8 ms·

Cars represent freedom. I can get in my car and go where I want, when I want -- especially helpful with 3 school-age children. Mass transit is important in citi

Cars represent freedom. I can get in my car and go where I want, when I want -- especially helpful with 3 school-age children. Mass transit is important in cities, but lots of Americans, probably most, live where cars are needed to get around. They rightly view anti-car advocates are people trying to take away their freedom and herd them onto mass transit.

dkhenry 7y ago
Of all the things I am concerned about for my 3 school aged children its them getting hit by a car. It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult. It represses freedom in a way no other technology has. The only freedom that has been taken away has been the freedom of people to live car free. Its now required for so many people, and combine that with rising home prices and the associated sprawl and cars are nothing but a prison people have to put themselves in for multiple hours a day.
- Bostonian 7y ago
  The long term trend in car accident death rates is down, as shown at https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit... . Everyone wants to see accidents decrease, but targeting zero deaths sounds like a crusade.
  - dkhenry 7y ago
    In so much as you can't get close to zero without radically changing how we build and live in this country you are correct, but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths ? Not only would you be removing the 11th leading cause of death, you would be significantly improving our environmental footprint and literally saving trillions of dollars in unnecessary infrastructure spending.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      > ... but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths? Well, if you target "zero" of anything with a large enough N, you end up well past the point of diminishing returns, and avoiding that last death may have a price tag truly outsized relative to the benefit. It may even cause more deaths in other areas. For instance, after 9/11 security at airports was tightened massively ("targeting zero") and this caused a lot more people to drive short distances, which is much riskier than flying, which in turn caused way, way more deaths than all of 9/11. Micro, achieved, macro, failed. Bruce Schneier covers this well in an essay titled "Our Decreasing Tolerance to Risk" [1] With that in mind, I don't believe cars should exist in urban centers, but because they're a livability nightmare rather than due to the very low risk cars pose to my continued existence (you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident). [1] https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreasing_toler.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreas...
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        > you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident Which sounds like very little. But life expectancy is now around 80 years. That means that your lifetime chance of dying in a car accident is 0.8%. That's high enough that, in a country of 330 million people, it adds up to a problem that's worth trying to solve. Look, I mostly agree with you. But the "low risk" argument in your last paragraph isn't as effective as you think.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Because zero deaths, while a good thing, is not the only good thing. Are you also going to prohibit smoking? Bad eating habits? Or do only traffic deaths matter to you? Not dying matters. I mean, duh, it really matters. But in the time when you're not dead, it's nice to be able to do some things besides just not dying. Among the things I want to do with my life and my time, walking to work in winter is very low on the list. So is waiting at a tram stop in a blizzard.
- sfgweilr4f 7y ago
  Freedom always implies balancing risk. If you eliminate all risk you end up in a box where all dangers are kept out. But then you die of something else. Probably boredom due to lack of input. I don't have public transport available. So for freedom in general, take away access to public transport and cars become freedom to move. Even when public transport is available its not when I need it. Or how I need it. I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. The time of day is also important. I won't tolerate you saying "please wait 30 minutes" or "we can have a vehicle available tomorrow at 9am". Now. Obligatory notes: - I'm not in favor of more road deaths. - I'm in favor of sensible road speed limits and school zones. - I'm not in favor of speed limits being used as revenue streams. - People need to actually stop tailgating and learn how to drive at appropriate speeds. - I'm not against areas being pedestrian zones with entire streets blocked off. I like to walk as well. - People are bad drivers some of the time or most of the time in many cases. They make mistakes. "No deaths" means an absolute guarantee. Real life has opinions about absolute guarantees: they are usually either strong fact or a temporary fiction that has harsh consequences while its maintained. - I think the "cure" for road deaths using just legislation and too low speed limits will cause societal distortions similar to the madness that prohibition had on general society (the government went so far they actually thought poisoning alcohol was a legitimate measure). - auto-pilot for cars and trucks is worth pursuing. On a related note: you wrote, "It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult." Sounds like helicopter parenting[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
