpeople.coop https://bikecart.pedalpeople.coop
        undersuit 7y ago
  - u801e 7y ago
    > If you add more bike lanes, people start riding their bikes. Which may be true, but they encourage cyclists to ride at the edge instead of the middle of the general traffic lane. A motorist not paying attention is going to notice an edge riding cyclist later than they would if they were in the center of the general traffic lane. > People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous. Not really. Assuming one is riding a bicycle in traffic that's not moving at more than 40 mph, it's not that dangerous at all. > There needs to be more separation from the batshit drivers here who wouldn't shrug at a hit and run too. That's a problem with law enforcement, not a problem with the road design. Also, separation doesn't work when there are frequent intersections. It makes more sense to build bike lanes along side arterial roads where traffic is moving in excess of 40 mph and intersections are no more frequent than once every mile or so. On city streets with traffic moving at 0 to 30 mph, it makes far more sense to ride in the center of the general traffic lane while following the rules of the road.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  rayiner is comparing inter-city rail to highways. Pedestrians and cyclists aren't relevant to highways.
  - jdavis703 7y ago
    Those inter-city highways are heavily used by people commuting through metropolitan areas. For example the only way to drive from the second largest city (San Francisco) to the third largest city (Oakland) in the Bay Area is over an interstate highway.
    - vonmoltke 7y ago
      Yes, but those highways are separated from those metropolitan areas except for some on and off ramps. Thus, the point still stands.
      - shkkmo 7y ago
        Every one of those drivers creates traffic on local streets at the start and end of their journey
anovikov 7y ago
Unfortunately there is no other way to 'configure' a mass affluence society (where most people live in separate homes usually having ample plots). We don't have that awful level of car dependence in Europe, true - but we also force most people to live in apartment blocks similar to those which you can see only in slums in the U.S.
- jwr 7y ago
  > but we also force most people to live in apartment blocks similar to those which you can see only in slums in the U.S. I vastly prefer living in my apartment in Europe than living in a house, especially a US house. Also, putting every family in a separate free-standing house is ridiculous: there is physically no way to achieve that.
  - anovikov 7y ago
    Yet, in the U.S. they mostly achieved that. 60% of the population live in separate houses. And yes, living space per capita is 2x-3x the EU level. Would be a no problem at all to put 100% in them, if some didn't live in large cities where it's impossible. Just the economic and yeah, transportation infrastructure we have in Europe won't support that. It's not even the population density really.
    - jwr 7y ago
      Having lived in the US I know what it means to have "mostly achieved that". Gridlocked highways, unwalkable neighborhoods, the requirement of owning and driving a car (at least one car per family, usually 2 or more), and catastrophic CO2 emissions, both from cars, and from the fact that heating free-standing houses is way more expensive than heating apartments that share walls/floors/ceilings. Until we invent teleportation, putting everyone in their own separate house is unsustainable.
      - specialist 7y ago
        Also, those who can't drive become shut-ins. The elderly, sick, infirm, children.
ThomPete 7y ago
Its not been forced, driving is just more flexible and convenient and practical. This is especially true when get kids.
- zip1234 7y ago
  Especially when the full costs of it don't have to be paid right now. Most car dependent places in the US don't enough money to actually repair all of the roads and infrastructure that they have built out. Also, most places there is no option but to drive because of zoning practices effectively banning mixed use. Suburbs from the mid 20th century on are all designed for cars and cars alone. Giant consolidated schools are put far away instead of the traditional smaller schools closer to where people live so kids have to be driven by bus or by parents. It was not always this way but it has indeed been forced by a design choice in how suburbs are laid out.
- bilekas 7y ago
  I think the discussion is more focussing on is that 'flexibilty and convenience' from the car based on the fact we have designed and allocated our cities, suburbs and town in the way we have already.. Not so much, well this tool is right for the job, more a question of, did we make this job that requires a tool.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    If you were the only person with a car, then all cities are more flexible and convenient with a car than without. It is only when somebody other than you has a car that you get gridlock and the other problems of cars.
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    Even in Denmark where I am from originally and where they've gone to great lengths to improve public transportation it's not preferred. Denmark is a small country and the efforts are huge, yet even there people prefer the car. The issue is that you can't just build a solid infrastructure for everyone, it's impossibly expensive the further out you get.
- 7y ago
turk73 7y ago
One year in the black? I guess Trump actually got some good people in there, eh? Outside of the Eastern Seaboard, has anyone ever attempted to book a rail trip? It's insane. You have to really work at it and you are losing a ton of time, have overnight "connections" and other odd problems. Furthermore, nearly all the train stations of any size are in the ghetto. The whole system has not kept up with the times. And while there is still some romantic notion of "riding the rails" it quickly gets subsumed by the price, which is also ridiculous.
easytiger 7y ago
> reconfigured From what? Riding horses cross country?
- fuqmachine 7y ago
  Why do you assume cross country is the only way to drive? Most driving occurs to and from cities for commute and within cities. You can have cars for "cross country" driving and also eliminate the vastly inefficient "driving" in cities by improving our virtually non existent public transportation(compared to other first world countries) options. > reconfigured from streetcars and buses and trolleys and trains in cities
  - bluGill 7y ago
    The subject is Amtrak which doesn't cover the intracity use case. That isn't to say you are wrong, just that you are changing the subject.
    - batty_alex 7y ago
      > The subject is Amtrak which doesn't cover the intracity use case. This is how I and many other commuters use Amtrak. They even provide "last mile" bus tickets with your fare.
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      The real sweet spot for Amtrak are trips between 50 and 200 miles. Within a city, subways / light rail are a better option. Longer than that and air travel starts to look better. Many cities also have regional trains that serve the areas between 10 and 50 miles outside the city. This is how every city in Europe works. There are only a handful of cities in the US with a well-developed rail network -- and most of those are crumbling due to half a century of under-investment.
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        With high speed rail, the kind that other countries have plenty of, the sweet spot for rail would extend much farther than 200 miles. Tokyo <-> Kyoto, for example, is around 300 miles and is solidly still within the range of rail being a much better option than flying.
irrational 7y ago
Reconfigured from what? I live in the West and most of the communities out here were never served by rail. You either got there by foot or by animal. It seems like car is just an upgraded version of walking or animal-pulled wagons.
- the_gastropod 7y ago
  Kind of hard to refute this with such blurry phrasing, but many cities in Western U.S. had functioning rail systems in the early 1900s. L.A. had over 1,000 miles of rail, for example. San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix, and many others had pretty extensive streetcar systems as well.
  - Frondo 7y ago
    Portland used to be very well-served by an extensive trolley system, as well. This was also removed as city commuting turned to cars and gas-powered buses: http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/streetcars.html http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/streetcars.html https://vintageportland.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/trolley-map-portland-traction-co-1943.jpg https://vintageportland.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/trolley-...

