6 ms·

Not defending the article, but if the alternative is for everyone to drive cars, I think you need to think about what that means for a second. 1. Everyone in t

by kristo 6y ago

Not defending the article, but if the alternative is for everyone to drive cars, I think you need to think about what that means for a second. 1. Everyone in the US has to own and maintain a car. (I've saved $85k by not owning a car over the past 10 years.) 2. We have an increase in the number of 2000 lb steel boxes driving around, polluting, being built and trashed. 3. More drivers, more deaths. Driving is already a leading cause of death in the US. 4. Further sprawl, growing infrastructure costs, higher taxes. 5. Further decline of spontaneous interactions in the US. There are many many other negative externalities of car dependence. Cycling is an opportunity to reduce our car dependence, and is safer than public transportation for COVID. Yes, sitting in your personal, 40 thousand dollar, 2 ton steel box anytime you leave the house is the best way to avoid COVID transmission. But it also destroys the earth, social ties, lives, etc.

the_gastropod 6y ago
> Yes, sitting in your personal, 40 thousand dollar, 2 ton steel box anytime you leave the house is the best way to avoid COVID transmission. But it also destroys the earth, social ties, lives, etc. I think there's another point you've missed. You sitting in your personal 2 ton steel box is good for you, but it practically takes up the entire street space, and forces pedestrians to stay on the much narrower sidewalks, breaking the 6 foot social distancing rule-of-thumb. Opening up the streets to bicycles and pedestrians allows people to use the street to maintain safe distances.
- astrea 6y ago
  I think this is a cute ideal for a world in which we all live in dense cities and have no business going anywhere but other places in the city. But in reality, I have business in other cities, even states. Work-related travel as well as visiting family. The former could surely be adjusted, but not the latter.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    A very large fraction of all car trips are shorter than 10km. Those can be replaced with bicycles in most climates most of the time.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    Ok... so drive when you drive to another city. Or even better, take a train.
  - the_gastropod 6y ago
    How many pedestrians do you typically see on the highways between cities? I'm talking strictly about streets inside cities. Cars are great tools for traveling great distances. They're a ridiculous tool for traveling inside cities. They should be looked at with a similar level of absurdity as taking a cruise ship out on the lake for a weekend fishing trip. It's a very American attitude that this is "cute" or "idealistic". In cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, bicycles dominate intra-city transportation. And what's funny about these cities is that they have worse cycling weather than most US cities.
    - astrea 6y ago
      But if you remove streets from within the cities, where people also live, how would you propose having a car?
      - the_gastropod 6y ago
        A couple things: 1. Nobody's proposing an elimination of streets. What is being suggested is that streets become more open to cycling and even pedestrian use without an implicit serious threat of death. 2. Re-thinking cities, where we design not around personal car ownership and convenience is possible. There are countless solutions that still allow for automobile use. For example, a number of parking garages throughout—or on the edges of—the city. Think about amusement parks, for example. You can't drive your car right up to Space Mountain when you go to Disney World. You park your car in a massive lot, and a shuttle (glorified golf-cart) takes you into the park where there are miraculously no cars, and no threat of being killed as you cross the "street" to get a cotton candy. As I said in my previous post—there are working examples here. There's no need to pretend these are unsolvable problems—or even difficult-to-solve problems. Would we need to re-shuffle some things in most US cities? Absolutely... but that's exactly what we're talking about doing.
      - Scarblac 6y ago
        Park the car a bit further from your house?
closeparen 6y ago
Look, I hate sprawl. It's physically revolting. Since I was a little kid I would always feel my whole body relax as soon as a skyscraper came into view. But these arguments are not going to be compelling for the people who need to hear them. >Everyone in the US has to own and maintain a car. More than 90% of American households already have a car. Many of the rest want them, and just can't afford it (either because of their own income or the scarcity of parking where they live). >More drivers, more deaths. True relative to staying home. Used to be true relative to public transit. May not be anymore, since public transit got a lot more dangerous. >Further sprawl, growing infrastructure costs, higher taxes. Americans love their sprawl. The only reason it's not infinite is that at some point it gets counterbalanced by commute time. It's not clear that commuting is ever coming back on the scale we had before; remote or mostly-remote workers will, by and large, live even farther from population centers. >Further decline of spontaneous interactions in the US. Yes, that is an extremely compelling benefit and the explicit reason most people will seek it in a world newly cognizant of infectious disease risk.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  > since public transit got a lot more dangerous. Public transit is still much more safe, even with COVID-19 threat, than driving. > Americans love their sprawl. Americans used to love it, when the jobs were right there. Removing cars boosts local small service economy, as evidenced by multiple cases.
techsupporter 6y ago
> There are many many other negative externalities of car dependence. Yes, exactly, all of these. All of the flaws with everyone driving and owning a personal motor vehicle that existed before the pandemic still exist during it and even afterwards. We cannot give back the gains we made in a handful of areas, and were in the process of making in a lot of other places, as a result of this. A virus running rampant is bad, but the economic and social upheaval of our planet becoming even slightly less hospitable due to climate change will beat all of this by multiples. > Cycling is an opportunity to reduce our car dependence, and is safer than public transportation for COVID. I agree that cycling reduces car dependence and can be a safe option, but I don't follow that public transit in the era and after COVID will be "unsafe." There's increasing evidence, like this linked Twitter thread[0] from a doctor reports, that it's sustained contact, particularly around activities that increase viral spread, that are the issue. Factors like air flow, air turnover, and fresh-air intake are shaping up to have pretty big influence; these are things that many buses and trains already account for with HEPA filters and air conditioning. I'm less worried about transit than I am about what's at the other end of the trip. 30 minutes on a bus, I can control what I touch and wear a mask and there's onboard air handling with filtration. In a grocery store? Far less of that. 0 - https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1260905937910587392 https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1260905937910587392