  - cgrealy 7y ago
    >I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. No, you don't. You want to move it now, but in general, you don't need to move it now. > I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. Yes, you will, or you won't drive on publicly funded roads. You are not licenced to transport nuclear waste. You are not licenced to transport explosives. You need the right vehicle to transport an heavy or insecure load. Your freedom to transport whatever you want does not supersede other peoples freedom to drive in a safe environment.
aqme28 7y ago
It's funny how opposite we are in this. To me, me cars represent a frustrating burden, whereas walkable spaces, bike lanes, and subway accessibility represent freedom of movement.
- jakear 7y ago
  Some people have larger distances to cover. I can’t walk to Carrizo Plains on a weekend. Can’t bike there either. No busses, and definitely no trains. If I want to go where I want to go, I need a car to get there.
  - asdff 7y ago
    And for those people, absolutely keep the car. Maybe a moped would do, but the car is fine for low density areas like you describe. But for the millions stuck in rush hour traffic in every major city across the country, maybe there could be a better way to make that one commute to work. NYC has a lot of subways and 60% of the population uses transit, but they are just about all built for moving people to and from their 9-5 job in Manhattan, not traveling laterally across the outer boroughs.
- asdff 7y ago
  I grew up in the burbs, and it wasn't until I moved into a major city that actually had other options that I realized how much stress goes just into planning to drive. Where am I going to park? How much is it going to cost? Will traffic be bad? The weather? Am I tired? Do I need to buy gas? All you need to do with public transport is open an app, walk to the spot, and have patience. In LA, the bus network is comprehensive, but it does demand patience. So I just bring a book. Much more peaceful than the bloodsport played on the freeways here.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  Cars are liberating. I can escape from a city on a moment’s notice, travel 1000 miles on a whim in a day (and do), beholden to none. 8000 miles last summer thru remote spectacular regions, as we saw fit, was exhilarating. Transit is stifling, taking me nowhere at inconvenience and cost.
rwem 7y ago
Funny that you have this user name, when the article (which you obviously didn't even read) discusses the comparison of Boston and Oslo.
imgabe 7y ago
Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. When you live in a dense city cars choke the streets and make travel impossible for at least four hours a day. Cars are killing us.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. No, cars represent freedom if you live anywhere other than a dense city. Which is most of the usable land area of the planet.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lassor_feasley 7y ago
    As someone who has lived in cities, suburbs, and rural regions, (and has studied this issue a lot) cars definitely represent dependance to me. If you grew up somewhere rural or suburban, you basically became a parasite to your parents, and were totally dependent on them for all of your transportation until 16 or 17 when you got a license & car. Even then you're probably gonna be a financial burden (and financially dependent) on your parents to purchase you a car if you are lucky. If you grew up in a city (or a Stars Hollow style small town), you likely got to claim that independence at a much younger age. As a US parent who works, you are VERY likely to spend more time on your commute than with your children if you drive. We talk about 'everyone gets a trophy' culture; what many don't realize is everyone gets a trophy because if you are responsible for driving your kid to the pitch for practice, as the parent you'll be damned if your kid isn't a winner (do kids even care about little statues?). Then, when you age, you are once again going to have to go into a phase of dependance on others for your transit much earlier than people who live in walkable communities. This is both because walkers will be healthier and remain physically able longer, and because even if they did not, they could just walk to doctors appointments, grocery stores, and other destinations necessary to their independence. All of these things are, if not unique to the American experience of the past 50 years, at least magnified here... and I have not even gotten into suburban housing policy and the financial impacts on households of car ownership and on governments of road maintenance (spoiler: its not good). I'd give Strong Towns a serious read; I think you might find that Chuck Marohn is better aligned with your worldview than you think.
mc32 7y ago
If SAE Level 5 Automation ever arrives, it will make the goal easier and we get to keep our cars. Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. It should drive behavior, policy and technology, to achieve that goal. It should not mean you drive roughshod over car owners through autocratic policies to get there by force.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  > Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. Sure. However many people die, what can we do today to make it fewer? What's the next step? Let's start working on that.