vecinu 7y ago

Including pedestrians, cyclists and all other forms of transportation that become much more dangerous due to how many cars there are on the road. Imagine how many people would be biking, riding electric scooters and walking if US cities were actually designed with these modes of transportation in mind.

asdff 7y ago
The good news is that the tide can shift. If you add more bike lanes, people start riding their bikes. People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous. I ride in LA and if you can get a bike lane at all, it's gonna be a faded strip painted 2 feet from the parked cars/along the sewer grates. There needs to be more separation from the batshit drivers here who wouldn't shrug at a hit and run too. Not very inviting, but I can bike all year at least.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  I no longer think that bike lanes will get the job done. Long ago, when I was working in western Tennessee, I noticed that, in that area, the painted bike lanes were almost always on arterial roads. I even found one that was on a stretch of controlled access highway. Asked a colleague who worked for TDOT about that, and it turns out that you could get extra federal money for roads with bike lanes. So of course, the counties would put the bike lanes on the roads that cost the most to maintain, not the ones that made sense for bicycles. Outside of a few major cities, I suspect that's invariably how bike lanes are going to end up working in the US. What you could get people on board behind, though, is traffic calming measures. Bill it as fighting back against the hordes of Waze drivers blasting through your neighborhood as a shortcut, and you might be able to get some political momentum behind it. That would then get you to roads that could support mixed traffic without half-assing it by painting cyclists into a thin ghetto full of potholes and broken glass. And then pair it with movements to get some questions about how to share the road with bicyclists onto the written driving test, so that drivers at least know how to share the road with cyclists. Right now, nobody's telling them, so they genuinely don't know. Even here in Chicago, I've had surprisingly many water cooler conversations where I had to correct a complaining car commuter who thought that it was illegal for all these bikes to be in the road and that they're supposed to stay on the sidewalk.
  - u801e 7y ago
    > how to share the road with bicyclists onto the written driving test, so that drivers at least know how to share the road with cyclists. That's one of the reasons why the "Share the road" sign is being phased out in favor of the "bikes may use full lane sign". The proper way to share a lane is in serial fashion, not parallel. This is because lanes are rarely wide enough for a car or truck to pass a cyclist with sufficient distance between the two while both remain within the lane itself. In fact, many state laws that specify that cyclists must ride as far right as practicable actually have the substandard width lane exception (described above) to that requirement.
  - asdff 7y ago
    Bike lanes are fine on arterial roads if they are separated from traffic well enough. In santa monica they actually give a little room in the bike lane. Arterials get you to places more directly than side streets, that inevitably have to cross 6 lanes of an arterial from a stop sign. Good luck putting a light there without protest.
  - burfog 7y ago
    The very concept of "traffic calming" is a lie. It's cause for road rage, distraction from watching for pedestrians, slamming brakes, and loud hard-revving engines. One day when I had reduced ride height due to a tire issue, a "traffic calming" device cracked my oil pan. That was just great for the environment. I leaked carcinogenic used oil all along the way, and then had to get the oil pan replaced. The creation of that new oil pan involved industrial activity that surely was not good for the environment.
- irrational 7y ago
  >People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous. I don't like to bike because it rains 9+ months out of the year here.
  - the_gastropod 7y ago
    Rain gear does a pretty fantastic job of keeping you dry in the rain. And, needless to say, it's significantly cheaper than a car.
    - u801e 7y ago
      While that is true, motorcycles are cheaper than cars, but you don't see the majority of people riding motorcycles. Protection from the elements and the ability to carry more cargo is the reason why most people drive cars as opposed to riding bicycles or motorcycles.
