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I'm increasingly convinced that allowing widespread use of automobiles on public roads will be regarded as one of the biggest societal-engineering blunders of a

I'm increasingly convinced that allowing widespread use of automobiles on public roads will be regarded as one of the biggest societal-engineering blunders of all time. Between the health effects (of the cars and roads themselves, plus the secondary effects on physical activity) and the adjustments to city layouts plus extra costs eating most or all of the time-savings anyway, it's hard to see a clear upside. Granted much of that would have been difficult to discern when early decisions on the topic were being made, but that doesn't make it any less an error in its effects.

sandworm101 6y ago
Look at what city slums were like before widespread motorized transporation. The ability to live in a different area than the coal plant where you worked was a massive improvement to health. Even today, with COVID, the ability to live in suburbs vs high-density inner city biuldings is a benifit. Then there are the knock-on social mobility benifits such as being able to switch jobs without having to move your family. Or, at a lower level, not having to rent your house/appartment/shack from your employer. Many people see cars as evil today, but realize that today is not yesturday.
- iknowstuff 6y ago
  I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits of cycling, no pollution, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The region I live in has about the same land area as the Netherlands, and less than 2% of the population. Of course we don't really have traffic problems, but I wonder how we are supposed to build similar amounts of infrastructure? Should we stop living here and move somewhere with more people?
    - wolco 6y ago
      Move closer together, pool resources and allow nature to exist in the now empty space.
ghaff 6y ago
>it's hard to see a clear upside Vastly enhanced point-to-point mobility seems like a pretty clear upside to me. Absent cars, public transportation would doubtless be better. But people would have far less flexibility in where they lived, where they went for recreation, and in many other things.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  The trouble is that, 1) cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles, so one must count against them the time it takes to pay for them (and if one is very exactly accounting, one might also place some portion of time spent on dedicated, otherwise-unproductive aerobic exercise against cars' account), and 2) once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads, enormous highway interchanges, and gigantic parking lots. The car's value, even absent its effects on health and the environment, seems unavoidably to dwindle to very little if too many of them are in use. Sparing use? Buses, perhaps, emergency vehicles, and possibly delivery trucks? Probably a solid, significant improvement. Individual automobile use on public streets in and around urban areas, and all the adjustments necessary for that to happen or consequent of car-influenced growth patterns? Way, way murkier than one might initially expect, but now very expensive and difficult to reverse regardless, so we're stuck spending a lot more to travel farther and save, if we buy cheap cars and have a high paying job, a little time.
  - CapricornNoble 6y ago
    >>>cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles Walking and bicycles provide no protection from the elements. Depending on where you live and your occupation, the ability to travel in climate-controlled conditions and arrive with your work clothes unsoiled can be a massive utility benefit. >>once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads I'd argue that the land area dedicated to roads is a small portion of what forces businesses apart, and that low-density construction and inherently smaller buildings is the major contributing factor. There's only so many shops you can fit into 3-story buildings with narrow footpath-like streets between them. Hanoi is a good example of that. 48QWJ8705424314 (MGRS, paste into Google Maps)
seangrogg 6y ago
I feel like vehicles personal vehicles will be considered a societal-engineering blunder when we have personal teleportation available as an alternative.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  The widespread existence of them has made everything grow farther apart, due to their needing lots and lots of space and people not wanting to be close to where they're traveling, and they're quite expensive, and for most people it takes time to make money. Their value as a time-saving device in a world that has adjusted for their presence is less overwhelmingly-positive than one might think.
WalterBright 6y ago
Compare that against the alternative - horses. Horses were a huge sanitary problem - manure and dead horses. Horses also simply killed a lot of people, as they are big and strong and not always controllable.
- sitkack 6y ago
  I talked to a 60 year old cowboy about the dangers of horses and asked him how many times he was stepped on. Twice. From 7yo to his early sixties. Given that horses are active participants in traffic and they will go out of their way to not step on you, they would seem to be orders of magnitude safer compared to cars.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    How many times had he gotten hit by a car in the same timeframe?
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    I've been stepped on by a horse and my total time dealing with horses is probably less than an hour. Besides, I'd expect a professional cowboy to know how to protect himself from horses, just like a professional driver is going to have fewer car accidents.
    - ithkuil 6y ago
      We're all "professional pedestrians" too (on some countries at least even trained as such from early age). You probably weren't prepared appropriately for your encounter with horses.
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        From what I understand there were an awful lot of injuries from horses.
        6y ago
tomp 6y ago
> the adjustments to city layouts This might be a controversial opinion but I think that's a big plus. Look at old European cities with tiny streets that were mostly designed in times before carriages & cars; vs modern American cities (e.g. upper Manhattan) with large streets, a lot of driving and walking space, etc. Sure, the European model might be more romantic but the US one is definitely more functional (density isn't an issue either; London is much less dense than Manhattan).
- stainforth 6y ago
  Yes let's build our reality around our vehicles and not ourselves. Ridiculous. Talk about the alienation that capitalism has created.
  - ican1 6y ago
    I see this line trotted out frequently but this criticism never made much sense to me. The vehicles exist to benefit us. They are either directly transporting us or transporting goods to be used by us. They don’t exist for an independent reason. So if the streets are designed for vehicles it’s ultimately to benefit humans.
- iknowstuff 6y ago
  I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
- 8note 6y ago
  What's cheaper with these wide roads? By how much?
- grey-area 6y ago
  It's certainly more functional for drivers to have large streets with room for lots of cars, but should our cities be designed around cars or humans?
Ericson2314 6y ago
Absolutely agreed. Tons of knee jerks against this, but I'm almost positive future society will conclude this, unless it's too screwed up itself to spend much effort judging the past.