topkai22 7y ago
The article isn’t really about mass transit- is about lowering speed limits. Even though I’m not a huge mass transit fan, I do agree that speed limits are generally too high in the US on surface streets. In my area, very limited amounts of the metro area are more than 3 miles from a limited access freeway. Many of the larger surface streets have 35 or 45 mph speed limits. It’s not insane to drop many of those streets to 20 or 25 mph, although it works be painful.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  When speed limits are low enough, drivers don't care en masse.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Those larger surface streets should be such that it is safe to drive 35 or 45 MPH on them. Dropping the speed limit to 20 or 25 MPH, not because the road calls for it, but... why? To make driving more inconvenient? Yeah, that's going to result in massive civil disobedience. It's also going to train people to ignore speed limits even when they are actually there for safety. Ironically, that's going to cause... more deaths.
  - topkai22 7y ago
    The streets are safe for car drivers who are following the law, it’s walkers and cyclists that are at risk. As for non compliance, that’s what speed bumps, speed cameras and other traffic calming measures are for. I just drove through multiple US towns in Idaho that declared a 25 mph speed limits unless otherwise posted. They did not seem to have massive compliance issues.
mulmen 7y ago
Most (~70%) Americans live in cities. It’s an overwhelmingly urban country. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w...
- pdonis 7y ago
  That doesn't give the 70% the right to dictate to the 30% who don't live in cities how they should live. Nor do they need to. There's no reason why different environments can't address whatever problems they see in different ways. We don't need to force everyone to live the way people who live in cities live.
  - ogre_codes 7y ago
    Very very few people advocate for eliminating every single car. Generally discussions about car-free infra are about places where cars have saturated the public infrastructure making it nearly impossible to safely move around any other way. Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. It doesn't make sense to eliminate cars from rural or even most suburban areas.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. Not according to the article. It specifically talks about the Boston suburbs, for example.
      - ogre_codes 7y ago
        The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars, in fact it very specifically has recommendations about how car traffic should be handled.
        pdonis 7y ago
        > The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars I didn't say it did.
rco8786 7y ago
I can walk where I want when I want. I can bike where I want when I want. I can take a train or a bus where I want when I want, I guess with the exception of like the middle of the night. Your argument is kinda bad.
- jakear 7y ago
  Try going camping in a remote area with those methods. Won’t work. Different people have different transportation needs.
  - asdff 7y ago
    So then you take you car camping. Or just rent one for the weekend. By all means, have a car if you want one. It just doesn't make sense for millions of people traveling the same direction at the same times 10 times a week for 40+ years to do it spaced 25'x10' apart. There just isn't enough room. Not to mention the environmental toll of spending 95% of your gas or any other energy source just to move the 3000lb+ hunk of natural resources you bring with you everywhere you go in life.
  - rco8786 7y ago
    I'm not anti-car, I'm anti the dumb "people trying to take away their freedom" argument.
nkrisc 7y ago
Personally I felt most free when I lived in a major city and knew I could hop on a train or a bus and go wherever I wanted without having to worry about where I would park or feeding the meter or filling the tank or... etc.
ogre_codes 7y ago
> They rightly view anti-car advocates are people trying to take away their freedom and herd them onto mass transit. Most "Pro Car" advocates dismiss any kind of policy about reducing cars in cities would look like and don't bother learning. Your post is a perfect example of this. Many major cities are at a point where it is literally impossible to grow and retain their existing auto-infrastructure. This is the biggest reason cities like Paris and London adopted hard limits and large fees for driving inside downtown areas. This is also a large part of why larger US cities are looking into encouraging bikes/ scooters and other forms of transportation which don't hog real-estate the way cars do. As a parent, you should also be sympathetic to a return to a world where kids can pedal their bikes to school safely. The current model of schools engineered around massive amounts of car traffic at the beginning and end of the day is insane and massively limits the individual freedom young people used to have. Most people who advocate reducing reliance on cars aren't interested in eliminating cars, only making it safe for other forms of transportation and reclaiming much of the massive amount of public space which is wasted on car infrastructure.