      - CalRobert 7y ago
        Motorcycles are more hassle than both bikes and cars (licensing, attire, helmets) and a WAAAAAAAY more dangerous (about 40 times as likely to die per mile was the figure in the California Motorcycle Safety Course, if memory serves). They're also a pretty big expense since for most people they won't replace a car, and you still need to insure/maintain a motorcycle. I'm very pro-motorcycle but bicycles have a much lower barrier to entry.
      - the_gastropod 7y ago
        > ...the ability to carry more cargo... I'll grant you that a car is more convenient for carrying cargo. But with a bike trailer, a bicycle can pretty easily handle most people's cargo requirements—anything from groceries to large appliances like refrigerators. Check out some of these bicycle trailer plans: https://bikecart.pedalpeople.coop https://bikecart.pedalpeople.coop
        undersuit 7y ago
- u801e 7y ago
  > If you add more bike lanes, people start riding their bikes. Which may be true, but they encourage cyclists to ride at the edge instead of the middle of the general traffic lane. A motorist not paying attention is going to notice an edge riding cyclist later than they would if they were in the center of the general traffic lane. > People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous. Not really. Assuming one is riding a bicycle in traffic that's not moving at more than 40 mph, it's not that dangerous at all. > There needs to be more separation from the batshit drivers here who wouldn't shrug at a hit and run too. That's a problem with law enforcement, not a problem with the road design. Also, separation doesn't work when there are frequent intersections. It makes more sense to build bike lanes along side arterial roads where traffic is moving in excess of 40 mph and intersections are no more frequent than once every mile or so. On city streets with traffic moving at 0 to 30 mph, it makes far more sense to ride in the center of the general traffic lane while following the rules of the road.
vonmoltke 7y ago
rayiner is comparing inter-city rail to highways. Pedestrians and cyclists aren't relevant to highways.
- jdavis703 7y ago
  Those inter-city highways are heavily used by people commuting through metropolitan areas. For example the only way to drive from the second largest city (San Francisco) to the third largest city (Oakland) in the Bay Area is over an interstate highway.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    Yes, but those highways are separated from those metropolitan areas except for some on and off ramps. Thus, the point still stands.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      Every one of those drivers creates traffic on local streets at the start and end of their journey

anovikov 7y ago

Unfortunately there is no other way to 'configure' a mass affluence society (where most people live in separate homes usually having ample plots). We don't have that awful level of car dependence in Europe, true - but we also force most people to live in apartment blocks similar to those which you can see only in slums in the U.S.

jwr 7y ago
> but we also force most people to live in apartment blocks similar to those which you can see only in slums in the U.S. I vastly prefer living in my apartment in Europe than living in a house, especially a US house. Also, putting every family in a separate free-standing house is ridiculous: there is physically no way to achieve that.
- anovikov 7y ago
  Yet, in the U.S. they mostly achieved that. 60% of the population live in separate houses. And yes, living space per capita is 2x-3x the EU level. Would be a no problem at all to put 100% in them, if some didn't live in large cities where it's impossible. Just the economic and yeah, transportation infrastructure we have in Europe won't support that. It's not even the population density really.
  - jwr 7y ago
    Having lived in the US I know what it means to have "mostly achieved that". Gridlocked highways, unwalkable neighborhoods, the requirement of owning and driving a car (at least one car per family, usually 2 or more), and catastrophic CO2 emissions, both from cars, and from the fact that heating free-standing houses is way more expensive than heating apartments that share walls/floors/ceilings. Until we invent teleportation, putting everyone in their own separate house is unsustainable.
    - specialist 7y ago
      Also, those who can't drive become shut-ins. The elderly, sick, infirm, children.

