5 ms·

People underestimate their ability to live car-free. I have never learned to drive (35). As a California resident, I've only been in a car twice in the past th

People underestimate their ability to live car-free. I have never learned to drive (35). As a California resident, I've only been in a car twice in the past three months. From January through April, I wasn't in a car whatsoever for 3.5 months. ~"The only problems cars solve are problems cars cause."

blhack 7y ago
In what city?
- BrianHenryIE 7y ago
  In Sacramento. ~5 mile commute to work. Occasionally I ride 20 miles each way. I rarely use public transport, though I lived in SF for ~6 months and used it a lot, along with my bike.
kungtotte 7y ago
People also overestimate other people's ability to live car free. I have 40 kilometers to work and bus density here is never more than once an hour. If I want to be at work on time I have to leave on the last bus the day before work, or I'd have to be late every morning. Even in that case of leaving the same day and accepting being late to work I'd be away from home for 14 hours at minimum. I have 10 kilometres to the nearest grocery store, and like I said bus density is not great. Even if I planned to do all my shopping on days of I'd be away from home for three hours at minimum, instead of a round-trip time of around an hour by car. That's just for easily planned daily things. Doctor, dentist, bank, etc? Forget about it. Not everyone lives in a place where being car-free is an easy choice.
- carlob 7y ago
  But don't you think that living in a place that requires you to commute for so long is a situation you would not be in to begin with if cars were not an option? And I don't mean it just as a personal choice but as a urban planning strategy. It seems to me a bit of a chicken and egg problem.
  - austinjp 7y ago
    Bingo. It would certainly be wrenching for GP to move from their current life to somewhere less car-centric. But the issue (predominantly in the US, apparently) seems to be that a car-free life simply isn't on the menu when people are making the lifestyle decisions around settling down. Or maybe HN is poorly populated by the people who choose a car-free life.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    The difference in living costs of having your home close to work is often ignored. It’s frequently cheaper to pay for the car, gas, and maintenance than it is to live that 40km closer. Not to mention, there are other things, such as green spaces, good schools, and work for spouses, which make living “closer to work” impractical.
    - kungtotte 7y ago
      To buy an equivalent home within biking/walking distance of my job we would have had to pay literally double of what we did. The difference equates to ten times the average yearly salary here. That's the difference. You get a whole lot of miles (and cars) for that price...
    - slfnflctd 7y ago
      I think you nailed the most fundamental economic forces at work here. The total costs of operating a household - including opportunity costs - will keep pushing people into situations where a long commute is unavoidable. The only way to green that up in the long run (besides carpooling), I suppose, is doing something crazy like making cars accessible to everyone that run on sunlight and last a million miles.
  - kungtotte 7y ago
    I'm a strong proponent of decentralised planning of society and subsidised costs of local infrastructure to facilitate car free lifestyles. Part of the current mess is almost certainly due to the low cost of transportation and society pushing the cost onto future generations, but people literally can't live car free in some areas of the world right now and you need to pony up the dough to fix infrastructure etc. first before people can give up their cars. Otherwise you exacerbate an ongoing socioeconomic divide between the rich and the poor. Hence, people overestimate how easy it is for others to live car free.
- koonsolo 7y ago
  > People also overestimate other people's ability to live car free. Here in Belgium there was this funny event where someone from the green party would do everything by bike. She would give it as example that it was definitely possible for everyone. Once she was elected in the government, she started using a car because "the job required it". So yeah, what about the rest of us?
  - yardie 7y ago
    I mean in her defense most of us work a 9-5, M-F where we travel 2x per day, and the car sits unused 95% of the time. Some jobs do not have the luxury of sitting in an office. In those cases using a car makes perfect sense. My local representative uses public transport, and recognizes 30% of the populace does not currently drive.
    - koonsolo 7y ago
      If you have to drop off your kids in the morning and go get them in the evening, and a ride with the car to work takes you 45 minutes, it's pretty simple to choose that over taking 90 minutes to work without taking the kids on the way over. And yes I know the usual argument that everybody should be living in the city.
- noobermin 7y ago
  In my opinion, the issue is generally how uncar-free cities in the US are. In cities or near them, there is no excuse, but we hallow them out to accommodate those who want a yard outside the city limits by making conditions worse for those of us who live in cities. For people in rural places or exhurbs, sure live out of your car.
thih9 7y ago
> „The only problems cars solve are problems cars cause.” What do you mean? If a family with two small kids and a dog wants to visit relatives that are 10km away, I imagine a car solves lots of their problems.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  To some extent the fact people live so far from work and family is caused by the car, if it hadn't been available people would have made different choices.
  - thih9 7y ago
    Then maybe we should’t say: > „The only problems cars solve are problems cars cause.” Looks like it’s closer to: „Cars solve lots of problems, e.g. they give us more options for choosing a place to work or a place to live; at the same time they cause problems too.”
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      That doesn't make the point that @BrianHenryIE was trying to make though does it?
      - thih9 7y ago
        That doesn’t look relevant to me. I only wanted to discuss that BrianHenryIE’s quote seems an inaccurate generalisation.
        tonyedgecombe 7y ago
        Except it wasn't, rather it was pithy and to the point.
ghaff 7y ago
As an alternative view, when I visit California I’m most certainly not renting a car if I’m going into the city in business. But most of the recreational activities I want to pursue require driving and many of them are not practical for reasons of distance, cell phone reception, and so forth. Of course you can just depend on others to some degree or simply decide that you’re willing to forgo activities (and living or work arrangements) that require owning a car. I know a couple who sold their cars when they moved to SF. But they still use short-term and daily rentals a lot.

blhack 7y ago

In what city?