dkhenry 7y ago

Of all the things I am concerned about for my 3 school aged children its them getting hit by a car. It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult. It represses freedom in a way no other technology has. The only freedom that has been taken away has been the freedom of people to live car free. Its now required for so many people, and combine that with rising home prices and the associated sprawl and cars are nothing but a prison people have to put themselves in for multiple hours a day.

Bostonian 7y ago
The long term trend in car accident death rates is down, as shown at https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit... . Everyone wants to see accidents decrease, but targeting zero deaths sounds like a crusade.
- dkhenry 7y ago
  In so much as you can't get close to zero without radically changing how we build and live in this country you are correct, but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths ? Not only would you be removing the 11th leading cause of death, you would be significantly improving our environmental footprint and literally saving trillions of dollars in unnecessary infrastructure spending.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    > ... but the question is why wouldn't you want to make the changes to target zero deaths? Well, if you target "zero" of anything with a large enough N, you end up well past the point of diminishing returns, and avoiding that last death may have a price tag truly outsized relative to the benefit. It may even cause more deaths in other areas. For instance, after 9/11 security at airports was tightened massively ("targeting zero") and this caused a lot more people to drive short distances, which is much riskier than flying, which in turn caused way, way more deaths than all of 9/11. Micro, achieved, macro, failed. Bruce Schneier covers this well in an essay titled "Our Decreasing Tolerance to Risk" [1] With that in mind, I don't believe cars should exist in urban centers, but because they're a livability nightmare rather than due to the very low risk cars pose to my continued existence (you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident). [1] https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreasing_toler.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/08/our_decreas...
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      > you have a 0.01%/year chance of dying in a fatal car accident Which sounds like very little. But life expectancy is now around 80 years. That means that your lifetime chance of dying in a car accident is 0.8%. That's high enough that, in a country of 330 million people, it adds up to a problem that's worth trying to solve. Look, I mostly agree with you. But the "low risk" argument in your last paragraph isn't as effective as you think.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Because zero deaths, while a good thing, is not the only good thing. Are you also going to prohibit smoking? Bad eating habits? Or do only traffic deaths matter to you? Not dying matters. I mean, duh, it really matters. But in the time when you're not dead, it's nice to be able to do some things besides just not dying. Among the things I want to do with my life and my time, walking to work in winter is very low on the list. So is waiting at a tram stop in a blizzard.
sfgweilr4f 7y ago
Freedom always implies balancing risk. If you eliminate all risk you end up in a box where all dangers are kept out. But then you die of something else. Probably boredom due to lack of input. I don't have public transport available. So for freedom in general, take away access to public transport and cars become freedom to move. Even when public transport is available its not when I need it. Or how I need it. I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. The time of day is also important. I won't tolerate you saying "please wait 30 minutes" or "we can have a vehicle available tomorrow at 9am". Now. Obligatory notes: - I'm not in favor of more road deaths. - I'm in favor of sensible road speed limits and school zones. - I'm not in favor of speed limits being used as revenue streams. - People need to actually stop tailgating and learn how to drive at appropriate speeds. - I'm not against areas being pedestrian zones with entire streets blocked off. I like to walk as well. - People are bad drivers some of the time or most of the time in many cases. They make mistakes. "No deaths" means an absolute guarantee. Real life has opinions about absolute guarantees: they are usually either strong fact or a temporary fiction that has harsh consequences while its maintained. - I think the "cure" for road deaths using just legislation and too low speed limits will cause societal distortions similar to the madness that prohibition had on general society (the government went so far they actually thought poisoning alcohol was a legitimate measure). - auto-pilot for cars and trucks is worth pursuing. On a related note: you wrote, "It makes it so I am afraid to let them go anywhere without me or another adult." Sounds like helicopter parenting[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
- cgrealy 7y ago
  >I need to move this odd shaped or heavy or inconvenient equipment now. Not in 5 minutes. Not in 15. No, you don't. You want to move it now, but in general, you don't need to move it now. > I won't tolerate your rules on what I put in the car or truck I own either. Yes, you will, or you won't drive on publicly funded roads. You are not licenced to transport nuclear waste. You are not licenced to transport explosives. You need the right vehicle to transport an heavy or insecure load. Your freedom to transport whatever you want does not supersede other peoples freedom to drive in a safe environment.