ThomPete 7y ago

Its not been forced, driving is just more flexible and convenient and practical. This is especially true when get kids.

zip1234 7y ago
Especially when the full costs of it don't have to be paid right now. Most car dependent places in the US don't enough money to actually repair all of the roads and infrastructure that they have built out. Also, most places there is no option but to drive because of zoning practices effectively banning mixed use. Suburbs from the mid 20th century on are all designed for cars and cars alone. Giant consolidated schools are put far away instead of the traditional smaller schools closer to where people live so kids have to be driven by bus or by parents. It was not always this way but it has indeed been forced by a design choice in how suburbs are laid out.
bilekas 7y ago
I think the discussion is more focussing on is that 'flexibilty and convenience' from the car based on the fact we have designed and allocated our cities, suburbs and town in the way we have already.. Not so much, well this tool is right for the job, more a question of, did we make this job that requires a tool.
- bluGill 7y ago
  If you were the only person with a car, then all cities are more flexible and convenient with a car than without. It is only when somebody other than you has a car that you get gridlock and the other problems of cars.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  Even in Denmark where I am from originally and where they've gone to great lengths to improve public transportation it's not preferred. Denmark is a small country and the efforts are huge, yet even there people prefer the car. The issue is that you can't just build a solid infrastructure for everyone, it's impossibly expensive the further out you get.
7y ago

turk73 7y ago

One year in the black? I guess Trump actually got some good people in there, eh? Outside of the Eastern Seaboard, has anyone ever attempted to book a rail trip? It's insane. You have to really work at it and you are losing a ton of time, have overnight "connections" and other odd problems. Furthermore, nearly all the train stations of any size are in the ghetto. The whole system has not kept up with the times. And while there is still some romantic notion of "riding the rails" it quickly gets subsumed by the price, which is also ridiculous.

easytiger 7y ago

> reconfigured From what? Riding horses cross country?

fuqmachine 7y ago
Why do you assume cross country is the only way to drive? Most driving occurs to and from cities for commute and within cities. You can have cars for "cross country" driving and also eliminate the vastly inefficient "driving" in cities by improving our virtually non existent public transportation(compared to other first world countries) options. > reconfigured from streetcars and buses and trolleys and trains in cities
- bluGill 7y ago
  The subject is Amtrak which doesn't cover the intracity use case. That isn't to say you are wrong, just that you are changing the subject.
  - batty_alex 7y ago
    > The subject is Amtrak which doesn't cover the intracity use case. This is how I and many other commuters use Amtrak. They even provide "last mile" bus tickets with your fare.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    The real sweet spot for Amtrak are trips between 50 and 200 miles. Within a city, subways / light rail are a better option. Longer than that and air travel starts to look better. Many cities also have regional trains that serve the areas between 10 and 50 miles outside the city. This is how every city in Europe works. There are only a handful of cities in the US with a well-developed rail network -- and most of those are crumbling due to half a century of under-investment.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      With high speed rail, the kind that other countries have plenty of, the sweet spot for rail would extend much farther than 200 miles. Tokyo <-> Kyoto, for example, is around 300 miles and is solidly still within the range of rail being a much better option than flying.

irrational 7y ago

Reconfigured from what? I live in the West and most of the communities out here were never served by rail. You either got there by foot or by animal. It seems like car is just an upgraded version of walking or animal-pulled wagons.

the_gastropod 7y ago
Kind of hard to refute this with such blurry phrasing, but many cities in Western U.S. had functioning rail systems in the early 1900s. L.A. had over 1,000 miles of rail, for example. San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix, and many others had pretty extensive streetcar systems as well.
- Frondo 7y ago
  Portland used to be very well-served by an extensive trolley system, as well. This was also removed as city commuting turned to cars and gas-powered buses: http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/streetcars.html http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/streetcars.html https://vintageportland.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/trolley-map-portland-traction-co-1943.jpg https://vintageportland.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/trolley-...