BrianHenryIE 7y ago
In Sacramento. ~5 mile commute to work. Occasionally I ride 20 miles each way. I rarely use public transport, though I lived in SF for ~6 months and used it a lot, along with my bike.

kungtotte 7y ago

People also overestimate other people's ability to live car free. I have 40 kilometers to work and bus density here is never more than once an hour. If I want to be at work on time I have to leave on the last bus the day before work, or I'd have to be late every morning. Even in that case of leaving the same day and accepting being late to work I'd be away from home for 14 hours at minimum. I have 10 kilometres to the nearest grocery store, and like I said bus density is not great. Even if I planned to do all my shopping on days of I'd be away from home for three hours at minimum, instead of a round-trip time of around an hour by car. That's just for easily planned daily things. Doctor, dentist, bank, etc? Forget about it. Not everyone lives in a place where being car-free is an easy choice.

carlob 7y ago
But don't you think that living in a place that requires you to commute for so long is a situation you would not be in to begin with if cars were not an option? And I don't mean it just as a personal choice but as a urban planning strategy. It seems to me a bit of a chicken and egg problem.
- austinjp 7y ago
  Bingo. It would certainly be wrenching for GP to move from their current life to somewhere less car-centric. But the issue (predominantly in the US, apparently) seems to be that a car-free life simply isn't on the menu when people are making the lifestyle decisions around settling down. Or maybe HN is poorly populated by the people who choose a car-free life.
- falcolas 7y ago
  The difference in living costs of having your home close to work is often ignored. It’s frequently cheaper to pay for the car, gas, and maintenance than it is to live that 40km closer. Not to mention, there are other things, such as green spaces, good schools, and work for spouses, which make living “closer to work” impractical.
  - kungtotte 7y ago
    To buy an equivalent home within biking/walking distance of my job we would have had to pay literally double of what we did. The difference equates to ten times the average yearly salary here. That's the difference. You get a whole lot of miles (and cars) for that price...
  - slfnflctd 7y ago
    I think you nailed the most fundamental economic forces at work here. The total costs of operating a household - including opportunity costs - will keep pushing people into situations where a long commute is unavoidable. The only way to green that up in the long run (besides carpooling), I suppose, is doing something crazy like making cars accessible to everyone that run on sunlight and last a million miles.
- kungtotte 7y ago
  I'm a strong proponent of decentralised planning of society and subsidised costs of local infrastructure to facilitate car free lifestyles. Part of the current mess is almost certainly due to the low cost of transportation and society pushing the cost onto future generations, but people literally can't live car free in some areas of the world right now and you need to pony up the dough to fix infrastructure etc. first before people can give up their cars. Otherwise you exacerbate an ongoing socioeconomic divide between the rich and the poor. Hence, people overestimate how easy it is for others to live car free.
koonsolo 7y ago
> People also overestimate other people's ability to live car free. Here in Belgium there was this funny event where someone from the green party would do everything by bike. She would give it as example that it was definitely possible for everyone. Once she was elected in the government, she started using a car because "the job required it". So yeah, what about the rest of us?
- yardie 7y ago
  I mean in her defense most of us work a 9-5, M-F where we travel 2x per day, and the car sits unused 95% of the time. Some jobs do not have the luxury of sitting in an office. In those cases using a car makes perfect sense. My local representative uses public transport, and recognizes 30% of the populace does not currently drive.
  - koonsolo 7y ago
    If you have to drop off your kids in the morning and go get them in the evening, and a ride with the car to work takes you 45 minutes, it's pretty simple to choose that over taking 90 minutes to work without taking the kids on the way over. And yes I know the usual argument that everybody should be living in the city.
noobermin 7y ago
In my opinion, the issue is generally how uncar-free cities in the US are. In cities or near them, there is no excuse, but we hallow them out to accommodate those who want a yard outside the city limits by making conditions worse for those of us who live in cities. For people in rural places or exhurbs, sure live out of your car.

thih9 7y ago

> „The only problems cars solve are problems cars cause.” What do you mean? If a family with two small kids and a dog wants to visit relatives that are 10km away, I imagine a car solves lots of their problems.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
To some extent the fact people live so far from work and family is caused by the car, if it hadn't been available people would have made different choices.
- thih9 7y ago
  Then maybe we should’t say: > „The only problems cars solve are problems cars cause.” Looks like it’s closer to: „Cars solve lots of problems, e.g. they give us more options for choosing a place to work or a place to live; at the same time they cause problems too.”
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    That doesn't make the point that @BrianHenryIE was trying to make though does it?
    - thih9 7y ago
      That doesn’t look relevant to me. I only wanted to discuss that BrianHenryIE’s quote seems an inaccurate generalisation.
      - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
        Except it wasn't, rather it was pithy and to the point.

ghaff 7y ago

As an alternative view, when I visit California I’m most certainly not renting a car if I’m going into the city in business. But most of the recreational activities I want to pursue require driving and many of them are not practical for reasons of distance, cell phone reception, and so forth. Of course you can just depend on others to some degree or simply decide that you’re willing to forgo activities (and living or work arrangements) that require owning a car. I know a couple who sold their cars when they moved to SF. But they still use short-term and daily rentals a lot.