aqme28 7y ago

It's funny how opposite we are in this. To me, me cars represent a frustrating burden, whereas walkable spaces, bike lanes, and subway accessibility represent freedom of movement.

jakear 7y ago
Some people have larger distances to cover. I can’t walk to Carrizo Plains on a weekend. Can’t bike there either. No busses, and definitely no trains. If I want to go where I want to go, I need a car to get there.
- asdff 7y ago
  And for those people, absolutely keep the car. Maybe a moped would do, but the car is fine for low density areas like you describe. But for the millions stuck in rush hour traffic in every major city across the country, maybe there could be a better way to make that one commute to work. NYC has a lot of subways and 60% of the population uses transit, but they are just about all built for moving people to and from their 9-5 job in Manhattan, not traveling laterally across the outer boroughs.
asdff 7y ago
I grew up in the burbs, and it wasn't until I moved into a major city that actually had other options that I realized how much stress goes just into planning to drive. Where am I going to park? How much is it going to cost? Will traffic be bad? The weather? Am I tired? Do I need to buy gas? All you need to do with public transport is open an app, walk to the spot, and have patience. In LA, the bus network is comprehensive, but it does demand patience. So I just bring a book. Much more peaceful than the bloodsport played on the freeways here.
ctdonath 7y ago
Cars are liberating. I can escape from a city on a moment’s notice, travel 1000 miles on a whim in a day (and do), beholden to none. 8000 miles last summer thru remote spectacular regions, as we saw fit, was exhilarating. Transit is stifling, taking me nowhere at inconvenience and cost.

rwem 7y ago

Funny that you have this user name, when the article (which you obviously didn't even read) discusses the comparison of Boston and Oslo.

imgabe 7y ago

Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. When you live in a dense city cars choke the streets and make travel impossible for at least four hours a day. Cars are killing us.

pdonis 7y ago
> Cars only represent freedom when you live in poorly designed suburbs. No, cars represent freedom if you live anywhere other than a dense city. Which is most of the usable land area of the planet.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lassor_feasley 7y ago
  As someone who has lived in cities, suburbs, and rural regions, (and has studied this issue a lot) cars definitely represent dependance to me. If you grew up somewhere rural or suburban, you basically became a parasite to your parents, and were totally dependent on them for all of your transportation until 16 or 17 when you got a license & car. Even then you're probably gonna be a financial burden (and financially dependent) on your parents to purchase you a car if you are lucky. If you grew up in a city (or a Stars Hollow style small town), you likely got to claim that independence at a much younger age. As a US parent who works, you are VERY likely to spend more time on your commute than with your children if you drive. We talk about 'everyone gets a trophy' culture; what many don't realize is everyone gets a trophy because if you are responsible for driving your kid to the pitch for practice, as the parent you'll be damned if your kid isn't a winner (do kids even care about little statues?). Then, when you age, you are once again going to have to go into a phase of dependance on others for your transit much earlier than people who live in walkable communities. This is both because walkers will be healthier and remain physically able longer, and because even if they did not, they could just walk to doctors appointments, grocery stores, and other destinations necessary to their independence. All of these things are, if not unique to the American experience of the past 50 years, at least magnified here... and I have not even gotten into suburban housing policy and the financial impacts on households of car ownership and on governments of road maintenance (spoiler: its not good). I'd give Strong Towns a serious read; I think you might find that Chuck Marohn is better aligned with your worldview than you think.

mc32 7y ago

If SAE Level 5 Automation ever arrives, it will make the goal easier and we get to keep our cars. Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. It should drive behavior, policy and technology, to achieve that goal. It should not mean you drive roughshod over car owners through autocratic policies to get there by force.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
> Vision Zero (I don't think) is about getting to zero today. It's a vision which guides us to zero some day in the future and should keep our eyes on the prize so long as it's not zero. Sure. However many people die, what can we do today to make it fewer? What's the next step? Let's start working on that.