sandworm101 6y ago

Look at what city slums were like before widespread motorized transporation. The ability to live in a different area than the coal plant where you worked was a massive improvement to health. Even today, with COVID, the ability to live in suburbs vs high-density inner city biuldings is a benifit. Then there are the knock-on social mobility benifits such as being able to switch jobs without having to move your family. Or, at a lower level, not having to rent your house/appartment/shack from your employer. Many people see cars as evil today, but realize that today is not yesturday.

iknowstuff 6y ago
I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits of cycling, no pollution, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The region I live in has about the same land area as the Netherlands, and less than 2% of the population. Of course we don't really have traffic problems, but I wonder how we are supposed to build similar amounts of infrastructure? Should we stop living here and move somewhere with more people?
  - wolco 6y ago
    Move closer together, pool resources and allow nature to exist in the now empty space.

ghaff 6y ago

>it's hard to see a clear upside Vastly enhanced point-to-point mobility seems like a pretty clear upside to me. Absent cars, public transportation would doubtless be better. But people would have far less flexibility in where they lived, where they went for recreation, and in many other things.

spanhandler 6y ago
The trouble is that, 1) cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles, so one must count against them the time it takes to pay for them (and if one is very exactly accounting, one might also place some portion of time spent on dedicated, otherwise-unproductive aerobic exercise against cars' account), and 2) once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads, enormous highway interchanges, and gigantic parking lots. The car's value, even absent its effects on health and the environment, seems unavoidably to dwindle to very little if too many of them are in use. Sparing use? Buses, perhaps, emergency vehicles, and possibly delivery trucks? Probably a solid, significant improvement. Individual automobile use on public streets in and around urban areas, and all the adjustments necessary for that to happen or consequent of car-influenced growth patterns? Way, way murkier than one might initially expect, but now very expensive and difficult to reverse regardless, so we're stuck spending a lot more to travel farther and save, if we buy cheap cars and have a high paying job, a little time.
- CapricornNoble 6y ago
  >>>cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles Walking and bicycles provide no protection from the elements. Depending on where you live and your occupation, the ability to travel in climate-controlled conditions and arrive with your work clothes unsoiled can be a massive utility benefit. >>once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads I'd argue that the land area dedicated to roads is a small portion of what forces businesses apart, and that low-density construction and inherently smaller buildings is the major contributing factor. There's only so many shops you can fit into 3-story buildings with narrow footpath-like streets between them. Hanoi is a good example of that. 48QWJ8705424314 (MGRS, paste into Google Maps)

seangrogg 6y ago

I feel like vehicles personal vehicles will be considered a societal-engineering blunder when we have personal teleportation available as an alternative.

spanhandler 6y ago
The widespread existence of them has made everything grow farther apart, due to their needing lots and lots of space and people not wanting to be close to where they're traveling, and they're quite expensive, and for most people it takes time to make money. Their value as a time-saving device in a world that has adjusted for their presence is less overwhelmingly-positive than one might think.

WalterBright 6y ago

Compare that against the alternative - horses. Horses were a huge sanitary problem - manure and dead horses. Horses also simply killed a lot of people, as they are big and strong and not always controllable.

sitkack 6y ago
I talked to a 60 year old cowboy about the dangers of horses and asked him how many times he was stepped on. Twice. From 7yo to his early sixties. Given that horses are active participants in traffic and they will go out of their way to not step on you, they would seem to be orders of magnitude safer compared to cars.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  How many times had he gotten hit by a car in the same timeframe?
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I've been stepped on by a horse and my total time dealing with horses is probably less than an hour. Besides, I'd expect a professional cowboy to know how to protect himself from horses, just like a professional driver is going to have fewer car accidents.
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    We're all "professional pedestrians" too (on some countries at least even trained as such from early age). You probably weren't prepared appropriately for your encounter with horses.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      From what I understand there were an awful lot of injuries from horses.
      - 6y ago

tomp 6y ago

> the adjustments to city layouts This might be a controversial opinion but I think that's a big plus. Look at old European cities with tiny streets that were mostly designed in times before carriages & cars; vs modern American cities (e.g. upper Manhattan) with large streets, a lot of driving and walking space, etc. Sure, the European model might be more romantic but the US one is definitely more functional (density isn't an issue either; London is much less dense than Manhattan).

stainforth 6y ago
Yes let's build our reality around our vehicles and not ourselves. Ridiculous. Talk about the alienation that capitalism has created.
- ican1 6y ago
  I see this line trotted out frequently but this criticism never made much sense to me. The vehicles exist to benefit us. They are either directly transporting us or transporting goods to be used by us. They don’t exist for an independent reason. So if the streets are designed for vehicles it’s ultimately to benefit humans.
iknowstuff 6y ago
I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
8note 6y ago
What's cheaper with these wide roads? By how much?
grey-area 6y ago
It's certainly more functional for drivers to have large streets with room for lots of cars, but should our cities be designed around cars or humans?

Ericson2314 6y ago

Absolutely agreed. Tons of knee jerks against this, but I'm almost positive future society will conclude this, unless it's too screwed up itself to spend much effort judging the past.