by kristo 6y ago

the_gastropod 6y ago

> Yes, sitting in your personal, 40 thousand dollar, 2 ton steel box anytime you leave the house is the best way to avoid COVID transmission. But it also destroys the earth, social ties, lives, etc. I think there's another point you've missed. You sitting in your personal 2 ton steel box is good for you, but it practically takes up the entire street space, and forces pedestrians to stay on the much narrower sidewalks, breaking the 6 foot social distancing rule-of-thumb. Opening up the streets to bicycles and pedestrians allows people to use the street to maintain safe distances.

astrea 6y ago
I think this is a cute ideal for a world in which we all live in dense cities and have no business going anywhere but other places in the city. But in reality, I have business in other cities, even states. Work-related travel as well as visiting family. The former could surely be adjusted, but not the latter.
- adrianN 6y ago
  A very large fraction of all car trips are shorter than 10km. Those can be replaced with bicycles in most climates most of the time.
- vertex-four 6y ago
  Ok... so drive when you drive to another city. Or even better, take a train.
- the_gastropod 6y ago
  How many pedestrians do you typically see on the highways between cities? I'm talking strictly about streets inside cities. Cars are great tools for traveling great distances. They're a ridiculous tool for traveling inside cities. They should be looked at with a similar level of absurdity as taking a cruise ship out on the lake for a weekend fishing trip. It's a very American attitude that this is "cute" or "idealistic". In cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, bicycles dominate intra-city transportation. And what's funny about these cities is that they have worse cycling weather than most US cities.
  - astrea 6y ago
    But if you remove streets from within the cities, where people also live, how would you propose having a car?
    - the_gastropod 6y ago
      A couple things: 1. Nobody's proposing an elimination of streets. What is being suggested is that streets become more open to cycling and even pedestrian use without an implicit serious threat of death. 2. Re-thinking cities, where we design not around personal car ownership and convenience is possible. There are countless solutions that still allow for automobile use. For example, a number of parking garages throughout—or on the edges of—the city. Think about amusement parks, for example. You can't drive your car right up to Space Mountain when you go to Disney World. You park your car in a massive lot, and a shuttle (glorified golf-cart) takes you into the park where there are miraculously no cars, and no threat of being killed as you cross the "street" to get a cotton candy. As I said in my previous post—there are working examples here. There's no need to pretend these are unsolvable problems—or even difficult-to-solve problems. Would we need to re-shuffle some things in most US cities? Absolutely... but that's exactly what we're talking about doing.
    - Scarblac 6y ago
      Park the car a bit further from your house?

closeparen 6y ago

Look, I hate sprawl. It's physically revolting. Since I was a little kid I would always feel my whole body relax as soon as a skyscraper came into view. But these arguments are not going to be compelling for the people who need to hear them. >Everyone in the US has to own and maintain a car. More than 90% of American households already have a car. Many of the rest want them, and just can't afford it (either because of their own income or the scarcity of parking where they live). >More drivers, more deaths. True relative to staying home. Used to be true relative to public transit. May not be anymore, since public transit got a lot more dangerous. >Further sprawl, growing infrastructure costs, higher taxes. Americans love their sprawl. The only reason it's not infinite is that at some point it gets counterbalanced by commute time. It's not clear that commuting is ever coming back on the scale we had before; remote or mostly-remote workers will, by and large, live even farther from population centers. >Further decline of spontaneous interactions in the US. Yes, that is an extremely compelling benefit and the explicit reason most people will seek it in a world newly cognizant of infectious disease risk.

JAlexoid 6y ago
> since public transit got a lot more dangerous. Public transit is still much more safe, even with COVID-19 threat, than driving. > Americans love their sprawl. Americans used to love it, when the jobs were right there. Removing cars boosts local small service economy, as evidenced by multiple cases.

techsupporter 6y ago

> There are many many other negative externalities of car dependence. Yes, exactly, all of these. All of the flaws with everyone driving and owning a personal motor vehicle that existed before the pandemic still exist during it and even afterwards. We cannot give back the gains we made in a handful of areas, and were in the process of making in a lot of other places, as a result of this. A virus running rampant is bad, but the economic and social upheaval of our planet becoming even slightly less hospitable due to climate change will beat all of this by multiples. > Cycling is an opportunity to reduce our car dependence, and is safer than public transportation for COVID. I agree that cycling reduces car dependence and can be a safe option, but I don't follow that public transit in the era and after COVID will be "unsafe." There's increasing evidence, like this linked Twitter thread[0] from a doctor reports, that it's sustained contact, particularly around activities that increase viral spread, that are the issue. Factors like air flow, air turnover, and fresh-air intake are shaping up to have pretty big influence; these are things that many buses and trains already account for with HEPA filters and air conditioning. I'm less worried about transit than I am about what's at the other end of the trip. 30 minutes on a bus, I can control what I touch and wear a mask and there's onboard air handling with filtration. In a grocery store? Far less of that. 0 - https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1260905937910587392 https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1260905937910587392