topkai22 7y ago

The article isn’t really about mass transit- is about lowering speed limits. Even though I’m not a huge mass transit fan, I do agree that speed limits are generally too high in the US on surface streets. In my area, very limited amounts of the metro area are more than 3 miles from a limited access freeway. Many of the larger surface streets have 35 or 45 mph speed limits. It’s not insane to drop many of those streets to 20 or 25 mph, although it works be painful.

ctdonath 7y ago
When speed limits are low enough, drivers don't care en masse.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Those larger surface streets should be such that it is safe to drive 35 or 45 MPH on them. Dropping the speed limit to 20 or 25 MPH, not because the road calls for it, but... why? To make driving more inconvenient? Yeah, that's going to result in massive civil disobedience. It's also going to train people to ignore speed limits even when they are actually there for safety. Ironically, that's going to cause... more deaths.
- topkai22 7y ago
  The streets are safe for car drivers who are following the law, it’s walkers and cyclists that are at risk. As for non compliance, that’s what speed bumps, speed cameras and other traffic calming measures are for. I just drove through multiple US towns in Idaho that declared a 25 mph speed limits unless otherwise posted. They did not seem to have massive compliance issues.

mulmen 7y ago

Most (~70%) Americans live in cities. It’s an overwhelmingly urban country. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w...

pdonis 7y ago
That doesn't give the 70% the right to dictate to the 30% who don't live in cities how they should live. Nor do they need to. There's no reason why different environments can't address whatever problems they see in different ways. We don't need to force everyone to live the way people who live in cities live.
- ogre_codes 7y ago
  Very very few people advocate for eliminating every single car. Generally discussions about car-free infra are about places where cars have saturated the public infrastructure making it nearly impossible to safely move around any other way. Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. It doesn't make sense to eliminate cars from rural or even most suburban areas.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > Car free infrastructure is about growth and quality of life in dense urban areas. Not according to the article. It specifically talks about the Boston suburbs, for example.
    - ogre_codes 7y ago
      The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars, in fact it very specifically has recommendations about how car traffic should be handled.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        > The article also doesn't talk about eliminating cars I didn't say it did.

rco8786 7y ago

I can walk where I want when I want. I can bike where I want when I want. I can take a train or a bus where I want when I want, I guess with the exception of like the middle of the night. Your argument is kinda bad.

jakear 7y ago
Try going camping in a remote area with those methods. Won’t work. Different people have different transportation needs.
- asdff 7y ago
  So then you take you car camping. Or just rent one for the weekend. By all means, have a car if you want one. It just doesn't make sense for millions of people traveling the same direction at the same times 10 times a week for 40+ years to do it spaced 25'x10' apart. There just isn't enough room. Not to mention the environmental toll of spending 95% of your gas or any other energy source just to move the 3000lb+ hunk of natural resources you bring with you everywhere you go in life.
- rco8786 7y ago
  I'm not anti-car, I'm anti the dumb "people trying to take away their freedom" argument.

nkrisc 7y ago

Personally I felt most free when I lived in a major city and knew I could hop on a train or a bus and go wherever I wanted without having to worry about where I would park or feeding the meter or filling the tank or... etc.

ogre_codes 7y ago

> They rightly view anti-car advocates are people trying to take away their freedom and herd them onto mass transit. Most "Pro Car" advocates dismiss any kind of policy about reducing cars in cities would look like and don't bother learning. Your post is a perfect example of this. Many major cities are at a point where it is literally impossible to grow and retain their existing auto-infrastructure. This is the biggest reason cities like Paris and London adopted hard limits and large fees for driving inside downtown areas. This is also a large part of why larger US cities are looking into encouraging bikes/ scooters and other forms of transportation which don't hog real-estate the way cars do. As a parent, you should also be sympathetic to a return to a world where kids can pedal their bikes to school safely. The current model of schools engineered around massive amounts of car traffic at the beginning and end of the day is insane and massively limits the individual freedom young people used to have. Most people who advocate reducing reliance on cars aren't interested in eliminating cars, only making it safe for other forms of transportation and reclaiming much of the massive amount of public space which is wasted on car infrastructure.